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      ‘Fraud is fraud’: Georgia aims to ban AI deepfakes in political campaigns

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      When wrangling legislation, sometimes it’s best to sound out a problem in front of you.In Georgia, it sounds like the state senator Colton Moore. But it only sounds like Colton Moore.Todd Jones, a Republican state representative who chairs the Georgia house committee on technology and infrastructure innovation, has proposed legislation outlawing the use of artificial intelligence deepfakes in political communication. To illustrate the point, Jones presented a deepfake video to the judiciary committee using an AI image and audio of Moore and Mallory Staples, a former Republican congressional candidate who now runs a far-right activist organization, the Georgia Freedom caucus.The video uses an AI tool to impersonate the voices of Moore and Mallory falsely endorsing passage of the bill. The video contains a continuous disclaimer at the bottom citing the text of the bill.Moore and Mallory oppose the legislation.The AI impersonation of Moore says: “I would ask the committee: how is using my biometric data, like my voice and likeness, to create media supporting a policy that I clearly don’t agree with the first amendment right of another person?”The video continues: “The overwhelming number of Georgians believe the use of my personal characteristics against my will is fraud, but our laws don’t currently reflect that. If AI can be used to make Colton Moore speak in favor of a popular piece of legislation, it can be used to make any one of you say things you’ve never said.”Brad Thomas, the Republican co-sponsor of the bill and co-author of the video, said he and his colleagues used commonly available tools to create the video.“The particular one we used is, like, $50. With a $1,000 version, your own mother wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” he said.The pace of advancement of visual AI generative tools is years ahead of the legislation needed to prevent abuses, Thomas said: “Cinematography-style video. Those individuals look absolutely real, and they’re AI-generated.”The bill passed out of committee on an 8-1 vote.Moore is not popular in Georgia’s legislative circles. His peers in the state senate threw him out of the Republican caucus in September, accusing him of making false statements about other conservatives while he was advocating fruitlessly for a special session to remove the Fulton county prosecutor Fani Willis from office.Last week, Moore was permanently barred from the Georgia house chamber after rhetorically attacking the late speaker at a memorial service being held on the house floor.Through the Georgia senate press office, Moore declined to comment.In social media posts, Moore has voiced opposition to this bill, which he said is an attack on “memes” used in political discourse, and that satire is protected speech.Staples, in newsletters to her supporters, cited the federal conviction of Douglass Mackey last year as an example of potential harms. Mackey, also known as the alt-right influencer “Rickey Vaughn”, sent mass text messages in November 2016 encouraging Black recipients to “vote by text” instead of casting a real vote, with the texts claiming they had been paid for by the Clinton campaign.Federal judges rejected Mackey’s first amendment arguments on the ground that the communications amounted to acts of fraud which were not constitutionally protected. Mackey was sentenced in October to serve seven months.House bill 986 creates the crimes of fraudulent election interference and soliciting fraudulent election interference, with penalties of two to five years in prison and fines up to $50,000.If within 90 days of an election, a person publishes, broadcasts, streams or uploads materially deceptive media – defined as appearing to depict a real individual’s speech or conduct that did not occur in reality and would appear to a reasonable person to be authentic – they would be guilty of a felony, as long as the media in question significantly influences the chances for a candidate or referendum to win, or confuses the administration of that election. Thus, it would also criminalize using deepfakes used to cast doubt on the results of an election.Deepfakes entered the 2024 election at its start, with an AI-generated audio call featuring Joe Biden telling New Hampshire voters not to vote. After the call, the Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on robocalls that use AI audio. But the Federal Elections Commission has yet to put rules in place for political ads that use AI, something watchdog groups have been calling for for months. Regulations are lagging behind the reality of AI’s capabilities to mislead voters.In the absence of federal elections rules for AI content, states have stepped in, filing and, in several instances, passing bills that typically require labels on political ads that use AI in some way. Without these labels, AI-generated content in political ads is considered illegal in most of the bills filed in states.Experts say AI audio, in particular, has the ability to trick voters because a listener loses context clues that might tip them off that a video is fake. Audio deepfakes of prominent figures, such as Trump and Biden, are easy and cheap to make using readily available apps. For less well-known people who often speak publicly and have a large volume of examples of their voices, like speeches or media appearances, people can upload these examples to train a deepfake clone of the person’s voice.Enforcement of the Georgia law might be challenging. Lawmakers struggled to find ways to rein in anonymous flyers and robocalls spreading misinformation and fraud ahead of elections long before the emergence of AI.“I think that’s why we gave concurrent jurisdiction to the attorney general’s office,” Thomas said. “One of the other things we’ve done is allow the [Georgia bureau of investigation] to investigate election issues. Between the horsepower of those two organizations, we have the highest likelihood of figuring out who did it.”Lawmakers are only just starting to get at the implications of AI. Thomas expects more legislation to emerge over the next few sessions.“Fraud is fraud, and that’s what this bill is coming down to,” Thomas said. “That’s not a first amendment right for anyone.”Rachel Leingang contributed reporting More

