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How Long Can US Lawmakers Ignore These Images of Child Carnage in Gaza?
The images—of children with their limbs blown off by Israeli explosives, of despairing mothers holding their dead babies, of body after body unearthed from mass graves—are readily available, and at times seemingly unavoidable, for regular readers of major newspapers, users of social media platforms, and viewers of even corporate television outlets such as CNN.
It's safe to assume, then, that members of the United States Congress—a body that has helped arm and fund Israel's relentless war on Gaza—have seen many of the same photos and videos as much of the American public, a majority of which supports halting U.S. weapons sales to the Israeli government until the assault ends.
So why do so many U.S. lawmakers and political leaders—including President Joe Biden, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, and Republican nominee Donald Trump—continue to back the war, despite readily available visual proof of the immense suffering it has caused?
"It's televised on your phone, your computer screen, your social media," scholar and human rights activist Omar Suleiman wrote for Middle East Eye on Monday. "A healthy conscience can't simply ignore the mutilated bodies of tens of thousands of dead Palestinian children."
"The Gaza genocide is an American one," Suleiman added, "and it is high time Americans came to terms with their government’s complicity in the type of war crimes they so often associate with historical hegemonic rivals."
Lara Al-Moubayed, a 1-year-old Palestinian baby killed in an Israeli bombardment, was brought to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on September 8, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
This story features photographs taken in Gaza over roughly the past week, focusing specifically on the harms children and their loved ones are facing due to a military campaign that has no end in sight as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obstructs cease-fire talks.
According to the United Nations, most of those killed by Israel's 11-month assault on the Gaza Strip have been women and children—though no one has been spared.
In addition to the Israeli assault's catastrophic physical toll, the war has inflicted what one Gaza mother called "complete psychological destruction" on the enclave's children, an impact that will reverberate for generations.
Faced with evidence of large-scale Israeli atrocities, Republican lawmakers have opted to take explicitly genocidal postures while attempting to excuse Israeli war crimes by pointing to the appalling Hamas-led attack of October 7, which killed over 1,100 people.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told voters during a March event that the U.S. "shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid" for Gaza and that "it should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima."
Asked by CodePink's Medea Benjamin in January whether he has "seen the pictures of all the babies being killed" in Gaza, Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) responded, "These are not innocent Palestinian civilians."
[Warning: The following contains graphic images]
Wafaa Hamad, a girl who lost all her family members in an Israeli attack on their house, struggles to survive at Kemal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on September 3, 2024. (Photo by Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Others, such as Biden and Harris, have paid lip service to the suffering of ordinary Gazans while refusing to support an arms embargo against Israel, a policy shift that advocates say is needed to pressure Israel's intransigent prime minister to accept a cease-fire and hostage-release deal.
"What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating," Harris said in March, prior to becoming the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential nominee.
During her address last month accepting the Democratic nomination, Harris used the passive voice to decry "what has happened in Gaza," saying "the scale of suffering is heartbreaking" as if it were caused by a natural disaster and not deliberate policy decisions by Israel and its chief ally and weapons supplier, the United States.
A view of the devastation at a mosque following Israeli attacks in Gaza City, Gaza on September 8, 2024. (Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Not every U.S. lawmaker has ignored, brushed aside, or attempted to justify Israel's atrocities in Gaza.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the lone Palestinian American in Congress, implored her colleagues during an April speech to support a permanent cease-fire, pointing to "images of children in Gaza celebrating Eid on top of rubble of their homes, the schools, and masjids that no longer stand."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took to the Senate floor in June with photos of Palestinian children starving to death under Israel's siege, which has sparked famine conditions throughout the enclave.
"What kind of permanent damage will occur to virtually every one of these children?" Sanders asked.
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