US renounces sanctions against Israeli unit behind death of Palestinian-American

The United States has ruled out imposing sanctions on an Israeli military unit over the 2022 killing of a Palestinian-American man.

The dead body of Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, 78, was found handcuffed and blindfolded in an abandoned house in Jalaliya in the occupied West Bank. Israeli regime forces belonging to the ultra-Orthodox Zionist Netzah Yehuda unit, who had mistreated As’ad, were held responsible for his death.

However, the US State Department said on Friday that the Israeli unit had been acquitted of sanctions following a probe into the death of As'ad.

Family of Palestinian who died in Israeli detention rejects compensation

Human rights groups have documented a large number of cases of Israeli soldiers gunning down peaceful Palestinians.

As’ad, a former grocer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died in January 2022 after he was stopped at a checkpoint on his way home to Jalaliya in the occupied West Bank. 

The Israeli regime acknowledged that the unit's mistreatment of As’ad had caused his death. It concluded that his death was the result of “a moral failure and poor decision-making on the part of the soldiers.”

However, the US State Department claimed that the human rights abuses by the Israeli forces had been "effectively remediated," allowing the unit to continue receiving military aid from Washington.

It said Israeli top brass had taken necessary action in this regard, and that the forces involved in the incident had left.

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman stated, "As we made public in April, the Department of State found after a careful review that incidents of gross violations of human rights by two units of the Israeli Defense Forces and two civilian authority units had been effectively remediated."

He added the agency had since then continued to review an additional unit, based on new information provided by Israel, and determined that "violations by this unit have also been effectively remediated."

Miller said, "Consistent with the Leahy process, this unit can continue receiving security assistance from the United States of America."

The Leahy Law, named after former Senator Patrick Leahy, requires the US government to withhold military aid to foreign military or law enforcement units if there is credible evidence of human rights violations.

Israel killed at least 9,240 Palestinian students since October: Education ministry

Over 9,000 students have been killed and more than 15,000 wounded in the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

In the meantime, overnight military raids by Israeli forces have become a common feature of life in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians are frequently exposed to live fire, arrests, assaults and killings by the Israeli regime forces.

Some 3,070 Palestinians have been forced from their homes due to demolitions, Israeli settler violence and land confiscations in the past 10 months, compared with 1,252 in the previous period, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

OCHA added that some 181,000 people in the West Bank had been affected at least once by demolitions, and destruction of roads, water and sanitation facilities, and other public infrastructure since October 7, mainly during Israeli military raids in Tulkarem and Jenin.

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