Some US officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza

Some US officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza
Israeli soldiers sit in a military vehicle near Israel's border with Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Israel, April 17, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 28 April 2024
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Some US officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza

Some US officials say in internal memo Israel may be violating international law in Gaza
  • The submissions to the memo provide the most extensive picture to date of the divisions inside the State Department over whether Israel might be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza

WASHINGTON: Some senior US officials have advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken that they do not find “credible or reliable” Israel’s assurances that it is using US-supplied weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
Other officials upheld support for Israel’s representation.
Under a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by President Joe Biden in February, Blinken must report to Congress by May 8 whether he finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons does not violate US or international law.
By March 24, at least seven State Department bureaus had sent in their contributions to an initial “options memo” to Blinken. Parts of the memo, which has not been previously reported, were classified.
The submissions to the memo provide the most extensive picture to date of the divisions inside the State Department over whether Israel might be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
“Some components in the department favored accepting Israel’s assurances, some favored rejecting them and some took no position,” a US official said.
A joint submission from four bureaus — Democracy Human Rights & Labor; Population, Refugees and Migration; Global Criminal Justice and International Organization Affairs – raised “serious concern over non-compliance” with international humanitarian law during Israel’s prosecution of the Gaza war.
The assessment from the four bureaus said Israel’s assurances were “neither credible nor reliable.” It cited eight examples of Israeli military actions that the officials said raise “serious questions” about potential violations of international humanitarian law.
These included repeatedly striking protected sites and civilian infrastructure; “unconscionably high levels of civilian harm to military advantage“; taking little action to investigate violations or to hold to account those responsible for significant civilian harm and “killing humanitarian workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate.”
The assessment from the four bureaus also cited 11 instances of Israeli military actions the officials said “arbitrarily restrict humanitarian aid,” including rejecting entire trucks of aid due to a single “dual-use” item, “artificial” limitations on inspections as well as repeated attacks on humanitarian sites that should not be hit.
Another submission to the memo reviewed by Reuters, from the bureau of Political and Military Affairs, which deals with US military assistance and arms transfers, warned Blinken that suspending US weapons would limit Israel’s ability to meet potential threats outside its airspace and require Washington to re-evaluate “all ongoing and future sales to other countries in the region.”
Any suspension of US arms sales would invite “provocations” by Iran and aligned militias, the bureau said in its submission, illustrating the push-and-pull inside the department as it prepares to report to Congress.
The submission did not directly address Israel’s assurances.
Inputs to the memo from the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism and US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said they assessed Israel’s assurances as credible and reliable, a second US official told Reuters.
The State Department’s legal bureau, known as the Office of the Legal Adviser, “did not take a substantive position” on the credibility of Israel’s assurances, a source familiar with the matter said.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the agency doesn’t comment on leaked documents.
“On complex issues, the Secretary often hears a diverse range of views from within the Department, and he takes all of those views into consideration,” Miller said.

MAY 8 REPORT TO CONGRESS
When asked about the memo, an Israeli official said: “Israel is fully committed to its commitments and their implementation, among them the assurances given to the US government.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Biden administration officials repeatedly have said they have not found Israel in violation of international law.
Blinken has seen all of the bureau assessments about Israel’s pledges, the second US official said.
Matthew Miller on March 25 said the department received the pledges. However, the State Department is not expected to render its complete assessment of credibility until the May 8 report to Congress.
Further deliberations between the department’s bureaus are underway ahead of the report’s deadline, the US official said.
USAID also provided input to the memo. “The killing of nearly 32,000 people, of which the GOI (Government of Israel) itself assesses roughly two-thirds are civilian, may well amount to a violation of the international humanitarian law requirement,” USAID officials wrote in the submission.
USAID does not comment on leaked documents, a USAID spokesperson said.
The warnings about Israel’s possible breaches of international humanitarian law made by some senior State Department officials come as Israel is vowing to launch a military offensive into Rafah, the southern-most pocket of the Gaza Strip that is home to over a million people displaced by the war, despite repeated warnings from Washington not to do so.
Israel’s military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health authorities, most of them women and children.
Israel’s assault was launched in response to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 250 others taken hostage.
The National Security Memorandum was issued in early February after Democratic lawmakers began questioning whether Israel was abiding by international law.
The memorandum imposed no new legal requirements but asked the State Department to demand written assurances from countries receiving US-funded weapons that they are not violating international humanitarian law or blocking US humanitarian assistance.
It also required the administration to submit an annual report to Congress to assess whether countries are adhering to international law and not impeding the flow of humanitarian aid.
If Israel’s assurances are called into question, Biden would have the option to “remediate” the situation through actions ranging from seeking fresh assurances to suspending further US weapons transfers, according to the memorandum.
Biden can suspend or put conditions on US weapons transfers at any time.
He has so far resisted calls from rights groups, left-leaning Democrats and Arab American groups to do so.
But earlier this month he threatened for the first time to put conditions on the transfer of US weapons to Israel, if it does not take concrete steps to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.


