WASHINGTON

A pair of Democratic senators who recently returned from the Middle East said their time there led them to determine that Israel is engaged in a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and urged an end to US complicity in the "strategy."

The lawmakers issued a 21-page report in which they said their time in the region led to them to the "inescapable conclusion that the Netanyahu government’s war in Gaza has gone far beyond the targeting of Hamas to imposing collective punishment on the Palestinians there, with the goal of making life for them unsustainable."

"From our trip, from our observations, from our firsthand accounts, it's clear that the Netanyahu government has gone far beyond targeting Hamas to imposing collective punishment on all the people of Gaza," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who briefed reporters alongside report co-author Sen. Jeff Merkley on Capitol Hill.

"What now they're doing, and what we witnessed is putting those goals into action in Gaza," he added.

Their report points to Israel's ongoing restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid, its killings of more than 63,000 Palestinians, including over half of whom were women and children, and the mass displacement of 90% of Gaza's population.

Merkley said Israel's strategy is focused on two main components: the mass destruction of homes to prevent Gazans from having anything to return to, and a parallel effort to "deprive Palestinians of essentials to live -- food, water, medicine."

The report says that Israel's policy of limiting only a "handful" of aid distribution sites to southern Gaza "is a clear indication that their operations were designed by the Netanyahu government to use food as a method of population control."

"The Israeli government has made clear it wants to empty northern Gaza of its population, especially as it has now launched a fresh offensive against Gaza City," the report says.

"By restricting the flow of food into northern Gaza while establishing the GHF sites in the south, it is using hunger and food to achieve that objective." it adds, using an acronym to refer to the US-supported and Israeli-ran aid program that has come under repeated criticism from the international community.

"We, the United States, are complicit in all of this, because we're providing lots of taxpayer dollar support to the Netanyahu government to use weapons in Gaza, 2000 (pound) bombs and other weapons. We have said that must stop, given what's happening right now in Gaza," said Van Hollen.

Earlier Thursday, the UN children's agency, UNICEF, said child malnutrition in the Gaza Strip reached record levels in August, warning that the ongoing Israeli military escalation is cutting children off from life-saving treatment.

"The percentage of children identified as acutely malnourished in screenings across Gaza increased to 13.5% in August, from 8.3% in July. In Gaza City, where famine was confirmed last month, the percentage of children admitted with malnutrition was even higher, at 19%, up from 16% in July," said a statement by UNICEF.

The statement also noted that "fewer children were screened overall in August due to 10 outpatient treatment centers recently closed in Gaza City and North Gaza" due to Israel's repeated evacuation orders and ongoing attacks.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said one in five children in Gaza now suffers from acute malnutrition.