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"That's 710 babies that the Israeli government has murdered," the lone Palestinian American in Congress said. "This is not self-defense. This is genocide."
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."
"Dear Americans, if you are killed by the Israeli government, our country won't care," the Michigan Democrat lamented. "No one will be held accountable."
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib said Monday that the Biden administration has effectively communicated to the world that the Israeli military "can kill Americans and get away with it," a comment that came hours before the Israel Defense Forces predictably concluded that its killing of a U.S. citizen in the occupied West Bank was accidental.
"Dear Americans, if you are killed by the Israeli government, our country won't care," Tlaib (D-Mich.) wrote in response to remarks from U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel, who deferred to the Israeli military's internal investigation when asked about the killing of 26-year-old Turkish American citizen and human rights activist Aysenur Eygi last week at a protest in the illegally occupied West Bank.
"No one will be held accountable," Tlaib added. "It doesn't matter who you are, Israel can kill Americans and get away with it."
.@iclalturan: Eyewitnesses say she was killed by Israeli sniper, autopsy says she was shot in the head…do you have any doubt
Patel: I appreciate all you’re sharing but our partners Israel are conducting a process
Rabia: Her family wants an independent investigation, would you… pic.twitter.com/5EqxXpYKSQ
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) September 9, 2024
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said in a statement following its inquiry into the killing of Eygi last week that it is "highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire" which was aimed not at her but at another demonstrator, whom Israel characterized as a "key instigator" of a "riot."
"Israel has sent a request to carry out an autopsy," the IDF said.
Ghassan Daghlas, the governor of the West Bank city Nablus, said Saturday that an autopsy conducted at a nearby university "confirmed that Eygi was killed by an Israeli occupation sniper's bullet to her head." Eyewitnesses have also said Eygi was deliberately shot in the head, pushing back on the IDF's narrative.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in response to the IDF's findings that "no one should be shot and killed for attending a protest" and declared that "Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank, including changes in their rules of engagement."
Blinken, who recently signed off on a $20 billion sale of U.S. weaponry to Israel, did not specify the changes the U.S. wants to see, nor did he suggest there would be any consequences if the Israeli government refuses to implement them.
The United States' top diplomat also did not say the Biden administration would launch its own investigation of Eygi's killing.
Over the weekend, as Common Dreams reported, Eygi's family said in a statement that an internal Israeli probe was "not adequate" and called on the Biden administration to "order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties."
Eygi is at least the third U.S. citizen Israeli forces have killed in the West Bank since the October 7 Hamas-led attack. Since then, Israeli forces and violent far-right settlers have operated with near-total impunity in the occupied Palestinian territories, killing tens of thousands of people in Gaza and hundreds in the West Bank, including one child every two days.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said Monday that "the Biden Administration should be launching its own investigation into the killing of an American citizen."
"Instead," he added, "it's deflecting and deferring to Israel to hold its own soldiers and settlers accountable, which Israel has repeatedly failed to do."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, she said, "has done nothing to stop settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, often encouraged by right-wing ministers."
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal blasted Israel's government on Friday after Israeli forces reportedly killed American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi while the 26-year-old was protesting the expansion of settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank.
"My heart goes out to Aysenur's family, friends, and loved ones," Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a statement. "This is a terrible tragedy, and I extend my condolences to all those in mourning today. My office is actively working to gather more information on the events that led to her death."
Eygi, who had dual citizenship in the United States and Turkey, graduated from the University of Washington earlier this year.
"I am very troubled by the reports that she was killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers," said Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Citing witnesses, AJ+ reported that Eygi was killed by a "deliberate shot to the head" in the town of Beita, near the settlement of Evyatar.
"The killing of an American citizen is a terrible proof point in this senseless war of rising tensions in the region."
The congresswoman charged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government "has done nothing to stop settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, often encouraged by right-wing ministers of the Netanyahu government."
"The killing of an American citizen is a terrible proof point in this senseless war of rising tensions in the region," added Jayapal, a critic of Israel's 11-month assault of the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 40,878 Palestinians and led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
The U.S. government has provided Israel with diplomatic support and billions of dollars in military assistance since it launched the assault on Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas-led attack, in which more than 1,100 people were killed and over 240 others were taken hostage.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in Congress and a fierce critic of the Israeli government, responded to Eygi's killing by calling out American diplomats in a series of posts on social media Friday.
Matthew Miller, a spokesperson at the U.S. State Department, said that "we are aware of the tragic death of an American citizen, Aysenur Eygi, today in the West Bank. We offer our deepest condolences to her family and loved ones. We are urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death, and will have more to say as we learn more. We have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens."
Noting his statement, Tlaib said: "Hey how'd they die, Matt? Was it magic? Who or what killed Aysenur? Asking on behalf of Americans who want to know."
The congresswoman slammed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his "complete and utter failure in keeping Americans safe," and urged him to "do something to save lives!"
Tlaib also reposted Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker's list of Americans killed by Israeli forces. In addition to Eygi, they include teenagers Mohammad Khdour and Tawfic Abdel Jabbar; World Central Kitchen worker Jacob Flickinger; journalist Shireen Abu Akleh; and peace activist Rachel Corrie.
"Today, yet another U.S. citizen was shot dead in the West Bank, almost certainly by Israeli soldiers," said Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti, urging President Joe Biden's administration to direct the Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch an immediate investigation.
"Today's tragedy is not a one-off," she stressed. "Violence in the occupied West Bank, driven by right-wing settlers and backed up by Israeli security services, has been increasing since the horrific attacks of October 7th and has spiked in recent weeks. In the last 10 days alone, Israeli security forces have killed 36 Palestinians in the West Bank, including eight children."
Haghdoosti noted that "in February, President Biden declared that settler violence in the West Bank constitutes 'an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States' and promised strict sanctions against those responsible for harming civilians there."
"Eygi's killing is both a confirmation of and a challenge to the president's declaration: A U.S. citizen has been slain, and now it is up to the Biden administration to use the many tools at its disposal to determine who is responsible and hold them accountable," she argued.
"The Justice Department announced indictments this week for Hamas leaders involved in killing U.S. citizens—an entirely appropriate action when Americans are killed abroad," she added. "We are horrified by Hamas' murders, including that of U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin last week. The Goldberg-Polin family deserves justice, and so do Aysenur Eygi's loved ones."
This post has been updated with comment from Win Without War.