After Israeli forces killed 14 Palestinians during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, a unit of IDF is facing US sanctions. In a separate incident, around 18 people were killed during the overnight strike in Rafah as well.
According to Israeli media reports, US State Department officials have confirmed they are preparing to impose sanctions on the IDF's Netzah Yehuda battalion. This unit has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians.
This may be the first time the US government has targeted an IDF unit.
The US is also considering similar moves against other police and military units, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
The West Bank, a kidney-shaped area about 100 km (60 miles) long and 50 km wide, has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since it was seized by Israel in 1967.
A 16-year-old and a gunman were among the 14 Palestinians killed during the raids in West Bank on Saturday, according to the health authorities. It is one of the heaviest causalities reported in a few months.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said a number of militants were killed or arrested during the raid, and at least four soldiers were wounded in exchanges of fire.
In a separate incident, the Palestinian health ministry said a 50-year-old ambulance driver was killed by Israeli gunfire near the village of Al-Sawiya, south of the city of Nablus, as he was transporting people injured during the attack on the village.
The US reported plans were announced as Israeli strikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday night killed 18 people, including 14 children, according to health officials in Gaza.
The sanctions, which would be imposed under the 1997 Leahy law, would prohibit the transfer of US military aid to the unit and prevent soldiers and officers from participating in training either with the US military or in programmes that receive US funding, reported The Guardian.
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken's statement on Friday said that he had made "determinations" over the claim that Israel had violated the Leahy law, which prohibits the provision of military assistance to police or security units that commit gross violations of human rights.
In 1999, the Netzah Yehuda battalion, part of the Kfir brigade was set up to accommodate the religious beliefs of recruits from the ultra-Orthodox and national religious communities, including those from extremist settlements, and has historically been primarily deployed on the West Bank.
The US sanctions report prompted a sharp response from senior Israeli leaders, including Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The IDF must not be sanctioned!” he wrote on X. “I’ve been working in recent weeks against the sanctioning of Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with the American administration,” he said.
“At a time when our soldiers are fighting terrorist monsters, the intention to issue sanctions against a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low,” he added, committing to fight the move although it was not clear how.
Senior member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet and former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz also said that the Netza Yehuda battalion is an inseparable part of the Israel Defense Forces.
