[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 20, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2479-S2480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISRAEL

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are currently witnessing one of the 
worst humanitarian disasters in modern history, and the United States 
is complicit. Anyone who turns on the television or opens a newspaper 
can see the unbelievable devastation now taking place in Gaza. We can 
see--if we choose to see--the images of starving, emaciated children. 
And that is because one of our closest allies, Israel--a country we 
have poured tens of billions of dollars into--has created a situation 
in which hundreds of thousands of people are slowly starving to death.
  The United States of America cannot--and must not--be complicit in 
this unspeakable tragedy. We cannot be complicit in starvation as a 
military strategy. We cannot be complicit in the physical and emotional 
destruction of an entire generation of beautiful Palestinian children.
  For months, the United Nations and other aid organizations have 
warned about imminent starvation and possible famine in Gaza. And now 
that is exactly what is happening.
  How did we get to this point? How have we--the Congress of the United 
States--allowed this situation to reach this point?
  Nobody disputes that Hamas--a terrorist organization--started this 
war with its barbaric, brutal attack against Israel on October 7, which 
killed 1,200 innocent people and took more than 250 hostages.
  And as I have consistently said, Israel had the right to respond to 
that attack and go to war against Hamas. But it did not--and it does 
not--have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, 
which is exactly what it has done and what it is doing right now.
  Almost 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and almost 74,000 have 
been wounded, two-thirds of whom are women and children. So 1.8 million 
Palestinians--80 percent of the population of Gaza--have been driven 
from their homes. Nearly 70 percent of the housing units and more than 
half of all buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. Nothing 
has been spared--not refugee camps, not schools, not hospitals, not 
U.N. facilities. All have been bombed.
  In the wake of the Hamas attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav 
Gallant declared a total siege of Gaza. He said:

       We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly 
     . . . There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, 
     everything is closed.

  Well, he has kept his word. In many parts of Gaza today, there is no 
electricity or fuel. Hospitals have been destroyed, and water 
infrastructure has been made inoperable.
  Israel has also blocked communications networks, making it impossible 
for humanitarian organizations to safely coordinate aid deliveries.
  In this context, over 4 months ago in November, the U.N. first began 
to warn of severe shortages of food and water in Gaza--4 months ago--
and of the imminent risk of starvation and possible famine. And aside 
from a brief pause in the fighting in late November which allowed aid 
to come in, very little has changed.
  In December, the U.N. reported that Israel's blockade of food and 
water meant that a quarter of the population of Gaza--over half a 
million people--were one step away from famine.
  In January, Senators Van Hollen and Merkley went to the Rafah 
Crossing from Egypt to learn what was preventing humanitarian aid from 
getting into Gaza. They saw miles of trucks waiting, often for weeks, 
to be cleared by the Israelis.
  They reported that trucks are unloaded and reloaded repeatedly. And 
if a single item is rejected, the entire cargo must start the weekslong 
process all over again.
  And they heard about items being rejected for no reason, such as 
tents, medical kits, and water filters. In other words, our colleagues 
saw a process that was completely broken and no Israeli interest in 
fixing it, despite the profound humanitarian crisis that was 
developing.
  It is difficult to look at these facts and not see, at worst, an 
intentional Israeli effort to starve the people of Gaza of what they 
need to survive and, at best--at best--a complete disregard for 
Palestinian lives.
  And sure enough, in January, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said at 
a press conference that ``we provide minimal humanitarian aid. . . . If 
we want to achieve our war goals, we give the minimal aid.''
  The situation, as a result, has continued to get worse and worse and 
worse. In the north, almost no humanitarian aid has gotten through in 
February. The Israelis rejected most U.N. attempts to deliver aid to 
the north and then began actually targeting the police who escort U.N. 
aid trucks. Amid the desperation of north Gaza, this has led to 
incidents in which hundreds of starving Palestinians, desperate to 
secure food, were shot by Israeli troops or trampled in the chaos.

  For 3 weeks now, reports have emerged of people eating leaves and 
animal feed to try to stay alive, and the first long-feared reports are 
coming in of children dying from malnutrition and dehydration.
  A few aid convoys are now getting through to the north. Under intense 
U.S. pressure, Israel has allowed about half--half--of the requested 
humanitarian missions to proceed in recent weeks. But that is still 
nowhere near enough to reverse months of starvation and stave off a 
wave of deaths from malnutrition, dehydration, and preventable 
diseases.
  Earlier this week, the U.N. and other humanitarian NGOs released a 
new version of their most comprehensive assessment of the food crisis, 
called the IPC. I would just like to read the headline here.

       Famine is imminent as 1.1 million people, half of Gaza, 
     experience catastrophic food insecurity.

  That is the headline. The report goes on to say that ``extremely 
critical levels of acute malnutrition and mortality [are] imminent for 
more than two-thirds of the people in the north.'' And that is a 
technical way of saying that more than 200,000 people are now starving 
to death and that if nothing changes, more than a million people could 
starve.
  At least 31 people, including 27 children, have already died of 
starvation and dehydration. And the real total is much likely higher, 
as aid organizations and medical teams are unable to reach the hardest 
hit areas.
  UNICEF said on Friday that nearly one in three children under 2 years 
of age in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition.
  We put billions and billions of dollars into Israel year after year. 
And today, nearly one in three children under 2 years of age in 
northern Gaza suffer from acute malnutrition.
  Once a young child reaches that point, it is very difficult to 
reverse the process. The child's body consumes itself from within, and 
only through careful medical treatment can they be saved--treatment 
that is impossible without a functioning healthcare system, a system 
that certainly does not exist in Gaza today.
  Let me repeat. We can hide our eyes. We can talk about a million 
other things. We can talk about this and that and everything else. But 
right now, the

