WASHINGTON: The US State Department said Friday it would not sanction an Israeli army unit involved in the killing of a Palestinian-American, saying Israel had already taken remedial action.
Omar Assad, 78, a grocer who spent most of his adult life in Milwaukee, was on a return visit to the West Bank in January 2022 when he was handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded, dying after lying on the ground for more than an hour on a cold winter night.
The incident was linked to the Israeli army’s Netzah Yehuda, a unit founded in 1999 to encourage recruits from the ultra-Orthodox community, which is largely exempt from compulsory military service.
A State Department panel decided against imposing sanctions on the unit after being presented with information by the government of Israel, which has vocally opposed action against its military amid the ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“After thoroughly reviewing that information, we have determined that violations by this unit have also been effectively remediated,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.
“This unit can continue receiving security assistance from the United States of America,” he said.
A US official said that two soldiers involved in the incident, while not ultimately prosecuted, were removed from combat positions and have left the military.
The military has also taken steps “to avoid a recurrence of incidents,” including enhanced screening of recruits and a two-week educational seminar specifically for the unit.
Experts say that Netzah Yehuda has mostly drawn ultra-Orthodox youths who see the military as a way to integrate into Israeli society, but it has also attracted fervent nationalists from the West Bank.
The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, is home to three million Palestinians alongside some 490,000 Israelis living in settlements considered illegal under international law.
The army concluded that Assad’s death was the result of “a moral failure and poor decision-making on the part of the soldiers.”
It said Assad “refused to cooperate” when stopped by soldiers in the village of Jiljilya and that soldiers tied his hands and gagged him without checking on him later.
It was unclear why soldiers stopped Assad. The Palestinian official news agency Wafa said he died from a stress-induced heart attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced anger over foreign pressure on human rights, insisting the country has its own means of justice.
The International Criminal Court in May said it intended to pursue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his defense minister and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes in the Gaza war.
US says no sanctions against Israeli military unit in death of Palestinian-American
https://arab.news/5n3f6
US says no sanctions against Israeli military unit in death of Palestinian-American
- Omar Assad, 78, a grocer in the US, was visiting the West Bank in January 2022 when he died after being detained by an Israeli army unit
- US State Department says it's enough that the Israeli military had taken action and that two soldiers involved in the incident have left the service
- The Israeli army concluded that Assad’s death was the result of “a moral failure and poor decision-making on the part of the soldiers”
Trump says change of power in Iran would be ‘best thing’
- Trump’s comments were his most overt call yet for the toppling of Iran’s clerical establishment
- USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s largest warship — would be “leaving very soon” for the Middle East
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Friday that a change of government in Iran would be the “best thing that could happen,” as he sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to ratchet up military pressure on the Islamic republic.
Trump’s comments were his most overt call yet for the toppling of Iran’s clerical establishment, and came as he pushes on Washington’s arch-foe Tehran to make a deal to limit its nuclear program.
At the same time, the exiled son of the Iranian shah toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution renewed his calls for international intervention following a bloody crackdown on protests by Tehran.
“Seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump told reporters at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina when a journalist asked if he wanted “regime change” in Iran.
Trump declined to say who he would want to take over in Iran from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but he added that “there are people.”
He has previously backed off full-throated calls for a change of government in Iran, warning that it could cause chaos, although he has made threats toward Khamenei in the past.
Speaking earlier at the White House, Trump said that the USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s largest warship — would be “leaving very soon” for the Middle East to up the pressure on Iran.
“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it,” Trump said.
The giant vessel is currently in the Caribbean following the US overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is one of 12 US ships already in the Middle East.
‘Terribly difficult’
When Iran began its crackdown on protests last month — which rights groups say killed thousands — Trump initially said that the United States was “locked and loaded” to help demonstrators.
But he has recently focused his military threats on Tehran’s nuclear program, which US forces struck last July during Israel’s unprecedented 12-day war with Iran.
The protests have subsided for now but US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, urged international intervention to support the Iranian people.
“We are asking for a humanitarian intervention to prevent more innocent lives being killed in the process,” he told the Munich Security Conference.
It followed a call by the opposition leader, who has not returned to his country since before the revolution, for Iranians at home and abroad to continue demonstrations this weekend.
Videos verified by AFP showed people in Iran this week chanting anti-government slogans as the clerical leadership celebrated the anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
Iran and the United States, who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after the revolution, held talks on the nuclear issue last week in Oman. No dates have been set for new talks yet.
The West fears the program is aimed at making a bomb, which Tehran denies.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said Friday that reaching an accord with Iran on inspections of its processing facilities was possible but “terribly difficult.”
Reformists released
Trump said after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week that he wanted to continue talks with Iran, defying pressure from his key ally for a tougher stance.
The Israeli prime minister himself expressed skepticism at the quality of any agreement if it didn’t also cover Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, 7,008 people, mostly protesters, were killed in the recent crackdown, although rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher.
More than 53,000 people have also been arrested, it added.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said “hundreds” of people were facing charges linked to the protests that could see them sentenced to death.
Figures working within the Iranian system have also been arrested, with three politicians detained this week from the so-called reformist wing of Iranian politics supportive of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The three — Azar Mansouri, Javad Emam and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh — were released on bail Thursday and Friday, their lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the ISNA news agency.
