Report on US weapons use in Gaza ‘deliberately falls short’ on legal sanctions: Analyst
William Lawrence, a professor at the American University in Washington, DC, said the US State Department’s report on whether Israel had violated international humanitarian law in its use of US weapons in Gaza was released late on Friday as Washington knew “it was not going to be received well”.
“When you actually read the report, I would say it is quite damning,” Lawrence told Al Jazeera. “What they do is make factual findings, of course with some anodyne language … But they make factual findings that Israel is violating international law. And then they don’t make the legal finding,” Lawrence said.
“Because, I think, politically the US government – which is already withholding 3,500 heavy bombs … they want it to be a political decision to withhold weapons, not a legal requirement to withhold weapons,” he said.
“I think that was a political decision of the White House and the State Department to deliberately fall short of requiring themselves to halt arms shipments, so they can use that as a carrot and stick politically with the Israelis,” he added.
“It is dissatisfying … but it’s unprecedented, the US criticising Israel in this way for violating international law.”
State Department report on Israeli arms ‘self-contradictory’: Expert
A State Department report provided to Congress on Friday assessing whether Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in Gaza has violated international law is “self-contradictory”, according to Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group.
“It says that it is reasonable to assume that US weapons have been used to commit violations of international humanitarian law, and yet it does not say that Israel has violated international humanitarian law,” he told the Reuters news agency.
“It says that Israel has restricted humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and yet it says that currently, Israel is not restricting US-funded humanitarian assistance in Gaza, which is an absurd thing to say,” he added.
Finucane said that the State Department are “trying to have their cake and eat it too”. “They’re trying to be seen to be levelling criticism while steering clear of the legal determinations that would bind their hands and potentially lead to restrictions on arms transfers,” he said.
Silly, it's not Israel that violates International law, it's the civilians that get in the way of the bombs that do.
It's also not Israel that's restricting humanitarian aid, it's the UN's incompetence...
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-aid-to-israel/
That was in Februari, should be in the scope of the report
Israel blocking more food than other aid in hunger-stalked Gaza: UN
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240409-israel-blocking-more-food-than-other-aid-in-hunger-stalked-gaza-un
That's a month ago.
But the US is fully complicit, so they can't say it
Israel and US accused of blocking Freedom Flotilla aid ships to Gaza
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24283350.israel-us-accused-blocking-freedom-flotilla-aid-ships-gaza/
US still trying to play both sides. The longer this goes on, the bigger chance Trump is going to win the elections. Maybe that's not so bad for the world, nobody trusts him anyway unlike forked tongue Biden. For the USA it will not go well. Neither for the Palestinians, Biden needs to right his sinking ship and fast.
