United Voices is applauding U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) for their trip to the Middle East — including the West Bank, Egypt, and Jordan — and their attempt to enter Gaza directly to assess the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding there. Israel denied them entry. That denial alone speaks volumes.

Watch Sen. Van Hollen’s remarks from the delegation visit: here.

What the senators found at the border tells a damning story. At the Rafah crossing and nearby aid warehouses in Egypt, and at Israeli-controlled crossings including Kerem Shalom and the Port of Ashdod, delegations observed massive stockpiles — enough food to feed Gaza’s entire population for three weeks — sitting idle. Only approximately 20 containers per day are being permitted through. UNRWA reports that roughly 6,000 fully loaded trucks are staged and ready in Egypt and Jordan, waiting only for permission to move.

The senators publicly rejected Israeli government claims that aid distribution is proceeding normally, calling the assertions “pure propaganda.”

“Senators Van Hollen and Merkley took a bold and necessary step by confronting the humanitarian calamity in Gaza head on,” United Voices said. “Their mission must not stand alone. Israel’s refusal to let U.S. senators enter Gaza underscores exactly why Congress must act — this is not abstract. It is a matter of life and death.”

The trip follows earlier legislative action in May 2025, when Senators Van Hollen and Merkley — joined by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Bernie Sanders, and Peter Welch — requested a Government Accountability Office investigation into whether Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid violate U.S. law, specifically the Leahy Laws and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which bar military assistance to foreign forces that obstruct humanitarian delivery.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced it will not participate in a United Nations review of its own human rights record — a decision United Voices views as an effort to avoid accountability at the precise moment it is most needed.

United Voices is calling on Congress to build on the senators’ mission with concrete action, including sending additional congressional delegations to the region to inspect aid crossings firsthand, enforcing the Leahy Laws by conditioning all military assistance to Israel on full and unobstructed humanitarian access, restoring and expanding U.S. funding to UNRWA, and making the GAO investigation findings public with binding enforcement consequences.

United Voices urges every member of Congress — particularly those serving on the Foreign Relations, Appropriations, and oversight committees — to stop treating Gaza as a distant policy debate and start treating it as the urgent moral and legal crisis it is.