Five Israel Defense Force units were implicated in “serious breaches of human rights” outside the Gaza Strip prior to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which claimed hundreds of lives, according to information released by the State Department on Monday, April 29, 2024.
Four IDF units have been “remediated” by Israel, a spokesperson said, and a fifth unit that isn’t publicly named at the time was still being considered for possible sanctions from the US, like the termination of military aid, supplies, and training.
“We continue to be in consultations and engagements with the Government of Israel. They have submitted additional information as it pertains to that unit,” according to State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel, who told reporters at the time.
The Leahy Laws state that the US is not allowed to support military organizations that have been credibly implicated in gross violations of human rights and have not been brought to justice. In practice, however, successive administrations have carved out a de facto exemption for Israel, allowing billions of dollars in military financing to flow despite documented abuses against Palestinians.
Rumors of approaching sanctions were sparked by Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s announcement on April 19, 2024 that he had reached “conclusions” regarding claims of violations of human rights in the West Bank.
However, Blinken revealed in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that the agency had received new information about the fifth division, which was widely understood to be the Netzah Yehuda battalion, a unit primarily made up of ultra-Orthodox nationalist Jews that has long operated in the occupied West Bank as part of the Kfir Brigade.
Patel stressed at the time that the State Department was not yet prepared to formally announce any penalties.
“The government of Israel has submitted additional information. We are currently reviewing it,” Patel stated. “We’re engaging with them in a process and we’ll make a decision from there when that process is complete.”
Regarding the order of events and the time frame for making a final decision about penalties, Patel was evasive.
“The standard of remediation is that these respective countries take effective steps to hold the accountable party to justice. And that is different on a country-by-country basis,” Vedant Patel noted.
The incident “does not impact the overall security partnership” between the US and Israel, Patel emphasized—a framing that critics said exposed exactly the problem, since the partnership appeared to take priority over enforcing the law.
Patel was questioned by journalists about the State Department’s compliance with the Leahy Laws by letting Israel handle the matter. The spokesperson denied that the Jewish state was getting “preferential treatment” from the US, though human rights advocates and former department insiders argued the opposite was plainly true.
When 78-year-old American Palestinian Omar Assad was detained at a sudden Israeli military checkpoint in January 2022, the Netzah Yehuda battalion was accused of misconduct. Eyewitnesses said Assad was handcuffed, gagged, and left lying on the ground in near-freezing conditions before being abandoned by the departing soldiers; he was later found dead from cardiac arrest.
Assad’s death was described as “a serious and regrettable occurrence, stemming from a lapse in morality and inadequate judgment by the troops” in an IDF investigation. No member of Netzah Yehuda was ever charged or prosecuted for his death; the only measures taken were administrative, with two soldiers reportedly discharged and a commander reprimanded.
The Biden administration came under heavy fire from House Speaker Mike Johnson for considering sanctions against the IDF unit. Johnson told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the matter had been raised even before the “aid” bill was brought up for a vote in the House—a reference to roughly $26 billion in assistance tied to Israel and the Palestinians.
“And I’ll tell you what I did, Hugh, and I don’t, I guess I’m breaking news here,” Johnson continued. “No one knows this. But I called the White House immediately and talked with Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Tony Blinken was overseas at the moment.”
“I am very hopeful that they won’t try to proceed on that. If they do, we’ll intervene,” he added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant likewise lobbied Washington aggressively to abandon the move, with Netanyahu vowing to “fight it with all my strength.”
That pressure campaign worked. On August 9, 2024, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller announced that Blinken had determined Israel had “effectively remediated” the violations by Netzah Yehuda—a finding that kept the battalion eligible for US security assistance and ended the investigation without a single sanction ever being imposed. It was the resolution Israeli leaders had demanded, and it left the unprecedented threat of holding an Israeli unit accountable entirely hollow.
Experts and department insiders rejected the rationale outright. Charles Blaha, the former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights who once oversaw Leahy vetting, called the outcome “an outrage and another example of special treatment for Israel,” noting that no one was ever punished for Assad’s killing. He warned that dozens of Israeli security units credibly implicated in gross violations remain eligible for American assistance because the department refuses to apply its own law. Reporting later indicated that, far from being sidelined, Netzah Yehuda commanders were promoted and went on to help train other IDF units operating in Gaza.
The 2024 announcement came amid rumors that the International Criminal Court might pursue war crimes charges against Israeli officials over their conduct in the Gaza war—a campaign that, by then, had killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated the territory.
“On this investigation, our position is clear. We continue to believe that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the Palestinian situation,” Vedant Patel concluded—a stance widely read as Washington shielding Israel from accountability on multiple fronts at once.
For related coverage, see The Aegis Alliance’s ongoing reporting in our Politics and US News sections. Additional background on the Leahy Laws and the Netzah Yehuda case is available from Al Jazeera and ProPublica.
