[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 131 (Wednesday, July 30, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4890-S4896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL OF THE PROPOSED EXPORT OF
CERTAIN DEFENSE ARTICLES TO ISRAEL--Motion to Discharge
______
PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL OF THE PROPOSED FOREIGN
MILITARY SALE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL OF CERTAIN DEFENSE ARTICLES
AND SERVICES--Motion to Discharge
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, pursuant to 22 United States Code 2776
and in accordance with the provisions of Section 601(b)(3) of the
International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976,
I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations of further
consideration of S.J. Res. 41 and S.J. Res. 34.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motions are pending.
[[Page S4891]]
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by stating what the debate
we are going to have this evening is about and what it is not about. It
is not about whether anyone in this Senate disagrees that Hamas is a
terrorist organization which began this war with a brutal terrorist
attack on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took
250 hostages. Everyone agrees with that. The International Criminal
Court was right to indict the leaders of Hamas as war criminals for
those atrocities, and I think most of us agree with that.
There is also, I believe, no disagreement as to whether or not
Israel, like any other country similarly attacked, had a right to
defend itself. Clearly, it did.
And in a certain sense, this debate is not really about Israel; it is
about the United States of America and whether we will abide by U.S.
and international law or whether we will continue to contribute
billions of dollars to an extremist government in Israel which has
caused an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
This debate is whether or not the United States of America will have
any moral credibility on the international scene, whether or not we
will be able, with a straight face, to condemn other countries who
commit barbaric acts if we don't stand up tonight. That is what we are
debating.
The vast majority of the American people and the world community
understand that the Netanyahu government in Israel has gone well beyond
defending itself from Hamas. Over the last 21 months, it has waged an
all-out, illegal, immoral, and horrific war of annihilation against the
Palestinian people. This war has already killed some 60,000
Palestinians and wounded more than 143,000, most of whom are women,
children, and the elderly.
In a population of just over 2 million people--that is all that there
are in Gaza--more than 200,000 have been killed or wounded since this
war began. That is 10 percent of the population of Gaza. Ten percent of
the population of Gaza, in the last 21 months, has either been killed
or wounded. To put that into scale so that we, as Americans, can
understand the enormity of what is happening there, if that kind of
destruction happened here in the United States, if 10 percent of our
population were killed or wounded in a war, it would mean that 34
million of us would have been killed or wounded.
The toll on Gaza's children is unspeakable, and it is literally hard
to imagine. The United Nations reports that more than 18,000 children
have been killed since this war began.
Just this morning--this morning--the Washington Post published a list
of all of these children's names.
Mr. President, here is the list. These are the names of children
published in the Washington Post today that have been killed by the
Israeli military in Gaza.
I should mention that more than 12,000 of these children were under
the age of 12 and more than 3,000 children in Gaza have had one or more
limbs amputated. That is how this war has impacted the children in
Gaza.
But it is not just the horrific loss of life that is taking place
there. New satellite imagery shows that Israel's indiscriminate
bombardment has destroyed 70 percent of all structures in Gaza--70
percent of all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. The U.N.
estimates that 92 percent of housing units have been damaged or
destroyed. Most of the population is now living in tents or other
makeshift structures.
And let us not forgot, over the last 21 months, these people--most of
whom are poor--have been displaced time and time again--told to go
here, told to go there, told to go there, moved around--and often with
no possessions other than the clothing on their backs.
The healthcare system in Gaza has been destroyed. Most of the
territory's hospitals and primary care facilities have been bombed.
More than 1,500 healthcare workers have been killed as well as 336 U.N.
staff.
Gaza's civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including
almost 90 percent of water and sanitation facilities. Raw sewage now
runs all over Gaza. Most of the roads have been destroyed.
Gaza's educational system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools
have been bombed, and every single one of Gaza's 12 universities has
also been bombed. I should mention there has been no electricity in
Gaza for 21 months.
All of this is a horror unto itself, but in recent months, the
Netanyahu government's extermination of Gaza has made an unspeakable
and horrible situation even worse.
From March 2 to May 19, Israel did not allow a single shipment of
humanitarian aid to come into Gaza--no food, no water, no fuel, and no
medical supplies for a distressed population of 2 million people over a
period of 11 weeks.
Since then, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to get into Gaza but
nowhere near enough to meet the enormous needs of a population besieged
for so long.
When you cut off all food to a population, what happens is not
surprising. People starve to death, and that is exactly what Israeli
policy has deliberately done. It is causing mass starvation and famine.
Children and other vulnerable people are dying in increasing numbers.
In the last 2 weeks, dozens of young children have died from
starvation. Starving mothers cannot breastfeed their infants, and no
formula is available and certainly no clean water to make it, in any
case.
