Dear Senators,
We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to cosponsor and vote yes on Senator Chris Van Hollen’s (MD) Section 502B(c) privileged resolution, joined by several of his Senate colleagues, requiring the Department of State to report to Congress on escalating violence in the West Bank, including the killings of American citizens.
Since January 2022, nine Americans have been killed in the West Bank by violent Israeli settlers or Israeli security forces. Not one has received meaningful accountability or justice from either the Israeli or United States governments. These Americans include Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid in Jenin; Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American who died after being detained, bound, gagged, and left in the cold by Israeli soldiers; and Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old American citizen who was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier while participating in a peaceful demonstration in 2024. Their families have waited years for answers that have never come.
This impunity is not an isolated failure. The United Nations has documented more than 1,430 incidents of settler violence in 2026, affecting approximately 260 Palestinian communities, as of August 10. The UN has warned that settler violence has reached unprecedented levels, while Palestinians face escalating displacement, attacks, and restrictions on their basic rights. Former Israeli generals have called the systemic violence “ethnic cleansing.” Against this backdrop, the Administration has repeatedly failed to conduct or disclose meaningful investigations into the deaths of U.S. citizens, even as it describes the safety and security of Americans abroad as a top priority.
Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act gives Congress a direct, privileged mechanism to demand answers and accountability. After the resolution is introduced, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has ten days to consider it. If the committee does not act, the resolution can be called up for a vote on the Senate floor. If passed, the resolution would require the State Department to submit a report within 30 days addressing the circumstances of each American’s death, the Israeli security forces or settlers implicated, any use of U.S. assistance in connection with these killings, and the status of Israeli and U.S. investigations. It would also require an assessment of the human rights situation in the West Bank, including the detention of Palestinian children.
Congress has both the authority and the responsibility to demand answers when American citizens are killed abroad without meaningful accountability. A vote for this resolution is a vote for these basic principles: the U.S. government does not look away when its own citizens are killed, and no recipient of U.S. security assistance is exempt from congressional oversight or the human rights standards required by law.
We urge you to cosponsor this resolution and vote yes when it comes to the Senate floor. The families of Shireen Abu Akleh, Omar Assad, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, and the other Americans killed in the West Bank have waited long enough. Congress must act. Doing so can help protect U.S. and Palestinian civilians alike.
Sincerely,
A New Policy
Action Corps
American Committee for Middle East Rights
American Friends of Combatants for Peace
Arab American Institute
Center For International Policy Action
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP)
Committee to Protect Journalists
CommonDefense.us
Democracy for the Arab World Now
Evangelical Lutheran Church In America (ELCA)
Foreign Policy For America
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ
IMEU Policy Project
J Street
Mennonite Central Committee U.S.
MoveOn
Muslim Public Affairs Council
National Iranian American Council Action
New Jewish Narrative
Oxfam America
Pax Christi USA
Peace Action
PeaceMed
Refugees International
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)
The United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society
Win Without War
Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation
