1. United States
2. Ill.
3. Letter

While children like Ahmad are indefinitely detained in military prison death camps and subjected to the torture of solitary confinement to be interrogated for over a month, or Bashar Nihad Abdulatif Hanani who was executed via a gun shot to the back of the head in the West Bank, Israeli terrorists block humanitarian aid. The excuses for this ethnic cleansing genocidal campaign are thin to nonexistent. Before Bashar succumbed to his injuries, the EMS brought him to a medical facility and the IDF soldiers responsible followed. From the eyewitness accounts "One paramedic, fearing arrest, said that Bashar fell from the wall. One soldier replied in English, “We are the ones who shot him,” and left."" Ahmad was threatened before being released if he did anything they would add months or years to his detention. The backdrop for these horrors is the recent U.S. federal judge ruling that Israel is plausibly committing a genocide in the Defense for Children International v. Biden court case. If a statement from our own courts does not qualify has credible information under Leahy law vetting policy, then I don't know what would. It should have been enough when senior DoS official Josh Paul who served as the Director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which is responsible for U.S. defense diplomacy, security assistance, and arms transfers resigned due to credible concerns Leahy vetting policy and other laws governing foreign assistance to forces committing human rights violations were not being followed for Israel. Leahy vetting policy only requires one credible report for a foreign force to be ineligible for military assistance and funding. Those responsible for creating and implementing Leahy vetting policy are the ones who'd be held accountable if the law was broken - Biden, Blinken, and Austin. There is no accountability when our own laws are being broken. Yesterday, on 3/1, a group of Israeli terrorists from the Nachala settlement organization "broke through" into Gaza where they began constructing small buildings. They even named the "settlement" - New Nisanit. The IDF didn't interfere until after the terrorists had constructed these makeshift buildings. Why does this matter exactly? Well, Israel's Absentees' property law allows for settler-colonists to take land and property. This law was made early in Israel's founding and was used to justify the ethnic cleansing that took place prior to and after the 1948 Nakba. All that's required is a "claim" - the makeshift buildings - and settlers can petition their government for ownership. Their plans have been clear from the beginning from the mouths of their people and government that their intention has always been to ethnically cleanse Gaza and take the land, just as they continue to do in the West Bank. This is abhorrent, unconscionable, and disgusting. Do the right thing. Start with calling for a ceasefire and enforcing Leahy law.