Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's Senate hearing at least two separate times Tuesday.
“Blinken, you will be remembered as the 'Butcher of Gaza!'” one protester said in the morning, during Blinken’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “You will be remembered for murdering innocent Palestinians!”
“Blinken is a war criminal!” another said, less than five minutes later. “The blood of 40,000 Palestinians is on his hands!”
Demonstrators have frequently interrupted hearings on Capitol Hill in recent months to protest the war in Gaza and the subsequent humanitarian crisis Palestinians are facing. Protesters have accused the United States and its top officials of not doing enough to curb Israel’s offensive in the enclave. About 35,000 people have died in Gaza in the war, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.
Blinken during the hearing, meanwhile, said the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor made an “extremely wrongheaded decision” Monday to seek arrest warrants of both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, along with other senior officials in the Israeli government and Hamas — and said the ICC’s move threatened ceasefire talks.
“The shameful equivalence implied between Hamas and the leadership of Israel, I think that only complicates the prospects,” Blinken said.