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      Texas woman denied abortion decries ‘cruelty’ of Trump 15-week ban proposal

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      After Donald Trump voiced support for a 15-week national abortion ban, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released an angry response from a Texas woman who nearly died due to that state’s anti-abortion measures, enduring a “nightmare” she said Trump created.“My family has been forever altered by the nightmare that Donald Trump created by overturning Roe,” Amanda Zurawski said.In June 2022, five rightwing US supreme court justices – three appointed by Trump – overturned Roe v Wade, the ruling that had guaranteed abortion rights at the federal level since 1973.The court’s Dobbs v Jackson ruling returned abortion rights to individual US states, allowing Republican-run states like Texas to impose severe restrictions.Zurawski, from Austin, sued the state of Texas after nearly dying during pregnancy, having at first been denied an abortion.“I nearly died because my doctor could not give me the care I needed,” she said on Wednesday, “and my ability to have children in the future has been forever compromised by the damage that was caused.”In post-Dobbs elections, Republican threats to reproductive rights have proved an effective campaign issue for Democrats. The Biden campaign has duly made protecting abortion rights a central part of its platform.As Trump campaigns to return to the White House, he must consider how loudly he can boast of his role in bringing down Roe while courting women, moderates and independents.His campaign previously denied reports that he had expressed support for a national ban at 16 weeks, which it called “fake news”.But on Tuesday, Trump told WABC radio, from New York: “We’re going to come up with a time – and maybe we could bring the country together on that issue.“The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15. And I’m thinking in terms of that. And it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable. But people are really, even hardliners are agreeing … 15 weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.”Polling shows most Americans believe abortion should be legal through the initial stages of pregnancy. According to an Associated Press-NORC poll last June, about half of US adults say abortions should be permitted at 15 weeks.Trump told WABC: “All the legal scholars on both sides agree: it’s a state issue. It shouldn’t be a federal issue, it’s a state issue.”He also said he supported exceptions for cases of rape, incest or threats to the life of the mother, because: “Here’s the problem, you have to win elections. And otherwise, you’d be right back where you started.”In her statement, Zurawski criticised press coverage of Trump’s remarks, saying: “Trump isn’t ‘signaling’, he isn’t ‘suggesting’, he isn’t ‘leaning toward’ anything – he is actively planning to ban abortion nationwide if he’s elected, inflicting the same cruelty and chaos I’ve experienced on the entire country.“We cannot allow that to happen.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      ‘I need you back’: Biden visits western states in effort to firm up Latino vote

