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center for civilians in conflict
'Heartbreakingly Devastating': US Reportedly Plans to Approve $680 Million in Arms to Israel
"The Biden administration seems to be ready and willing to keep piling more and more, despite Gaza descending into what President Biden just yesterday described as 'hell,'" said Amnesty International USA.
Nov 27, 2024
Just hours after a
cease-fire between the Israeli government and Lebanese group Hezbollah took effect, the Financial Times revealed that "U.S. President Joe Biden has provisionally approved a $680 million weapons sale to Israel," which has also spent the past nearly 14 months decimating the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the British newspaper reported that "U.S. officials recently briefed Congress on the plan to provide thousands of additional joint direct attack munition kits to Israel, known as JDAMS, as well as hundreds of small-diameter bombs."
The Biden administration's decision to advance the sale was subsequently confirmed by Reuters, which reported that "the package has been in the works for several months. It was first brought to the congressional committees in September then submitted for review in October."
Human rights advocates critical of Israel's assaults on Lebanon and Gaza—which has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—responded with alarm to the new reporting.
"If these reports are true, it's heartbreakingly devastating news," said Amnesty International USA. "These are the weapons that our research has shown were used to wipe out entire families, without any discernable military objective."
Amnesty highlighted a trio of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have halted some arms sales to Israel. Although they failed to pass the Senate last week, the group was among several that noted over the course of three votes, 17, 18, and 19 senators supported halting weapons sales, "sending a clear signal that U.S. policy must change."
"Yet, the Biden administration seems to be ready and willing to keep piling more and more, despite Gaza descending into what President Biden just yesterday described as 'hell,'" Amnesty added Wednesday. "Sending more weapons that have been used to maim and kill with impunity doesn't just put in jeopardy Palestinian lives and the elusive cease-fire the president is seeking, but also President Biden's own legacy."
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project declared Wednesday that "President Biden is spending the final days of his presidency going against the will of most Americans, U.S. law, and international law."
"The weapons included in this package have been used by Israel in numerous apparent war crimes," the organization noted. "On July 13, 2024, Israel attacked a so-called 'safe zone' in al-Mawasi, in which internally displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing at least 90 people and injuring hundreds more. A
CNN investigation found that Israel carried out this attack with at least one JDAM."
John Ramming Chappell, an adviser on legal and policy issues at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, similarly
stressed that "these are the very same weapons that for months Israeli forces have used to kill Palestinian civilians and violate international humanitarian law."
"Continuing arms transfers risks making the United States and US officials complicit in war crimes," he said. "These arms sales are unlawful as a matter of both U.S. and international law. They are immoral. The congressional committees of jurisdiction can and must place a hold on the sales."
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, pointed out that "aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity is itself a crime for which U.S. officials may (and should) face prosecution at the ICC."
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, though Palestine is. Both the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump's pick for national security adviser have attacked the warrants for Israeli leaders.
In a speech to Israelis on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that one of the reasons for the cease-fire in Lebanon "is to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks. And I say it openly, it is no secret that there have been big delays in weapons and munitions deliveries. These delays will be resolved soon. We will receive supplies of advanced weaponry that will keep our soldiers safe and give us more strike force to complete our mission."
According to the Financial Times:
U.S. officials have denied there is any explicit link between the cease-fire deal and approval for the latest weapons delivery. While the cease-fire deal includes a so-called side letter from the U.S. to Israel, setting out Washington's support for a certain freedom of Israeli action, people familiar with the text said it included no guarantees of weapon sales.
U.S. officials also deny that there have been deliberate delays to weapons shipments, aside from shipments of 2,000-pound bombs, which Biden paused earlier this year over concerns about their use in densely populated areas of Gaza.
The Times of Israel reported that Biden's State Department declined to confirm the advancement of the package but said that U.S. support for Israel in the face of Iran-backed threats is "unwavering" and all weapon transfers are carried out in line with federal law.
"We have made clear that Israel must comply with international humanitarian law, has a moral obligation and strategic imperative to protect civilians, investigate allegations of any wrongdoing, and ensure accountability for any abuses or violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law," the State Department said.
As of Wednesday, officials in Gaza said the death toll had hit at least 44,282 Palestinians with another 104,880 people injured.
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Groups Say Biden's Own Policy Requires US to Stop Arming Israel
"International and U.S. law, as well as your administration's policies including NSM-20," said the groups, "require suspending weapons transfers to the Israeli government."
