Senate Rejects Motion for West Bank Rights Report

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday rejected a motion to advance Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s resolution seeking a State Department report on human rights conditions and violence in the West Bank, including the deaths of U.S. citizens. Four of five accounts reported the vote as 47-51 against advancing the measure; one account gave the tally as 51-47. The supplied material does not include the official roll-call record to resolve the discrepancy. The resolution, introduced under Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, would have directed the department to report to Congress on information about the deaths of nine Americans in the West Bank since 2022, the status of U.S. and Israeli investigations, and broader human-rights issues. The requested scope also included the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons and steps taken by the U.S. government to reduce violence in the territory. After the motion failed, the measure remained in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to accounts of its status. It did not itself impose an immediate cutoff of U.S. assistance to Israel.