This month marks 1,000 days since the October 2023 attack on Israel and the assault on Gaza that has followed.  Marking the anniversary, the Palestinian Christian group Kairos Palestine issued a statement calling on the world to "act with faith and courage," urging governments to halt the arms and military support that enables the violence.  Last month the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s General Assembly voted to recognize Israel's war in Gaza as a genocide, and the United Church of Christ's General Synod has passed a similar declaration.  This follows previous declarations from human rights groups, including B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.

The human cost of the war has been staggering. Over the past 1,000 days, over seventy thousand Palestinians have been killed, and much of Gaza, including schools, hospitals, churches, and mosques, lies in ruins. This has also been the deadliest period for Palestinian children in the West Bank since Israel's occupation began in 1967. And even since a ceasefire agreement took effect in Gaza, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,100 Palestinians.

Israel has also continued to restrict what the outside world can see and deliver. It has banned dozens of international aid organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, from operating in Gaza, and it has barred international journalists from entering and reporting independently from Gaza.

Since Israel's founding, the US has given it more military support than any other country in the world. That includes more than $300 billion in aid overall, plus $16.3 billion in direct military aid since October 2023, with tens of billions more in committed military sales still to come. A 10-year agreement guaranteeing $3.8 billion a year in military aid is set to expire in 2028.

Congress could soon lock in a permanent expansion of US-Israel military ties. It is preparing to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual bill that funds the military, and this year's House and Senate versions both include provisions that would tie the US and Israeli defense industries together like never before.

This isn't about more or less aid. It's about a deeper, harder-to-reverse form of support: joint weapons development, shared production, and long-term defense contracts that would tie the two countries' militaries together in ways that would be nearly impossible to undo once Congress passes them.

This is a serious and dangerous shift in US-Israel military cooperation, and it is happening now, with consequences that could last for generations. There is bipartisan opposition to these provisions, but time is short. Contact your Senators and Representative now and urge them to oppose this legislation. The US must not continue arming, selling weapons to, or deepening military ties with Israel while it continues killing Palestinians; illegally occupying Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and parts of Syria; and violating international humanitarian law.