IDF intelligence chief resigns; independent report on UNRWA released

The head of intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces said he will step down and retire over the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, in what Israeli media reported is the first departure of a general because of the failures that allowed the assault to happen. An independent report into the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, released Monday found that the body was in need of reforms but said that Israel has yet to substantiate its claims that large numbers of UNRWA employees are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Here’s what to know

• In a resignation letter shared by the IDF, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva wrote that the military intelligence directorate did not live up to its mission under his command on the day of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. “I have been carrying that black day ever since, day and night,” he said. The attack was preceded by several intelligence failures, including internal warnings that were downplayed or dismissed.
• The report into UNRWA, led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna and a trio of Scandinavian research institutions, is likely to be a relief to the embattled agency. Sixteen major donors, including the United States, had suspended funding worth after Israel made allegations that the agency was widely infiltrated by Hamas and other militant groups.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed alarm after a report by Axios that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to announce U.S. funding restrictions against Netzah Yehuda, an ultra-Orthodox military unit accused of human rights violations in the occupied West Bank. Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz told Blinken in a call that the move would “harm Israel’s international legitimacy.”
• At least 34,151 people have been killed and 77,084 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
• Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 260 soldiers have been killed since its military operation in Gaza began.

6:53 PM: U.S. cites rights violations in Israel, Gaza and West Bank

IDF intelligence chief resigns; independent report on UNRWA released

The Gaza conflict has worsened the human rights situation in Israel, the State Department said in new report released Monday, even as officials declined to say whether they would halt U.S. aid to elements of Israel’s military over alleged abuses.

The State Department’s annual human rights report cited several reported rights violations committed in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in 2023 by parties including the Israel Defense Forces, Hamas militants, and the Palestinian Authority, before and after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks plunged the Middle East into heightened instability and violence.

The resulting conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip has had a “significant negative impact” on the human rights status in Israel, the report said. It cited credible reports of “unlawful killings” by both Hamas and the Israeli government.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that the State Department was continuing to assess allegations from human rights groups that Israeli forces have violated international law in Gaza but said Israel had shown it would hold its own people and institutions accountable.

“This is what separates democracies from other countries — the ability, the willingness, the determination to look at themselves,” he added.

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By: Missy Ryan and Michael Birnbaum

5:28 PM: Blinken says ‘no double standard’ when assessing Israel’s human rights practices

Speaking at a U.S. State Department briefing for its annual human rights report, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters there was “no double standard” when it came to assessing Israel’s adherence to human rights law.

“We apply the same standard to everyone, and that doesn’t change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally,” said Blinken.

The State Department’s human rights report was introduced by congressional mandate in 1977 and provides an annual account of “the state of human rights” in nearly 200 countries and territories around the world. The 2023 report includes a 103-page account of human rights violations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories — including reference to reduced human rights standards within the Israeli prison system since Oct. 7.

When asked about Israeli rights abuses in Gaza, Blinken said that “we have processes within the Department to look at incidents that have been raised.” He did not provide details on State Department findings, only offering that “it takes time to do the analysis.”

The account comes amid reports that the State Department is considering cuts to military aid to Israel under the Leahy laws, which prohibit the United States from sending foreign military assistance when there is “credible information” that the recipient has committed “a gross violation of human rights.”

By: Cate Brown

4:35 PM: Egyptian Foreign Ministry condemns alleged mass grave at Gaza hospital

Egypt condemned reports of a mass grave found in the Gazan city of Khan Younis after Israeli forces pulled out, with Ahmed Abu Zeid, a spokesperson for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, calling it a “regrettable and disgraceful” violation of international law.

The alleged mass grave was found at the Nasser medical complex in the city after the April 7 withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces, according to local accounts. Salama Marouf, head of the government media office in the Gaza Strip, said in a statement Monday that more than 200 bodies had been found at the site, with Gaza Civil Defense members still recovering bodies on Monday night.

The Washington Post could not independently confirm the figure, and it was not immediately clear when the grave was dug and who was buried there.

The IDF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Nasser medical complex, the largest hospital in southern Gaza, became the scene of heavy fighting in mid-February after the IDF said it needed to halt alleged militant activity on the grounds. Scores of people at the hospital, including patients and doctors, were swept up in large-scale arrests, according to accounts at the time.

At least 34,151 people have been killed and 77,084 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.

By: Cate Brown and Heba Farouk Mahfouz

4:00 PM: What is Israel’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, and why could it face U.S. aid cuts?

Destroyed buildings as Palestinians return to Khan Younis after the Israeli military pulled troops out from the southern Gaza Strip, 22 April 2024.

