Two Democratic senators have alleged that they have reached the “inescapable conclusion” that Israel is pursuing a deliberate strategy to destroy and expel Palestinians from Gaza, and argued that the United States is complicit in the process.
Senators Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both on the Senate foreign relations committee, presented their conclusions in a report released Thursday after returning from a congressional trip to the Middle East. They said the devastation they observed extended beyond military strikes and included what they described as a systematic effort to choke off humanitarian assistance, amounting to the use of food as a weapon.
Van Hollen told reporters that the Netanyahu government’s actions were not limited to targeting Hamas but amounted to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population. He said what they had seen on the ground was evidence of those policies being put into practice, the Guardian reported.
The UN reported this week that famine in Gaza has already claimed the lives of at least 100 people, citing figures from the Gaza health ministry.
The two senators, who visited Egypt, Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Jordan, argued that what is happening in Gaza is not incidental damage from Israel’s war with Hamas but part of a deliberate plan to force Palestinians out. Their report titled ‘The Netanyahu Government Is Implementing a Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians. America is Complicit. The World Must Stop It’, set out these findings.
At the Egyptian-Gaza border, they surveyed the destruction of Rafah, once home to about 270,000 residents but now largely reduced to rubble. Van Hollen recalled that he and Merkley had to climb an external fire escape from the Egyptian side to fully grasp the scale of devastation.
The senators also spoke with former Israeli soldiers, who recounted their involvement in what they described as organised efforts to destroy civilian infrastructure. The report recorded testimony about the systematic use of explosives to level entire neighbourhoods.
The senators’ report highlighted what they described as arbitrary restrictions that made it nearly impossible for aid agencies to anticipate which items would be blocked from entering Gaza. Jordanian officials told them that even basic food items such as peanut butter, honey, and dates had been suddenly prohibited, with entire trucks turned back if they contained a single banned product.
The report added that every truck was now subject to a $400 customs processing fee, and if the vehicle failed to clear inspection, the same amount had to be paid again to join another convoy. Because of these and other barriers imposed by Israel, aid deliveries from Jordan were said to be operating at less than 10% of their potential.
In Egypt, the senators were told that UN truck fleets had suffered extensive damage, with UN agencies showing them videos of convoys coming under fire from Israeli forces, something described as a regular occurrence. They also visited a warehouse run by the Egyptian Red Crescent and the UN World Food Programme, where supplies barred by Israel were being stored.
According to the report, these included solar-powered water pumps, tents, wheelchairs, and even spare truck parts, all of which had been classified as “dual-use” items and therefore blocked from entry.
At Israel’s Ashdod port, World Food Programme officials informed the senators that around 2,200 shipping containers filled with food—enough to sustain Gaza’s population for three weeks—remained stalled because of screening rules that required every pallet to be inspected individually.
Merkley explained the strategy as operating on two levels: first, by destroying homes so that residents cannot return, and second, by depriving Palestinians of basic necessities such as food, water, and medicine.
The report noted that Israel had cut down the UN’s hundreds of aid distribution sites to just four for the entire population of 2 million, three of which were in southern Gaza. Testimonies collected by the senators described malnourished mothers unable to walk long distances to reach these sites while carrying children, only to then struggle with 40-pound food packages on the journey back. Between May 22 and July 31, the UN recorded 1,373 deaths near these distribution points.
The senators’ report also condemned the framing of mass Palestinian displacement as a “voluntary exodus,” calling it one of the most fraudulent and sinister narratives ever presented. Van Hollen told reporters that there was nothing voluntary about leaving when homes had been destroyed and farmlands rendered inaccessible.