Christie announces Israel trip amid ongoing war

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said he is headed to Israel on Thursday amid its conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. 

“Tomorrow night, I’m leaving to go to Israel because I want to see for myself. I’ll be meeting with Israeli officials and with survivors of the Hamas terrorist attack,” Christie said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“If you want to be president, you can’t be afraid to go and see what’s happening on the ground around the world,” Christie continued. 

In a similar vein, Christie made a surprise visit to Ukraine in August to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky amid its war with Russia.

“America has never moved forward by ignoring the rest of the world,” he said on X at the time. “We can’t start now.”

When asked in a Thursday night interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether Israel should “push toward some sort of a two-state solution,” Christie said conversations about it “had to have stopped” when the Hamas attack that started the current conflict occurred early last month.

“[So], there was a cease-fire, that everybody’s talking about now, before Oct. 7,” Christie said in the interview in the wake of his Israel trip announcement. 

“It was Hamas, that violated it,” Christie later continued. 

Israeli forces started a ground operation into Gaza late last month, even amid warnings that the operation could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation in the territory. More than 10,000 Palestinians have died since the start of the war at the beginning of last month, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has said.