US says Israel may have breached international law using American weapons
By Tom Bateman, State Department Correspondent
The US government says Israel may have breached humanitarian law in Gaza using American weapons.
In a long-awaited report, the state department says it is “reasonable to assess” that US-supplied arms have been used in ways “inconsistent” with Israel’s obligations.
But it says Israel has had to confront an “extraordinary military challenge” fighting Hamas in Gaza.
The report, ordered by the White House, was submitted to Congress on Friday.
While the report was a clear rebuke of some Israel’s operations in Gaza, it stopped short of definitively saying that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign had breached international law.
And it said assurances it had received from Israel about adhering to the legal use of US weapons were “credible and reliable”, and so weapons shipments could continue.
The document also noted that the US government does not have “complete information” in its assessment and that, because Hamas “uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes and civilians as human shields”, it was often “difficult to determine facts on the ground in an active war zone” of what are legitimate targets.
It said that given Israel’s significant reliance on US-made weapons they had likely been used”in instances inconsistent with its IHL [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm”.
