M. President,

In a few weeks’ time, we will mark the one-year anniversary of the war in the Middle East.

It has been almost one year since Hamas’ horrific terrorist rampage on October 7th, which killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hundreds of hostages, including Americans.

And, as I have said many times, Israel had an absolute right to respond to the Hamas attack.

But, tragically, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extremist government has not simply waged war against Hamas. It has waged all-out war against the Palestinian people.

Israel has conducted this war with little regard for innocent civilians, bombing indiscriminately and severely restricting the humanitarian relief operation.

After nearly one year of this carnage, out of a population of some 2.2 million, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 95,000 injured – 60 percent of whom are women, children, or elderly people.

M. President, Netanyahu’s policies have trampled on international law, made life unlivable in Gaza and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history. 

Think again about the scale of the suffering caused by this all-out war against the Palestinian people: 136,000 casualties, most of whom are civilians. The full toll is likely even higher, with thousands of bodies buried beneath the rubble.

M. President, ninety percent of Gazans have been displaced from their homes – 1.9 million people. Many families have been displaced again and again and again, forced to uproot their lives and pick their way across a warzone with their children and what little they can carry, amid bombing and total destruction. When these families find a place to seek refuge, perhaps setting up a tent in a so-called “safe zone,” they are often then forced to evacuate again due to Israeli bombing.

After almost a year of this destruction, displacement, and suffering, the people of Gaza are exhausted and in despair. And for one second, please think about the children of Gaza, and what they have experienced over the last year.

Few of these people even have homes to return to. More than 60 percent of Gaza’s housing has been damaged or destroyed, including 221,000 housing units that have been completely destroyed, leaving more than one million people homeless. Where are these people going to go when this war finally ends? What does it mean to be driven from one location to another location to another, knowing the home you left behind no longer stands.

M. President, what we are witnessing now is not just the loss of human life. Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been devastated, including water and sewage systems. Raw sewage runs through the streets, spreading disease. Clean water is still in short supply. Most of the roads are impassable, torn up by bombing and bulldozers.

But it’s not just infrastructure. The Netanyahu government has systematically devastated the healthcare system in Gaza, knocking 19 hospitals out of service and killing more than 800 healthcare workers. The World Health Organization has recorded thousands of attacks on healthcare facilities. Not surprisingly, with the collapse of the healthcare system under this strain, diseases like hepatitis, dysentery, polio, and other infections have taken hold.

M. President, Gaza has twelve universities. Every single one of them has been bombed, as have hundreds of schools. 88 percent of all school buildings in Gaza have been damaged, and more than 500 people have been killed while sheltering in UN schools. There are many hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza. Virtually none of them have been in school since the war began.

M. President, as horrific as all of that is, there is something even worse taking place in Gaza now. And that is, as a result of Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid, people in Gaza are now starving. Leading experts from the UN and other aid organizations estimate that some 495,000 Palestinians face starvation. These groups estimate that more than 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition and are at risk of starving to death. Malnourished women struggle to breastfeed their newborns, formula is inaccessible, and even when available it cannot be used without reliable sources of clean water.

According to the UN and virtually every humanitarian organization functioning in Gaza, there is one primary reason for this starvation and suffering: Israel has severely restricted the amount of humanitarian aid – including food, water, and medical supplies – that can reach the desperate people of Gaza. This is a clear violation of U.S. and international law.

And, M. President, every day – every single day – the bombardment continues. Bombing and shelling carried out with U.S.-provided weaponry, often financed in large part by American taxpayers.

In the last year alone, Congress has voted to send more than $10 billion in American taxpayer dollars to the extremist Israeli government, to buy more of the bombs and weapons they are using to wage war against the Palestinian people.

M. President, enough is enough. U.S. complicity in this horrific war must end.

With a group of colleagues, I will soon be introducing a number of Joint Resolutions of Disapproval which would block $20 billion in new arms sales to Israel. Resolutions of Disapproval are the only tool Congress has to block arms sales which are inconsistent with established U.S. and international law. The Senate will vote on these measures.

Let me outline why it is critical that we prevent these sales from going forward.

