‘America Is Equally Responsible’: Sanders Condemns US Role in Gaza War

US Senator Bernie Sanders has said the United States bears equal responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza, arguing that Washington’s continued military support for Israel makes it a direct party to the crisis rather than a bystander. Sanders said the US provided billions of dollars in military aid to Israel despite accusations that Israel violated international law.

Sanders said Israel continued military operations and advances in Gaza even after a ceasefire took effect, asserting Israel has gained control of roughly 70% of Gaza’s territory. He said the American public is calling for an end to military aid to Israel, and demanded that Congress respect public opinion and immediately halt military assistance.

The senator laid out a detailed picture of humanitarian conditions nine months after the ceasefire, saying Palestinians’ hardships have not eased despite the formal cessation of hostilities. According to Sanders, 92% of Gaza’s residential buildings have been destroyed or severely damaged, and 70% of Gaza’s population lacks adequate housing.

He said 91% of children in Gaza lack access to regular education, while 70% of young children face food insecurity — figures that, if accurate, would represent a humanitarian crisis of severe scale persisting well beyond the point at which formal fighting was supposed to have ended. These are Sanders’s own cited statistics; independent verification through UN agencies or other humanitarian monitors would be needed to confirm the precise figures, though the broader pattern of severe housing destruction and humanitarian strain in Gaza has been documented extensively by international aid organizations throughout the conflict.

Sanders further alleged that despite the ceasefire, Israel has established numerous new military outposts in Gaza, and that the Israeli government is planning permanent occupation of the territory — a characterization that, if accurate, would represent a direct contradiction of the ceasefire’s stated terms and objectives.

Sanders has been among the most consistent critics of US military support for Israel throughout the Gaza conflict, repeatedly pushing legislative measures to condition or restrict arms transfers, though such efforts have historically struggled to gain sufficient support in Congress given broad bipartisan backing for US-Israel military cooperation. His renewed call for halting aid arrives amid a broader political climate where scrutiny of US foreign military commitments has intensified, partly driven by the parallel controversy over Iran war costs and casualty transparency that has drawn criticism from lawmakers across the political spectrum in recent congressional hearings.

Israel’s government has consistently defended its military operations in Gaza as necessary for its security and disputed characterizations suggesting a plan for permanent occupation, maintaining that any extended military presence relates to ongoing security operations rather than territorial annexation — a position that remains a matter of significant international dispute given the scale and duration of Israel’s continued presence described in Sanders’s remarks.

Whether Sanders’s renewed push gains more traction in Congress than his previous efforts will likely depend on whether the specific claims about continued Israeli expansion and outpost construction in Gaza gain broader corroboration from independent monitors, and whether shifting American public opinion translates into any actual legislative momentum to restrict military assistance.