A group of House Intelligence Committee members visited Israel this week, meeting with top Israeli leaders as well as visiting one of the sites of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation staging site and the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

The group included committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR) and Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Ronny Jackson (R-TX).

The lawmakers met with officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad Director David Barnea, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, IDF representatives and Palestinian Authority officials.

The group also visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza border, which suffered heavy losses in the Oct. 7 attacks, and met with hostage families, including the family of Evyatar David, an Israeli hostage shown in a recent video emaciated and forced by Hamas to dig his own grave in a Gaza tunnel.

“Israel and its people have experienced untold levels of tragedy and devastation because of the very fact that they exist,” Crawford said in a statement. “But the Jewish people are a strong, resilient, and compassionate people. Based on our conversations and briefings with military and intelligence partners this week, it is clear Israel is committed to a peaceful end to the unrest in the region but will not cede any ground to Hamas or other Iranian terrorist proxies.” 

He said that the group’s “message was simple — the United States stands with Israel and its people. I am grateful for the ongoing cooperation between the U.S. and our Israeli partners as we work to advance our shared goals in the region.”

In a statement, Gottheimer emphasized the need to free the hostages, increase humanitarian aid and end Hamas’ rule in Gaza.

“Given the situation, it was extremely important to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials, Ambassador Huckabee, and family members of hostages still in Gaza,” Gottheimer said. “It was also critical to visit an aid staging location at the Kerem Shalom border crossing and a GHF coordination site, which gave me a better understanding of efforts to surge aid into Gaza.”

“We must ensure aid is able to swiftly reach Gazans in need, not Hamas terrorists, who continue to steal food from innocent Palestinians,” he continued. “With so much misinformation, there is no better way to understand the situation than to see it firsthand. By promoting security and stability in the Middle East, the United States will improve our own national security.”

Jackson said in a statement, “This trip not only provided critical firsthand updates from our Defense, State, and Intelligence partners on the ever-evolving elements that threaten Israel, the Middle East, and ultimately the United States, but also reinforced the need for continued strong support to our key ally in the region, Israel.”

He praised both Huckabee and Netanyahu for the work that they are doing.

“We need strong leadership and coordination to protect American lives and interests, and I’m proud to see the Trump administration making national security a top priority with a strategy that is tough, smart, and focused on keeping our country and allies safe,” Jackson continued.

Discussions touched on issues including freeing the hostages, the need to end Hamas’ control of Gaza, the need to increase humanitarian aid — including through the GHF — the need for continued maximum pressure on Iran, the threats from Iran-backed terrorist groups, Hamas’ use of human shields and the need for continued bipartisanship in the U.S.-Israel relationship, according to press releases.

In a new letter to interim Harvard President Alan Garber sent on Monday, 28 Republican House members, led by Reps. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), said that the Harvard antisemitism task force’s recent preliminary recommendations on responding to campus antisemitism don’t go nearly far enough to address the situation on the campus.

The lawmakers said they have “serious concerns regarding the inadequacy” of the recommendations, which are “weaker, less detailed, and less comprehensive” than those presented by a previous task force in December 2023. Harvard Jewish leaders and alumni have said they’re disappointed by the recommendations, released in late June.

“Instead of offering a tangible plan to address antisemitism at Harvard, the task force’s most specific and actionable recommendations are to organize public talks on respectful dialogue and religious relations, increase the availability of hot kosher meals, and to circulate guidance about accommodating Jewish religious observance and a calendar of Jewish holidays,” the letter reads.

It calls the recommendations “particularly alarming given that Harvard’s leaders had already received a strong, detailed, and comprehensive set of recommendations” from the previous task force, arguing that the current group should have built on that framework.

The lawmakers said that Garber needs to “publicly address” criticisms of the task force from Jewish community members, adopt and begin to implement the recommendations from both task forces before the next semester and sever Harvard’s relationship with Birzeit University in the West Bank, whose student government and administration have expressed support for Hamas.

The letter states that the task force was correct to support disciplinary action and condemnation in response to the “serious problem with antisemitism” on Harvard’s campus but did not “offer real solutions for doing so.” It also accuses the task force of giving “insufficient attention” to Harvard’s “failures in imposing discipline for antisemitic misconduct.”

The lawmakers said that the task force “left numerous other significant issues wholly unaddressed,” such as academic programs that have seen significant issues with anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment, student groups’ violations of Harvard rules, failures by Harvard’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging office to address antisemitism, falling Jewish enrollment, a lack of viewpoint diversity among faculty on the Middle East, masked protests and possible foreign influence.

They further said that the university “has a consistent practice of balancing statements and efforts regarding antisemitism with similar ones regarding Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.”

“While hatred and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs is deplorable and must be addressed, there is simply no comparison between the explosion of pervasive antisemitism on Harvard’s campus and instances of Islamophobia or anti-Arab bias,” the Republicans continued. “These constant attempts at balancing serve to trivialize antisemitism and distract from the urgency and severity of the problem.”

Other signatories to the letter include Reps. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Jim Banks (R-IN), Aaron Bean (R-FL), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Anthony D’Esposito (D-NY), Randy Feenstra (R-IA), Russell Fry (R-SC), Lance Gooden (R-TX), Michael Guest (R-MS), Erin Houchin (R-IN), Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Nick Langworthy (R-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Mariannete Miller-Meeks (R-IA), Burgess Owens (R-UT), Keith Self (R-TX), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Jason Smith (R-MO), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), Michelle Steel (R-CA), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Randy Weber (R-TX) and Rudy Yakym (R-IN).