Quick summary:
• Palestinian plaintiffs are suing the U.S. government for violating the Leahy Law by providing military aid to Israeli units accused of gross human rights abuses.
• The lawsuit highlights that U.S. military assistance enables Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank, where over 45,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023.
• The Leahy Law prohibits U.S. aid to foreign military units implicated in violations like extrajudicial killings and torture, yet no Israeli unit has been deemed ineligible under the law.
• The lawsuit criticizes the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum (ILVF) as a process designed to shield Israeli units from accountability, citing its failure to restrict aid despite documented abuses.
• The U.S. provides at least $3.8 billion annually in military aid to Israel, with an additional $17.9 billion since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
• Plaintiffs demand the State Department identify ineligible Israeli units and halt military aid to those implicated in human rights violations, aligning U.S. actions with its laws.
• Advocacy groups argue ending U.S. arms transfers would significantly restrict Israel’s ability to continue its military campaigns and reduce harm to Palestinian civilians.
A group of Palestinian plaintiffs, including U.S. citizens and Gaza residents, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, accusing it of violating federal law by continuing to send military aid to Israel despite allegations of widespread human rights abuses. The plaintiffs argue that the U.S. is disregarding its own legal obligations under the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance to foreign units credibly accused of gross human rights violations such as torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, includes five Palestinian plaintiffs who have lost family members or face imminent threats as a direct result of U.S.-funded Israeli military operations. Among them is a Gaza teacher, referred to as “Amal Gaza” for security reasons, who has lost 20 family members in the ongoing conflict and has been forcibly displaced seven times since October 2023.
“My suffering and the unimaginable loss my family has endured would be significantly lessened if the U.S. stopped providing military assistance to Israeli units committing gross violations of human rights,” Amal said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.
At the center of the lawsuit is the Leahy Law, a federal regulation that bars U.S. military aid to foreign security forces when there is credible evidence of human rights violations. Rights groups and former U.S. officials argue that the U.S. government has repeatedly failed to enforce this law in the case of Israel.
“Despite years of credible reports of gross violations of human rights by Israeli defense and police units, including in the State Department’s own annual Human Rights Reports, as far as we are aware not a single unit has been denied U.S. aid under the Leahy Law,” said Tim Rieser, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator Patrick Leahy, who helped draft the legislation.
The lawsuit claims that the State Department has embraced a “see no evil, hear no evil” approach, failing to conduct meaningful reviews of Israeli units under the law. It cites specific instances where U.S.-funded Israeli units have been implicated in abuses, including mass civilian casualties in Gaza and arbitrary detentions in the West Bank.
“If the State Department had done its job and sanctioned U.S.-funded Israeli military units for arbitrarily detaining Palestinians for years without evidence or charge based on secret evidence, including myself, it could have prevented my suffering in prison and deprivation of liberty,” said Shawan Jabarin, head of the human rights group Al-Haq and one of the plaintiffs.
The allegations come amid mounting international condemnation of Israeli military operations in Gaza, where over 45,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, according to United Nations data. Both the UN and leading rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have accused Israel of committing war crimes and genocide in its actions in Gaza.
The violence has also escalated in the West Bank, where the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported 770 Palestinian deaths between October 2023 and November 2024. Human rights groups have documented the use of U.S.-made weapons in attacks that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians, including indiscriminate bombings and targeted strikes on residential areas.
Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American plaintiff, said his family in Gaza lives in constant fear of these attacks. “My surviving family members in Gaza have been forcibly displaced four times, … living in constant fear of indiscriminate Israeli attacks carried out with American weapons,” Moor said.
The U.S. is Israel’s largest military benefactor, providing at least $3.8 billion annually in military aid. According to researchers at Brown University, the Biden administration has sent an additional $17.9 billion to Israel since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. Observers argue that this level of support enables Israel to continue its military operations without accountability.
Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at DAWN, a U.S.-based human rights group supporting the lawsuit, said that ending U.S. arms transfers would significantly limit Israel’s capacity to wage its military campaigns. “If the U.S. were to stop sending weapons, there is no way for Israel to continue its military operations,” Jarrar said.
The lawsuit also criticizes the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum (ILVF), a mechanism supposedly designed to evaluate Israeli military units under the Leahy Law. Experts argue that the ILVF is structured to shield Israeli units from accountability rather than enforce compliance with U.S. law.
The lawsuit claims the ILVF has never deemed an Israeli unit ineligible for U.S. assistance, even when faced with credible evidence of violations. “The ILVF operates under a unique, complex, lengthy, high-level Leahy vetting process that is arbitrary and capricious, and is not rationally related to advancing the purpose of the Leahy Law,” the lawsuit states.
This year, the Biden administration cleared the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, a unit notorious for its violent treatment of Palestinians, to continue receiving U.S. aid. The decision drew widespread criticism from rights advocates, who argued that it ignored credible evidence of abuse.
The plaintiffs are asking a federal court to declare the State Department’s actions as “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion” under the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the implementation of federal laws. They are also seeking an injunction to prohibit U.S. aid to Israeli military units implicated in human rights violations and a requirement for the State Department to produce a list of ineligible units.
Jarrar stressed that the lawsuit is not about foreign policy but about ensuring compliance with existing U.S. laws. “This is not an issue of foreign policy. It’s not an issue of politics,” he said. “We’re just asking the judge to instruct the State Department to obey the law.”
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