Sep 04, 2024
As U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller was telling reporters on Tuesday that assessments regarding whether Israel is abiding by international humanitarian law in Gaza are ongoing, more than two dozen rights groups were telling the Biden administration that it need look no further than its own memo released months ago to see that the U.S. must end its support for the Israeli military.
Groups including Amnesty International, the Center for Civilians in Conflict, and Refugees International were among 25 organizations that signed a letter sent Tuesday to President Joe Biden; Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee; and their foreign policy advisers. The letter was sent a day after the British government announced it was suspending 30 arms export licenses for Israel, citing "a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law."
The letter pointed out that it's been nearly four months since the administration released its report on May 10 on National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20), which "concluded that U.S.-provided arms had likely been used by Israeli security forces in manners 'inconsistent with its IHL [international humanitarian law] obligations.'"
NSM-20, issued in February, required Secretary of State Antony Blinken to confirm that countries using U.S. weapons—including Israel, which has received more than 100 military transfers from the U.S. since last October—are not blocking U.S. humanitarian aid and are using the weapons in accordance with international law.
The groups on Tuesday noted that despite the finding in the May 10 report, the administration claimed that Israel's assurances that it had not used U.S. weapons in strikes that violated international law were "credible and reliable," and that the U.S. would not suspend weapons transfers at that time.
The claim that Israel's assurances were credible was in direct opposition to a leaked internal memo in which four State Department officials said they had "serious concern over non-compliance" with international law.
"Since your May 10 report, the U.N. estimates a 300% increase in acute malnutrition in Northern Gaza."
The official assessment released in May also "stood in stark contrast to the realities in Gaza and across occupied Palestine and appeared to blatantly disregard both the requirements of U.S. law and policy and extensive documentation submitted by human rights and humanitarian organizations and independent experts," reads the new letter, citing reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other groups that detailed how U.S. weapons have been used in attacks that killed civilians and could constitute war crimes.
Moreover, the letter states, "the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has only worsened" since the NSM-20 report, but the U.S. policy of providing "virtually unconditional military support for the Israeli government continues."
The letter notes that the U.S. continues to support the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) despite continued restrictions on aid flowing into Gaza by Israel, with the level of aid entering Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem crossing dropping by more than 80% over the past three months.
"As a result of the compounding access and delivery challenges, malnutrition and the perpetual risk of famine remains rampant across Gaza," wrote the groups. "Since your May 10 report, the U.N. estimates a 300% increase in acute malnutrition in Northern Gaza, while the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the leading analyst on food insecurity, found in June that all of Gaza is at high risk of famine and 96% of the population is currently food insecure."
Annie Shiel, U.S. advocacy director for the Center for Civilians in Conflict, noted that the Biden administration's continued military support for Israel as famine takes hold of Gaza may violate the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act—Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
The Biden administration's continued support for the IDF sends "a political signal of unconditional support for Israel's conduct," said Shiel. "The U.S. has the leverage to bring about a cease-fire—but chooses not to use it."
The letter on Tuesday also pointed to numerous reports that U.S.-made weapons have been used by Israel in attacks that killed civilians since May 10, including:
- A strike that used U.S.-made GBU-39 guided bombs on a camp for internally displaced people in west Rafah on May 26, killing at least 36 people, including six children;
- A July 9 airstrike on a school that killed at least 27 people and used an American small-diameter bomb; and
- An August 10 attack on a school in Gaza City that was being used as a shelter, which killed 93 people using a U.S. small-diameter bomb.
"These developments should compel the United States to suspend arms transfers to the Israeli government under the Conventional Arms Transfer policy, which prohibits arms transfers when 'the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients' commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit' serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law," wrote the groups.
The organizations urged "an immediate, public review of Israel's compliance with NSM-20, accounting for the numerous apparent violations of international law and restrictions on humanitarian aid documented by civil society and the media since May 10 and throughout the NSM-20 reporting period."
As U.S. support continues, said the groups, "the risk of United States' and U.S. officials' complicity in Israeli violations of international law due to U.S. arms transfers has only increased."
"We urgently call upon your administration to change its approach and suspend weapons transfers to Israel, which continue to cause devastating harm and risk making the United States complicit in war crimes," they wrote. "International and U.S. law, as well as your administration's policies including NSM-20, require suspending weapons transfers to the Israeli government."
