Progressive US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Israeli military campaign in Gaza an “unfolding genocide” in a scathing speech that demanded the Joe Biden White House suspend aid to Israel’s armed forces.
“As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine’s door,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech on the House floor on Friday.
Citing 30,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and noting 70% were women and children, she continued: “A famine … 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.
“This was all accomplished – much of this was accomplished – with US resources and weapons. If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments marked the first time the congresswoman, one of the most prominent members of the US’s political progressive left, referred to Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide. Israel mounted the campaign there in response to the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,100 and took hostages.
While other American progressives – including congresswomen Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian – have used the term “genocide”, Ocasio-Cortez had refrained from doing so until her remarks on Friday.
In January, Ocasio-Cortez implied that she was waiting for the UN’s international court of justice to weigh in on the term, noting that “the fact that this word is even in play, the fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think, demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gaza is facing”.
Earlier in March, a group of protesters confronted Ocasio-Cortez at a movie theater in Brooklyn, criticizing her for “refus[ing] to call it a genocide”.
Ocasio-Cortez on Friday called on Biden to suspend the transfer of US weapons to aid the Israeli government, saying “honoring our alliances does not mean facilitating mass killing”.
“We cannot hide from our responsibility any longer,” she said. “Blocking assistance from one’s closest allies to starve a million people is not unintentional. We have a responsibility to prove the value of democracy, enshrined in the upholding of civil society, rule of law and commitment to human and civil rights.”
Ocasio-Cortez was one of 22 House Democrats who voted against the $1.2tn, six-month spending package that both the House and Senate passed on Friday. The package includes a ban on direct US funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, an agency providing key assistance to Gaza, until March 2025.
Biden is expected to sign the bill, which was sent to his desk early on Saturday morning after it passed the Senate.
