Weapons Flow Unimpeded Despite Biden Admin Acknowledging Israel Is Breaking US Law | Palestine Policy Roundup 10.18.24
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Rep. Delia Ramirez: “One year ago, just seven days after October 7, we lost a light when Wadee Alfayoumi–a 6-year-old boy beloved by his community-was the victim of an Anti-Palestinian hate crime instigated by dehumanizing rhetoric…In Wadee’s honor, let us affirm our shared humanity, fight for de-escalation and a permanent ceasefire, and build a world where all children live in peace without fear of violence. Let’s transform our good intentions into good action.”
Rep. Veronica Escobar: “Netanyahu’s devastating execution of the war in Gaza has disregarded every moral and strategic red line, indiscriminately killing civilians. American soldiers shouldn’t deploy to Israel. I continue my call on @POTUS to stop sending offensive weapons.”
Rep. Cori Bush in response to Israel bombing tents at Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza: “There are no words powerful enough to capture the agony of human beings being massacred & burned alive. The U.S. is funding & arming the Israeli military’s extermination of the Palestinian people. It’s unconscionable. End this genocide. There must be an #ArmsEmbargoNow”
Sen. Bernie Sanders in response to the Biden administration’s letter to Israel: “When Congress returns, I will move Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block offensive arms sales to Israel. But President Biden should act now: Israel is clearly violating U.S. & international law, using starvation as a tool of its all-out war against the Palestinian people.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “The horrors unfolding in northern Gaza are the result of a completely unrestrained Netanyahu gov, fully armed by the Biden admin while food aid is blocked and patients are bombed in hospitals. This is a genocide of Palestinians. The US must stop enabling it. Arms embargo now.”
Rep. André Carson: “It's been one year since we introduced the #CeasefireNOW Resolution. We're still demanding an end to the violence. We're still demanding an arms embargo. We're still demanding a permanent ceasefire & the return of hostages & those arbitrarily detained.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
✉️ SKEPTICISM ABOUNDS AS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WARNS ISRAELI OFFICIALS OF “IMPLICATIONS” OF BLOCKING HUMANITARIAN AID
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin sent a letter to Israeli ministers warning them that an ongoing sharp decrease in humanitarian aid entering and being distributed throughout Gaza “may have implications” under National Security Memorandum 20 and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.
The letter calls on Israel to surge all forms of humanitarian assistance in Gaza through various measures, including opening more border crossings, increasing the number of aid trucks that can enter Gaza every day, and more. The letter also warns Israel against instituting a blockade and forced displacement policy in northern Gaza.
While the “implications” of Israel’s failure to allow humanitarian aid in Gaza are clearly spelled out in NSM-20 and Section 620I, US officials have repeatedly refused to outline what those implications actually are. According to US law and Biden administration policy, weapons transfers to Israel should have stopped as soon as it became clear that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza–something that Blinken was reportedly repeatedly warned about by multiple government bodies as early as April. Blinken later falsely reported to Congress that Israel was not in violation of NSM-20 after rejecting these reports
Additionally, Section 620I does not provide for a 30-day countdown before the suspension of weapons to countries violating its terms. The letter’s recognition of Israel blocking aid from entering Gaza over recent months itself is evidence that the US should suspend all weapons to Israel immediately according to the law.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Analysis from John Ramming Chappell, Advocacy & Legal Advisor the Center for Civilians in Conflict: “Basically, they're giving a warning. The time for warnings was many months ago. US law requires a suspension of arms transfers now. This is a threat to use leverage -- nothing is immediately changing in US policy when it comes to arming the Israeli government. In the next 30 days, the Biden admin wants to see the Israeli government make progress on a number of issues related to humanitarian aid. The letter says the Israeli government needs to "act on the following measures" -- not actually achieve them. That's not enough.”
The implications of this countdown are devastating for Palestinians who are being killed by US weapons provided to Israel and who are being starved to death through Israeli blockade. According to Israeli forces, the US has shipped weapons to Israel every 12 hours since last October, and many of these weapons have been used in apparent war crimes. The Biden administration must comply with US law and its own policies and immediately suspend all weapons shipments to Israel, and members of Congress must pressure the administration to follow US law as it is written.
