The Guardian reports:

The US’s support for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza is facing new scrutiny in Washington following a proposed resolution by the independent senator Bernie Sanders that could ultimately be used to curtail military assistance.

It is far from clear whether Sanders has the support to pass the resolution, but its introduction in the Senate this week – by an important progressive ally of the US president, Joe Biden – highlights mounting human rights and political concerns by Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Citing the killing of nearly 19,000 people and wounding of more than 50,000 in Gaza since Hamas’s brutal 7 October attack, Sanders said it was time to force a debate on the bombing that has been carried out by the rightwing government of the Israel prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the US government’s “complicity” in the war.

“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,” Sanders said in a statement.

If passed, the resolution would force the US state department to report back to Congress any violations of internationally recognized human rights caused by “indiscriminate or disproportionate” military operations in Gaza, as well as “the blanket denial of basic humanitarian needs”. [Continue reading…]