Beirut, Nov 22: At least 14 pro-Iran militia fighters, mostly Iraqis, were killed in air strikes in war-torn eastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday.
The strikes on Saturday night in Deir Ezzor province, on the border with Iraq, were likely carried out by Israeli war planes, the Observatory said. There was no immediate reaction from Israel.
President Donald Trump’s pick for the United States ambassador to the United Nations has become the latest administration nominee to voice the belief that Israel has “biblical” dominion over the occupied West Bank.
Elise Stefanik’s comment came during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.
At the hearing, Elise Stefanik pledged to continue the US’s defense of Israel and advance Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.
Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York, further said that she supports the claims made by the far right in Israel that Jews have the “biblical right” to take land from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Stefanik was definitive when asked if she shared the view of far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and former hawkish minister Itamar Ben Gvir that Israel has a “biblical right to the entire West Bank”.
She responded with one word, “Yes.”
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen further asked Stefanik whether she supported Palestinians' right to self-determination.
Stefanik refused to answer the question directly, saying, “I think they deserve more than the failures that they have suffered under the leadership of terrorists.”
Representative Stefanik was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2014, the youngest woman elected to Congress at the time, at just 30 years old, and represented New York's 21st Congressional District.
She is known to be a staunch advocate of Israel supports its decision to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA),
Stefanik is an advocate of claims by Zionists that that Israeli regime is justified in killing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian Christians and Muslims from their lands and homes.
She made headlines in 2024 by questioning the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about what she claimed was antisemitism on college campuses.
At the time, US students at university campuses all across the country were protesting Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
After positioning herself as a champion in the fight against the alleged rise in antisemitism, Rep. Stefanik began receiving large donations from Republican Jewish donors.
Stefanik has long been one of most ardent defenders Israeli occupation and annexation policy.
In June 2024, US-Israeli billionaire Miriam Adelson reportedly donated $100 million to Trump for his presidential campaign in exchange for a promise to allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
Israel's occupation and Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 have brought the Palestinian Christian community to the brink of extinction.
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