The U.S. accused of ignoring proof of civilian harm to continue ‘unconditional weapons transfers’ to Israel, reports say.
The United States identified about 500 reports of Gaza civilians harmed and killed by Israeli forces using US-supplied weapons but has failed to take action on any of them, according to The Washington Post and the Reuters news agency.
These incidents have been compiled since October 7, 2023, when guidance from the U.S. Department of State on Civilian Harm Incident Response came into force structured means of recording and investigating any reports of US-origin weapons being misused and were reported by the Post on Wednesday.
Included among the cases referred to the State Department, according to people briefed on the matter, is the January killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab and her family in their car, where pieces of a US-made 120mm tank round were supposedly recovered at the scene.
There were shards of US-made small-diameter bombs photographed at a family’s home and at a school sheltering displaced civilians after air attacks in May killed dozens of women and children.
And there was the tail fin of a Boeing-manufactured Joint Direct Attack Munition on the scene of a July attack that killed dozens of Palestinians.
State Department officials compiled the incidents from publicly available information, drawing on various sources, including media reports, civil society groups, and foreign government contacts.
According to an internal State Department cable from December reviewed by Reuters, that mechanism, established last August to be applied to all countries receiving U.S. arms, has three tiers: incident analysis, policy impact assessment, and coordinated department action. According to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter, none of the cases from Gaza had progressed to the third stage.
