'What is going on in Gaza today is a manmade nightmare’: US senator

WASHINGTON

A US senator expressed concern Thursday about the "horrific humanitarian disaster" in the Gaza Strip and demanded that the Trump administration stop being "complicit" in the war.

"I want to say a few words about an issue that people all over the world are thinking about, are appalled by, but for some strange reason, gets very little discussion here in the nation's capital or in the halls of Congress," Bernie Sanders said from the floor of the Senate.

Humanitarian aid has not been allowed into Gaza for more than nine weeks after Israel blocked all supplies, food, water, medicine and fuel, he said.

A total of 2.2 million people in Gaza are trapped after Israel pushed the population into an ever smaller area, he said.

"With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical. It is intentional," he added.

Since March 2, Israel has kept Gaza’s crossings closed to food, medical and humanitarian aid, deepening an already worsening humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

US enabled ‘ongoing atrocity'

"What is going on there is not some terrible earthquake, it is not a hurricane. It is not a storm. What is going on in Gaza today is a manmade nightmare, and nothing, in my view, can justify this.

"What is happening in Gaza will be a permanent stain on the world's collective conscience. History will never forget that we allow this to happen, and for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this ongoing atrocity," said Sanders.

He added the US is "absolutely complicit" in creating and sustaining the humanitarian disaster.

The senator noted that last year, the US provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel, and this year, the Trump administration has approved $12 billion more in bombs and weapons.

"History will not forgive our complicity in this nightmare. The time is long overdue for us to end our support for (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, the destruction of the Palestinian people. We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu's war machine," he concluded.

More than 52,600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.