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As Gaza Death Toll Tops 40,000, Congress Urged to Block New Weapons to Israel
"U.S. arms transfers to Israel have fueled unimaginable suffering in Gaza, including staggering levels of civilian harm," said one embargo advocate.
Aug 15, 2024
As the Palestinian death toll from Israel's 314-day assault on Gaza passed 40,000—a figure Palestinian and United Ntions officials say is made up of mostly women and children and is likely a vast undercount—human rights groups this week decried the Biden administration's approval of $20 billion worth of new weapons for Israel and renewed pleas for Congress to block further arms transfers to the nation's far-right government.
On Tuesday—just days after Israeli forces used at least one U.S.-supplied bomb in an airstrike on a Gaza City school that killed scores of forcibly displaced Palestinian civilians sheltering there—the Biden administration notified Congress of the pending sale of a new weapons package that includes dozens of F-15 fighter jets, tens of thousands of 120mm mortar shells, over 32,700 tank shells, and 30 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles.
Since October, Congress and the Biden administration have approved more than $14 billion in unconditional military aid to Israel. President Joe Biden has signed off on more than 100 arms transfers to Israel during that period. This, atop the $3.8 billion in annual armed aid the U.S. already gives to the key Middle Eastern ally.
"Israel used U.S.-made weapons in May when it slaughtered Palestinian families sheltering in tent camps in Rafah," Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) said Wednesday. "Israel used U.S.-made weapons when it bombed the al-Mutanabbi school in Khan Younis in early July, killing over two dozen displaced Palestinians seeking refuge there. And it used U.S.-made weapons on Saturday to murder over 100 Palestinians while they prayed."
"Biden continues to send weapons to Israel, and both political parties—Republicans and Democrats—have cheered on the Israeli government's slaughter and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza," JVP continued. "This is a U.S.-perpetrated genocide as much as it is an Israeli one."
"But the Democratic voting base is calling for something different, and we have seen the progressive and increasingly mainstream wing of the party begin to echo this need," the group said. "We are playing a critical role in driving the Democratic Party to finally catch up to the demands of its own base."
"Right now, we have an opportunity to re-center Gaza in the national conversation and continue building pressure on the Biden administration, on [Vice President] Kamala Harris, and on Democratic members of Congress to support an immediate arms embargo," JVP added.
While Harris has expressed sympathy for Palestinians suffering what she called a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza, the vice president and Democratic presidential nominee, like Biden, has proclaimed her "unwavering" support for Israel. One aide said last week that Harris does not support an arms embargo.
"The decision to approve yet another massive sale of arms to Israel is appalling and a blatant violation of U.S. and international law and policy," Annie Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said on Thursday.
"U.S. arms transfers to Israel have fueled unimaginable suffering in Gaza, including staggering levels of civilian harm, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and an ever-growing humanitarian catastrophe," Shiel continued. "The U.S. is complicit in this devastation."
"Congress must block these sales, including through the introduction of joint resolutions of disapproval," she added, "and the Biden-Harris administration must finally end U.S. arms transfers and use its leverage to bring about an immediate cease-fire."
The international anti-poverty NGO ActionAid said Thursday: "We are outraged and heartbroken by the staggering loss of 40,000 lives in Gaza. It is a number that is incomprehensible—every life lost is an individual tragedy."
"But this is not an inevitable one, it is an ongoing atrocity, and it could have been prevented," the group continued. "Most governments across the world have refused to do the bare minimum to protect civilian life and it is to our collective shame. We are losing confidence each day in the concept of justice."
"We reiterate our calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities and urge all governments to meet their obligations under international law and use all available means to take immediate and decisive action to ensure the safety and security of all civilians," ActionAid said.
"We call for the imposition of sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, on Israeli officials linked to alleged violations of international humanitarian law," the NGO added. "Every day that you choose to avoid this as a reality, this death toll will keep rising until there is nobody left in Gaza alive."
In addition to the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and for three Hamas leaders, at least one of whom has been assassinated by Israeli forces.
The Biden administration and numerous members of Congress have condemned the courts' pursuit of justice for Israel and its leaders. In June, 42 Democrats joined nearly every Republican in the House of Representatives in passing a bill that would sanction ICC officials over Khan's application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
In addition to rights groups, a coalition of journalists, news outlets, and press freedom organizations on Thursday implored the Biden administration to immediately halt arms transfers to Israel.
