State Department says it’s on track to notify Congress by Wednesday deadline, as widening group of Democrats push for Israel to be found noncompliant with international law
The US State Department is on track to deliver a report to Congress this week determining whether the Biden administration has accepted assurances from Israel that it is using American weapons in accordance with international law.
“That is our intention, to provide it on time,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, two days before a May 8 deadline.
The report to Congress, which will be released to the public, is part of a new policy instituted by US President Joe Biden in February requiring foreign aid recipients to provide written assurances that they are using that aid in compliance with international law and that they are not obstructing the assistance of humanitarian aid.
The order does not place any tangible new conditions on foreign assistance, given that recipients have always been required to use the aid in a manner consistent with the laws of war. But the White House has acknowledged that the memo was the result of pressure from progressive lawmakers who have not been convinced that Israel is abiding by these terms.
Israel provided its first written assurance of compliance with the directive, officially known as National Security Memorandum 20, in March. Miller said then that the US had to date not found Israel to have violated the memo but that assessments of Jerusalem’s compliance were ongoing.
Eighty-eight Democrats signed a letter to Biden on Friday expressing “serious concerns regarding the Israeli government’s conduct of the war in Gaza as it pertains to the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.”
Israel’s restrictions on US-backed humanitarian aid delivery in Gaza “have contributed to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” the letter said, citing the US Agency for International Development.
Israel insists that it does not block relief entering Gaza and that any shortages are the result of the inability of aid agencies to distribute it to those in need. It has also pointed to a recent surge in aid that began last month. The uptick followed a threat from Biden to shift his policy regarding the war if Israel didn’t take immediate steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which rights groups say is on the verge of famine.
On Sunday, Israel closed its Kerem Shalom aid crossing into Gaza after a Hamas rocket attack from Rafah killed four IDF troops stationed nearby. The White House said that Biden managed to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Monday call to reopen the crossing.
The House Democrats in their Friday letter urged Biden to warn Netanyahu that any impediment to Gaza aid delivery would risk future offensive military aid, while clarifying that defensive aid, such as Iron Dome missile interceptors, would continue.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Biden administration has delayed the sales of thousands of precision weapons to Israel in recent months.
The move, which included holding up MK-82 bombs, fuses and JDAM guidance kits to make the munitions more precise, came amid US pressure on Israel to hold off on a full-scale invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The sale of the munitions was originally agreed upon in February, the report said.
Over the weekend, the Axios news site reported that the Biden administration put a hold on an ammunition shipment to Israel for the first time since the war’s outbreak.
A White House National Security spokesperson declined to confirm the report, saying they don’t comment on individual cases.
However, the spokesperson noted that the US “has surged billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel since the October 7 attacks, passed the largest ever supplemental appropriation for emergency assistance to Israel, led an unprecedented coalition to defend Israel against Iranian attacks and will continue to do what is necessary to ensure Israel can defend itself from the threats it faces.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen has been arguably the most vocal progressive opponent to accepting Israeli assurances regarding the Biden memo, telling Politico last week, “God help us if this [State Department] report somehow says that the delivery of humanitarian assistance has been compliant with international standards… Anybody with eyes to see and ears to hear knows that’s just not true.”
But the apprehension regarding continued aid for Israel has expanded to other flanks of the Democratic party. On Friday, Sen. Mark Kelly, one of the party’s more conservative lawmakers, told NBC News that it would be “appropriate” to condition future aid to Israel if the government doesn’t “do better” at preventing civilian deaths in Gaza.
Within the State Department as well there are voices calling for deeming Israel out of compliance with the memo.
Representatives from several bureaus raised concerns that Israel has violated international law in its war against Hamas in a memo leaked to Reuters last month.
However, these officials were largely from human rights-related offices within the State Department that have long been less influential in setting policy, often resorting to leaking their frustration to the press after having been overruled by the more decisive political affairs bureau.
The latter office has warned that restricting aid would limit Israel’s ability to meet potential threats outside its airspace and require Washington to re-evaluate “all ongoing and future sales to other countries in the region.”
The bureau, which is leading the forthcoming Blinken report, warned that suspending US weapons would limit Israel’s ability to meet potential threats outside its airspace and would have a domino effect on all ongoing and future sales across the Middle East.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-administration-set-to-report-whether-israel-using-us-weapons-in-gaza-legally/.