Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said he will fight against the imposition of sanctions on Israeli military units because of alleged violations of human rights, after the media reported that Washington was planning a similar step, reported Reuters, quoted by BTA.
On Saturday, the Axios news site reported that Washington planned to impose sanctions on Israel's Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has operated in the occupied West Bank, although the Israeli military said it was unaware of such measures.
The US on Friday announced a new round of sanctions related to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, in the latest sign of growing US frustration with the policies of Netanyahu, whose coalition government relies on settler parties.
"If someone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) - I will fight it with all my might,'' Netanyahu said in a statement.
The State Department declined to comment beyond remarks made Friday by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who said he had made "decisions" on allegations that Israel has violated a set of US laws that prohibit providing military aid to individuals or security forces who commit gross
The incidents that were the subject of the charges occurred in the West Bank mostly before Israel's war with "Hamas" in Gaza, which began on October 7, Pro Publica said. Before the Gaza war, violence increased in the West Bank, a land the Palestinians want to make their own state, and since then it has increased with frequent Israeli incursions, Palestinian street attacks and settler atrocities in Palestinian villages.
In 2022, the battalion commander "Netzah Yehuda" was reprimanded and two officers were fired over the death of an elderly Palestinian with a US passport whom the unit's soldiers detained in the West Bank, an incident that has raised concerns in Washington.
"Süddeutsche Zeitung" writes that a Palestinian man named Omar Assad allegedly resisted checks at an Israeli checkpoint outside his village in the occupied West Bank. Soldiers from the Netzach Yehuda Battalion tied up the 78-year-old man and later left him lying on the ground in the freezing night. He was found dead several hours later, Axios and the Times of Israel reported.
In recent years, there have been several other incidents, some of them captured on video, in which soldiers from "Netzach Yehuda" are accused of mistreating detained Palestinians.