The United States State Department is poised to sanction the “Netzah Yehuda” battalion within the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) for human rights violations in the West Bank - three US sources with knowledge of the issue told Axios.

The sanctions, which are expected to be announced by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a few days, would mark the first time that the United States impose sanctions targeting the “Israeli” army.

The “Netzah Yehuda” battalion and its members will be banned from receiving any American military aid or training - per Axios.

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The US started investigating the battalion, whose members are all ultra-orthodox men, in late 2022, after committing multiple violations in the West Bank towards Palestinian civilians.

One incident in January 2022, involved an 80-year-old man, Omar Asaad, where the “Netzah Yehuda” battalion fighters handcuffed and gagged the man and left him on the ground only to be found dead hours later.

“Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “sanctions must not be imposed on the Israeli Defense Forces!” in a post on his official “X” account.

The decision to sanction an IOF unit is “the height of absurdity and a moral low,” he added, “I have been working against the imposition of sanctions on Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with senior American government officials.”

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The sanctions are a follow up to an earlier probe conducted by the US in which Washington pressed the Israeli Occupation authorities regarding human rights violations committed by its forces against Palestinians in the West Bank - in which it threatened to invoke the “Leahy Law”.

The Leahy Law is a piece of legislation that prohibits the US Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security forces that violate human rights with impunity.

The purpose of the Leahy Law, enacted by Congress in 1997, is to prevent the United States from becoming involved in serious crimes committed by foreign forces it supports.

Hebrew media reported that Joe Biden’s administration had demanded urgent answers from the “Israeli” authorities earlier in February about a series of incidents in which army units operating in the West Bank behaved in a manner that violates the law.

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