FORMER US PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Nikki Haley has been photographed writing “Finish Them” on an Israeli shell as she toured sites near the northern border with Lebanon.

The photograph was posted on X yesterday by Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli parliament and former ambassador to the United Nations, who was accompanying Haley on her visit.

“‘Finish Them’. This is what my friend the former ambassador Nikki Haley wrote,” Danon said in his post that showed a kneeling Haley writing on a shell with a purple marker pen.

Finish them!

זה מה שכתבה היום חברתי, השגרירה לשעבר, ניקי היילי על פגז במהלך ביקור במוצב של תותחנים בגבול הצפון.

הגיע הזמן לשינוי משוואה - תושבי צור וצידון יתפנו, תושבי הצפון יחזרו.

צה"ל יכול לנצח! pic.twitter.com/qvLNCXPl7o

— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) May 28, 2024

Haley was a hawkish UN envoy under Donald Trump, and her term overlapped with Danon.

In 2018 during her role as UN ambassador, she walked out of a UN Security Council meeting that was discussing the deaths of 60 Palestinians in Gaza as the Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour prepared to speak.

Then-US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley leaves a Security Council meeting as the Palestinian Ambassador prepares to speak on the situation in Gaza, 15 May, 2018 Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians.

Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,096 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Haley, 52, abandoned her White House bid in March after heavy defeats in Republican primary contests to Trump, and last week said that she would vote for him in the election.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley pictured in March Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Trump has ruled her out of contention to be his vice president, but she is a potential presidential runner in 2028.

The White House said yesterday that President Joe Biden has no plans to change his Israel policy following a deadly weekend strike on Rafah but that he is not turning a “blind eye” to the plight of Palestinian civilians.

- © AFP 2024 and with additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper