Israeli ambassador to US rebukes Bernie Sanders over Gaza stance

Israel's ambassador to the US has issued a rare direct criticism of a sitting American politician, slamming Senator Bernie Sanders after the left-wing lawmaker said the situation in Gaza "cannot continue".

In comments on social media on Thursday, Sanders said "just as a humanitarian response is critical, it is equally important to lay out a path to a two-state solution and a democratic Palestine" and warned that Israel could not "bomb its way to a long-term solution".

In response, Michael Herzog said that anyone who wanted a "democratic" Palestine needed to support the defeat of Hamas.

"16 years of Hamas' rule of Gaza, since taking over in a bloody coup, produced only misery for Gaza's citizens, tens of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli population centers (including nearly 9,000 since the beginning of this war), and numerous armed clashes with Israel - all culminating in the unimaginably atrocious terror attack on October 7," he said in a quote tweet to Sanders' original comments on X (formerly Twitter).

"How exactly do you propose to defeat these genocidal extremists, who hide behind innocent civilians and use them as human shields?"