US declares controversial Israeli battalion eligible for assistance
Al Jazeera
State Department says concerns over alleged rights violations have been ‘effectively remediated’.
The United States has announced that Netzah Yehuda, a controversial Israeli battalion notorious among Palestinians for repressive activities in the occupied West Bank, is eligible for US military assistance.
The administration of President Joe Biden had considered blocking the battalion from receiving US assistance amid reports of involvement in human rights violations, but Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Friday that such abuses had been “effectively remediated”.
The Reuters news agency reported that Miller said in an email that the decision to confirm the battalion’s eligibility comes amid new information from Israel.
In 2022, soldiers from the unit handcuffed, blindfolded and gagged elderly US citizen Omar Assad and left him to die in a cold car park.
Under federal regulations known as the Leahy Law, the US is required to cut off assistance to military units involved in gross violations of human rights, but critics say that the US has long failed to apply the rule to Israel.
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