The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the U.S. Department of State and Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate more reports of Israeli forces using Palestinian civilians as “human shields” in Gaza as violations of American laws on weapons transfers to nations that violate human rights.
The Guardian reports: “According to whistleblowers who spoke to the dissident veterans’ group Breaking The Silence (BTS), the practice is widespread. The forcible use of Palestinian detainees to enter houses and tunnels in Gaza first came into public view in footage broadcast by Al Jazeera television in June and July. An investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in August gathered testimony from Israeli soldiers who said the Palestinians used as shields were known as ‘shawish’, a word of Turkish origin meaning ‘sergeant’. The soldiers suggested that it was an institutionalised tactic approved by senior officers.”
According to the New York Times: “The Times interviewed seven Israeli soldiers who observed or participated in the practice and presented it as routine, commonplace and organized, conducted with considerable logistical support and the knowledge of superiors on the battlefield.”
CAIR also said the DOJ and the State Department should investigate images post online of ethnic cleansing in norther Gaza in which hundreds of civilians are shown being forcibly removed from their homes and land. Images also show Israeli forces burning the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza.
The “Leahy law” prohibits the U.S. Government from “using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR).”
[NOTE: ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. CAIR welcomed the launch of a case by South Africa in the United Nations’ top court accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.]
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“The State Department and the Department of Justice must investigate these credible charges of widespread and systematic human rights abuses by military forces that receive weapons paid for by American taxpayers and used against a civilian population. These abuses, and the obvious and open ethnic cleansing of Gaza violate our nation’s laws. The Biden administration’s complicity with this genocide stains our national reputation and will haunt our diplomats for generations to come when they are told to ‘remember Gaza’ whenever they bring up the subject of human rights.”
He noted that last month, CAIR called for the resignation of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken after he reportedly lied to Congress after two government authorities concluded that Israel deliberately blocked deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza. American law requires the government to cut off weapons supplies to nations that prevent delivery of humanitarian aid.
Yesterday, CAIR said history will judge President Biden and his administration’s officials for enabling genocide after another massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, this time murdering 87 – including many children – in an Israeli attack on north Gaza’s Beit Lahiya.
Also over the weekend, CAIR said the Israeli massacres of civilians in Gaza demonstrate the Biden administration’s lack of respect for Arab and Muslim humanity and its complicity with genocide.
The far-right Israeli government has slaughtered more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, in the past year.
On Friday, CAIR condemned the reported Israeli “double tap” targeting a child in Gaza and the rescuers who came to that child’s aid.
Video posted online shows the child in the street after being wounded by Israeli fire. When other civilians came to that child’s aid, they were targeted by Israeli forces.
Last week, CAIR said “the seemingly endless list of Israeli massacres of civilians in Gaza is the direct result of the Biden administration’s complicity with genocide.”
CAIR’s statement came after Israel slaughtered at least 28 people, including women and children, at one of the main UN-run shelters in Jabalia refugee camp. Israel has already slaughtered more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children.
Also last week, CAIR condemned the murder of the mayor of the town of Nabatieh in Lebanon by Israeli forces, a reported plan by Israel’s ruling Likud Party to establish illegal settlements in Gaza and video posted online showing Israel destroying an entire Lebanese village.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com