RSS
US House Democrats Demand Biden Administration ‘Suspend Offensive Weapons’ to Israel
US Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) hold a news conference. Photo: Reuters / Erin Scott
A group of 20 Democratic lawmakers in the US House on Tuesday sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urging the Biden administration to “suspend offensive weapons” to Israel due to the country’s military campaign in Gaza.
The letter, signed by some of the most strident critics of Israel in Congress, called for the outgoing US administration to withhold critical offensive weapons from Israel, citing dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the Jewish state has been fighting Hamas terrorists for the past 14 months. The lawmakers said that Israel has “failed” to address “concerns over Gaza” and that the Biden administration should “reconsider” sending more weapons to the long-time US ally and lone democracy in the Middle East.
The message was spearheaded by Reps. Summer Lee (D-PA) and Greg Casar (D-TX), the incoming Congressional Progressive Caucus chair. Among the other signatories were some of the most outspoken critics of Israel in Congress, including: Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (NY), Cori Bush (MO), Joaquin Castro (TX), Lloyd Doggett (TX), Veronica Escobar (TX), Jesús García (IL), Al Green (TX), Sara Jacobs (CA), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Hank Johnson (GA), Jim McGovern (MA.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Mark Pocan (WI), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Delia Ramirez (IL), Rashida Tlaib (MI), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ).
“We believe continuing to transfer offensive weapons to the Israeli government prolongs the suffering of the Palestinian people and risks our own national security by sending a message to the world that the US will apply its laws, policies, and international law selectively,” the lawmakers wrote. “Furthermore, a failure to act will put Israeli lives in danger by prolonging [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war, isolating Israel on the international stage, and creating further instability in the region.”
The letter also condemned Israel for allegedly blocking humanitarian aid transfers into Gaza, saying that an average of 42 trucks per day have entered the enclave.
Experts have rejected such claims, arguing there is no evidence suggesting Israel has blocked humanitarian aid into Hamas-ruled Gaza.
“The facts are that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has facilitated the delivery of more aid to territory controlled by the enemy than any military in the history of warfare, despite knowing with certainty that doing so is actually strengthening Hamas and making the IDF’s job harder,” John Hannah, former national security adviser to US Vice President Dick Cheney, recently told The Algemeiner.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in October that Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation a year ago. He also noted that Hamas terrorists often hijack and steal aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.
In Tuesday’s letter, the lawmakers also criticized Israel over its polio vaccination drive in Gaza, asserting that the Jewish state contributed to escalating “violence” which forced delays in the vaccine distributions. The letter also claimed that Israel did not provide “access to northern Gaza” during the vaccination efforts.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 556,000 children under the age of 10 received two doses of the polio vaccine, representing 94 percent of the target population. The vaccination campaign was a “remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances the campaign was executed under,” according to the WHO.
Israel has insisted that the evacuation of northern Gaza was a necessary step to preserve civilian life as it continued its military campaign against Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the war with its invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7. Though critics have labeled the evacuation orders as “forced displacement,” Israel argued that these advanced warnings were evidence of the Jewish state’s commitment to protecting innocents.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the IDF.
Another challenge for Israel has been Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
However, the letter lambasted Israel for allegedly bombing hospitals, schools, and places of worship in Gaza without once mentioning Hamas or any of the terrorist threats that Israel faces.
The missive represents the latest attempt by some Democratic lawmakers, particularly from the party’s progressive wing, to forcibly wind down the Israel-Hamas war by cutting off the Jewish state’s access to certain American arms. In the year following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, Democratic politicians have adopted an increasingly adversarial stance against the Jewish state. While the vast majority of Democratic officials expressed public agreement with Israel’s right to go to war against Hamas, many liberal lawmakers have nonetheless accused the Jewish state of “indiscriminately” bombing Gaza civilians or inflicting mass “starvation” on the beleaguered enclave.
Tuesday’s letter came days after a group of 77 Democrats in the US House sent a letter to Blinken and Austin demanding that the Biden administration provide an assessment of Israel’s “compliance with all relevant US policies and laws,” suggesting that the Middle East’s lone democracy and Washington’s closest ally in the region is violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
The post US House Democrats Demand Biden Administration ‘Suspend Offensive Weapons’ to Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Italian Port Blocks Arms for Israel as Worker Protests Mount
Illustrative: Demonstrators participate in a pro-Palestinian protest in Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy, on Nov. 23, 2024. Photo: Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
The Italian Adriatic port of Ravenna on Thursday refused entry to two trucks said to be carrying arms to Israel, as protests mount among Italian dockworkers and other labor groups against the offensive in Gaza.
The center-left mayor of Ravenna, Alessandro Barattoni, told reporters the port authority had accepted the request from him and the regional government to deny access to the lorries carrying explosives en route to the Israeli port of Haifa.
“The Italian state says it has blocked the sale of arms to Israel but it is unacceptable that, thank to bureaucratic loopholes, they can pass through Italy from other countries,” Barattoni said in a statement.
He did not provide details on where the containers had come from or provide evidence of their contents.
Similar action to block arms shipments to Israel has been taken by dockworkers in other European countries such as France, Sweden, and Greece.