US bomber joins air drill with S. Korea, Japan

US bomber joins air drill with S. Korea, Japan
Updated 7 sec ago
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US bomber joins air drill with S. Korea, Japan

US bomber joins air drill with S. Korea, Japan

SEOUL: South Korea, Japan, and the United States on Sunday conducted a joint air drill involving a heavy bomber, Seoul’s military said, in response to North Korea’s latest long-range missile test.
The exercise took place three days after Pyongyang launched one of its most powerful and advanced solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), which experts say could reach targets in the mainland US.
The drill mobilized the US’ B-1B bomber, South Korea’s F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets, and Japan’s F-2 jets, Seoul’s military said.
“The exercise demonstrates the commitment of the ROK-US alliance to integrated extended deterrence in response to the advancing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea,” said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff in a press release.
During the aerial maneuver, South Korea and Japan’s jets escorted the US strategic bomber to a designated location south of the Korean peninsula, “demonstrating an overwhelming capability to swiftly and accurately strike simulated targets,” it added.
The B-1B Lancer is a supersonic heavy bomber known for its high-speed performance with a payload of 75,000 pounds (34,000 kilograms) of munitions, including both conventional and precision-guided weapons.
It was the fourth time this year the bomber was deployed to the Korean peninsula, the military said, and the second time for a trilateral aerial exercise to counter Pyongyang’s military threats.
The North’s latest ICBM launch is said to have flown higher and further than any previous missile, according to North Korea as well as Seoul and Tokyo’s militaries, which tracked it in real-time.
The official Korean Central News Agency hailed it as “the world’s strongest strategic missile,” and leader Kim “expressed great satisfaction” at the successful launch.
North Korea “would never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces,” the agency said.
The launch came amid growing international scrutiny over Pyongyang’s purported deployment of thousands of troops to Russia to support Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine, raising concerns North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms could soon engage in combat.


Taiwan detects 37 Chinese aircraft near island

Taiwan detects 37 Chinese aircraft near island
Updated 5 min 18 sec ago
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Taiwan detects 37 Chinese aircraft near island

Taiwan detects 37 Chinese aircraft near island
  • China has ramped up military activity around Taiwan in recent years as Beijing pressures Taipei to accept its claims of sovereignty over the island

Taipei: Taiwan said it detected 37 Chinese fighter jets, drones and other aircraft near the self-ruled island on Sunday as Beijing carried out “long-distance” training flights.
China has ramped up military activity around Taiwan in recent years as Beijing pressures Taipei to accept its claims of sovereignty over the island.
The Chinese aircraft were spotted from 9:00 am (0100 GMT) and 35 of them crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which separates mainland China and Taiwan, and entered Taiwanese airspace on their way to the Western Pacific Ocean, the defense ministry said.
Taiwan’s military responded by deploying aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems, the ministry said.
The exercise came a day after Taiwan said it had detected a Chinese military “joint combat readiness patrol” around the island involving fighter jets and warships.
Taiwan spotted 27 Chinese aircraft and six warships in the 24 hours to 6:00 am on Sunday, the ministry said earlier.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has refused to rule out the use of force to bring the democratic island under its control.
Beijing held large-scale military drills around Taiwan last month, which were condemned by Taipei and its key backer the United States.
The Chinese military conducted long-distance training flights in late September, the ministry said previously, when Beijing also fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean.


