Oregon’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, are typically in lockstep on major votes in Congress.

But they’ve diverged on votes to send billions of dollars worth of U.S. military weapons to Israel over the last year as it wages war against the militant and political group Hamas in Gaza. The military campaign has killed 60,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left most of the remaining population of Gaza today displaced and facing famine.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, co-sponsored six bills in September 2024 with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, to halt a $20 billion U.S. arms sale to Israel. Merkley was also among a majority of Senate Democrats who voted on Wednesday in favor of two Sanders bills brought to the Senate to halt a $675 million bombs sale to Israel and shipments of 20,000 assault rifles.

“We have a profound moral responsibility to end this collective punishment of innocent civilians,” Merkley said in a statement, adding that until the Israeli government makes critical international food and medical aid available to Palestinians in Gaza, the U.S. should not send any more weapons.

But the attempt to block the U.S. weapons sales ultimately failed, with all Republicans voting against it, along with a handful of Democrats that included Oregon’s other senator, Ron Wyden.

Wyden voted against all of the recent measures to stop weapons sales to Israel.

He said in an email that Israel needs weapons to defend itself from Iran. He said he supports diplomatic efforts to secure the release of remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the start of the war, deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians and negotiate a permanent end to the war in Gaza.

Wyden’s continued support of Israel has been a contentious issue at his frequent constituent town halls for more than a year. The son of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, Wyden has been adamant that Israel must have the right to defend itself even as he gradually ramped up criticism of the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wyden called the civilian death toll in Gaza “unacceptably high,” and criticized Netanyahu for causing widespread hunger and malnutrition by blocking food and medicine to Palestinians in Gaza.

On Tuesday, both Wyden and Merkley signed a letter with 39 other senators to Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East, to express concerns about the growing malnutrition crisis in Gaza, and urging the administration to resume diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire agreement and end the war.

Rising death toll

The U.S. has sent more than $20 billion in weapons and military aid to Israel since Oct. 7, 2023.

Israeli soldiers have killed more than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza since then, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures are widely accepted by the United Nations and international institutions.

Nearly 2,000 of the dead are under the age of 2, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. More than half of the hostages have been released or rescued, and about 30 who are still being held captive are believed to be alive, according to the Israeli government.

Israeli forces have, in the last 20 months, displaced about 90% of the remaining population of Gaza, a 25-mile-long territory along the Mediterranean Sea that borders Israel and Egypt, and left most of the remaining population facing famine while Israeli soldiers block food and medicine from entering.

In March, Israel’s military broke a ceasefire agreement in place with Hamas since January, bombing a large swath of the Gaza Strip, and imposing a complete blockade on food, medicine, fuel and other goods entering Gaza. Since May, Israel has allowed some U.S. aid to be distributed at sites inside Israeli military zones, but there have been near-daily reports of Israeli soldiers firing at Palestinians waiting for food. More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed since March, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and more than 1,000 Palestinians have been shot by Israeli soldiers since May while waiting for food at those distribution sites.

More than 140 people have died of hunger since the start of the war, including 88 children, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures. Most of those deaths were in recent weeks. Between April and July, more than 20,000 children in Gaza were seen by doctors for acute malnutrition, and more than 3,000 of those children are severely malnourished, according to a recent report from The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, a global initiative that provides food security analysis for charities and U.N. agencies.

‘Complicit’

Wyden said he has long believed a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine is the best solution for long-term peace between the nations.

But Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said in May that the Israeli government and military plan to control Gaza indefinitely. He said the government would move Gazans to other countries under what he called “voluntary emigration,” and which human rights lawyers call “forcible expulsion” that would constitute a war crime and violate international law.

“Benjamin Netanyahu is putting his self-interest above all else, turning his back on longstanding efforts towards peace, and putting Jews in the region and around the world in danger,” Wyden said.

Merkley also criticized Netanyahu in his statement and said the U.S. is enabling more deaths in Gaza by sending weapons to Israeli Defense Forces while Netanyahu blocks life-saving food and medicine from reaching Palestinians in Gaza.

“Every moment the U.S. fails to demand a massive influx of food or to provide that massive influx of food ourselves, we are complicit in Netanyahu’s strategy of starving Palestinians. This breaks every moral code and every religious code,” he said. “Until every child and every mother have sufficient nutrition, America should not send a single dollar or a single bomb to Netanyahu’s government. No more bombs. More aid.”

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