US Sen. 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 added hundreds of new deaths to an already grim death toll.
Sanders said he would force votes on two resolutions of disapproval to block the sales of certain offensive weaponry proposed by the Trump administration, which combined total some $8.8 billion. 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 senator’s announcement marks the second time that he will seek to halt arms sales to Israel using a resolution of disapproval. The first effort in November was met with defeat, thought it saw a significant number of Democrats — about 40% of the caucus — vote in opposition, a staggering tally given that President Joe Biden’s White House actively worked to rally opposition among the party.
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 estimated that around 124,000 Palestinians have been displaced yet again in the wake of Israel’s action.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 113,900 injured in Israel’s military onslaught on Gaza since October 2023.