US senator to force votes next week to block nearly $9B in new arms for Israel
WASHINGTON (AA) – Senator Bernie Sanders announced Thursday that he will force votes next week on halting nearly $9 billion in new military aid for Israel after it broke a ceasefire in Gaza with large-scale strikes that have killed hundreds Palestinians.
Sanders said he would force votes on two resolutions of disapproval to block the sales of certain offensive weaponry proposed by the Trump administration. The senior independent senator said the bombs and other munitions would enable Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extremist government to continue its destruction of Gaza.”
“Netanyahu has clearly violated U.S. and international law in this brutal war, and we must end our complicity in the carnage,” Sanders said in a statement.
“This war has been conducted almost entirely with American weapons and some $18 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. Israel has dropped U.S.-provided 2,000-pound bombs into crowded neighborhoods, killing hundreds of civilians to take out a handful of Hamas fighters, and made little effort to distinguish between civilians and combatants. These actions are immoral and illegal,” he added.
The arms that Sanders’s latest action will attempt to block include 35,000 2,000-pound bombs, weapons that Israel has used to level wide swathes of Gaza in attacks widely decried by the international community as indiscriminate.
“Hamas started this war with its brutal terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. Israel had a right to respond against Hamas. But Netanyahu’s extremist government has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people,” said Sanders. “Congress must act to block these arms sales.”
Israel launched a surprise aerial campaign on the Gaza Strip on March 18 that has killed 855 people, injuring nearly 1,900, and shattering a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas that took hold in January.
The UN estimates that around 124,000 Palestinians have been displaced yet again in the wake of Israel’s action.
Israel has killed around 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 113,900 since October 2023.
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