New Congress Targets Accountability for Israel at the ICC in its First Week | Palestine Policy Roundup 01.13.25
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “The U.S. must not send more bombs to Netanyahu’s extremist government, which has already killed 45,000 people; destroyed Gaza's housing, healthcare, and educational systems; and caused starvation by blocking humanitarian aid. I will do all that I can to block these arms sales.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “What’s their top priority the first week of the new Congress? Lowering costs? Addressing the housing crisis? No, it's sanctioning the International Criminal Court to protect genocidal maniac Netanyahu so he can continue the genocide in Gaza.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez: “Kamal Adwan Hospital -one of the last standing medical centers serving northern Gaza- has been under attack for months. Under international law, hospitals must never be targets. The rules are simple. Israel should not be exempt from following them. Stop the attack!”
Rep. Betty McCollum: “As Israel prepares to ban UNRWA from operating within its borders, the United States must exert its leadership in the UN to ensure that vulnerable Palestinians are provided for.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
💣 BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES ANOTHER WEAPONS PACKAGE TO ISRAEL
In its waning days, the Biden administration informally notified Congress of yet another weapons package to be sent to Israel, valued at $8 billion in US taxpayer funds. This package supplies Israel with many of the weapons it has used extensively to conduct the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, including 155mm artillery shells, Hellfire missiles, 500-lb. bombs, Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), and small diameter bombs. The package also includes air-to-air missiles. The informal notification comes after the Biden administration informally notified another $680 million weapons package right before Thanksgiving last year. That package also includes JDAMs and small diameter bombs.
Israel has used many of these weapons in apparent war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in violation of US law and Biden administration policies. The lawful response to these incidents would be to immediately halt all weapons to Israel, but the Biden administration has chosen instead to violate the law and its own policies, thereby deepening US complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Fragments of US-manufactured JDAM kits have been found across Gaza and Lebanon, including in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists in Lebanon and wounded four other journalists. Human Rights Watch concluded in December 2024 that this was “most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime”.
JDAMs can be fitted onto 500-lb. MK-82 bombs. In October 2024, an Israeli airstrike on a mosque and school in central Gaza killed 26 Palestinians and injured 93. CNN video from the aftermath of the airstrike showed a JDAM tail kit at the scene. Munitions expert Trevor Ball assessed that the Israeli airstrike was conducted with an MK-82 bomb.
In May 2024, Israeli forces used a US-provided GBU-39 small diameter bomb on a displaced persons camp near Rafah. That strike killed 45 Palestinians in an apparent war crime. 18-month-old Palestinian child Ahmad Al-Najjar was among the victims of that strike; his beheaded body was captured in a viral photo of its aftermath.
A US-supplied Hellfire missile was likely used in an Israeli air strike which killed Hani al-Jaafarawi, who was a senior health official in Gaza and was reportedly the 500th medical worker killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.
According to the Arms Sales Accountability Project, Israel fired 155mm white phosphorus artillery shells against civilians in Gaza and Lebanon in October 2023–a violation of international humanitarian law.
Israel’s actions since October 2023 intensify the urgent need to prevent additional weapons transfers to Israel lest the US deepen its complicity in and partnership with Israel in what leading human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded are crimes of genocide and extermination being committed against Palestinians.
💡 POLICY ASK: IMEU Policy Project calls on Members of Congress to ask the “Four Corners” (Chairs and Ranking Members of SFRC and HFAC) to place holds on these weapons packages. Should these packages move to a formal notification, IMEU Policy Project calls on Members of Congress to introduce, cosponsor, and vote for Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) to block the weapons from being delivered.
⚖️ 45 DEMOCRATS JOIN REPUBLICANS TO DETER ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALLEGED ISRAELI WAR CRIMINALS AT ICC
In one of the first acts of the new Congress, 45 Democrats joined nearly every Republican in the House to pass a bill that would reimpose Trump-era sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) for seeking to hold Israeli leaders accountable for their actions against Palestinians in Gaza. This bill was opposed by the Biden administration during the last Congress.
H.R.23 would impose mandatory sanctions on any foreign person, along with all of their immediate family members, who assists or supports in any way the ICC investigating, arresting, detaining, or prosecuting officials of the US, NATO-member countries, or major non-NATO allies, a designation which includes Israel. These sanctions include denying and revoking visas and blocking property transactions. The bill would also rescind any funds already obligated to the ICC and block future appropriations to support its work.
Instead of working to hold alleged war criminals accountable, H.R.23 instead proposes to sanction those trying to hold accountable alleged war criminals and to enable alleged war criminals to get away scot free. This bill undermines the principle of international justice for alleged perpetrators of the most heinous crimes under international law.
Instead of addressing the most pertinent needs of the American people, the extremist MAGA agenda was on full display during the first week of the 119th Congress. As wildfires rage across southern California and Americans continue to struggle with the high cost of living, Congress spent its first week passing bills to indefinitely detain undocumented children merely based on an accusation of shoplifting and to enable Israel’s ongoing genocidal violence against Palestinian children who are being bombed, starved, and frozen to death.
