(Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to submit a highly critical report to Congress as soon as Friday on Israel’s conduct in Gaza that stops short of concluding it has violated the terms for its use of U.S. weapons, Axios said on Thursday.
The report, citing three officials, added that the State Department was reviewing the use of weapons by Israel and six other countries engaged in different armed conflicts.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the Biden administration was set to miss a Wednesday deadline to report to Congress on whether Israel is violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
A national security memorandum, NSM-20, issued by President Joe Biden in February, required the department to report to Congress by May 8 how credible are Israel’s assurances that its use of U.S. weapons does not violate U.S. or international law.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a press briefing the NSM-20 report was not yet finished but the department was working “very hard” to complete it.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonali Paul and Clarence Fernandez)
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