[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 6, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2246-S2248]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISRAEL

  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I think that as human beings, we have a 
tendency to try to avoid thinking about horrifying situations. Who 
wants to think about, focus on things that are painful and terrible?
  But whether we like it or not, there is, today, a horrifying 
catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of children 
are facing starvation because of Israel's indiscriminate bombardment 
and unacceptable restrictions on humanitarian aid getting across the 
border.
  And let me remind every American and every Member of Congress, this 
is not some faraway natural disaster that we as Americans have nothing 
to do with. This is not an earthquake in Japan. It is not a drought in 
Sudan. It is not flooding in China. The reality is that we as American 
taxpayers are complicit in this humanitarian disaster. And as 
Americans, we must end it.
  First, let me briefly recap where we are today. Hamas started this 
terrible war with a brutal terrorist attack that killed 1,200 innocent 
Israelis and took 253 hostages--more than 100 of whom remain in Hamas's 
hands, including Americans.
  And just the other day, the U.N. reported that there is strong 
evidence that Hamas also committed horrific sexual assaults against 
Israeli women of the worst kind imaginable. Nobody will or should 
forgive or forget those atrocities.
  As I have said many times, Israel had the right to respond to that 
attack and go after Hamas, but it did not--and it does not--have the 
right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. And that is 
what Israel has done.

[[Page S2247]]

  For 5 months now, Israel has unleashed total war on Gaza, relying on 
widespread bombardment, including the use of 2,000-pound bombs. The 
results have been catastrophic.
  In the last 5 months, Israel has killed nearly 31,000 Palestinians 
and injured more than 72,000, two-thirds of whom are women and 
children--two-thirds of whom are women and children.
  The United Nations has had 165 staff killed by Israeli forces, more 
than in any other previous war. Some 364 health workers--people who are 
there trying to take care of the sick and the wounded--and 132 
journalists who are reporting on the situation have been killed as 
well.
  As this terrible photograph shows, the Israeli bombardment has left 
Gaza in ruins. Now, 70 percent--let me repeat, 70 percent--of the 
housing units in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. Unbelievably, 1.7 
million people in Gaza have been driven from their homes--taken out of 
their homes--and sent away without really knowing where they are going 
to go or whether or not they will ever return or, in fact, be able to 
return to this disaster. And that 1.7 million people is 80 percent of 
the population of Gaza.
  The civilian infrastructure in Gaza has been devastated, making life 
unbearable for the people who reside there. There is virtually no 
electricity and little running water. There is not a single fully 
functional hospital for the 2.2 million Gazans, despite the enormous 
medical needs that the bombardment has caused. People are getting 
injured, no place to go.
  As horrible and as unspeakable as all of this destruction is, we are 
seeing something today that is even worse. For months, the U.N. has 
warned that because of the Israeli blockade of food and water, 
starvation and disease were growing threats. They warned in December 
that a quarter of the population of Gaza--over half a million people--
were one step away from famine.
  Since then, the situation on the ground has only worsened. People 
have been reduced to eating leaves and animal feed. They are starving 
to death. They are starving to death.
  And, in the last week, reports of children dying from malnutrition 
and dehydration have begun to emerge. At least 15 children have starved 
to death. Unfortunately, these reports are likely to be the first of 
many.

