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US Sen. Chris Van Hollen Accuses Israel of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ in Northern Gaza
US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks to media during a Senate vote, at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, May 2, 2024. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has slammed the Biden administration for continuing to support Israel and accused the Jewish state of committing “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza.
During a recent interview with anti-Israel journalist Mehdi Hasan, Van Hollen argued that Biden undermined “American values” by continuing to send arms to the Jewish state. He bemoaned Biden’s “deeply frustrating” refusal to break with Jerusalem and his support of the “super right-wing racist government” of Israel.
“I have, as you said, pushed the president to do a lot more. He’s essentially given [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and the super right-wing racist government of people like [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich] a blind check, right?” Van Hollen said.
The senator accused Israel of withholding aid from Gaza and only sending in a “trickle” of food and supplies into the war-torn enclave. He also lamented the so-called “indiscriminate” bombing of civilians in Gaza and suggested that Biden should not continue to send Israel more arms.
Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group which rules Gaza, launched the ongoing conflict with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
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 has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.
Another challenge for Israel is 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, direct attacks, and store weapons.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said last month 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.
The Israeli government has ramped up the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza in recent weeks under pressure from the United States, which has expressed concern about the plight of civilians in the war-torn enclave.
Beyond humanitarian aid, Van Hollen lambasted the Biden administration for refusing to “hold the Netanyahu government accountable” after it passed legislation last month to ban the controversial United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from operating in Israel and stopping Israeli authorities from cooperating with the organization.
Since the start of the war in October last year, Israel has said that UNRWA has been deeply infiltrated by Hamas in Gaza, accusing some of its staff of taking part in the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. The Israeli government and research organizations have publicized findings showing numerous UNRWA-employed teachers were directly involved in the attack, while many others openly celebrated it.
Hasan asked Van Hollen if he agreed with the characterization of the Israel-Hamas war as a “genocide,” to which the senator responded that he “doesn’t know the answer to that.” However, the lawmaker asserted that Israel’s evacuation of civilians from northern Gaza is tantamount to an “ethnic cleansing” campaign.
Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on Democrats to “speak out more” on the ongoing humanitarian situation in Gaza. He cautioned that the incoming Trump administration could “greenlight” the Israeli government to expand settlement construction in the West Bank, a practice which he claims amounts to “pushing Palestinians off their land.”
In the year following the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people throughout southern Israel, Van Hollen has grown increasingly adversarial toward the Jewish state. On Tuesday, the senator announced that he would support a joint resolution to enact an arms embargo on Israel, accusing the Jewish state of causing a reprehensible humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“Recipients of security assistance must facilitate and not arbitrarily restrict the delivery of humanitarian assistance into war zones where US weapons are being used, and American-supplied weapons must be used in accordance with international humanitarian law. The Netanyahu government is violating both of these requirements in Gaza,” Van Hollen said in a statement.
“President Biden has failed to hold Netanyahu accountable — ignoring US law and undercutting his own stated policies as well as America’s interests and values. Doing so undermines American global leadership and is a disservice to the American people, the people of Israel, and people throughout the Middle East,” he added.
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Iranian nuclear program degraded by up to two years, Pentagon says
A satellite image of Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility. Photo: File.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US strikes 10 days ago had degraded Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years, suggesting the U.S. military operation likely achieved its goals despite a far more cautious initial assessment that leaked to the public.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, offered the figure at a briefing to reporters, adding that the official estimate was “probably closer to two years.” Parnell did not provide evidence to back up his assessment.
“We have degraded their program by one to two years, at least intel assessments inside the Department [of Defense] assess that,” Parnell told a news briefing.
U.S. military bombers carried out strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22 using more than a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.
The evolving U.S. intelligence about the impact of the strikes is being closely watched, after President Donald Trump said almost immediately after they took place that Iran’s program had been obliterated, language echoed by Parnell at Wednesday’s briefing.
Such conclusions often take the U.S. intelligence community weeks or more to determine.
“All of the intelligence that we’ve seen [has] led us to believe that Iran’s — those facilities especially, have been completely obliterated,” Parnell said.
Over the weekend, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said that Iran could be producing enriched uranium in a few months, raising doubts about how effective US strikes to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program have been.
Several experts have also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of the deeply buried Fordow site before the strikes and could be hiding it.
But US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week he was unaware of intelligence suggesting Iran had moved its highly enriched uranium to shield it from US strikes.