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      Joe Biden is on a three-day western US election campaign swing through Nevada, Arizona and Texas with a focus on personally appealing to Latino voters, saying they are the reason he defeated Donald Trump in 2020 and urging them to help him do it again in November.“I need you back,” he told several dozen supporters packed into a local Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona. And in an interview with the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision he blasted Trump as someone whose hardline policies and biased rhetoric are hostile to Hispanic voters.“This guy despises Latinos,” he told the TV channel. Biden was making appearances in Arizona on Wednesday then heading to Texas on Thursday, three weeks after he was at the Texas-Mexico border to talk about immigration in a region where Democrats have had some disappointing results in recent elections.Biden said the upcoming presidential election isn’t a referendum on him but a choice between “me and a guy named Trump” who campaigns by accusing people coming to the US from Mexico of being rapists and, in recent weeks, saying that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.Biden said Hispanic unemployment is the lowest it has been in a long time because of his policies, highlighted administration initiatives to help small businesses and reduce gun violence, and criticized Trump for wanting more tax cuts for rich people.“He wants to get rid of all the programs we put together,” Biden said.Democrats’ latest efforts are crucial as key parts of Biden’s base, such as Black and Hispanic people, have become increasingly disenchanted with his performance in office.In an AP-NORC poll conducted in February, 38% approved of how Biden was handling his job. Nearly six in 10 Black people (58%) approved, compared with 36% of Hispanic people. Black people are more likely than white and Hispanic people to approve of Biden, but that approval has dropped in the three years since Biden took office.In Reno, Nevada, on Wednesday, the US president said he and Trump have a “different value set” and added: “I never heard a president say the things that he has said.”Nevada is among the roughly half-dozen battlegrounds that will determine the next president, and Washoe county is the lone swing county in the state.“We’re going to beat him again,” Biden said of Trump.Afterward, Biden flew to Las Vegas to promote his administration’s housing policies. In Phoenix on Wednesday, he will discuss his support of the computer chip manufacturing sector.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTuesday’s appearances coincided with the launch of Latinos con Biden-Harris (Spanish for “Latinos with Biden-Harris”).Biden noted that Trump recently said migrants are “animals” and not people, and that the presumptive Republican nominee for the White House this November has pledged to carry out mass deportations.“We have to stop this guy, we can’t let this happen,” Biden said. “We are a nation of immigrants.”The Republican National Committee accused Democrats of taking the Hispanic community for granted.“Republicans will continue receiving with open arms thousands of Hispanics that are moving to our party, disappointed with Democrats and their policies, and will be fundamental to Republican victories all over the country in 2024,” said Jaime Florez, the party’s director of Hispanic outreach.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Bernie Moreno: the Trump-convert firebrand targeting Ohio Senate seat