🚨 BIDEN SENDS MISSILE BATTERY, US PERSONNEL TO ISRAEL, INCREASING ESCALATION RISK
The Pentagon announced this week that the US military will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to Israel as it threatens to increase tensions with Iran. This deployment will also include a crew of US military personnel to operate the THAAD battery, meaning that US boots are now on the ground as Israel threatens its response to Iran’s retaliatory strike at the beginning of this month.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, in an interview with Democracy Now, stated: “I think it’s extremely important for the American public to understand that what Biden has done here is that he has deployed U.S. troops into an active war zone in another country’s war…what the Biden administration is doing is reducing the costs for Israel to escalate tensions in the region. Every time Biden does this, it makes it easier for Israel to escalate. And as a result, it has continued to do exactly that. If Biden was not reducing the costs of escalation, it would have been costlier for Israel to do the steady escalation as we’ve seen in the last year, a widening of the war, and it would have thought twice. Perhaps the costs would even have been prohibitive.”
Putting troops in Israel is an escalation that could threaten to pull the US into a broader regional war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told President Joe Biden that Israel would make final decisions about what it targets in response to reports which said that Israel was planning to attack Iranian military sites rather than nuclear or oil facilities. By providing Israel with this system and with the weapons that it is using in Gaza and Lebanon, the Biden administration is only contributing to further escalation. The Biden administration must put an end to this cycle of escalation by pulling US troops out and ending all weapons shipments to Israel.
IN THE NEWS
🏦 UK CONSIDERS SANCTIONING ISRAELI MINISTERS BEZALEL SMOTRICH AND ITAMAR BEN-GVIR
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week that the UK is considering placing sanctions on Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over comments that they made about Palestinians. Starmer also said that former Foreign Secretary David Cameron had planned to sanction the ministers before the Conservative government was defeated in the UK’s July elections. This week the UK also sanctioned three settler outposts and four organizations that support illegal settlements in the West Bank.
In August, Smotrich said it may be “justified and moral” for Israel to starve Palestinians in Gaza, and Ben-Gvir called Israeli settlers who shot and killed 19-year-old Qusai Jamal Maatan “heroes” as armed settlers attacked the village of Burqa in the West Bank.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are key architects of Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and have repeatedly supported violence against Palestinians committed by settlers. Ben-Gvir has distributed 120,000 firearms to Israeli settlers, weapons which could have been used in settler attacks on Palestinians. Additionally, Smotrich has pledged to support Israeli settlers who have been sanctioned and is deeply tied to organizations that are facilitating settlement expansion and settler violence.
In July the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is illegal under international law and called on UN member states to cooperate with the UN to end illegal Israeli practices, including the construction and presence of settlements, and to not recognize or support Israeli control over the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
While UK and US sanctions on individual settlers and organizations are welcome actions, they do not begin to address the governmental support provided by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. The violence and land theft associated with Israeli settler pogroms is part of the expansionist policy pursued by the Israeli government, and sanctions must therefore extend to Israeli officials. Whether or not the UK pursues these sanctions against Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, the Biden administration should comply with international law, end its support of Israeli settlements, and place sanctions on these ministers.
🕊️ ISRAEL CONTINUES ATTACKS ON UNIFIL PEACEKEEPERS IN LEBANON
Israeli forces have continued their attacks on UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers as they continue to invade southern Lebanon. Last Friday, Israeli forces shot at a UNIFIL base and injured two peacekeepers in Naqoura. Later that day, an Israeli strike killed two Lebanese soldiers–the Lebanese army is not currently engaged in hostilities with Israel.
On Sunday, Israeli tanks forcibly entered a UNIFIL base in Ramyah and allegedly held up a logistics convoy. Peacekeepers also alleged that Israeli forces later fired smoke rounds 100 meters from the base, and that more than a dozen staffers needed medical assistance after inhaling the smoke. On Wednesday, another Israeli tank reportedly fired on a UNIFIL watchtower in a “direct and deliberate” attack. That incident, which happened in Kfar Kila, damaged the watchtower.
In response to attacks on UNIFIL positions and peacekeepers, the UN Secretary-General noted in a statement that “Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime.”