As the tight 2024 presidential race between Harris and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, heads toward the home stretch, a survey commissioned by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding Policy Project and conducted by YouGov revealed this week that Democratic and Independent voters in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania would be more willing to vote for Harris if she backed an arms embargo on Israel.
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'Enough Is Enough': Former Top Sanders Aide Urges Israel Arms Embargo
"It is time for President Biden and U.S. partners to finally use their leverage to end this catastrophe."
Feb 29, 2024
As the death toll from Israel's war on the Gaza Strip topped 30,000 on Thursday, President Joe Biden faced renewed pressure to immediately cut off U.S. diplomatic and weapons support for the nearly five-month Israeli assault.
"President Biden must say 'enough is enough' and finally end U.S. support for and complicity in the ongoing carnage in Gaza," said Matt Duss, a former top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who is now executive vice president at the Center for International Policy.
"Importantly, he should suspend transfers to Israel of the arms it is using in Gaza," Duss argued, "as he is already obligated to do under U.S. law given the obvious reality—including an open admission by Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu—that the Israeli government is limiting the amount of humanitarian aid delivered to the territory."
"U.S. security assistance has enabled catastrophic civilian harm in Gaza in a way that appears to violate existing U.S. law and policy."
Since Israeli forces began bombarding Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, the Biden administration has repeatedly vetoed United Nations cease-fire resolutions, bypassed Congress to send weapons, and sought over $14 billion atop the $3.8 billion in annual military aid that Israel already gets from the United States.
Duss stressed that Biden should continue efforts to secure a cease-fire, the release of all hostages, and a surge in humanitarian aid. He said that "diplomacy must be prioritized not only as a means of reaching peace, but in order to uphold our own principles. The ongoing provision of arms to Israel despite its open hindrance of humanitarian efforts is a clear departure from those principles."
"A full cease-fire and massive humanitarian relief effort is not just a moral necessity but a security one," he added, warning of the growing risk of a regional conflict. "Nearly five months of slaughter and starvation of civilians in Gaza, and the continued holding and abuse of Israeli hostages, must not continue. It is time for President Biden and U.S. partners to finally use their leverage to end this catastrophe."
After Israeli forces reportedly opened fire on starving Palestinians in Gaza on Thursday, Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said on social media that "Biden's deference to Israel brought this about. Biden has put zero material pressure on Netanyahu."
Rather than using his leverage to "force Israel to let in the aid, Biden instead caves to Netanyahu and considers airdropping aid," Parsi continued. "What a humiliation! Imagine if Biden from the outset had decided NOT to give Israel a blank check?"
The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) similarly released a Thursday statement calling on the United States to "urgently leverage security assistance to push for civilian protection, de-escalation, and an immediate cease-fire."
"The U.S. is Israel's closest ally and provider of billions of dollars of security assistance annually," the group said. "U.S. security assistance has enabled catastrophic civilian harm in Gaza in a way that appears to violate existing U.S. law and policy. The U.S. has publicly pressed Israel on civilian protection; however, without using its leverage by conditioning aid, these messages will continue to be ignored."
CIVIC and over a dozen other groups—including Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Save the Children—last month jointly called on all U.N. member states to "immediately halt the transfer of weapons, parts, and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian armed groups while there is risk they are used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law."
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday also called for ending the flow of weapons, responding to a recent report from the U.N. high commissioner for human rights about the occupied Palestinian territories.
"The heinous crimes carried out by Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups since October 7 are the abhorrent legacy of decadeslong impunity for unlawful attacks by all parties and Israel's crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians," the group said. "The international community's long-standing unwillingness to act to hold perpetrators to account has fueled grave abuses."
"As Israeli authorities contemplate forcing the over 1 million Palestinians in Rafah to again flee when there's nowhere safe in Gaza—a move that would be unlawful and have catastrophic consequences—states should act to prevent further atrocities," HRW asserted.
Both HRW and Amnesty have said this week that Israel is defying the International Court of Justice, which last month issued binding provisional measures in the ongoing South Africa-led genocide case against the country. Meanwhile, a U.S. case about Biden and other top officials' complicity in genocide is moving through the federal appeals process.
"States should use all forms of leverage, including targeted sanctions and an arms embargo, to press the Israeli government to comply with the binding order and to press the Israeli government and Palestinian armed groups to end unlawful attacks and other grave abuses," HRW said Thursday. "The lives of millions of civilians hang in the balance."
