Gaza : The US due to render a first-of-its-kind report on whether Israel followed the law

Gaza : The US due to render a first-of-its-kind report on whether Israel followed the law

the US state department is set to send a report to Congress today to give their conclusions on whether or not Israel is violating international law in regard to its war on Hamas we’re going to talk about that with C van gorgani who joins me on the set kathan what more do we know about that well uh we are expecting uh this report today although the state department yesterday seemed to be indicating that they were doing their best to get it today but that it might be delayed by a couple of days so we’ll see uh how that turns out but really this is based this report uh is based on a national security memorandum 20 that was uh released by the president in February and that memorandum ordered the state department specifically the Secretary of State to obtain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments in this case uh from uh Israel uh then make an assessment about those written assurances and then report that assessment to uh the US Congress on two main elements one is whether uh in this case Israel used Us weapons uh in accordance to International and US law and the other aspect of this is whether uh the Israeli uh Army and uh the Israeli government uh as we heard in the report arbitarily uh denied restricted or otherwise impeded directly or indirectly the delivery of us Aid to the civilians in Gaza so two very big uh things for the state department to give its conclusions uh on there have been multiple independent reports from military experts from uh human uh rights uh experts who say that uh on those two things they should find uh Israel guilty if you uh will uh because the strikes uh that have been happening in Gaza and the wide scale of casualties and the targets hospitals schools Aid worker journalist all of this was beyond the laws of proportionality isra says that they had to do that because Hamas was using these buildings as Shields the other aspect of the Restriction of humanitarian Aid Israel has always blamed Hamas for being responsible for that Aid not getting to the civilians whereas uh NOS have been saying that the Israelis are also partly to blame unclear yet what the US will decide but they have already started uh in a way uh halting the sending of weapons to the Israelis we saw in that report those thousands of bombs uh that they’ve paused last week and they’re reviewing possibly halting also some other Precision weapons so what sort of consequences might there be within this report once we actually get it well uh there the memorandum itself doesn’t impose on uh the uh US government to stop sending weapons to Israel even if they find that Israel violated uh those laws but there are uh if they do there are other laws in existence that could force the US to at least halt sending some of the weapons one of them is the Leaky law from uh back in uh the 1990s uh which uh prevents the US from sending military aid to specific military units in foreign countries in case of Human Rights abuses uh the other part is the political uh pressure even if they don’t have to they might be pressured to do so especially from within the Democratic party that has already a part of the democratic party already been calling for uh Joe Biden and his administration to at least condition sending those weapons if not halt completely sending those weapon there could be also a reaction and backlash from the Republicans if they do that because the Republicans want to continue helping uh Israel if they consider that there is no violation by Israel that could trigger an even bigger backlash within the left within the Democratic party uh I’ll just end on a one quote that we’re going to show of Senator Chris Van holand who’s a Democrat uh he’s been a Critic of Israel and he says if the finding of fact and law is that at no point since the beginning of the war in Gaza has there been a violation of international humanitarian law with respect to the delivery of humanitarian assistance you have set a terribly low bar for the world if the US decides that Israel hasn’t violated any laws also think about the context those student protests in uh colleges and the left the young voters already criticizing Joe Biden uh for his position on Israel and that could get even bigger six months away from the election all right thanks for that ke van ke van gani

The Biden administration will miss a Wednesday deadline to report to Congress on whether Israel is violating international humanitarian law in Gaza, four sources said on Tuesday, findings that could fuel concerns over its use of U.S.-supplied weapons against the Palestinian enclave. More information with FRANCE 24 journalist Kéthévane Gorjestani.
#Israel #UnitedStates #report

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