From the Liveblog of
Saturday, March 23, 2024
US senator: ‘Israel shouldn’t face isolation when Hamas is still hiding behind civilians’
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Democratic Senator John Fetterman disagrees with comments made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as he was leaving Israel last night that Israel will face global isolation if it invades Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
“Hard disagree,” Fetterman writes on X, formerly Twitter. “Israel shouldn’t face isolation when Hamas terrorists are still present and hiding behind civilians.”
“Hamas owns this humanitarian catastrophe and must surrender, release the hostages NOW, or be eliminated,” adds Fetterman, who has been a vocal supporter of Israel since war erupted in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 massacres.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacres, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid horrific acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Vowing to destroy Hamas and return the hostages, Israel launched a wide-scale air and ground campaign in Gaza which has come under international rebuke as the death toll mounts and a humanitarian crisis unfolds in the densely-populated Palestinian enclave.
Israel has said Rafah, where four Hamas battalions are deployed, remains Hamas’s last major stronghold in the Strip after the IDF operated in the north and center of the Palestinian enclave. It has said an offensive there is necessary to achieve the war’s goals and is not a question of “if” but “when.”
The Times of Israel Community.