Schatz Denounces Starvation In Gaza, Criticizes Israeli Government’s Conduct Of War

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) today spoke on the Senate floor about the crisis of starvation in Gaza, which has resulted in almost a third of Palestinians going for several days without eating and at least 63 people dying from malnutrition this month alone. Schatz criticized the Netanyahu government’s decision to cut off aid into Gaza and later set up an entity that failed to distribute aid safely and effectively.

“The fact that this catastrophe was preventable is precisely what makes it so indefensible,” said Senator Schatz, Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. “People have been warning for months that the Israeli government’s actions would result in exactly this kind of tragedy, where children are dying by the dozens and hundreds of thousands of people are starving for days. What possible explanation is there for letting infants and 2- and 3-year-olds starve? What tactical advantage is being gained?”

Senator Schatz continued, “Standing up for our shared humanity, whatever our other differences and preferences, should not be a matter of controversy. The government of Israel is behaving terribly. Its conduct of the war is indefensible. And it is not in spite of my Jewishness and my Judaism that I feel this way – it is because of it.”

A transcript of Senator Schatz’s remarks is below. Video is available here.

The mass starvation and death sweeping through Gaza is a moral tragedy and a strategic abomination. What started as a war with a just cause – to go after Hamas for the unspeakable atrocities it committed on October 7th and bring home the hostages – quickly turned unjust and immoral.

Everyone knows how complicated and fraught the Middle East is. Everyone knows that navigating this generations-long conflict requires nuance and depth and a historical understanding in order to try and get it right. Everyone knows that smart and sincere and decent people can disagree on this issue. But what is happening today is entirely different. There is no excuse for this horrific suffering. It’s not making Israel or Israelis or Jews any safer…nor is it helping to bring home the 50 remaining hostages who’ve been in brutal captivity for almost 2 years.

The fact that this catastrophe was preventable is precisely what makes it so indefensible. People have been warning for months that the Israeli government’s actions would result in exactly this kind of tragedy…where children are dying by the dozens and hundreds of thousands of people are starving for days.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which Israel scrambled to set up 2 months ago, has failed. According to the BBC, where there used to be 400 U.N. aid distribution sites, there are now just 4 run by the GHF. And as a result, a third of Gazans are going multiple days in a row without eating. The World Health Organization reports that at least 63 people, many of them children, have died from malnutrition this month alone. And more than a thousand Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid at GHF sites, according to the U.N.

In May, the GHF’s first executive director resigned, saying, “It is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

Whether you believe that this organization was set up to fail intentionally from the start, or more charitably, that the Israeli government established it without understanding that it wouldn’t succeed, it doesn’t matter. What is plainly obvious now is that it is not working. You don’t have to be some left-wing organization…or get your data from the Hamas government…to acknowledge that the GHF is failing at its fundamental mission of feeding people.

Which raises the question: why? Here we have an Israeli security apparatus that can – and did – synchronize an attack of exploding pagers across an entire country. They can reach in and gather intelligence from the high command of their greatest adversaries. The IDF is widely viewed as punching way above its weight in almost every way. And yet, Israel is asserting that, given all of those capabilities, the one thing that they can’t do is facilitate aid distribution. That’s too hard for them.

Food and medical assistance routinely get into conflict zones all around the world. Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Gaza should not be any different. What is different are the stated goals of the extremists in the Israeli government.

“The only way to win the war and bring back the hostages is to completely stop the 'humanitarian' aid, conquer the entire Gaza Strip, and encourage voluntary migration." That was the National Security of the government of Israel. Completely stopping humanitarian aid. Conquering the entire Gaza Strip. Encouraging migration. Those are their words – these are not my words.

And as starvation takes hold, their response is to deny that is even happening. “There is no starvation in Gaza.” Who said that? The Prime Minister of Israel. Ben-Gvir added, “If they were hungry, they would have returned the hostages home.” If they were hungry, they would have returned the hostages home.

It’s worth pausing on that for just a moment. Too many people in the Netanyahu government make no distinction between the actual enemy that is Hamas and innocent civilians. The idea that a desperate mother, malnourished herself, and out of breast milk for her infant; or a 7-year-old running to the front of an aid line to get whatever scraps he can for him and his siblings – the idea that these people are in charge of which hostages are released and when, and they suddenly are being held to account for the actions of Hamas on October 7th – is preposterous.

It’s another example of the casual dismissal of civilian death and suffering as if it’s an inevitable consequence of having to go after the bad guys. War is hell and all of that. But what possible explanation is there for letting infants and 2 and 3-year-olds starve? What tactical advantage is being gained?

Standing up for our shared humanity, whatever our other differences and preferences, should not be controversial. But too often, when someone is critical of Israel, and they’re a Jew, they’re characterized as a self-hating Jew. When someone is critical of Israel, and they’re not a Jew, they’re characterized as antisemitic.

I want to be crystal clear. Antisemitism is among the oldest and most vile prejudices that exist. It is real, it is scary, and it is on the rise in the United States. It should be fought at every turn, left, right, and center. And anyone who simply waves it away or denies the urgency of addressing it is either not paying attention or lying.

But criticizing the conduct of this war. Criticizing Minister Ben-Gvir who talks about ethnic cleansing. Criticizing the withholding of aid. Criticizing the excessive tolerance for civilian casualties. Criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apparent willingness to cling to power at the expense of Israel, Israelis, and Jews everywhere. That is a separate matter. Everybody gets to do that – just like Americans get to criticize their president without hating America or the people within it. People are more than their government. The government of Israel is behaving terribly. Its conduct of the war is indefensible. And it is not in spite of my Jewishness and Judaism that I feel this way – it is because of it.

There are a lot of people – including people I know personally, and I believe this – who believe deeply in the sacred idea of Israel. They are good people, and this cannot be about vanquishing one side of the political spectrum – whether that’s the left and center left or right and alt-right. This is about grounding ourselves in the very basic principle, which is: whatever else we’re fighting about, can we please hold the children harmless?

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