FIVE Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States are suing the US government to try to cut off American assistance to the Israeli military over its involvement in serious human rights abuses.
The lawsuit, announced on Tuesday, accuses the Department of State of failing to implement a federal law that prohibits the transfer of funds to foreign military units engaged in gross violations such as extrajudicial killings and torture.
“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 reads.
Israel’s bombardment and ground operations in Gaza have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians since early October 2023, and the United Nations and the world’s leading rights groups have accused the Israeli military of carrying out war crimes, including genocide.
The lead plaintiff in the case, a Gaza teacher referred to by the pseudonym Amal Gaza, has been forcibly displaced seven times since the war began and 20 of her family members have been killed in Israeli attacks.
“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,” she said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.
Contacted by Al Jazeera for comment, the State Department said it does not comment on pending litigation.
The case centres around what’s known as the Leahy Law, a federal regulation that bars the US government from providing funds to foreign military units when there is “credible information” implicating them in gross violations of human rights.
Those violations include torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and rape, the US State Department says in a factsheet explaining the law.
“We’re asking the government to obey the law,” Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at DAWN, a US nonprofit that campaigns for democracy and human rights in the Arab world and is supporting the plaintiffs in the case, told Al Jazeera.
For months, lawyers and human rights advocates have urged President Joe Biden’s administration to restrict assistance to the Israeli military amid multiple reports of violations against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Rights groups have documented Israel’s use of US-made weapons in several deadly attacks in Gaza, including indiscriminate strikes that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians.
