Five Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States are suing the U.S. government for trying to cut off U.S. aid to the Israeli military over its involvement in serious human rights abuses.

The lawsuit, announced Tuesday, accuses the State Department of failing to enforce a federal law that prohibits transferring funds to foreign military units involved in serious abuses such as extrajudicial killings and torture.

“The State Department’s calculated failure to enforce the Leahy Law is particularly shocking in the face of Israel’s unprecedented escalation since the outbreak of the Gaza War on October 7, 2023,” the lawsuit says.

The Israeli war of extermination on Gaza has killed at least 45,000 Palestinians since early October 2023, most of them women and children, and the United Nations and the world's leading human rights groups have accused the Israeli military of committing war crimes, including genocide.

According to media reports, the lead plaintiff in the case, a teacher from Gaza referred to by the pseudonym Amal Gaza, has been forcibly displaced seven times since the war began and 20 members of her family have been killed in Israeli attacks.

“My suffering and the unimaginable loss my family has endured would be greatly reduced if the United States stopped providing military assistance to Israeli units that commit gross human rights violations,” she said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.

The US State Department says it does not comment on pending litigation.

The case revolves around what is known as the Leahy Law, a federal regulation that prohibits the U.S. government from providing funds to foreign military units when there is “credible information” that they are involved in gross human rights violations.

These abuses include torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and rape, the US State Department says in a fact sheet explaining the law.

Raed Jarrar, advocacy director for Dawn, a US nonprofit that works for democracy and human rights in the Arab world and supports the plaintiffs in the case, said Dawn is calling on the US government to obey the law.

For months, lawyers and human rights advocates have urged President Joe Biden's administration to restrict aid to the Israeli military amid multiple reports of abuses against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Human rights groups have documented Israel's use of US-made weapons in numerous deadly attacks in Gaza, including indiscriminate strikes that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians.

Palestinians in the West Bank have also seen an increase in deadly Israeli military and settler violence since the start of the Gaza war, with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reporting that 770 Palestinians were killed there from October 7, 2023, to the end of November 2024.

The United States provides Israel with at least $3.8 billion in military aid annually, and researchers at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, recently estimated that the Biden administration has provided an additional $17.9 billion since the Gaza war began.

Observers said that if the United States cut off this aid, Israel would not be able to continue its war efforts.