US must end its complicity in Israel's annihilation of Gaza
Let me explain why these votes are necessary.
Nobody disputes Hamas is a terrorist organization that launched a brutal attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 innocent people and taking 250 hostages. Israel had a right to defend itself.
This debate is not about Hamas. It's about the United States. It's about whether we will abide by US and international law, or continue sending billions of dollars to an extremist government that has carried out terrible atrocities in Gaza.
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Over the past 21 months, the Netanyahu government has gone far beyond defending Israel. It has waged a war of annihilation against the Palestinian people that has
The toll on children is unspeakable.
that more than 18,000 children have been killed, with more than 12,000 of them aged 12 or younger. More than 3,000 children have had limbs amputated.
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Satellite imagery shows that Israel's indiscriminate bombardment has destroyed
all
structures
in Gaza. The UN estimates that
of housing units have been damaged or destroyed. Most of the population now lives in tents or makeshift structures, having been displaced repeatedly
with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
This combination of satellite images provided by Planet Labs PBC shows an area in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, before, top, and after, bottom, crowds of people surround an aid convoy, July 26.
Uncredited/Associated Press
Gaza's infrastructure has been systematically obliterated. Most hospitals have been destroyed. More than 1,500 health care workers have been killed. Almost 90 percent of water and sanitation facilities are gone. Every single one of Gaza's 12 universities has been bombed. There has been no electricity for 21 months.
The Netanyahu government has made this horror even worse through deliberate starvation. From March to May, Israel blocked
all
humanitarian aid — no food, no water, no fuel, no medical supplies — for 11 weeks. Since then, only a trickle of aid has been allowed in, nowhere near enough for a besieged population of 2 million.
The result is predictable: People are starving to death.
Children and vulnerable people are dying. Starving mothers cannot breastfeed their infants. Hospitals have run out of nutritional treatments, and medical staff are fainting from hunger. The UN World Food Programme reports that a third of the population hasn't eaten for multiple days. The UN-backed food monitoring group recently declared that '
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A boy strokes the neck of a donkey as they stand amidst rubble following overnight Israeli bombardment on the Japanese neighborhood in the northwest of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 28, 2025.
-/AFP via Getty Images
Despite this crisis, Israel has replaced 400 established UN aid distribution sites with just four militarized sites run by private security contractors. These sites have become civilian killing fields. In two months, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been shot while trying to get food aid, with Israeli soldiers
This is not military strategy. There is no military purpose to starving children. This is an effort to destroy a people. This is ethnic cleansing.
Israeli officials have said so themselves. The Finance Minister
The world is responding. France, Canada, and the United Kingdom are moving to recognize a Palestinian state. At the UN, 149 countries voted for a cease-fire resolution condemning the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
American public opinion has also shifted. Recent
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Yet the United States has provided over $22 billion for Israel's military operations since this war began. American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb civilians, and support Netanyahu's criminal ministers.
That is why I have repeatedly forced votes to block offensive arms sales to Israel. Our bombs have been used to flatten civilian areas and destroy UN schools. Our rifles have gone to arm a police force overseen by far-right, extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was convicted of supporting terrorism and has distributed weapons to violent settlers in the West Bank. These sales clearly violate US laws prohibiting arms transfers to countries that kill civilians and block humanitarian aid.
At a time when Israeli soldiers are
Americans want this to end. They do not want to be complicit in an unfolding famine and daily massacres. Congress has the power to act — to use our leverage of billions in military aid to demand Israel end this slaughter.
History will condemn those who fail to do so.
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