October 2025
By Daryl G. Kimball
The effectiveness and credibility of the international rules-based order depends on whether leading states hold rule-breakers accountable, be they friends or foes.
As a world leader and beneficiary of the international system, the United States should be at the forefront of efforts to enforce rules and laws to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, protect civilians in conflict, and block weapons transfers to states that engage in war crimes or genocide.
Since the heinous October 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas, the Israeli military has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 168,000 in its two-year bombing campaign in Gaza. Many thousands more are dying from starvation and disease. The campaign is disproportionate and illegal by many measures.
There is overwhelming evidence that U.S. weapons, and weapons from other states, have been used by the Netanyahu government in its war on Gaza in violation of humanitarian law and that Israel has blocked humanitarian assistance from the U.S. government, other nations, and nongovernmental aid groups.
In the name of defeating Hamas, the Israeli government—using U.S.-supplied weaponry and ammunition—has systematically bombed population centers, including schools, hospitals, water and sanitation infrastructure, and aid workers and has forcibly displaced of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Yet President Donald Trump, his predecessor Joe Biden, and the majority of Congress have failed to uphold U.S. and international law. They have refused to use their considerable leverage to withhold military aid from Israel to protect innocent lives, facilitate a ceasefire, and secure the release of surviving Israeli hostages.
As a result, the United States is complicit in one of the most horrific chapters in human history. Its reputation as a defender of the international rules-based system is in tatters.
In July, B’Tselem—the independent Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories—released a detailed report that finds that “for nearly two years, Israel has been committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” In July, UN world hunger experts declared that the besieged civilian population in Gaza was at risk of famine.
A September report from Democratic U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, based on their regional fact-finding trip, concluded that: “The Netanyahu government has used a two-pronged strategy—the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and the use of food and humanitarian assistance—as a weapon of war. The goal is, in effect, to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population.”
The U.S. Foreign Assistance Act—and basic human decency—require withholding military aid when U.S. weapons are used by any government that engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights or that restricts the delivery of U. S. humanitarian assistance.
Despite the war’s devastating toll on civilians, the Trump administration has accelerated military aid to Israel and reversed earlier Biden restrictions on the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs, which have indiscriminate effects when dropped in populated areas.
In February, the Trump administration notified Congress of seven major arms sales to Israel amounting to over $11 billion of lethal weapons. Immediately afterward, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unilaterally broke the phased ceasefire that had been negotiated between Israel and Hamas before the last two phases could be negotiated. Since then, Israeli violence against civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank has escalated, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has only worsened.
Following another notice of arms transfers to Israel in July, some members of Congress put forward joint resolutions of disapproval that could have blocked the Trump administration’s proposed $675 million weapons transfer to Israel. Although more than 60 percent of the American people oppose further U.S. military aid to Israel, the measure won the support of just 24 senators, all Democrats.
In the face of U.S. inaction, Netanyahu defied international calls to end the war, ordered a new military offensive against Gaza City, and rejected Palestinian statehood.
Not only is it past time for Congress to enforce U.S. laws designed to protect civilians; the desperate situation also demands that other international actors step up to enforce the most basic international rules to protect civilians.
As a distinguished group of UN experts proposed Sept. 5, the General Assembly should adopt a “Uniting for Peace” resolution, demanding and enforcing a cessation of Israel’s bombardment and displacement of civilians in Gaza, the release of remaining Israeli hostages by Hamas, an immediate arms embargo on Israel and Hamas, and the unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid by UN and independent nongovernmental aid groups.
A robust Uniting for Peace initiative would pressure U.S. and Israeli leaders to act within the international rules and help enforce any plan to end the war, including the U.S.-Israeli brokered plan they demand that Hamas accept or else Israel’s assault will continue.
Such resolutions, which carry greater legal and political weight and can authorize a UN emergency force, have been used in rare cases when Security Council members fail to maintain international peace and security. If there has been any occasion for bolder action, it is now.