By Diyar Guldogan
WASHINGTON (AA) - Americans do not want to see Palestinian children killed in the Gaza Strip, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday.
"The American people, in my view, no matter what your politics may be, do not want to be complicit in the slaughter of small kids who are bombed to death while they sleep.
"The American people, in my view, do not want us to continue funding (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's cruel war. And I think maybe it's time we start listening to the American people," he said on the Senate floor.
The senator said he thinks that all over the country there is "a lot of anguish in the hearts and the souls" of the American people.
"Whether you are a conservative Republican, whether you're Independent, whether you are a progressive, you do not want to see hundreds of thousands of children starve to death, while food trucks sit a few miles away," he said.
Sanders also criticized American military support to Israel.
"The American people do not want to see a situation in which a long-time American ally, Israel, is using US weapons and equipment to block the delivery of US humanitarian aid, which, by the way, is against the law."
Any country that blocks American humanitarian aid by law should have its funding ended, he stressed.
According to a Gallup poll released Wednesday, a majority of Americans now disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza, compared to November.
The results from the March 1 - 20 survey showed approval dropped from 50% to 36% since November, while 55% currently disapprove.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which less than 1,150 Israelis were killed.
More than 32,200 Palestinians have since been killed and over 74,500 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while much of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.