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 Justice (DOJ) to investigate Biden administration officials who reportedly received almost 500 reports alleging Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons for attacks on civilians in Gaza, but failed to take action.
Some of the reports to the State Department allegedly amount to violations of U.S. and international law, and were received from government officials, aid organizations, nonprofits, media reports, and eyewitnesses.
According to the Washington Post: “Dozens include photo documentation of U.S.-made bomb fragments at sites where scores of children were killed.”
The Post also stated:
“Yet despite the State Department’s internal Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, which directs officials to complete an investigation and recommend action within two months of launching an inquiry, no single case has reached the ‘action’ stage, current and former officials told The Washington Post. More than two-thirds of cases remain unresolved, they said, with many pending response from the Israeli government, which the State Department consults to verify each case’s circumstances…
“Among the cases submitted to the State Department, according to people familiar with the matter, are the January killing of a 6-year-old girl and her family in their car, with pieces of a U.S.-made 120mm tank round purportedly found at the scene. There were shards of American-made small diameter bombs photographed at a family’s home and at a school sheltering displaced civilians after airstrikes in May killed dozens of women and children. And there was the tail fin of a Boeing-manufactured Joint Direct Attack Munition on the scene of a July airstrike that killed at least 90 Palestinians.”
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“It is clear that the Biden administration never cared about Israel’s illegal use of American taxpayer-supplied weapons to kill and maim Palestinians civilians and cares even less that the far-right Israeli government uses those weapons in violation of U.S. and international laws.
“We call on the Department of Justice to investigate the actions of those responsible for monitoring the illegal use of these weapons and enforcing Israel’s compliance with our nation’s laws.”
In a post on X, Awad wrote: “Nothing can explain why the Biden/Harris administration ignored 500 reports of American weapons used by Israel to kill civilians except corruption and racism.”
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.
Yesterday, CAIR predicted that the Biden administration will once again remain silent after the Israeli government bombed and levelled a residential building in Gaza, killing more than 100 people, including children.
Israel has already slaughtered more than 43,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and has destroyed most of the civilian infrastructure, forcibly displaced almost all of the civilian population, and imposed forced starvation.
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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