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      Bernie Moreno won a convincing victory in the Republican Senate primary in Ohio on Tuesday night ensuring that the firebrand rightwinger goes up against the Democrat Sherrod Brown in the vital race.Moreno’s victory sees the Trump-backed politician become the party’s standard-bearer against Brown in a contest that could decide control of the US Senate.But it also cast light on a controversial Democratic strategy of supporting extremist Republican candidates in party nomination races out of a belief they are easier to beat in the general election – thus upping the odds of a Democratic win, but also running the risk that those extremists could actually get elected.At 57, Moreno is to his supporters the American Dream made flesh: a Colombia-born, Florida-raised car dealer turned powerful populist Republican voice.He is not, his lawyer insists, the author of a years-old post from his email account to the Adult Friend Finder website, seeking “young guys to have fun with” and “men for 1-on-1 sex”.That scandal broke in the last days of the Ohio Senate primary but did not derail Moreno, who before gaining Trump’s backing voiced pro-LGBTQ+ views. A former intern (and donor) said he wrote the website post as an “aborted prank”.Moreno may meanwhile have been boosted by an attack ad, backed by a group linked to Senate Democrats, that called him “too conservative for Ohio” and “too aligned” with Donald Trump.The idea was to present the incumbent Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown, with an opponent easily portrayable as too extreme for Ohio. Such tactics have worked elsewhere, even in Republican states and particularly when linked to threats to reproductive rights, a profitable issue for Democrats since the conservative-dominated US supreme court removed the federal right to abortion.Ohio, however, has trended sharply right since Trump entered politics and critics said Democrats were playing with fire.On Saturday, in Dayton, Trump staged a fiery rally. On Tuesday, Moreno scorched to victory, belying close poll results to beat Matt Dolan, a state senator backed by Mike DeWine, the Republican governor, and Frank LaRose, the sitting secretary of state.“We have an opportunity now,” Moreno said. “We have an opportunity to retire the old commie.”That was an appropriately Trumpian insult to Brown, a populist Democrat first elected in 2007 but now seen as vulnerable as Republicans seek to retake the Senate.Brown said: “The choice ahead of Ohio is clear: Bernie Moreno has spent his career and campaign putting himself first, and would do the same if elected. I’ll always work for Ohio.”Moreno said: “I want to thank President Trump for all he did for me, for this campaign, for his unwavering support, for his love of this country. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who loves this country the way he does.”It was a predictable display of fealty to a presumptive Republican presidential nominee who faces 14 criminal charges arising from his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, culminating in the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Trump also faces 40 criminal charges over retention of classified information and 34 over hush-money payments to an adult film star. In civil cases, Trump is struggling to pay one multimillion-dollar bond, having been found liable for fraud, after paying another arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Like many Republicans, Moreno was once against Trump. In 2016, as Trump surged to the nomination, Moreno called him a “lunatic” and a “maniac”, bent on “a hostile takeover” of the party.Now, like almost all Republicans, Moreno says Trump should return to power.“It’s going to be a tough next seven months,” Moreno said on Tuesday. “But we’re going to win this race in November, we’re going to retake the United States Senate, we’re going to have President Trump in the White House, we’re going to get the ‘America First’ agenda done.”Aspects of that agenda Moreno has pushed on the campaign trail include providing “absolutely no more money for Ukraine, period” in its war with Russia and “restor[ing] the integrity of our elections”, a nod to Trump’s electoral fraud lie.But Moreno also presents a danger to Brown because he will campaign on similar, blue-collar issues.Before election day, Moreno defended Trump’s controversial prediction of a “bloodbath” if he loses to Biden in November, saying it was a reference to American industrial decline.“This is America First territory,” Moreno told the rightwing network Newsmax, appearing with JD Vance, Ohio’s other US senator and a Republican populist too.“Ohio knows, because … what’s happened in Lorain and Youngstown and Dayton and Cleveland and Columbus, once great, thriving cities, our industries have seen a bloodbath of disaster there so they understand … [Trump’s] comment, because they know what it’s like to have their dad, their grandfather lose their job that got shipped overseas. They’re not going to be fooled.”On Tuesday night, he covered similar territory.“People say I’ve lived the American dream,” Moreno said. “Started my tiny little car dealership with nothing. So, that’s not really, in my mind, what I view as the American Dream.”Singling out his father-in-law, he said: “Dennis went to high school in Hobart, Indiana … graduated from high school, reported to work at US Steel … Goes to work there, was able to buy a home, buy a car, raise three kids, send them to good schools in safe communities and he’s able now to retire debt free. That’s the American dream. That’s what’s under assault. And that’s where we’re gonna get back.”Commentators highlighted the battle to come.Citing Moreno’s remarks about an American Dream now out of reach for many, Matt Lewis, a conservative columnist, said: “If he campaigns like this for the next eight months, Sherrod Brown’s in trouble.”Rachel Bitecofer, a Democratic strategist, said: “Ohio, Maga extremist Bernie Moreno supports a national abortion ban. Pass it on.” More

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      US election 2024 primaries: follow live results

