Their call comes as the administration faces mounting domestic and international pressure over what critics have described as an “absurd” and “inherent contradiction” at the heart of US policy on Israel’s war against Hamas: while the US attempts to ease the deepening humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian territory, it continues to arm the country.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.
This week, Van Hollen and seven of his colleagues sent a letter to the president arguing that Israel was in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act, a section of which prohibits the sale and transfer of military weapons to any nation that restricts the delivery of US aid.
With the prospects of a truce elusive and far too little aid trickling in, Biden has authorized airdrops and the construction of a maritime corridor to deliver desperately needed food and medicine to the Palestinian people living in the besieged territory.
Given this reality, we urge you to make it clear to the Netanyahu government that failure to immediately and dramatically expand humanitarian access and facilitate safe aid deliveries throughout Gaza will lead to serious consequences, as specified under existing US law.”
Van Hollen also argued that the Israeli government is “not in compliance” with a national security memorandum (NSM 20) issued by the president last month that requires any country that receives US military assistance to provide written assurances it will “not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede” the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The senators’ proposal, which would have required any country receiving US weapons to comply with humanitarian laws, risked a messy floor fight among Democrats divided over the US’s approach to the war amid Gaza’s rising death toll.
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