  Despite this nearly unprecedented crisis, despite hundreds of 
thousands of children facing starvation, humanitarian access has 
actually deteriorated--deteriorated--during the last month. The needs 
are significantly greater, but the aid that is coming in is less.
  In February, an average of 97 trucks got into Gaza each day, down 
from about 150 in January and well short of 500 trucks per day before 
the war.
  The situation is now so desperate and so inhumane that many of the 
trucks entering Gaza are unable to reach their destination because they 
are set upon by starving people who are ripping food boxes from the 
trucks. In other words, people are seeing the trucks coming; they are 
unable to get to the destinations that they are supposed to because 
starving people are fighting for food.
  Let us be crystal clear about why this is happening. It is happening 
because Israel is not letting in enough humanitarian aid. And it is 
actually that simple. They are not letting in the food, the water, the 
medical supplies, the fuel that desperate people need.
  Israeli restrictions on aid mean that only a tiny fraction of what is 
needed is getting into Gaza today. And even when that aid gets in, we 
are seeing Israeli military activities that result in very little of 
that aid reaching the most desperate areas.
  In the north, almost no aid has gotten through, leading to the 
terrible incident of last week, where desperate Palestinians, pulling 
sacks of flour off of the few trucks that got through, were met with 
gunfire from Israeli troops. Earlier in February, Israeli forces fired 
on a U.N. food convoy trying to reach the north, despite it having been 
previously cleared by the Israelis. And just yesterday, the Israeli 
military turned back a World Food Programme convoy carrying 200 tons of 
food to starving people in North Gaza.
  None of what is going on in Gaza today is a secret. Anyone who wants 
to know does know.
  And let me share with you what some of our leading U.S. officials 
have said about the war and the current situation.
  President Biden has repeatedly called the Israeli bombing 
``indiscriminate'' and called Israel's response in Gaza ``over the 
top.''
  He said: ``There are a lot of innocent people who are starving. A lot 
of innocent people in trouble and dying. And it has to stop.''
  President Biden this week said: ``There's got to be a cease-fire,'' 
and ``we must get more aid into Gaza.''
  He also said: ``We're are going to insist''--insist--``that Israel 
facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the 
help they need. No excuses, because the truth is aid flowing to Gaza is 
nowhere nearly enough. Now, it's nowhere nearly enough. Innocent lives 
are on the line and children's lives are on the line.''
  President Joe Biden. That is not Bernie Sanders. That is President 
Biden.
  Vice President Kamala Harris said, on Sunday:

       We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal 
     feed, women giving birth to malnourished babies with little 
     or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and 
     dehydration.

  The Vice President also said:

       The Israeli government must do more to significantly 
     increase the flow of aid. No excuses. They must open up new 
     border crossings. They must not impose any unnecessary 
     restrictions on the delivery of aid. They must ensure 
     humanitarian personnel, sites, and convoys are not targeted.

  Vice President Kamala Harris.
  Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake 
Sullivan have repeatedly emphasized these points to the Israelis, 
pushing and urging them to be more targeted, to protect civilian life, 
and to let food and water into Gaza so that children do not starve.
  You have got the President, you have got the Vice President, you have 
got the Secretary of State, you have got the National Security Advisor 
saying over and over again: Israel must change its policies.
  And in the midst of all of that, how has Israeli Prime Minister 
Netanyahu responded to those requests and those comments? Here is the 
American Government saying one thing. How has Netanyahu responded? 
Well, his response has not been complicated. He has ignored them. He 
has ignored what the President of the United States said, what the Vice 
President of the United States said, what many of us in Congress are 
saying, what the Secretary of State is saying, what the National 
Security Advisor is saying. He has ignored it all.
  Despite all of this--despite Netanyahu's refusal to adhere to any of 
the requests and concerns that our government has conveyed to him, the 
United States continues to pull out all the stops to support his 
devastating war against the Palestinian people.
  Year after year, we have provided $3.8 billion in military aid to 
Israel--U.S. taxpayer money. More recently, the administration 
requested and the Senate has approved--against my vote, I should add--
another $14 billion in military aid to this rightwing extremist Israeli 
Government. Ten billion of that money is completely unrestricted 
military aid that will buy more of the bombs Netanyahu is using to 
destroy Gaza.
  Just today--today--the Washington Post reported that the United 
States has delivered more than 100 military sales to Israel since the 
war began. That is right. Despite the scale of the devastation, U.S. 
taxpayers continue to fund this war, and today we learned that the 
administration has been breaking up these arm sales into Israel into 
smaller tranches to avoid triggering congressional notification 
requirements. That is unacceptable, and that is a brazen violation of 
the spirit and intent of the law.
  That is not the only way that the administration is refusing to 
adhere to U.S. law. Israel's interference in U.S. humanitarian 
operations is in clear violation of section 620I of the Foreign 
Assistance Act, and that law and its language could not be clearer.
  I want everybody to hear what the law says:

       No assistance shall be furnished . . . to any country when 
     it is made known to the President that the government of such 
     country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or 
     indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States 
     humanitarian assistance.


