US senator moves to force State Department to report on Gaza rights abuses

WASHINGTON

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced a resolution that would force the State Department to report to Congress on any Israeli human rights abuses in the besieged Gaza Strip, his office announced Friday.

The bill introduced Thursday would trigger Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act, which allows Congress to request information on a country's rights practices.

The act more generally bars the US from providing security assistance to any nation that "engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights."

Any requests under the act are considered privileged, allowing a sponsor to force a floor vote on the resolution that would only require a simple majority to pass. Any additional votes on curtailing or severing Israeli aid based on the department's findings would be similarly privileged.

“We all know Hamas’ brutal terrorist attack began this war,” Sanders said in a statement. “But the Netanyahu government’s indiscriminate bombing is immoral, it is in violation of international law, and the Congress must demand answers about the conduct of this campaign. A just cause for war does not excuse atrocities in the conduct of that war.”

Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land, imposed a siege, and mounted a ground offensive in retaliation for a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which over 1,200 people were killed and an estimated 239 taken hostage.

At least 18,787 Palestinians have since been killed, roughly two-thirds of whom have been women and children, and 50,897 injured, according to official figures from Gaza’s health authorities.

"The scale of the suffering in Gaza is unimaginable – it will be remembered among some of the darkest chapters of our modern history. This is a humanitarian cataclysm, and it is being done with American bombs and money. We need to face up to that fact – and then we need to end our complicity in those actions," said Sanders.

The State Department, as well as the wider Biden administration, has been loathe to weigh in on multiple specific incidents of reported rights abuses in Gaza.

In addition to reporting on rights violations "caused by indiscriminate or disproportionate military operations in Gaza," the resolution calls on the department to state what actions it has taken to limit harm to civilians in Gaza, and certify that Israeli forces have not carried out abuses in the coastal enclave.

It further mandates a summary of all US arms provided to Israel since Oct. 7, another issue that has been largely shrouded from public view, and assess Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law in Gaza.