Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., called for the conditioning of U.S. aid to Israel, marking a stark departure from President Joe Biden’s position as civilian casualties continue to mount in Gaza.
Coons, one of Biden’s closest congressional allies, made the call on Thursday, just days after seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed by an Israeli airstrike, including one American. Chef José Andrés, the world-renowned non-governmental organization’s founder, said this week that Israel “systematically” targeted his aid workers and rejected insistences from the U.S. and Israeli governments that the strikes were accidental.
“I think we’re at that point,” Coons said on CNN on Thursday. “If Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister, were to order the [Israeli Defense Force] into Rafah at scale, if they were to drop 1,000 pound bonds and send in a battalion to go after Hamas and make no provision for civilians or for humanitarian aid, then I would vote to condition aid to Israel.”
“I’ve never said that before. I’ve never been here before. I’ve been a strong supporter of Israel the whole time I’ve served in Congress,” he added.
The vast majority of Gaza’s population has fled to the southern city of Rafah as war rages in the territory’s north. Israel has said it plans to launch a full-scale invasion of the city, a move Biden and most Democrats oppose without a significant decline in Israel’s killing of civilian men, women and children. But Biden has not said what consequences, if any, he would implement if the United States’ closest Middle East ally went forward with their plan.
Around 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. World Central Kitchen was amid an effort that delivered tens of millions of meals to Palestinians as the World Health Organization warns “famine is imminent” in northern Gaza, with 677,000 already “experiencing catastrophic food insecurity.” The U.N. paused nighttime relief operations in the aftermath of the killings of the World Central Kitchen workers.
Biden said in a statement on Tuesday he was “outraged and heartbroken by the deaths” of the aid workers and broadly condemned the consistent killing of aid workers — calling the war “one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed.” But he has not announced any changes in the administration’s policies.
On Thursday, he spoke to Netanyahu, according to the White House, and "emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable." He called for an immediate ceasefire and "made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action" addressing "civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers," the White House said.
“It's very complicated to understand… America is going to be sending its Navy and its military to do humanitarian work, but at the same time weapons provided by America... are killing civilians," Andrés told Reuters this week.
Coons noted Congress just appropriated $3.3 billion for Israel’s war effort and said he wanted the U.S. to continue to remain strong supporters of Israel, “but that the tactics by which the current prime minister is making these decisions don’t reflect the best values of Israel or of the United States.” According to multiple reports, Biden approved the delivery of thousands of bombs to Israel on Monday, the day of the airstrikes on the World Central Kitchen workers.
The human rights organization Amnesty International has reported that “U.S.-made weapons are being used by Israeli forces to commit war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
The Delaware Democrat was first elected to the Senate in 2010, replacing placeholder Sen. Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden adviser who was appointed to the seat after the now-president was elected vice president in 2008. Coons has long been considered a close ally of Biden’s and was considered as a candidate for Secretary of State before the president ultimately chose Antony Blinken. He serves as Biden’s 2024 campaign national co-chair.
Last October, First Lady Jill Biden called him “an incredible partner to Joe throughout your career.” The president called Coons and his wife “dear friends” in February. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., once said Coons “has significant influence both formally and informally” on his Delaware predecessor.
Former George W. Bush administration diplomat “Richard Haass and Senator Chris Coons now support conditioning aid to Israel,” former Obama administration national security spokesperson Tommy Vietor wrote on social media on Wednesday. “These are moderate, centrist, establishment figures, not lefty radicals, who are finally recognizing that the war in Gaza is a moral and strategic disaster.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.