The release of the Biden administration’s report on potential violations of US and international humanitarian law by Israel during the Gaza war, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed, Politico reported on Tuesday, citing three Senate aides and one House aide.
For months, the State Department has been diligently crafting a report that will assess whether Israel has breached international humanitarian law since the onset of the Gaza conflict. Should violations be confirmed, it would entail an expectation for the US to cease its military aid to Israel.
However, according to the aides, the report will not meet its initial Wednesday deadline. In an email to the Hill, the Biden administration acknowledged the delay without offering a clear explanation. The email mentioned a “brief delay” in the report’s release but did not specify a new timeline.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday afternoon that “the report is not yet finished. We are working incredibly hard to get that report finished, get that report finalized, and get it delivered to Congress as soon as possible.”
Asked if he expected the report to be delivered on Wednesday, Miller said, “We are trying very hard to meet that deadline. It is, I will just note, a self-imposed deadline. It’s not in statute, but we are trying very hard to get the report done.”
“It is a complicated report,” Miller explained. “This is the first time the department has ever written something like this, the first time we’ve ever gone through and made this kind of assessment about the two questions that are at issue in the report. So, there is a lot of work that has to be done; that work is ongoing. We know we’re up against a deadline. We’re trying to get it – we’re trying to meet it. It’s possible it slips just a little bit, but we are still at this point trying to get it done by tomorrow.”
Well, now we know they won’t.
Asked if this was truly the first report of its kind, Miller explained, “We are always looking into how things are used, but those are ongoing assessments. And right now, these are ongoing assessments. And that’s what makes the process a little difficult. We have ongoing assessments that are being made, and in the middle of that process we are, because we decided it was a good idea to do on our own volition, stopping in the middle of that and making assessments about or answering questions about Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law as well as the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
“And I should add it’s not just Israel. I always make this point. There are other countries as well that this applies to. It is the first time State has ever written a report of this nature, especially in the middle of a conflict, that goes to Congress, and so we want to make sure we have it right.”
A senior administration official told Politico they expected the report would “be delayed by less than a week.”
Democrats, including allies of President Biden in both chambers of Congress, have been gaining momentum in favor of tying assistance to Israel with the findings of the report. Recently, 57 Democrats urged the Biden administration to withhold specific offensive military aid as a deterrent against an invasion of Rafah, while 88 Democrats urged the administration to explore its authority to suspend certain transfers of offensive weaponry, aiming to pressure Israel into permitting more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
