US ignores 500 cases of Israel harming Gaza civilians with American arms: Report

Washington has identified approximately 500 reports of civilians being harmed and killed by Israeli forces using US-supplied weapons in the besieged Gaza Strip, but has failed to take action on any of them, according to reports.

The Washington Post and the Reuters news agency said on Wednesday that the incidents had been collected since October 7, 2023 by the US Department of State’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.

State Department officials gathered the incidents from public and other sources, including media reports, civil society groups and foreign government contacts.

Established in August last year to be applied to all countries that receive US weapons, the mechanism has three stages which include incident analysis, policy impact assessment and coordinated department action.

None of the Gaza cases had yet reached the third stage of action, said a former US official familiar with the matter.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the administration of President Joe Biden has argued that it is reasonable to say that Israel has breached international law in the Gaza war but assessing individual incidents was “very difficult work.”

“We are conducting those investigations, and we are conducting them thoroughly, and we are conducting them aggressively, but we want to get to the right answer, and it’s important that we not jump to a pre-ordained result, and that we not skip any of the work,” Miller said, claiming that Washington consistently raises concerns over civilian harm with Israel.

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John Ramming Chappell, a legal and policy adviser focused on US security assistance and arms sales at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told the Post that American officials were “ignoring evidence of widespread civilian harm and atrocities to maintain a policy of virtually unconditional weapons transfers” to the Israeli regime.

“When it comes to the Biden administration’s arms policies, everything looks good on paper but has turned out meaningless in practice when it comes to Israel,” he added.

William D Hartung, an expert on the arms industry and the US military budget at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told the newspaper that “it’s almost impossible” that Israel is not violating US law “given the level of slaughter that’s going on, and the preponderance of US weapons.”

Backed by the United States and its western allies, Israel waged a genocidal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led resistance groups carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the occupying regime has killed at least 43,163 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 101,510 others in the besieged Gaza. 

In its brutal aggression, Israel has deliberately targeted buildings and tents sheltering displaced Palestinians and committed war crimes.

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