Senate rejects West Bank accountability resolution in 47-51 vote

Nine American citizens killed by settlers or Israeli forces since 2022

The US Senate on Tuesday evening voted 47 to 51 to reject a Democratic resolution that would have forced the State Department to report to Congress on violence in the occupied West Bank, including the killings of nine American citizens by Israeli settlers or security forces over the last several years. The vote exposed continued partisan divisions over how to hold Israel accountable even as Democratic senators increasingly break with the party’s historical alignment with the country.

The resolution, led by Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, would have given the State Department 30 days to report to Congress on those deaths and on wider human-rights conditions in the territory, including Israel’s detention of Palestinian children. It failed to advance along mostly party lines.

Van Hollen forced the vote under Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, a law that lets senators demand human-rights reports on countries receiving US military aid. The resolution drew 24 sponsors, including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat, joined Republicans in voting against the resolution, while Kentucky Republican Rand Paul voted in favor.

“While I was pleased that so many of my Democratic colleagues joined this effort, it’s clear the United States must do more,” Van Hollen said in a statement after the vote. “It is our responsibility to ensure recipients of US taxpayer dollars act in line with our laws and our values — this resolution was an opportunity to shed light on a reality that flies in the face of that principle.”

The vote placed a spotlight on the deaths of nine American citizens since 2022. According to Van Hollen, none of the cases has resulted in accountability from either the Israeli or US government. The most recent include Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old from Tampa, Florida, who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in July 2025 while visiting family in the village of Sinjil. His family said the settlers surrounded him for more than three hours and blocked an ambulance from reaching him as he tried to protect their land. Weeks later, Khamis Ayyad, a 40-year-old father of five from Cicero, Illinois, died of smoke inhalation after settlers set fire to cars and homes in the village of Silwad.

Two other Americans, both 17, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar and Mohammad Khdour, were shot dead in separate incidents in early 2024. Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old raised in Seattle, was shot in the head by Israeli troops, and Amer Rabee, a 14-year-old from New Jersey, was shot 11 times, according to Van Hollen.

The victim list also includes the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, killed in 2022, and Omar Assad, an elderly man who died after Israeli soldiers bound and gagged him.

In a floor speech, Van Hollen pressed his colleagues on the unresolved cases. “If the killing of nine Americans does not justify a report from our own state department, I would ask my colleagues: what would?” he said. “How many more Americans must be killed before the executive branch does its job? These families deserve answers.”

Van Hollen placed the blame largely on Republican senators who continue to vote against such measures. In August, 45 Democratic senators signed a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu urging him to act to protect Americans in the West Bank.

The vote came amid what human-rights groups described as rising settler violence. Human Rights Watch reported in August that settler attacks, together with a rapid expansion of settlements, had fully or partly displaced 107 Palestinian communities — about 5,900 people — since January 2023. The group cited UN figures showing more Palestinians were displaced in the first four months of 2026 than in all of 2025.

A UN report from March, covering the 12 months up to October 2025, documented 1,732 settler attacks causing injuries or property damage, and determined that Israel’s settlement expansion had forced more than 36,000 Palestinians from their homes.

The Tuesday vote continued a pattern of similar Democratic-led measures that have failed on party-line votes since 2024. When Sanders first forced a Senate vote on blocking arms sales to Israel in November 2024, 18 senators backed him. In April of this year, 40 of the 47 Democrats voted to block a $295 million sale of bulldozers to Israel, which Sanders argued would be used to demolish homes in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Another 36 voted to block a $152 million sale of 1,000-pound bombs. The measures failed because every Republican voted against them.