July 30th, 2025

Letter from the chair
Linn Dems urge swift action to restore
food supplies and life-saving aid to Gaza

July 30, 2025
Dear Senator Merkley, Senator Wyden, and Representative Bynum,
 On behalf of the Linn County Democrats and the many Oregonians who are grieving the suffering of children abroad while fighting hunger here at home, I am writing to urge you to act swiftly to restore the flow of food supplies and life-saving aid into Gaza, and to use all available legislative and diplomatic tools at your disposal to ensure this restoration is both realized and sustained.
  We are witnessing the man-made starvation of a population where children make up nearly half. In a recent public statement, Doctors Without Borders described the situation in Gaza in unambiguous terms:
  “Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food.”
  “Parents are also deliberately skipping meals to feed their children. Even malnourished women, who do receive therapeutic food, end up giving their own treatment supplements to their children.”
  “Mothers are asking me for food for their children, pregnant women who are six months along often weigh no more than 40 kilograms (88 pounds). The situation is beyond critical.”
(Doctors Without Borders, July 2025) 
  In communities across America, we work to feed our hungry, especially children.  Summer food programs, free or reduced-cost meals at school, food pantries, soup kitchens, community meals, Americans help feed those in need.
​  Starving children are not a foreign policy abstraction. They are a moral alarm bell. And the clock is ticking.
  We recognize that aid restrictions and border closures are at the heart of this catastrophe. And while the United States continues to send billions of dollars in support to Israel, we also send a message, through action or inaction, about what we are willing to tolerate from those states we support with military and financial aid. We urge you to make it absolutely clear that the Israeli government’s continued restriction of food, water, and medical supplies to civilians is unacceptable, and U.S. support cannot remain unconditional in the face of such suffering.
  We ask that you push for the full restoration of aid into Gaza, and that you back that by using real pressure, including reevaluation of military and financial assistance sent to the government of Israel, to effect sustained change.
  The supplies we need to get started are there already.  We just need to help open those doors.
  “Just outside Gaza, in warehouses — and even within Gaza itself — tonnes of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched, with humanitarian organizations blocked from accessing or delivering them.”   (Doctors Without Borders, July 2025)
  I believe the people of Oregon expect our leaders to respond not just with words of sympathy, but with action that matches the scale of the crisis. 
  We ask you to stand up for starving children, in Oregon, across the United States, in Gaza and around the world, and use every available tool to demand the unrestricted, immediate and sustained reopening of humanitarian aid distribution to the people of Gaza at the scale needed to reverse this worsening crisis.
  Thank you for your continued service, and for standing up for the dignity of all people, especially those who are in urgent need.
  Sincerely,
  Ben Watts
  Chair, Linn County Democrats

---