Israel will cease to exist if Harris became Prez: Trump

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has accused his Democratic rival Kamala Harris of “hating” Israel and said if she became president, the Jewish state would not exist "within two years from now". Trump's comments came during a bitter televised debate with Harris on Tuesday in Pennsylvania. He asserted that the Israel-Hamas war would have never started if he had been president. “She wouldn't even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech.

She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers… She hates Israel," Trump, 78, said. "If she is president I believe Israel will not exist within two years from now,” he claimed. “I've been pretty good at predictions, but I hope I'm wrong on that one," the former president said. “At the same time, in her way, she hates the Arab population, because the whole place is going to get blown up: Arabs, Jewish people, Israel. Israel will be gone,” Trump said during the debate hosted by ABC.This was the first debate between Trump, 78, and Harris, 59, ahead of the November 5 presidential election.

He said Iran under him was broke and had no money for Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terror group. “Look at what's happening with the Houthis in Yemen. Look at what's going on in the Middle East. This would have never happened. I will get that settled and fast.” Asked to respond to Trump's claim that she hates Israel, Harris said, “That's absolutely not true,” describing herself as a lifelong supporter of the Jewish state. The US Vice President asserted that Israel has the right to defend itself after Hamas's October 7 massacre.

When asked by the moderators how she would secure a hostageceasefire deal and about her remarks from months ago that “Israel has a right to defend itself, but it matters how,” Harris started by explaining how the almost year-long war in Gaza was triggered. “Let's understand how we got here. On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist organisation, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people who were simply attending a concert where women were horribly raped. And so, absolutely… Israel has a right to defend itself; we would,” she said.

Trump insists Russia's war should end: Former President Donald Trump spoke heatedly in Tuesday's presidential debate about wanting Russia's war in Ukraine to be over - but twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted US ally Ukraine to win. Trump also falsely claimed that the war had killed “millions” since Russia invaded Ukraine 2 1/2 years ago, while the UN says 11,700 civilian deaths have been verified.

And he claimed without evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, had bungled a diplomatic mission just days before Russia launched the invasion. Western-allied Ukraine depends on US military and financial aid to keep up its fight against Russian forces. It's "a very simple question. Do you want Ukraine to win this war?” moderator David Muir of ABC News asked Trump in Tuesday's debate, the first of two times he pressed Trump for a direct answer.