Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed support for Israel's war in Gaza in his most outspoken comments yet on the fighting, as international pressure grows on the United States to rein in its ally.
“Yes,” Trump replied when asked in an interview on Fox News if he was “in the camp of Israel.”
The interviewer then asked whether the former president was “on board” with the way Israel was conducting its offensive in Gaza.
“You have to solve the problem,” Trump replied.
President Joe Biden, whom Trump will challenge for the White House in November, is coming under increasing fire both internationally and from his own Democratic base for his support for Israel as the death toll rises in Gaza and the specter of famine looms .
The fighting began with an attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on southern Israel on October 7 that left about 1,160 people dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
According to the Ministry of Health, 30,534 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the Israeli retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip in the Hamas-controlled area.
US protest movements have called on voters to punish Biden in the election over his support for Israel. More than 100,000 people in Michigan voted “non-binding” instead of casting their vote for him in the Democratic primary in the swing state last week.
As conditions worsen, Israel faces increasingly harsh rebuke from its key ally, the United States.
Vice President Kamala Harris expressed “deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza” during talks in Washington on Monday with Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz.
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