Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will boycott Netanyahu’s address to congress later this month, describing it as “a very sad day for our country” when the four top leaders of the US Congress invited the Israeli Prime Minister to address a joint session.

“Israel, of course, had the right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, but it did not, and does not, have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people,” the senator stated.

“Israel does not have the right to kill more than 34,000 civilians and wound over 80,000—5 per cent of the population of Gaza,” he continued, accepting as fact figures published by Hamas.

Sanders accused the Jewish state of orphaning 19,000 children, displacing 75% of Gazans and damaging or destroying 60% of Gazan homes. He also said that Israel had opted to “obliterate” infrastructure in the Strip, “annihilate” Gaza’s health system, block Gazan children from receiving an education and obstruct humanitarian aid.

“It does not have the right to condemn hundreds of thousands of children to death by starvation. This is a clear violation of American and international law,” Sanders stated. He expressed approval of the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, a United Nations judicial body in The Hague, seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar.

“The ICC is right. Both of these people are engaged in clear and outrageous violations of international law,” the senator stated. “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. He should not be invited to address a joint meeting of Congress. I certainly will not attend.”

Netanyahu is poised to become the first foreign leader to address the US Congress four times, surpassing Churchill, who addressed both houses three times in his career.

Relations between the Israeli prime minister and president Biden have cooled in recent weeks, as Biden’s position has shifted to calling for an end to IDF action in Rafah.