[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 27, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1015-S1017]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, for some reason that I do not fully 
understand, it always appears to me that the more important the issue, 
the less it gets discussed here in the Congress and in the media--more 
important, less discussion.
  And today I want to say a few words about one of those issues, and 
that is the ongoing and unprecedented humanitarian disaster which is 
taking place in Gaza and which is getting worse every single day.
  On October 7, as I think we all know, Hamas established and went 
forward with a brutal terrorist attack against Israel killing 1,200 
innocent people and took 230 hostages, some 100 of them are still in 
captivity. And in my view as I said many times, Israel had a right to 
respond to that attack and go after Hamas.
  But what Israel did not have the right to do and does not have the 
right to do is to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, 
which is exactly what has occurred.
  When I talk about issues that we in Congress do not fully engage in, 
discuss, appreciate, what we are talking about is that in Gaza right 
now some 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 70,000 have 
been injured since that war began. This is a country, an area, of 2.2 
million people. Two-thirds of those who have been killed or injured are 
women and children.
  Unbelievably, and I think this is another point that is not discussed 
very often--1.7 million Palestinians, 80 percent of the population--80 
percent of the population of Gaza has been driven from their homes. The 
men, women, and children have been driven from their homes with no safe 
place to go and no idea as to whether or not they will ever return to 
their communities.
  Imagine that for a moment. Little kids 5 years old, 3 years old--they 
don't know what is going on. Bombs falling, pushed out of their homes, 
they don't know where they are going or whether, in fact, they will 
ever, ever return to their communities.
  The bombing of Gaza--and again it must be talked about over and over 
again--is almost unprecedented in modern history. Seventy percent of 
the housing units in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. Let me repeat 
that. Seventy percent of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged or 
destroyed. The civilian infrastructure of Gaza has been devastated. 
There is virtually no electricity. There are few supplies of clean 
water. There is not one functional hospital for 2.2 million residents 
of Gaza.
  There is not enough food, not enough water, not enough fuel, and not 
enough medicine. And increasingly for the people of Gaza, there is no 
hope. This is the horrific reality. And I know here in

[[Page S1016]]

