Israel’s Netzah Yehuda: How an army unit deemed abusive by the US is shaping the fight in Gaza

CNN — Former commanders of the Netzah Yehuda battalion, an Israeli military unit that has been accused by the United States of gross human rights violations against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank prior to October 7, have been promoted to senior positions in the Israel Defense Forces and are now active in training Israeli ground troops as well as running operations in Gaza, a CNN investigation has found. Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images/File The news that the US might withhold assistance from the Israeli military unit triggered a furious response at the time from top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said: “If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF, I will fight with all my strength.” In a letter obtained by CNN, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told House Speaker Mike Johnson that the US was working with Israel “on identifying a path to effective remediation” for the Netzah Yehuda battalion. “The type of violations that the Netzah Yehuda have committed are going to metastasize to the new units because if that person is in charge of training, he is going to promulgate the same lack of ethos regarding human rights.” Charles Blaha, former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights Shevach has been running drills for Israeli forces at the military’s Urban Warfare Training Center, a mock city in Tze’elim military base in the Negev desert, preparing them to go into Gaza. In an October interview with US broadcaster CBS at the center, Shevach explained how he was readying soldiers to fight Hamas, adding that “the major concern for most of the soldiers” was that at a certain point they would get “an order that the war ends, and we didn’t finish our mission.” CNN put its findings on Shevach’s career trajectory to Blaha, who said that it “strongly suggests that the types of tactics, the types of abuses, the type of violations that the Netzah Yehuda have committed are going to metastasize to the new units because if that person is in charge of training, he is going to promulgate the same lack of ethos regarding human rights.” CNN found that two other commanders who oversaw Netzah Yehuda – also known as the 97th Battalion of the Kfir Infantry Brigade – at the time of alleged abuses in the occupied West Bank were also promoted.