UPDATES WITH MORE REMARKS; CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK, LEDE; ADDS BACKGROUND
By Servet Gunerigok and Necva Tastan
WASHINGTON/ISTANBUL (AA) - US Senator Chris Van Hollen has called for a lasting cease-fire in Gaza, and urged President Joe Biden to "immediately take decisive action."
"People are starving in Gaza. And civilians are dying every day - including in the horrific incident in Gaza City today. This has gone on for far too long without sufficient action. There is no excuse for this situation. President Biden must demand accountability and immediately take decisive action to ensure that large-scale deliveries of humanitarian aid can reach desperate civilians in Gaza," said Van Hollen on X late Thursday.
Israeli forces fired on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at the Al Nabulsi roundabout on Al Rashid Street, a major coastal road to the west of Gaza City in northern Gaza, leaving at least 112 Palestinians dead and 760 injured on Thursday.
"Enough is enough. America cannot be complicit in this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe - we know what must be done, now we must do it," Van Hollen added.
US Senator for Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren said during a speech in the Senate that "Netanyahu & his right-wing government have created a catastrophe in Gaza. Today Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinians desperate for aid.
"The U.S. must push for a cease-fire, hostage releases, & condition military support on pursuing a two-state solution for a lasting peace," Warren noted.
On Thursday, a group of progressive US lawmakers, led by Rashida Tlaib, demanded a lasting cease-fire in Gaza and implored Biden to act with full leverage to end the violence.
Tlaib told a news conference with Cori Bush and Ilhan Omar that Palestinian families are displaced without food, clean water, and shelter.
"Calling for a temporary cease-fire is not enough. We all here are saying we need a permanent solution to this, ... we need a lasting cease-fire," she said, urging Washington to prioritize Palestinian lives and save women and children.
"Using starvation as a weapon of war is undeniably a war crime. There's a war that we continue again to be complicit," she said.
Tlaib, a Democrat from the state of Michigan, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has a long history of turning to extremism and violence, ... and there's a very real danger that he will expand the war regionally -- an effort to stay in power."
"Make no mistake. The United States is slowly being drawn into Netanyahu's war, and we're saying enough, enough," she added.
The US lawmaker said the alternative to a cease-fire is "continued death and destruction."
"And I'm here to say that not anymore, not on under our watch. I'm here to say that we must choose life over death, cease-fire now," she said.
Bush from Missouri said the Israeli government's threat to imminently invade Rafah is "unconscionable."
- 'Use your power'
"There is such widespread starvation that people have resorted to -- mixing animal feed with grass and feeding it to their children," said Bush. "There is nowhere else to go. Everywhere else has been destroyed, turned to rubble with bodies."
Echoing Tlaib's demand for "an immediate and lasting cease-fire," Bush said it would save 1.5 million Palestinians in Rafah.
"If the Israeli military invades Rafah, tens of thousands more Palestinians, more than the 30,000, will die. President Biden, we are urging you to use your power to lead us, lead us to a lasting cease-fire to do everything in your power to put an end to this violence," she said.
Jewish congresswoman Jan Schakowsky joined the lawmakers and said there must be an immediate and "long-serving" cease-fire.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu is absolutely on the wrong page and the very idea of going into Rafah means nothing more than more deaths," she said.
Omar, who represents the state of Minnesota, said Palestinians have endured decades of occupation by Israel and "an assault on Rafah extinguishes perhaps their last flicker of hope."
She said the tragedy in Gaza is being meticulously documented.
"Each war crime and violation compiled by journalists, human rights groups and UN agencies are bearing witness. And still, I ask where is the accountability for these crimes," said Omar.
She criticized the Biden administration for its unconditional support for Israel. "This administration cannot claim to be an honest broker of peace while greenlighting the massacre of Palestinians," she said.
Israel has launched a deadly military offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack, led by Hamas, killed less than 1,200 people.
At least 30,035 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, and 70,457 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the coastal enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents in the north where the shootings on Thursday took place, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.