The United States identified about 500 alerts of Gaza civilians being harmed and finished by Israeli forces with US-supplied armaments but has fall shorted to apshow action on any of them, according to The Washington Post and the Reuters recents agency.
The incidents have been accumulateed since October 7, 2023 by the US Department of State’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, a establishal mechanism for tracking and appraiseing any alerted misuse of US-origin armaments, the Post alerted on Wednesday.
Among the cases surrfinisherted to the State Department, according to people understandn with the matter, are the January finishing of six-year-elderly Hind Rajab and her family in their car, with pieces of a US-made 120mm tank round purportedly set up at the scene.
There were schallengings of US-made petite-diameter explosions pboilingographed at a family’s home and at a school sheltering displaced civilians after air strikes in May finished dozens of women and children.
And there was the tail fin of a Boeing-manufactured Joint Direct Attack Munition on the scene of a July strike that finished dozens of Palestinians.
State Department officials collected the incidents from disclose and other sources, including media alerts, civil society groups and foreign handlement reach outs.
The mechanism, set uped in August last year to be applied to all countries that get US armaments, has three stages: incident analysis, policy impact appraisement, and arranged department action, according to a December inner State Department cable verifyed by Reuters.
None of the Gaza cases had yet accomplished the third stage of action, shelp a establisher US official understandn with the matter.
Options, the establisher official telderly Reuters, could range from laboring with Israel’s handlement to help mitigate harm, to suspfinishing existing arms ship licences or withhelderlying future approvals.
‘Very difficult labor’
The administration of Pdwellnt Joe Biden has shelp it is reasonable to appraise that Israel has baccomplished international law in the dispute, but appraiseing individual incidents was “very difficult labor”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller telderly alerters on Wednesday.
“We are guideing those allotigations, and we are guideing them thocimpolitely, and we are guideing them opposingly, but we want to get to the right answer, and it’s transport inant that we not jump to a pre-ordained result, and that we not skip any of the labor,” Miller shelp, inserting that Washington reliablely lifts troubles over civilian harm with Israel.
John Ramming Chappell, a lterrible and policy proposer intensifyed on US security helpance and arms sales at the Caccess for Civilians in Conflict, telderly the Post that US officials were “ignoring evidence of expansivespread civilian harm and atrocities to defend a policy of virtuassociate unconditional armaments transfers to the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu handlement”.
“When it comes to the Biden administration’s arms policies, everyskinnyg sees outstanding on paper but has turned out unbenevolentingless in train when it comes to Israel,” he inserted.
Mike Casey, who labored on Gaza publishs at the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Afunfragmentarys in Jerusalem, telderly the Post that ageder officials routinely gave the astonishion that their goal in talking any alleged mistreatment by Israel was to figure out how to sketch it in a less pessimistic weightless.
“There’s this sense of: ‘How do we originate this okay?’” Casey, who resigned in July, was quoted as saying. “There’s not, ‘How do we get to the authentic truth of what’s going on here?’”
Senior officials, he shelp, frequently disseeed the credibility of Palestinian sources, witness accounts, nonhandlemental organisations, official accounts from the Palestinian Authority, and even from the United Nations.
William D Hartung, a co-author of the Watson Institute alert and an expert on the arms industry and the US military budget at the Quincy Institute, telderly the recentspaper that “it’s almost impossible” that Israel is not violating US law “given the level of killing that’s going on, and the preponderance of US armaments”.
Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Afunfragmentarys, degraded to talk the US inquiries or Washington’s efforts to confine civilian harm with the Post.
The Israeli military says it originates “meaningful efforts” to elude civilian harm but has cited the presence of Hamas fighters among civilians as equitableification to carry out explosionings on schools, hospitals, mosques and tent encampments.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health says the meaningfulity of the 43,163 people finished since October 7 last year have been women and children.