the Senate we deal with a lot of stuff, but this is the reality that 
cannot be ignored. It must be dealt with. The catastrophe unfolding in 
Gaza today, right now as we speak, is among the worst humanitarian 
disasters in modern history. And while this body was in recess--we had 
a 2-week break. While we were safely with our families, the urgency of 
this crisis only increased. We are truly approaching a point of no 
return.
  For months, the United Nations and other aid organizations have 
warned that the constant bombing and the restrictions on humanitarian 
aid entering Gaza raised the risk of famine--of famine and disease.
  Two months ago, the U.N. warned that the whole population of Gaza was 
hungry--people were going hungry--and that more than half a million 
people faced the most severe category of food insecurity. That is fancy 
terminology for talking about people in desperate need of food.
  Now, today, the worst of those fears are becoming reality. Hundreds 
of thousands of children in Gaza, beautiful little kids, are starving 
to death. Last week, the World Food Programme reported that nutrition 
screenings found that one in six children under the age of 12 in 
northern Gaza are acutely malnourished and 3 percent are experiencing 
child ``wasting,'' a terrible, terrible term that talks about--that 
describes the destruction of human life for kids. These children will 
die without urgent treatment. In other words, if all of the aid in the 
world came in tomorrow, many hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza 
have been permanently damaged.
  Malnutrition in children causes cognitive and emotional distress, 
physical distress. So let us contemplate that. Let us think about that 
for a moment. If nothing changes in the coming weeks, thousands of 
children in Gaza will begin to die of starvation and easily preventable 
diseases caused by the lack of food, medicine, and clean drinking 
water.
  Was this a natural catastrophe? Was this a storm? Was this an 
earthquake? No. This is a manmade disaster. Already, some 90 percent of 
children under 5 in Gaza have one or more infectious diseases, 
according to the U.N., and 70 percent have had diarrhea in the past 2 
weeks due to the lack of clean drinking water.
  This is an urgent humanitarian crisis.
  It cannot be ignored. It must be addressed. Without an immediate 
humanitarian cease-fire and an urgent--urgent--expansion of the relief 
efforts, even more people could end up dying from the lack of basic 
supplies than have been killed in the bombing. In other words, what we 
are looking at is thousands of people are dying, have died from the 
bombs, and now we are going to see more people die from starvation and 
diseases as a result of no clean water or sanitation.
  Scientists at Johns Hopkins University recently modeled what could 
happen over the next 6 months if nothing changes and concluded that 
some 85,000 more people could die in Gaza over that period and more 
from disease.
  We cannot let this disaster continue. Let us be clear--be clear why 
this is happening. It is happening because Israel is simply not letting 
in enough aid, not enough food, not enough water, not enough medical 
supplies, not enough fuel. It is not more complicated than that. This 
is a manmade crisis caused by Israel, and it can be changed tomorrow.
  Israeli restrictions on aid entering Gaza mean that only a tiny 
fraction of the food, water, medicine, and fuel that is needed can get 
into Gaza. Even then, once aid gets in, Israeli bombing and military 
activities mean that very little of that aid can reach beyond the 
immediate area around the Rafah border crossing from Egypt. What that 
means is that some of the most desperate areas of Gaza, that in those 
areas virtually no aid can get through at all. So it is not only that 
aid is not getting in, what aid that is getting in is not going to 
those locations where it is needed the most.
  Even more distressing, aid convoys have been turned back or fired 
upon even after previously clearing their route with the Israeli 
military. In other words, the aid people tell the Israeli military 
where they are going, and the result of that is they, in fact, get 
bombed.
  Bottom line. Despite the urgency of this crisis and the growing 
starvation of the people of Gaza, humanitarian access has actually 
gotten worse--worse--in recent weeks. About 80 trucks per day have 
gotten into Gaza over the last 3 weeks, down by roughly 40 percent from 
earlier periods.
  Before the war, before the homelessness, and before the starvation, 
some 500 trucks per day delivered basic necessities into Gaza. Almost 
all aid deliveries to northern Gaza have been suspended. The Israeli 
Government has rejected most requests for access to the north, and the 
situation has become too dangerous for aid to be safely delivered. The 
reason that aid delivery has become increasingly dangerous is that the 
Israeli military has shown little regard for the safety of humanitarian 
operations.
  Quite the contrary. Earlier this month, the Israeli military fired on 
a U.N. food aid convoy even though it had previously cleared its route 
and timing with the Israelis.
  And here is something that I hope every American hears--that, up 
until now, since this war began, 161 U.N. staff and at least 340 health 
workers have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7. In other 
words, the people who are trying to help the desperate--the people who 
are trying to deliver aid, the people who are trying to provide 
healthcare--are being killed in large numbers.
  The situation today is obviously desperate and getting more and more 
desperate; and as an indication of that desperation, humanitarian aid 
trucks that do get through to northern Gaza have been mobbed by 
starving people. That is the reality. When a truck manages to get 
through, aid is not distributed in an orderly way. Hungry people are 
mobbing the trucks to grab food to feed their kids. The U.N.'s leading 
expert on access to food, this week, said Israel is intentionally 
denying access to food. That is a war crime.
  Unbelievably, in the midst of this humanitarian cataclysm, rather 
than work to improve coordination with the U.N. and get basic supplies 
to Palestinians in the war zone, there has been a concerted attack on 
UNRWA, the largest U.N. agency operating in Gaza and the backbone of 
the humanitarian aid operation. They are the ones who do the lion's 
share of the work in getting humanitarian aid to the civilian 
population. UNRWA runs schools, healthcare, water sanitation, and food 
assistance for Palestinians in Gaza as well as in the West Bank and the 
wider region. Israel has accused 12 UNRWA employees of taking part in 
the October 7 attack--12 employees. This is a serious allegation, and 
it is being investigated seriously, but you don't starve 2 million 
people because of the alleged actions of 12 UNRWA employees out of a 
total workforce of 30,000.
  Despite UNRWA's indispensable role in addressing this unprecedented 
humanitarian disaster, Congress is now considering legislation--Senate-
passed legislation--that would actually prohibit funding for this 
agency, which would only make a horrible situation even worse. Children 
are starving. People don't have water. People don't have medical 
supplies. The agency that historically has done the work of getting aid 
out to people is now being unfunded. The U.S. decision to pause its 
funding for UNRWA has left the agency at a breaking point. That 
decision must be reconsidered immediately.
  That brings to us the United States' role in this crisis, because the 
point is: We are not just looking at some distant part of the world 
where terrible things are happening and we are just learning about it 
and we have nothing to do with it. It is quite the contrary. Simply, we 
are deeply complicit in the humanitarian disaster and the horror that 
is taking place in Gaza today. Most of the bombs and most of the 
military equipment that the Israeli Government is using in Gaza is 
provided by the United States and subsidized by American taxpayers. 
This is not just an Israeli war; this is an American war as well. We 
are providing the weapons for Netanyahu to wage this war.
  I met earlier today with human rights experts from Amnesty 
International. Amnesty researchers have painstakingly documented the 
use of U.S. weapons in numerous Israeli strikes that break the 
international

