Gaza
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I want to say a few words about an issue that people all over the world are thinking about, are appalled by but, for some strange reason, gets very little discussion here in the Nation's Capital or in the halls of Congress, and that is the horrific humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza.
Today marks 68 days and counting since any humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than 9 weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel. Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities.
There is no ambiguity here. Netanyahu's extremist government talks openly about using humanitarian aid as a weapon. Defense Minister Israel Katz said:
Israel's policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers.
Starving children to death is a weapon of war, is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death. What is going on right now in Gaza is a war crime committed openly and in broad daylight and continuing every single day.
There are 2.2 million people who live in Gaza. Today, these people are trapped. The borders are sealed, and Israel has pushed the population into an ever smaller area. With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities.
This is methodical; it is intentional; it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government.
Without fuel, there is no ability to pump fresh water, leaving people increasingly desperate, unable to find clean water to drink or to wash with or to cook properly. Disease is once again spreading in Gaza. Most of the bakeries in Gaza have now shut down, having run out of fuel and flour. The few remaining community kitchens are also shutting down.
Most people are now surviving on scarce canned goods, often a single can of beans or some lentils shared between a family once a day.
The United Nations reports that more than 2 million people out of a population of 2.2 million face severe food shortages. The starvation hits children the hardest. At least 65,000 children now show symptoms of malnutrition and dozens have already starved to death. Malnutrition rates increased 80 percent in March, the last month for which data is available after Netanyahu began the siege, but the situation has severely deteriorated since then.
UNICEF reported yesterday that ``the situation is getting worse every day'' and that they are treating about 10,000 children for severe malnutrition. And severe malnutrition is not something that is cured overnight. This will have a permanent impact on the health and well- being of those kids for the rest of their lives.
Without adequate nutrition or access to clean water, many children will die of easily preventable diseases, killed by something as simple as diarrhea. For the tens of thousands of injured people in Gaza, particularly the countless burn victims from Israeli bombings, their wounds cannot heal without adequate food and clean water. Left to fester, infections will kill many who should have survived.
With no infant formula and with malnourished mothers unable to breastfeed, many infants are also at severe risk of death. Those who survive will bear the scars of what they are going through now for the rest of their lives.
And with little medicine available, easily treatable illnesses and chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease is now a death sentence in Gaza.
What is going on there is not some terrible earthquake; it is not a hurricane; it is not a storm. What is going on in Gaza today is a man- made nightmare, and nothing in my view can justify this.
What is happening in Gaza will be a permanent stain on the world's collective conscience. History will never forget that we allowed this to happen and, for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this ongoing atrocity.
There is no doubt that Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this terrible war with its barbaric October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. The International Criminal Court was right to indict Yahya Sinwar and other leaders of Hamas as war criminals for those atrocities.
Clearly, Israel, as any other country that was so attacked, had the right to defend itself against Hamas. But Netanyahu's extremist government has not just waged war against Hamas. Instead, they have waged an all-out barbaric war of annihilation against the Palestinian people. They have intentionally made life unlivable in Gaza.
Israel, up to now, has killed more than 52,000 people and injured more than 118,000--60 percent of whom are women, children, and the elderly. More than 15,000 children in Gaza have been killed.
Israel's indiscriminate bombardment has damaged or destroyed two- thirds of all of the structures in Gaza, including 92 percent of the housing units--92 percent of housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Most of the population now is living in tents or other makeshift structures.
The healthcare system in Gaza has been, essentially, destroyed. Most of the territory's hospitals and primary healthcare facilities have been bombed. Gaza's civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including almost 90 percent of water and sanitation facilities. Most of the roads have been destroyed.
Gaza's educational system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools have been bombed--schools have been bombed--as has every single one of Gaza's 12 universities.
And there has been no electricity in Gaza for 18 months--no electricity.
Given this reality, nobody should have any doubts that Netanyahu is a war criminal. Just like his counterparts in Hamas, he has a massive amount of innocent blood on his hands.
