In May, the State Department released a report that found it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel may have used American weapons in violation of international law. But he also said he could not definitively link U.S. weapons to any specific incident.
“That information is hard to come by in an actual combat zone,” Miller said. “But I would also say we didn’t work very hard to get the information.”
U.S. law prohibits sending military aid to countries that limit the provision of U.S. aid, such as food or medicine. Experts tracking aid, including multiple international organizations and the State Department itself, have found that Israel continues to block aid to Gaza residents.
Brett McGurk, the White House Middle East coordinator and one of President Biden’s top aides, declined a 60 Minutes interview request. But a senior White House official told 60 Minutes that the flow of U.S. weapons continues because government lawyers have not determined that Israel has violated the laws of armed conflict.
The official said Hamas could end the war by returning the estimated 95 hostages remaining in Gaza. Miller believes the war will end when Israel says it’s over.
“If there is no US intervention, unless someone forces or forces a decision, it ends when Prime Minister Netanyahu says it’s over,” he said.
The devastation in Gaza
American stamps are everywhere in destroyed Gaza. Hala Harit, the U.S. diplomat who resigned in protest, said she believed what happened on 45 miles of land would not have been possible without American weapons.
Ms. Lalit has spent nearly 20 years working in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, focusing on human rights and counter-terrorism. She was stationed in Dubai as deputy director of regional media when the war broke out. Part of her job at the time was to monitor Arab news outlets and social media to document how America’s role in the war was perceived in the Middle East. Mr. Lalit sent daily reports containing gruesome images and warnings to senior leadership in Washington.
“I’m going to show an indisputable complicity. There were fragments of American bombs next to a massacre of mostly children,” Lalit said. “And that’s the tragedy.”
Lalit said that in some cases, when she tried to speak out, she was silenced.
“We were showing images of children starving to death,” she said. “In one incident, I was basically reprimanded: ‘Don’t post images like that. We don’t want to see them. We don’t want to see children starve to death.'”
But others stressed to her that the images needed to be seen and told her to save them.
US support for Israel affects the US abroad
The White House says cutting off arms to Israel will lead to a longer and more dangerous conflict, and that it is thanks to U.S. military aid and diplomacy that broader wars in the Middle East have been prevented. It is considered.
However, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress in November 2023 that the war in Gaza has increased the threat of domestic terrorist attacks.
Brett Holmgren, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told 60 Minutes that anti-American sentiment sparked by the Gaza war is at a level not seen since the Iraq war. Groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS are recruiting based on these sentiments, Holmgren said, calling for the most specific attacks on the United States in years.
Lalit said the anger across and beyond the Arab world was palpable. She documented protests and the burning of American flags.
“(This) is very important because we have worked very hard to strengthen our relations with the Arab world after the war on terror,” she said.
Lalit believes that US support for Israel has put a target on America’s back.
“And I say this as a survivor of two terrorist attacks myself,” Lalit said. “I say this as someone who is passionate about these issues and has been a keen observer of this region for 20 years.”
Three months after the war began, Lalit says he was told the report was no longer needed. She retired in April last year. One of her breaking points, she said, was the death of a girl named Sana al-Fala. Her photo was included in one of the reports, and she is one of the thousands of children killed in Gaza so far.
“She’s wearing a princess dress and in the photo she’s waving a cane with a big, beautiful smile,” Lalit said. “I saw my child in him.”