March 12 (UPI) — Eight senators on Tuesday issued a letter to President Joe Biden, calling on him to “enforce federal law” by requiring Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to stop restricting humanitarian aid access to Gaza or forfeit U.S. military aid to Israel.”
“The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is nearly unprecedented in modern history,” began a letter sent out and signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., along with seven other of his colleagues.
The majority Democrat senators — with the exception being Sanders as an independent — contend in the letter that Netanuyahu’s government is obligated to expand access for humanitarian aid in Gaza under the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.
Joining Sanders as signatories to the letter were Sens. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Peter Welch, D-Vt., Tina Smith, D-Minn., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Ben Ray Lujan, a New Mexico Democrat.
The lawmakers say that Israel’s interference in humanitarian aid operations in Gaza violates Section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act.
“No assistance shall be furnished under this chapter or the Arms Export Control Act to any country when it is made known to the president that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance,” Section 6201 states in the 1961 law, which Sanders cited as he urged the president on Tuesday to invoke the law.
In the letter, the senators gave reminder of comments made by the president and vice president in recent days, saying how the Biden administration “has repeatedly stated, and the United Nations and numerous aid organizations have confirmed, that Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian access, both at the border and within Gaza, are one of the primary causes of this humanitarian catastrophe.”
It was reported last week that crucial aid of 14 World Food Program trucks for Gaza citizens was blocked and turned away by Israeli Defense Forces even as U.N reports of starvation among Palestinians continue. The WFP aid blockage by the IDF came days after Vice President Kamala Harris called for an “immediate cease-fire” in order to allow aid into Gaza.
Sanders on March 3 first wrote to Biden to ask that he invoke Section 6201, urging the president in his original letter “to implement this law and make it clear to Israel that, if aid access is not immediately opened up, [Biden] will impose consequences under the Foreign Assistance Act and stop military assistance to Israel.”
While on the TV news program Face The Nation on Sunday, Sanders was asked if he thought Biden would halt or condition aid to Israel.
The Vermont senator and former presidential candidate responded that he thinks it “was the right thing to do” at the time, adding that “you can’t beg Netanyahu, you’ve got to tell him — if you want any money, you [have] to change your policy, allow the trucks to come in to feed the children.”