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Biden Memo on US Arms Transfers Called 'Too Little Too Late'
"If existing restrictions were enforced, the U.S. would have firmly halted all offensive military support for Israel rather than continuing to fuel its devastating war," said one group.
Feb 09, 2024
As U.S. arms continue to fuel Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, critics responded skeptically on Friday to a memo from President Joe Biden requiring human rights assurances from governments receiving American weapons, noting that the White House issued—and ignored—a similar directive last year.
Biden's memo—which is modeled on an amendment proposed by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)—"requires the secretary of state to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments receiving defense articles... and requires the secretaries of state and defense to provide periodic congressional reports to enable meaningful oversight."
"The question has always been what the administration is willing to do in practice, not in theory."
The White House said the policy is meant to "prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law" and "strengthen ally and partner capacity to respect their obligations under international law and reduce the risk of civilian harm."
Referring to the far-right administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Van Hollen said that "this new policy will help hold all recipients of U.S. weapons—including the Netanyahu government—more accountable. It's a huge step forward in shining a light on the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and will have a lasting impact for years to come."
Skeptics, however, noted the yawning chasm between U.S. policy and practice. David Sirota, founder of the investigative news site The Lever, said on social media that "this isn't new. This is a press release designed to distract from basically the same directive [Biden] issued less than a year ago, which he just totally ignored."
Biden's February 2023
memo states that "no arms transfer will be authorized where the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit... genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949... or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including serious acts of gender‑based violence or serious acts of violence against children."
The
International Court of Justice and a federal judge in California have found that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza. At least hundreds of international legal and genocide scholars, including numerous Israelis, have said Israel's onslaught—which has caused more than 100,000 casualties and has displaced around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people—is genocidal.
Gazans and human rights observers have documented a wide range of potential Israeli war crimes, including the deliberate withholding of lifesaving humanitarian aid; indiscriminate killing; bombing of vital civilian infrastructure including shelters, hospitals, and schools; deliberate targeting of media, medical, and humanitarian workers; and the execution of civilians including elders, men, women, and children.
At least 12,150 children have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets, according to Palestinian officials.
"For civilians in Gaza, where U.S. arms continue to cause catastrophic harm, this memo is too little too late," Annie Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said of Biden's new directive. "The Biden administration needs to do what it should have months ago: End U.S. complicity in devastating harm and leverage assistance to deescalate and protect civilians."
Biden has acknowledged and implored Israel to stop its "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza, which on Thursday he called "over the top."
However, the Biden administration has requested $14.3 billion in additional U.S. military aid for Israel atop the nearly $4 billion the apartheid state already receives from Washintgon each year. Biden has also twice bypassed Congress in order to expedite "emergency" armed aid to Israel.
Since the passage of the Foreign Assitance Act of 1961, and later the Leahy Laws, the U.S. government has been statutorily prohibited from providing assistance to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations. However, this has not stopped Washington from supporting some of the world's worst human rights violators—including the perpetrators of genocides in Paraguay, Guatemala, Bangladesh, East Timor, Kurdistan, and Gaza—since these laws were enacted.
Responding to Biden's new memo and its requirement of written human rights pledges, Shiel contended that "assurances like this would not be necessary if the U.S. was already following its own laws and policies."
"Where it's clear U.S. weapons are contributing to violations or blocking humanitarian aid, U.S. law and policy says arms transfers can't continue—full stop," she said.
Despite massive U.S. military aid—which has totaled more than $150 billion since Israel was established in 1948 amid the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Arabs—Biden administration officials have claimed that they have little leverage over the Israeli government.
"Assurances like this would not be necessary if the U.S. was already following its own laws and policies."
While U.S. officials including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argue that conditions on arms transfers should not apply to Israel, human rights defenders assert that the Biden administration must go beyond mere words to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
"The United States must press Israel for a cease-fire," Center for International Policy senior fellow Melvin A. Goodman wrote for CounterPunch Friday.
"The only way to pressure Israel would be to place genuine conditions on U.S. arms transfers or to withhold the lethal systems that only Washington provides," he added.
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Israeli Bombing of Gaza Ranks Among 'Most Devastating' in History
"Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history," said a U.S. military historian as Israel's use of arms including 2,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs pushed the Palestinian death toll over 20,000.
