AOC ACCUSES BOTH ISRAEL AND HAMAS OF COMMITTING WAR CRIMES

AOC claims Israel is guilty of 'war crimes' after Hamas invasion: Squad member again calls for a ceasefire as she slams BOTH sides

She tore into Israel for cutting off water and energy to Gaza after terror attack

 

By Geoff Earle 

 

Daily Mail

Oct 23, 2023

 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to the Hamas attack as a 'war crime' – but also applied that language to Israel cutting off water and energy to Gaza.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused of Israel of 'war crimes' as the close U.S. ally prepares for a possible ground invasion of Gaza amid increased fears of an expanding war.

The New York Democrat and 'squad' member condemned 'bigotry and callousness' at a Times Square rally just days after the Hamas terror attack inside Israel.

But she also has called for a cease fire, and on Sunday she characterized both the Hamas attack and Israel's response – which includes cutting off water and energy in what the government has termed a siege – as war crimes.

'War crimes do not constitute and are not an appropriate response for other war crimes,' she told MSNBC on Sunday. 'Hamas' hostage-taking, their hostage-taking of children, of the disabled, elderly civilians, are a war crime,' she said.

'But when we are talking about the blockading of water, food, electricity to a population of 2.2 million Palestinians, it is an unacceptable to think that 1,700 children, Palestinian children alone, that their deaths will somehow make up for or justify the violence of what we saw on October 7.' 

Her condemnation of Israel's tactics come amid reports that the Biden administration, despite President Biden's full-throated defense of Israel, has been privately cautioning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to delay a possible ground invasion out of concern for potential consequences.

According to the Washington Post, Biden 'expressed his concerns and posed questions' with Natanyahu during their meeting in Israel during Biden's seven-hour trip last week.

 

 

An IDF soldier prepares to remove the bodies of Israelis killed during an October 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian terrorists, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel bordering the Gaza Strip, on October 10, 2023.

Palestinians receive food at a UN-run school in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip on October 23, 2023. Since the start of the war, Israel cut off supplies of water, electricity, fuel and food to the Palestinian enclave of more than 2 million people

 

Biden himself told reporters traveling with him back from Israel that 'I cautioned the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage.'

In public remarks in Israel, he compared to the attack to the Sept. 11th attacks, saying it was 'like 15 9/11s' by scale of human lives lost.

He and his team helped negotiate with the Egyptian government over the first delivery of food and medical aid to Gaza since the Hamas attack, amid a jump of protests in Middle Eastern as well as European capitals.

Israel's energy minister has vowed not to allow fuel or electricity into Gaza until the estimated 200 Israeli hostages are returned home. 

On Friday, Hamas released two American hostages seized during the attacks – Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said 10 Americans who were in Israel during the attack still remain unaccounted for.

The Hamas attack and Israel's response have sparked a split between 'squad' members and more traditional party leaders who have rallied behind Israel. 

Fellow squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) has been slammed for blaming Israel for the attack on a Gaza hospital, after the U.S. government, Israel, and independent analysts said the more likely scenario was an errant missile fired form inside Gaza. 

'As an American, not just as a member of the United States Congress, I am ashamed. I am ashamed that they're saying, "not yet. Maybe next week." ... How many more have to die?' she said.

She also hit at Biden for his embrace of Israel following the attacks. 

'President Biden, not all Americans are with you on this one and you need to understand that. We are literally watching people commit genocide and killing the vast majority just like this, and we still stand by and say nothing. We will remember this,' she warned.

Her statement the day after the Oct. 7 attack said she grieved for lives lost on both sides, then called for 'lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.'

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has called on the US government to withdraw its support for the Jewish State and immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks called Israel's response 'collective punishment' and a 'war crime.'