The administration of US President Joe Biden is close to announcing the White House's opinion on whether Israel is violating international and US law in Gaza, but the senator, who pushed for a State Department investigation into the matter, doubts he will get an honest answer.

Since December, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has mobilized 19 senators to support legislation requiring assurances that all countries receiving American weapons — including Israel — comply with international and U.S. laws prohibiting violence against civilians and efforts to block aid. Humanity, according to the Huffington Post.

In response, President Joe Biden in February issued a new policy known as NSM-20, which requires federal agencies to send a report to Congress on Israel's conduct during its operation in Gaza by May 8.

The report reportedly constitutes a test for the White House: Will it acknowledge the troubling actions taken by its ally, reinforcing calls for the United States to reevaluate its support for Israel, or will the administration risk embarrassment and anger by misrepresenting Israeli behavior?

The Huffington Post said that the administration appears divided on this matter, as the US Agency for International Development and several State Department offices believe that the administration cannot credibly say that Israel respects international law or American laws that require beneficiaries of American military support to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid. US, according to Reuters and DivX - raising the possibility that Biden will be forced to withdraw military aid. But the State Department team that led the report avoided asking whether abuses were occurring and instead emphasized the risks of cutting off support for Israel, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, other senior State Department officials, such as US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, internally support Israel's promises to abide by the law, despite widespread skepticism about those claims from outside analysts, as the Huffington Post revealed in March. 

Van Hollen said he was troubled by the revelations about the administration's handling of the report.

“The credibility of the American government depends on it being honest and based on reality and the law,” the Biden ally said in an interview on Thursday.

So far, “reports on internal dynamics at the State Department clearly indicate that those who were most experienced in applying the facts and the law were ignored by those pushing a particular political agenda,” Van Hollen said.

Together, the latest developments represent “a big warning sign, like a big flame” regarding the upcoming report, Van Hollen said.

The senator spoke approvingly of an alternative assessment of Israel's actions that has already become public: an independent analysis by an ad hoc group of outside experts who investigated dozens of examples of Israeli military operations in Gaza — incidents that, the authors said, violated international humanitarian law. US law and guidance are in a “clear pattern”.

Van Hollen described this assessment as “a very important metric to compare to what the Biden administration has come out with.” He told the Huffington Post that he asked five of his authors to brief senators on Wednesday in a previously unreported private meeting.

“We had a total of 13 members — that's more members than you get in a regular U.S. Senate hearing,” Senator Heylen said. “So I think it was an expression of the depth of concern.”

Among the authors of the assessment present were former State Department official Josh Ball, who resigned over Biden's policy in a development first reported by The Huffington Post, and prominent Palestinian-American lawyer Noura Erekat.

The newspaper stated that the openness of lawmakers to the results of the evaluation, even if they are proven to contradict the conclusions of the State Department, is very notable because of the path that Paul and his colleagues support. They say the Israeli military shows a “systematic disregard” for international and US standards, point to “serious concerns” that the Biden administration is violating the law through long-term support for Israel’s offensive and urge “appropriate steps to prevent further violations” – which could range from reducing From the purchase of weapons for specific Israeli units to a broad reset in cooperation between the United States and Israel.

“The Biden administration and the United States lose credibility when we point to Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch reports where they serve our political interests, and sometimes ignore them when they do not,” Van Hollen said. “To have credibility, you have to be consistent.”

Some congressional staffers have been tasked with preparing lists of options lawmakers could use to pressure Netanyahu if he goes ahead with the Rafah invasion, a senior Democratic aide said.

One notable possibility the aide identified: forcing an up-or-down vote in the Senate on the next major arms sale proposed to the Israelis. The Biden administration has sought to evade congressional scrutiny by routing weapons shipments to Israel through packages that fall below the minimum for prior notification to Congress, by relying on transfer authorizations dating back years, and by invoking emergency powers to bypass normal oversight procedures.