A lot has changed in Israel and Palestine since Oregon’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley first visited in 1978 as a 21-year-old backpacker.

But the pace of change between his last trip to the region in January 2024 and the present, as Israel wages an ongoing war against the militant and political group Hamas in Gaza, has been unbelievably devastating, Merkley told the Capital Chronicle on Sunday morning from Cairo, Egypt, at the end of an eight-day trip to the region.

“There’s a lot that has transpired over those 20 months,” he said. “I don’t think 20 months ago, January 2024, we would have imagined that the war would be ongoing.”

He and U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, returned in late August to Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel, and visited the West Bank

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