Israel expects its top ally, the United States, to announce as soon as Monday that it's blocking military aid to an Israeli army unit over gross human rights abuses in the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the war in Gaza began six months ago. The move would mark the first time in the decades-long partnership between the two countries that a U.S. administration has invoked a landmark 27-year-old congressional act known as the Leahy law against an Israeli military unit. It comes as the U.S.
Harrison points to a 2021 treaty in which Israel stipulated it wouldn't share U.S. military aid with any unit that the U.S. had deemed credibly guilty of gross human rights abuses. U.S. law points to one way out for an offender: A secretary of state can waive the Leahy law if he or she determines the government involved is taking effective steps to bring the offenders in the targeted unit to justice. The U.S.