The United States is set to announce sanctions against the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) Netzah Yehuda battalion over alleged human rights abuses in the West Bank, according to a report. The West Bank is one of two territories where Palestinians live, the other being Gaza.
It would be the first time the US imposes sanctions on an Israeli military unit, including a ban on the battalion receiving any form of US military assistance.
Netzah Yehuda, also known as “Judea Forever,” is a special unit for ultra-Orthodox Jewish soldiers, aimed at integrating a segment of the population that typically doesn’t serve in the military.
It came as Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight killed 18 people, including 14 children. Among the casualties were a man, his wife, and their 3-year-old child; the woman, pregnant, managed to save the baby, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital.
Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge.
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The planned move by the US did not go down well with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took to X and wrote: “Sanctions must not be imposed on the Israel Defense Forces!”
Netanyahu added, “In recent weeks, I have been working against the imposition of sanctions on Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with senior American government officials.”
“At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low.”
“The government headed by me will act by all means against these moves.”
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On Thursday, the American investigative website ProPublica reported that a special committee of the American State Department, which investigated allegations of human rights violations in the West Bank, forwarded recommendations a few months ago to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to impose sanctions on several units of the IDF and the Israel Police and to prevent them from receiving American funding.
At least 34,097 Palestinians have been killed and 76,980 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attacks stands at 1,139, with dozens still held captives in Gaza.
