US officials demand probe of Americans killed in West Bank, Gaza

Three serving US government attorneys have accused the Department of Justice of a “glaring gap” in upholding US laws in cases where Israeli military forces or civilians have allegedly killed American citizens.

The lawyers, two of whom spoke anonymously to the BBC, raised concerns in a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland that there had been a “potential violation of US law”.

They cited cases of Americans who were allegedly killed in Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon and called for the department to open investigations.

The Department of Justice declined to comment when asked about the letter and other issues raised by its authors.

Asked to comment on the cases cited in the letter, the Israeli embassy in Washington said: “The State of Israel is committed to the rule of law. Every incident is thoroughly investigated by the IDF, and conclusions are drawn accordingly.”

The letter underscores a series of principles regarding US citizens killed abroad that Mr Garland, who leads the Department of Justice (DoJ), had publicly highlighted recently.

America’s top lawyer had emphasised the importance of applying US law when Americans are killed overseas and the need to expand US jurisdiction to prosecute alleged war crimes regardless of the nationality of those accused.

The letter says: “We write to address the glaring gap in our enforcement of these principles in connection with potential violations of U.S. law by Israeli government forces, citizens, and others acting in concert with them.”

“Despite credible evidence of violations of U.S. law… the Department has taken no public steps to hold the perpetrators to account, even when the victims are U.S. citizens.

“[T]he Department’s silence and apparent inaction is a stark omission,” it adds.

The letter’s authors say that unlike the US Department of State, the justice department has no informal mechanism for serving officials to express dissent. It’s unclear how widely the views expressed in the letter are shared among the thousands of attorneys who work at the department.

Their letter cites five US citizens killed in the occupied West Bank – Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Tawfiq Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Omar Assad, and Shireen Abu Akleh. Their families have demanded accountability of Israeli forces or settlers alleged to be responsible for their deaths.

It also cites the cases of American aid worker Jacob Flickinger, killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, and Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a US citizen killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.

Two of the attorneys who wrote the letter, both career federal prosecutors with the Department of Justice, spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity. They signed the letter to Mr Garland “your colleagues”.

One told the BBC that the apparent lack of action over the deaths of Americans suggested the justice department was acting as an “apparatus of politics” for its ally. The second described “disparate treatment” when it came to US citizens who had “connections to the Palestinians”.

The attorney said: “This is a no brainer… Within the DoJ, everyone agrees that the killing of an American citizen is a non starter. You don’t do that. And so the silence is deafening here.”

The attorneys’ letter notes that the US Department of Justice has brought charges charges against Hamas over the killings of American citizens. It also mentions that the department brought first-ever charges under the US war crimes statute against members of the Russian military in connection with the unlawful detainment of an American national.

But it says the department has announced no investigations into the deaths of Americans allegedly caused by Israeli military forces or civilians.

The attorneys demand the US “apply the same rigor” to all countries in these cases.

Their letter is the latest in a growing series of public criticisms throughout the last year backed by hundreds of current and former US officials over policy on Israel and the war in Gaza.

While the justice department would not comment on the letter, the US Department of State, when asked about such cases, has said that Israel carries out its own independent investigations and that they must be allowed to take their course.

Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups routinely point out, however, that such investigations almost never lead to prosecutions or meaningful accountability.

After intense public pressure, the FBI reportedly opened an inquiry in the 2022 case of Shireen Abu Akleh – the Palestinian-American Al Jazeera correspondent shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

But this was never formally confirmed by the justice department, and US charges were never brought against anyone in the case.