‘Strategic and moral mistakes’: US politicians step up condemnation of Israel

Politicians in the US on Sunday stepped up their denunciation of Israel over its conduct in Gaza, with a leading Democratic senator accusing the key American ally of “strategic and moral mistakes” – and secretary of state, Antony Blinken, saying it was testing the boundaries of international law.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, the Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, warned that Hamas was likely to become stronger if Israel waged an all-out assault in Rafah.

“I want Hamas gone,” Murphy said. “I don’t want them to ever have the ability to hit Israel again. [But] I worry that the number of civilians that are dying are ultimately going to provide permanent recruiting material to Hamas, and it will be a threat for years to come.

“We cannot have an invasion of Rafah that ends up in tens of thousands of additional civilians dying. That will be bad for Israel from a moral and strategic standpoint.”

He continued: “So I am certainly willing to call out Israel when I think that they have made strategic and moral mistakes in this war. We should [also] be calling out Hamas for the attacks that began this war, the way in which they have violated the rules of engagement, and the fact that the quickest route to end this war is for Hamas to surrender and protect the people of Gaza.”

Murphy’s comments amounted to some of the strongest criticism yet by a centrist US politician against Israel, which the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday had now killed more than 35,000 people in strikes since the 7 October attacks by Hamas.

Stronger condemnation came from Vermont Democratic senator Bernie Sanders, a member of the party’s progressive wing.

“Any objective observer knows Israel has