M. President, I have laid out the horrible reality of the situation in Gaza. The sad truth is that much of the carnage has been carried out with U.S.-provided military equipment.

Put simply, providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would be immoral.  It would also be illegal. 

These sales directly contradict the stated purpose of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA). These laws require that U.S. arms transfers to foreign countries must be consistent with internationally-recognized human rights, advance U.S. foreign policy interests, and avoid U.S. complicity with any human rights violations. 

M. President, during the August recess the Administration sent to Congress official notices for several sales to Israel that clearly do not meet these criteria. The arms sales total over $20 billion and include transfers of Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs; 120mm tank rounds; 120mm high explosive mortar rounds; Medium Tactical Vehicles; and up to fifty new F-15 fighter aircraft, as well as upgrades for some of Israel’s current F-15s.

All of these systems have been used in Gaza, causing massive death and suffering to innocent men, women, and children.

The JDAMs and 120mm tank rounds, in particular, have been used indiscriminately and are responsible for a huge portion of the civilian casualties. Reliable human rights monitors have painstakingly documented numerous specific incidents involving these systems leading to unacceptable civilian death and harm. There is a mountain of documentary evidence. Hundreds of eyewitness testimonies, photographs, videos, and satellite imagery that all underscores one simple point: these weapons are being used in violation of U.S. and international law.

I have a list here of some of the most egregious incidents involving these systems.  Tragically, the list is too long for me to read here on the floor, but I ask that it be included in the Record:

Regarding JDAMs, these incidents include but are not limited to:

• On October 10, 2023, an Israeli strike with a U.S. JDAM in Deir al-Balah killed 24, including 7 children.
• On October 22, 2023, an Israeli strike with a U.S. JDAM in Deir al-Balah killed 19, including 12 children.
• On October 31, 2023, an Israeli strike with U.S. JDAMs in Jabalia killed at least 126 civilians, including 69 children.
• On January 18, 2024, an Israeli strike with a U.S. JDAM in al-Mawasi targeted a humanitarian facility.
• On March 27, 2024, an Israeli strike with a U.S. JDAM in al-Habariyeh, Lebanon killed 7 healthcare workers.
• On July 13, 2024, an Israeli strike with a U.S. JDAM in al-Mawasi killed at least 90 Palestinians – at least half of whom were women and children – and injured at least 300.

Regarding the 120mm tank rounds, these incidents include but are not limited to:

• On October 13 2023, Israeli forces attacked several journalists with 120mm tank ammunition in southern Lebanon, killing Reuters’ Issam Abdallah.
• On January 29, 2024, Israeli forces used U.S. 120mm tank ammunition in Gaza City in an attack that killed six-year-old Hind Rajab and two paramedics.
• On February 20, 2024, Israeli tanks fired upon a Medecins Sans Frontieres guesthouse in Khan Younis, killing two people and injuring six others.
• On May 28, the Israeli military used 120mm tank rounds in al-Mawasi in an attack that killed 23 people, including 12 children.

Indeed, the Administration’s report pursuant to National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20) concluded that “it is reasonable to assess that defense articles …have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm.” The report stated that the “high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions as to whether the IDF is using [effective civilian harm mitigation] effectively in all cases.”

M. President, it’s not just the civilian casualties and the violations of international human rights. Other provisions of U.S. law are also applicable. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act also states that: “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.”

The whole world has witnessed Israel’s restriction of humanitarian aid. The UN and virtually every humanitarian group says that Israel’s restrictive policies are the primary cause of the humanitarian catastrophe. The Administration says as much, admitting that “Israel did not fully cooperate with United States government efforts and United States government-supported international efforts to maximize humanitarian assistance flow to and distribution within Gaza.” That severely understates the reality.

No matter how people in Washington try to spin it, the simple fact is that we must end our complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death.

M. President, the law also says that arms sales must advance U.S. foreign policy interests. These transfers again fall short.

The sales would reward Netanyahu’s extremist government even as it flouts U.S. policy goals at every turn and drags the United States closer to a regional war.