Israel has lashed out at plans by the United States to impose aid restrictions on an ultra-Orthodox Israeli military unit known as the Netzah Yehuda battalion for alleged human rights abuses in the occupied West Bank.

The Netzah Yehuda battalion, also known as the 97th Battalion of the Kfir Infantry Brigade, is a unit made up of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, soldiers. It was created in 1999 to allow religious recruits to serve in the military, and it mostly operates in Ramallah and Jenin, although it is now taking part in the Gaza war. The unit has previously been dogged by accusations of abuse toward Palestinians, according to Israeli media reports.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that he had made “determinations” about possible military aid cuts to Israel over alleged human rights violations under legislation known as the Leahy Laws.

The Leahy Laws prohibit the United States from providing military assistance to foreign forces if there is credible information on gross violations of human rights.

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By: Adela Suliman and Niha Masih

1:58 PM: Report says Israel has not provided evidence of widespread militancy among UNRWA staff

JERUSALEM — Israel has not provided evidence that significant numbers of workers with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees are tied to militant groups, but the agency must implement more robust vetting of staff members to ensure neutrality and work to reestablish trust with donors, a highly anticipated report said Monday.

Based on an examination of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s screening procedures, code of ethics, management structure, staff training and other practices, the independent review group concluded that the agency, known as UNRWA, has “established and updated a significant number of policies, mechanisms and procedures” to uphold neutrality in recent years but is in need of critical reforms.

“In the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing lifesaving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank,” the report said.

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By: Claire Parker

1:23 PM: E.U. foreign ministers discuss Iran sanctions, violence in West Bank

E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks to the press ahead of discussions at a European Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

European foreign ministers discussed sanctions against Iran at a meeting of the European Union Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Monday, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza and violence committed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

After the meeting, E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that states had reached a “political agreement” to “enlarge and expand” sanctions against Iranian weapons programs, which launched a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones toward Israel earlier this month. Tehran characterized the attack as a response to an Israeli strike against the Iranian consulate in Syria about two weeks earlier.

Last week, the European Union said it would adopt a new set of sanctions against Iran, but specifics have yet to be agreed upon. The bloc already has sanctions in place over Tehran’s human rights violations and its military support of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

E.U. foreign affairs ministers also discussed widening unrest in the Middle East, including E.U. “efforts toward de-escalation and regional stability” in areas such as Lebanon and “ongoing efforts to revive the political process and the two-state solution,” according to the Council’s meeting agenda. The officials discussed the European Union’s “support to the reform process of the new Palestinian government,” it said.

Borrell has advocated for a discussion on Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank. Violence by Israeli settlers, long aimed at depopulating Palestinian parts of the occupied West Bank, increased last year, The Post reported.

“We have to look again to the sanctions against the violent settlers,” Borrell said before the meeting, referring to Council of the European Union’s decision last week to sanction four individuals and two entities it said were “responsible for serious human rights abuses against Palestinians” and “for the violation of right to property and to private and family life of Palestinians in the West Bank.”

By: Annabelle Timsit and Beatriz Ríos

7:46 AM: Analysis: As Israel-Iran clash cools, Gaza’s crisis remains

Palestinian children sit next to the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.

By the weekend, it seemed temperatures were cooling. Iran and Israel had clashed in worrying, unprecedented fashion over the preceding week: Angry over an apparent Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, the Islamic Republic launched hundreds of drones and missiles from Iranian soil last Saturday toward targets in Israel. The attack was mostly neutralized by Israel and its allies, but such a brazen assault meant the Israeli war cabinet felt compelled to retaliate.

Their response seemed to come in the early hours Friday, delayed after numerous Western officials and diplomats counseled Israeli restraint. Reports pointed to suspected limited Israeli strikes near a prominent nuclear facility in the central Iranian province of Isfahan. The attack appeared to be calibrated as a warning to Iran of Israel’s reach and knowledge of the theocratic regime’s sensitive assets and military sites.

“Iran must understand that when it acts against us, we have the ability to strike at any time, and we can do serious damage,” Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security adviser, said on Army Radio. “We have a highly capable air force, and the United States is on our side.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian downplayed the incident in an NBC News interview, saying it “was not a strike” and “they were more like toys that our children play with — not drones.” He also bought into Israel’s plausible deniability, stressing that it was not clear there was “a connection” between the strike and Israel, and suggested Iran would not have “any new reactions” if there’s no further Israeli action.

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By: Ishaan Tharoor

5:11 AM: Israeli military intelligence head resigns over Oct. 7 Hamas attack

Palestinians celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank along the Gaza Strip’s border fence east of Khan Younis on Oct. 7, 2023.

Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, head of the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence department, resigned from his position and will retire, he said in a statement Monday, citing remorse in failing to prevent Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Haliva is the first general of the IDF staff to leave his position because of the failures that led to the attack and the war in Gaza, Israeli media reported. The surprise attack killed an estimated 1,200 people, the largest loss of life in a single day in Israel’s history. Militants also took 253 hostages to Gaza.

“The military intelligence directorate under my command did not live up to our mission,” Haliva said in a letter shared by the IDF. “I have been carrying that black day ever since, day and night. I will live with the horrible pain of the war every day.”

For more than a year, Hamas strategically planned its assault on Israel, following battle plans built on open-source materials, Israeli intelligence officers said in December. The attack stunned Israelis and immediately raised questions about the country’s intelligence and defense capabilities. The Washington Post reported last year that even though information came to light in August that an attack was imminent, warnings were dismissed, and the communities on the Israeli side of the border were never notified about a threat.

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By: Jennifer Hassan

3:27 AM: Netanyahu expresses alarm over potential U.S. sanctions on military unit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in Jerusalem on Feb. 18.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed alarm that the United States is considering imposing sanctions on an Israel Defense Forces unit, describing it as “the height of absurdity” at a time when his troops are fighting Hamas in Gaza. “In recent weeks, I have been working against the imposition of sanctions on Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with senior American government officials,” he wrote on X.

Netanyahu was responding to a report in Axios that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to announce sanctions against the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, an ultra-Orthodox military unit accused of human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.

On Sunday, Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, told Blinken in a call that the move would be a “mistake” and “harm Israel’s international legitimacy.” Separately, the IDF said that the Netzah Yehuda Battalion is part of Israel’s war in Gaza and operates in accordance with international law.

Last week, Blinken told reporters he had made a decision on allegations of human rights violations by Israeli units in the West Bank. His remarks were in response to a ProPublica report that he had not yet acted on the recommendations of the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum that certain Israeli military units be barred from receiving U.S. aid over human rights abuses. Most of the incidents under review took place in the West Bank and predated the Oct. 7 war, ProPublica said.

The Leahy Laws prohibit the United States from providing military assistance to foreign forces if there is credible information of gross violations of human rights.

The Netzah Yehuda Battalion is a unit made up of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, soldiers that operates in Ramallah and Jenin and has been accused of abuse against Palestinians, according to Israeli media reports. In 2022, a commander of the battalion was reprimanded and the platoon commander and company commander removed from their positions following the death of an elderly Palestinian American man who had been detained at a checkpoint. Omar Assad, 78, had been tightly bound and blindfolded and found with abrasions on his wrists and bleeding on the insides of his eyelids, a medical exam concluded.

By: Niha Masih

3:26 AM: Biden denounces antisemitism on college campuses amid Columbia protests

President Biden condemned antisemitism on college campuses in a statement on Sunday, three days after more than 100 people protesting the Gaza war on Columbia University’s campus were arrested.

Biden’s statement, which came as part of a lengthy Passover greeting he issued from the White House, didn’t name Columbia directly but said there had been “harassment and calls for violence against Jews” in recent days.

“This blatant Antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous — and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country,” the statement said.

The president and the White House often issue holiday greetings for various faiths, but the latest statement was notable for its political references. It noted that Passover was coming at a difficult time for Jews still processing the Oct. 7 attacks, when Hamas militants killed 1,200 in Israel and took numerous hostages.

Columbia President Minouche Shafik announced early Monday that all of that day’s classes would be held virtually. “Our bonds as a community have been severely tested in ways that will take a great deal of time and effort to reaffirm,” she wrote in the statement. “Students across an array of communities have conveyed fears for their safety and we have announced additional actions we are taking to address security concerns.”

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By: Kyle Melnick

3:20 AM: Gaza aid flotilla plans to challenge Israeli blockade, organizers say

The Akdeniz RoRo passenger ship, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition seeking to bring aid to Gaza, at the Tuzla port near Istanbul on Friday.

ISTANBUL — A flotilla of ships bound for the Gaza Strip is preparing to sail from Turkey in the coming days, organizers say, on a mission aimed at breaching Israel’s naval blockade and highlighting the lack of aid reaching Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

The organizers, gathered under the banner of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have participated in similar missions for years, an effort that gained worldwide attention in 2010 after an Israeli raid on a flotilla that included a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, killed 10 people and sparked a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel.

But the flotilla’s well-traveled route — the Mediterranean — has gained new relevance during the current conflict as governments and relief organizations alike turn to sea deliveries to circumvent what aid groups say is Israel’s persistent obstruction of deliveries to Gaza over land.

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By: Kareem Fahim and Beril Eski