‘The Israelis were intent on leaving no survivors,’ Massie says of the 1967 attack [File: Kylie Cooper/Reuters]

Monday, in a historic event, Thomas Massie spoke out on the Congressional floor about Israel’s lethal attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 Americans and injured at least 174. Fifteen of the surviving crew members, wives, widows, and sons were there.

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(1/4) Massie honors survivors of USS Liberty on House floor, calls for investigation into attack

By Charlotte Hazard, Reposted from KATU, June 08, 2026

“It’s a great honor, maybe one of the biggest honors of my lifetime, to stand here on the floor and do something that’s 59 years overdue: to recognize the survivors and those who gave their lives on the USS Liberty 59 years ago today,” Massie said at the start of his remarks.

The USS Liberty was a U.S. ship that was attacked by Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967. The attack happened off the coast of Egypt, resulting in 34 service members being killed and over 170 injured.

Twelve surviving members of the attack watched Massie’s speech from the House gallery.

Massie said he spoke to the survivors before coming out to speak. He said that the ship was unarmed and sent to observe a six-day war going on in the Middle East and the U.S. flag was very visibly waving on the ship.

“But what happened next surprised them all,” Massie said. “French mirage jets showed and for 25 minutes strafed and attacked the USS Liberty. They shot rockets, they shot 30 millimeter cannons into the hull and into the ship. They even dropped napalm on the bridge of the ship.”

He said this was an effort to kill everybody on board.

“According to eyewitness accounts, the Israelis machine gunned the lifeboats that they put down,” Massie said. “They machine gunned the firefighters who were on the deck.”

U.S. officials and Israeli officials have described the incident as a tragic mistake of mistaken identity.

Massie said that there were ships sent to help the USS Liberty, but they were recalled. He later added that officials such as former Secretary of State Richard Helm and former CIA Director Bobby Ray Inman don’t think the attack was an accident.

“None of these distinguished men think this was an accident,” he said. “They think it was intentional murder by the country of Israel, either as a false flag operation or because they simply didn’t want anybody observing what they were doing that day.”

He concluded his speech by calling for an investigation into what happened.

“Honor these individuals,” Massie said, referring to the survivors. “Quit ignoring they exist. Go to their website USSLiberty.org. Support them, and while they’re still alive, they need closure. Let’s give them closure. Let’s have an investigation. Let’s pass a resolution honoring them. It’s long overdue.”

(2/4) US congressman demands probe into Israel’s 1967 attack on USS Liberty

‘Thomas Massie suggests the deadly assault was not an accident and calls on the US government to honour its survivors.

Reposted from Al Jazeera , June 08, 2026

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has urged the United States to reopen its investigation into a 1967 Israeli attack on a US Navy ship, the USS Liberty, that killed 34 service members and injured 171 others.

Monday marked the 59th anniversary of the attack, and Massie honoured the occasion by delivering a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, in the presence of survivors.

The Israeli government has long maintained the incident was a “friendly fire” accident. But some crew members from the USS Liberty have disputed that assessment, calling the attack deliberate.

Massie highlighted their testimonies in his speech, which questioned the official version of the events.

“While they’re still alive, they need closure,” Massie said of the survivors.

“Let’s give them closure. Let’s have an investigation. Let’s pass a resolution honouring them. It’s long overdue. And then they can have their justice.”

The House floor speech represented a rare congressional acknowledgement of the lingering questions surrounding the attack.

It also comes at a time of growing opposition to the US’s policy of giving unconditional aid to Israel.

In the wake of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and the joint US-Israeli war against Iran, public opinion polls have shown that the US ally is becoming increasingly unpopular among the American public.

Critics have argued for decades that the USS Liberty incident and the alleged cover-up that followed illustrate a lopsided alliance with Israel that does not serve Washington’s interests.

The war on Iran and horrific atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon have renewed scrutiny of that partnership, as well as of the 1967 attack itself.

Massie is among those skeptical of the US-Israeli relationship. He has opposed the war on Iran, as well as efforts to further integrate the US and Israeli militaries.

The outgoing congressman ultimately lost his primary last month to a challenger backed by US President Donald Trump and pro-Israel groups.

In Monday’s speech, he cast doubt as to whether Israel could have unintentionally targeted the USS Liberty.

“The visibility was unlimited. The American flag was flying proudly on the USS Liberty,” he told the House, describing the ship as being “viciously attacked”.

Israel’s supporters, however, insist that the assault was a misidentification accident not uncommon in war.

At the time, Israel was locked in the Six-Day War with several Arab countries. The USS Liberty had been sent to international waters nearby for observation and intelligence collection.

But on June 8, 1967, Israeli jets opened fire and dropped napalm on the USS Liberty, before torpedoing the vessel.