For months, the Biden Administration has been trying to reach a ceasefire deal that would secure the release of the hostages and allow massive amounts of humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza. Every time a deal appears close, Netanyahu move the goalposts, introducing new demands and torpedoing the deal. It is clear that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to cling to power and avoid prosecution at home for corruption. That is why hundreds of thousands of Israelis routinely take to the streets to protest his policies.

But it’s not just his sabotage of a ceasefire for hostage deal. Netanyahu has also overseen record settlement expansion in the West Bank and unleashed a wave of violence there that has killed nearly 700 Palestinians, including 150 children, killed over the last 11 months.

M. President, Americans have also been caught up in this bloodshed. On September 6th, Israeli security forces shot a 26-year-old American recent college graduate in the head near an illegal settlement in the West Bank. In January, they shot and killed a 17-year-old American high school senior from Louisiana. In February, they shot and killed another 17-year-old American from Florida. And in October of last year, they nearly killed a constituent of mine, Dylan Collins, a journalist for Agence France-Presse, with two tank rounds. Six journalists were wounded in that attack, which killed a Reuters journalist. The group was clearly marked as press. These are the same tank rounds the Administration would provide to Israel in this sale.

There has been no accountability for these deaths.

And, of course, there has been no accountability for the repeated Israeli settler attacks, enabled by security forces, on Palestinian towns and villages. No meaningful response to the burning of Palestinian homes and businesses. Nothing but silence in the face of a concerted right-wing Israeli effort to illegally annex the West Bank.

Yet those are the Netanyahu extremist government policies that these sales would reward. A government that has caused mass civilian death, flouted U.S. and international law, and that is actively undermining key U.S. policy goals in the region.

M. President, passing a Joint Resolution to block these sales will make clear to Netanyahu that he cannot continue to ignore the U.S. government’s demands for an immediate ceasefire and the release of the hostages. It will put pressure on his extremist government to change Israel’s military approach and avert a regional war. And it may begin to restore a shred of U.S. credibility internationally.

M. President, passing a Joint Resolution of Disapproval is not only the right thing to do, it is not only the legal thing to do, it is also what the American people want. According to a June 5-7 poll from CBS News, 61% of Americans oppose sending weapons and supplies to Israel, including 77% of Democrats and 62% of Independents. This result is consistent with earlier polls.  

M. President, this is not a new or radical idea. The United States routinely conditions military aid, arms sales, and security cooperation with every other country. And we have done it many times before with Israel. It is only in recent years that the idea of leveraging aid to Israel to secure policy changes has become controversial. President Reagan suspended delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Israel over its raid on the Osirak reactor in Iraq, threatened to suspend military aid to end Israel’s bombardment of Beirut, and again threatened to stop military aid to force an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 1982. President Carter similarly leveraged aid to change Israeli policies in Lebanon. In 1991, then-Secretary of State James Baker threatened to withhold $10 billion in loan guarantees unless Israel stopped settlement expansion.

Using arms sales and military aid as leverage is not new. 

There is also recent precedent of Congress acting to stop the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. In 2019, Congress passed a series of JRDs to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia over its bombing campaign in Yemen. At that point, the Saudi coalition was directly responsible for roughly 8,000 civilian deaths over four years, mostly from airstrikes. Israel has killed 41,000 in 11 and a half months, most of whom are civilians.

M. President, blocking these sales would also be in keeping with actions taken by the international community and some of our closest allies. There has been widespread condemnation of Israel’s conduct during this war from governments around the world, international institutions, and humanitarian organizations. The United Kingdom recently suspended 30 export licenses for a range of armaments after concluding there was an unacceptable risk they could be used in violation of international humanitarian law. Germany has not approved an offensive weapon transfer since March. Italy, Spain, Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands have taken similar steps. United Nations bodies have called for an end to the arms shipments fueling the conflict.

M. President, we cannot ignore what the extremist Netanyahu government has done in Gaza. We cannot continue to be complicit in this humanitarian disaster. We must act. I hope my colleagues will support this effort on the floor. My office is ready to answer any questions the Senators may have.

I yield the floor.