Netanyahu says sanctions against Israel’s military would be a ‘moral low.’
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The United States is considering imposing sanctions on one or more Israeli battalions accused of human rights violations during operations in the occupied West Bank, according to a person familiar with the deliberations.
Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday called the possibility of the Biden administration’s placing such sanctions “the peak of absurdity and a moral low” at a time when Israeli forces are fighting a war in Gaza against Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu said in a social media post that his government would “act by all means” against any such move.
The news about the possible sanctions, reported earlier by Axios, came only a day after the House approved $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza. The sanctions, if imposed, would not hold up the military aid that was just approved in Congress.
The possible imposition of sanctions against the Netzah Yehuda and other battalions would come under the so-called 1997 Leahy Law, which bans foreign military units accused of human rights violations from receiving U.S. aid or training.
It was not clear what practical impact any sanctions might have, given that funding of specific Israeli units is hard to track and the battalions in question do not receive American training. But such a punitive move would clearly sting, especially coming from Israel’s closest ally.
Netzah Yehuda, which has been accused of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank in the past, was established for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men whose strict religious observance demands that men and women be separated. The battalion has attracted other Orthodox soldiers as well, including hard-line nationalists from the West Bank settler movement.
One of the most egregious episodes attributed to the Netzah Yehuda battalion involved the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man who was detained, gagged and handcuffed by members of the unit in a night raid on his village in January 2022.
An autopsy showed that the man, Omar Abdelmajed Assad, had died from a stress-induced heart attack brought on by injuries he sustained while he was detained. An investigation by the Israeli military’s justice system found failures in the conduct of the soldiers involved, who, the military said, “acted in a manner that did not correspond with what is required and expected of” Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli military disciplined three of the unit’s commanders after the investigation. But no criminal charges were brought against the soldiers because, the military said at the time, no causal link was found between Mr. Assad’s death and the failures of the soldiers’ conduct.
Human rights organizations have long accused the Israeli military justice system of whitewashing wrongdoing and the military of acting with impunity.
The Biden administration has been putting Israel on notice over rising levels of settler violence against Palestinians and anti-settlement activists in the occupied West Bank, imposing financial and travel sanctions on several people and, most recently, on two grass-roots organizations raising funds for some of those individuals.
Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Mr. Netanyahu’s war cabinet and a former military chief, said imposing sanctions on Israeli military units would set “a dangerous precedent.”
The fierce denunciations came just hours after Israeli officials welcomed the bipartisan vote in Congress to approve billions of dollars in aid for Israel, underscoring the dramatic swings and contradictions that have characterized recent relations between President Biden and Mr. Netanyahu.
Mr. Biden has chided Mr. Netanyahu over civilian deaths in Gaza while nonetheless coming to Israel’s aid in repelling an attack this month from Iran and providing weapons used in the war in Gaza.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said that he talked recently with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jacob J. Lew.
“Our friends and our enemies are closely watching the ties between Israel and the United States, now more than ever,” Mr. Gallant said in a statement on Monday. “I call on the U.S. administration to withdraw its intention to impose sanctions on the Netzach Yehuda battalion.”
Mr. Biden has faced months of criticism and fury — even from some members of his own party — over his backing of Israel’s war in Gaza as the death toll there has climbed, and any imposition of sanctions against an Israeli unit could be seen as a kind of counterweight. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the six months of war, according to Gazan health officials.
Mick Mulroy, a former C.I.A. officer and senior Pentagon official, said placing such sanctions on a close ally like Israel would be unusual, so “it should send a message.”
Cob Blaha, who was the head of the State Department’s bureau of democracy and human rights, said he hoped any decision to impose sanctions “would provide incentives to Israel to improve accountability.”
Natan Odenheimer and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
— Isabel Kershner,Julian E. Barnes and Adam Rasgon Reporting from Jerusalem
A U.S. official says the military destroyed a rocket launcher in Iraq after rockets were fired toward a U.S. base.
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The U.S. military destroyed a rocket launcher in Iraq in self-defense, an American defense official said late Sunday, after rockets were fired from the area toward a base used by U.S. forces in eastern Syria.
The attack on the base in Rumalyn, Syria, failed and no American personnel were injured, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
It was not immediately clear who had fired the rockets, or how many had been fired, toward the base in Syria. The U.S. military has about 900 troops in Syria to help battle the remnants of the Islamic State, and they have been targeted in dozens of attacks by Iran-backed armed groups based in Iraq since the war in Gaza began last October. The Iran-backed groups in Iraq have said that they view their mission as attacking Israel and its allies.
