Schumer twice forced to shelter as Hamas rockets target Tel Aviv

 

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says experience shows ‘what Israelis have to go through’ as bipartisan delegation promises to push legislation in Congress for more support

A bipartisan group of senators was forced into a bomb shelter in a Tel Aviv hotel on Sunday evening as Hamas fired rockets at central Israel.

The barrage caused the five lawmakers, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to delay their press conference, scheduled for 7 p.m. It was the second time that day they had to shelter.

“We experienced what Israelis experience every day,” Schumer said after the all-clear was given, allowing the press conference to go ahead.

“Israel is a strong nation, and we say to Israel, You are not alone,” the lawmaker said, flanked by Bill Cassidy (Republican-Louisiana), Jacky Rosen (Democrat-Nevada), Mitt Romney (Republican-Utah) and Mark Kelly (Democrat-Arizona).

“The United States stands beside you as an unrelenting partner.”

Earlier in the day, Schumer’s social media account tweeted a picture of him and Romney sheltering from a missile attack.

“It shows you what Israelis have to go through. We must provide Israel with the support required to defend itself,” Schumer said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The Tel Aviv area has been bombarded on a near-daily basis since October 7, when Hamas terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, slaughtering some 1,300 Israelis and kidnapping over 150 more. The ruthless attack was accompanied by heavy rocket fire, which has persisted as Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air ahead of an expected ground offensive aimed at destroying Hamas.

Rocket sirens rang in the Tel Aviv area just before 2 p.m. and again at 6:55 p.m.  No injuries were reported in either attack.

Schumer told the press conference that a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his aides was “good and productive.”

The bipartisan group also met with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Minister Benny Gantz, President Isaac Herzog and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.

Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, and the others were in Tel Aviv to show support for Israel ahead of an expected request from US President Joe Biden for Congress to approve wartime funding for Israel as well as Ukraine.

He said that the bipartisan group will lead efforts in the Senate to make sure Israel has what it needs to fully defend itself.

Schumer said senators cried as they met with the families of those kidnapped during the onslaught, which targeted some 15 Israeli communities. Terrorists killed civilians, including the elderly and children, as they huddled in their homes or tried to seek safety. Some were slain execution-style, according to first responders.

Schumer said Hamas’s herding of kibbutz members into a room to shoot them all reminded him of the fate of his great-grandmother in the Holocaust, who was machine-gunned along with dozens of Jews from her Ukrainian town.

Rosen, a former synagogue president, said that “Israel lives in the hearts of all Jewish people.”

“I’m the only Jewish mother in the Senate,” she continued, “and meeting with Jewish mothers whose children were killed,  hearing their stories, hearing the mothers today, the daughters, the cousins, the sisters, the brothers, their pain, their heartbreak, I too will remember this for the rest of my life.

“As Jews we know that never again, well, it means right now,” she declared.

Schumer repeated the Biden administration’s admonition that “democracies are stronger and more secure when we uphold the rule of law. We echoed that to the prime minister and every Israeli official we met.”

He acknowledged that “it’s difficult, we know it’s difficult to minimize civilian casualties.”

Romney said that Palestinian civilians will be injured and killed as the war continues, but it is “because of Hamas, not because of Israel.”

“Hamas is holding their own population as human shields,” he said. “They’re using Palestinians to protect their own lives.”

Romney also blasted those in the US “with isolationist tendencies,” seemingly taking aim at his own party, parts of which have embraced former US president Donald Trump and his America First ideology.

According to Schumer, the Israelis stressed the importance of sending over precision-guided bombs, Iron Dome interceptors, 155-mm mortar shells, JDAM guidance kits and intelligence support.

The US has already dispatched two planes of military aid, and has also sent two aircraft carrier groups to the region to deter others from attacking Israel as it fights Hamas.

Schumer is instructing relevant committee heads to prepare an aid package that will be ready “within the next few weeks,” he said.

“We’re not waiting for the House,” he added.

Schumer said he believes he will think about October 7 “every day for the rest of my life, just as I think about 9/11 every day for the rest of my life.”

The war is being fought so that “the threat of Hamas and its evilness is removed, and the hostages are returned,” he said. “We cannot let this evil continue to foul the earth.”