26 Senate Democrats raise alarm to Biden on civilian casualties in Gaza

More than two dozen Democratic senators are raising concern to President Biden over Israel’s military operations targeting Hamas in the Gaza Strip that are resulting in an extremely high death toll for Palestinian civilians, particularly among children and women. 

In a letter to the president sent Wednesday, stalwart Biden supporters asked for administration officials to brief Congress on how Israel is carrying out its military operations to mitigate civilian casualties in Gaza while meeting its goal to eliminate Hamas.

Signatories to the letter included Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), among others. 

“We respectfully ask your team to provide us with information relative to these two clear U.S. priorities: supporting an Israeli strategy that will effectively degrade and defeat the threat from Hamas and taking all possible measures to protect civilians in Gaza,” the senators wrote.

The Biden administration is coming under increased pressure to exert more influence on Israel over its military operations in Gaza amid a staggering death toll that, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, has reached more than 10,000 Palestinians.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday said there is “something that is clearly wrong” with Israel’s military operations given the death toll in Gaza and has called the humanitarian crisis a “a crisis of humanity.” 

While Biden and his officials have cast doubt on the numbers reported by the Gaza Health Ministry and blamed Hamas for using civilians as human shields, aid groups and the U.N. said that casualty assessments following previous rounds of conflict have largely aligned with those of health officials in Gaza. 

The Biden administration has supplied weapons to Israel and has called on Congress to fund an estimated $14 billion security supplemental for the country to continue the fight. The president and his top deputies have said they have told Israel that it should carry out its military operations in accordance with international humanitarian law. 

But the 26 Democratic senators on the letter, while supportive of U.S. assistance to Israel, are nonetheless raising concern of how American weapons are being employed. 

“We ask you to inform us about what specific mechanisms you are putting in place to ensure that Israeli military operations conducted inside Gaza are carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law and to ensure that any U.S.-provided equipment is used in a manner consistent with U.S. law,” the senators wrote. 

The lawmakers also asked for Biden to receive assurances from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that U.S. supplies of rifles do not go into the hands of extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank who are accused of carrying out violence and killings of Palestinians in villages that abut illegal Israeli communities. 

The senators said they support additional assistance for Israel that addresses five key areas: to degrade and defeat the threat from Hamas, prioritize the release of hostages, lay out a plan to work towards a two-state solution for a Palestinian state, abide by U.S. and international law while protecting civilians and advance humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. 

“The information requested in this letter will help us assure that U.S support for Israel’s operations inside Gaza achieves these objectives,” they wrote.