Palestinian American Constituents Lobby 100+ Congressional Offices as Trump Administration Clears $2.8bn Israel Arms Package

More than 300 Palestinian American constituents from across the country walked the halls of the US Capitol on Tuesday, carrying a single message into more than 100 congressional offices: stop funding the war.

The advocacy day, organized by Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action), landed the same week US media widely reported that the Trump administration had approved a $2.8bn military package to Israel. The package reportedly includes 20,000 MK-84 bombs, the 907-kilogram munitions already linked to mass civilian casualties in Gaza, along with 20,000 BLU-117 variants.

Jenna Escheik, 19, who is originally from outside Ramallah, met with staff from Virginia Senator Tim Kaine's office and Republican Representative Rob Wittman's office. She said the constituents' pitch was direct.

"We're all proud to be American, and we all have our taxpayer dollars that we just don't want to see going to wars," Escheik told Al Jazeera.

Yaseen Shaikh, 22, traveled with a Cleveland delegation to meet the offices of Ohio's two Republican senators, Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, both of whom have consistently voted against efforts to limit arms sales to Israel. Husted faces a competitive midterm race against former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.

"I can only feel hopeful and optimistic that we will make a difference and that change will come," Shaikh said. "We just have to be vehicles for that."

A Slow Shift in Congress

The lobbying push targeted a legislative landscape that has moved, incrementally, over the past year. In July 2025, 26 Senate Democrats voted to block some arms transfers to Israel, the first time a majority of Senate Democrats had done so. By April, a similar resolution drew 40 votes, all Democrats, but still fell short in the 100-member chamber. The House's Block the Bombs Act, which calls for a partial arms embargo, had reached 81 co-sponsors as of August.

Last week, 22 Democratic senators introduced a resolution pushing the State Department to investigate violence by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, where at least nine US citizens have reportedly been killed in recent years. Separately, Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reportedly used his leverage to slow congressional clearance of the new arms package.

AJP Action's executive director, Osama Abu Irshaid, argued the new package cuts against public opinion, pointing to polling that has found majority support for conditioning some weapons transfers to Israel.

"What happens in Palestine, the genocide that took place and continues to take place, what the terrorist settlers are doing in the West Bank, what the US and Israel are doing in the Middle East is catching up with us here," Abu Irshaid said, "and we're paying a price."

A December poll by the IMEU Policy Project found a majority of Republicans under 45 said they would prefer a 2028 presidential candidate who supports reducing taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel, a data point advocates cited as evidence that opposition to unconditional military aid is no longer confined to the Democratic Party's left flank.

The war in Gaza will reach its three-year mark in early October. Al Jazeera reports that nearly 74,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, 2023, with roughly 1,400 killed since the October 2025 ceasefire took effect, figures that remain disputed and are not independently sourced in this reporting.