US Politicians Vote Down Bid to Get Justice for Americans Killed by Israel

US senators have blocked a resolution that would have forced the government to reveal what evidence it has relating to the killing of nine Americans by Israel.

The resolution, led by Democrat Chris Van Hollen, would have required the state department to report to congress on “all credible evidence” it had obtained about the deaths in the illegally occupied West Bank.

It highlighted the case of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old US citizen who “died of a stress-induced heart attack” in 2022 after Israeli soldiers dragged him from his car, bound his hands and left him gagged and blindfolded.  

It also named Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who was raised in Seattle. Eygi was “shot in the head by an Israeli soldier from a distance of 200 meters”, the resolution said. 

The killings have been “met by a lack of accountability from the Netanyahu government and an inability to secure justice by the United States government,” it added. 

“They have received no justice and no accountability. Their families – and the American people – deserve answers on their deaths,” Van Hollen said in a statement following Tuesday’s vote.

Fifty Republican senators voted against the resolution, along with Democrat John Fetterman (pictured, left), while 46 Democrats and one Republican supported it.

The resolution called on the US government to release any evidence on the identities of the killers and explain what steps it had taken to investigate them and to pressure Israel into holding them accountable. 

And it called for an official list of any US citizens held in Israeli detention and an assessment of whether Palestinian children in Israeli detention are being tortured. 

“Palestinian people have also borne the toll of this violence day in and day out,” Van Hollen added. “They, too, deserve justice and accountability. But again, Republicans blocked that today.” 

While Democrats almost unanimously supported the resolution, many of those same senators, such as New Jersey representative Cory Booker, have backed Israel or opposed measures to disrupt its genocide in Gaza in the recent past. 

In 2025, 19 Democratic senators helped kill two resolutions to block arms sales to Israel amid its mass starvation campaign.