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Kamala Harris Condemns ‘Abhorrent’ Pro-Hamas Protests in DC
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an event with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as part of the US-ASEAN Special Summit, in Washington, DC, May 13, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday rebuked the rampant anti-Israel protests that have erupted across Washington, DC in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the US capital city and speech to a joint session of Congress, calling the demonstrations “abhorrent.”
Outside of Union Station, rioters vandalized numerous statues and landmarks, and the phrase “Hamas is coming,” written in all capital letters, was spray-painted on a monument, along with an upside-down red triangle, a symbol used by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas when attacking Israeli targets.
“F—k Israel” was also spray-painted at various spots in Washington, DC.
Meanwhile, video emerged on social media showing rioters attacking police officers and burning American flags. They also tore down the American flag in front of Union Station and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. They subsequently set the American flag on fire.
Harris, the presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, released a statement condemning the “despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters,” specifically referencing the demonstrations at Union Station.
“I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation,” Harris said. “I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.”
Harris concluded, “I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate, and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.”
The statement came after Harris received criticism for not attend Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday. Instead, the vice president agreed to deliver the keynote address for the national conference of a historically black sorority.
Earlier this month, Harris expressed sympathy for anti-Israel protesters on US university campuses. In an interview, Harris said that college students protesting Israel’s defensive military efforts against Hamas are “showing exactly what the human emotion should be.”
“There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points,” she added. “But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”
Harris has previously criticized Israel’s ongoing military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. The vice president, for example, emphatically condemned Israel’s operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, insisting that she “studied the maps, there’s nowhere for [Palestinians] to go.” White House aides also reportedly forced Harris to tone down a speech that was highly critical of Israel earlier this year.
Beyond Harris, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates this week also lambasted the “disgraceful” anti-Israel demonstrators for openly endorsing terrorism and extremism. Bates rebuked the protests for their “antisemitism and violence.”
“Identifying with evil terrorist organizations like Hamas, burning the American flag, or forcibly removing the American flag and replacing it with another, is disgraceful,” he said in a statement. “Antisemitism and violence are never acceptable. Period. Every American has the right to peaceful protest. But shamefully, not everyone demonstrated peacefulness today.”
Anti-Israel protests have rocked the US in the months following Hamas’ massacre of over 1200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Demonstrators have rallied across college campuses and rallied at synagogues and Jewish cultural spaces to express their disapproval of Israel. Many agitators at these protests have openly endorsed the Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza, and have called for the complete destruction of Israel.
In response, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) on Wednesday unveiled new legislation to sanction non-citizens who participate in violent protests. The proposed “No Visas for Violent Criminals Act” would void visas for foreign nationals convicted for their conduct in protests and require their deportation within 60 days. Specifically, the legislation targets non-citizens arrested for obstructing traffic, defacing federal property, and participating in disruptive college campus demonstrations.
Many of the most vocal anti-Israel agitators on college campuses, in particular, have been foreign students.
“The Biden administration’s inaction against pro-Hamas mobs has only emboldened these extremists. Our legislation makes clear that a green card does not give individuals the right to break our laws in support of antisemitic views,” Cotton wrote in a statement.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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