[[Page S1017]]

laws of war. Most recently, Amnesty documented four unlawful strikes in 
Rafah in December-January that killed at least 95 civilians, including 
42 children, and some of those attacks were done with U.S. weapons.
  The U.S. has laws on the books intended to prevent these kinds of 
human rights violations that are being done with U.S.-provided weapons. 
The problem is that we have very rarely enforced them with any country, 
and we have never enforced them with Israel. For months, as I think all 
of us know, President Biden has been trying to get Israeli Prime 
Minister Netanyahu and his extreme rightwing government to scale back 
the indiscriminate bombing. So far, Netanyahu has not changed his 
tactics. In fact, humanitarian access has actually deteriorated. The 
situation is getting worse. Netanyahu makes polite sounds when U.S. 
officials visit him in Israel, and then he proceeds to do exactly what 
he wants. And what he wants increasingly seems to be the wholesale 
destruction of Gaza.
  The United States is now focused on negotiating a cease-fire 
agreement that would allow for massive humanitarian aid and the freeing 
of the remaining hostages. I desperately hope that this deal comes 
together. I trust that all of us want the killing to stop and the 
hostages to be freed. But, once again, despite what President Biden is 
fighting for, Netanyahu is resisting. It appears that he and his 
extreme rightwing government are trying to prolong this war to hold 
onto their power and to avoid accountability. President Biden has 
repeatedly said that the only viable path to lasting peace and security 
for Israelis and Palestinians alike is a two-state solution. I agree. 
But, of course, Netanyahu has made it very clear that he is completely 
opposed to that outcome, and he has been opposed to that outcome for 
his entire political career.

  On issue after issue, Prime Minister Netanyahu is deeply opposed to 
the goals of the United States. We want civilian life protected; he 
doesn't seem to care. We want more aid getting into Gaza; he won't 
allow it. We want a two-state solution; he is vigorously opposed. Given 
all of that reality--given the fact that with every aspect of this 
crisis, Netanyahu disagrees with what the U.S. Government wants to see 
happen--it is beyond comprehension as to why the United States is 
preparing to send another $10 billion in unrestricted military aid so 
that Netanyahu can continue the murderous campaign that we oppose.
  Enough is enough. The United States cannot continue to be complicit 
in Netanyahu's war crimes. No more military aid for Israel. Whether 
Netanyahu likes it or not, the United States must continue working 
toward an urgent humanitarian cease-fire to allow for the release of 
the hostages and massive influx of humanitarian aid. We should join 
other countries all over the world to pass a cease-fire resolution at 
the U.N. Security Council that includes the release of the hostages and 
full humanitarian access as previous drafts have done.
  The United States should begin the process of recognizing the 
Palestinian State as a full U.N. member state. This is both a fact--
Palestine is a nation recognized by 139 U.N. member states--and a moral 
imperative in the face of what amounts to illegal Israeli annexation.
  President Biden should also make clear that he will not release any 
additional military funding for Israel without firm commitments that 
the cease-fire will be honored unless broken by Hamas and that full 
humanitarian access will be ensured; that funds for the Palestinian 
Authority will be released; and that illegal Israeli settlements in the 
occupied territories will cease.
  None of this will be easy, but to my mind, it is absolutely morally 
unacceptable that the United States continue its complicity in the 
humanitarian disaster that is taking place in Gaza right now. The time 
is now to say no to the rightwing extremist government of Netanyahu--no 
more money for the Israeli military.
  With that, I yield the floor.

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