For the first time, the United States is expected to impose sanctions on an Israeli military unit. The Netzah Yehuda Battalion, initially set up to accommodate Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews but which quickly expanded to become a popular unit for radical right-wing settlers, has over the years been accused of a series of human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The first word of the prospective sanctions emerged over the weekend when several Israeli and American news outlets reported that the Biden administration was gearing up to sanction Netzah Yehuda. Citing three unnamed US sources “with knowledge of the issue”, news website Axios said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was expected to announce the unprecedented move against the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) “within days”. The sanctions relate to human rights abuses committed by the unit in the West Bank prior to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, it said.
‘A unit every army should be ashamed of’
The news sparked angry reactions in Israel. “The IDF must not be sanctioned!” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wrote in a post on X, describing the prospect of the sanctions as “the height of absurdity and a moral low” at a time when Israeli forces are fighting a war in Gaza against Hamas.
Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s political rival and a key centrist minister in Israel’s war cabinet, responded in a similar manner: “We have great respect for our American friends, but imposing sanctions on the unit is a dangerous precedent and sends the wrong message to our shared enemies at a time of war.”
One of the main reasons for the anger is that the US would need to invoke the 1997 Leahy Laws to sanction the battalion. Leahy has previously been used to blacklist Indonesian military units accused of kidnapping and murdering political activists, as well as members of the Pakistani army involved in assassination campaigns in Afghanistan.
“Sanctions on an IDF unit is a terrible stain on the Israeli Defence Forces. If you look at the groups [previously targeted by] US sanctions you will see that it is not going to be good company for the IDF to be part of,” Ahron Bregman, a political scientist and an expert on the Israel-Palestinian conflict at King’s College in London, said, adding “the Israelis will fight hard to try and prevent it”.
He noted, however, that even though the Netzah Yehuda is an integral part of the IDF, it is “a unit every army should be ashamed of”.
“My fellow Israelis will hate me saying it but Netzah Yehuda is a sort of an Israeli-style Wagner Group,” he said.
Omri Brinner, an Israeli analyst and specialist in Middle East geopolitics at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona (ITSS), said it was a bold comparison. "It's not some private military group fighting for money. They are an integral part of IDF."
But the Netzah Yehuda is no ordinary unit. Created in 1999, it was initially set up to accommodate ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army by allowing them time to maintain their religious practices and limiting interactions with female soldiers. Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community is normally exempt from the state’s strict military service. Over the years, the unit’s special status and benefits – it has a dedicated rabbi and its members have time set aside for prayers – has generated heated debate in Israel, with some criticising the special treatment it has been accorded.
An explosive mix of ultra-Orthodox and radical settlers
Brinner noted that since Netzah Yehuda’s creation, the unit has also morphed into “something different” from the ideal of the “army for all” it was intended to be. Especially after few ultra-Orthodox Jews, despite the perks, showed any willingness to join. To remedy this, the unit began recruiting beyond the ultra-Orthodox circles.
“Some of them were hardcore settlers who found opportunity to serve in West Bank were they lived and be given legitimacy to exert their power over Palestinians,” Brinner explained.
In a 2022 investigative report into the abuse claims against Netzah Yehuda, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote that “one of the most controversial decisions surrounding the group was to limit service to the West Bank”.
Since then, the number of incidents involving the unit have piled up. “Netzah Yehuda, with just 500 soldiers in the battalion, has the highest conviction rate of any unit in the Israeli military for offences against Palestinians since 2010,” the WSJ wrote, citing the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din.
Speaking to former members of the unit, Israeli daily Haaretz reported how radical settlers started to view the unit as “their own” battalion against Palestinians.
"We would go out on routine operations in the villages and suddenly one of the guys would throw a stun grenade at a home or a passing car. It's usually just for laughs and because of stories they've heard about what battalion veterans have done," a former Netzah Yehuda soldier told the newspaper.
This explosive mix of ultra-Orthodox Jews and radical right-wing settlers meant that the unit for a long time was limited to the West Bank: Deploying it near the Lebanese border or the outskirts of Gaza was deemed too dangerous. But according to some Israeli media, the unit has been fighting inside Gaza since January 2024.
“It was a risky bet. When you have people like that, it’s better to have them with you and be able to control them to some degree," Brinner said.
The US investigation
The Netzah Yehuda Battalion went too far on 12 January 2022, however, even by US standards. This is when 78-year-old Omar Assad was detained by Netzah Yehuda soldiers and died of a heart attack. His body was later found abandoned at a building site. The problem was that Assad had dual Palestinian-American citizenship – and the US State Department opened an investigation into the matter.
Israel dismissed two officers over the incident and reprimanded the batallion commander but never opened a criminal investigation. According to prosecutors, there was no link between the errors made by the unit’s soldiers and Assad’s death.
At the end of 2022, the unit was redeployed to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Syria, near the Lebanon border. "The decision was taken too late to move them out of the West Bank," Brinner said.
The threatened US sanction would thus conclude the investigation into Assad’s death.
“The problem has been known for years. But it takes time for the US to investigate. They [the Americans] also looked for an opportunity to release the decision. So, on the one hand, [financial] support was offered to the Israelis by the Senate. And the other end of the stick is a forthcoming decision to impose sanctions on this unit probably,” Bregman said.
And it’s no tiny stick Israel is facing. If sanctioned, the Netzah Yehuda would no longer be allowed to use American equipment, including weapons and ammunition. This means IDF will either have to disband it or place it on standby until the sanctions are lifted.
But mostly, it would be an enormous blow to the Israeli government. “It is a clear message from the Americans to the Israelis that the latter are not doing enough to investigate unlawful actions taken by troops, and when the Israelis do investigate, the punishment is too light,” Bregman said.
This article was adapted from the original in French.
