[News] Leaked US State Department docs unveil first formal acknowledgment of Israeli units committing gross rights abuses

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Leaked US State Department docs unveil first formal acknowledgment of
  Israeli units committing gross rights abuses

The US has failed to hold Israel accountable in the past for clear human 
rights abuses, including against US citizens

News Desk <https://thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9>

OCT 31, 2025 - 
https://thecradle.co/articles/leaked-us-state-department-docs-unveil-first-formal-acknowledgment-of-israeli-units-committing-gross-rights-abuses


(Photo credit: CNN/social media)

A classified US State Department report found that Israeli soldiers 
committed “many hundreds” of potential violations of US human rights law 
in the Gaza Strip that would require “multiple years” to review, the 
/Washington Post/ reported 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/10/30/state-department-report-israel-gaza-human-rights-violations/>on 
31 October.

Details of the report prepared by the State Department’s Office of 
Inspector General were provided to /The Post/ by two US officials.

The report has, for the first time, “acknowledged the scale of Israeli 
actions in Gaza that fall under the purview of Leahy Laws, the landmark 
legislation that bars US security assistance to foreign military units 
credibly accused of gross human rights abuses,” the newspaper wrote.

However, the Office of Inspector General report “raised doubts about the 
prospects for accountability for Israel’s actions given the large 
backlog of incidents and the nature of the review process, which is 
deferential to the Israel Defense Forces,” /The Post/ added.

“What worries me is that accountability will be forgotten now that the 
noise of the conflict is dying down,” said Charles Blaha, a former State 
Department official responsible for overseeing the application of the 
Leahy Laws.

The report was completed just days before the 11 October ceasefire in 
Gaza between Israel and Hamas went into effect. Since that time, Israel 
has continued to kill Palestinian civilians and restrict aid entering 
the strip as Palestinians suffer from food shortages, malnutrition, and 
starvation.

Several atrocities committed by Israeli forces since the start of the 
genocide two years ago have triggered reviews under the Leahy Laws.

In April 2024, seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers were killed 
by three Israeli drone strikes, one after another, on three separate WCK 
vehicles. The drones opened fire, even though the WCK had shared the 
convoy’s coordinates and route with the Israeli military in advance. The 
victims held Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish, and dual 
US-Canadian citizenships.

In February 2024, Israeli forces opened fire, including with tanks, on 
Palestinians trying to get desperately needed aid in Gaza. At least 112 
Palestinians were killed and 760 were injured in what became known as 
the ‘Flour Massacre 
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/1/flour-massacre-how-gaza-food-killings-unfolded-and-israels-story-changed>.’

However, the White House claimed 
<https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Report-to-Congress-under-Section-2-of-the-National-Security-Memorandum-on-Safeguards-and-Accountability-with-Respect-to-Transferred-Defense.pdf>it 
was “not able to reach definitive conclusions” on whether US weapons 
were used in the attacks.

The US provides at least $3.8 billion in aid to Israel yearly, and has 
provided tens of billions more since 2023 to assist the genocide in Gaza.

However, it is unlikely the US will withhold military aid to Israel and 
hold units accountable for the many violations mentioned in the new 
State Department report, /The Post/ writes.

The State Department working group tasked with making determinations 
about Leahy Law violations includes representatives of the US Embassy in 
Jerusalem and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, “two entities that 
often advocate for Israel within the US system,” the daily went on to say.

If the working group does conclude that Israeli units are ineligible for 
continued funding, the US secretary of state must approve the finding.

The secretary of state under former US president Joe Biden, Antony 
Blinken, was a strong advocate for Israel throughout the genocide.

US President Donald Trump’s new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has 
close ties to Jewish billionaire Paul Singer, who is a strong supporter 
of Israel and has funded Rubio’s election campaigns over the years.

“To date, the US has not withheld any assistance to any Israeli unit 
despite clear evidence,” said Josh Paul, a former State Department 
official speaking with /The Post./

Blinken’s State Department refused to halt aid to Israeli units even 
after a 78-year-old US citizen, Omar Assad, was detained at a checkpoint 
in the West Bank in 2022 and murdered by Israeli soldiers.

Assad owned a grocery store in the city of Milwaukee in the US state of 
Wisconsin before returning to his place of birth in Palestine after 
retiring.

Earlier this week, the /New York Times/ (NYT) reported 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/world/middleeast/shooting-palestinian-american-journalist.html>that 
a former US military policeman who investigated the 2022 killing of 
US-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqla said an Israeli soldier 
deliberately shot her, but his superiors at the State Department changed 
the conclusions of his report to claim the killing was unintentional.

The US under president Trump has been no better.

“I don’t see any difference between the Biden administration and the 
Trump administration on this issue,” said Blaha, the former State 
Department official in charge of the office that implements the Leahy Laws.

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