Hochul lands in Israel for ‘solidarity mission’

Gov. Kathy Hochul touched down in Tel Aviv Wednesday as she began a 30-hour trip to Israel in the wake of the war with Hamas that she described as a “solidarity mission.”

The 65-year-old Democrat bean her her sojourn with a security briefing at the airport, which she paused to speak with Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the US, according to pool reporter Luis Ferré-Sadurní of The New York Times.

Herzog told her that deliveries of aid to Palestinians was approved, but he warned “If [Hamas] interferes then we stop,” the report said.

Hochul then rode in a armored SUV to a kibbutz in Shefayim to meet with Israeli families displaced by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Ferré-Sadurní said.

The governor told reporters Tuesday that she was heading to the Middle East on “a mission of solidarity… and also a mission of support,” and said her trip will protect the safety of all Jewish and Palestinian New Yorkers.

New York’s nearly two million Jews comprise a far larger constituency than in any other US state, and there are more Jewish people in New York City than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined.

Although Air Force One was spotted at Ben Gurion Airport when Hochul touched down, she and fellow Democrat President Joe Biden travelled separately.

Biden departed a short time later, after canceling a flight to Jordan

Soon after Hochul landed at Ben Gurion Airport, President Joe Biden boarded Air Force One and departed the region, after postponing a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the wake of an explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital.