White House warned of risk of Israeli war crimes days after Oct 7: Report

A Reuters investigation found that the Biden administration was warned on three occasions about possible Israeli crimes in Gaza.

Senior Pentagon and Department of State officials warned US President Joe Biden’s administration of potential Israeli war crimes days after the start of the October 7, 2023, war on Gaza, an investigation by the Reuters news agency finds.

Reuters reported on Friday that after reviewing three sets of email exchanges between senior US administration officials, dated between October 11 and 14, officials had sounded the alarm that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and affect US ties to the Arab world.

“The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the investigation found.

In an email sent on October 11 – five days after Hamas’s attack on Israel and the start of the offensive in Gaza – the US State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior officials that the US was “losing credibility among Arabic-speaking audiences” by not addressing the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

On that day, Gaza’s Health Ministry had recorded a death toll of about 1,200 Palestinians.

“The US’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” Russo wrote.

Russo urged Biden’s administration to take swift action and change its public stance from its unwavering support of Israel’s response to the October 7 attack and its subsequent war on Gaza.

He later resigned from office in March, citing personal reasons.

Evacuation leaflets

Two days later, on October 13, Israel dropped leaflets in northern Gaza, warning one million residents to leave their homes in 24 hours as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared he was going to “annihilate Hamas”.

Following a private phone call with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the then deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East, Dana Stroul, wrote in an email that day to senior aides to Biden that the humanitarian organisation was “raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes”.

“Their [ICRC’s] main line is that it is impossible for one million civilians to move this fast,” Stroul wrote.

The Reuters report added that a US official on the email chain also said it would be “impossible to carry out such an evacuation without creating a ‘humanitarian catastrophe'”.

Other officials chimed in on the warning, calling on the administration to convince Israel to slow down on displacing civilians to southern Gaza, the report added.

It was on that same day that the administration, for the first time, acknowledged the suffering of Palestinians during a news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Doha, Qatar.

A boy stands with others near the bodies of people killed in a house hit by an Israeli strike, in the courtyard of a hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip [Eyad Baba/AFP]

US weapons

Reuters found that on October 14, Israel’s senior defence adviser emailed his US State Department counterpart to request that a rifle shipment be expedited.

Christopher Le Mon, deputy assistant secretary at the State Department’s Democracy, Labour and Human Rights (DRL) bureau, which reviews potential weapons sales, recommended denying arms to Israel, citing the “conduct” of the Israeli National Police units, including the Yamam border patrol unit.

Le Mon said in a letter that there were “numerous reports” of Yamam’s involvement in “gross violations of human rights”.

Since the war began, the US has sent Israel a large number of munitions, including thousands of precision-guided missiles and 2,000-pound (900kg) bombs, Reuters added, citing several US officials.

Nearly a year into Israel’s relentless war on Gaza, the Health Ministry said on Friday that at least 41,802 Palestinians have been killed and 96,844 wounded.