WASHINGTON — Several US Democratic senators have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to quickly investigate what a classified government watchdog report has described as “many hundreds” of human rights violations committed by the Israeli military in Gaza during the two-year genocide.
Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jack Reed organized the petition to Rubio, warning in a letter to the State Department on Tuesday that delays in investigating incidents of Israeli killing, torture and abuse in Gaza during the genocide undermine laws barring US security assistance for foreign military units that commit atrocities, The Washington Post reported.
Other Senate Democrats who signed on to the letter include Jeff Merkley, Elizabeth Warren, Edward J. Markey, Peter Welch, Brian Schatz, Tim Kaine, Patty Murray, and Tina Smith, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, also signed it.
“Without effective enforcement mechanisms, these laws and policies become meaningless,” the senators wrote.
The classified report they cite was produced by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General, and reported by The Washington Post last month. It found that reviewing all the violations would take “multiple years”.
The US government has flagged several incidents of Israeli human rights violations during the course of its war on Gaza, including the killing of seven aid workers for World Central Kitchen in April 2024, and the killing of over 100 Palestinians around aid trucks in Gaza City in February 2024, labelled the ‘Flour Massacre’.
The report was conducted in line with the country’s Leahy Laws, which bar the US from giving financial and military aid to units that commit atrocities, including extrajudicial killings and torture.
“Given these findings, we urge you to quickly implement the OIG’s recommendations and adjudicate these cases in a timely manner in order to ensure compliance with US law,” the senators wrote.
About 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the start of the genocide in Oct. 7, 2023.
A number of international and Israeli human rights organisations, independent UN experts, and scholars have labeled Israel’s war in Gaza genocide against Palestinians.
A recent UN commission of inquiry also said Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. — QNN
