Democrats are being forced to reckon with the looming reality that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will launch a ground invasion into Rafah despite President Joe Biden’s vocal opposition.  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will deliver a floor speech on Thursday morning outlining “a pathway to peace and achieving a two-state solution,” his office says. The address comes amid deepening fractures within the party over Israel’s war in Gaza.

The Oct. 7 massacre and Israel’s military offensive have highlighted internal divisions within the Democratic Party. Progressive Democrats have vocally opposed Israel’s response to the attack, which marked the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while most in the party have emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself even as a growing number call for restraint.

Schumer is a leading pro-Israel voice in the Democratic Party and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States and has maintained his support for Netanyahu’s war and a two-state solution at a time when backing both has become challenging. 

While many lawmakers support a two-state solution in theory, a number of pro-Israel voices have suggested that such a prospect is impossible were Hamas to remain in control of Gaza.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who has been unapologetically vocal about his support for Israel and opposition to a ceasefire since Hamas carried out its Oct. 7 attack, said last month, “I support a two-state solution as well, but that is meaningless until Hamas is effectively eliminated because Hamas disavows and rejects a two-state solution.”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu said in January that Israel required “security control over all territory” to ensure its safety, which is incompatible “with the idea of sovereignty” for the Palestinians.

Support for the war has waned on the Democratic side of the aisle in recent weeks, the result of the high death toll of Palestinian civilians and Netanyahu’s refusal to bow to U.S. demands to allow more aid into Gaza amid warnings of mass starvation and disease outbreaks. Adding to the Democratic anger is the looming Rafah invasion, which Netanyahu said he would conduct regardless of Biden’s statements condemning such a move. 

Despite the frustration, party leaders have maintained their steadfast support for Israel’s war effort, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) calling for a “decisive defeat” of Hamas during a press conference on Wednesday.

“I support everything that the president said during the State of the Union address and his general perspective that what we have to do is make sure that Hamas is decisively defeated. It’s a brutal terrorist organization,” Jeffries said. “Unless we defeat Hamas, there is no possibility for just and lasting peace.”

For his part, Netanyahu has blamed Hamas for the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, pushing back on U.S. criticisms after Biden ordered the aid to be airdropped into the devastated region earlier this month.

“We don’t have that kind of information. That’s not the information we have. And we monitor it closely,” the Israeli prime minister said over the weekend when asked about claims that famine is imminent in Gaza. “More importantly, it’s not our policy. Our policies are to put in as much humanitarian aid as we could.”

“When we started out putting in the humanitarian convoys, we said there will be one problem,” he continued. “And that is what if Hamas tries to steal the food and the drugs that we’re bringing for the civilian population for its own terrorist forces?”

The explanation has been insufficient to some Democrats, among them those calling for a temporary or permanent ceasefire.

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“At the logistics level, things need to be accelerated because we are facing an emergency situation,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told the Washington Examiner in late January. 

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) concurred, telling reporters in late February, “The humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza is so nightmarish right now that Israel needs to suspend military activities temporarily in order to get food and water and aid out to the people of Gaza.”