'Finish them.' Nikki Haley in Iowa says she warned world officials of Hamas 5 years

PELLA ― Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley says she is haunted by Hamas' unprecedented ground attack on Israel.

The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told more than 100 potential caucusgoers in Pella on Saturday that she previously warned world leaders about Hamas, an Islamic militant group, and its plans to cross over into Israel and "kill as many Israelis as fast as they can."

The former South Carolina governor, who was appointed ambassador by her leading rival for the GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump, said she informed officials five years ago about Hamas' maps that listed the first Israeli communities "to go" once the group got past Israel's Gaza border fence — a warning, she added, that has now come to fruition.

"The first thing I said to (the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin) Netanyahu when this happened was: 'Finish them,'" she told voters at a town hall event at Central College.

Haley to DeSantis: 'That's what happens when your campaign starts to spiral out'

Haley's appearance Saturday at the college's Graham Conference Center was among her stops on a two-day campaign swing in Iowa.

She held a town hall event Friday afternoon at The Avacentre in Cedar Rapids before heading to Iowa City for U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks' annual "Triple MMM" fundraiser. There, she joined a few of her opponents, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in the last week has lobbed jabs against Haley and falsely claimed that she wants the U.S. to take in refugees from Gaza, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas since 2007.

Earlier this week, Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, posted a 55-second-long clip of Haley on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, as she spoke about the people of Gaza to CNN host Jake Tapper. Tapper during a recent interview had asked Haley to respond to a comment DeSantis made about all residents of Gaza being anti-Semitic.

"We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees. I am not going to do that. If you look at how they behave — not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic, none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist," DeSantis said Oct. 16 while on the campaign trail in Iowa. "None of the Arab states are willing to take any of them.”

Haley told Tapper she saw a divide between Gazans and Palestinians, where one half "didn't want to be under Hamas' rule" and have their lives run by "terrorists" and the rest supported the militant organization.

More: Pence says 'America stands with Israel'; Trump says 'it would have never happened with me'

"There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule. They want to be free from all of that. And America's always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists. And that's what we have to do," she said. "But right now, we can never take our eyes off of the terrorists. I mean, what Hamas did was beyond thuggish, brutal and sick."

The latter part of her statement was cut from the clip Never Back Down shared.

Haley repeatedly has refuted DeSantis' claim of her support for accepting Gaza refugees and continued to do so Saturday after a woman asked her to clarify her stance.

"God bless Ron DeSantis," Haley responded, "because he continues to try and bring up this refugee situation. He said I want to take in Gazan refugees. I have never said that, and he's got an ad on TV. And I will tell you from CNN to Newsy, they have all said that his ad is lying."

Haley went on to explain that she has stated that Middle Eastern countries such as Qatar should take in refugees from Gaza. As governor of South Carolina, Haley said, she refused to welcome refugees from Syria to her home state after the Paris terror attacks in 2015.

"So, that's your answer," Haley told the woman and the audience, then took her own dig at DeSantis: "And God bless him if he keeps doing it. That's what happens when your campaign starts to spiral out."

Trump has 'problems' and is 'a liability,' voters say

Haley appears to be increasingly a target for opponents as she climbs in the polls and her campaign team expands, especially in Iowa. Trump, who remains by far the polling frontrunner in the 2024 GOP nomination race, called Haley a "birdbrain" on the social media platform Truth after her second debate performance on Sept. 27. His campaign allegedly sent her a birdcage and a small bag of bird food during her stop in Iowa earlier this month.

DeSantis has long polled second behind Trump, but his position may be hanging in the balance, with Haley now in that No. 2 spot in New Hampshire and South Carolina, another early-voting state. Recent polls from FiveThirtyEight show Haley in third place nationally and in Iowa.

Republican voters like Gerad Wagner and wife Trudy say they are ready for a new leader in the White House. The Cedar Rapids couple said they were Trump supporters but now find themselves drawn to Haley and came to see her Friday at her event in their hometown.

Gerad Wagner, 61, said he sees Haley as the "most electable" out of the shrinking pool of GOP presidential candidates — and that she has the "least baggage."

"I think she has the ability to bring people together," he said.

Victoria Angeles, 65, of Cedar Falls, echoed his sentiments. For Angeles, who attended the same event Friday as the Wagners, it's between Haley and Trump. She said she "really loves Trump" despite "his problems" but thinks Haley would "be an amazing president."

If Haley is named the Republican presidential nominee, Angeles said, she hopes Trump would be her vice presidential running mate, and vice versa.

"They're both very good," she said.

But 27-year-old Ryan Kelly said his first pick is still DeSantis — a decision, he said, that became clearer after attending Haley's town hall event in Pella. Kelly, a Des Moines resident, said he believes DeSantis is "a little more forceful" than Haley and that he has been a fan of the Florida governor since he resisted calls for a statewide shutdown during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"He has a record of putting wins on the scoreboard against the left, which Haley really doesn't. And I don't think that's really even in her intuition to do that," Kelly said.

Still, he told the Des Moines Register, he is among the Republican voters seeking an alternative to Trump and that if Haley were the GOP presidential nominee, he would have "no problem at all" voting for her.

Of Trump, Kelly said he is "old," "decrepit" and "a liability."

"He's lost us four consecutive election cycles in a row, and I don't think he's learned anything. I don't think there's changing," he said.

F. Amanda Tugade covers social justice issues for the Des Moines Register. Email her at ftugade@dmreg.com or follow her on Twitter @writefelissa.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Gaza refugees unwelcome, Haley says in Iowa, refuting DeSantis' claim