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TOP SENATE DEM SAYS GAZA FAMINE IS A ‘SHAMEFUL BLACK MARK ON
HUMANITY,’ ADMITS PARTY FAILED TO ACT  
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Stephen Prager
August 25, 2025
Common Dreams
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_ "We should have done more," said Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat
on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Everybody should have said
more sooner." _

U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Photo by Greg Nash

 

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday
that Congress had failed to act to prevent starvation in Gaza
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the fault of Israel's blockade on aid entering the strip.

On Friday, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification
(IPC) declared
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an "entirely man-made" famine is taking place in Gaza—marking just
the fifth time the notoriously cautious organization has declared a
famine since it was established in 2004.

In reaction to this news, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) issued her most
forceful condemnation of Israel's actions in an interview on
CBS's _Face the Nation, _describing it as "a shameful black mark on
humanity that the world has allowed this to happen and that Israel
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happen."

(Video: Face the Nation)

Shaheen, who was calling in from Amman, Jordan, after visiting the
country's Humanitarian Assistance Program, said, "They are trying to
get 150 trucks a day into Israel."

"Israel," the senator said, "has prevented those trucks from going in
in a way that would provide the nutrition that Gazans need to prevent
starvation."

According to the IPC report, a quarter of all Palestinians in
Gaza–more than 500,000 people–are starving, with that number
expected to rise to more than 640,000 by the end of September.

Rebuking claims from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office that
famine designation was an antisemitic "blood libel," Shaheen said,
"The reality is that we have people dying because they are
systematically being starved to death because Israel is refusing to
allow in the humanitarian aid that people need to keep alive."

"Not only that," she said, "they've already started planning another
incursion into Gaza in ways that are going to kill more people."

"This is not acceptable," she said. "The world needs to speak out."

The world, notably, has been speaking out against Israel's conduct in
Gaza for well over a year as evidence mounted of its leaders'
genocidal intent.

South Africa accused
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of genocide in January 2024, citing statements by numerous top Israeli
officials who expressed the goal of wiping out or displacing the
people of Gaza entirely, often through the policy of intentional
starvation.

The IPC, meanwhile, warned
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early as December 2023 that Gaza faced a "very high risk of famine"
unless access to humanitarian aid was improved immediately.

Shaheen, who has since said
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will not seek reelection in 2026, was among the first wave of
Democrats to publicly break
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the mainstream party line on Gaza, saying that then-President Joe
Biden was "too slow in pushing Netanyahu to come to a ceasefire," and
voting to block weapons shipments to Israel. However, she did not
voice these criticisms until December 2024, after Donald Trump
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reelected.

It took until late last month—when starvation had become
so widespread
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one in five children in Gaza City faced malnutrition—for the
majority of Senate Democrats to finally back
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resolution to block more arms to Israel.

"We should be doing more, and we should have done more. Absolutely,"
Shaheen said Sunday. "Everybody should have said more sooner."

_Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Gaza
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* famine
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* Democratic Party
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* U.S. failure
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