Television anchor Chris Cuomo ripped into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her remarks condemning Israel’s use of explosive devices hidden in pagers to target Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and “clearly and unequivocally violat[ing] international humanitarian law.”

On his primetime show on the NewsNation cable channel, Cuomo fired back at the progressive Democrat, questioning why she focused on Israel’s actions without acknowledging Hezbollah’s role as a terrorist organization. “Why don’t you mention the pagers were on members of a terrorist organization that is committed to destroying Israel?” Cuomo asked. “Would you have been defending al Qaeda when America was lighting them up in Iraq?”

Ocasio-Cortez responded by pointing out that civilian casualties had resulted from the attack, including a 9-year-old Lebanese girl who was killed. “What did the 9-year-old girl who was killed do to deserve that, Chris?” she wrote.

She went on to criticize Cuomo for implying that questioning military tactics, particularly when they lead to civilian deaths, equates to siding with terrorists. “Insinuating that anyone who questions how operations unfold, including civilian casualties, is siding with terrorists is a deeply ugly rearing of our past,” Ocasio-Cortez stated.

Cuomo addressed her criticism on his show, maintaining that Ocasio-Cortez was wrong to suggest Israel’s actions violated international laws, particularly U.S. regulations regarding the use of explosives. “One, Israel is not one of the United States, so they don’t follow our laws or rules,” Cuomo argued. “Second, if the representative was suggesting by that comparison that the United States should therefore not support Israel, good luck with that.”

Cuomo added that while the Pentagon’s Law of War Manual prohibits the “indiscriminate” use of booby traps, Israel’s tactics were justified because they were defending themselves from a group of “bloodthirsty terrorists.” He then questioned Ocasio-Cortez’s understanding of the situation. “Did she not read that part because she’s not a lawyer or not thorough, or did she intentionally not want to be fair?”

Cuomo further criticized Ocasio-Cortez’s response to the recent vandalism of her office, where protesters left blood-splattered signs accusing her of supporting terrorism. Ocasio-Cortez commented on X that she doesn’t “take well to bullies,” but Cuomo noted that she remained silent on other threats, including bomb threats made against Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump.

“Clearly, she does not value her opponents as humans the way she does herself,” Cuomo concluded.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)