U.S. Weighs Ending Aid to Israeli Military Unit for Alleged Human Rights Abuses

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at potential U.S. decision to cut off aid to an Israeli military unit, Germany’s arrest of three suspected spies for China, and crumbling relations between the United States and Niger.

Alleged Human Rights Abuses 

Top Israeli officials were caught off guard by reports that Washington is considering cutting off U.S. aid to an Israeli battalion accused of committing human rights abuses in the West Bank before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. If that occurred, it would mark the first time that Washington has announced such measures against an Israeli military unit.

The unit in question is the Israel Defense Forces’ Netzah Yehuda battalion, which was established in 1999 for ultra-Orthodox and religious nationalist soldiers. In one of Netzah Yehuda’s most public human rights controversies, U.S. officials called for an investigation into the unit’s role in the death of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American man, in 2022.

The potential move comes in response to a ProPublica article published last week that revealed that an internal U.S. State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Antony Blinken cut off U.S. aid to multiple Israeli military and police units due to credible allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses, but Blinken had taken no action. The panel, called the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum, is tasked with ensuring that U.S. aid to Israel complies with the so-called Leahy Laws, which require the United States to cut off aid to any foreign military or police units that are credibly accused of gross human rights violations.

Blinken said last week after the ProPublica report came out that he had “made determinations” based on the panel’s recommendations and that the details of his decision would be made public in the coming days. He did not specify which Israeli military or police units were being evaluated, but U.S. sources told Axios that although several were investigated, only Netzah Yehuda would be cut off from U.S. aid, as the other units had remedied their behavior. Media and human rights organizations have documented alleged abuses including sexual assault, torture, and extrajudicial killings committed by Israeli security forces other than Netzah Yehuda, including Yamam, an elite Israeli border police unit that carries out counterterrorism operations.

The reports of the potential aid cutoff to Netzah Yehuda have alarmed and angered Israeli officials, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posting on X that doing so would be “the peak of absurdity and a moral low” and vowing that the Israeli government will “act by all means” against such a decision. Benny Gantz, a minister in the Israeli war cabinet, also urged Blinken to reconsider the decision in a conversation on Sunday, Gantz’s office said.

Yet even as the United States weighs pausing aid to the battalion, the Biden administration still appears set to funnel billions more in military assistance to Israel. Over the weekend, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a foreign aid bill that would send Israel some $26.4 billion in aid, with some money allocated toward humanitarian aid for Gaza. The bill now advances to the Senate, where it is widely expected to pass.

Separately, on Monday, Israeli military intelligence chief Aharon Haliva announced that he would resign over his department’s failure to warn of the impending Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault. Haliva is the highest-ranking Israeli official to step down from his post since the attack. “The intelligence directorate under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with,” Haliva wrote in his resignation letter. “I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night after night. I will carry the horrible pain of the war with me forever.”

Today’s Most Read

• A Tale of Two Megalopolises by Jan-Werner Müller
• Why Arab States Haven’t Broken With Israel by David E. Rosenberg
• Forget About Chips—China Is Coming for Ships by Agathe Demarais

The World This Week

Monday, April 22: Russian President Vladimir Putin holds talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Monday, April 22, to April 24: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi pays a three-day visit to Pakistan.

Wednesday, April 24, to April 26: Blinken visits China. 

Friday, April 26: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosts NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg for talks.

What We’re Following

Spying for China? German authorities have arrested three German citizens who are suspected of spying for China since at least June 2022, officials announced on Monday. The three individuals, whom authorities did not identify by their full names, are believed to have transferred sensitive naval data—and information on technology with military applications—to the Chinese government.

“At the time of their arrest, the accused were in further negotiations about research projects that could be particularly useful for expanding China’s maritime combat power,” German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said in a statement. The arrests come just days after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrapped a three-day tour to China, during which he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.

Ecuador’s harder line. In a referendum on Sunday, Ecuadoreans overwhelmingly voted to grant President Daniel Noboa greater powers to crack down on ongoing gang violence. Ecuador reported a record 8,000 homicides last year—making it the most violent country in South America—and Noboa has ordered the military to “neutralize” the country’s gangs in what he declared to be an “internal armed conflict.”

The approved proposals would enable Noboa to enact harsher security measures, including establishing joint police-military patrols and introducing longer sentences for those convicted of drug trafficking and terrorism. “We have defended the country, now we have more tools to fight against crime and return peace to Ecuadorean families,” Noboa posted on Instagram. Some human rights groups have previously criticized his approach, alleging that it has resulted in abuses.

Breakdown in ties. The United States has agreed to withdraw more than 1,000 military personnel stationed in Niger, U.S. officials said on Saturday, raising questions about the future of the U.S. position in the region as a growing number of African nations draw closer to Russia. The announcement comes around a month after the ruling Nigerien junta said that it was ending the two countries’ military cooperation deal and ordered the departure of the U.S. troops.

U.S. policy toward Niger suffered from a “gap between rhetoric and reality,” Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued earlier this month in Foreign Policy. “In a region that now is defined as the epicenter of global terrorism, Washington is on the back foot, increasingly blind to the plans of jihadi groups and dangerously low on the goodwill required to maintain a foothold there, imperiling its vital strategic interests,” he wrote.

Odds and Ends

Emerson, a tubby elephant seal, has become something of a local celebrity at one beach in Victoria, British Columbia. But when wildlife officials tried to relocate him to another beach 125 miles away—out of concern for his and the public’s safety—they learned the hard way that it’s tough to keep stars away from their adoring fans. Emerson raced back to the beach, swimming some 20 miles per day, to keep the show going for his favorite followers.