Pressure is increasing on the Biden administration to stop the war on Gaza in the US Senate (European)

More senior allies of US President Joe Biden in the Senate are demanding that the United States act directly to stop the war in the Gaza Strip or at least alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians, while a number of them are adopting calls to reduce military aid to Israel.

An Associated Press report revealed that the past few days have witnessed a swell of opposition to the war within Congress, led by independent Senator Bernie Sanders and a small group of progressive Democrats in response to the rising civilian death toll in Gaza.

The martyrdom of more than 100 Palestinians last week during a rare food delivery operation helped motivate more Biden allies in the Senate to speak out.

Senator Chris Coons - a close confidant of Biden in Congress - says, “The time has come to tighten up with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government regarding how it is managing the war.”

According to the Associated Press, Israel still enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, and the possibility of reducing military aid is uncertain despite the influence exercised by these Democrats, but tensions may be evident tomorrow, Thursday, as Biden speaks to Congress about the conflict in his State of the Union address.

The report added that the war in Gaza is not the only issue in the Middle East that is creating opposition within the party, as some Democrats are seeking to enact legislation to force the administration to obtain permission from Congress to continue military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, leading to a potential confrontation over the authority to wage war. .

However, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Democratic Caucus as a whole have largely stopped taking action on the US role in Middle East conflicts.

The Associated Press revealed that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin told the committee late last year that no legislation related to the Middle East would be passed until the war in Gaza ended.

She pointed out that the Democrats are between two fires: the first is the growing political opposition at the national level, especially among Muslim and Arab American voters due to the Biden administration’s support for the Israeli war on Gaza, and the second is that they are hesitant to oppose Biden’s approaches towards the war so that these criticisms do not contribute to weakening Biden’s arduous campaign to restore His election against former President Donald Trump.

Cut off aid

In the past few days, Senator Chris Coons, a senator from Biden's home state of Delaware, called on the United States to cut off military aid to Israel if Netanyahu goes ahead with an attack on the city of Rafah without a clear plan to protect more than a million civilians sheltering there.

Coons added, "Continuing American military support for Israel at current levels becomes unacceptable when Israel shows that it is not ready to listen to us."

Senator Jack Reed, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called on Biden to deploy the US Navy to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

In turn, Senator Tim Kaine - a Biden ally - challenged the US strikes on the Houthis, saying that "American strikes are unlikely to stop attacks in the Red Sea," and called on Israel to "change course."

Patty Murray, a senator from Washington, said in a sharp speech in the chamber hall, “Israel must understand that the large number of civilian casualties and the destruction they have caused in Gaza cannot continue,” stressing that this war is not in line with American interests and does not make Israel safer. .

Biden's allies in Congress are trying to send a message that Netanyahu's behavior in the war is not in the interest of the United States, said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the besieged Gaza Strip, which has left tens of thousands of civilians martyred and wounded, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive infrastructure destruction.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies