Representatives for Haley and her defunct campaign did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s requests for comment.
In an interview with Israel Hayom, a newspaper run by Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, Haley reiterated her message about the bomb.
“As long as Hamas is gone, we know that it can happen again. That’s why I’ve said from the beginning that we need to end Hamas once and for all,” she said. Haley spoke to the Journal on Monday after visiting Nir Oz, where more than a quarter of its residents were killed or kidnapped on October 7.
Haley’s visit comes amid growing criticism that Israeli leaders have not done enough to protect civilians in Gaza and may have committed war crimes during the war with Hamas. It also comes shortly after an Israeli airstrike that used a U.S.-made bomb sparked a fire at a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza.
On Tuesday, Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli Knesset and former representative to the United Nations, posted a photo to X of him accompanying Haley to an artillery base. In the photo, Haley wrote, “Get rid of them!”, followed by, “The U.S. [heart] “Israel. Always, Nikki Haley.”
Haley said last week that she would vote for former President Donald Trump in November’s election. “We have to end this war. To end it. We have to get it done,” Trump said in a March interview with Israel Hayom.
When the video of Haley writing on the shell was released, it was met with immediate criticism.
On Wednesday, Amnesty International USA published the images with the message that war zones are “no place for stunts,” and the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned her for writing a “violent message,” two days after an Israeli airstrike on the Rafah tent camp killed at least 45 people. After the Israeli military repeatedly described it as a targeted attack on a Hamas compound using “precision munitions” and “precise intelligence,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack a “tragic accident.”
Haley has long been a vocal supporter of Israel, and while seeking the Republican presidential nomination, she spoke at a Republican Jewish Coalition summit in October saying she would never criticize Israel’s prime minister “in the midst of tragedy and war.”
Last week, she denounced the Biden administration’s decision to withhold weapons from Israel, saying that doing so “legitimizes the completely false and destructive narrative that Israel is acting unjustly in defending itself,” adding that she believes Israel is “fighting a war of self-defense more humanely than any military in history.”
During a visit to Israel as ambassador to the United Nations under the Trump administration in 2017, Haley told Prime Minister Netanyahu that the UN was bullying Israel. Her comments came the day after she said the US could withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council unless it changed its practices in general and its negative stance towards Israel in particular, The Washington Post reported at the time.
And in 2018, Haley defended Israel at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after it faced harsh criticism from around the world after Israel shot Palestinians protesting on the Gaza border, killing at least 60 people.
“I ask my colleagues on the Security Council: Who among us can tolerate this kind of behavior on our border?” Haley said at the time. “None of us can tolerate it. No country in this chamber will act with the same restraint as Israel.”
Haley continued to defend Israel during her recent visit.
“If Hamas promises to do it again, Israel should believe it,” she wrote to X on Wednesday. “Israel must do everything in its power to protect its people from evil. Americans must remember that when Iran and Hamas cry ‘Death to Israel,’ they are also promising ‘Death to America.’ Israel is fighting America’s enemies.”
Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff contributed to this report.
