Chris Van Hollen: “All right. Listen, I want to emphasize a couple of key points that the Senator from Vermont made. First of all, as we…”

“All right. Listen, I want to emphasize a couple of key points that the Senator from Vermont made. First of all, as we all know, Israel not only has the duty and the right to defend itself, but it has to make sure that this never happens again. But I did not hear the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee respond to the key points the Senator from Vermont and I have been making--No. 1, that what is happening right now is a clear violation of American law. Even if you want to throw international law out the window--and, in my view, we do that at our great jeopardy because the United States has many times invoked international law to advance what we consider to be important rights and interests--it is a violation of the plain meaning of U.S. law because under 620I of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, also known as the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, offensive sales to any country that is preventing the delivery of U.S.-supported humanitarian assistance is not allowed. It says very plainly that we should not transfer any offensive weapons to a country if they are not facilitating and if they are arbitrarily denying and restricting or otherwise impeding directly or indirectly the transfer of humanitarian assistance. It is indisputable here that for 32 days, all humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in Gaza has been cut off. I haven't heard a response to how that is not a violation of U.S. law.…”