EAST JERUSALEM — APR. 18, 2025 — RESTRICTION: USERS MUST CREDIT “GPO” HANDOUT, MUST NOT OBSCURE LOGO — EDITORIAL USE ONLY — Newly appointed US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee paid a visit to Western Wall (Al-Buraq Wall or Wailing Wall) in the occupied East Jerusalem on his first day in office on Friday, Apr. 18. Huckabee offered prayers and placed a note in the wailing wall. Following this ritual, he delivered remarks. The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed Mike Huckabee to be the ambassador to Israel by a vote of 53-46. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman voted in favor, and Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin did not vote. Huckabee pledged to carry out President Donald Trump's policies on the Gaza Strip, maintaining that Hamas will have no future in the Palestinian enclave. "Hamas is not a government. It's not a standing army. It is a terrorist organization, and they acted like it, and they must be treated as such," Huckabee said at his nomination hearing last month before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Huckabee, the former governor of the state of Arkansas, and staunch supporter of Israel, said he hoped the war between Israel and Hamas would end with accountability for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Jewish people. Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen criticized Huckabee at the hearing for his support for Israel’s annexation plans for the West Bank, calling it highly inflammatory in the Middle East and the Muslim world.