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      View image in fullscreenFive states – Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio – are holding their presidential nominating contests on Tuesday, with Florida holding only a Republican primary. Donald Trump and Joe Biden expect to sail to victory in their respective parties, growing their delegate counts in a march toward this summer’s conventions, where they will officially secure their parties’ nomination.Here are the live results from the five presidential primaries.Republican delegatesDemocratic delegatesRepublican resultsDemocratic resultsWho’s runningView image in fullscreenDonald TrumpThe former US president’s campaign to retake the White House and once again grab his party’s nomination got off to a slow start that was widely mocked. But after decisive wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, his campaign has steadily moved into a position of dominance.Trump declined to attend any of the Republican debates, has used his court appearances and many legal woes as a rallying cry to mobilize his base, and has run a surprisingly well-organized campaign. His extremist rhetoric, especially around his plans for a second term and the targeting of his political enemies, has sparked widespread fears over the threat to American democracy that his candidacy represents.His political style during the campaign has not shifted from his previous runs in 2016 and 2020 and, if anything, has become more extreme. Many see this as a result of his political and legal fates becoming entwined, with a return to the Oval Office being seen as Trump’s best chance of nixing his legal problems.View image in fullscreenJoe BidenBiden is the likely Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election. He announced his campaign for re-election on 25 April 2023, exactly four years after he announced his previous, successful presidential campaign. While approval for the president remains low, hovering just above 40%, political experts say he is the most likely candidate to defeat Trump. Biden has served in politics for more than five decades and is running on a platform that includes abortion rights, gun reform and healthcare. At 81, he is the oldest president in US history.View image in fullscreenMarianne WilliamsonFailed 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson dropped out of the race last month before then resurrecting her long-shot campaign after the Michigan primary. Williamson, an author of self-help books, launched her bid with campaign promises to address climate change and student loan debt. She previously worked as “spiritual leader” of a Michigan Unity church.View image in fullscreenJason PalmerJason Palmer is a Democratic candidate who was only on the ballot in American Samoa and some other US territories. He won the primary in America Samoa after donating $500,000 to his own campaign. Palmer is a Baltimore resident who has worked for various businesses and non-profits, often on issues involving technology and education. More

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      US government faces another shutdown: what you need to know

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      Congress faces its third shutdown deadline of the month this week, as much of the federal government is expected to run out of funding by Friday at midnight.Both chambers of Congress must approve six appropriations bills before Saturday to get the legislation to Joe Biden’s desk and avert a partial shutdown. Although the current fiscal year started more than five months ago, House Republicans have struggled to pass appropriations bills due to demands from hard-right members to include controversial provisions in the legislation.As a result, Congress has been forced to pass four stopgap bills since the fiscal year began in October, and members hope they can finally conclude the appropriations process this week.But disputes over the Department of Homeland Security’s budget repeatedly hampered negotiations, raising serious doubts about whether members would be able to pass a spending package in time to prevent a funding lapse.The White House announced on Tuesday that negotiators had reached a deal on homeland security funding, but it remains unclear whether Congress will have enough time to pass the proposal before Saturday.Here’s everything you need to know about the shutdown threat:What bills must Congress pass?Congress has to approve six full-year appropriations bills, which represent funding for about 70% of the federal government. Among other agencies, the departments of state, defense, homeland security, education and labor will all run out of funding at 12.01am on Saturday unless another spending package is approved.Didn’t Congress already pass a funding bill?Earlier this month, Congress approved a spending package that encapsulated six of the 12 full-year appropriations bills necessary for funding the federal government. The agencies covered by that package now have funding through the rest of this fiscal year, which ends on 30 September.But under the terms of a stopgap bill passed late last month, the remaining six appropriations bills must be signed by 22 March to prevent a partial government shutdown.What is holding up the talks?Democrats and Republicans appear to have reached agreement on five of the six appropriations bills, but they repeatedly clashed over funding for the Department of Homeland Security due to arguments over money for border security measures.The House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, said on Tuesday that a deal had been struck on DHS funding, but the exact details of the proposal remain unclear. As of Tuesday afternoon, lawmakers were still waiting to see legislative text of the deal.“House and Senate committees have begun drafting bill text to be prepared for release and consideration by the full House and Senate as soon as possible,” Johnson said on X, formerly known as Twitter.The announcement comes weeks after congressional Republicans blocked a bipartisan border and national security deal that included more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Does a shutdown appear likely at this point?The exact timing of votes in the House and the Senate will determine whether a partial shutdown occurs on Saturday. House Republican leaders prefer to give members 72 hours to read legislation before a vote, and with full bill text now expected no earlier than Tuesday, it appears that a final House vote would probably take place on Friday.That would leave the Senate with little time to approve the package before the shutdown deadline at midnight. Senators would have to unanimously agree on fast-tracking the legislation, and that task could prove difficult given past objections from some hard-right Republicans in the chamber, including Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.“Passing the second group of appropriations bills, of course, is not going to be easy,” the Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, said last week. “Democrats will continue working with Republicans to finish the job. That can only be done in a bipartisan way.”If no agreement is reached on expediting the final Senate vote, it could trigger a partial shutdown on Saturday morning. But if the Senate can ultimately approve the package over the weekend, the shutdown would be short-lived and would have little impact on federal agencies.If Congress can pass a funding package, when will this issue arise again?Assuming Congress approves a spending package this week, the entire federal government will be funded through the end of the fiscal year, and lawmakers will not face another shutdown deadline until the end of September.But it is worth noting how unusual it is to have Congress still haggling over government funding at this point in the calendar, when nearly half of the fiscal year has already elapsed. Underscoring how late Congress is on passing the appropriations bills, members of Biden’s cabinet will be on Capitol Hill this week to testify about the president’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year – even as this year’s spending levels remain up in the air. More

