Speaking at a campaign event in Milwaukee, US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has appeared to suggest that the Jewish state is guilty of committing genocide.

After a heckler interrupted the vice president at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee event on Thursday, calling Israel genocidal, Harris said: “I’m speaking right now.”

“I know what you’re speaking of. I want the ceasefire. I want the war to end, and I respect your right to speak, but I am speaking right now,” Harris added, the New York Post reported.

After saying, “What about the genocide” and yelling “19,000 children are dead, and you won’t call it a genocide,” the keffiyeh-clad man was removed.

“Listen, what he’s talking about, it’s real,” Harris said. “That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real and I respect his voice.”

In response, Republic senator Tom Cotton wrote: “Kamala Harris caters to the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas lunatics. Absolutely shameful. “She’s dangerously unprepared to be president.” Fellow Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said: “It’s ‘real’ that Israel is committing genocide? No. That’s a lie, and people like Kamala who repeat it are liars.”

“Let’s be clear: it is not ‘real’ that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a flat-out lie,” the Republican Jewish Coalition wrote. “Kamala Harris’s spreading of outrageous anti-Israel lies puts Jewish lives at risk. Absolutely shameful.”

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote that “it’s not real. It’s a blood libel, and Harris once again shows everyone with half a brain where she really stands.”