A preliminary assessment last week from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggested that the strikes may have only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months. But Trump administration officials said that assessment was low confidence and had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran’s nuclear program was severely damaged.
According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the strikes on the Fordow nuclear site caused severe damage.
“No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordow. That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged,” Araqchi said in the interview broadcast by CBS News on Tuesday.
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Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities
Palestinians carry aid supplies received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Switzerland has moved to shut down the Geneva office of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed aid group, citing legal irregularities in its establishment.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
With a subsidiary registered in Geneva, the GHF — headquartered in Delaware — reports having delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
According to a regulatory announcement published Wednesday in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) may order the dissolution of the GHF if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Swiss decision to shut down its Geneva office.
“The GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland … and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered branch,” the ESA said in a statement.
Last week, Geneva authorities gave the GHF a 30-day deadline to address legal shortcomings or risk facing enforcement measures.
Under local laws and regulations, the foundation failed to meet several requirements: it did not appoint a board member authorized to sign documents domiciled in Switzerland, did not have the minimum three board members, lacked a Swiss bank account and valid address, and operated without an auditing body.
The GHF operates independently from UN-backed mechanisms, which Hamas has sought to reinstate, arguing that these vehicles are more neutral.
Israeli and American officials have rejected those calls, saying Hamas previously exploited UN-run systems to siphon aid for its war effort.
The UN has denied those allegations while expressing concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach food distribution points.
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Key US Lawmaker Warns Ireland of Potential Economic Consequences for ‘Antisemitic Path’ Against Israel
US Sen. James Risch (R-ID) speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Washington, DC, May 21, 2024. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch (R-ID) issued a sharp warning Tuesday, accusing Ireland of embracing antisemitism and threatening potential economic consequences if the Irish government proceeds with new legislation targeting Israeli trade.
“Ireland, while often a valuable U.S. partner, is on a hateful, antisemitic path that will only lead to self-inflicted economic suffering,” Risch wrote in a post on X. “If this legislation is implemented, America will have to seriously reconsider its deep and ongoing economic ties. We will always stand up to blatant antisemitism.”
Marking a striking escalation in rhetoric from a senior US lawmaker, Risch’s comments came amid growing tensions between Ireland and Israel, which have intensified dramatically since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Those attacks, in which roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage, prompted a months-long Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has drawn widespread international scrutiny. Ireland has positioned itself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s response, accusing the Israeli government of disproportionate use of force and calling for immediate humanitarian relief and accountability for the elevated number of Palestinian civilian casualties.
Dublin’s stance has included tangible policy shifts. In May 2024, Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state, becoming one of the first European Union members to do so following the outbreak of the war in Gaza. The move was condemned by Israeli officials, who recalled their ambassador to Ireland and accused the Irish government of legitimizing terrorism. Since then, Irish lawmakers have proposed further measures, including legislation aimed at restricting imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, policies viewed in Israel and among many American lawmakers as aligning with the controversial Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
While Irish leaders have defended their approach as grounded in international law and human rights, critics in Washington, including Risch, have portrayed it as part of a broader pattern of hostility toward Israel. Some US lawmakers have begun raising the possibility of reevaluating trade and diplomatic ties with Ireland in response.
Risch’s warning is one of the clearest indications yet that Ireland’s policies toward Israel could carry economic consequences. The United States is one of Ireland’s largest trading partners, and American companies such as Apple, Google, Meta and Pfizer maintain substantial operations in the country, drawn by Ireland’s favorable tax regime and access to the EU market.
Though the Trump administration has not echoed Risch’s warning, the remarks reflect growing unease in Washington about the trajectory of Ireland’s foreign policy. The State Department has maintained a careful balancing act, expressing strong support for Israel’s security while calling for increased humanitarian access in Gaza. Officials have stopped short of condemning Ireland’s actions directly but have expressed concern about efforts they see as isolating Israel on the international stage.
Ireland’s stance is emblematic of a growing international divide over the war. While the US continues to provide military and diplomatic backing to Israel, many European countries have called for an immediate ceasefire and investigations into alleged war crimes.
Irish public opinion has long leaned pro-Palestinian, and Irish lawmakers have repeatedly voiced concern over the scale of destruction in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation.
Irish officials have not yet responded to The Algemeiner’s request for comment.
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