“The Israelis were intent on leaving no survivors,” Massie said in his speech, noting that Israeli jets had been seen surveilling the vessel the day prior to the attack.

To back up his argument, Massie cited statements from several top diplomatic, intelligence and military officials, including former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk and ex-top General Thomas Hinman Moorer, both of whom have said they believe the attack was deliberate.

“None of these distinguished men think this was an accident,” Massie said. “They think it was intentional murder by the country of Israel, either as a false flag operation or because they simply didn’t want anybody observing what they were doing that day.”

Israel illegally seized the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and Syria’s Golan Heights by the end of the conflict in 1967.

Decades later, in 2003, Ward Boston — a US Navy official who served as an adviser to the court of inquiry that looked into the attack — released sworn testimony that lead investigator Isaac Kidd had faced pressure to rule the incident as a case of mistaken identity.

But an assessment from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that was released in 2006 claimed that Israeli pilots “failed to identify” the USS Liberty as a US ship.

Congressman Dan Crenshaw criticized Massie, a fellow Republican, on Sunday for his plans to speak about the attack on the vessel.

“The USS Liberty incident is a tragic one, but it’s an incident with a clear conclusion if one uses any objective analysis of the facts,” Crenshaw wrote on the online platform X.

But the USS Liberty Veterans Association praised Massie in a social media post. The group, composed largely of survivors, has been calling for accountability in the case.

“A dynomite [sic] telling telling of our story in such a short amount of time,” the group said of Massie’s speech. “The story NO other member of Congress will even listen to.”

(3/4) Why was Israel spared scrutiny for the 1967 USS Liberty attack?US Representative Thomas Massie honors the crew of the vessel on the House floor, bringing attention to the 1967 Israeli attack.

Reposted from Al Jazeera, June 08, 2026

On June 8, 1967, at least 34 US sailors were killed and 171 others were wounded in an Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a United States Navy technical research ship stationed in the Mediterranean Sea off Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Israel claimed it was a case of mistaken identity, saying its naval forces thought the vessel was Egyptian. However, some of the survivors and researchers have disputed the Israeli version of the incident. They lament that successive governments did little to uncover the truth behind one of the deadliest attacks on the US Navy by its closest ally, Israel.

This year, the attack has come under renewed attention after US Representative Thomas Massie called for an investigation into the “unprovoked” attack during a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on Monday.

So what do we know about one of the most controversial chapters of the US Navy?

What happened on June 8, 1967?

Israeli air and naval forces bombarded the intelligence-gathering vessel in international waters near the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 war, when Israel captured Egypt’s Sinai, Gaza and the West Bank.

The assault began when Israeli jets attacked the vessel, striking the ship’s deck with antipersonnel weapons and armour-piercing bullets.

This was followed by a devastating strike from Israeli torpedo boats that blew a massive hole in the ship’s starboard side, instantly killing 25 men in the lower research spaces. In total, 34 sailors were killed in the attack.

The crew had been flying the US flag and had even exchanged waves with low-flying Israeli aircraft earlier that morning, making their identity clear. Israel has long maintained the strike was a tragic error, claiming exhausted pilots mistook the US naval vessel for an Egyptian warship.

Was there an attempt to cover up?

Nearly 60 years on, records related to the attack remain classified, survivors and advocates say.

Richard Brooks, chief engineer on the vessel, told Al Jazeera in a 2015 interview that “it wasn’t a tragic accident”.

“It was a deliberate attack. They knew who we were. They tried to sink us. They wanted us out to either bring the Americans into the war by blaming the Arabs, or we picked up some information about their war plans.”

A naval board of inquiry was hastily convened while the severely damaged ship was dry-docked in Malta, but the proceedings concluded swiftly.

Ernie Gallo, president of the USS Liberty Survivors Group, dismissed Israel’s “mistaken identity” excuse as a lie and accused the US government of complicity for accepting the false narrative. He continues to demand a full official inquiry.

The US Congress never formally questioned the attack or formed a committee to investigate the tragedy.

Speaking in the House on Monday, Massie said the unarmed ship was flying a clearly visible US flag when it came under sustained attack.

“According to eyewitness accounts, the Israelis machine-gunned the lifeboats that they put down,” Massie said as 12 survivors watched from the gallery of the US House of Representatives. “They machine-gunned the firefighters who were on the deck.”

Israeli officials have long claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity, but Massie said senior officials, including former CIA officials, rejected that explanation.

The USS Liberty anniversary has renewed relevance because Massie has criticised Washington’s longstanding reluctance to hold Israel accountable, even when US citizens are killed. He has also opposed the latest war on Iran, which Israel dragged the US into, and which has killed at least 13 US soldiers and wounded more than 380.