Israel's Effort to Keep Food, Water From Starving Gazans a 'Text Book' War Crime: U.S. Senator

The Biden administration has refused to put any conditions on weapon shipments to Israel to continue killing Gazans.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., accused Israel of committing a war crime for its effort to prevent food and water into Gaza as the population faces dramatic shortages.

He said children in the battered coastal enclave are now dying from “the deliberate withholding of food.”

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“That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals,” he said. “So now the question is what will the United States do? What will we do? What will President Biden do? President Biden must take action in response to what is happening.”

Israel Bans UN Rapporteur for Statement on Motive for Hamas Attack

Van Hollen told U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in the early weeks of the war that Israel killed six times more children in Gaza within three weeks than Russia did during its nearly 2-year war in Ukraine. He told Austin that the previous night, he learned that someone he knows well lost two family members and four of their children in the bombing in Gaza. (There are now over 28,000 dead in Gaza, mainly women and children.)

Foreign Policy published a story last month that said, “Without the U.S. airlift, Israel would not have had the ordinance to sustain the Gaza offensive because it lacks the domestic manufacturing capacity.”

Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch, noted on X: “In other words, Washington is actively aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes and plausible genocide.”

Last month, The Times of Israel reported that the U.S. sent Israel 244 US cargo planes and 20 ships to deliver over 10,000 tons of military equipment. Israel has dropped hundreds of U.S.-provided, 2,000-pound bombs on the small, coastal enclave.

The Biden administration bypassed Congress twice to make sure Israel received over $250 million in tank shells to further destroy Gaza.