And now, Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have a new plan--on top of everything else that has been done, they have a new plan--and that is to indefinitely reoccupy all of Gaza, flatten the few buildings that are still standing, and force the entire population of 2.2 million people into a single tiny area where hired U.S. security contractors will distribute rations to the survivors.
Israeli officials are quite open about the goal here: to force Palestinians to leave for other countries ``in line with President Trump's vision for Gaza,'' as one Israeli official said this week.
Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich said this week that ``Gaza will be entirely destroyed'' and that its population will ``leave in great numbers.''
For many in Netanyahu's extremist government, this has been the plan all along. It is called ethnic cleansing.
This would be a terrible tragedy no matter where in the world it was happening or why it was happening, whatever the causes of it might be. But what makes this tragedy so much worse for us in America is that it is our government, the U.S. Government, that is absolutely complicit in creating and sustaining this humanitarian disaster. It didn't just happen; we are a significant part of creating this humanitarian disaster.
Last year alone, the United States provided 18 billion in military aid to Israel. This year, the Trump administration has approved 12 billion more in bombs and weapons. And for months, Trump has offered blanket support for Netanyahu. More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinian people will be driven, forcibly expelled, from their homeland, and the United States will redevelop it into what Trump calls ``the riviera of the Middle East,'' a playground for billionaires.
Think about it: 2.2 million desperate people who have been bombed and starved and driven from their homes are now about to be forcibly expelled from their territory into God knows where so that Trump and his friends can build a riviera for the billionaire class.
This war has killed or injured more than 170,000 people in Gaza. It has cost American taxpayers well over $20 billion in the last year. And right now, as we speak, thousands of children are starving to death. And a U.S. President is actively encouraging the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million people.
Now, given that reality, one might think that there would be a vigorous discussion right here in the Senate. Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza? A real vigorous debate. I want to hear why that is a good use. We have people sleeping out on the streets of America two blocks from the Nation's Capital. You tell me why spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu's war and starving children is a good idea. I would love to hear it.
We are not having that debate. Let me suggest to you why I think we are not having that debate and that is because we have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows organizations like AIPAC to set the agenda here in Washington with regard to what happens in the Middle East.
In the last election cycle, AIPAC's PAC and super PAC spent nearly $127 million combined on campaign contributions. And the fact is that if you are a Member of Congress and you vote against Netanyahu's war in Gaza, AIPAC is there to punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements to see that you get defeated.
One might think that in a democracy there would be a vigorous debate on an issue of such consequence. But because of our corrupt campaign finance system, which impacts us in so many ways on this issue, people are literally afraid to stand up because if they do, suddenly, you are going to have all kinds of ads coming into your district to defeat you.
Sadly, I must confess that this political corruption works. Many of my colleagues will privately express their horror at Netanyahu's war crimes but will do or say very little publicly about it. History will not forgive our complicity in this nightmare. The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu's destruction of the Palestinian people.
We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu's war machine. We must demand an immediate cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza--not for billionaires to enjoy their Riviera there but rebuilding Gaza for the Palestinian people.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, if the Senator had heard my remarks, I talked about the need to release the hostages and I talked about who started the war, which is the terrorist organization called Hamas, led by war criminals. There is no debate about that.
But what the Senator did not tell us is whether or not he thinks it is a good idea for U.S. taxpayers to be spending billions of billions of dollars on an extremist government in Israel whose stated policy is to starve children; whether or not he thinks it is a good idea to cut off all humanitarian aid getting into Gaza right now--no medicine, no clean water, no healthcare facilities open.
So the issue is not who started the war. Everyone knows who started the war. The issue is whether you commit war atrocities, criminal war acts by punishing an entire people for the acts of a terrorist organization.
Did Israel have the right to defend itself? Yes, nobody denies that.
Did it have a right to kill over 50,000 people--60 percent of whom are women, children, and the elderly? No.
Did it have a right to injure 112,000 people, to destroy almost every housing unit in Gaza, to bomb hundreds of schools at every university in Gaza? No.
Israel had a right to defend itself, but it does not have the right to engage in ethnic cleansing and to starve children.
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