United States Senate minority leader and prominent Republican politician Mitch McConnell on Tuesday voiced his stance on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East after the violence erupted in the region nearly two weeks ago. 

In his statement, McConnell labelled Gaza’s militant group Hamas as a “terrorist organization”, which was being funded by its Middle Eastern ally Iran. Further, he backed Israel as a US ally and said there was no “moral equivalency” between the two conflicted parties.

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“I am really perplexed about the argument that there is some kind of moral equivalency between Hamas, a terrorist organisation funded by Iran, and Israel,” he said in a statement.

He added, “There are all kinds of differences,” and went on to express his stance. 

In a strongly-worded statement, he said that Israel attempts to “minimise civilian casualties” by giving warnings before a strike. Meanwhile, according to him, Hamas fires rockets into Israel “to kill civilians”.

The 79-year-old Republican leader, in what looked like an attempt to slam US President Joe Biden’s effort to contain the violence, said that those who have been lobbying for a ceasefire suggest there is a moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas.

On Saturday, Biden spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas over a call where the two leaders discussed the “current tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank” and President Biden stressed the need for Islamist militant group Hamas to “cease firing rockets into Israel.”

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McConnell went on to draw up a hypothetical situation in his statement where he said if US was in a similar situation, the country would be “hitting back, but would be hitting back with precision.”

The Senate minority leader also shared a small snippet of his statement on the Middle Eastern conflict in a Twitter post which was captioned, “There is no moral equivalency between Israel, our ally, and Hamas, a terrorist organization funded by Iran.”