Russian drone attack on Kyiv damages buildings, power lines, Ukraine says

Russian drone attack on Kyiv damages buildings, power lines, Ukraine says
Updated 03 November 2024
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Russian drone attack on Kyiv damages buildings, power lines, Ukraine says

Russian drone attack on Kyiv damages buildings, power lines, Ukraine says
  • There were no injuries in the attack that came in waves and approached the city from different directions

KYIV: A Russian air attack on Kyiv damaged buildings, roads and several power lines in the city, the capital’s military administration said early on Sunday, after the military said air defenses were trying to repel a drone attack.
There were no injuries in the attack, which came in waves and approached the city from different directions, Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Popko said there was no fire, amending the administration’s earlier account that emergency crews had been dispatched to the site of a fire in the Shevchenkivskyi district that it said had been caused by the attack.
It was Russia’s second drone attack on Kyiv in as many nights. According to preliminary information, all of the attack drones were destroyed, Popko added. It was not immediately clear how many drones were launched at Kyiv.
Falling drone debris damaged an entrance and windows of at least five buildings in the Shevchenkivskyi and Holosiivskyi districts, including a hostel and windows in an office building, Popko said.
The military posted several photos on Telegram showing a blown-out entrance to a building, damaged windows in another and power lines lying on the road.
Reuters witnesses reported hearing blasts and seeing plumes of smoke rising from above residential buildings.
Shevchenkivskyi district near Kyiv’s center is a busy area with a cluster of universities, restaurants and tourist attractions. Holosiivskyi district is home to a large national park. Both districts lie on the western bank of the Dnipro River.
Kyiv, its surrounding region and the vast majority of the eastern half of Ukraine were intermittently under air raid alerts for most of the night, according to alerts issued on social media by the Ukrainian military.


Win the vote but still lose? Behold America’s Electoral College

Win the vote but still lose? Behold America’s Electoral College
Updated 03 November 2024
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Win the vote but still lose? Behold America’s Electoral College

Win the vote but still lose? Behold America’s Electoral College
  • What matters most in a US presidential election is who gets more than 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes, regardless of who gets the most popular votes
  • Because many states predictably lean Republican or Democratic, presidential candidates focus heavily on the handful of “swing” states on which the election will likely turn

WASHINGTON: When political outsider Donald Trump defied polls and expectations to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, he described the victory as “beautiful.”
Not everyone saw it that way — considering that Democrat Clinton had received nearly three million more votes nationally than her Republican rival. Non-Americans were particularly perplexed that the second-highest vote-getter would be the one crowned president.
But Trump had done what the US system requires: win enough individual states, sometimes by very narrow margins, to surpass the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the White House.
Now, on the eve of the 2024 election showdown between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, the rules of this enigmatic and, to some, outmoded, system is coming back into focus.

The 538 members of the US Electoral College gather in their state’s respective capitals after the quadrennial presidential election to designate the winner.
A presidential candidate must obtain an absolute majority of the “electors” — or 270 of the 538 — to win.

The system originated with the US Constitution in 1787, establishing the rules for indirect, single-round presidential elections.
The country’s Founding Fathers saw the system as a compromise between direct presidential elections with universal suffrage, and an election by members of Congress — an approach rejected as insufficiently democratic.
Because many states predictably lean Republican or Democratic, presidential candidates focus heavily on the handful of “swing” states on which the election will likely turn — nearly ignoring some large states such as left-leaning California and right-leaning Texas.
Over the years, hundreds of amendments have been proposed to Congress in efforts to modify or abolish the Electoral College. None has succeeded.
Trump’s 2016 victory rekindled debate. And if the 2024 race is the nail-biter that most polls predict, the Electoral College will surely return to the spotlight.

Who are the electors?

Most are local elected officials or party leaders, but their names do not appear on ballots.
Each state has as many electors as it has members in the US House of Representatives (a number dependent on the state’s population), plus the Senate (two in every state, regardless of size).
California, for example, has 54 electors; Texas has 40; and sparsely populated Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming have only three each.
The US capital city, Washington, also gets three electors, despite having no voting members in Congress.
The Constitution leaves it to states to decide how their electors’ votes should be cast. In every state but two (Nebraska and Maine, which award some electors by congressional district), the candidate winning the most votes theoretically is allotted all that state’s electors.

How do electors vote?

In November 2016, Trump won 306 electoral votes, well more than the 270 needed.
The extraordinary situation of losing the popular vote but winning the White House was not unprecedented.
Five presidents have risen to the office this way, the first being John Quincy Adams in 1824.
More recently, the 2000 election resulted in an epic Florida entanglement between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
Gore won nearly 500,000 more votes nationwide, but when Florida — ultimately following a US Supreme Court intervention — was awarded to Bush, it pushed his Electoral College total to 271 and a hair’s-breadth victory.

Nothing in the Constitution obliges electors to vote one way or another.
If some states required them to respect the popular vote and they failed to do so, they were subjected to a simple fine. But in July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that states could impose punishments on such “faithless electors.”
To date, faithless electors have never determined a US election outcome.

