Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Congress has appropriated more than $20 billion in supplemental military aid to Israel, on top of the standing $3.8 billion-per-year package that has been US policy for decades. The bulk of the supplemental has gone to replenishing Israeli munitions stocks: 155mm artillery shells, 2,000-pound bombs, Hellfire missiles, and air-defense interceptors, most of it produced in US factories under Foreign Military Sales contracts.
The Gaza campaign has now run 19 months. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs puts the Palestinian death toll above 50,000, with women and children accounting for the majority. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the same body the US State Department cites for famine assessments worldwide, formally declared famine conditions in multiple Gaza districts in 2024 and again in early 2026. Satellite analysis published by the AP, the BBC, and Reuters shows roughly 60 percent of Gaza’s housing stock destroyed or severely damaged. Most hospitals in the north are no longer functional.
The State Department’s 2026 annual human rights report, signed off by the current administration, used unusually direct language on civilian casualties and aid restrictions. Senior US military officials, speaking on background to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in late 2025, told reporters they assess the current Israeli campaign is generating long-term insurgency conditions rather than degrading Hamas to a point of strategic defeat. The administration has imposed sanctions on individual settlers in the West Bank and at least one IDF unit, but has not conditioned the main aid package on humanitarian benchmarks.
Inside Israel, the cabinet remains split. Polling by the Israel Democracy Institute shows public support for a negotiated end to the war above 60 percent. Israeli press, including Haaretz, the Times of Israel, and Channel 12, has reported repeatedly on internal IDF objections to the scope of strikes and on cabinet ministers blocking humanitarian convoys. In the US, major Jewish organizations including the ADL, the AJC, and J Street have publicly called for stricter conditions on military aid and faster humanitarian access, even where they disagree on tactics.
The unresolved policy question is conditioning. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act already prohibits US security aid to any government that restricts US humanitarian assistance. The State Department has been asked, by both Democratic and Republican senators in committee hearings, why that statute has not been triggered. The official answer has been that the determination is under review. It has been under review for 16 months. Any member of Congress voting on the next supplemental owes constituents a direct answer on whether they would attach conditions, and which ones.