State Department budget hearing disrupted by protesters calling Blinken a 'war criminal'

WASHINGTON (TND) — A beleaguered Secretary of State Anthony Blinken not only faced grilling from Republicans during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday but also faced a gauntlet of anti-war protesters with even harsher words.

At least four individuals were removed from the committee chamber, which was holding a hearing with Blinken to discuss the fiscal year 2025 budget request for the State Department, during the first 10 minutes of the proceedings.

The first, and loudest, disruption came from a man who called attention to the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab by members of the Israeli Defense Force while her family was trying to flee violence in Gaza City this past January. Citing this example of the kind of devastation that has been inflicted on the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its campaign to destroy Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, the protester said Blinken was a "butcher."

You will be remembered as the 'butcher of Gaza'," the protester yelled at Blinken from the audience as Capitol Police officers forcibly removed him. "You will be remembered for murdering innocent Palestinians.

This first volley of stark criticism leveled at the U.S.'s top diplomat colored much of the rest of the commentary, which accused Blinken of holding the blood of the nearly 35,000 Palestinians (protesters said 40,000) killed in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.

One woman held up a homemade sign that read "Blinken a partner in genocide" while another brandished a pair of papers calling him a "war criminal." That protester, dual-wielding signs, was the one who claimed the secretary had the blood of 40,000 on his hands.

The final disruption came from a young woman who accused Blinken of genocide as well but specifically cited the discovery of alleged mass graves near hospitals in the Gaza Strip as the cudgel for her argument.

The protests came as members of the committee from both sides of the aisle commended Blinken's condemnation of the arrest warrants put out by the International Criminal Court's (ICC) top prosecutor for chief leaders from Hamas and Israel like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The prosecutor accused both parties of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict stretching back to Oct. 7. However, many in the U.S., including President Joe Biden and Blinken, have sought to downplay and dismiss the seriousness of the charges, accusing the ICC of making a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel.

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