Hospitals have run out of nutritional treatments, and doctors and
nurses who are already treating the desperate, they themselves are
going hungry and are fainting from hunger. The World Food Programme
says that the food crisis has reached ``new and astonishing levels of
desperation with a third of the population not eating for multiple days
in a row.''
Just yesterday, the gold standard U.N.-backed food monitoring group,
the IPC, issued a new report saying:
The worst case scenario of famine is currently playing out
in the Gaza strip.
When mass death from starvation begins, it is difficult to reverse.
Aid groups say it will soon be too late to stop a wave of preventable
deaths in Gaza, all of which is the direct result of the Israeli
Government's policies.
What I am going to describe now is gruesome, but I think it is
important for us to understand what is happening to the children in
Gaza.
Mark Brauner, an American doctor who spent 2 weeks in Gaza in June,
described the situation. This is an American doctor who was in Gaza.
A lot of the children have already passed the point of no
return, where their physiology has eroded to the point where
even refeeding could potentially cause death itself. The gut
lining has started to autodigest, and it will no longer have
adequate absorptive capacity for water for nutrition. Death
is, unfortunately, imminent for probably thousands of
children.
That is an American physician who was in Gaza in June.
What the extremist Netanyahu government is doing now is not an effort
to win a war. There is no military purpose in starving thousands and
thousands of children. Let us be clear: This is not an effort to win a
war. This is an effort to destroy a people.
Having already killed or wounded more than 200,000 Palestinians,
mostly women and children, the extremist Israeli Government is using
mass starvation to engineer the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They are
trying to drive a desperate people out of their homeland to God knows
where.
This is not my speculation. This is what Israeli Ministers and
officials are saying themselves. A few months ago, the Finance Minister
vowed that ``Gaza will be entirely destroyed.''
Just last week, another current Israeli Minister said ``all Gaza will
be Jewish. The government is pushing for Gaza being wiped out. Thank
God we are wiping out this evil.''
Another Likud member of the Knesset and former Minister called for
``erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth.''
And in the West Bank--not Gaza--in the West Bank, we see this agenda
being carried out clearly and methodically with more than 500,000
Israeli settlers now illegally occupying land integral to any future
Palestinian State.
Earlier this month, the Knesset even approved a nonbinding motion in
favor of formally annexing the West Bank. This slow-moving annexation
is backed by violence. Israeli security forces and settler extremists
have killed thousands of Palestinians in recent years.
[[Page S4892]]
Israeli settlers brutally beat a young American to death earlier this
month. Just this month, an American citizen was beaten to death, the
seventh American killed in the West Bank since 2022.
Despite a demand from President Trump's Ambassador to Israel--this is
Trump's Ambassador Mike Huckabee--no one has yet been held accountable
for these deaths.
People around the world--all over the world--are outraged by what is
going on in Gaza right now and countries are increasingly demanding
that Netanyahu's government stop what they are doing.
France and Canada have said that they will recognize a Palestinian
State. The United Kingdom has said it will do so as well if Israel does
not immediately end this war and surge humanitarian aid. And at the
U.N. last month, 149 countries voted for a cease-fire resolution
condemning the use of starvation as a weapon of war and demanding an
end to Israel's blockade on humanitarian aid.
But it is not just the international community. Just yesterday--
yesterday--Gallup, one of the best polling organizations in our
country, released a new poll that shows that just 32 percent of
Americans support Israel's military action in Gaza while 60 percent
oppose it--32 percent support it; 60 percent oppose it.
To my Democratic colleagues here in the Senate, I would point out
that only 8 percent of Democrats support this war, and I would also
point out that just 25 percent of Independents.
And to my Republican colleagues, I would point out that more and more
Republicans are beginning to speak out against the atrocities of this
war and the fact that billions and billions of taxpayer dollars are
going to a government in Israel waging an illegal war.
Further, a recent Economist/YouGov poll shows that just 15 percent of
the American people support increasing military aid to Israel, while 35
percent support decreasing military aid to Israel or stopping it
entirely. Just 8 percent of Democrats support increasing military aid
to Israel.
The American people are haunted by the images coming out of Gaza, and
these are some of those images. These are desperate children with pots
in their hands, crying, begging for food in order to stay alive. That
is what the American people are seeing every night on TV, on the
internet, and in the newspapers.
These are emaciated children. Their bodies, in some cases, barely
more than skeletons. The American people are seeing miles and miles of
rubble where cities and towns once stood. They are seeing innocent
people being shot down while they wait on line to get food while they
are starving. Over 1,000 people have been killed waiting on line to get
food because they are starving.
