Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said President Joe Biden's decision to withhold certain military aid from Israel was "a good step forward" but added, "We've got to do even more."
Sanders made the comments in an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, hours after Biden delivered a warning to Israel not to invade Rafah, a stronghold of Hamas terrorists, with his decision to withhold artillery shells and heavy munitions.
Sanders went on to cite death tolls in Gaza, supplied by the Hamas terrorists themselves, which have been accepted as fact by Sanders, fellow progressives, and global media outlets but refuted by experts.
"In my view, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu should not have gotten a nickel so long as he continued this incredibly destructive war. I'm glad to see that the president is beginning — beginning — to move in that direction," Sanders said.
Sanders also released a statement Wednesday touting Biden's decision to deprive Israel of munitions it would need in a Rafah incursion.
"President Biden is absolutely right to halt bomb delivery to this extreme, right-wing Israeli government. But this must be a first step. The U.S. must now use ALL its leverage to demand an immediate ceasefire, the end of the attacks on Rafah, and the immediate delivery of massive amounts of humanitarian aid to people living in desperation," Sanders said in the statement.
In his own interview with CNN earlier Wednesday, Biden confirmed what Israel had said late last week, that the U.S. is holding back on certain military aid approved by Congress and signed into law by Biden himself.
"We're not walking away from Israel's security," Biden told CNN. "We're walking away from Israel's ability to wage war in those areas."
That doesn't go far enough, Sanders said.
"Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas attack, killing 1,200 people. But you don't have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people and bring about unprecedented death and destruction. And death. And America should not be complicit in what is going on there right now," Sanders said, omitting Israel's pre-evacuation efforts of Rafah.
He then reiterated what he said in his statement, that the U.S. has "leverage" over Israel.
"The truth is, we are sitting on billions of dollars of military support for Israel, which the president could deny them tomorrow," he said. "We have enormous leverage. And the time is long overdue for us to utilize the leverage."