119 HRES 876 IH: Recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
U.S. House of Representatives
2025-11-13
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IV
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 876
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 13, 2025
Ms. Tlaib (for herself, Ms. Balint, Mr. Carson, Mr. Casar, Ms. Dexter, Mr. Frost, Mr. García of Illinois, Mr. Green of Texas, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Khanna, Ms. Lee of Pennsylvania, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Omar, Mr. Pocan, Ms. Pressley, Mrs. Ramirez, Ms. Simon, Ms. Velázquez, and Mrs. Watson Coleman) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
RESOLUTION
Recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Whereas the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948;
Whereas the United States played a key role in drafting the Genocide Convention, ratified the convention on November 5, 1988, and remains a party to the convention today;
Whereas, under the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide is committed when one or more categories of underlying acts are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such, namely—
(1)
killing members of the group;
(2)
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(3)
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(4)
imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or
(5)
forcibly transferring children of the group to another group;
Whereas the Genocide Convention obligates all state parties, including the United States, to prevent and punish the crime of genocide;
Whereas the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 (also known as the “Proxmire Act”) was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1988, establishing the criminal offense of genocide within the United States Code;
Whereas the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel concluded on September 16, 2025, that the State of Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza;
Whereas the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the world’s leading subject matter experts on genocide, concluded that the State of Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza;
Whereas highly respected international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Forensic Architecture, and the University Network for Human Rights have concluded that the State of Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza;
Whereas the overwhelming evidence is clear that the State of Israel has committed acts (actus reus) within the scope of the Genocide Convention against Palestinians in Gaza, including by—
(1)
killing members of the group;
(2)
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(3)
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
(4)
imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Whereas the Israeli military has killed at least 67,160 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom are women and children, since October 2023;
Whereas existing evidence and expert analysis indicate that this death toll is likely a severe undercount, with thousands more Palestinians buried under the rubble and countless more dead as a result of siege, forced starvation, and the systematic destruction of civil, water, and health infrastructure;
Whereas the Israeli military’s own data, as of May 2025, indicates that 83 percent of Palestinians killed in Gaza were civilians;
Whereas the Israeli military has wounded at least 169,679 Palestinians in Gaza, creating the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history;
Whereas doctors treating patients in Gaza, including doctors from the United States, have routinely treated children shot in the head or chest;
Whereas, according to UNICEF, nearly all of Gaza’s 1,200,000 children need mental health and psychosocial support, especially those exposed to repeated traumatic events, those who have been maimed, those who have lost parents, siblings, and close family members, and those with disabilities;
Whereas over 500 schools and every university in Gaza have been destroyed or severely damaged by Israeli forces, systematically destroying the education system;
Whereas at least 53 percent of cultural heritage sites in Gaza have been systematically destroyed or damaged, including hundreds of mosques and churches;
Whereas at least 250 journalists and media workers have been killed by the Israeli military, many of them directly targeted for their work;
Whereas 78 percent of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed or severely damaged, including 92 percent of all residential buildings, as well as 77 percent of Gaza’s roads;
Whereas at least 1,900,000 people, around 90 percent of Gaza’s population, have been forcibly displaced from their homes, most of them multiple times, often forced to live in unsanitary and inhumane conditions, and whereas fleeing civilians have been targeted and killed along evacuation routes and in shelters designated by Israeli authorities as safe zones;
Whereas the capacity for agriculture and food production has been decimated and just 1.5 percent of cropland remains accessible, undamaged, and suitable for cultivation;
Whereas, since October 9, 2023, the Israeli Government’s blockade and siege of Gaza has cut off essential, lifesaving resources, blocking nearly all food, baby formula, and humanitarian aid from entry and severely restricting access to clean water, fuel, and electricity;
Whereas, as a result of the siege, more than 90 percent of the population in Gaza has been facing acute food insecurity since December 2023, and whereas since August 2025, over 500,000 people are experiencing famine and catastrophic levels of food insecurity, with at least 455 recorded malnutrition-related deaths;
Whereas, by August 2025, the Israeli Government’s siege and forced starvation left more than 54,600 children under 5 in Gaza acutely malnourished and more than 12,800 severely malnourished, with around 16 percent of children in Gaza aged 6 months to just under 5 years suffering from a life-threatening type of malnutrition known as acute wasting, including nearly 4 percent with severe wasting, facing increased risk of death if untreated;
Whereas, since the establishment of militarized food distribution sites on May 27, 2025, Israeli forces and armed private contractors have shot and killed at least 2,340 desperate Palestinians seeking food assistance;
Whereas the Israeli military has killed at least 543 aid workers, including personnel of the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, World Central Kitchen, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society;
Whereas the health care system of Gaza has been systematically destroyed, with the destruction of Gaza’s hospitals leaving only 1 field hospital remaining fully functional, with at least 1,581 doctors, nurses, and other health workers killed by Israeli forces, and with at least 180 documented attacks on ambulances;
Whereas the bodies of Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers killed by Israeli forces were found zip-tied with gunshot wounds to the head and chest buried in a mass grave;
Whereas the destruction of Gaza’s health care, sanitation, housing, and water infrastructure has significantly contributed to the outbreak, rapid spread, and increased mortality of infectious and communicable diseases, including hepatitis A, dysentery, typhoid, scabies, and acute respiratory infection;
Whereas the decimation of the health care system, including reproductive and sexual health care, as well as the siege’s impact on the availability of food, medicine, baby formula, and clean drinking water, have had a particularly harmful effect on pregnant, postpartum, and lactating women, infants, and the overall fertility and reproductive prospects of the population;
Whereas a targeted Israeli attack destroyed the Al-Basma IVF clinic, the largest fertility center in Gaza, eliminating around 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples and unfertilized eggs;
Whereas Israeli forces have killed at least 1,009 infants under the age of 1, including 450 babies who were both born and killed since October 2023;
Whereas, by September 2024, overall life expectancy in Gaza suffered a drastic decrease of 34.9 years or 46.3 percent of preinvasion life expectancy, with researchers noting the actual losses are likely higher if the indirect effects of the war on mortality are considered;
Whereas a clear pattern of statements made by Israeli authorities, including but not limited to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, current Minister of Defense Israel Katz, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, provides direct evidence of genocidal intent (mens rea), as demonstrated by such examples as—
(1)
then-Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant stating on October 9, 2023, “We are imposing a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel—everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly”;
(2)
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Major General Ghassan Alian announcing on October 10, 2023, that “Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell”;
(3)
then-Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure and now Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz stating on October 11, 2023, that “we decided to stop the flow of water, electricity and fuel and now their local power station has collapsed and there is no electricity in Gaza”;
(4)
Israeli President Isaac Herzog stating on October 13, 2023, that “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians who were aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true”;
(5)
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu writing a letter to Israeli soldiers and commanders on November 3, 2023, saying, “Remember what Amalek did to you. We remember and we fight”, a reference to the Book of Samuel, in which God tells the Israelites, “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey”, rhetoric that has since been repeatedly echoed by other government officials, including Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who stated in April 2024 that “There are no half measures. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat—total annihilation. “You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven”—there’s no place under heaven”;
(6)
Colonel Erez Eshel stating on November 4, 2023, that “It will take so many years to revive from this blow … this place will be a fallow land. They will not be able to live here”; and
(7)
a recording of Major General Aharon Haliva, head of Israel’s Military Intelligence until April 2024, published on August 15, 2025, in which he stated that “the fact that 50,000 have already been killed in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations … it does not matter if they are children. I’m not speaking out of revenge. I’m talking about a message for future generations. From time to time, they need a Nakba to feel the cost”, referring to the violent ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and homeland by Zionist militias and the Israeli army during the establishment of the State of Israel in 1947 to 1949;
Whereas the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on November 21, 2024, for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, charging both with the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts;
Whereas the United States became a party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice when it ratified the United Nations Charter in 1945 and remains a party to the Statute today;
Whereas the International Court of Justice ordered binding provisional measures in the case Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) on January 26, 2024, on March 28, 2024, and on May 24, 2024, requiring specific actions from the State of Israel to prevent the commission of acts within the scope of the Genocide Convention;
Whereas, through these provisional measures, the International Court of Justice put all third states on notice of a serious risk that genocide was being or would be committed;
Whereas the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry found that the State of Israel has acted in flagrant disregard of the International Court of Justice’s binding orders;
Whereas, between October 2023 and September 2025, the United States provided an estimated $21,700,000,000 in military aid to Israel, and during that same period, the White House authorized or notified over $30,000,000,000 in additional new arms sales agreements to be paid for and delivered in future years; and
Whereas the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, having concluded that the State of Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, called on all countries to fulfill their legal obligations to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, and laid out concrete steps for third states, such as the United States, to take to meet these binding obligations: Now, therefore, be it
That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the policy of the United States to—
(1)
prevent and punish the crime of genocide, wherever it occurs;
(2)
officially recognize that the State of Israel has committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza;
(3)
respect the United States binding legal obligations as a party to the Genocide Convention and under customary international law to prevent and punish the crime of genocide in Gaza, employing all means reasonably available, including by—
(A)
ceasing the transfer of arms and other equipment or items to the State of Israel or third states where there is reason to suspect their use in military operations that have involved or could involve the commission of genocide;
(B)
ensuring that the State of Israel duly implements all provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice since January 26, 2024;
(C)
ensuring that individuals and corporations in the United States and within United States jurisdiction are not involved in the commission of genocide, aiding and assisting the commission of genocide, or incitement to commit genocide, and investigating and prosecuting those who may be implicated in these crimes under international law;
(D)
facilitating investigations and domestic proceedings and taking action, including imposing targeted, lawful sanctions, with respect to the State of Israel and individuals or corporations that are involved in or facilitating the commission of genocide or incitement to commit genocide; and
(E)
cooperating with the investigation of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and lifting all ICC-related United States sanctions;
(4)
use the United States voice and vote in the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly to advance efforts to prevent and punish the crime of genocide in Gaza; and
(5)
ensure that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is robustly funded to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza.