Congress Must Stop Biden’s Latest Weapons Deal to Israel | Palestine Policy Roundup 07.01.24
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Rep. Pramila Jayapal: “After weeks of @POTUS assuring the world that Israel was behind the ceasefire plan, Netanyahu has once again shown that he has no interest in a ceasefire or returning the hostages. As Israel’s largest military funder, we must stop funding Netanyahu’s war.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen in response to Israeli plans to annex the West Bank: “Members of the Netanyahu Gov are saying the quiet part out loud—but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. This would be bad for Israelis, Palestinians & the US. The only question is: what is the US prepared to do about it?”
Rep. Delia Ramirez on the attempted drowning of a Palestinian-American child and the killing of another: “Words matter. Hateful words incite hateful actions. And our children —3-year-olds and 6-year-olds— suffer because of carelessness and bigotry. It’s detestable how islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and antisemitism are on the rise. We must act! Congress can start by passing my resolution honoring Wadee.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Gaza is starving. Over 495,000 people face “catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity” because of the fighting & restrictions on humanitarian aid, according to the UN & other groups. The U.S. must USE its leverage to end this manmade catastrophe. No more bombs for Netanyahu.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “It’s disgusting that my colleagues would support legislation to prohibit U.S. officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll. They want to erase the Palestinians who are living, and now they are trying to erase the Palestinians who are dead. This is genocide denial.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
❌ CONGRESS MUST BLOCK F-15S, JDAMS TO ISRAEL
On June 17, the Washington Post reported that Sen. Ben Cardin, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Gregory Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, lifted their holds on a proposed package of $18 billion of weapons to Israel, including 50 F-15 fighter jets, Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, and air-to-air missiles. The lifting of these holds clears the way for the Biden administration to formally notify Congress of this proposed sale.
Israel is engaging in a systematic pattern of airstrikes targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza, potentially amounting to war crimes. In addition, Israel’s use of JDAMs has been linked to potential war crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
💡 POLICY ASK: Once the president notifies Congress of this proposed sale, the IMEU Policy Project strongly encourages Members of Congress to introduce or cosponsor a joint resolution of disapproval (JRD) to halt this weapons package. Congress must not allow the sale of any additional weapons to Israel in order to end US complicity in Israel’s plausible genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.
📖 LEARN MORE: Read the IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo on why Congress must stop this weapons transfer.
HOUSE APPROVES GENOCIDE DENIAL AMENDMENT TO SPENDING BILL
More than 200 Representatives, including over 60 Democrats, voted in favor of an SFOPS amendment that would prohibit the State Department from using statistics from the Palestinian Health Ministry which cite the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s genocidal actions. House Democratic leadership also failed to advise its membership to vote against this amendment. According to the ministry, over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. While President Biden’s previous discounting of these figures paved the way for this measure, US officials such as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have cited the ministry’s statistics under oath. This effort to discredit the carnage and toll of Israel’s assault on Gaza is tantamount to genocide denial, and is the latest example of extreme anti-Palestinian racism from Congress.
IN THE NEWS
🔎 FORENSIC INVESTIGATION FINDS ISRAEL LIKELY KILLED HIND RAJAB, HER FAMILY, AND PARAMEDICS
An investigation by Forensic Architecture, Earshot, and Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines found that Hind Rajab and her family were likely killed by an Israeli tank during an Israeli operation in Gaza City in January. The investigation noted that the family car was hit by gunfire 335 times and was positioned as little as thirteen meters away from the Israeli tank when Hind’s cousin Layan Hamada was killed, making it “not plausible that the shooter could not have seen that the car was occupied by civilians, including children.” Hind Rajab survived this attack, and called the Palestine Red Crescent for help. Paramedics Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun were sent in an ambulance to her location hours later. The ambulance was shot upon its arrival, killing the paramedics. The investigation found that the ambulance was likely hit with a 120mm M830A1 HEAT round by an Israeli tank.
🔑 KEY CONTEXT: An investigation by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor earlier this year found that the shell used to hit the ambulance was manufactured in the US. Less than two months before this incident, the State Department bypassed Congress and approved a sale of 14,000 tank shells to Israel.
Hind Rajab was found dead two weeks later. In some of her final moments she pleaded with dispatchers for help, saying “It’s almost night, I am scared” and “Come get me, please.” This investigation refutes claims by Israeli forces that there were no troops present in the area when the incidents occurred. The intentional killing of civilians and targeting of medical workers are war crimes. This investigation provides further evidence that Israel is not adhering to international or US law as it conducts its genocidal campaign in Gaza, and that Israel is using US-supplied weapons to commit such crimes. The Biden administration and Congress must halt all weapons to Israel in order to stop these atrocities.
📺 WATCH: This investigation was featured in The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza, a new documentary published by Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines.
🎧 LISTEN: Listen to Hind Rajab’s pleas for help in her call with Palestine Red Crescent dispatchers.
