Chris Van Hollen: “Unfortunately, the Biden administration's urgent pleas have mostly fallen on deaf ears with Netanyahu's coalition. Just…”

“Unfortunately, the Biden administration's urgent pleas have mostly fallen on deaf ears with Netanyahu's coalition. Just a few days ago, we saw Secretary Blinken in Jerusalem, meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, urging that Israel not take military action in Rafah. What is Rafah? Rafah is a city in Gaza that is right on the Egyptian- Gaza border. Before the war started, there were about 300,000, 400,000 people in Rafah. Today, you have about 1.4 million people crammed into Rafah because over a million people who have been displaced from other parts of Gaza went to Rafah because they were told it was a safe place to go. Despite what Secretary Blinken said and despite the fact that just the other day, John Kirby, the national security spokesman, said that the United States would not support a major military operation in Rafah--nevertheless, within hours of Secretary Blinken's meeting with the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they are going to go into Rafah. It is just one of many, many examples of where our requests have been rebuffed. We have made some incremental progress from time to time. For example, after many, many requests and urgings, we saw a while back the long-delayed reopening of the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow some more trucks into Gaza. But the reality is that the number of trucks and the amount of aid getting into Gaza is nowhere near what is necessary to meet the dire humanitarian situation.…”