New York Gov. Kathy Hochul sat down with Spectrum News NY1 on Friday to discuss her visit to Israel, hours after she returned from the two-day trip. 

Speaking with NY1’s Errol Louis Friday morning, Hochul said she felt an “overwhelming need” to show support for Israel in the wake of Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians. 

The governor said she made the decision to travel there a day after the attack, calling it an “intentional infliction of pain and suffering and death upon civilians by a terrorist organization.” 

“We knew we needed to wait until it was secure, but I said, ‘I have to go there, because this is an attack on the people of Israel directly,’” she recalled. “And we know about being attacked by terrorist organizations here in New York City, and I felt this overwhelming need to go there and say, you know, on behalf of New Yorkers — particularly the very large Jewish community we have in New York — that I wanted to go there to show our support, meet with people who have endured the unspeakable.” 

After she landed on Wednesday, Hochul said she called for the release of the approximately 200 hostages Israel said Hamas is still holding in the Gaza Strip, including Long Island native Omer Neutra, whose parents she met at a rally a week ago. 

“They hugged me and begged me to do whatever I could,” she said, noting that she met with Neutra’s aunt, uncle and cousin during her trip. “So I literally took his picture, handed it to the president of Israel and said, ‘His family’s from Long Island. I need him brought home. I need him to be safe.’”

The governor also took the opportunity to press for humanitarian aid into Gaza in light of Israel’s ongoing airstrikes on the region, she said. 

“I had a chance to speak to the government at the highest levels, prime minister, president, ambassadors, and said, you know, we cannot leave the innocent people of Gaza alone either,” she said. “They need humanitarian aid. Let those trucks flow, let the aid flow.”

As she made her way through Israel, Hochul said she witnessed scenes from the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack. The governor said she visited a kibbutz at the border with Gaza that was “one of the first communities obliterated.” 

“I mean, the horrors of what I saw — and I’m not describing everything — is with me forever,” she said. "But we must stand firm in our resolve to never let this happen again, because no one, no one deserves to be treated like just, like they’re worthless, their life doesn’t matter.”

Asked about the concerns of Palestinian New Yorkers living in fear for loved ones amid Israel’s siege on Gaza, Hochul reiterated her call for aid to the region.

“When I spoke to the Israeli leadership, I said, we have to get the aid flowing to these people, and you have to plan your strategies to minimize any casualties of civilians, because we knew in Israel how horrible it felt to see innocent people affected. But we also can’t let Hamas get away with this,” she said. 

“And so we have to get hostages home, get the aid so the innocent people are not affected. But Israel has a right to defend itself, just as America would if the same thing happened to us,” she added. 

Speaking with NY1 on Friday, Hochul also touched on the death of her father, John Courtney, who passed away during her trip. The governor paid a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem after she learned of his passing.

“I went quickly to the Wailing Wall, and was able to meet some rabbis there, and put a message in the wall, which was important to me to pray for the people of Israel, but also all the innocent victims as a result of the now-war, and for my father, and I stopped in the church there,” she said. 

Hochul said her father and mother were “incredible social activists in the ‘60s, and that’s why I am who I am.” 

“You know, they had seen Dr. King. My father and mother were involved in integrating white communities in Buffalo in the 60s. They were against the Vietnam War,” she said. “We brought children of immigrants into our home, little kids from all over who didn’t have places to go.” 

“And my father worked really hard at the steel plant — his parents were very poor immigrants — and then one day, when he got that college degree, he was able to move out of the trailer park where he lived with my mom and the first born, a year older than me,” she added. “It was really the American dream, Errol, because they had nothing, they worked hard, and then they gave back to their communities.”