Senate Democrats urge Trump to broker deal releasing hostages, ending Gaza war

Twenty-five Senate Democrats have signed onto a letter to US President Donald Trump to oppose Israel’s impending military operation aimed at reoccupying Gaza and to demand that Israel lift its ongoing blockade on humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

The letter calls the Israeli plan to resume aid “simply not viable.”

“It would limit aid distribution to just a few sites in southern Gaza secured by private US contractors, and nearly all aid groups operating in the region note this would only increase insecurity and displacement,” the senators say.

The lawmakers urge Trump to broker a deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages in exchange for an end to the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected this deal, arguing that it would leave Hamas in power.

But the senators note that nearly three-quarters of the Israeli public backs this trade, according to successive polls.

“Hamas’s military capacity had been effectively obliterated, with the IDF calling it a ‘guerilla terror group’ that could no longer mount a sustained military operation against the people of Israel,” the senators add.

Separately, Rep. Brad Schneider leads 25 House Democrats in another letter to Trump urging him to lean on Netanyahu to resume aid in Gaza, Jewish Insider reports.

That letter followed another one signed by 96 House Democrats to Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter in which they blasted Israel’s aid blockade, which has been in place since March 2.