US House speaker to address Israeli Knesset on June 22

WASHINGTON

US House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that he will travel to Israel to address a special session of the Knesset on June 22.

"It will be one of the highest honors of my life to address the Israeli Knesset at this fateful moment. Our ties run deeper than military partnerships and trade agreements,” Johnson said in a statement.

"We’re bound by the same beliefs, the same psalms, and the same sacred pursuit of liberty,” he added, referring to a section included in both the Jewish and Christian scripture.

Johnson will become the third House speaker to address the Knesset, after Newt Gingrich and Kevin McCarthy, all three of them hailing from the Republican Party.

The visit comes under an invitation from Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who called Johnson "a great friend of the State of Israel and the Jewish people."

It also comes at a fraught time for the Middle East, with a growing international chorus demanding a ceasefire in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip as well as for Tel Aviv to allow international aid groups full access to the enclave to halt growing famine among the 2 million Palestinians living there.