Ilhan Omar condemns Israel’s military response to Hamas, says ‘solution’ is ‘negotiated peace’
Fox News
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., attacked Israel’s response to an unprecedented assault by Hamas in an extensive thread on social media Monday.
Omar, a longtime critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinians, seemed to equate the Israeli victims killed by Hamas terrorists this weekend and Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli response. “Just as we honor the humanity of the hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians and 9 Americans who were killed this weekend, we must honor the humanity of the innocent Palestinian civilians who have been killed and whose lives are upended,” she wrote.
Omar went on to highlight the hardships of living in Gaza, accusing Israel of operating an “apartheid” state in an attempt to explain violence by Hamas.
“Palestinian residents of the West Bank have scarcely better lives than Gazans—with the routine destruction of their ancestral homes, destruction of their crops, and violent attacks by Israeli settlers,” Omar wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
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“Palestinians have few recourses for justice and accountability. Attacks by the IDF and settlers against Palestinians are regularly met with impunity. Efforts to seek justice in international courts are stonewalled by the Israeli government, with U.S. support,” she added. “As the world is condemning Hamas’s attacks, we must also oppose an Israeli military response that has already taken the lives of hundreds of Palestinians, including nearly two dozen children.”
Omar’s office did not respond to questions from Fox News Digital asking her to elaborate on the thread.
The congresswoman did not clarify how she believed Israel should have responded to Saturday’s attack, which left at least 1,000 Israelis dead and 2,700 more wounded. The Minnesota Democrat’s only suggestion for a “solution to this horror” was “a negotiated peace—with Israelis and Palestinians enjoying equal rights and security guarantees.”
Later in the thread, Omar claimed that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had called all Palestinians “human animals” in comments earlier this week, though his full statement made clear that he was referring only to Hamas terrorists.
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“We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed,” Gallant said. “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”
Israeli forces have deployed tens of thousands of troops to the area around Gaza City, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested a ground invasion may be imminent.