Tlaib Enters '14 Pages of Babies' Killed by Israel in Gaza Into Congressional Record

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Thursday entered into the Congressional Record a list containing the names of thousands of children killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 7—a war the lone Palestinian American lawmaker called "one of the most documented horrific crimes against humanity in our history."

Earlier this week, the Gaza Ministry of Health published a 649-page list containing the names of 34,344 Palestinians killed during Israel's annihilation of the coastal enclave. The list includes the names of more than 11,000 children. Its first 14 pages contain the names of babies under the age of 1 who were killed during the onslaught, for which Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

"Fourteen pages of babies' names, that's 710 babies that the Israeli government has murdered," Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on the House floor Thursday. "This is not self-defense. This is genocide."

The congresswoman noted that the actual death toll in Gaza is higher, with "thousands more" children who are "either dismembered, unrecognizable, or buried beneath the rubble."

The Gaza Ministry of Health says that at least 41,272 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October, most of them women and children. At least 95,551 others have been wounded by Israeli bombs and bullets. More than 10,000 Palestinians are missing and believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.

According to the ministry, more than 17,000 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces.

On Thursday, a panel of United Nations experts condemned Israel for "serious violations" of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly in Gaza—which according to the U.N. Children's Fund is "the world's most dangerous place to be a child."

Additionally, Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza—another core component of the ICJ genocide case—has caused the spread of diseases including once-eradicated polio and widespread forced starvation that has affected hundreds of thousands of people and killed dozens of children.

"Behind these numbers are real people who have their future stolen, their lives forever changed," said Tlaib, who went on to criticize many of her congressional colleagues' silence in the face of the U.S.-backed slaughter.

"I wonder if it's because these babies are Palestinian?" she asked. "They're children. That's it. They're children."

"I don't believe I have to consistently remind my colleagues that Palestinians are also human beings," Tlaib added.

Numerous Israeli officials have used dehumanizing language to describe Palestinians, including children, whom some in Israel view as future terrorists to be eliminated.

"The children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves," Israeli lawmaker Meirav Ben-Ari declared in October.

Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi—who argued that Israel's war is "too humane"—asserted that "there are no uninvolved people" in Gaza.

"We must go in there and kill, kill, kill," he said. "We all have one common goal—erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth."

These and 22 minutes of other statements from prominent Israelis were entered as evidence of genocidal intent—a key legal requisite for proving genocide—in the ICJ trial.

While more than 30 nations and regional blocs support the South Africa-led ICJ case, the Biden administration strongly opposes the trial. The U.S. provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions.

"We must stop arming and funding genocide," Tlaib stressed in Thursday's speech.

Tlaib's tireless advocacy for the people of her ancestral homeland, where her relatives still live, has prompted attacks by both Republicans and Democrats. She and colleagues including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—the only other Muslim woman in Congress—have also been the target of death threats and other racist and misogynistic vitriol.

This week, a cartoon drawn by Detroit News automotive reporter Henry Payne strongly implying that Tlaib is a member of Hezbollah was published as the right-wing National Review's "cartoon of the day" and was widely circulated on social media.

"This racism will incite more hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities and it makes everyone less safe," Tlaib told the Detroit Metro Times on Friday. "It's disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism against our communities."

Numerous Palestinian Americans, Muslims, and people mistaken for them have been violently attacked since October, including a 6-year-old boy who was stabbed to death in a Chicago suburb last October.

Tlaib and other pro-Palestine lawmakers have also been targeted by a vast international fake news operation exploiting far-right social media accounts to spread Islamophobia.

Members of both parties have falsely accused Tlaib of antisemitism, especially for calling Israel's war on Gaza a genocide—an assessment with which many experts concur—and for using the aspirational call for liberation, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

Last November, 22 House Democrats joined with nearly every Republican lawmaker in voting to censure Tlaib for some of her remarks.

"This is an attempt to silence my voice because I want the violence to stop," Tlaib said when the censure resolution was introduced last October, "no matter whether it's toward Israelis or toward Palestinians."