Despite these war crimes carried out daily and in plain view, the
United States has provided more than $22 billion for Israel's military
operations since this war began--$22 billion.
One estimate, based on Brown University research, calculates that the
United States has paid for 70 percent of the Gaza war. In other words,
American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb
schools, kill civilians, and support the cruelty of Netanyahu and his
criminal Ministers.
That, Mr. President, is why I have brought these two resolutions of
disapproval to block offensive arms sales to Israel.
S.J. Res. 34 would prohibit the U.S. taxpayer-financed $675 million
sale of thousands of 1,000-pound bombs and many thousands of JDAM
guidance kits.
S.J. Res. 41 would prohibit the sale of tens of thousands of fully
automatic rifles--assault rifles.
These arms sales clearly violate the Foreign Assistance Act and the
Arms Export Control Act, which prohibit selling arms to countries that
violate international law by killing civilians and blocking
humanitarian aid, and very few people doubt that is exactly what Israel
is doing.
If you want to obey the law, vote for these resolutions.
The rifles in question will go to arm a police force overseen by far-
right extremist Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has long advocated for
the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from the region, who was
convicted of support for terrorism by an Israeli court and was
distributing weapons to violent settlers in the West Bank. Ben-Gvir has
formed new police units comprised of extremist settlers and has boasted
about how many weapons he has distributed to vigilante settlers in the
West Bank, and you want to give him more rifles? That is what one of
these resolutions is about.
These are rifles the Biden administration held back over fear they
would be used by Israeli settlers in the West Bank to terrorize
Palestinians and push them from their homes and villages.
U.S. taxpayers have spent many, many billions of dollars in support
of the racist, extremist Netanyahu government. Enough is enough.
Americans want this to end. They do not want to be complicit in an
unfolding famine and daily civilian massacres, and we here in Congress
tonight have the power to act. No more talks, no more great speeches.
But tonight we have the power to act, the power to force Netanyahu and
his extremist government to end this slaughter.
The time is long overdue for Congress to use the leverage we have--
tens of billions in arms and military aid to demand that Israel end
these atrocities.
At a time that Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians trying to get
food aid on a near-daily basis, when extremist settlers are pushing
Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank and when Gaza is
witnessing mass starvation as a result of Israeli government policy,
the United States should not and must not be providing more weapons to
enable these atrocities.
Whatever happens tonight, history will condemn those of us who failed
to act in the face of these horrors.
And I yield the floor to Senator Welch from Vermont.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, the mass starvation in Gaza must end. The
forced displacement of 2 million Palestinians in Gaza must end. We all
condemn Hamas. We support a Jewish independent democratic state. We
want a cease-fire, and we want the hostages home. But a colleague in
the other body stated what needs to be said. It is the most truthful
and easiest thing to say that October 7 in Israel was horrific and all
hostages must be returned but so is the humanitarian crisis and
starvation happening in Gaza. And that is happening with U.S.
complicity, and it is time for us to stop complying.
Let's face it, let's face the facts and not ignore them. The
starvation that we are seeing today, it is not unforeseen. It is not
the unintended, unfortunate consequence of war. The starvation we are
witnessing today is the self-conscious result of a military policy to
concentrate the Palestinian population into an ever-smaller slice of
land.
The starvation that we are witnessing today, it is an advanced and
accelerating stage of the military strategy that is being executed by
the Netanyahu government to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza and
to induce them to leave the territory altogether.
And Palestinians, compelled by hunger and thirst, are being forced to
make their way to a handful of sites, which our closest allies
uniformly condemn as a drip feeding of aid. And, in fact, aid was
totally cut off--totally cut off--by Israel for over 2 months. How in
the world did they justify doing that?
And from the earliest days after October 7, we witnessed this plan of
systemic and wanton destruction that included destruction of homes,
destruction of mosques, hospitals, and schools. This was done. This is
fact. We may not want to face it, but it was done with bombs that were
provided by American taxpayers and approved by this Congress.
Israel unleashed the most deadly and destructive aerial bombardment
campaign since Vietnam. More than 200,000 buildings were destroyed.
Thousands of children were killed and injured. Thousands are amputees.
And in just the last 3 months, the last 3 months--May, June, and July--
the Netanyahu government campaign has continued, and thousands more
homes have been flattened by controlled demolitions. That literally
means the military folks go up to a home, wire it, and blow it up. It
is a home. Thousands more have been demolished by bulldozers. Israeli
[[Page S4893]]
forces have bulldozers, and they flatten the home.
You know, it is too late, it is too late for the 60,000-plus people
that have been killed in Gaza. But it is absolutely not too late for
the U.S. Senate to act. We are at an absolute catastrophic inflection
point. And I believe that the United States, in fact, does have an
obligation under humanitarian law to act. And I do believe that the
American people, in your State and in mine, whether they have been
supportive of Israel or not, are horrified at what is happening to
innocent people in Gaza.
We have an obligation to act because if we do act, we can help save
thousands of lives of Palestinians, who, as we speak, are starving.
You know, some folks take the position that the suffering and
starvation will end when Hamas lays down its arms or releases the
remaining IDF hostages. Every single one of us wants that day to come.
But you know what, we have to ask ourselves a frank question: Is it
right, is it just to use as a tool of warfare the starvation of an
innocent population?
And I believe it isn't. International law says that is not allowed.
It is a crime to starve a population to get what you want from your
enemy. It is illegal and cruel to starve children to obtain a
battlefield advantage.
Yet the Israeli government, under Prime Minister Netanyahu, has said
that it is doing that; that is what it is doing.
It is so long past time for us to say enough. It is long past time to
say, no, the United States will not stand by while hunger is being used
as a weapon of war.
And we cannot separate the current starvation in Gaza from the
Netanyahu government's strategy of forcibly displacing Palestinians
from their land. You know, the leaders of Israel have explicitly stated
their vision for Gaza.
So this is not like a discussion or a debate trying to figure out
what is the story. Prime Minister Netanyahu said: I don't care about
the tactics and ordered military officials to ``destroy the homes, bomb
everything in Gaza.'' He said that.
Finance Minister Smotrich, he said, ``Gaza will be totally destroyed,
civilians will be sent to . . . the south to a humanitarian zone . . .
and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third
countries.''
Heritage Minister Eliyahu, last week, said that the Israeli
Government--this was last week he said that--was ``rushing toward Gaza
being wiped out'' and ``driving out the population.''
There is no mystery about what the agenda here is under the Netanyahu
government.
You know, we are here to debate a continuation of American military
weapons that are being used to implement the Israeli--Netanyahu--
Government policy. But we are doing it at a time when the horror of
starvation has become apparent to everyone.
And I applaud President Trump for saying it like it was. There is
starvation in Gaza--and then being in conflict with Prime Minister
Netanyahu, who still denies it.
But America's closest allies are calling for an end to the war.
America's closest allies are wanting to cut off the shipment of weapons
that sends a green light to Netanyahu's extremist government.
And yet we are here today where just 2 weeks ago, President Trump, in
fact, indicated that he intends to ship another half billion dollars'
worth of 2,000-pound bombs and 1,000-pound bombs to the Netanyahu
government.
So today we are here to debate, once again, whether we as
representatives of the American people and the American taxpayers,
people who want peace, who want the hostages home but are horrified at
the starvation and the destruction of innocent civilian lives, the
wholesale destruction of buildings and communities, whether we should
continue to provide those weapons to Israel.
These bombs, by the way, are in addition to the 70,000 tons of
explosives--70,000 tons--that have already been dropped on Gaza. And
that is the equivalent of six Hiroshima nuclear explosions. Those
bombs, as Senator Sanders said, have been used to destroy more than
200,000 buildings in Gaza. That is more than three times the number of
buildings in Manhattan.
The bombs have killed thousands of kids, the equivalent of a
classroom full of children every day has been killed in this conflict,
a classroom. And let me tell you just about one strike. It was caused
with a U.S.-provided JDAM.
On June 30, a month ago, a 500-pound bomb struck a crowded beachfront
cafe, the Al-Baqa Cafe. People were having coffee. How in the world
they had the ability to do that with the destruction all around them,
amazing. But CNN reported that 40 people were killed, dozens were
injured, including a 4-year-old child and a well-known filmmaker. And a
couple that had recently become engaged--just think about that. They
got engaged in the midst of this destruction, showing that despite all
this violence, they had hope for the future; they had love for one
another; they had that capacity amidst this enormous suffering to see a
future and want to be part of it--dead.
Mona, who was the woman, was an engineering student, spoke fluent
English, volunteered with orphans, and she was out for a break with her
friend. Mariam Salah, she was a young painter who grew up in a refugee
camp. She painted murals and dreamed of a career as a digital artist.
She is dead.
You know, the Netanyahu government claimed we were targeting
terrorists. Who knows? Was there a ``terrorist'' there? There was
nobody in combat.
So we have to stop. We have to stop. And the question for this
country is, Will we stop being complicit in this destruction?
I yield the floor.
Mr. SANDERS. Let me thank Senator Welch. I yield to Senator Merkley
for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Following the attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel had
every right to go after Hamas, but how they do so matters.
Indiscriminate bombing with massive casualties, women and children, is
horrific, completely unacceptable. Blocking food and medicine with the
goal of inducing starvation is horrific and unacceptable. And that is
true under any religious or moral code.
