An internal State Department memo indicates that some senior US officials have advised secretary of state Antony Blinken that they do not find ‘credible or reliable’ Israel’s assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Reuters reports that under a national security memorandum issued by President Joe Biden in February, Blinken must report to Congress by May 8 whether he finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons does not violate US or international law.
While some officials upheld support for Israel’s representation, a joint submission from four bureaus — Democracy Human Rights & Labor; Population, Refugees and Migration; Global Criminal Justice and International Organization Affairs — raised ‘serious concern over noncompliance’ with international humanitarian law during Israel’s prosecution of the Gaza war.
According to Reuters, the submissions to the memo provide the most extensive picture to date of the divisions inside the State Department over whether Israel might be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
The assessment from the four bureaus said Israel’s assurances were ‘neither credible nor reliable’. It cited eight examples of Israeli military actions that the officials said raise ‘serious questions’ about potential violations of international humanitarian law.
These included repeatedly striking protected sites and civilian infrastructure; ‘unconscionably high levels of civilian harm to military advantage’; taking little action to investigate violations or to hold to account those responsible for significant civilian harm and ‘killing humanitarian workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate’.
The assessment from the four bureaus also cited 11 instances of Israeli military actions the officials said ‘arbitrarily restrict humanitarian aid’, including rejecting entire trucks of aid due to a single ‘dual-use’ item, ‘artificial’ limitations on inspections as well as repeated attacks on humanitarian sites that should not be hit.
Reuters said that, by March 24, at least seven state department bureaus had sent in their contributions to an initial ‘options memo’ to Blinken. Parts of the memo, which has not been previously reported, were classified.
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