[[Page S2480]]

reality is that tens of thousands of children are dying slow, painful 
deaths. And we are complicit in that reality.
  All of this is preventable. As of yesterday, 1,200 trucks were 
waiting to enter Gaza--more than 800 of which were carrying food 
supplies. Hundreds and hundreds of trucks carrying food is sitting just 
a short distance from starving children. And yet the United States and 
other countries have had to resort to airdropping supplies. They are 
trying to find ways to deliver aid by sea. In other words, we have put 
billions of dollars of aid--military aid--into Israel, and we are now 
trying to figure out a way to get beyond Israel's blocking at the 
borders by dropping food in the air or coming in through the sea, all 
of which is very expensive and very inefficient.
  These contortions are absurd. There is no reason as to why trucks 
should not be able to drive across the border into Gaza, including 
through crossings in the north.
  Looking at the situation this week, the U.N. senior human rights 
official said that ``Israel's continued restrictions on entry of aid 
into Gaza . . . may amount to the use of starvation as a method of 
war''--starvation as a method of war--``which is a war crime.''
  The President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the 
National Security Advisor--the whole U.S. Government--has been begging 
the Israeli government to change their approach for months now. Aside 
from opening one border crossing, there is nothing to show for all of 
that begging.
  Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken the billions of dollars in 
military aid that American taxpayers have given him. He has taken our 
bombs and military equipment, and he has done exactly what he wants to 
do. We give him the money. We tell them what we think is right. He 
ignores us. He does what he wants to do.
  Far from flooding the zone with aid--which has been the United 
States' position. We want to flood the zone with humanitarian aid, as 
is, in fact, necessary to avert mass death from starvation, dehydration 
and disease. The Israelis, this week, denied entry to Gaza for the head 
of UNRWA, the backbone of the humanitarian aid operation there.
  Indeed, attacking UNRWA seems to be a primary concern of the Israeli 
Government. Tens of thousands of people are starving. UNRWA is trying 
to feed them, and the Israeli Government and its allies, like AIPAC, 
spend much of their time lobbying to defund UNRWA, the major 
organization which is feeding starving people.
  Sadly, tragically, many Members of Congress seem to be happy to be 
part of this starvation caucus, happy to cut funding for UNRWA and make 
it harder to get aid to Palestinians in the midst this crisis.
  Mr. President, as you know, the Senate passed a supplemental bill 
prohibiting funding to UNRWA against my vote, and it seems likely that 
the House will soon pass an appropriations bill containing additional 
provisions to defund this agency.
  Israel has said that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the October 
7 attack. These are serious charges, and they are being investigated in 
a serious way. UNRWA immediately fired the accused employees, and the 
U.N. launched an investigation, as it should. I should note, by the 
way, that Israel has refused to cooperate with the U.N. investigation.
  UNRWA plays a critical role in getting desperately needed 
humanitarian aid to millions of Gazans, and it is essential to regional 
stability, not only in Gaza but in Jordan and in neighboring countries. 
Whatever the outcome of this investigation, you do not starve millions 
of people and hundreds of thousands of children because of the alleged 
actions of 12 UNRWA employees out of a workforce of 30,000.
  We should remember, by the way, that the Israeli military has killed 
171 U.N. staff since this war began. But somehow my colleagues here in 
Congress--or many of them--seem not to pay much attention to that.
  I think that all over this country, there is a lot of anguish in the 
hearts and the souls of American people. Whether you are a conservative 
Republican, whether you are an Independent, whether you are a 
progressive, you do not want to see hundreds of thousands of children 
starve to death while food trucks sit a few miles away. I don't think 
there are many Americans who want to see that.
  The American people do not want to see a situation in which a 
longtime American ally, Israel, is using U.S. weapons and equipment to 
block the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid, which, by the way, is 
against the law. Any country that blocks American humanitarian aid, by 
law, should have its funding ended.
  The American people, in my view, no matter what your politics may be, 
do not want to be complicit in the slaughter of small kids who are 
bombed to death while they sleep.
  The American people, in my view, do not want us to continue funding 
Netanyahu's cruel war.
  I think maybe it is time we start listening to the American people. 
In my view, when we listen to the American people, what we have to do 
is stop begging the Israeli Government to end this humanitarian 
disaster. We have to stop begging them, and we have to start telling 
them that if they want U.S. aid, they are going to have to 
fundamentally change what they are doing.
  The fact of the matter is--and no one disagrees with this--that if 
you want the kind of aid that is needed to prevent the starvation that 
is taking place, what you need is a massive process of sustained ground 
deliveries. That means many, many, many hundreds of trucks every single 
day getting into Gaza and going into the most desperate areas. If you 
want to feed people, that is the only way you can do it efficiently.
  Israel must open the borders and allow the U.N. to deliver supplies 
in sufficient quantities throughout all of Gaza. Israel must stop 
military operations--cease fire--to allow that to happen.
  The bottom line here is that the United States must make it 
absolutely clear to the rightwing, extremist Israeli Government led by 
Netanyahu that failure to open up access immediately, failure to allow 
starving children to get the food they need and the medical equipment 
they need will result in the complete shutoff of the full range of 
American assistance to Israel.
  The American people are not stupid. They understand that you can't go 
around criticizing Netanyahu, attacking Netanyahu, doing this and doing 
that and then say: Oh, by the way, we were just kidding, because here 
is your check for $10 billion to continue your military assault against 
the Palestinian people.
  History will judge what we do right now. History will judge whether 
we stand with starving children, whether we uphold American values or 
we provide massive aid to a war machine that is operating in an 
unbelievably barbaric way.
  Mr. President, the United States must make it clear: not another 
nickel for Netanyahu's war machine.
  I yield the floor.

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