AOC warns of imminent famine and ‘unfolding genocide’ in Gaza in House speech

In remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives on Friday, US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned of imminent, weaponisedfamine in Gaza and the “unfolding genocide” against Palestinians by Israel, urging Congress to suspend the transfer of US weapons in an effort to “prevent further atrocity.”

The Democratic congresswoman from New York amplified warnings from humanitarian aid groups as more than one million people in Gaza “are at famine’s door,” a crisis that she said is “being intentionally precipitated through the blocking of food and global humanitarian assistance by leaders in the Israeli government.”

“This is a mass starvation of people, engineered and orchestrated, following the killing of another 30,000, 70 per cent of whom were women and children,” she said. “There is hardly a single hospital left. And this was all accomplished, much of this accomplished, with US resources and weapons.”

“If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes,” she added.

“It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away. It looks like good and decent people who do nothing or too little too late.”

Earlier this week, progressive House members condemned a bipartisan spending bill that blocked US funding for the primary humanitarian agency operating in Gaza until 2025.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent that cutting critical funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees would be “unconscionable.” Israel has accused the agency of having ties to Hamas, prompting a wave of cuts to the UN agency among Western countries, even as