Senate to Vote on Potential Freeze to Israel Aid as Democrats Question Conduct of War

When Hamas unleashed a bloody attack against Israel in October, there was a swift and strong bipartisan clamor of support in Congress for the United States to spare no expense in backing a robust military response by the Jewish state. One hundred days later, that consensus on Capitol Hill shows signs of fraying, as left-wing Democrats alarmed by the rising human toll of the war in Gaza press to limit aid to Israel or impose strict conditions on it.

The effort has divided Democrats and spurred an intensive lobbying countereffort by pro-Israel groups. It will reach a peak on Tuesday, when the Senate votes on a resolution that would freeze all U.S. security aid to Israel unless the State Department produces a report within 30 days examining whether the country committed human rights violations in its conduct of the war. If the Biden administration misses the deadline, the aid would be restored once Congress receives the report, or takes separate votes to ensure the assistance continues uninterrupted.

The measure, forced to the floor by Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, has little chance of passing given opposition by Republicans and Democrats. But it is only one of a raft of measures that progressives in the Senate have proposed in recent weeks that reflect their uneasiness with Israel’s conduct of the war and raise questions about whether and under what circumstances the United States would send a fresh infusion of funding to back the country.

“There is growing concern among the American people and in Congress that what Israel is doing now is not a war against Hamas, but a war against the Palestinian people,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “That with American military aid, children are starving to death, is to me — I mean, I just don’t know what adjectives I can use. It’s disgraceful. And I think I’m not the only one who feels that.”

President Biden in October requested a sweeping emergency national security package including roughly $14 billion to back Israel in the conflict, but debate on that measure has largely focused on the much bigger sum earmarked for Ukraine. Many Republicans are opposed to sending more money to Kyiv, and others have insisted that it must come with an immigration crackdown at the U.S. border with Mexico that has been the subject of painstaking negotiations.

But the aid to Israel is hitting its own snags, as the military campaign in Gaza drags on and the count of Palestinians killed surpasses 24,000, most of them civilians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.