WASHINGTON — A U.S. senator is elevating an interfaith plea from a rabbi and a Muslim physician in Michigan to the very top of the State Department: Please help us to get life-saving baby formula into Gaza.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, sent a letter Wednesday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump's envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, asking them to "greenlight" supplies at checkpoints into Gaza needed to feed starving children there, including infant formula, drinking water and other resources to treat child malnourishment.

Slotkin, a former top Pentagon official, said the humanitarian aid should be "permanently" approved and allowed into Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces and Israel's top official overseeing Gaza "regardless of the status of ceasefire negotiations and without delay," saying it should be "additive" to the expanded humanitarian access declared Saturday by Israel.

"Just like the U.S. military had a responsibility to facilitate the movement of aid into places like Iraq, where I served, and Afghanistan, the Government of Israel must do the same to prevent starvation in Gaza," Slotkin wrote.

"This proposal is a concrete step forward, aimed at building trust toward the full and unfettered opening of checkpoints to life-saving aid beyond what was announced on Saturday."

Slotkin's outreach to the Trump administration comes amid international outcry over images from Gaza of emaciated children and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths in the war-ravaged territory. The pressure prompted Israel over the weekend to announce new steps, including daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in parts of Gaza and airdrops of food, the Associated Press reported.

Trump earlier this week broke with his ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, disagreeing publicly with him about starvation in Gaza and pointing to pictures of hungry people.

Trump told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. would partner with Israel to run new food centers in Gaza to tackle the humanitarian crisis, saying that everyone who saw the images coming out of Gaza would declare it terrible “unless they’re pretty cold-hearted or, worse than that, nuts.”

The proposal that Slotkin took to the administration was brought to her late last week by two leaders from Michigan's Jewish and Muslim communities ― Rabbi Asher Lopatin, director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, and Dr. Mahmoud Al-Hadidi, chairman emeritus of the Michigan Muslim Community Council and chairman of the group World Peace Outreach.

Slotkin said it was the first time since the Israel-Hamas war began nearly 22 months ago that she had been approached by leaders from both the Jewish and Muslim communities with a joint proposal. The leaders are ready to donate or cover the full cost of the supplies to address the crisis, Slotkin noted.

The rabbi and physician said it's a sign of the scope of the humanitarian crisis and of their shared values. They both reached out to Slotkin last week, including in a joint text exchange, and she agreed with the proposal, they said.

"This letter is making it very poignant that we have to prioritize the children and babies over really everything else," Lopatin told The Detroit News.

"We’re showing that Muslims and Jews share the same humanitarian values. We’re going to disagree politically and we're going to disagree militarily, on many different things.But we share the same humanitarian values and, frankly, I believe Israel does as well," Lopatin added.

"So I hope that this actually helps Israel ― with all their internal politics ― that it really helps Israel do what Israel really wants to do, and that is to make sure there's no starvation."

Lopatin and Al-Hadidi have known each other for six years, since Lopatin began working with the Jewish Community Relations Council/American Jewish Committee in Detroit. When they spoke last week, Al-Hadidi said he mentioned he had reached out to multiple members of Congress, including Michigan's senators, about the starving children of Gaza, and Lopatin decided to join him.

Al-Hadidi was moved by the photos and videos of starving children and mothers and reports of babies dying, saying he felt compelled to plea for an urgent humane response. Slotkin was the only lawmaker he contacted who agreed to take their proposal to the administration, he said.

"We're not asking much. We're not asking them to solve the problem immediately ― which should have been solved months ago to save the lives of the hostages and the thousands of people. We're just asking the baby milk and water to process the baby milk is allowed there, so at least those babies are not dying, starving as the whole world is watching," Al-Hadidi said.

"The babies are not terrorists. Everybody agrees that a 2-month-old infant or a 6-month-old infant or a 2-year-old child is not a terrorist."

He and Lopitan have spoken regularly since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which Al-Hadidi called "despicable." All these many months later, he said, enough people are trying to solve the political and military dispute.

"This is not a political action that we're taking," he said. "Not enough people are asking to save the babies. That's what our initiative is."

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