The U.S. State Department should enforce the Leahy Law, requiring a ban on assistance to Israel Defense Forces Unit 217 ("Duvdevan") for the extrajudicial killing of 80-year-old Palestinian woman Halima Abu Lail during a 2024 perfidious raid in the West Bank's Balata Refugee Camp, and the cruel, degrading, and inhuman treatment of Lara Samalmeh during the same raid.
Background on Unit 217
Unit 217 ("Duvdevan") (in Hebrew, דובדבן "Cherry"), is a special operations unit in the Israel Defense Forces' ("IDF") 89th Oz Brigade (the "Oz Brigade") under the Central Command. Duvdevan, a highly trained unit in the IDF, specializes in infiltrating Palestinian populations for arrest and assassination operations, often in disguise.
The Extrajudicial Killing of Halima Abu Lail
As verified by video evidence, Israeli soldiers from the Duvdevan unit deliberately shot and killed Halima Abu Lail during a morning raid in Balata Refugee Camp, first shooting her apparently as part of a reckless and botched military operation, but then deliberately and fatally firing on her after she fell to the ground.
On the morning of December 19, 2024, soldiers from the Duvdevan unit drove in a civilian minibus and an ambulance into the central market of Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank. The use of an ambulance to conduct a military operation and the use of an ambulance to shield forces from detection are both war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, Upon arrival in the market, Unit 217 soldiers immediately opened fire on members of a Palestinian militant group, the Balata Brigade. The IDF claimed that members of the brigade were firing at them, but video footage does not show any evidence of militants shooting or throwing explosives at the soldiers. In their initial burst of gunfire, the IDF soldiers struck 80-year-old Halima Abu Lail, who was standing alone. Video footage shows that after she was wounded on the ground, Unit 217 soldiers in the decoy ambulance fired several additional shots at her. Soldiers shot Abu Lail in the chest, stomach, and left leg, and only allowed the Red Crescent access to her more than an hour later, after she had already died.
Following the raid, the IDF acknowledged that noncombatants were in the area, but did not specifically address the killing of Abu Lail. The IDF further acknowledged the Duvdevan unit's unlawful use of an ambulance to carry out a military operation, stating that it was a serious offence and does not reflect the conduct of the IDF. However, the IDF merely reprimanded the unit's commander.
Cruel, Degrading, and Inhumane Treatment of Lara Sawalmeh
Shortly after Duvdevan's arrival in Balata Refugee Camp on December 19, soldiers entered a third-floor apartment overlooking the central market in Balata Refugee Camp where, according to 23-year-old Lara Sawalmeh, 15 to 20 armed soldiers threatened her at gunpoint and confined her to the bathroom in her apartment.
A Duvdevan soldier forced her from the bathroom, showed her a photo of the home across the street, and ordered her to enter the house and film its occupants. A Duvdevan soldier then unlocked her phone, switched it to video mode, and forced her out into the street barefoot with her phone to film the neighbor's home.
Sawalmeh approached the home but received no response after knocking. The soldiers shouted commands at her, forced her to remove her coat, pointed their weapons at her face, and directed her into another nearby house where she was detained. Repeatedly, soldiers returned and tried to coerce Sawalmeh into filming inside the neighbor's home, which she refused to do.
By using Sawalmeh as a human shield, members of the Dudevan unit engaged in cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment of a civilian, a grave violation of human rights.
A History of Killing: Shireen Abu Akleh
Nearly three years earlier, a sniper from the Duvdevan unit shot and killed renowned Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. A recent investigative documentary by Zeteo identified the shooter as Duvdevan soldier Alon Skagiu. The IDF initially denied shooting Abu Akleh before video evidence forced an admission that it was likely responsible for killing her. Neither Israeli military nor civilian authorities pursued any criminal charges against the perpetrator in the incident, instead promoting him and transferring him to a different unit. The FBI reportedly opened an investigation into the killing but never released the results. The State Department claimed that the shooting was unintentional, but did not conduct its own investigation.
The State Department Has Failed to Enforce the Leahy Law Against Israel
The Leahy Law, passed in 1997, prohibits U.S. assistance to foreign security force units credibly implicated in gross human rights violations. Despite extensive documentation of Israeli forces committing gross human rights violations from credible sources, including the State Department's own Annual Human Rights Reports, the State Department has never prohibited a single Israeli unit from receiving assistance.
A federal lawsuit recently filed with the assistance of DAWN seeks to compel the State Department to obey the Leahy Law with respect to Israel. Were the State Department to faithfully and fully enforce the Leahy Law with respect to Israel, the lawsuit asserts, many, if not most Israeli security force units would be found ineligible for U.S. military assistance in light of the vast scale of abuses.
The plaintiffs are Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans who have lost family members or face imminent threats to themselves and their relatives due to Israeli military operations using U.S.-supplied weapons. Their experiences collectively illustrate the extensive harm caused by Israeli military forces receiving U.S. military assistance, in violation of the law.
