When Congresswoman Delia Ramirez first announced the Block the Bombs Act to impose a partial embargo against sending weapons from the United States to Israel, only 21 Democratic legislators joined her in supporting the measure.

That was June 2025. One year later, the legislative proposal now has 73 co-sponsors, a tally that Palestinian rights supporters say represents “historic” progress.

“While some thought that the bill was extreme, it has, in fact, become pretty mainstream,” Ramirez said at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

With 73 members backing the measure to restrict arms to Israel, the bill blows a crater in the nearly unanimous bipartisan support Israel has enjoyed in Congress over the decades.

Still, the number does not come close to a majority in the 435-member House of Representatives.

Margaret DeReus, the executive director at the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), said it is important to “mark the progress” of such a bill, stressing that more lawmakers should side with the majority of voters in rejecting unconditional aid to Israel.

“We are coming from such a deficit, where Congress has been so lacking in the courage to do what’s right, that this is actually a huge improvement from where we were,” DeReus told Al Jazeera.

“There’s still obviously a long, long road ahead.”

While Congress remains largely pro-Israel, advocates have called on its members to better reflect the shifting views of the US public. Multiple polls show that Israel is rapidly losing support.

In a recent survey by the Institute for Global Affairs, only 16 percent of respondents agreed that the US “should keep supplying Israel with weapons without new restrictions”.

‘Americans want us to invest here at home’

On Thursday, Ramirez stressed the need to bring her bill to a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, citing multiple Israeli military campaigns across the Middle East.

So far, however, the bill has been blocked by the House’s Republican leadership.

The congresswoman also chided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump for their roles in the war in Iran, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the growing death toll in Gaza, where Israel continues to launch deadly attacks despite a “ceasefire”.

“Trump and Netanyahu will keep expanding the wars, so that they can continue to consolidate power, so that they can remain in office, and so that they can continue to profit off our pain,” Ramirez said.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib also emphasised that it is no longer taboo to question Washington’s backing of Israel, highlighting the increased public awareness of Israeli abuses.

“Americans want us to invest here at home. They want us not to invest in death and destruction and bombs. They want us to invest in clean water and housing and childcare and so much more,” Tlaib told reporters.

“So many can’t even afford to go to the doctor, yet we’ll in a minute find money to continue to support the government of Israel to bomb civilians.”

The Palestinian American congresswoman credited ordinary citizens for the increased support for the bill, saying that change will come from the people, not from Congress.

“Regular citizens that do not share my faith or ethnicity have been showing up at town halls, saying, ‘Why are you cutting SNAP and why are you starving Gaza?’” Tlaib said, referring to a food aid programme for low-income families.

“You see them come and say, ‘Why are we funding genocide, but not healthcare at home?’”

Inside the bill

The Block the Bombs Act would ban transfers to Israel of certain heavy bombs and artillery ammunition — weaponry used in some of the deadliest attacks that occurred during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The bill started in Congress with progressives and vocal critics of Israel as its original supporters. But as the outrage over Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and across the region became louder, some unlikely names have joined the list of co-sponsors.

Congresswoman Valerie Foushee, who was elected to Congress in 2022 with the support of pro-Israel groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), co-sponsored the bill last year.

“We simply cannot continue to provide the Israeli government with weapons when they are not being used in accordance with international law to maximize the protection of civilians in Gaza,” Foushee said in August 2025.

In May, AIPAC congratulated Congressman Christian Menefee for defeating his Texas colleague Al Green in a primary that pitted the two Democratic incumbents against one another, as a result of redistricting.

Menefee became the latest co-sponsor of the Block the Bomb Act on Tuesday.

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who lost his primary to a challenger backed by Trump and pro-Israel groups, also put his name on the measure this week, making it bipartisan.

“Israel has used American-supplied munitions to kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians,” Massie said.

“America is morally obligated to end support of Israel’s devastation of Gaza and its people. I’m cosponsoring the Block the Bombs Act to limit the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel.”

Congress shifts

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has also endorsed the bill. On Thursday, its chair, Greg Casar, said the growing support shows that speaking out, marching and contacting legislators can effectuate change.

“We need clearly to both take on the Republican Party but also change who we are as a Democratic Party if we want to save lives,” Casar said.

“The idea behind the Block the Bombs Act is simple: The United States should not be supplying bombs that we know will be used to perpetuate one of the worst disasters of our lifetimes.”

Legislators stressed that despite the ceasefire, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza persists, with Israel still restricting humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon said backing the bill should not be a partisan issue.

“We should be clear — not red or blue, but as Americans — that we should put full bellies and humanitarian aid over bombs, particularly when you have hundreds of thousands of children and women and elderly folks who are starving, who are living in squalor,” Simon said.

“We are funding that humanitarian crisis. I think I only have one sentence left to say: Block the bombs.”

The one-year anniversary of the Block the Bombs Act comes as other legislative proposals that question US ties to Israel have also gained momentum.

On Wednesday, the House passed a resolution to rein in Trump’s powers to attack Iran without congressional authorisation, in a rebuke against the war the US and Israel launched against the country.

Forty out of 100 Senators, including an overwhelming majority of Democrats, also voted in April to block the transfer of military bulldozers to Israel.

Beth Miller, the political director at the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, said that increased support for the Block the Bombs Act is driven by the activism of the Palestinian rights movement in the US.

But she noted that the number of co-sponsors remains “horrifically low”.

“It’s a sign of how far we have to go that the majority of members of Congress still want to send bombs to a country committing genocide,” Miller said.

“So that’s why we’re all going to continue to speak out. It is time for all of Congress to act. It is time to block the bombs.”