The US State Department is facing a lawsuit from Palestinians and Palestinian Americans, accusing it of intentionally bypassing a longstanding US human rights law to continue funding Israeli military units involved in widespread atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories, The Guardian reported.

Filed on Tuesday, the lawsuit is the first of its kind where victims of human rights violations challenge the State Department’s failure to sanction any Israeli security units under the Leahy Law. This law, established in the 1990s, prohibits US military aid to forces credibly linked to gross human rights abuses.

The plaintiffs include "Amal Gaza", a pseudonym for a math teacher from Gaza who lost 20 family members; Shawan Jabarin, head of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, who endured six years of arbitrary detention in the occupied West Bank; and Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American with family in Gaza repeatedly forcibly displaced by ongoing Israeli offensives. Alongside two other plaintiffs, they seek a court order compelling the US government to enforce the law.

A clear violation of US laws

With Gaza’s death toll since last October reportedly nearing 45,000 and humanitarian aid severely restricted by "Israel", the lawsuit aims to compel the US government to enforce the Leahy Law, which prohibits US assistance to foreign security forces implicated in gross human rights violations.

However, as a former State Department official said, as quoted by The Guardian earlier this year, “The rules were different for Israel.”

The lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., district court, also includes Said Assali, a Palestinian American who lost six family members to Israeli airstrikes in Gaza during the ongoing bombardments and incursions that began last year.

“I’ve had ... immediate relatives, cousins, and other family that have been murdered in Israeli airstrikes,” Assali told The Guardian. “As an American, this is a clear violation of our laws, and it is violations the State Department is carrying out actively and aggressively – and it’s using our tax dollars.”

The complaint highlights numerous violations by Israeli military units supported by US funds, including torture, prolonged detention without charges, forced disappearances, and actions that the plaintiffs argue amount to genocide in Gaza.

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Dive deeper

The lawsuit references findings from international judicial bodies, including the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Security Minister Yoav Gallant. These findings, however, were dismissed by the US. The suit also cites pre-October 7 cases investigated under the Leahy Law but ultimately dismissed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, such as the 2022 killing of 78-year-old Omar Assad in the West Bank.

A Guardian investigation published in January revealed that top US officials had quietly reviewed over a dozen incidents of gross human rights violations by Israeli security forces since 2020. However, the report found that special bureaucratic mechanisms were employed to ensure continued access to US weapons for the implicated units. These mechanisms, the investigation noted, have been used exclusively to shield "Israel", even as other US-supported allies, including Ukraine, have faced sanctions for similar violations.

In April, Reuters reported that some senior US officials privately expressed doubts to Blinken about "Israel’s" claims that it was using US-supplied weapons in compliance with international humanitarian law. That same month, 185 lawyers from the Biden administration and private sector argued that "Israel’s" military actions likely violate US humanitarian laws. In November, 20 White House staffers echoed this concern in a formal dissent.

The plaintiffs are represented by Dawn, a human rights advocacy organization founded by Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist murdered by Saudi agents.

“This is a historic effort to correct the State Department’s decades-long refusal to comply with laws requiring it to restrict military aid to abusive military units in Israel,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN, as quoted by The Guardian.

She continued, “What the State Department is asking the world to believe is that no Israeli unit has ever committed a gross violation of human rights. This defies mountains of human rights reports and journalistic investigations. It even contradicts the State Department’s own human rights reports.”

Despite intense internal and external pressure, the Biden administration has consistently upheld its “ironclad” support for "Israel". Months ago, a State Department panel recommended that Secretary of State Antony Blinken block US aid to several Israeli military and police units accused of severe human rights abuses, but he has yet to take action.

President Biden has also repeatedly rejected calls to limit military aid to "Israel", with the exception of once halting a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs. Similarly, Congress has resisted efforts to cut off aid, including a resolution introduced by Bernie Sanders in November to block additional arms sales to "Israel".

A steep challenge 

Assali acknowledges the steep challenge of confronting US policy on "Israel" through legal channels, as per the report. However, he sees judicial action as one piece of a broader strategy to document human rights violations and shift public opinion.

“It may feel like a fruitless thing, but I think it is correct and right, and part of a groundswell of actions that will eventually, hopefully lead to change,” he told The Guardian. “All movements for social justice took decades – whether that’s the history of slavery, women’s suffrage, or opposition to wars.”

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