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      in Elections

      Is Joe Biden’s bid for re-election in trouble? – video

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      In the vital swing state of Michigan, growing fractures among the Democratic base could spell trouble for Joe Biden in the November election. As party loyalists canvas in the run up to a primary vote, a protest movement against the president’s support for the war in Gaza gains momentum. Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone visit the state. More

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      Top senator calls on Biden to ‘use all levers’ to pressure Israel over Gaza

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      Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.“We need the president and the Biden administration to push harder and to use all the levers of US policy to ensure people don’t die of starvation,” Van Hollen said in an interview on Friday.This week, Van Hollen and seven of his colleagues sent a letter to the president arguing that Israel was in violation of the Foreign Assistance Act, a section of which prohibits the sale and transfer of military weapons to any nation that restricts the delivery of US aid.Their call comes as the administration faces mounting domestic and international pressure over what critics have described as an “absurd” and “inherent contradiction” at the heart of US policy on Israel’s war against Hamas: while the US attempts to ease the deepening humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian territory, it continues to arm the country.In a sign of the widening rift between Israel and its most important ally, Van Hollen said Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was openly defying Biden’s pleas that Israel do more to protect civilians in Gaza and work toward a long-term solution to the conflict that includes the establishment of a Palestinian state.“Prime Minister Netanyahu has been an obstacle to the president’s efforts to at least create some light at the end of this very dark tunnel,” Van Hollen said.In recent weeks, Biden has escalated his criticism of Israel’s military offensive, saying last weekend that Netanyahu was “hurting” his country’s standing by failing to prevent more civilian deaths in Gaza. But the US president has so far resisted Democrats’ calls to leverage future military aid as a means of reining in Israel’s conduct in the war.The United Nations warned last month that more than a quarter of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza face “catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation”. It said without action, widespread famine would be “almost inevitable”. Israel’s military campaign, which came in retaliation for the Hamas attack on 7 October that killed about 1,200 people, has devastated Gaza and killed more than 30,000 people, most of them civilians.With the prospects of a truce elusive and far too little aid trickling in, Biden has authorized airdrops and the construction of a maritime corridor to deliver desperately needed food and medicine to the Palestinian people living in the besieged territory. But critics say those methods are less effective, less efficient and more dangerous than the unhindered delivery of supplies by land.“The very fact that the United States is airlifting humanitarian supplies and is now going to be opening a temporary port is a symptom of the larger problem, which is [that] the Netanyahu government has restricted the amount of aid coming into Gaza and the safe distribution of aid within Gaza,” Van Hollen said.Israel, which tightened its already strict controls on access to the enclave after 7 October, has denied that it is impeding the flow of aid.Amid intensifying international pressure, Israel said this week it would expand the amount of supplies into the country. A small convoy of six trucks, coordinated by the Israeli military, brought humanitarian aid directly into the isolated northern Gaza earlier this week. Separately, an aid ship loaded with 200 tons of rice, flour, chicken and other items arrived in Gaza on Friday, in the first test of a new sea route.But that is a far cry from what is needed, humanitarian workers say. Before the five-month-old conflict began, roughly 500 truckloads of humanitarian aid per day crossed into the territory. Now the number is far less, sometimes peaking above 200 trucks per day but often well below, according to UN figures.Van Hollen’s insistence that the US do more to push Israel on humanitarian aid was informed by his visit to the Rafah crossing from Egypt in January, and the onerous Israeli inspection process he witnessed.“You witnessed these very, very long lines of trucks trying to get in through Rafah and through the Kerem Shalom crossing, and quite an inspection review, including arbitrary denials of humanitarian aid being delivered into Gaza, which just makes the process even more cumbersome,” he said.