A day after the United States announced a series of new sanctions against Israeli settlers, the American media Axios has reported that US Secretary Antony Blinken will announce sanctions against the Israeli Defense Force battalion in the coming days ( IDF) Netzah Yehuda for committing crimes against Human Rights in the West Bank. The events that Washington would sanction would be irregular actions prior to the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7.
Beniamin Netanyahu has not hesitated to speak out, pointing out that "the intention to impose a sanction on an IDF unit is the height of absurdity and low morale." For his part, the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, assured in a statement issued this morning that the Netzah Yehuda battalion complies with "the values of the Israel Defense Forces" and acts in accordance with international law.
If the sanctions are confirmed, it would be the first time that the United States has punished an IDF unit under a law passed in the North American Congress in 1997. In this way, Washington would prohibit the battalion and its members from receiving any type of assistance or American military training, so they could not benefit from the economic aid approved this Saturday by the House of Representatives with Republican approval. The accession of the IDF military unit to the North American blacklist is a hard blow for an increasingly questioned Beniamin Netanyahu, with the UN and numerous governments, traditionally allies, questioning him about the massacre in the Strip, where yesterday the limits were exceeded. 34,100 Palestinian civilians killed.
Defying the information, the prime minister concluded his message in X by saying that "he will act by all means against these measures." Paradoxically, Netanyahu's demonstration took place minutes after he wrote "Thank you friends, thank you America!", in X, after the Congress in Washington approved aid of 12.1 billion euros for his country.
Founded in 1999 as a special unit made up of ultra-Orthodox men, over time it has become a destination for many young radical right-wing settlers who have not been accepted into any other IDF combat unit.
According to the minority and liberal Israeli media 972, in 2015 the Netzach Yehuda battalion shot an apparently unarmed Palestinian during a protest in Silwad, near Ramallah, and several soldiers tortured Palestinian detainees using electric shocks. In late 2018, this battalion clashed with border police who were arresting Israeli settlers in an effort to free suspects. Shortly after, they attacked and tortured a father in front of his son, both Palestinians detained, while in 2019 they were recorded on video attacking Bedouins in the south of the country, among a long list of questionable actions.
The United States Government already began investigating this unit of the Israeli army when in 2022, soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda battalion were involved in several incidents of violence against Palestinian civilians, which ended in the death of Palestinian American Omar Assad. Assad was arrested by Netzah Yehuda soldiers at a checkpoint in his West Bank village late at night. After he refused to be searched, the soldiers handcuffed and gagged him and left him on the ground. Hours later, he was found dead.
This brigade has not only been questioned outside Israeli borders; Internally, the Ministry of Defense has already considered dismantling it in view of savage episodes at the hands of the settlers. The ultra ideological background of the soldiers, their frequent rejection of the legitimacy of the institutions, even disobeying the orders of the command, and their origin – very different from that of the rest of the members of the armed forces – have led them to be considered almost as a militia.
