The looming decision over billions of dollars in requested assistance to Israel for its military campaign in the Gaza Strip is testing some basic humanitarian principles of the Biden administration and putting extraordinary scrutiny on Washington’s relationship to Israel.
Congress is expected to revisit the emergency aid request when it returns in late November from the Thanksgiving recess. The House passed a bill that would provide $14.3 billion in mostly security assistance to Israel. The Senate has yet to act amid disagreement with the House over whether to include billions of dollars in support for Ukraine.
Lawmakers’ decision will come during a heated legal debate over whether the carnage from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel — in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered and another roughly 240 individuals were taken hostage — means the normal international rules of war, requiring extreme care to reduce civilian casualties, still apply in Israel’s drive to eradicate Hamas.
The evolution of the body of conventions and treaties that make up modern international humanitarian law is a response to the devastating civilian losses from the wars of the 20th century. It holds that, regardless of the legality of the underlying war being waged, civilians must not be disproportionately harmed in pursuit of a military objective and that distinctions must be made between legitimate military targets and civilian sites.
Thousands of residents of Gaza have been killed and thousands more have been injured, according to critics of Israel’s actions. Israel says it is taking reasonable measures to lessen civilian casualties but because Hamas has placed weapons caches and dug tunnels in civilian areas, including hospitals, civilian deaths are inevitable.
“It has been almost six weeks of hell for the people of Gaza. … Six weeks far too long for the hostages and their families, and far too long for the entire region,” Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said Nov. 16 in Geneva. “It has also been six weeks of total disregard for international humanitarian law. I have to say the scale of destruction and loss is just staggering.”
Lawmakers acknowledge the human cost but remain overwhelmingly supportive of Israel.
“The Palestinians are victims of Hamas. Just as the Jewish people are victims of Hamas. This is the largest killing of Jewish people since my father’s war, World War II, and the Holocaust,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in an interview with CNN on Nov. 15. “And that, you know, is hugely important. Our gripe is not with the Palestinian people. We want to liberate them from their oppressor.”
Many Democrats, while still supportive of the security package for Israel, are calling for the Israel Defense Forces to undertake more humanitarian pauses to allow fuel, food and other supplies into densely packed Gaza. Comparatively few are calling for the total cease-fire that many human rights experts say is needed for both the immediate protection of Palestinian civilians as well as for the long-term interests of Israel and the United States.
The intense focus coming from outside activists both for and against the proposed arms transfers to the IDF has drawn a renewed and sometimes uncomfortable focus to the unique position Israel has long held when it comes to receiving weapons assistance that the U.S. would have cut off or reduced from other nations with similar civilian casualties and apparent rights violations.
The United States’ veto power on the U.N. Security Council leaves little chance that any resolution to punish Israel and its Western arms suppliers for humanitarian law violations can pass. But Washington’s reputation in much of the world, especially the Middle East, is harmed by the Palestinian civilian death toll, experts say, and that undermines the effort to persuade more developing countries to side with the West against Russia and China.
