WASHINGTON — The US gathered intelligence last year that Israel’s military lawyers warned there was evidence that could support war crimes charges against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza – operations reliant on American-supplied weapons, five former US officials said.
The previously unreported intelligence, described by the former officials as among the most startling shared with top US policymakers during the war, pointed to doubts within the Israeli military about the legality of its tactics that contrasted sharply with Israel’s public stance defending its actions.
Two of the former US officials said the material was not broadly circulated within the US government until late in the Biden administration, when it was disseminated more widely ahead of a congressional briefing in December 2024.
The intelligence deepened concerns in Washington over Israel’s conduct in a war it said was necessary to eliminate Palestinian Hamas fighters embedded in civilian infrastructure – the same group whose October 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the conflict. There were concerns Israel was intentionally targeting civilians and humanitarian workers, a potential war crime which Israel has strongly denied.
US officials expressed alarm at the findings, particularly as the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza raised concerns that Israel’s operations might breach international legal standards on acceptable collateral damage.
The former US officials Reuters spoke to did not provide details on what evidence – such as specific wartime incidents – had caused concerns among Israel’s military lawyers.
Israel has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians during a two-year military campaign, say Gaza health officials. Israel’s military has said at least 20,000 of the fatalities were combatants.
Reuters spoke to nine former US officials in then-President Joe Biden’s administration, including six who had direct knowledge of the intelligence and the subsequent debate within the US government. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Reports of internal US government dissent over Israel’s Gaza campaign emerged during Biden’s presidency. This account – based on detailed recollections from those involved – offers a fuller picture of the debate’s intensity in the administration’s final weeks, which ended with President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Israeli Ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, declined to comment when asked for a response about the US intelligence and the internal Biden administration debate about it. Neither the Israeli prime minister’s office nor the Israeli military spokesperson immediately responded to requests for comment.
