Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Proposed Export of
Floor Speech
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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, the mass starvation in Gaza must end. The forced displacement of 2 million Palestinians in Gaza must end. We all condemn Hamas. We support a Jewish independent democratic state. We want a cease-fire, and we want the hostages home. But a colleague in the other body stated what needs to be said. It is the most truthful and easiest thing to say that October 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned but so is the humanitarian crisis and starvation happening in Gaza. And that is happening with U.S. complicity, and it is time for us to stop complying.
Let's face it, let's face the facts and not ignore them. The starvation that we are seeing today, it is not unforeseen. It is not the unintended, unfortunate consequence of war. The starvation we are witnessing today is the self-conscious result of a military policy to concentrate the Palestinian population into an ever-smaller slice of land.
The starvation that we are witnessing today, it is an advanced and accelerating stage of the military strategy that is being executed by the Netanyahu government to force Palestinians out of northern Gaza and to induce them to leave the territory altogether.
And Palestinians, compelled by hunger and thirst, are being forced to make their way to a handful of sites, which our closest allies uniformly condemn as a drip feeding of aid. And, in fact, aid was totally cut off--totally cut off--by Israel for over 2 months. How in the world did they justify doing that?
And from the earliest days after October 7, we witnessed this plan of systemic and wanton destruction that included destruction of homes, destruction of mosques, hospitals, and schools. This was done. This is fact. We may not want to face it, but it was done with bombs that were provided by American taxpayers and approved by this Congress.
Israel unleashed the most deadly and destructive aerial bombardment campaign since Vietnam. More than 200,000 buildings were destroyed. Thousands of children were killed and injured. Thousands are amputees. And in just the last 3 months, the last 3 months--May, June, and July-- the Netanyahu government campaign has continued, and thousands more homes have been flattened by controlled demolitions. That literally means the military folks go up to a home, wire it, and blow it up. It is a home. Thousands more have been demolished by bulldozers. Israeli forces have bulldozers, and they flatten the home.
You know, it is too late, it is too late for the 60,000-plus people that have been killed in Gaza. But it is absolutely not too late for the U.S. Senate to act. We are at an absolute catastrophic inflection point. And I believe that the United States, in fact, does have an obligation under humanitarian law to act. And I do believe that the American people, in your State and in mine, whether they have been supportive of Israel or not, are horrified at what is happening to innocent people in Gaza.
We have an obligation to act because if we do act, we can help save thousands of lives of Palestinians, who, as we speak, are starving.
You know, some folks take the position that the suffering and starvation will end when Hamas lays down its arms or releases the remaining IDF hostages. Every single one of us wants that day to come. But you know what, we have to ask ourselves a frank question: Is it right, is it just to use as a tool of warfare the starvation of an innocent population?
And I believe it isn't. International law says that is not allowed. It is a crime to starve a population to get what you want from your enemy. It is illegal and cruel to starve children to obtain a battlefield advantage.
Yet the Israeli government, under Prime Minister Netanyahu, has said that it is doing that; that is what it is doing.
It is so long past time for us to say enough. It is long past time to say, no, the United States will not stand by while hunger is being used as a weapon of war.
And we cannot separate the current starvation in Gaza from the Netanyahu government's strategy of forcibly displacing Palestinians from their land. You know, the leaders of Israel have explicitly stated their vision for Gaza.
So this is not like a discussion or a debate trying to figure out what is the story. Prime Minister Netanyahu said: I don't care about the tactics and ordered military officials to ``destroy the homes, bomb everything in Gaza.'' He said that.
Finance Minister Smotrich, he said, ``Gaza will be totally destroyed, civilians will be sent to . . . the south to a humanitarian zone . . . and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.''
Heritage Minister Eliyahu, last week, said that the Israeli Government--this was last week he said that--was ``rushing toward Gaza being wiped out'' and ``driving out the population.''
There is no mystery about what the agenda here is under the Netanyahu government.
You know, we are here to debate a continuation of American military weapons that are being used to implement the Israeli--Netanyahu-- Government policy. But we are doing it at a time when the horror of starvation has become apparent to everyone.
And I applaud President Trump for saying it like it was. There is starvation in Gaza--and then being in conflict with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who still denies it.
But America's closest allies are calling for an end to the war. America's closest allies are wanting to cut off the shipment of weapons that sends a green light to Netanyahu's extremist government.
And yet we are here today where just 2 weeks ago, President Trump, in fact, indicated that he intends to ship another half billion dollars' worth of 2,000-pound bombs and 1,000-pound bombs to the Netanyahu government.
So today we are here to debate, once again, whether we as representatives of the American people and the American taxpayers, people who want peace, who want the hostages home but are horrified at the starvation and the destruction of innocent civilian lives, the wholesale destruction of buildings and communities, whether we should continue to provide those weapons to Israel.
These bombs, by the way, are in addition to the 70,000 tons of explosives--70,000 tons--that have already been dropped on Gaza. And that is the equivalent of six Hiroshima nuclear explosions. Those bombs, as Senator Sanders said, have been used to destroy more than 200,000 buildings in Gaza. That is more than three times the number of buildings in Manhattan.
The bombs have killed thousands of kids, the equivalent of a classroom full of children every day has been killed in this conflict, a classroom. And let me tell you just about one strike. It was caused with a U.S.-provided JDAM.
On June 30, a month ago, a 500-pound bomb struck a crowded beachfront cafe, the Al-Baqa Cafe. People were having coffee. How in the world they had the ability to do that with the destruction all around them, amazing. But CNN reported that 40 people were killed, dozens were injured, including a 4-year-old child and a well-known filmmaker. And a couple that had recently become engaged--just think about that. They got engaged in the midst of this destruction, showing that despite all this violence, they had hope for the future; they had love for one another; they had that capacity amidst this enormous suffering to see a future and want to be part of it--dead.
Mona, who was the woman, was an engineering student, spoke fluent English, volunteered with orphans, and she was out for a break with her friend. Mariam Salah, she was a young painter who grew up in a refugee camp. She painted murals and dreamed of a career as a digital artist. She is dead.
You know, the Netanyahu government claimed we were targeting terrorists. Who knows? Was there a ``terrorist'' there? There was nobody in combat.
So we have to stop. We have to stop. And the question for this country is, Will we stop being complicit in this destruction?
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