When do electors vote?

Electors will gather in their state capitals on December 17 and cast votes for president and vice president. US law states they “meet and cast their vote on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December.”
On January 6, 2025, Congress will convene to certify the winner — a nervously watched event this cycle, four years after a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol attempting to block certification.
But there is a difference. Last time, it was Republican vice president Mike Pence who, as president of the Senate, was responsible for overseeing the certification. Defying heavy pressure from Trump and the mob, he certified Biden’s victory.
This time, the president of the Senate — overseeing what normally would be the pro forma certification — will be none other than today’s vice president: Kamala Harris.
On January 20, the new president is to be sworn in.
 


Moldova holds presidential runoff election amid claims of Russian meddling

Moldova holds presidential runoff election amid claims of Russian meddling
Updated 03 November 2024
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Moldova holds presidential runoff election amid claims of Russian meddling

Moldova holds presidential runoff election amid claims of Russian meddling
  • Pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu faces Alexandr Stoianoglo, an ex-prosecutor general backed by the pro-Russian Socialist Party
  • Sandu won 42 percent of the vote in the first round, falling short of the 50 percent needed to win outright, while Stoianoglo came second with 26 percent

CHISINAU: Moldovans vote on Sunday in a presidential runoff that has been overshadowed by election meddling allegations and could see Moscow gain more influence in a diplomatic battleground between Russia and the European Union.
Pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu, who has accelerated the southeast European nation’s push to leave Moscow’s orbit and join the EU, faces Alexandr Stoianoglo, an ex-prosecutor general backed by the pro-Russian Socialist Party.
The fortunes of Sandu, who set Moldova on the long path of EU accession talks in June, will be closely followed in Brussels a week after Georgia, another ex-Soviet state hoping to join, re-elected a ruling party seen as increasingly pro-Russian.
Stoianoglo says that as president he too would back EU integration but also develop ties with Russia in the national interest. He has vowed to try to revive cheap Russian gas supplies and said he would meet with President Vladimir Putin if Moldovans wanted it.
The outcome of the vote is likely to set the tone for next summer’s parliamentary elections where Sandu’s ruling party is expected to struggle to retain its majority and which will determine the stripe of the future government.
Stoianoglo’s East-West balancing rhetoric contrasts with Sandu’s four years in power, during which ties with the Kremlin have unraveled, a slew of Moscow’s diplomats have been expelled and she has condemned Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
Moscow has said that her government is “Russophobic.”
Sandu portrays Stoianoglo as the Kremlin’s man and a political Trojan horse, painting Sunday’s vote as a choice between a bright future in the EU by 2030 and one of uncertainty and instability.
Stoianoglo says that is untrue and that she has failed to look out for the interests of ordinary Moldovans. He accuses Sandu of divisive politics in a country that has a Romanian-speaking majority and large Russian-speaking minority.

Fresh meddling allegations
The police have cracked down to try to avoid a repeat of what they said was a vast vote-buying scheme deployed by Russian-backed fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor in the first round and a referendum on the EU’s aspirations on Oct. 20.
Russia denies interfering, while Shor has denied wrongdoing. He lives in Russia and has openly called on people via social media to vote against Sandu and promised payment for following his instructions.
Sandu has said the meddling affected the Oct. 20 results and that Shor sought to buy the votes of 300,000 people, more than 10 percent of the population.
A Moldovan government source said Chisinau had notified several EU nations that it believed Russia would try to disrupt voting by Moldovan expatriates on Sunday at polling stations in their countries.
The source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters polling stations in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, Romania, United States and Britain might be targeted by disruption including with the use of bomb hoaxes.
Moldovan voters living in the West are seen as largely pro-European and therefore more likely to support Sandu, who has championed Moldova’s effort to join the 27-nation bloc by 2030.
The referendum result went to the wire, delivering a slender win of 50.35 percent for the pro-EU camp.
Sandu won 42 percent of the vote in the first round, falling short of the 50 percent needed to win outright. Stoianoglo came second with 26 percent.
Stoianoglo is expected to benefit from protest votes against Sandu’s handling of the economy in the poor agricultural nation of fewer than 3 million people.
Moldova struggled with the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the effects of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of neighboring Ukraine. That sparked a huge influx of refugees and sharply reduced Russian gas supplies, causing high inflation.
Ahead of the vote, Sandu campaigned with the slogan “Save Moldova.” The opposition was quick to counter with a parody slogan: “Save Moldova from Sandu.” (Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)