Senators must VOTE YES on S.Res. 852, a resolution requesting information on Israel’s human rights practices pursuant to section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
Senator Van Hollen and 23 Senators introduced S.Res. 852 on September 14, 2026, to require the Trump administration to produce a report on the Israeli government’s human rights practices within 30 days and provide information on the killing of nine U.S. citizens by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank and Israel’s military detention of Palestinian children.
Supporting this resolution provides an important opportunity to press the Trump administration on its policies and the lack of accountability for the Israeli government’s human rights abuses and violations of international law.
At the same time, this vote comes at a critical juncture in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) as Israel continues its ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians in the West Bank, as documented by Amnesty International in a recent report. This campaign must also be understood as occurring within a broader context of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, illegal occupation, and an apartheid system over all Palestinians.
Attacks by Israeli Forces and State-Sanctioned Settler Violence
This resolution requests information on nine specific cases of U.S. citizens killed by Israeli forces or settlers, including:
Omar Assad, Shireen Abu Akleh, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Amer Rabee, Khamis Ayyad, Sayfollah Kamel Musallet, and Nasrallah Muhammad Jamal Abu Siyam.
Additionally, Amnesty International documented the injury of U.S. citizen and AFP journalist Dylan Collins in an unlawful and deadly attack by Israeli forces on a group of journalists reporting from south Lebanon.
There has yet to be anyone held accountable in these cases.
Israeli forces have carried out unlawful killings, caused serious injuries to Palestinians, and damaged Palestinian property with near-total impunity. In the West Bank, Oxfam’s analysis of UN data from 2023 to 2025 showed that 1,244 Palestinians, including 268 children, have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers, amounting to more Palestinians killed in the last three years than the previous 17 years combined.
Israel has intensified its abusive policies and practices against Palestinians in the West Bank, with government officials openly encouraging and supporting settler attacks, which have hit an all-time high, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Settler violence is not the product of “rogue settlers,” settler organizations or so-called “extremist” government ministers. In fact, settler violence must be understood as an integral part of an organized state policy, not as an aberration.
Systematic Impunity for Israeli Soldiers
Impunity for violations carried out by Israeli forces has been long-standing and systemic. Amnesty International is not aware of any case in which a member of any Israeli security force has been convicted of willfully causing the death of a Palestinian in the OPT since 1987. Israeli soldiers and other security forces personnel have rarely been prosecuted at all in connection with the killings of Palestinians in the OPT, although many of the killings appear to have been unlawful. Convictions have been even rarer. When such convictions have occurred, soldiers have been convicted of lesser offenses, like manslaughter.
In a recent example from earlier this year, Israel’s Military Advocate General decided to drop charges against five Israeli soldiers accused of abusing and sexually assaulting a Palestinian in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman military prison, a decision that Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed. This decision marked yet another chapter in the Israeli legal system’s long-standing history of granting impunity to perpetrators of grave crimes against Palestinians. This further underscores the Israeli system’s “unwillingness or inability” to prosecute crimes under international law.
Systematic Impunity for Israeli settlers
This practice also extends to Israeli settlers. For decades, Israeli law enforcement officials have consistently failed to hold perpetrators of settler violence to account. They systematically fail to identify suspects or collect evidence, despite a wealth of publicly available videos and victims’ and eyewitness accounts. This effectively shields settlers from any legal consequences and affords them impunity.
Although settler attacks have grown more severe and frequent since 2023, most victims interviewed by Amnesty International said they no longer file complaints with the police. This reluctance is directly connected to the Israeli police’s track record, mistrust in the system, or instances where some of those who filed complaints were themselves treated as suspects.
Investigations into settler abuses are rare, and when they do occur, they rarely lead to arrests, let alone prosecutions. According to Yesh Din, in the cases monitored by the NGO between 2005 and 2025, around 94% of investigations into offenses committed by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank have ended without an indictment, most of them closed due to “investigative failure.” Only 3% of investigations have led to partial or full convictions.
Senators: You must vote YES on S.Res. 852 as an important first step towards holding the Israeli government accountable for its human rights violations.