Dec 23, 2023
As the Palestinian death toll from Israel's 10-week annihilation of the Gaza Strip passed 20,000, warfare experts said this weekend that the retaliatory campaign ranks among the deadliest and most destructive in modern history.
Gaza health officials said Friday that 390 Palestinians were killed and 734 others wounded in the besieged strip over the previous 48 hours, driving the death toll from 77 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks to 20,057, with another 53,320 people injured. More than 6,000 women and over 8,000 children have been killed—approximately 70% of all fatalities.
That's more than twice the number of civilians—and over 14 times as many children—as Russian forces have
killed in Ukraine since February 2022.
Thousands more Palestinians are missing and feared buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombardment.
"The scale of Palestinian civilian deaths in such a short period of time appears to be the highest such civilian casualty rate in the 21st century," Michael Lynk, who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2016 to 2022, told The Washington Post on Saturday.
Robert Pape, a U.S. military historian and University of Chicago professor, told The Associated Press that "Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history."
"It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever," he added.
By comparison, the 2017 U.S.-led coalition battle for Mosul, Iraq during the war against the so-called Islamic State—widely viewed as among the most intense urban assaults in recent decades—killed approximately 10,000 civilians, around a third of them from aerial bombardment.
Pape said that by some measures, Israel's bombing of Gaza is surpassing the Allied "terror bombing" of German cities during World War II.
He noted that U.S. and U.K. airstrikes obliterated about 40-50% of the urban areas of the 51 German cities bombed between 1942-45, and that around 10% of all buildings in Germany were destroyed. In Gaza, approximately 1 in 3 buildings have been destroyed. In northern Gaza, over two-thirds of all buildings have been leveled.
"Gaza is now a different color from space. It's a different texture," Corey Scher, who studies natural disasters and wars using satellite remote sensing at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, told the AP.
Experts point to the types of munitions being used by Israeli forces as a major reason why so many Gazans are being killed and injured. These include U.S.-supplied 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels.
These massive bombs turn "earth to liquid," Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon defense official and war crimes investigator for the United Nations, told the AP. "It pancakes entire buildings."
Garlasco said that 2,000-pound bombs mean "instant death" for anyone within about 100 feet of the blast, with shrapnel posing a deadly danger for people up to 1,200 feet away.
In a separate interview with CNN, Gerlasco said that the intensity of Israel's bombardment of Gaza has "not been seen since Vietnam," when U.S. airstrikes killed up to hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. The U.S. dropped more bombs on tiny, non-belligerent Laos than all sides combined unleashed during World War II.
"You'd have to go back to the Vietnam War to make a comparison," Garlasco added. "Even in both Iraq wars, it was never that dense."
The use of such heavy ordnance in close proximity to critical civilian infrastructure like hospitals has alarmed observers.
"What we have been witnessing is a campaign that was planned, it was a plan, definitely, to close down all the hospitals in the north," Léo Cans, head of mission for Palestine with Doctors Without Borders, told the Post.
Aided by AI-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commanders are approving bombings they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Although the United States—which has killed more foreign civilians this century than any other armed force in the world—provides Israel with thousands of 1,000 and 2,000-pound bombs, its own military avoids using such massive ordnance in civilian areas due to the devastation they cause.
"It certainly appears that [Israel's] tolerance for civilian harm compared to expected operational benefits is significantly different than what we would accept as the U.S.," Larry Lewis, research director at the Center for Naval Analyses and a former U.S. State Department senior adviser on civilian harm, told CNN.
That includes the risk of killing Israel's own citizens and others held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
Lewis added that the Jabalia strike was "something we would never see the U.S. doing."
That isn't entirely true; during the 1991 Gulf War the U.S.
dropped a pair of 2,000-pound Raytheon GBU-27 Paveway III laser-guided bombs on the Amiriyah air raid shelter in Baghdad, killing at least 408 Iraqi civilians in one of the deadliest single airstrikes in modern history. U.S. officials claimed they thought the shelter, which was used during the Iraq-Iran war, was no longer a civilian facility.
"The use of 2,000-pound bombs in an area as densely populated as Gaza means it will take decades for communities to recover," John Chappell, advocacy and legal fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Center for Civilians in Conflict, told CNN.
Even more concerning for some experts is Israel's use of unguided, or "dumb" bombs, against civilian targets in Gaza.
While IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said that "we choose the right munition for each target so it doesn't cause unnecessary damage," the death and destruction in Gaza—and Israeli officials' own words—tell an entirely different story.
