Recent United Nations findings that Israeli forces committed war crimes could strengthen challenges to American weapons transfers and military assistance.
For Washington, potential legal exposure would center on assisting those crimes or failing to prevent genocide, rather than necessarily committing genocide directly.
The findings announced Oct. 26 came from an independent commission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate alleged abuses and identify those responsible. Its report evaluates evidence and reaches legal conclusions that can inform future investigations and prosecutions, but the commission cannot convict anyone or issue binding court orders.
The commission found that Israeli authorities and forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including intentional killings, extermination, torture, rape and other sexual violence, persecution and acts causing serious bodily and mental harm.
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - Palestinians try to extinguish a burning car after an Israeli military strike in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
It also found deliberate targeting of Palestinian children and concluded that Israel continued committing genocide in Gaza after the October 2025 ceasefire. Israel rejected the findings as “a misinformation campaign to demonize” the country.
The report alone will not stop American aid, and existing restrictions have not necessarily stopped it either. Washington has continued supplying Israel despite nonproliferation-law concerns surrounding its undeclared nuclear arsenal.
The new findings could strengthen legal challenges, but restrictions still depend on officials enforcing them or courts having authority to intervene.
US Aid Restrictions Do Not Require a Conviction
The Leahy laws prohibit certain U.S. assistance to foreign security units credibly implicated in gross human rights violations. There are two versions, each with different exceptions.
The Pentagon’s version, 10 U.S.C. § 362, bars Defense Department-funded training, equipment and other assistance when the defense secretary has credible information that a recipient unit committed such a violation.
The defense secretary, after consulting the secretary of state, can allow assistance if the foreign government has taken all necessary steps to address the unit’s human rights violations.
The statute does not specify what corrective measures are sufficient. Assistance is also permitted when necessary for disaster relief or a humanitarian or national security emergency. The secretary can waive the prohibition in extraordinary circumstances, which the law also leaves undefined. Each exception or waiver requires a report to Congress within 15 days explaining its basis.
The State Department’s version, 22 U.S.C. § 2378d, bars assistance under the Foreign Assistance Act or Arms Export Control Act when the secretary of state has credible information that a recipient unit committed a gross human rights violation.
Its exception applies when the secretary of state determines and reports to Congress that the foreign government is taking effective steps to bring the unit members responsible for the abuses to justice. It requires steps toward accountability for the perpetrators, rather than simply improving the unit’s future conduct.
This provision contains no general national security emergency exception or extraordinary-circumstances waiver.
Separately, Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits assistance under that act or the Arms Export Control Act when the president is informed that a foreign government directly or indirectly restricts delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid.
The president may allow assistance to continue on national security grounds, but must first notify the specified congressional committees of the intended exception, when it would take effect and the reasons for it. He can then make the determination allowing assistance to continue.
Germany Shows How Suppliers Can Face Suits
Nicaragua’s case against Germany alleges that Germany supplied Israel with weapons and other military support despite knowing of a serious risk of genocide against Palestinians.
Nicaragua argues that this assistance facilitated genocide and that Germany failed to use its influence to prevent it. It also challenges Germany’s suspension of funding to UNRWA, the U.N. agency providing aid to Palestinian refugees.
Germany disputes the allegations. The ICJ cannot imprison German officials, but could order Germany to stop unlawful assistance and provide reparations if liability is established.
Hearings on Germany’s objections ended Sept. 10, followed by written submissions from both countries. As of Nov. 1, the court has not announced a decision. The next ruling will address whether Nicaragua’s claims can proceed, rather than whether Germany violated international law.
There is a relevant precedent involving Serbia. In 2007, the ICJ found Serbia violated its duty to prevent the Srebrenica genocide. That duty requires states that know or should know of a serious genocide risk to use reasonably available means to prevent it.
Complicity requires a different showing: assistance that enabled or facilitated genocide, supplied with knowledge of the perpetrators’ genocidal intent. A failure-to-prevent claim can concern a country’s failure to use its influence, even without proving that it knowingly helped carry out the crime.
Washington Has Stronger Jurisdictional Defenses
Germany’s case cannot simply be copied against Washington. Nicaragua invokes both countries’ acceptance of the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction and the Genocide Convention’s dispute clause.
The United States terminated its general acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction, effective in 1986.
Its Genocide Convention reservation also requires specific American consent before a dispute involving the U.S. can reach the ICJ under Article IX. Washington could invoke that reservation and refuse consent; a claimant would need another valid jurisdictional basis.
That defense has worked before. In Yugoslavia’s 1999 case over its role in NATO’s bombing campaign during the Kosovo conflict. The ICJ dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, citing the U.S. reservation requiring its consent to cases under the Genocide Convention and Washington’s refusal to give that consent.
The ICJ’s public pending docket lists no comparable Gaza military-aid case against Washington at this time.
American Officials Have Already Faced Legal Challenges
In Defense for Children International–Palestine v. Biden, Palestinian organizations and individuals sued President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over alleged complicity in genocide and failure to prevent it.
In July 2024, the 9th Circuit upheld dismissal under the political question doctrine: The requested orders would put military and diplomatic policy under judicial control. That ruling did not decide whether the alleged conduct was lawful.
A separate lawsuit, filed in December 2024 in federal court in Washington with support from rights group DAWN, challenges the State Department’s implementation of the Leahy law for Israeli units.
The ICC Presents a Different Route
The International Criminal Court prosecutes individuals. In January 2025, DAWN submitted allegations seeking an investigation of Biden, Blinken and Austin for assisting Israeli crimes.
Washington rejects ICC authority over Americans, but the court’s territorial jurisdiction in Palestine can extend to nationals of nonmember countries. A case concerning American assistance would require establishing jurisdiction and individual criminal responsibility. Article 25 requires proof of the accused’s contribution and the applicable intent or knowledge, depending on the charge.
Genuine domestic proceedings covering the same case can also prevent an ICC prosecution, unless the country is unwilling or genuinely unable to act.
Washington has instead refused cooperation and imposed sanctions on the ICC. The ICC can issue arrest warrants, try defendants and impose prison sentences, but has no police force and depends on governments to arrest and surrender suspects.
U.S. refusal could keep accused Americans beyond its reach at home but would not cancel warrants or eliminate the risk of arrest when traveling to a country willing and legally able to enforce them.
The U.N. findings could supply evidence for these disputes. A court’s inability to hear a case, however, would not give the Pentagon or State Department an exemption from Congress’ restrictions on military assistance.