Years before Oct. 7, soldiers and officers in four Israeli security force units committed what the U.S. State Department would later determine to be serious human rights violations against Palestinians.
In one incident in 2019, an Israel Defense Forces soldier shot and killed an unarmed Palestinian man on the side of a road in the West Bank. That soldier was given no jail time — only three months of community service. Under the U.S. Leahy Laws, the government must disqualify any military or law enforcement unit from receiving assistance if there’s credible information that the group had committed violations like rape or extrajudicial killings, unless the offending entity has taken adequate steps to punish the perpetrator…..more