Early in the war, Hagari declared that "Gaza will never return to what it was," clarifying that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy."
Meanwhile, numerous Israeli officials advocated the complete destruction of Gaza, with more than a few government figures—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Cabinet members—making statements supporting genocide against the Palestinian people.
U.S. President Joe Biden—who has affirmed his "unwavering" support for Israel and is seeking $14.3 billion in additional military aid for the country, which already gets almost $4 billion annually from Washington—has implored Israeli leaders to stop the "indiscriminate" bombing of Gaza, even as his administration thwarts international cease-fire efforts and restocks the IDF's arsenal.
Chappell stressed that "the devastation that we've seen for communities in Gaza is, unfortunately, co-signed by the United States."
"Too much of it is carried out by bombs that were made in the United States," he added.
Ahmed Abofoul—a Gaza-born, Netherlands-based attorney with the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq who has lost 60 of his relatives to Israeli bombing— said in Friday interview with Democracy Now! that "the American government is complicit in this genocide."
"There is blood of Palestinian children on their hands," he added. [Biden] said Israel is engaged in indiscriminate bombing. This is a war crime. So, the question is: Why do you then send weapons to Israel? The position of the U.S. is quite hypocritical."
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As US Pledges More Support for Israel, Global Call for Cease-Fire to Prevent Further Bloodshed Grows
"There should be an international call for an immediate cessation of hostilities," said one expert on the crisis. "But the U.S. isn't doing that."
Oct 10, 2023
The governments of a growing number of countries on Tuesday joined human rights advocates from around the world in calling for an immediate cease-fire between Israeli and Hamas officials to spare further civilian casualties, which now number 900 in Israel and 900—including at least 140 children—in Gaza.
As Just Foreign Policy, a think tank that works to reform U.S. military policy, applauded calls for peace from several countries, advocates noted that the United States has so far shown no interest in pushing for a cease-fire, with U.S. President Joe Biden instead pledging to "stand with Israel" and essentially writing a "blank check for genocide," according to one political Palestinian-American analyst.
Biden announced plans to deploy "additional assets" to Israel as the country's military pummeled Gaza with airstrikes, decimating residential buildings and neighborhoods, a telecommunications company headquarters, healthcare facilities, and refugee camps.
As The Guardian reported, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)'s decision to call up 300,000 reservists following Saturday's unprecedented attack by Hamas signaled a potential ground assault in Gaza in the coming days.
Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera Tuesday that the group is open to "all political dialogues" regarding a cease-fire after it has "achieved its targets," but the group ominously warned on Monday that more than 100 people it took hostage over the weekend could be executed if Israel continued its air assault on Gaza.
In the Netherlands, the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) said Monday that the IDF, officials in the right-wing Israeli government, and Hamas must immediately "stop targeting civilians, launching unlawful attacks, and using indiscriminate weapons."
"Civilian harm from all parties, including the intentional targeting of civilians and civilian objects, is alarming and indicates violations of international law, including possible war crimes," said the group. "The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) should call for an immediate de-escalation, use their influence over leaders on all sides to ensure they exercise maximum restraint when using force, and avoid a further spillover of the conflict in the region. The UNSC should request safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and all affected conflict areas."
CIVIC added that governments delivering military aid to parties to the conflict must ensure that weapons are "not used in violation of international humanitarian law or human rights violations," and said the U.S. "bears a special responsibility in this regard" as the U.S. has provided Israel with $260 billion since World War II.
But Alex Kane, a journalist with Jewish Currents, told The Guardian that the U.S. is now "giving the green light to an extremist coalition to do what it wants with Gaza."
"Israel's punishing response will likely go on for weeks and include a ground invasion, which promises a high number of civilian casualties and widespread destruction of homes, roads, and infrastructure," said Kane. "With the U.S. refusing to restrain Israel, the consequences for Palestinians will be nothing short of catastrophic."
As Haaretz reported Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken "deleted a [social media post] where he called for a cease-fire"—one of at least two instances of Biden administration officials deleting posts urging restraint from Israel—and replaced it with the message, "Israel has the right to defend itself."
"There should be an international call for an immediate cessation of hostilities," Mairav Zonszein, senior analyst on Israel and Palestine for the International Crisis Group, told The Guardian on Tuesday. "But the U.S. isn't doing that, it's not calling on Israel to stop."
