Israel violating international humanitarian law in Gaza
Dramatic images of U.S. airdrops of food into the Gaza Strip made headlines in recent days.
The U.S. Air Force and the Royal Jordanian Air Force dropped over 70,000 meals in total along the Gaza coastline and in northern Gaza, amounting to a fraction of what is needed on an ongoing basis there. While the U.S. has been airdropping food, it has also been delivering bombs to Israel to be dropped on Gaza as well.
The Washington Post revealed this week that the Biden administration has conducted more than 100 separate weapons transfers to Israel over the last five months, with thousands of so-called precision guided munitions, bombs and more, while skirting legally-required reports to Congress.
“It is absurd and hypocritical to publicly profess horror at Netanyahu’s inhumane war,” Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders said on the Senate floor on Wednesday, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “while ... we ship tens of thousands of bombs to his army. It is absurd to criticize Netanyahu’s war in one breath and provide him another $10 billion to continue that war in the next.”
Sanders reportedly met privately with President Biden this week.
Individual senators have significant power to delay legislation, including foreign military aid, but only if a senator actually learns about a proposed arms sale in advance.
On Feb. 8, Biden issued a National Security Memorandum, NSM-20, reminding government agencies of their legal requirements regarding these official arms transfers. A new report from Refugees International, titled “Siege and Starvation: How Israel Obstructs Aid to Gaza,” includes the recommendation:
“Given the widespread indications of systematic Israeli violations of international humanitarian law, the Biden administration should pause further offensive security assistance to Israel pending a thorough review of the credibility of Israel’s adherence to IHL, as mandated by NSM-20.”
Refugees International President Jeremy Konyndyk is a former top USAID official, where he ran the Obama administration’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and coordinated the Biden administration’s international COVID response. He said this week on social media, “Biden admin has had the reports predicting looming famine for two and a half months. Where was the urgency? What did they do to pressure Bibi to drastically ramp up humanitarian access? Why the change in tone only now? And why, still, no use of U.S. leverage?”
Not only is Israel clearly in violation of international humanitarian law, which alone should be enough to stop the flow of arms and ammunition from the U.S., Israel has been found to be plausibly responsible for genocide in Gaza, in a preliminary ruling from the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
South Africa, which brought the case to the International Court of Justice, has just asked the court to take additional emergency measures, stating: “The threat of allout famine has now materialized. The court needs to act now to stop the imminent tragedy.”