The US State Department told Congress, “The Biden administration believes that Israel has likely violated international standards by failing to protect civilians in Gaza, but it has not found specific cases that justify withholding military aid.”

In the US administration's most detailed assessment of Israel's behavior in Gaza, the State Department said in a written report, "Israel possesses the knowledge, experience, and tools necessary to implement best practices to mitigate civilian harm in its military operations."

But the report added that “the findings on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise fundamental questions” about whether the IDF is using these tools adequately.

However, the report — which appeared to be self-contradictory in places — said “the United States has no conclusive evidence of Israeli violations.” The report noted the difficulty of gathering reliable information from Gaza, Hamas's tactic of operating in civilian areas, and the fact that "Israel has not shared with (the United States) complete information to verify" whether American weapons were used in specific incidents allegedly involving human rights violations. Human.

The report, released in the name of President Joe Biden, distinguishes between the general possibility that Israel has violated the law and any conclusions about specific incidents that would prove this. He considers that the assurances made by Israel in March that it will use American weapons in accordance with international law are “credible and reliable,” and thus allow the continued flow of American military aid.

It is noteworthy that these conclusions have no relation to Biden's recent decision to delay the delivery of 3,500 bombs to Israel and his review of other weapons shipments, according to American officials. The president said that these measures came in response to Israel's announced plans to invade the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

The report said its findings were hampered in part by "the challenges of gathering reliable information from the war zone" and the way Hamas operates in densely populated areas. It also stressed that Israel has begun pursuing potential accountability for suspected violations of the law, a key element in the US assessment of whether to provide military aid to allies accused of human rights abuses.

The report said that Israel has opened criminal investigations into its army’s conduct in Gaza, and that the Israeli army is “examining hundreds of incidents” that may involve misconduct in wartime.

The report did not find that Israel deliberately obstructed the arrival of humanitarian aid to Gaza, although the report concluded that “action and inaction on the part of Israel” led to a slowdown in the flow of aid to Gaza, which suffers from a severe shortage of necessities such as food and medicine, but it said “Our current assessment is that the Israeli government has not prohibited or otherwise restricted the transfer or delivery of US humanitarian aid” to the Strip.

Such an outcome would have led to the issuance of a US law prohibiting military aid to countries that prevent such aid.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who now works with the International Crisis Group, told the New York Times that the report “bends over backwards” to avoid concluding that Israel violated any laws, a finding that would put significant new pressure on Mr. Biden to restrict the supply of weapons. 

Finucane, a critic of Israel's war on Gaza, said the report was "more clear" than he expected, but he still found it "watered down" and largely "documented."

The findings angered a vocal minority of Democrats in Congress who have become increasingly critical of Israel's behavior in Gaza, and say Israel has indiscriminately killed civilians with US weapons and deliberately obstructed US humanitarian aid, both of which would violate US laws governing arms transfers to militaries. Foreign law, as well as international humanitarian law, which is largely based on the Geneva Conventions.

The report did not specify the meaning of its other criteria for Israeli actions, of “best practices in place to mitigate harm to civilians,” although it cited Department of Defense guidelines on the subject (issued last year, which include some measures “that are not required by law.” 

“If this behavior is consistent with international standards, God help us all,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, told reporters after the report was published. He added: “They do not want to be forced to take any action to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for what is happening,” referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Critics of Biden's continued provision of most military support to Israel had hoped the report would be used as justification for further restricting arms shipments to Israel. The United States provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid, and last month Congress approved an additional $26 billion in emergency funding.

President Biden ordered the report in a National Security Memorandum known as NSM-20, which requires all recipients of US military assistance involved in the conflict to provide the United States with written assurances that they will abide by international law and will not impede the delivery of Humanitarian assistance provided or supported by the US government.

The report called on the Secretaries of State and Defense to evaluate “any credible reports or allegations” that US weapons may have been used in violation of international law.

It is noteworthy that since the issuance of the President's memorandum, an independent task force formed in response to this issued a lengthy report citing dozens of examples of possible Israeli legal violations, with the membership of lawyer and law professor Noura Erekat and former State Department official, Josh Paul. This report found what it called “Israel’s systematic disregard for basic principles of international law,” including “launching attacks despite expected disproportionate harm to civilians” in densely populated areas.

In a statement following the State Department report, the task force described the US document as “at best incomplete, and at worst deliberately misleading in advocating actions and conduct that likely violate international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes.”

“Once again, the Biden administration faced the facts head-on — and then drew the curtains,” said task force members, including Josh Ball, a former State Department official who resigned in October to protest US military support for coalition forces.

The State Department report showed clear sympathy as it described the “Israeli military challenge,” repeating previous statements by the Biden administration that Israel has the “right to defend itself” in the wake of the Hamas attacks on October 7. The report also noted that military experts describe Gaza as “a battlefield as difficult as any army has faced in modern wars.”