US senators publish report showing American complicity in 'Israel’s' campaign against Palestinians

A bipartisan pair of US senators has released a stark report accusing 'Israel' of pursuing an ethnic-cleansing campaign in Gaza and warning that American policy and actions have helped enable it.

Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) published the 21-page study on Thursday after a weeklong fact-finding trip to 'Israel', the occupied West Bank, the Rafah border area, Jordan, and Egypt in late August.

Headlined, "The Netanyahu Government is Implementing a Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians. America is Complicit. The World Must Stop It," the document lays out what the lawmakers describe as overwhelming evidence that “Israel is…implementing a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and dealing a death blow to the vision of a future Palestinian state.”

The report does not spare US policy or political rhetoric. Van Hollen and Merkley denounced recent statements by 'Israeli' and US leaders that suggested Palestinians should “voluntarily” leave Gaza, calling such framing a “cruel hoax” and “one of the most fraudulent, sinister, and twisted cover stories ever told.” As the senators put it bluntly, “Departure is not ‘voluntary’ when the conditions needed to support life are extinguished.”

Drawing on interviews, satellite imagery, photos, and testimony from officials and humanitarian agencies across the region, the senators document vast destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. They cite figures showing the failure of housing, health and education systems: damage or destruction to roughly 92 percent of housing units, 94 percent of hospitals, 92 percent of schools and university buildings, and 86 percent of water and sanitation facilities.

“Aerial footage and before-and-after photos of much of Gaza show an apocalyptic ruin,” the report says, and describes accounts of explosives being used to obliterate entire city blocks and civilian sites.

The senators also accuse the 'Israeli' government of weaponizing humanitarian access, alleging deliberate obstruction and slow-walking of food and aid intended for Gaza “as collective punishment on the population of Gaza for the sins of Hamas.” They say the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US- and 'Israeli'-backed initiative that has faced controversy, has been used in practice to control the flow of assistance and the movement of people in ways that pressure civilians to flee.

Van Hollen and Merkley place particular emphasis on the role of US support and cooperation at crossings and transit corridors. They report that while the World Food Program (WFP) told them it had stockpiled enough food to feed Gaza for three weeks, stored in some 2,200 shipping containers, new 'Israeli' screening procedures have limited throughput to just 20–30 containers per day. Despite US efforts to expand capacity along the Jordan Corridor, including 280 trucks and 10 warehouses intended to enable up to 150 trucks per day, overly burdensome screening, rejections, and new fees have reduced actual deliveries to a fraction of peak volumes. The senators say nearly half of trucks in some convoys are being turned back, and that each vehicle now faces a new USD 400 customs processing fee.

The report also details security threats to humanitarian convoys, relaying accounts from Jordanian officials that convoys have been attacked by violent settlers and protesters who slash tires or sabotage fuel systems, further disrupting aid flows.

Although the senators were unable to enter Gaza itself, they toured the Rafah border zone from the Egyptian side and describe seeing “the devastation and destruction” firsthand. “Rafah had been reduced to rubble,” the report says, noting the huge population, at least 270,000 people, that lived there before the war.

Van Hollen and Merkley argue that the patterns they observed in Gaza are mirrored by policies in the occupied West Bank, which they call ethnic cleansing “in slow motion.” The senators conclude with a direct appeal to the international community: “the world has a moral and legal obligation to stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing… Strong words alone will not be sufficient. The world must impose penalties and costs on those who are implementing this plan.”

The release marks a rare and unusually forceful critique from sitting US lawmakers alleging that Washington bears responsibility for aspects of an allied country’s military and administrative conduct. Van Hollen and Merkley held a press briefing at the US Capitol to present their findings and called for concrete steps by the international community to halt what they portray as a systematic campaign to depopulate Gaza.