Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley visited Israel over Memorial Day weekend and signed her name on Israeli artillery shells as a show of support for the country’s war with Gaza, where an estimated 35,000 Palestinians have been killed so far.
Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, traveled with Danny Danon, a member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to an Israel Defense Forces post and interacted with soldiers serving on the northern border with Lebanon. Danon posted photos on social media of Haley signing the artillery shells and including the messages “Finish them!” and “America loves Israel!”
“This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote on social media, according to Google Translate.
Though it’s not totally clear where the bombs are intended to be used, the move was decried as insensitive as Israel attacks Rafah in its ongoing campaign in Gaza. Airstrikes on Sunday killed an estimated 50 refugees who were sheltering in tents in Rafah after being evacuated from other parts of the Gaza Strip. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the airstrikes “a tragic mistake.”
On Tuesday, Haley posted photos of the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel on social media with the caption, “No other country would accept this, Israel should not either.”
Haley also met Monday with Israeli survivors of the Oct. 7 attack, which left an estimated 12,000 people dead and about 240 taken hostage. She told reporters in Israel that America should not withhold weapons from the nation.
“America needs to do whatever Israel needs and stop telling them how to fight this war,” Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, said. “Until you’ve lived it, you can’t say how to fight it. You’re either a friend or you’re not a friend.”
After dropping out of the 2024 presidential race in March, Haley endorsed former President Donald Trump last week, despite earlier having called Trump “unhinged,” “diminished” and not fit to be president.