“For example, we visited a warehouse in Rafah that was filled with goods that had been rejected at the inspection sites. The rejected goods included things like maternity kits, included things like water purification systems.”Van Hollen said no specific reason was given as to why the items were rejected, but said Israel has broadly claimed that they could be considered “dual use” or having a civilian or military purpose. The maternity kit, Van Hollen said, contained a “teeny little scalpel” that he speculated was the reason the package was turned back.Across the border in Gaza, the situation is dire. UN agencies have estimated that 180 women give birth every day, sometimes without access to adequate pain medication, food or hygiene products. Malnourished, dehydrated and increasingly anemic, many pregnant women in Gaza face elevated risks of postpartum hemorrhaging.Another problem, Van Hollen said, is that so many of the people delivering aid or accompanying the aid convoys have been killed, making coordination and distribution of the aid that does enter difficult.Netanyahu and his government, the senator said, “need to open more crossings, they need to end the arbitrary rejection of goods like maternity kits and solar powered desalinization units, and they need to make sure that food can be safely delivered within Gaza without people getting killed.”Van Hollen’s comments came the day after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the US and a longtime ally of Israel’s, was unsparing in a speech in which he declared that Netanyahu had “lost his way”, and urged Israelis to hold elections to replace him. Biden, who has been increasingly open about his frustration with Netanyahu, called it a “good speech”.Van Hollen called Schumer’s speech an “important moment” that made clear the US believes “there needs to be a change in course” in the way Israel is conducting the war.‘The administration will have to decide’In the letter to Biden earlier this week, Van Hollen and his colleagues wrote: “According to public reporting and your own statements, the Netanyahu government is in violation of [the Foreign Assistance Act]. Given this reality, we urge you to make it clear to the Netanyahu government that failure to immediately and dramatically expand humanitarian access and facilitate safe aid deliveries throughout Gaza will lead to serious consequences, as specified under existing US law.”Van Hollen also argued that the Israeli government is “not in compliance” with a national security memorandum (NSM 20) issued by the president last month that requires any country that receives US military assistance to provide written assurances it will “not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede” the delivery of humanitarian aid.Israel reportedly provided that commitment in a letter to Biden signed by Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday, according to Axios. Van Hollen said the onus is now on the US to assess the credibility of Israel’s assurances.“Part of that evaluation will depend on what’s happening on the ground right now, and their assessment of whether or not, in fact, the Netanyahu government is meeting that requirement,” he said. “And if the signatures and commitments are found to be lacking, then the administration cannot provide military assistance until they determine that they’re credible.”View image in fullscreenVan Hollen stressed that enforcing the statute would not prevent the US from continuing to send defensive military assistance to protect Israeli citizens from rocket attacks, such as the Iron Dome.The memorandum was issued last month, after Van Hollen and more than a dozen Democratic senators introduced an amendment to a wartime aid package that included military assistance for Ukraine, Israel and other US-allies. The senators’ proposal, which would have required any country receiving US weapons to comply with humanitarian laws, risked a messy floor fight among Democrats divided over the US’s approach to the war amid Gaza’s rising death toll.Instead, Van Hollen said, the administration offered to turn the amendment into a memorandum that, with the force of law, would apply the terms to the sale and transfer of all US military aid. Biden issued the memorandum, and the Senate later approved the foreign aid package, with Van Hollen’s support. That measure is now languishing in the House.Biden has warned that Israel would cross a “red line” if it proceeded with a large-scale invasion of the southern city of Rafah, where the war has pushed nearly half of Gaza’s population. Reports suggest Netanyahu has approved a plan to invade the city, setting him up for direct conflict with the US president.Biden has not made clear what consequences Netanyahu might face if he ignores the US’s position. An invasion of Rafah, Van Hollen said, would present “one of those moments where the Biden administration is going to have to decide whether it’s going to back up the president’s strong words with the leverage that it has”. More