Let me tell you about a few children the AP reported on a couple
weeks ago.
Four children who starved to death, ranging from 4 months old to 2
years old--picture that little child in your arm, their legs and arms
just a twig, their ribs showing every indentation, and then, finally,
their body, as it goes through malnutrition, starts to consume itself,
and they died of gastric arrest. Their stomach's ability to absorb
nutrition shut down, and they died. The hospital they were at, the
Patient's Friends Hospital, had run out of emergency nutrition
supplies.
There are supplies that are specially designed for malnutrition among
children. There are high-calorie biscuits and a high-calorie peanut
paste enriched with milk powder that often goes by the name Plumpy'Nut.
It is designed to help children. It has a long shelf life. It doesn't
have to be refrigerated. To help save them from severe acute
malnutrition, couldn't we have enough such assistance that no child
would be starving to death in Gaza?
Organizations across Gaza have been running out of these supplies.
UNICEF warned that their locations are running out. In fact, they said
they would run out of this high-nutrition assistance for children 2
weeks from now.
Doctors working with malnourished children are saying the wards are
quiet. And if you have been around a ward of children, you know that
they are not quiet. But why are these children quiet? Because they
don't have the energy to cry.
Noura has an 11-month-old son. He is deeply malnourished. He is
missing his major developmental milestones, and she says:
My son is supposed to be drinking formula milk, but there
is none . . . [and] I am barely able to breastfeed him; my
milk had almost dried up because I'm also not eating well.
And, in fact, Noura is in better condition than many other mothers
because many mothers across Gaza were unable to breastfeed at all
because of their own malnourishment.
Samah, another mother, relays that her family was driven from their
home by air strikes--certainly true for almost every family in Gaza.
And she says:
I am pregnant, but I have not eaten anything since
yesterday.
Dr. Mohammed Fadlalla of Doctors Without Borders says the Gaza
``health
[[Page S4894]]
system is overwhelmed, and it's collapsing.'' And a Doctors Without
Borders report says that doctors and nurses are doing their best with
dwindling supplies amidst ``near-daily mass casualty incidents'' and
that their clinics report treating ``hundreds of people injured at food
distribution sites and ongoing attacks in Gaza,'' while doctors and
nurses are working day after day, shift after shift, without eating
themselves.
The suffering is unimaginable. I have called for international
reporters to be allowed in so we could all see exactly what is
happening. I have called for Members of Congress to be allowed in to
bear witness to what is happening. But the Netanyahu government has
said no reporters, no Members of Congress.
More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, widely reported, but
understand this: 18,500 of them were children. According to a reporting
by Associated Press, more than 80 children have died from malnutrition-
related causes. And for every child who dies of malnutrition, there are
thousands more in deep trouble.
UNICEF, in a July 25 report, said 320,000 children are at risk of
acute malnutrition with thousands already suffering from severe
malnutrition, the deadliest form.
This headline from the Washington Post, ``60,000 Gazans have been
killed. 18,500 were children. These are their names.'' That was in
today's paper. Take a look at it, colleagues. Take a look at the pages
of microscopic names, all children. And every name here on this poster,
a child who is less than a year old.
These are not just numbers. These are individuals, beloved by their
family. Children who are dying. Children who are deeply malnourished.
Let me read you a couple names to remind us all of the fact that
these are individuals, just like you are an individual, just like I am
an individual, my friends, my colleagues:
Anisa Ali, Diaa Saleh Mousa, Basel Abu Jaser, Malak Abu
Saif, Wael Assaf, Sama Darwish.
All these children, almost 1,000 of them, under the age of 1. They
never got a chance to pursue their dreams. They were cut down by
bombing and by malnutrition.
The IPC, the world's leading hunger monitor, published a report on
Tuesday, and I have that report here. Let me hold it up. This report,
it says:
The worst-case scenario of famine is [currently] playing
out in the Gaza strip.
``The worst case.'' The World Food Programme reports that hunger in
Gaza has reached ``astonishing levels of desperation, [and] a third of
the population is not eating for multiple days in a row.''
But what do we hear from the head man, the leader in Israel,
Netanyahu? He says, on Sunday, this past Sunday:
There is no starvation in Gaza.
Let me be clear. That is a lie. The world knows it is a lie. We know
that it is a lie. Donald Trump knows that it is a lie. President Trump
said on Monday:
Some of those kids--that's real starvation stuff, I see it,
and you can't fake that.
The use of food and water and medicine as a weapon of war against
civilians--including against children, the ill, the elderly, the
women--it is unacceptable. It is unacceptable under international law.
It is unacceptable under any religious or moral code.