Ravenna’s decision reflects growing mobilization in Italy against Israel‘s military campaign and in support of an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to the Palestinians.
A spokesperson from the Israeli embassy in Rome said they did not have sufficiently detailed information about the case and so declined to comment. Israel‘s government sometimes accuses Europea nations of bias against it and swallowing propaganda by the Hamas terrorist group whom it is fighting in Gaza.
On Friday Italy’s largest trade union body, the CGIL, will hold a national half-day strike and marches in Rome and other cities, while on Sept. 22 two other unions will halt work and try to block activity in the large ports of Genoa and Livorno.
“We won’t let a single pin through the port,” said Riccardo Rudino from the Calp dockers’ union in Genoa.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The CGIL said its protests were aimed at generating pressure on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government “to suspend all commercial and military cooperation agreements with Israel, lift the humanitarian embargo, and recognize the State of Palestine.”
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday Italy would support EU sanctions against violent Israeli settlers and Israeli ministers who have made “unacceptable” comments on Gaza and the West Bank, and was open to considering trade sanctions.
RSS
Israeli Tanks, Infantry Advance in Gaza City Offensive as Enclave Hit by Telecoms Blackout
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during a military operation, in Gaza City, Sept. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ebrahim Hajjaj
Israeli tanks were advancing on Thursday in two Gaza City areas that are gateways to the city center, while internet and phone lines were cut off across the Gaza Strip, a sign that ground operations were likely to further escalate imminently.
Israeli forces control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs and in recent days have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western areas where most of the population is sheltering.
In separate developments, Israel attacked Hezbollah military targets in southern Lebanon, while two Israelis were killed at Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, in what the Israeli military called a “terror attack.”
INFANTRY, TANKS, ARTILLERY ADVANCING TOWARDS INNER CITY
Israeli army spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said Israeli forces had been operating in the periphery of Gaza City for several weeks but since the night of Monday to Tuesday large numbers of troops had begun moving towards the inner city.
He said a combination of infantry, tanks, and artillery was advancing, backed up by the air force, and that it was a gradual process that would increase as time went on.
“The strategy right now is to defeat Hamas and apply pressure on Hamas, which can lead to a deal or can lead to rescue missions [to free hostages],” Shoshani told Reuters on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza.
A total of 48 hostages captured during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, remain in Gaza and Israeli officials believe around 20 are still alive.
Hostage families have been imploring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the offensive on Gaza and instead negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas to free their loved ones, but Netanyahu says military victory will bring them home.
The armed wing of Hamas said on Thursday the hostages were distributed throughout the neighborhoods of Gaza City.
“The start of this criminal operation and its expansion means you will not receive any captive, alive or dead,” it said in a written statement.
MANY FLEEING AMID TELECOMS BLACKOUT, MANY MORE STAYING PUT
The Palestinian Telecommunications Company said in a statement that its services had been cut off “due to the ongoing aggression and the targeting of the main network routes.”
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel announced on Aug. 10 it intended to take control, but a greater number are staying put, either in battered homes among the ruins or in makeshift tent encampments.
The military has been dropping leaflets urging residents to flee towards a designated “humanitarian zone” in the south of the territory, but aid agencies say conditions there are dire, with insufficient food, medicine, shelter, and basic hygiene.
The World Health Organization warned on Thursday that critical shortages of blood in Gaza hospitals could see key services grind to a halt within days.
FAMILIES WITH BELONGINGS EVACUATE TOWARDS THE SOUTH
Along the coastal road, an unbroken column of every type of vehicle from carts and beaten-up cars to vans designed to carry goods was moving south, heavily laden with mattresses, gas cylinders, and entire families perching on their belongings.
“We are heading to go sleep on the streets towards the beach, like this, barefoot, we don’t know where to go,” said Yasser Saleh, speaking as he stood on the edge of a rickety trailer being pulled by a car.
The war was triggered by the Oct. 7 attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
RSS
Syria’s Foreign Minister in Washington, a First in 25 Years
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani speaks during a press conference in Moscow, Russia, July 31, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/Pool
Syria’s foreign minister arrived in Washington on Thursday, the first official visit at that level in more than 25 years as the US makes a pro-Damascus policy push, lifting sanctions and mediating between the new Islamist rulers and Israel.
Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani will meet US lawmakers to discuss the lifting of remaining US sanctions on his country, Senator Lindsey Graham was quoted as saying by Axios. Two sources familiar with the trip confirmed the visit to Reuters.
It comes after some senior US diplomats focused on Syria were abruptly let go from their posts amid Washington‘s pivot, as the US seeks to integrate its longtime Syrian Kurdish allies with the central administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The United States has also been mediating between Israel and Syria. Sharaa, who is due to visit New York next week for the UN General Assembly, said negotiations to reach a security pact with Israel could yield results “in the coming days.”
The United States had placed crippling sanctions on Syria since 2011 after former President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran and Russia, cracked down protests against him that triggered an almost 14-year civil war.
After he was toppled by Sharaa’s forces in a quick sweep in December, Washington and Damascus have been working to warm up ties, with US President Donald Trump announcing that he would move to lift the sanctions after meeting Sharaa in May.