Days after dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes against displacement camps in Southern Gaza, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley wrote “Finish them!” on Israeli artillery shells.
Haley, who recently sputtered in her bid to defeat former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, toured a kibbutz ravaged by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel in the company of current Knesset member and former UN Envoy Danny Danon.
“If you think this will only be in Israel, if we are arrogant enough, this could absolutely happen in America too and this is the moral of this story,” Haley said at one point during the visit.
Danon posted a collage of photos on Tuesday showing Haley writing on an artillery shell. “Finish them! This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today on a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote.
Alongside her chilling note, Haley wrote “America loves Israel!” and autographed the bomb.
Since Oct. 7, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s brutal retaliatory siege against the Gaza Strip. Millions of Palestinians were displaced into the southern region of Rafah, which Israel presented as a safe zone for civilians fleeing bombardment in the north. Alongside the ongoing threat that famine conditions may spread to Rafah, the area is now the subject of bombardment as Israel continues to escalate its assault on Southern Gaza. The Israeli government called this weekend’s massacre of displaced people a “tragic accident” — an excuse that holds little water given the frequency with which civilians are being killed and injured.
Earlier this month, The International Criminal Court issued applications for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and several other Israeli and Hamas officials on war crimes charges and allegations of crimes against humanity. The ICC alleges that Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, have committed war crimes of starvation; wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health; wilful killing; intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population; as well as the crimes against humanity of extermination and/or murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
On Friday, the International Court of Justice, which is currently weighing allegations of genocide against the Israeli government, ordered Israel to halt its assault on Rafah. But with the continued backing of the United States, Israel continues to steamroll over the outcry from the international community as easily as it has obliterated the Gaza Strip.
