Kamala Harris Makes Threat Before American Hostage Was MURDERED

Vice President Kamala Harris was a central figure in pressuring Israel to avoid military action in Rafah, a city in Gaza, months before an American hostage was found dead on Sunday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) discovered the body of 23-year-old American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, along with five other hostages, in a tunnel under Rafah. According to the Israeli military, the hostages were killed shortly before their bodies were discovered.

For months, Harris and the Biden administration urged Israel to refrain from entering Rafah, despite intelligence suggesting a high number of Hamas militants and hostages, including Americans, were located there. In March, Israel began positioning tanks around the city in preparation for a potential military operation.

So far, the IDF has rescued at least nine hostages from Rafah, including one, Qaid Farhan Al-Qadi, an Israeli, last week. Hamas is still holding 101 hostages in Gaza, according to the IDF.

In March, Harris told ABC News that a military operation in Rafah would be a “big mistake.”

“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake,” she said at the time.

“I have studied the maps. There’s nowhere for those folks to go,” she added, referring to civilians who had taken refuge in Rafah to escape fighting elsewhere in Gaza. “We’ve been very clear that it would be a mistake to move into Rafah with any type of military operation.”

When asked if the United States would impose “consequences” if Israel invaded Rafah, Harris stated she was “ruling out nothing.”

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for an end to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in March, amidst Israel’s conflict with Hamas and growing tensions with Iran-backed groups in the region.

“At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel, at a time when so many Israelis have lost their confidence in the vision and direction of their government,” Schumer said.

Rafah remains a key Hamas stronghold, believed to hold hostages from the group’s October 7 attack, in which roughly 1,200 people in Israel were killed. Israel began major military operations in Rafah in May.

The Biden administration increased its pressure on Israel in May. President Joe Biden warned that the U.S. might cut off some weapons shipments if the IDF entered Rafah.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden said in a May 8 interview on CNN.

Before Biden’s remarks, his administration had already paused a shipment of thousands of explosives to Israel, including 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs.

“Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering with nowhere else to go,” a senior administration official told The Washington Post. “We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza.”