🚨 MORE THAN 20,000 CHILDREN ESTIMATED TO BE LOST, DETAINED, OR BURIED IN RUBBLE OR MASS GRAVES IN GAZA
Save The Children estimated that up to 21,000 children in Gaza are missing, detained, or buried in mass graves or under rubble, and that Israel’s invasion of Rafah has displaced even more children. The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and Higher Education reported earlier this month that fifteen thousand children have been killed by Israel. Highlighting the difficulty of identifying bodies after the latest attacks on Rafah, the report noted that “Save the Children warned that confirming identification of a body by the next of kin is almost impossible when whole families have been wiped out and entry restrictions mean the equipment and experts needed cannot get in.” The United Nations added Israeli forces to its list of nations and armed groups that have violated the rights of children earlier this month.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East, Jeremy Stoner: “Children who are missing but living are vulnerable, face grave protection risks and must be found. They must be protected and reunited with their families. For the children who have been killed, their deaths must be formally marked, their families informed, burial rites respected, and accountability sought. As many have pointed out, Gaza has become a graveyard for children, with thousands of others missing, their fates unknown. There must be an independent investigation and those responsible must be held accountable. We desperately need a ceasefire to find and support the missing children who have survived, and to prevent more families from being destroyed.”
✈️ US AIRMEN EXPRESS FURTHER DISSENT WITH BIDEN’S SUPPORT FOR GENOCIDE IN GAZA
Active duty airmen Larry Hebert, Jr. and Juan Bettancourt are seeking conscientious objector status over US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Speaking to NBC News, the airmen both referred to Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide and questioned their role in perpetrating it. Bettancourt said in an interview that “I sure hope that our leaders see that the war crimes taking place, the thousands of videos of maimed children coming into our phones, are changing the conscience of the American people, both within and outside of the military”.
Also this week, former airman Mohammed Abu Hashem publicly announced his resignation from the US Air Force in response to an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that killed his aunt and more than 20 others, and over US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In an interview with the Washington Post, Abu Hashem said: “I can’t serve an administration that disregards facts, and denies U.S. and international law to defend and enable such horrific violence.”
🔑 KEY CONTEXT: These military resignations follow other prominent ones over the US role in Gaza, including Air Force engineer Riley Livermore and Army Major Harrison Mann. In February airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli embassy. These resignations and those of civilian staff in the Biden administration continue to highlight growing dissent within the ranks of those tasked with supporting the administration’s policy in Gaza.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🍎 NEW REPORT REVEALS NEARLY HALF A MILLION PALESTINIANS IN GAZA MAY FACE CATASTROPHIC HUNGER
Ninety-six percent of Palestinians in Gaza will face acute hunger through September according to the latest snapshot on food insecurity published by the IPC. Nearly half a million people may face “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, the most extreme phase designated by the organization, which is characterized as “an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities.” The report also noted that one in five households go without food for entire days, and that more than half of households have resorted to selling clothes for money in order to buy food. The report concluded that “Only the cessation of hostilities in conjunction with sustained humanitarian access can reduce the risk of a Famine” and called for unimpeded humanitarian access to all populations in Gaza. The IPC warned in a report earlier this year that famine was imminent in Gaza.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: The report noted that “the situation deteriorated following renewed hostilities in early May…Humanitarian access to the two million people in the southern governorates has notably reduced with the closure of the Rafah border crossing and disruptions to the Karem [sic] Shalom crossing.” After Israel began its invasion of Rafah in May, Israeli forces closed the critical Rafah border crossing and heavily restricted the flow of aid through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. UNRWA noted in its latest situation report that during the first three weeks of June only half of its planned humanitarian aid missions in northern Gaza were facilitated by Israeli authorities and that humanitarian access continues to be impeded by the Israeli invasion of Rafah and the restriction of fuel allowed through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Israel’s invasion of Rafah clearly exacerbated an already dire situation. President Biden must live up to his “red line” promise and halt all weapons to Israel in response to the continued Israeli assault on Rafah and Israel’s blocking of critical humanitarian aid.
🏥 ISRAELI FORCES TARGET SAFE ZONE, MEDICAL WORKERS AS BOMBINGS AND INVASIONS CONTINUE
The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that twenty-two people were killed in an attack by Israeli tanks that damaged its offices in al-Mawasi, a designated safe zone where thousands of people have fled following Israel’s invasion of Rafah. The tanks allegedly targeted tents of displaced people around the ICRC base, and witnesses reported that the tanks targeted Palestinians who fled their tents and tried to help those injured in the first volley.
Israeli forces also carried out intense air strikes across Gaza City last weekend. Hani al-Jaafarawi, Gaza’s director of ambulance and emergency services, was killed in a strike on a clinic that killed four other people and disabled the clinic. Eight people were killed after an Israeli strike on UNRWA’s main headquarters in Gaza City where many displaced Palestinians were sheltering. The facility was also used as a distribution center for humanitarian aid that made it into Gaza. Fifty-two people were killed or are missing after Israeli forces bombed the Al Tufah and Al Shati neighborhoods of Gaza City. This week residents of Shujaiya also reported that Israeli forces launched a surprise invasion of the neighborhood and that evacuation orders only came thirty minutes after the beginning of Israel’s operation there.