Ramallah [Palestine]: Five Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank, and the United States have filed a lawsuit against the US State Department, alleging its military assistance to Israel violates US laws designed to prevent support for human rights abuses. The case, filed on Tuesday, accuses the State Department of failing to enforce the Leahy Law, a federal statute prohibiting military aid to foreign units implicated in gross human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings and torture, according to Al Jazeera.
“The State Department’s calculated failure to apply the Leahy Law is particularly shocking in the face of the unprecedented escalation of Israeli [gross violations of human rights] since the Gaza War erupted on October 7, 2023,” the lawsuit states.
The conflict began on October 7 when Hamas launched a large-scale attack on Israel, killing over 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. In response, Israel launched an extensive military offensive targeting Hamas in Gaza, resulting in over 45,000 Palestinian deaths, according to reports.
One plaintiff, identified by the pseudonym Amal Gaza, is a teacher from Gaza who has been forcibly displaced seven times during the war. She claims 20 members of her family were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
“My suffering and the unimaginable loss my family has endured would be significantly lessened if the US stopped providing military assistance to Israeli units committing gross violations of human rights,” Amal stated in a declaration accompanying the lawsuit.
At the center of the case is the Leahy Law, which prohibits the US government from providing funds to foreign military units when there is “credible information” linking them to gross human rights violations. These include torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and rape.
The US provides at least $3.8 billion in military assistance to Israel annually, with researchers at Brown University estimating an additional $17.9 billion in aid has been allocated since the Gaza war began.
While the Biden administration considered halting assistance to the Netzah Yehuda Battalion—an Israeli army unit accused of abuses in the West Bank and linked to the death of an elderly Palestinian American—it ultimately allowed aid to continue, citing that the allegations had been “effectively remediated.”
Adding to international scrutiny, last month the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of “crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
This lawsuit aims to challenge the legality of US military aid to Israel under existing federal laws, marking a significant escalation in calls for accountability amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.