US should be withholding military aid to Israel: Senator

WASHINGTON

The US should be withholding military aid to Israel in its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Senator Bernie Sanders said Tuesday.

"The United States should be withholding all offensive military aid to Israel and using our leverage to demand an end to this war, the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a stop to the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank and initial steps towards a two-state solution," Sanders said in a statement.

His remarks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the US is withholding weapons to Israel.

Netanyahu said that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured him that the Biden administration is working to cancel restrictions on arms deliveries to Israel for a war that has killed or injured well over 100,000 people.

The Israeli premier said when Blinken was recently in Israel, they had a "candid conversation." "But I also said something else: I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunition to Israel," Netanyahu said in an English language video.

"No doubt, we will hear similar complaints when he addresses Congress on July 24," Sanders said, reiterating that it is "absurd" that Netanyahu was invited to address lawmakers.

Sanders already said that he will not attend "war criminal" Netanyahu's speech.

Israel, which has flouted a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.

More than 37,350 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 85,400 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.