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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was confronted by a protester demanding a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday at the Capitol in Washington.
The brief, tense confrontation was captured on video, which shows a woman approaching the senator in what appears to be a hallway at the U.S. Capitol complex, demanding that he call for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
Romney responded by recounting details about the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel that killed 1,400 Israelis, many of them civilians.
"Hamas went into a country and brutally murdered people, cut their throats," Romney says, as the protester interrupts him, accusing Israel of "carpet-bombing" the Palestinian enclave.
"Do you want to talk or am I gonna talk?" Romney asks.
"I'm gonna talk," the woman says.
"OK, well, I am not going to listen," Romney says before turning and walking down another hall toward an elevator.
The woman continued to follow Romney, talking about the more than 10,000 killed in Gaza as Israel has continued to bombard the territory.
"It is not comparable — it is no longer comparable," she says. "These are war crimes and you have the power to end it. Please do your duty. No more taxpayer dollars, please, no more taxpayer dollars for Israeli weapons."
President Joe Biden last month requested nearly $106 billion from Congress to aid Ukraine and Israel and expand U.S. border security. Around $14 billion of that amount would go to Israel to bolster its air and missile defense systems.
Romney visited Israel less than a week after Hamas' incursion and said he blamed the militant group for any deaths in Gaza as Israel prepared for a counterattack.
"I hope we recognize that those individuals have been killed because of Hamas, not because of Israel," Romney said on Oct. 15. "Do not forget the lives that you are going to see lost on TV ... Israeli lives and Palestinian lives, are all the result of Hamas."
Hamas, not Israel to blame for deaths in Gaza, Mitt Romney says while visiting Tel Aviv
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Hamas is to blame for casualties in Gaza. He made the remarks while speaking at a press conference during a visit to Israel on Sunday.The U.S. has traditionally been a strong ally of Israel and politicians across the spectrum have shown support for Israel, though many have faced increased pressure as the death toll in Gaza has grown.
A spokeswoman for Romney referred KSL.com to the senator's earlier comments on the Israel-Hamas war.
Romney's colleague, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, on Monday said a cease-fire with Hamas won't work and called the idea of a humanitarian pause "simply wrong and dangerous, giving Hamas time to regroup."
"Israel is not engaged on an offensive operation or retaliation/vengeance operation," he added. "This is purely DEFENSIVE so Hamas terrorists, murderers, barbarians are eliminated once and for all and can no longer kill innocent men, women and children."
