(NewsNation) — Third party presidential candidate Cornel West is condemning the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in its war against Hamas, likening the military operation to a genocide.
“We’re living in a genocidal attack in real time, where nearly 7,000 children have been killed in less than 45 days, so all of the talk about X or Y is nothing but rationalizations of the proceeding, of the promoting of this kind of genocidal attack,” West said Tuesday on “CUOMO.”
His comments came after news broke that Israel and Hamas have reached a deal for the release of some 50 hostages in exchange for a four-day cease-fire. It’s the first time that fighting has paused in the month-old war that broke out when Hamas militants launched an incursion into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed more than 1,400 people.
In response, Israel launched large scale airstrikes on targets in Gaza before mounting a ground invasion. This past week, Israeli military forces reached Al-Shifa Hospital, which Israel says is being used a Hamas command and control center.
Hamas denies the allegations.
On Monday and Tuesday, Israel produced photos and videos showing weapons being stored inside the hospital, a tunnel shaft on the grounds outside and a blast door leading to a tunnel.
More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli offensive, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. It does not differentiate between civilians and militants, though some two-thirds of the dead have been identified as women and minors. Israel says thousands of Hamas militants have been killed.
While West said Hamas was “wrong” for its attack on Israel, he argued “they were resisting” because of suffering.
“Palestinian children are not receiving any attention from the U.S. government, from the Israeli government,” West said.
The war has sparked major protests across the world, including at college campuses in the United States. Aid organizations had also been calling for a cease-fire to allow for the delivery of aid into Gaza.
West is among those who have called on Israel to institute a cease-fire.
“We have to be morally consistent” about calling out war crimes, West said. “We can’t lose sight of the larger structural institutional realities in which people are being killed every day in the occupation beginning 1948. That’s like zeroing in on Nat Turner because he’s killing some white children and he’s wrong, but Black people were enslaved for 240 years.”
Pushing back, NewsNation host Chris Cuomo suggested that “Palestinians have had a much better shot than Blacks in America have had” because the Palestinians have been offered deals.
Offering a new analogy, West likened the Palestinian situation to that of Native Americans.
“Look at the deals that the U.S. government offered our precious indigenous brothers and sisters — terrible deals, under the condition of U.S. dominance,” West said. “Every deal Israel has ever offered Palestinians presupposes Israeli dominance. They’re not going to give up that dominance.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.