Bernie Sanders forces US senators into a test vote on military aid as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a notable test Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders is forcing colleagues to vote on record whether to investigate human rights abuses in the Israel-Hamas war, a step toward potentially limiting U.S. military aid to Israel as its devastating attacks on Gaza grind past 100 days.

The Senate vote, a first of its kind tapping into a decades-old law, would require the U.S. State Department to, within 30 days, produce a report on whether the Israeli war effort in Gaza is violating human rights and international accords. If so, U.S. military aid to Israel, long assured without question, could be quickly halted.

While the Senate is unlikely to approve the measure, the vote by senators will begin to reveal the depth of unease among U.S. lawmakers over Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas. With no apparent end to the bombardment, Israel’s attacks against Palestinians, an attempt to root out Hamas leaders, are viewed by some as disproportional to the initial terrorist attack on Israel.

The Biden administration, with repeated overtures to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, including shuttle diplomacy last week by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is pushing Israel to shift the intensity of the battle. Some 24,000 people in Gaza, the majority of them women and children, have been killed and the bombings have destroyed most of the housing units, displacing most of its 2.3 million people in a humanitarian catastrophe.

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