The U.S. House passed a Republican-pushed bill on November 3 to provide Israel with $14.5 billion in aid to bolster Israel’s military capabilities and for self-defence.
Israel has unleashed United States-made and paid-for bombs and artillery on Gaza, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen said in an op-ed for The Washington Post, adding that it was the responsibility of the U.S. government to guarantee that the use of American tax dollars aligns with the country’s interests and values.
The U.S. is not a “bystander,” he wrote on Wednesday. “Israel is the largest annual recipient of U.S. security assistance, totalling more than $39 billion over the past 10 years alone.”
“The U.S. government has an obligation to the American people to ensure that our tax dollars are used in a manner that aligns with our interests and values,” he added. “No foreign government should be exempt from that principle, not even a close friend and partner such as Israel.”
The U.S. House passed a Republican-pushed bill on November 3 to provide Israel with $14.5 billion in aid to bolster Israel’s military capabilities and for self-defence.
The bill included $4 billion to boost Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling missile defence systems as well as military equipment transferred from U.S. stocks, Al Jazeera reported.
The U.S. provides Israel with a yearly $3.8 billion in military assistance, totaling over $124 billion since Israel was established.
The Pentagon continues to provide weapons shipments almost on a near-daily basis to Israel, Pentagon deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters. “We are not putting any limits on how Israel uses weapons,” Singh said during a press briefing on October 30.
“That is really up to the Israeli Defense Force to use and how they are going to conduct their operations.”
Hollen also called on the President Joe Biden’s administration to demand increased accountability from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, adding that Joe Biden should compel Netanyahu to present a credible strategy for limiting the number of civilian deaths.
“That’s why I’m calling upon President Biden to require more accountability from the government of Benjamin Netanyahu,” Hollen penned in the op-ed piece, adding, “He should insist the prime minister produce a verifiable plan to reduce the unacceptable level of civilian casualties and fully cooperate with our efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.”
“Until then, the United States should not support the current resumption of hostilities.”
Biden placed an urgent request on October 20 for nearly $106 billion in emergency funds to support Israel and Ukraine, as well as fortify the US-Mexico border. His administration is seeking $14.3 billion from Congress to further pump into Israel’s arms capabilities.
Regarding the White House’s hefty request, Hollen said, “As the Senate takes up this request, I’m working with a group of my colleagues on an amendment that would require that the weapons received by any country under this bill are used in accordance with U.S. law, international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict.”
As for the inability of aid getting into Gaza, Senator Van Hollen is working on an amendment that would require weapons received by any country to abide by U.S., human rights, and international humanitarian law. This amendment “would buttress current law that prohibits U.S. security assistance to any country that prevents or restricts U.S. humanitarian assistance to those in need, subject to a presidential waiver.”
The United Nations reported that on Wednesday, Gaza received a delivery of only 80 humanitarian aid trucks and 69,000 litres of fuel entering from Egypt.
“This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November,” the OCHA report said.
The UN’s capacity to accept incoming aid has been hindered due to various factors, including a scarcity of trucks within Gaza, with some stuck in central Gaza – which is “severed” from the south, according to OCHA – telecommunication outages, and a growing number of staff unable to reach the Rafah crossing due to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the senator went on to highlight: “It is essential, for both moral and strategic reasons, that Israel distinguish between Hamas and the more than 2 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, half of them children, who have nothing to do with Hamas.”
“As the Netanyahu coalition faces pressure from within, including from far-right extremist elements led by Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, it is our duty to press for this distinction and ensure accountability,” he added.
When Israel announced a complete siege on Gaza on October 9, the regime’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant referred to the two million people in Gaza as “human animals.” “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” he said.
Separately, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari admitted on October 11 that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”
Additionally, an anonymous Israeli official told local media, The Telegraph reported, without mentioning that news outlet, that Gaza would be minimised to a “city of tents” by the end of the brutal bombardment campaign.
Netanyhu also referenced the Biblical story of the Amalek people in what many described as a clear call for genocide.
“You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. 1 Samuel 15:3 ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’,” Netanyahu said in late October.
Similar sentiments were shared by Israel’s President Yitzhak Herzog said on October 16: “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza.”
”We will fight until we break their backs”.
Meanwhile, Qatar had played a crucial role mediating a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, that began on November 24 and was renewed twice before ending on Friday morning, lasting a total of seven days.
Israel initially directed its military offensive towards the northern region of the enclave, but on December 1 the occupation forces distributed leaflets in southern areas, forcibly displacing tens of thousands more Palestinians. But civilians have nowhere to go because Israel has also been bombing the south.
“With the pause over, the Netanyahu government has moved forward with its plan for a full air and ground offensive against Khan Younis, the second largest city in the Gaza Strip, which has doubled in population as Palestinians displaced from the north have fled south,” Hollen wrote in the op-ed piece. “As the war resumes, we’re at a critical juncture.”
On November 30, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, while on a visit in Israel, he “made clear the imperative before any operations go forward in southern Gaza there’ll be a clear plan in place that puts a premium on protecting civilians, as well as sustaining and building on humanitarian assistance getting to Gaza.”
To this, Hollen said: “‘Imperative’ is a strong word.”
“When strong words are not matched by strong actions, the United States looks feckless. Within hours of Blinken’s statement, the temporary pause ended and Israeli airstrikes killed more than 170 people. Since then, over 1,200 people have been killed,” Van Hollen wrote.
He also mentioned that Rafah, a city in Gaza on the Egyptian border, had been bombed and not adequately ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing.
The Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 16,250 Palestinians since the start of the genocide in Gaza on October 7, according to the latest figures by Palestine’s health ministry.Euro-Med reported a much higher figure on Wednesday of 21,731, including 8,697 children and missing Palestinians still under the rubble.
