US report flags hundreds of violations committed by Israel in Gaza

The US government believes that Israel has committed hundreds of human rights violations in its war on Gaza, according to a new report.

The investigation, conducted by the US State Department's Office of the Inspector General, found that "many hundreds" of violations have been committed during the war, and that reviewing all would take "multiple years", according to the Washington Post, citing US officials.

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.

The US officials said there were doubts about accountability over the findings due to the scale of the backlog and how Israeli military violations are assessed, often with favourability towards Israel.

This includes assigning higher-level officials to conduct a lengthier process of assessing Israeli violations, the Washington Post said, adding that a working group, made up of members of the US embassy in Jerusalem and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, needed to come to a consensus about whether violations have occurred.

The Israeli government is also consulted on incidents and whether they were addressed, with findings of violations having to be signed off by the secretary of state before aid can be withdrawn under the Leahy Laws.

For other countries across the world, only an objection from one official is needed to withhold military aid.

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'.

When flagged to Congress, the then-Biden administration said it had not come to "definitive conclusions" about the role of US weapons in the killings.

Israel is widely accused of committing genocide in Gaza - where it has killed over 68,000 Palestinians - including by UN experts and leading human rights groups like Amnesty International.

The UN's International Court of Justice is investigating a case brought by South Africa that Israel is violating the genocide convention in Gaza, while the International Criminal Court has placed arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes charges.