Senator Cotton: Here we go again. Hamas is on the verge of defeat, so it’s cranked up the propaganda machine once again. Now, Hamas wants the world to believe that Israel has undertaken a campaign of deliberate starvation of the Gazan population. And, as usual, Hamas can count on an international media and political chorus to fight their battles for them and try to bully Israel into submission.

So, I’d like to set the record straight.

First, let me observe that no decent person wants to see innocent children caught in the crosshairs of war and suffering from hunger and malnutrition.

Israel agrees, of course. That’s why, since Hamas started this war with its brutal atrocities, Israel has helped bring into Gaza approximately 96,000 trucks containing nearly 1.5 million tons of food, 46,000 tons of medical supplies, 60,000 tons of water, and around 170,000 tons of shelter equipment.

Put simply, children in Gaza aren’t going hungry because of a lack of supplies from Israel; they’re suffering because Hamas uses food and humanitarian aid as a weapon to stay in power.

You may see these easels next to me and believe I’m about to show you heart-wrenching images of malnourished kids. That’s what some more gullible senators have done lately—and, I’m afraid to say, gullible might be a charitable way to describe their motives. Much like The New York Times buying hook, line, and sinker the images of Gazan children afflicted with terrible diseases, but passed off as malnourished. But no, I have other images to show, namely, the immense volume of food that’s being ruthlessly withheld from the children of Gaza.

Pallets and pallets of United Nations aid are just waiting to be distributed to the children of Gaza. Some of these contain canned goods such as chickpeas, white beans, green peas, and carrots, but these supplies—at the moment, at this very moment—are sitting and baking in the hot sun instead of feeding hungry kids.

While the situation is shocking, it’s not at all surprising. After all, Hamas’s infiltration of UN aid mechanisms is well-documented.

Time and again, we have seen Hamas terrorists divert aid shipments to themselves or loot delivery trucks, only to resell the supplies on the black market at outrageous prices. Last year, this terrorist-infiltrated aid system, managed by the UN and others, allowed Hamas to rake in more than half-a-billion dollars in profit—profits that fund Hamas’s campaign of terror against Israel and its own people.

How critical is this systematic theft to Hamas’s grip on power? One of Hamas’s chief demands in recent ceasefire negotiations has been the dismantling of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a new charity created specifically to end Hamas’s stranglehold on aid and supplies. The foundation has even offered to distribute UN aid for free, despite the risk to its own people. And much of this aid, which is sitting in the sun and partly taxpayer-funded, is already inside Gaza; it simply needs to be picked up and distributed.

But the offer has fallen on deaf ears because Hamas uses humanitarian aid as a tool to fund, facilitate, and fight its war against innocent children, against Israel, and against the civilized world. And Hamas’s cheerleaders, apologists, and dupes in Europe, in America, and sadly, here in the U.S. Senate, once again turn a blind eye to Hamas’s crimes, blaming instead Israel and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

They demand that Israel agree to a ceasefire that preserves and rewards Hamas, while also delivering even more humanitarian aid to Gaza for Hamas to steal and exploit. They expect Israel to feed the very people who attacked, raped, and murdered innocent Israeli men, women, and children on October 7. And, I would remind everyone, not a few American victims as well.

Once again, Israel is facing demands placed on no other nation in the world. I don’t recall from my history lessons, for instance, the United States providing humanitarian aid to Germany and Japan during World War II. On the contrary, the Allies imposed naval blockades that led to widespread shortages in those enemy nations. When, in the annals of history, has the victim of an unprovoked war of aggression ever been held responsible for the nutrition of the aggressor? Put simply, Israel doesn’t have any responsibility to send a single loaf of bread to Gaza.

I wonder why so many senators, pundits, podcasters, and European politicians impose this unique standard on the Jewish nation. Why could it be?

But despite all that, despite the brutal slaughter of nearly 1,200 Israelis on October 7, despite Hamas’s continued repression of its own people, Israel is still delivering aid to Gaza, while Hamas rips it from the hands of hungry children.

Once again, we see very simply and very clearly in this war who is on the side of justice and who is on the side of evil. I would ask anyone who places these singular demands on Israel, whose side do you want to be on?

And if you truly care about the children of Gaza, as I do, as Israelis do, as any decent person surely does, I encourage you to support President Trump’s statement of moral clarity and strength from earlier this morning: “The fastest way to end the humanitarian crises in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages!”