💣 US WEAPON USED IN ISRAELI STRIKE ON BEIRUT AS LEBANON BOMBING CONTINUES
A fragment of a US-manufactured JDAM was found in the rubble of an Israeli strike on an apartment complex in central Beirut which killed 22 Lebanese, according to an investigation by The Guardian. This is at least the second time that a US-supplied JDAM has been used in attacks on Lebanon, with an earlier investigation finding that a JDAM was used in an Israeli attack on Lebanese medical workers in May. The attack last week leveled the apartment building, and a first responder said the building was even more densely packed than usual because residents had welcomed displaced Lebanese from the south of the country into their homes.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Richard Weir, senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s crisis, conflict and arms division, speaking to The Guardian, noted that “The bolt pattern, its position and the shape of the remnant are consistent with the tail fin of a US-made, Jdam, guidance kit for Mk80 series air-dropped munitions…The use of these weapons in densely populated areas, like this one, places civilians and civilian objects in the immediate area at grave risk of immediate and lasting harm.”
Israeli airstrikes also continued elsewhere in Lebanon this week. On Monday, Israeli forces struck Aitou, a Maronite Christian village in the north of Lebanon, and killed 20 people. On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed 16 people in a strike on the municipal headquarters of Nabatieh, one of the largest cities in southern Lebanon. The strike occurred during a meeting to coordinate aid deliveries, and it killed the mayor of the city. Israeli forces are raining widespread destruction across all of Lebanon despite its insistence that its operation in Lebanon is limited. Clearly, Israel is attacking displaced Lebanese and others again and again in a much wider war on the country.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🍎 ISRAEL IS STARVING ONE MILLION PALESTINIANS IN NORTHERN GAZA
The World Food Programme reported last week that no food had entered northern Gaza in the month of October as Israel continues its invasion of the area. Since this report, 30 trucks of aid have entered Gaza, far below the average of 500 trucks per day that were allowed before last October.
This sharp decrease in aid is raising concerns that Israeli forces are preparing to institute a plan to make northern Gaza a “closed military zone” and not allow any aid in the area in an effort to starve out the Palestinians who remain there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly examined such a plan last week. Israeli defense officials told Haaretz that Israeli forces may be implementing parts of the plan and pushing for the annexation of northern Gaza.
These concerns were raised after Israel ordered 400,000 Palestinians to leave the Jabalia refugee camp as Israeli forces reportedly shot at those who were attempting to leave. Palestinians are being faced with an impossible choice: either leave and go to the so-called “humanitarian safe zone”, which is overcrowded, facing the rampant spread of disease, and is regularly bombed despite being called a safe zone, or to stay in northern Gaza and potentially be starved or killed by Israeli forces.
🏥 INFERNO CAUSED BY ISRAELI STRIKE RIPS THROUGH TENTS IN AL-AQSA HOSPITAL COURTYARD
An Israeli strike on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah immediately killed at least four Palestinians and injured at least 70 more, and sparked an inferno that ripped through the tents of patients who were seeking care at the hospital. Horrifying videos of the fire burning patients alive emerged on social media after the strike.
One of the victims of the strike was 19-year-old Shaaban Al-Dalou. Al-Dalou was recovering from an Israeli strike on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Mosque that killed 28 Palestinians earlier this month. A US-provided JDAM kit was used in that strike. Shaaban, who was on the cusp of turning 20 years old, was hooked up to an IV because he was severely malnourished as a result of Israel’s obstruction of aid into Gaza. Shaaban and his mother were burned alive in the fire that started because of the strike.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Ahmed Al-Dalou, whose son was killed in the strike, speaking to Dropsite News: “I was sleeping in the tent with my wife and my children when the explosion struck the hospital… My other son Mohammed slept by the falafel stall outside the hospital. The blast was so powerful that I flew from the tent. I got up and saw the place ablaze. All my family were inside. I couldn’t approach as flames were spreading so fast. I summoned up my strength and tried to save them. I saved them all from the heart of the fire except Shaaban and my wife. Shaaban was deep inside. Meanwhile, the rubble and debris piled over my wife. I tried to throw myself in and save them but couldn’t. My face, shoulders, and hands were burnt as the fire was extremely huge. I watched them burning alive…I never expected to go through this in my life.”
This attack took place in the context of Israeli attacks on medical infrastructure and workers across Gaza. Earlier this month, multiple hospitals in northern Gaza were ordered to evacuate and were threatened with a fate like that suffered at Al Shifa hospital. After that Israeli raid, mass graves were found in the hospital compound. Israel also banned 6 medical NGOs from entering Gaza this week, impeding crucial humanitarian access as Gaza’s healthcare system comes under increasing strain.
Image: Public Domain, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons