As Haley and DeSantis spar over Israel and Gaza refugees, looking back at her record on world stage

As a war between Israel and Hamas continues to escalate in the wake of Hamas' terror attack on Israel earlier this month, the politics of the unfolding conflict are reverberating stateside.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has been going back and forth with Florida governor and 2024 rival Ron DeSantis over how the United States should respond to what the U.N. calls a "humanitarian crisis" in the Hamas-controlled Gaza territory.

The tit-for-tat between the two Republican presidential candidates, in which DeSantis' campaign has lobbed false claims about what she's said about refugees, began when Haley was asked on Sunday about DeSantis' comments on the campaign trail earlier this month that the U.S. should not take in any people from Gaza because they are "all antisemitic."

Haley rebuffed DeSantis during a CNN appearance, saying that many Palestinians lived a "terrible life" under Hamas' rule in Gaza, next to Israel.

"​​They want to be free from all of that. And America has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists, and that's what we have to do," Haley said. "But right now, we can never take our eyes off of the terrorists."

Haley said that any refugees from the ongoing war should be the responsibility of countries closer to Gaza -- countries, she suggested, who "know they can't vet them [refugees]."

Those comments sparked a barrage of incorrect statements from the Florida governor's campaign that accused Haley of supporting bringing Palestinian refugees to the U.S., which the Haley campaign roundly rejected.

DeSantis continued to assail Haley on Tuesday.

"Why would you even have the discussion about vetting people and saying you can separate one from the other unless you were saying we would import them?" DeSantis said during an interview on Megyn Kelly's digital show.

He echoed that when pressed on the trail on Thursday by ABC News' Hannah Demissie, who pointed to Haley not calling to accept Gaza refugees. "I think that she’s talked about vetting," DeSantis responded.

Speaking to ABC News on Thursday, a Haley spokesperson said, "Nikki was taking on Hamas and standing up for Israel at the U.N., while DeSantis was a backbench congressman."

Asked for further comment for this story, a DeSantis spokesman pointed to past statements by Haley on the value of some aid to Palestinians in Gaza, though she has more recently also criticized that money.

Looking back at Haley's record as UN ambassador

Haley had a sparse record on Israel as South Carolina governor -- given that role's limited connection to international affairs -- but while she was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in the Trump administration, she became a vocal defender of Israel.

In February 2017, striding out before the international press corps in New York City for one of her first press conferences in her new role, Haley set the tone for how the U.S. would approach the region.

Having just wrapped up a U.N. Security Council meeting on the Middle East, Haley began rattling off a list of issues the council didn't address -- Hezbollah's arms buildup in Lebanon, Iran's financing of terrorism, how to defeat the Islamic State group -- and contended that the meeting instead focused on "criticizing Israel."

"I am here to underscore the ironclad support of the United States for Israel," she said.

When the U.S. decided later that year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and then relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv, Haley was one of the most ardent backers of the decision -- even as the controversial move upended longstanding policy and drew allegations of violating international law, in light of Jerusalem's disputed status in the eyes of the Palestinians.

A U.N. resolution opposing the recognition passed with 128 member states voting in favor and nine voting against. Haley pushed back that the U.S. would "remember this day" when it was "singled out for attack."

"America will put our embassy in Jerusalem," Haley said, adding that "no vote in the United Nations will make any difference on that. But this vote will make a difference on how Americans look on the U.N."

On the 2024 campaign trail, Haley has been vocal about her role as the U.N. ambassador in supporting Israel, though she recently agreed with DeSantis that it was a "useless" organization because of the way it has handled the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Since the war started, Haley has also touched on the fact that she has experience visiting the Gaza border region, having viewed some of the much-discussed tunnels utilized by Hamas, and emphasized the steps she took as U.N. ambassador to cut off aid to Palestinian refugees.

ABC News' Will McDuffie contributed to this report.