February, 04 2025, 02:14pm EDT
Suspend Arms Transfers to End US Complicity in Israeli Abuses
US-Supplied Weapons Linked to Israel’s Atrocities in Gaza
The United States will be complicit in the Israeli government’s grave violations in Gaza so long as it continues to provide arms and other military aid, Human Rights Watch said today ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli authorities have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide during the country’s assault on Gaza.
The US has provided unprecedented security assistance and arms sales to Israel since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Despite the Israeli forces’ repeated use of US weapons to carry out apparent war crimes in Gaza, the Biden administration continued to transfer arms, making the US complicit in their unlawful use.
“If President Trump wants to break with the Biden administration’s complicity in the Israeli government’s atrocities in Gaza, he should immediately suspend arms transfers to Israel,” said Bruno Stagno, chief advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch. “Trump said the hostilities in Gaza were ‘not our war’ but ‘their war,’ but unless the US ends its military support, Gaza will also be Trump’s war.”
US military assistance to Israel has increased since October 7, 2023, at least $17.9 billion in the year since, a Brown University study found. In March 2024, the Washington Post reported that the US had approved more than 100 military sales to Israel since the previous October, “amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other forms of lethal aid.” In early January 2025, the Biden administration informed Congress of an additional planned $8 billion sale of arms to Israel.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has reported that Israeli military operations in Gaza have resulted in the killing at least 47,000 Palestinians, and most likely many more. Israeli authorities have forcibly displaced virtually all of Gaza’s population, used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war, deliberately deprived civilians of water, electricity, medical aid, and other objects necessary for their survival, and damaged or destroyed Gaza’s essential infrastructure and the majority of homes, schools, universities, and hospitals. These actions amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and dozens of media reports, including by CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and AFP, have identified US weapons being used in Israeli attacks that killed and maimed scores of civilians and aid workers and most likely violated international humanitarian law.
Despite overwhelming evidence of the Israeli government’s disregard for the laws of war, then-President Biden did not stop US weapons shipments to Israel, beyond withholding at least one shipment of 2,000 pound bombs in the context of its “concern” about their use in the then-planned assault on Rafah in southern Gaza.
The International Law Commission said in a 2001 report that a state that significantly aids or assists another state in an internationally wrongful act is responsible for doing so if it does so with knowledge of the circumstances of the act. The commission noted: “For instance, a State may incur responsibility if it ... provides material aid to a State that uses the aid to commit human rights violations.”
Biden administration officials were well aware of the mounting evidence that Israeli forces have committed grave abuses in Gaza, including with US weapons. Human rights and humanitarian organizations and independent experts have submittedextensive documentation to the US government, and civil servants have said they submitted similar reports internally.
The International Court of Justice concluded that claims South Africa put forward in its case against Israel under the Genocide Convention of 1948 were “plausible” and the World Court’s provisional measures to safeguard Palestinians put the Biden administration on notice about the risk of atrocity crimes in Gaza.
Biden administration officials spoke openly about the Israeli government’s abuses. In November 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “far too many Palestinians have been killed” by Israeli forces. A month later, President Biden described Israeli government attacks as “indiscriminate.” He later said that, days after the October 7 attacks, he told Netanyahu that Israel “can’t be carpet bombing” Gaza.
The Biden administration’s report to Congress in May 2024 on National Security Memorandum 20 concluded that Israeli security forces had most likely used US-provided arms in manners “inconsistent with its IHL [international humanitarian law] obligations.” Biden went further in a May 2024 CNN interview: “civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which [Israel goes] after population centers,” which factored into withholding 2,000-pound bombs.
President Trump has approved releasing the 2,000-pound bombs to Israeli forces and called to “clean out that whole thing [Gaza],” which would amount to an alarming escalation in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.
US officials could also be found criminallyliable for “aiding and abetting” war crimes by Israeli forces. US forces have provided extensive intelligence that has been used in Israel’s targeting operations and closely coordinated with Israeli forces on planning military operations, as US officials haveacknowledged. Biden in October 2024 said that he “directed Special Operations personnel and our intelligence professionals to work side-by-side with their Israeli counterparts to help locate and track [Yahya] Sinwar and other Hamas leaders hiding in Gaza. With our intelligence help, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] relentlessly pursued Hamas’s leaders.”
Multiplenewsagencies have reported that the US military, Central Intelligence Agency, and other US agencies have deployed troops and other operatives to work with Israeli authorities, including providing signals intelligence (information gleaned from surveillance of telecommunications) and “ground-penetrating radar.” The US also flew surveillance drones in the early days of the hostilities; while US officials linked this to hostage recovery, they have reportedly acknowledged that these efforts were invariably “intertwined” with the search for Hamas leaders.
The Intercept reported that the US Air Force in November 2023 sent US officers “to provide satellite intelligence to the Israelis for the purpose of offensive targeting.” US intelligence reportedly helped identify the location of four hostages whom Israeli forces rescued in a May 2024 operation that killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 274 Palestinians. US intelligence also reportedly stated that Palestinian armed groups operated within Al-Shifa Hospital, which Israeli authorities subsequently attacked, killing scores of people.
The Israeli government and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement in January 2025, but Palestinian civilians in Gaza continue to suffer from a dire humanitarian situation and extensive damage from Israel’s unlawful blockade and assault.
The US should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as Israeli forces commit widespread, serious abuses amounting to war crimes against Palestinian civilians with impunity. Given US provision of weapons used to carry out apparent war crimes, the US should also contribute to reparation and reconstruction in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said.
Providing military assistance to Israel also violates US law. Several statutes, including Section 502B of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, prohibit arms transfers to countries that do not adhere to the laws of armed conflict. Another section of that law bars the US from sending weapons to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance,” which multiple US government agencies said Israel had done and Human Rights Watch had documented.
“President Trump said that the US will measure success in part by ‘the wars we never get into,’ but he promptly lifted a pause on 2,000-pound bomb shipments to the Israeli government,” Stagno said. “Trump should instead be taking steps to end support for Israeli government atrocities in Gaza.”
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
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Medicare for All, Says Sanders, Would Show American People 'Government Is Listening to Them'
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Hundreds of nurses, healthcare providers, and workers from across the country joined the lawmakers for a press conference focused on the bill's reintroduction in front of the Capitol on Tuesday.
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Under Medicare for All, the government would pay for all healthcare services, including dental, vision, prescription drugs, and other care.
"It is a travesty when 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and millions more are drowning in medical debt in the richest nation on Earth," said Jayapal in a statement on Tuesday.
In 2020, a study in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet found that a single-payer program like Medicare for All would save Americans more than $450 billion and would likely prevent 68,000 deaths every year. That same year, the Congressional Budget Office found that a single-payer system that resembles Medicare for All would yield some $650 billion in savings in 2030.
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At a markup session held by a U.S. House committee on the Republican Party's recently unveiled higher education reform bill Tuesday, one Democratic lawmaker had a succinct description for the legislation.
"This bill is a dream-killer," said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) of the so-called Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan, which was introduced by Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) as part of an effort to find $330 billion in education programs to offset President Donald Trump's tax plan.
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David Baime, senior vice president for government relations for the American Association of Community Colleges, suggested the legislation doesn't account for the realities faced by many students who benefit from Pell Grants.
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At the markup session on Tuesday, Bonamici pointed to her own experience of paying for college and law school "through a combination of grants and loans and work study and food stamps," and noted that her Republican colleagues on the committee also "graduated from college."
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“In a time when higher ed is being attacked, this bill is another assault,” @RepBonamici calls out committee leaders for wanting to gut financial aid.
“With this bill, they will be taking that opportunity [of higher ed] away from others. This bill is a dream killer.” pic.twitter.com/UjTYvnOEKv
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
Democrats on the committee also spoke out against provisions that would cap loans a student can take out for graduate programs at $100,000; the Grad PLUS program has allowed students to borrow up to the cost of attendance.
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“We cannot take away access to loans, and not replace it with anything else, not make the system better. We know the outcome here—Black, brown, and poor students will not figure it out. Instead, only elite students from the 1% will continue to access education.”@RepSummerLee🙇 pic.twitter.com/oGbRH154Ed
— Student Borrower Protection Center (@theSBPC) April 29, 2025
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"We are either patriots fighting the regime, or we are complicit in its tyranny," wrote former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "There is no middle ground."
Apr 29, 2025
Tuesday is the 100th day of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, which so far has featured plummeting public opinion poll numbers and mobilizations against his billionaire inner circle's mounting attacks on working people.
"Since Franklin D. Roosevelt's earthshaking first 100 days in office, no president has matched the sheer drama and disruption of that 15-week sprint in 1933, which rewrote the relationship between Americans and their government. At least until now," Naftali Bendavid wrote Monday for The Washington Post.
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"The cruelty is unnerving, the disregard for the Constitution and rule of law is reckless, and the day-to-day pain can never be justified."
"It is a fallacy to argue that we must choose between fighting for a fair economy and protecting our democracy," the watchdog Accountable.US said in a Monday memo. "Trump's first 100 days, which will be marked this week, clearly show that the two are interconnected, and he's failed Americans on both."
"What we have seen over the past 100 days is a president who has flouted the law, gutted checks and balances, and consolidated power for himself," the memo continues. "He has also, with the help of Elon Musk and allies in Congress, done catastrophic damage to our economy, injecting chaos and uncertainty for small businesses and investors, undermining workers' rights, tanking consumer confidence, and increasing the likelihood of a recession."
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Calling those numbers "sobering" and a "signal that we are plunging headfirst into a recession," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said that "if this is the level of pain the president is willing to inflict on Americans in just a few short months, it's no wonder that consumers and businesses are bracing themselves for a long, dark road ahead."
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Donald Trump promised to end inflation and lower costs on his first day in office. Instead, Americans are paying a higher price on groceries, cars, utilities, and housing — with the looming fear of a recession. He's crashing our economy and leaving you with the bill.
— Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) April 29, 2025 at 2:31 PM
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) last week compiled a list of "100 ways Trump has hurt workers in his first 100 days," which includes terminating grants to fight forced and child labor, nominating Crystal Casey to be general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board, and leaving the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service with what one employee recently toldCommon Dreams is "a very skeletal crew."
In addition to detailing Trump administration actions to degrade wages and working conditions, the think tank's report lays out Trump's attacks on anti-discrimination protections, immigrant workers, public education, and more.
"During the campaign, Trump promised to put working people first, lower rising costs on groceries and gas, and preserve our earned benefits and healthcare," American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) president Lee Saunders noted Monday. "Instead, the first 100 days of this billionaire-run administration have been fueled by lies, broken promises, and a relentless assault on working people and unions."
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Saunders stressed that "the fallout has been immediate. Retirees are left wondering how to navigate Social Security as staff are laid off, offices are closed, and services are cut. People are watching their retirement savings shrink. Lifesaving health and safety regulations have been put on hold. Students with disabilities are losing vital support from the Department of Education. The Department of Health and Human Services is clawing back funding from states, cities, and towns to fight infectious diseases as measles is on the rise, and it's just the beginning."
AFSCME and the American Federation of Teachers are challenging some of Trump's moves in court. AFT president Randi Weingarten on Tuesday condemned a similar list of Trump actions, including cuts to "research grants to colleges and universities that fund cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's research," and said that "it's no wonder his public approval is tanking."
"The cruelty is unnerving, the disregard for the Constitution and rule of law is reckless, and the day-to-day pain can never be justified," Weingarten added. "That's why our members are fighting back."
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"Babies have been singled out for special punishment with the proposed revocation of birthright citizenship and deportation of U.S. citizen children. This administration is also promoting tax policies that penalize families for having newborns," Lesley continued, also pointing to the "decimation" of the United States Agency for International Development. "The president has left children overseas to die of AIDS, malaria, and starvation by the millions."
“'100 Days of Destruction': Top Historian on Trump's Presidency So Far” Writing for Zeteo, Princeton's @zelizer.bsky.social explains how past US presidents used their first 100 days to build, while Trump has used his to dismantle, intimidate, and destroy. Read/share/subscribe:
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— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) April 29, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Trying to end birthright citizenship is one of several ways Trump is attacking immigrants. The advocacy group America's Voice this week published a fact sheet titled, High Costs, No Benefits: 100 Days Of Trump's Immigration Agenda.
"Let this sink in: Our government is deporting American kids, including kids with cancer, and is now trying to defend and excuse their choices on national television," said the organization's executive director, Vanessa Cárdenas. "Their actions embody the cruelty, chaotic, and harmful nature of their agenda the past 100 days, and what they want from the next 100 weeks and beyond."
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The Trump administration's anti-immigrant agenda is featured in several of the items on a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) list of actions "that pose significant risks to the human rights of people living in the United States and around the world."
Tanya Greene, U.S. program director at HRW, said that the administration has already "inflicted enormous damage to human rights" and "we are deeply concerned that these attacks on fundamental freedoms will continue unabated."
Item 51 on HRW's list warns that "people in the United States risk seeing their democratic power weakened by a politically motivated effort to skew long-standing U.S. Census Bureau policies and methods aimed at ensuring accurate population counts that determine how presidents, members of Congress, and others are elected and how federal funding is allocated to states and localities."
All Voting Is Local executive director Hannah Fried said in a Tuesday statement that "these first 100 days have been a five-alarm fire for the freedom to vote," citing Trump's executive order on elections, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, "and copycat bills in Ohio and Michigan that would require voters to show a passport or birth certificate to vote."
"The voting rights assaults during this time specifically hurt Black, Brown, Native American, and other historically marginalized communities," she emphasized. "They also set a tone for further efforts to erode voting rights and consolidate power at all levels of government in the lead-up to next year's midterm elections."
A growing number of public figures and watchdogs are sounding the alarm about the consolidation of power under Trump. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been crisscrossing the country for his Fighting Oligarchy Tour, and the advocacy group Public Citizen this week put out a list of highlights from the president's first "100 days of oligarchy and conflicts of interest."
Public Citizen's resource outlines how Trump "is handing people with clear corporate conflicts of interest—like stakes in Big Oil companies, long corporate lobbying careers, and seats on major company boards—the power to regulate and oversee corporations," dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and ridding the government of inspectors general, among other actions that enrich him and his allies at the expense of the public.
"People aren't fooled. They see what's going on. It's why millions took the streets on April 5th to protest Trump and Musk's attacks on working families."
The organization Issue One also has a new report—Unchecked Exec—about how "Trump's first 100 days have been focused on consolidating power and sidestepping anti-corruption safeguards."
"The Founders were deeply concerned about concentrating too much power in the presidency," said Issue One CEO Nick Penniman. "The Founders fought a revolution to get rid of concentrated executive authority, and they placed 'We, the People'—and Congress—at the center of the Constitution."
"A hundred days into this administration, it's clear the White House is intent on pushing the limits of its power to the point where it risks violating the Constitution and eroding the freedoms of every American," Penniman added. "This is a time for total vigilance, before the America we were living in 101 days ago begins to disappear."
The public is already fighting back in the form of protest. Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said Tuesday that "calling Trump's first 100 days a dumpster fire would be an insult to dumpster fires."
"In less than four months, Trump has destroyed jobs, brought the economy to the brink of ruin, and done absolutely nothing to lower costs," he continued. "People aren't fooled. They see what's going on. It's why millions took the streets on April 5th to protest Trump and Musk's attacks on working families. It's why more and more people are joining community organizations or stepping up to run for office."
"Trump and his billionaire friends want us to fight against each other, so they can take an even larger share of the pie," he added. "But we're not playing their game. Instead, we're going to bring working people together, from every background and geography, to stop Trump and his MAGA cronies in their tracks."
A national day of action is planned for Thursday, recognized globally as May Day. There are more than 1,100 rallies scheduled—including one at Philadelphia City Hall, where Sanders is set to join the city's AFL-CIO chapter under the banner, "For the Workers, Not the Billionaires."
While Sanders and those who have joined him on tour, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), have been praised for their response to the second Trump administration, constituents across the United States are calling on many members of Congress to do more.
Although Republicans control both chambers of Congress, recent polling shows rising support for impeaching Trump a historic third time, and Congressman Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) on Monday filed seven articles of impeachment against the president. Thursday will feature some actions focused on pressuring lawmakers to pursue impeachment.
Given Congress' current makeup, Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, is specifically calling on Republican lawmakers who "aided and abetted" Trump to instead fight back against his "relentless assault on our democracy, our freedoms, and the basic services hardworking Americans depend on to survive."
"What more will it take for Republicans in Congress to find the courage to stand up for their constituents?" she asked Tuesday. "The president is not a king, and Congress is meant to be a co-equal branch of government. We can't afford to wait another 100 days for them to finally remember that."
Over the first 100 days, we @sddfund.bsky.social have taken 100 actions challenging the Trump admin’s lawlessness—incl. repping conservatives opposing his foreign abductions We’ll keep fighting in the courts of law & public opinion. I discussed @msnbc.com
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— Norm Eisen (@normeisen.bsky.social) April 29, 2025 at 11:57 AM
Opponents of the president's agenda are also fighting in the courts. In a 100-day roundup, the ACLU said that "Trump has tested every limit, abused every power, and exploited every loophole to silence dissent, disenfranchise marginalized communities, and erode our rule of law."
"These are deliberate tactics designed to enforce compliance through fear, force, and censorship. But we aren't backing down. If the Trump administration wants to go after people's rights and freedoms, they'll have to go through us first. And we were ready for this fight," declared the group, which so far has filed 107 legal actions.
In a Monday blog post, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich argued that everyone must fight to save a nation that "is tottering on the edge of dictatorship."
"We are no longer Democrats or Republicans. We are either patriots fighting the regime, or we are complicit in its tyranny. There is no middle ground," Reich wrote. "Soon, I fear, the regime will openly defy the Supreme Court."
"Americans must be mobilized into such a huge wave of anger and disgust that members of the House are compelled to impeach Trump (for the third time) and enough senators are moved to finally convict him," he added. "Then this shameful chapter of American history will end."
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