Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday declared that the Jewish state is committing “genocide” in Gaza — a charge long pushed by anti-Israel activists and Hamas sympathizers, but until now avoided by any sitting U.S. senator.

“The intent is clear. The conclusion is inescapable: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” Sanders said in a statement that relied heavily on casualty figures from Hamas’s health ministry and inflammatory comments by fringe Israeli politicians.

Sanders demanded the US cut off offensive weapons sales to Israel, impose a ceasefire, flood Gaza with UN-channeled aid, and take steps toward creating a Palestinian state.

Israel’s stated war aims — rescuing hostages, dismantling Hamas’s terror infrastructure, and ensuring the Strip can never again be used as a launchpad for massacres — have been met with blanket rejection by Hamas and its international allies.

Israel has consistently denied allegations of genocide or war crimes, pointing to its repeated evacuation warnings, daily humanitarian corridors, and coordination with international partners to move aid into Gaza — all while confronting an enemy that systematically hides behind civilians and uses hospitals, schools, and mosques as military outposts.

Sanders’s accusation comes just one day after the UN Human Rights Office issued a report parroting similar claims. Both the senator and the UN cited bellicose rhetoric from Israeli leaders in the war’s early days as supposed proof of “genocidal intent,” while downplaying clarifications from those same leaders and ignoring the reality that operational war policy is set by the Israeli cabinet, not by extreme backbench ministers.

Sanders, though Jewish himself, has long been one of the most hostile voices toward Israel in Congress. He has called repeatedly for arms embargoes and sanctions, often while echoing Hamas talking points. His latest statement went further than ever, adopting the Hamas-controlled casualty statistics and repeating the unverified claim that “more than 400 people, including 145 children, have already starved to death” under Israeli policy — a figure Israel flatly denies. Jerusalem points to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, daily pauses in fighting, and aid airdrops as proof that it is working to prevent humanitarian collapse even as it continues the war against Hamas.

The timing of Sanders’s statement underscores Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation. Several European countries are rushing to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN next week, Spain has already imposed an arms embargo, and the EU is considering suspending its trade agreement with Israel. Meanwhile, the far-left in Congress, joined by outspoken critics like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on the populist right, are embracing the “genocide” label as a political weapon against America’s closest Middle Eastern ally.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)