💡 POLICY ASK: Senate Majority Leader John Thune has indicated that he will bring this bill up for a vote in the Senate shortly. IMEU Policy Project calls on Senators to remove this bill from the consent agenda and utilize all legislative procedures at their disposal to prevent a motion to proceed from passing.
📖 LEARN MORE: Check out the IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo on this bill, which outlines how this bill would eviscerate accountability for all at the ICC in the name of enabling Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
IN THE NEWS
🚨 REPORT: DEATH TOLL OF ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE MAY BE UNDERCOUNTED BY 41%
A new study published by The Lancet medical journal found that the death toll of Palestinians directly killed by Israel during its ongoing genocide may be undercounted by more than 41%. The study attributes the undercount to factors including the number of Palestinians who are trapped under the rubble, which was estimated at 10,000 in 2024, and the destruction of Gaza’s medical infrastructure by Israeli forces.
This study only considered casualties through June 30, 2024. At that time, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported the death toll at 37,877, making the possible actual death toll, according to this analysis, more than 70,000 at that time.
Today, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 46,000 Palestinians have been directly killed in Israel’s genocide as of early January. According to the estimate in The Lancet, that means that the true death toll today may be approximately 110,000–about 5% of Gaza’s population.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🩺 ISRAELI FORCES KIDNAP KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL DIRECTOR AFTER RAID
Israeli forces are continuing to detain Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, after they violently raided the hospital on December 27. After initially refusing to confirm whether they had detained Dr. Abu Safiya, Israeli forces later confirmed that he was taken into custody on unsupported allegations.
Palestinians detained at the notorious Sde Teiman prison camp later confirmed that Dr. Abu Safiya was initially taken there and arrived in poor condition. A lawyer from Physicians for Human Rights Israel reported that Dr. Abu Safiya was taken to a court in Israel after he was abducted from Gaza, without the knowledge or presence of his lawyer. Palestinian NGO Al Mezan later reported that the doctor is barred from meeting his lawyer until January 22, and that he may have been transferred to Ofer Prison.
Israel has a well-documented track record of abusing Palestinians, especially medical workers, held in detention. The Sde Teiman camp gained notoriety after whistleblowers revealed horrifying accounts of torture of Palestinians held there. A report from the Israeli NGO B’Tselem further detailed systemic abuse and torture of Palestinians held by Israeli authorities across different facilities. The report argues that “Israel’s prison system turned into a network of torture camps.” Another report released by Human Rights Watch details the arbitrary detention, mistreatment, and torture of Palestinian healthcare workers as Israel continues its attacks on medical facilities and infrastructure in Gaza.
Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in December after threatening hospital staff there since the beginning of the Israeli siege of northern Gaza. They reportedly set fire to the hospital and forcibly transferred medical staff and patients to the Indonesian Hospital, taking Kamal Adwan Hospital offline. Israeli forces attacked the Indonesian Hospital last week, leaving northern Gaza without a functioning hospital.
❄️ 8 PALESTINIAN CHILDREN KILLED BY HYPOTHERMIA AND ISRAELI OBSTRUCTION OF AID
8 Palestinian infants and newborns have been killed by hypothermia in Gaza over the last month as Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian aid, including winter supplies, continues. A report by the Washington Post detailed how Israel’s obstruction of winter supplies such as blankets and flood-response equipment contributed to the deaths of the infants, and that malnutrition and poor health caused by obstruction of food and medical aid made hypothermia even more lethal.
The children were among the thousands of Palestinians in the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Al-Mawasi, which suffers from well-documented problems such as overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and scarce resources such as potable water. Families are forced to face freezing temperatures and heavy rains in flimsy makeshift shelters.
Israel’s obstruction of aid killed these children, and the numerous other uncounted Palestinians who have been indirectly killed by the genocide in Gaza. Israeli forces have continued to attack humanitarian workers attempting to deliver aid to Palestinians, including firing at a convoy operated by the World Food Programme on January 5.
Nasser Hospital, Al-Aqsa Hospital and European Gaza Hospital also warned this week that they are at risk of closing due to the restriction of fuel being allowed into Gaza by Israel, and warned that newborns in neonatal care are at particular risk as the hospitals try to conserve electricity. This increasingly dire situation comes as Israel’s ban on UNRWA is set to take effect at the end of January. UNRWA is the only agency capable of providing aid at the necessary scale in Gaza, and the ban could exacerbate Israel’s obstruction of aid.
Israel’s deliberate obstruction of aid is a violation of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, and the Biden administration should immediately halt all weapons to Israel in accordance with the law. The Biden administration must comply with the law and end its complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Members of Congress must exercise their oversight authority over weapons transfers and pressure the Biden administration to comply with the law and end weapons to Israel.
Photo: Bill Koplitz/FEMA under public domain, sourced from the FEMA Photo Library (archived copy available via the Wayback Machine), via Wikimedia Commons.