Agencies-Gaza post
At least 15 US congress members call on white house to stop Israeli ‘war crime’ in Masafer Yatta
15 US congress partners sent a missive to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and called on him to stop the Israeli occupation’s eviction of Palestinian residents from the towns of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
Started by Congresswoman Cori Bush, the missive called on the Biden Administration to “immediately send the strongest diplomatic message possible to Israel not to expel the indigenous Palestinian residents of villages of Masafer Yatta”
Bush was entered in the missive by a number of progressive Democrats including Andre Carson, Pramila Jayapal, Betty McCollum, Marie Newman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Mark Pocan, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, who is of Palestinian origin.
“Forced displacement and transfer by Israel of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta would be a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and would amount to a war crime,” the Congress members wrote in the letter.
“If Israel proceeds with its objectives to forcibly displace the indigenous Palestinian citizens,” the lawmakers wrote, “the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Israel should immediately, pursuant to the oversight and accountability demanded by the Leahy Law and the Arms Export and Controls Act, send viewers to document the mass transfer, including elements of the military units implicated in these operations and the use of any U.S. weapons.”
The Leahy Law is a piece of legislation that restricts US assistance to foreign troops presumed of committing “gross violations of human rights”.
The law allows the administration to force oversight of and also determine Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians, according to the lawmakers.
Besides, the US lawmakers, the missive was reinforced by hundreds of civil society gatherings including Jewish Voice for Peace Action; Americans for Justice in Palestine Action; IfNotNow; and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
