Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Proposed Export of

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Following the attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel had every right to go after Hamas, but how they do so matters. Indiscriminate bombing with massive casualties, women and children, is horrific, completely unacceptable. Blocking food and medicine with the goal of inducing starvation is horrific and unacceptable. And that is true under any religious or moral code.

Let me tell you about a few children the AP reported on a couple weeks ago.

Four children who starved to death, ranging from 4 months old to 2 years old--picture that little child in your arm, their legs and arms just a twig, their ribs showing every indentation, and then, finally, their body, as it goes through malnutrition, starts to consume itself, and they died of gastric arrest. Their stomach's ability to absorb nutrition shut down, and they died. The hospital they were at, the Patient's Friends Hospital, had run out of emergency nutrition supplies.

There are supplies that are specially designed for malnutrition among children. There are high-calorie biscuits and a high-calorie peanut paste enriched with milk powder that often goes by the name Plumpy'Nut. It is designed to help children. It has a long shelf life. It doesn't have to be refrigerated. To help save them from severe acute malnutrition, couldn't we have enough such assistance that no child would be starving to death in Gaza?

Organizations across Gaza have been running out of these supplies. UNICEF warned that their locations are running out. In fact, they said they would run out of this high-nutrition assistance for children 2 weeks from now.

Doctors working with malnourished children are saying the wards are quiet. And if you have been around a ward of children, you know that they are not quiet. But why are these children quiet? Because they don't have the energy to cry.

Noura has an 11-month-old son. He is deeply malnourished. He is missing his major developmental milestones, and she says:

My son is supposed to be drinking formula milk, but there is none . . . [and] I am barely able to breastfeed him; my milk had almost dried up because I'm also not eating well.

And, in fact, Noura is in better condition than many other mothers because many mothers across Gaza were unable to breastfeed at all because of their own malnourishment.

Samah, another mother, relays that her family was driven from their home by air strikes--certainly true for almost every family in Gaza. And she says:

I am pregnant, but I have not eaten anything since yesterday.

Dr. Mohammed Fadlalla of Doctors Without Borders says the Gaza ``health system is overwhelmed, and it's collapsing.'' And a Doctors Without Borders report says that doctors and nurses are doing their best with dwindling supplies amidst ``near-daily mass casualty incidents'' and that their clinics report treating ``hundreds of people injured at food distribution sites and ongoing attacks in Gaza,'' while doctors and nurses are working day after day, shift after shift, without eating themselves.

The suffering is unimaginable. I have called for international reporters to be allowed in so we could all see exactly what is happening. I have called for Members of Congress to be allowed in to bear witness to what is happening. But the Netanyahu government has said no reporters, no Members of Congress.

More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, widely reported, but understand this: 18,500 of them were children. According to a reporting by Associated Press, more than 80 children have died from malnutrition- related causes. And for every child who dies of malnutrition, there are thousands more in deep trouble.

UNICEF, in a July 25 report, said 320,000 children are at risk of acute malnutrition with thousands already suffering from severe malnutrition, the deadliest form.

This headline from the Washington Post, ``60,000 Gazans have been killed. 18,500 were children. These are their names.'' That was in today's paper. Take a look at it, colleagues. Take a look at the pages of microscopic names, all children. And every name here on this poster, a child who is less than a year old.

These are not just numbers. These are individuals, beloved by their family. Children who are dying. Children who are deeply malnourished.

Let me read you a couple names to remind us all of the fact that these are individuals, just like you are an individual, just like I am an individual, my friends, my colleagues:

Anisa Ali, Diaa Saleh Mousa, Basel Abu Jaser, Malak Abu Saif, Wael Assaf, Sama Darwish.

All these children, almost 1,000 of them, under the age of 1. They never got a chance to pursue their dreams. They were cut down by bombing and by malnutrition.

The IPC, the world's leading hunger monitor, published a report on Tuesday, and I have that report here. Let me hold it up. This report, it says:

The worst-case scenario of famine is [currently] playing out in the Gaza strip.

``The worst case.'' The World Food Programme reports that hunger in Gaza has reached ``astonishing levels of desperation, [and] a third of the population is not eating for multiple days in a row.''

But what do we hear from the head man, the leader in Israel, Netanyahu? He says, on Sunday, this past Sunday:

There is no starvation in Gaza.

Let me be clear. That is a lie. The world knows it is a lie. We know that it is a lie. Donald Trump knows that it is a lie. President Trump said on Monday:

Some of those kids--that's real starvation stuff, I see it, and you can't fake that.

The use of food and water and medicine as a weapon of war against civilians--including against children, the ill, the elderly, the women--it is unacceptable. It is unacceptable under international law. It is unacceptable under any religious or moral code.

I have much more to share on this topic, many more facts I would like to present, but I want to make sure that my colleague, my colleague from Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen gets an opportunity to share his thoughts.

We have called on addressing starvation, the lack of food, going way back to January of last year, 19 months ago. We called on the Biden administration; we called on the Trump administration.

He has been a leader, understanding and reporting so many facts to help the rest of us understand what is going on.

I will be voting against any weapon of war provided to Israel until every child and every woman has adequate nutrition in Gaza.

Mr. President, I yield to my colleague.

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