Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., was forced to take cover in a Jerusalem bomb shelter as Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched the biggest attack on Israel in years Saturday.
A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Booker was in Israel to attend the Abraham Accords Summit when violence broke out Saturday.
"I am in Israel," Booker said in a video posted to his X account Sunday. "About this time yesterday, I was jogging ... in the Old City when I got an urgent call from my chief of staff telling me to get back to the hotel as quickly as I could, that Israel was under attack. There were thousands of rockets being launched.
"When I got back to the hotel, I joined others in the bomb shelter or the stairwells of the hotel. Frightened faces. There were children and elderly families, many Americans. There was a sense of fear and worry and a knowledge through many of us that there were horrific things going on around the country at that time. Hundreds of people have been killed, thousands of people have been wounded. And a level of attacks at a scale that is staggering and really has not been seen in this country for over 50 years.
"We who believe in peace and freedom and human rights for Palestinians, for Israelis, for all humankind, must reject those who use terror as their weapon."