I have much more to share on this topic, many more facts I would like
to present, but I want to make sure that my colleague, my colleague
from Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen gets an opportunity to share his
thoughts.
We have called on addressing starvation, the lack of food, going way
back to January of last year, 19 months ago. We called on the Biden
administration; we called on the Trump administration.
He has been a leader, understanding and reporting so many facts to
help the rest of us understand what is going on.
I will be voting against any weapon of war provided to Israel until
every child and every woman has adequate nutrition in Gaza.
Mr. President, I yield to my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled
rollcall vote: Senator Van Hollen for up to 10 minutes, Senator Durbin
for up to 2 minutes, Senator Risch for up to 5 minutes, and Senator
Sanders for up to 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the transfer of over
$675 million of U.S. taxpayers' money to finance 1000-pound bombs and
20,000 fully automatic rifles and other offensive weapons to the
Netanyahu government.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has gone from horrible to hell on
earth. Yesterday, we reached the grisly marker of over 60,000 people
killed in Gaza, over half of them women and children. And that number
could be much higher. More than 133 people have died of starvation,
over 80 of them children, most of them this month.
Experts have been warning about the threat of famine in Gaza for
months, ever since the Netanyahu government imposed a total blockade on
all humanitarian assistance going into Gaza on March 2.
This is a man-made, preventable crisis, and the solution is clear.
The Netanyahu government must immediately allow the U.N.-led
distribution system to resume delivery of aid into Gaza to avert a
full-blown famine.
I have long said that Israel is completely justified in its war
against Hamas, which murdered over 1,200 people and seized over 250
hostages on October 7. And we must not rest until every remaining
hostage comes home, and there must be no more October 7s.
But the Netanyahu government is not justified in imposing collective
punishment against all of the people of Gaza to pay for the sins of
Hamas, and yet that is what is going on as it uses food and
humanitarian aid as a weapon of war.
There are now a half million people facing famine-like conditions in
Gaza, but they are not just numbers. Colleagues, this is an awful,
awful picture, but we have to look at what is happening in Gaza. This
is baby Zainab. She weighed 6.6 pounds when she was born 5 months ago.
She was 4.4 pounds when she died a few days ago. Her life could have
been saved with a special type of baby formula, but none of that
formula can be found in Gaza. It wasn't let in.
For months, the Netanyahu government has been blocking thousands of
truckloads of lifesaving aid that could save babies like Zainab. And
yet the Netanyahu government is denying what every human being can see,
and they are denying the humanity of people suffering.
Just 3 days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu said:
There is no starvation in Gaza.
Even Donald Trump, who has given Netanyahu a blank check, called out
that lie. He said that ``there is real starvation in Gaza. You can't
fake that.''
The World Food Programme says it has enough food to end the crisis,
but the Netanyahu government won't let them deliver all of it. And last
week, they blocked almost half of the aid convoys that the WFP
requested permission to bring in.
On July 27, the editorial board of Haaretz, Israel's longest running
newspaper wrote simply:
Gaza is starving, and Israel is responsible.
This chart from the Wall Street Journal tells the story. As you can
see, back here in March, the Netanyahu government imposed a total
blockade for months on all food and humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
After several months, they began to let a little trickle of aid in, but
they did not allow the deliveries to resume through the tested
distribution system that had been run by the United Nations and
supported by trusted organizations like the World Food Programme.
Instead, they replaced it with an organization that goes by the name of
the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but there is nothing humanitarian
about it. It is a shadowy private organization backed up by mercenaries
and the IDF.
The food distribution blocked by Israel had over 400 aid distribution
points. The GHF operation has only four, and they are not always open.
The operation has become a death trap. When you have 4 sites to feed 2
million people, it is not surprising that thousands of desperately
hungry people are
[[Page S4895]]
surging to get what they can. And as they surge, it is well-documented
that many have been shot and killed, sometimes by GHF security
contractors, more often by IDF forces.
The U.N. Secretary General said:
Any operation that channels desperate civilians into
militarized zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people.
That should be obvious to all of us. Yet the Trump administration is
using $30 million of U.S. taxpayer money to fund that deathtrap, and it
is sending more taxpayer dollars to fund bombs to the Netanyahu
government to continue the devastation of Gaza.
Colleagues, this must end. The Netanyahu government must immediately
allow tested U.N. distribution systems to resume operations and quickly
surge food to starving people.
It is important to note that the Netanyahu government claimed it was
replacing the U.N. distribution system because Hamas was systematically
diverting food intended for civilians for its own purposes. From the
start, that was a pretext and a big lie. The U.N. distribution system
had strong safeguards to prevent any significant diversion to Hamas,
and they were working.
Cindy McCain of WFP said her organization saw no evidence of any
effort of Hamas to loot aid trucks. Israeli military officials told the
New York Times in a story in just the last couple of weeks that there
is no such proof. They said:
The U.N. aid delivery system was largely effective in
providing food to Gaza's desperate and hungry population.
An internal U.S. Government analysis that just came out in the last
few weeks found no evidence of systematic theft by Hamas. That was also
the testimony of former U.S. Special Envoy for Humanitarian Issues
David Satterfield.
So why did Israel dismantle a system that was kind of working and
replace it with one that is killing civilians as they try to get food?
The simple reason is also horrifying. It is that the Israeli Government
wants to use food as a weapon of war and for population control.
They opened four aid sites--mostly in the south--to displace
Palestinians and move more in that direction. The Israeli Government is
trying to herd the Palestinian people into concentrated enclaves as a
prelude to pushing them out of Gaza entirely.
It is not a ``secret'' plan, colleagues; it has been right out there
in the open. In fact, in February of this year, President Trump said he
wanted to remove Palestinians from Gaza. And the Netanyahu government
and the Prime Minister himself embraced the plan--which, by the way,
had been previously proposed by members of his rightwing coalition. In
fact, recently, his Heritage Minister said, as others have quoted, that
the government was ``rushing toward Gaza being wiped out'' and
``driving out the population.''
Colleagues, this is part of a coordinated campaign by the Netanyahu
government--a government that has declared the removal of Gaza's
population as a strategic goal of the war. That is ethnic cleansing by
any other name, supported by American taxpayer dollars.
The extremists in the Netanyahu coalition do not just have their eyes
set on Gaza. As we speak, Israeli settlers are encroaching farther and
farther into the West Bank, killing more and more Palestinians who live
there.
It is important to note that one of the arms sales we are discussing
is the transfer of 20,000 fully automatic rifles to the Israeli
national police, headed by one of the most extreme members of the
government, Ben-Gvir--somebody who handed out rifles to settlers a
little while ago without having any idea where they were going.
On top of that, back in February, President Trump suddenly revoked
all U.S. sanctions against extremist settlers in the West Bank that had
been put in place by the Biden administration. That sent a terrible
message.
In just the first 6 months of this year, we have seen the highest
rate of settler attacks in years. One of those happened on July 11,
when violent settlers beat to death a 20-year-old Palestinian-American
citizen from Florida while he was visiting his family. His name was
Sayf, and he is the seventh American citizen killed in the West Bank
since January 2, 2022, and the fifth in just the last 19 months--some
killed by Israeli settlers and others by Israeli security forces.
Just this week, a Palestinian activist who helped make the Oscar-
winning documentary ``No Other Land'' was shot and killed by a violent
settler who had been sanctioned under the Biden administration--the
sanctions the Trump administration withdrew.
Meanwhile, on July 23, just a week ago, the Israeli Knesset approved
a symbolic resolution that supported annexing the entire West Bank--a
place where 2.7 million Palestinians live.
Colleagues, for decades, peacemakers on both sides have hoped to make
the West Bank and Gaza a foundation of a Palestinian state. We need to
make sure that we don't support these efforts that undermine peace and
security in the region. Children are starving before our eyes.
Colleagues, if ever there was a time to act, it is now. It is
overdue, but let's act now and support the resolutions put forward by
Senator Sanders.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the Senator from Illinois, Senator Durbin.
Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Vermont.
Several weeks ago, several Senators joined me in meeting with the
Ambassador from Israel. It was an effort to discuss many of the things
which we are discussing this evening.
We asked him why Israel was not providing humanitarian aid in Gaza.
He said: That is not true. We were providing it, but Hamas was stealing
it from us and using it to buy weapons and to make them stronger.
Then he went on to say--when we asked him about the children
starving, the images we had all seen on television, he said: That is
not true. That is a United Nations' narrative.
Then we asked him basically: If there is such a difference of opinion
about what is happening in Gaza, why don't you allow international
journalists to come into this area and report to the world what they
actually see?
He said it was too dangerous for journalists to even witness it.
Mr. President, I want to tell you, that was an incredible statement
and, I believe, totally wrong.
At the outset, Cindy McCain and others told us there is no diversion
by Hamas of the humanitarian aid. It just isn't coming into Gaza.
They went on to say that these children--of course, we see them on
television. You can't avoid it. That is the reality of the situation.
Furthermore, when it came down to it, we had to stand up and
acknowledge the obvious--that Israel is part of this.
Children in Gaza are starving and dying. The question is, What will
the United States do about it?
I thank the Senator from Vermont for offering these resolutions this
evening. It is painful for many of us who devoted our congressional
careers to supporting Israel, standing by them through difficult times.
It is impossible to explain or defend what is going on today. Gaza is
starving and dying because of the policies of Benyamin Netanyahu.
It is time for us as a nation to say that our taxpayers are not going
to support this effort. I will be joining the Senator this evening in
supporting this effort.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the two resolutions
that are in front of the body right now.
These two resolutions are an attempt to stop munition sales to Israel
that have been approved by the administration and are designed to
provide Israel with defensive weapons that they need.
These are misguided resolutions and, if adopted, would reinstate the
failed policies of the Biden administration and would abandon America's
closest ally in the Middle East.
Let's remember, the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the need
for the military assistance for Israel is the fault of Hamas. It is not
Israel's fault. It is not America's fault. It is the fault of Hamas. It
is the result of Hamas's grotesque action on October 7, the threat
Hamas poses to American national security, and, of course, Hamas's
treatment of the people of Gaza. They set up their military facilities
in hospitals and schools and in mosques, they use the people of Gaza as
human shields, and they steal the food the
[[Page S4896]]
people of Gaza need. It is despicable behavior. These are not good
people, and it is in the interest of America and the world to see this
terrorist group destroyed.
I couldn't agree more with my colleagues who want an end to this war.
We all want to see an end to this war and an immediate cease-fire and
for the hunger crisis in Gaza to end. The solution to all of this isn't
to deprive Israel of the weapons it needs; the solution is in the hands
of Hamas. This could end in a moment. Hamas could release the hostages,
lay down their arms and surrender, and not one more bullet would be
fired. But until this happens, we can't let up on these terrorists who
have committed the atrocities against Israel, have caused this chaos in
the Middle East, and have endangered American national security again
and again.
I hope my colleagues will join me in opposing this resolution.
Mr. SANDERS. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Virginia, Senator
Kaine.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I will only take 1 minute.
A little over a year ago, the Senate voted for $18 billion in defense
aid to Israel. On the Democratic side, the vote was 47 to 4. On the
Republican side, the vote was 22 to 27. Democrats support defense aid
to Israel.
This is not a vote to retract a single dollar of that $18 billion in
aid; it is a vote to say that defense aid to Israel, which Democrats
overwhelmingly supported, should be defensive in nature, not offensive
weapons that are likely to lead to unnecessary civilian suffering and
destabilization in the region.
I support defensive aid to Israel. I will support Senator Sanders'
resolutions to not allow the transfer of these offensive weapons.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me conclude by saying this: Senator
Risch was right. Hamas is a terrorist organization that began this war.
They are war criminals. But Hamas is not responsible for the starvation
of children today. Hamas is not responsible for the fact that 90
percent of the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed, that their
entire healthcare system has been destroyed, that every university in
Gaza has been bombed.
So today, it is not about Hamas; it is not about Israel; it is about
the United States of America and whether we will continue to be
complicit in war crimes and in the destruction of women and children in
Gaza.
I ask for strong support for both of my resolutions.
Vote on Motion to Discharge S.J. Res. 41
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
discharge S.J. Res. 41.
Mr. SANDERS. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego),
the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly), and the Senator from Michigan
(Ms. Slotkin) are necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 27, nays 70, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 454 Ex.]
YEAS--27
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Blunt Rochester
Duckworth
Durbin
Heinrich
Hirono
Kaine
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Shaheen
Smith
Van Hollen
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
NAYS--70
Banks
Barrasso
Bennet
Blackburn
Blumenthal
Booker
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Cantwell
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hassan
Hawley
Hickenlooper
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Padilla
Paul
Peters
Ricketts
Risch
Rosen
Rounds
Schiff
Schmitt
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Warner
Wicker
Wyden
Young
NOT VOTING--3
Gallego
Kelly
Slotkin
The motion was rejected.
Vote on Motion to Discharge S.J. Res. 34
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to the motion to discharge S.J. Res. 34.
Ms. SMITH. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego),
the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly) and the Senator from Michigan (Ms.
Slotkin) are necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 24, nays 73, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 455 Ex.]
YEAS--24
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Blunt Rochester
Duckworth
Durbin
Heinrich
Hirono
Kaine
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Sanders
Schatz
Shaheen
Smith
Van Hollen
Warnock
Warren
Welch
NAYS--73
Banks
Barrasso
Bennet
Blackburn
Blumenthal
Booker
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Cantwell
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hassan
Hawley
Hickenlooper
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Ossoff
Padilla
Paul
Peters
Reed
Ricketts
Risch
Rosen
Rounds
Schiff
Schmitt
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Warner
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
Young
NOT VOTING--3
Gallego
Kelly
Slotkin
The motion was rejected.
____________________