US Senate refuses to block arms supplies to Israel

The US Senate has rejected a resolution demanding to block the supply of offensive weapons from the US to Israel. The vote in the upper house of the US legislative body was broadcast on Wednesday by the C-SPAN television channel, reported from TASS.

More than 60 out of 100 senators voted against the three corresponding resolutions, while 17 legislators supported them. That means that the documents will not be adopted, although the vote in the upper house of the US legislative body is still ongoing.

The author of the resolutions, submitted at the end of September, was independent Senator Bernie Sanders (from Vermont). According to the legislator, the US supply of offensive weapons to Israel violates the Foreign Assistance Act, adopted in the US in 1961. The document states that Washington cannot supply weapons to a country that directly or indirectly restricts the delivery of American humanitarian aid.

"It is against the law for the US to provide weapons to any country that is violating human rights or blocking U.S. humanitarian aid. That is precisely what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is doing in his savage war in Gaza. We must obey the law," Sanders wrote on X social network.

He also expressed the opinion that the supply of American weapons to Israel makes the United States complicit in the "death [of civilians] and destruction in the Gaza Strip."

According to the US law, the US Congress can stop a major arms supply abroad by passing a so-called resolution of disapproval. However, no such resolution has yet passed a vote in both houses of the legislature or survived a veto by the US president.

On October 15, the US State Department confirmed that on October 13, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts demanding that they take concrete steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave. Earlier, the media published the text of the letter, which indicated that failure to comply with US demands could lead to consequences in the matter of providing military aid to Israel.

On November 12, the deadline set by the American authorities for Israel to take measures on humanitarian aid expired. As noted by the Axios portal, Blinken has decided to continue arms supplies to Israel. Deputy Head of the State Department Press Service Vedant Patel, in turn, told reporters that the United States did not see any violations of American law in Israel's actions in the Palestinian enclave that could be the reason for stopping arms supplies.

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