[[Page S2248]]


  That is the law. The law is that if a country prevents humanitarian 
assistance coming to these starving children, it is violating the law. 
It could not be clearer than it is, and I think very few people doubt 
that Israel is in violation of that law. Yet the administration and the 
Congress do nothing.
  The State Department doesn't even pretend to apply the Leahy law to 
Israel, refusing to properly track U.S. arms or even identify which 
Israeli units receive U.S. security assistance, a basic requirement of 
the law and a standard applied to every other country.
  As I go around Vermont and around the country, it is my strong 
feeling that the American people are increasingly disgusted by the 
destruction of Gaza and the unbelievable misery that is befalling the 
Palestinian people who are there. The American people want it to end. 
They don't want to be part of seeing children go hungry. They don't 
want to be part of seeing entire communities literally destroyed.
  Just the other day--and I hope my colleagues in Congress hear this. 
Just the other day, a YouGov poll showed that 52 percent of Americans 
agree that the United States should halt weapon shipments to Israel 
until Israel stops its attacks on Gaza--52 percent. A lot of people 
were undecided, and those who supported it was much, much less--a small 
number. Fully 62 percent of respondents who voted for President Biden 
agreed the United States should stop weapon shipments until Israel 
discontinues its attack on the people of Gaza, while just 14 percent 
disagree. In other words, the American people, in general, and those 
who voted for President Biden, in particular, want this war ended. They 
want the destruction stopped.
  The American people understand a simple truth that we here in the 
Nation's Capital continue to ignore, and that is that it is absurd and 
hypocritical to publicly profess horror at Netanyahu's inhumane war 
while, at the same time as we say how terrible it is, how awful 
Netanyahu is--at the same time--we ship tens of thousands of bombs to 
his army. It is absurd to criticize Netanyahu's war in one breath and 
provide him another $10 billion to continue that war in the next.
  Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this disaster is the fiction 
we tell ourselves here in Congress, and that is that there is nothing--
just nothing--that we can do. Isn't this awful? My goodness, look at 
all of those buildings that have been destroyed--70 percent of the 
housing. It is terrible. Children going hungry--terrible. Children 
coming down with disease--terrible, terrible. Nothing we can do.
  Really? Everybody knows what is happening. We see it every day in the 
news, and we see the pictures of the emaciated children, of people 
bombed while they sleep. And yet Congress pretends as if we are 
powerless to stop it.
  Well, the fact is, this is not a natural catastrophe. This is a 
manmade catastrophe. And if we had the political will and if we had the 
courage to stand up to some very powerful special interests, yes, we 
could stop it. We could stop the destruction, and we could make sure 
that these kids do not starve to death.
  But doing so will require that the U.S. Government and Members of 
Congress have the courage to stand up to Netanyahu and to use the 
incredible leverage that we have over the Israeli Government to secure 
a fundamental change in their disastrous policies.
  Of course, we have the leverage. We are funding the war. And if that 
is not leverage, I don't know what leverage is.
  The current reality is, frankly, embarrassing. I supported the 
President's decision to airdrop supplies to desperate civilians in 
North Gaza. Airdrops will buy time and save lives. I am glad the 
President did it. The truth is, there is no substitute for sustained 
ground deliveries and many, many hundreds of trucks every single day 
getting into Gaza.
  Right now, we have the incredible situation where a U.S. ally is 
using U.S. weapons and equipment to block the delivery of U.S. 
humanitarian aid. We are funding them to stop us from doing what we 
want to do. And if that is not crazy, I don't know what is.
  It is far, far past time for us to stop asking Israel to do the right 
thing and to start telling Israel what must happen if they want the 
support of U.S. taxpayers. Israel must open the borders and allow the 
U.N. to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities. The U.S. Government 
should make it clear that failure to open up access immediately and 
feed starving people will result in the Netanyahu government not 
getting another penny of U.S. taxpayer military aid. The United States 
simply cannot allow hundreds of thousands of children to starve to 
death. Whether Netanyahu likes it or not, the United States must do 
what is necessary to get supplies into Gaza.
  We all know that there will be a very long and tortuous road to 
achieve lasting peace in the region and self-determination for both 
Israelis and Palestinians. The people of Israel have the absolute right 
to live in peace and security without worrying about terrorist attacks. 
The Palestinian people have the absolute right to self-determination, 
to live in peace, and to have a state of their own.
  Madam President, I hope very much that there will be new leadership 
that will emerge on both sides within Israel and within the Palestinian 
community to make that happen and to achieve a meaningful peace 
process. But one thing is very clear: Given the unprecedented 
humanitarian disaster that is occurring in Gaza right now, the United 
States must end its complicity.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________