US says Israel may have breached international law with American weapons in Gaza

BBC:

The US says Israel may have used American-supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law in some instances during the war in Gaza.

It is “reasonable to assess” that US-supplied arms have been used in ways “inconsistent” with Israel’s obligations, says the state department.

But it added that the US government did not have “complete information” in its assessment.

The report was submitted to Congress on Friday after a delay.

The White House-ordered review looked into how the country, along with six others engaged in conflict, has used US-supplied arms since the start of last year.

While the report was a clear rebuke of some Israeli operations in Gaza, it stopped short of definitively saying that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign had breached international law.

Israel had had to confront an “extraordinary military challenge” fighting Hamas in Gaza, it said.

And it added that assurances it had received from Israel about adhering to the legal use of US weapons were “credible and reliable”, and so weapons shipments could continue.

The document also noted that because Hamas “uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes and civilians as human shields”, it was often “difficult to determine facts on the ground in an active war zone” of what are legitimate targets.

But it said that given Israel’s significant reliance on US-made weapons, they had probably been used “in instances inconsistent with its IHL [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm”.