On April 29, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel announced that five Israeli military units were allegedly involved in extrajudicial killings, torture and rape, mostly against Palestinians, perpetrated by Israeli border police in the West Bank before the war began in Gaza.
But despite all this, the Biden administration currently has no plans to impose sanctions or restrict military aid to Israel.
Patel even claimed that the Israeli units already conducted "remediation" in the cases of four of the units in compliance with Leahy Law, a U.S. law that prohibits the Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.
"Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do," Patel said. However, he declined to identify the units, give details of the abuse or even provide information on the measures the Israeli government had taken against them.
Meanwhile, the fifth unit, identified by the media as Netzah Yehuda, a battalion formed in 1999 to accommodate ultra-Orthodox Jews and other religious nationalists in the Israeli army, was found to be involved in the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man named Omar Assad, who suffered a heart attack after being detained, bound and gagged at a West Bank checkpoint in 2022. Netzah Yehuda was transferred to the Golan Heights from the West Bank that same year. To date, there has not been effective remediation for the unit.
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According to Patel, discussions are still ongoing regarding the fifth unit. "We are engaging with them in a process, and we will make an ultimate decision when it comes to that unit when that process is complete."
Biden bends to pressure from Israeli government
The Biden administration has come under scrutiny for bending to pressure from the Israeli government to hold off on any punitive measures against the units.
Issa Amro, a prominent Palestinian human rights activist who lives in the West Bank city of Hebron, said he was "disappointed" but not surprised with the decision. He even accused the U.S. of "not doing concrete actions to reduce violence to a minimum and to make peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis." (Related: Human rights group wants Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals "investigated as war crimes.")
The comment was in response to the criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the impending actions of the U.S.
"At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low. The government headed by me will act by all means against these moves," Netanyahu posted on X, formerly Twitter.
But the Biden administration remains in denial of their unfair and preferential treatment of Israel.
"Each of these situations is different, and we have to do our best to collect the facts and follow the facts and that's what we're doing," said Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a press briefing on April 29.
Learn more about Israel's attacks against Palestinian civilians at Genocide.news.
Watch this report from Press TV discussing the extent of the destruction and human casualties in Gaza.
This video is from Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com.
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Palestinian human rights organizations sue Biden for "complicity" in Israel's "genocide" in Gaza.
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