Just Foreign Policy began a running list of countries that have called for a cease-fire, including Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and Bangladesh.
With the World Health Organization (WHO) counting at least 11 attacks on healthcare sites in the first 36 hours of the onslaught in Gaza, authorities said "there is an urgent need to establish a humanitarian corridor for unimpeded, lifesaving patient referrals and movement of humanitarian personnel and essential health supplies."
According to China Daily, the Chinese special envoy on the Middle Eastern issue, Zhai Jun, told officials in the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that China plans to "maintain communication and coordination with Egypt to push for an end to the violence."
By failing to join a growing number of countries in calling for a cease-fire and clearly condemning the loss of civilian lives on both sides of the conflict, said China Daily columnist Chen Weihua, "the U.S. government completely lost its credibility."
Biden "didn't call for immediate cease-fire and he literally endorsed more fighting and killing," said Chen. "The fact is: Israeli people's lives are lives. So are Palestinian people, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Libyans… The U.S. bias in the Palestine-Israeli conflict is one cause of the prolonged conflict."
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'Important Step': Biden Admin to Track Foreign Forces Killing Civilians With US Weapons
"Of course, its impact will come down to the details of implementation," said one expert.
Sep 13, 2023
Human rights advocates and some congressional Democrats on Wednesday cautiously welcomed Washington Post reporting that the Biden administration has created a program to track and investigate allegations of foreign forces harming or killing civilians with weapons provided by the United States.
"The United States clearly has a vested interest in knowing what harm its weapons sales and security assistance cause to civilians," Human Rights Watch (HRW) deputy Washington director Nicole Widdersheim told the newspaper. "Let's see if the Biden administration puts political will behind this good idea."
Annie Shiel, U.S. advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), called the initiative "an important step" but added that "of course, its impact will come down to the details of implementation."
The Quaker group Friends Committee on National Legislation noted Shiel's remarks on X—formerly Twitter—while celebrating the "positive news... on accountability for harm caused by U.S.-supplied weapons."
"What will actually happen when U.S. officials find U.S. arms have been used in war crime or human rights violation? Will there be meaningful accountability, or will perpetrators just get a slap on the wrist?"
The U.S. State Department, which is leading the program with the help of "personnel from the Pentagon, intelligence community, and other agencies," announced the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG) in an August 23 cable to American embassies and consulates, according to the Post.
A State Department spokesperson
told the Middle East Eye on Wednesday that "CHIRG establishes a process to respond to new incidents of civilian harm and prevent them from recurring, and to drive partners to conduct military operations in accordance with international law," but declined to say whether the probes will be made public.
The new initiative resembles a Defense Department effort launched last year that focuses on injuries and deaths of noncombatants caused by American forces—one which Shiel said at the time "offers opportunities to address long-standing structural flaws in U.S. policy and practice, prevent future harm, and provide civilians harmed by U.S. operations with the recognition and response they deserve."
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said on social media that he was "pleased to see" the State Department adopting an element of the Safeguarding Human Rights in Arms Exports Act, which he introduced with House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.).
Passing such legislation, the Post pointed out, "would ensure that the new procedures can't be abolished by a future administration, along with establishing other steps to prioritize rights concerns in arms sales."
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday also welcomed the new program while highlighting her related efforts on Capitol Hill. Over the past year, she has joined Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) in sending letters to the departments of Defense and State about the United States' complicity in civilian harm in Yemen.
CIVIC advocacy and legal fellow John Ramming Chappell stressed on X that the program "comes after years of congressional pressure" and "would not have been developed without demand from the Hill."
"Questions remain, of course," he noted. "What will actually happen when U.S. officials find U.S. arms have been used in war crime or human rights violation? Will there be meaningful accountability, or will perpetrators just get a slap on the wrist? Will close partners get special treatment?"
Former longtime HRW executive director Kenneth Roth also raised a question: "But what about forces armed by the U.S. that use other arms to kill civilians? That's wrong, too."
Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is now a Crisis Group senior adviser, wrote on social media that the program is "a notable step" in monitoring civilian deaths and injuries but also warned observers to "be wary of relying on U.S. embassies, given 'clientitis.'"
Finucane added that such monitoring "is more likely to be effective" if it is "statutory-mandated" versus administrative policy, is "as independent as possible to insulate from those in bureaucracy with interests in selling arms," and incorporates information from all sources.
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