The rocket fire over the weekend was believed to be the first attack directed at U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria or Jordan since early February, when, at the request of leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran-backed groups in Iraq reined in their assaults on American personnel in the region.
That request came after an Iran-backed armed group launched a drone strike on Jan. 28 that killed three U.S. service members and wounded 34 others at a military outpost in Jordan near the Syrian border. The United States responded to that strike by targeting bases used by Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq and Syria, killing dozens of people including civilians, according to officials in both countries.
Since then, a few attacks had targeted Syrian Kurdish forces who work closely with the U.S. Special Operations forces in Syria, but there had been no known attacks aimed at American troops.
— Alissa J. Rubin and Julian E. Barnes
Palestinians go on strike in the West Bank to protest a deadly Israeli military raid.
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Palestinians in the West Bank on Sunday went on a general strike to protest an Israeli military raid at a refugee camp a day earlier in which at least 10 people were killed, in an episode that illustrated the continuing unrest in the territory.
The raid was the latest operation in a sweeping economic and security clampdown in the territory occupied by Israel, even as it prosecutes its war against Hamas in Gaza. Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and detained in raids in the West Bank, which Israeli officials describe as counterterrorism operations against Hamas and other armed groups.
Sunday’s strike “paralyzed all aspects of life” in the West Bank, according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, with shops, schools, universities and banks shuttered. Public transportation also came to a standstill.
It was not the first shutdown in the occupied West Bank — where about 500,000 Israeli settlers live alongside roughly 2.7 million Palestinians — as an act of protest in recent months. The Israeli authorities have tightened restrictions in the territory since Oct. 7, canceling thousands of work permits that allowed Palestinians to work in Israel and squeezing the West Bank’s economy.
And violence in the West Bank has sharply escalated in recent months. Nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces there since the Israel-Hamas war started, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Deadly violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank has also reached record levels since Oct. 7.
Early on Sunday, two Palestinian males in their late teens were fatally shot by Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said one of them had opened fire at soldiers at a military post north of Hebron and the other had tried to stab them.
Later on Sunday morning, an Israeli man was slightly injured in an explosion in the West Bank, according to the Israeli emergency services. Video footage shared by Israeli news outlets showed him kicking down a Palestinian flag on a pole in a field near a settlement. The flag appeared to have been booby-trapped.
Those incidents came after the Israeli military’s hourslong raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp, in the northern part of the West Bank, on Saturday. The military called the raid a counterterrorism operation and said the 10 killed were militants, a claim that could not be immediately verified.
However, the Palestinian Ministry said that the Israeli operation in Nur Shams was responsible for the deaths of at least 14 people, including a 15-year-old boy. The Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, labeled the operation a “heinous” crime and called on residents of the occupied territory to protest the raid.
The United States has called on Israel to increase commercial engagement with the West Bank, arguing that doing so was important for both Palestinians and Israelis. The war has also sent shock waves through Israel’s economy, which shrank nearly 20 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
— Vivek Shankar and Isabel Kershner
The House, with a bipartisan vote, approves an aid package for Israel.
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The House voted resoundingly on Saturday to approve billions of dollars in aid for Israel as part of a larger package that would also fund Ukraine and Taiwan.
In four back-to-back votes, overwhelming bipartisan coalitions of lawmakers approved the new rounds of funding for the three U.S. allies.
The legislation allocates $26 billion for Israel and for humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza; $60 billion for Kyiv; and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region.
The House approved assistance to Israel by a vote of 366 to 58. Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan and a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, voted “present.”
Thirty-seven liberal Democrats opposed the aid package for Israel because the legislation placed no conditions on how Israel could use American aid, even though there have been thousands of civilian casualties and Gaza faces the risk of famine.
That was a relatively small sliver of opposition given that left-wing lawmakers had pressed their colleagues to vote “no” on the bill to send a message to President Biden about the depth of anger within his political coalition over his backing for Israel’s tactics in the war.
“Sending more weapons to the Netanyahu government will make the U.S. even more responsible for atrocities and the horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is now in a season of famine,” said Representative Jonathan L. Jackson, Democrat of Illinois, speaking of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. “The United States Congress must be the moral compass. I continue to call for the release of all prisoners and hostages. I continue to pray and work for peace, security and stability.”
Mr. Netanyahu welcomed the news that the bill had passed in the House, saying it was “much appreciated” and a demonstration of “bipartisan support for Israel.”
Hamas condemned it, saying in a statement on Sunday that the aid allocation was “a confirmation of the official American complicity and partnership” in what the group described as Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
The Senate is expected to pass the legislation as early as Tuesday and send it to Mr. Biden’s desk, capping a tortured journey through Congress.
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.
— Catie Edmondson
