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Smoke rises from an explosion in Gaza, as seen from southern Israel, October 7, 2025. — Reuters
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WASHINGTON: The US obtained intelligence last year that indicated what Israeli military lawyers warned was evidence that could support war crimes charges over Israel’s Gaza campaign, an operation dependent on US-supplied weapons.
The undisclosed material, previously shared by these officials with senior policymakers during the war, suggested a stark contrast to Israel’s public defense of its conduct about internal skepticism within the Israeli military.
The intelligence was not widely circulated within the U.S. government until late in the Biden administration, when it was shared more widely before a December 2024 congressional briefing, two former officials said.
Intelligence deepened concerns about Israel’s conduct in a war it said was necessary to integrate Palestinian Hamas fighters into civilian infrastructure, the same group whose October 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the conflict. Israel was deliberately targeting civilians and humanitarian workers, a potential war crime that Israel vehemently denies.
U.S. officials expressed alarm at the findings, especially as the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza raised concerns that Israel’s actions could violate international legal standards on acceptable collateral damage.
Former U.S. officials spoke to Reuters without providing details about what — such as specific wartime events — raised concerns among Israel’s military lawyers.
Gaza health officials say Israel has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians during the two-year military campaign. Israel’s military has said at least 20,000 of the dead 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 subsequent debate within the US government. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
During Biden’s presidency, there were reports of internal US government disagreements over Israel’s Gaza campaign. The account — based on the detailed recollections of those involved — paints a more complete picture of the intensity of the debate in the final weeks of the administration, which culminated with the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January.
Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Yechel Leiter, declined to comment when asked to respond to U.S. intelligence and the internal Biden administration about it. Neither the Israeli prime minister’s office nor an Israeli military spokesman immediately responded to requests for comment.
The debate intensified in the final days of the Biden term
The intelligence prompted an interagency meeting at the National Security Council where officials and lawyers discussed how to respond to the new findings.
A U.S. finding that Israel was committing war crimes would, under U.S. law, require it to freeze future arms shipments and end intelligence sharing with Israel. Israel’s intelligence services have worked closely with the United States for decades and have provided important information, particularly on events in the Middle East.
The Biden administration’s talks in December included officials from across the government, including the State Department, the Pentagon, the intelligence community and the White House. Biden was also briefed on the matter by his national security advisers.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “We don’t comment on intelligence matters,” a State Department spokesman said in response to Reuters’ emailed questions about the report.
The U.S. debate over whether the Israelis committed war crimes in Gaza comes after lawyers from across the U.S. administration have determined that it is legal for the U.S. to continue supporting Israel with weapons and intelligence because the U.S. has not submitted its evidence that Israel is violating the laws of armed conflict, according to three former U.S. officials.
He argued that the intelligence and evidence collected by the United States itself did not prove that the Israelis had deliberately killed civilians and humanitarians or blocked aid, a key element of legal responsibility.
Some senior Biden administration officials have expressed concern that a formal U.S. probe into Israeli war crimes would force Washington to end arms and intelligence assistance. Hamas killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 in an attack on October 7, 2023, prompting Israel’s military response.
Former U.S. officials said the decision to stay the course disappointed some involved who believe the Biden administration should have been more forceful in calling out Israel’s alleged abuses and the U.S. role in enabling them.
Former US officials said President Trump and his officials were briefed by Biden’s team on intelligence but showed little interest in the subject after taking office in January and launching a more forceful engagement with the Israelis.
State Department lawyers repeatedly raised concerns
Before the U.S. gathered intelligence on war crimes from within the Israeli military, some State Department lawyers, who oversee legal reviews of foreign military conduct, repeatedly raised concerns with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blanken that Israel might be committing war crimes.
As early as December 2023, lawyers from the State Department’s legal bureau told Blanken in meetings that they believed Israel’s military conduct in Gaza likely amounted to violations of international humanitarian law and possibly war crimes, the U.S. officials said.
But he never made a definitive assessment that Israel was violating international humanitarian law, a move that other U.S. State Department officials saw as the legal bureau pulling its punches.
“He saw his job as justifying a political decision,” said one former US official. “Even when the evidence clearly pointed to war crimes, the get-out-of-jail-free card was proving intent,” an official said.
The lack of a definitive conclusion by State Department lawyers was largely reflected in a May 2024 US government report produced during the Biden administration, when Washington said Israel may have violated international humanitarian law by using US-supplied weapons during its military operation in Gaza.
The report, prepared by the State Department, stopped short of a definitive assessment, citing the fog of war.
“What I can say is that the Biden administration followed the requirements of Israel’s laws of armed conflict as well as our own laws,” Blanken said through a spokesperson for this story.
Blanken declined to comment on intelligence matters.
International concerns about possible war crimes
Last November, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief, as well as Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. Hamas has since endorsed Israel.
Israel has rejected the Hague-based court’s jurisdiction and denies committing war crimes in Gaza. Hamas leaders have denied allegations that they committed war crimes.
Among the issues discussed by US officials in the final weeks of the Biden administration was whether the government would be involved if Israeli officials were to face charges at an international tribunal.
US officials publicly defended Israel but also privately debated the issue in light of intelligence reports, becoming a point of political danger for Democrats. Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris launched ultimately unsuccessful presidential campaigns.
Biden did not respond to a request for comment.
Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a critic of Israel’s Gaza campaign, which includes aid to Palestinian civilians and restrictions on U.S. support for the operation, said it was “an example of willful blindness on the part of the Biden administration regarding the use and abuse of U.S. weapons in Gaza,” Reuters reported.
“The Biden administration has deliberately looked the other way in the face of overwhelming evidence that war crimes are being committed with American weapons in Gaza,” Maryland’s Van Hollen told Reuters.
Israel, which is fighting a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, has dismissed the genocide allegations as politically motivated and has said its military campaign targets Hamas, not Gaza’s civilian population.
The Israeli military says it is trying to minimize civilian casualties while targeting militants embedded in hospitals, schools and shelters, using warnings and appropriate weapons. An Israeli military official told Reuters in September that the army was investigating nearly 2,000 incidents of possible misconduct, including civilian deaths and damage to infrastructure.
The official said that some cases came to light through the genocide case filed in the International Court of Justice.
