Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “likely committed a war crime” by issuing an order that led to a secondary strike in September on boats allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., said in a news release today.

Hegseth gave a directive to “kill everybody,” the Washington Post reported Friday.

Acting on Hegseth’s order, a special operations commander approved a secondary strike — even after seeing two men clinging to the “smoldering wreck” of their boat minutes after the initial attack, according to the outlet.

“It’s deeply shameful that the Secretary of Defense would violate the laws of armed conflict and put our brave servicemembers in this position,” Rosen, who serves on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, wrote in a statement Monday. “He should resign immediately.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., told the Sun that the reports on Hegseth “are just the latest proof he is not qualified to lead our armed forces.”

“I called for Secretary Hegseth to resign in April after he shared classified information over Signal. He should never been confirmed in the first place,” Cortez Masto wrote in a statement, adding that she found the recent claims “deeply concerning.”

Rosen on Monday reiterated her call for transparency over the strikes. Last week, she joined a letter demanding to make public a Department of Justice opinion on the legal basis for recent strikes near South America and in the Caribbean.

The U.S. campaign has killed 83 people since the Sept. 2 strikes at the center of Hegseth’s most recent controversy, according to CNN.

Rosen, who has gotten into multiple spats with Hegseth during Senate Armed Service Committee hearings, also called for a “thorough investigation.”

On Friday, the top committee members from both parties issued a joint statement saying they were aware of recent reporting and had “directed inquiries” to the Department of Defense. Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., wrote that “we will be conducting vigorous oversight.”

Leadership in the House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee, also chaired by a Republican, made a similar statement Saturday.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Monday that Hegseth authorized a second strike, which Admiral Frank Bradley then executed. Leavitt told reporters that Bradley was “well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed.”

“This administration has designated these narco-terrorists as foreign terrorist organizations,” the press secretary said. “The president has the right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America — If they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate, which is what they are doing.”

Steven Cheung, the White House’s communications director, has also been critical of the Washington Post’s reporting. Cheung said the publication “provided NO FACTS and NO SUBSTANTIATION,” saying the Post “literally just printed what some unnamed random person said.”

Hegseth has taken a flippant tone toward his critics, posting a seemingly AI-generated image of children’s book character Franklin the Turtle firing at boats from a helicopter. The title of the parody is “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.”

“For your Christmas wish list,” the defense secretary posted on social media.

The controversy comes amid rising tensions with Venezuela, with Democratic critics saying that President Donald Trump is inching the U.S. closer to war with the South American country.

Along with tying the country’s leadership with the drug trade, the United States has been building up forces in the Caribbean. Trump recently said the U.S. could soon launch strikes on land, ostensibly to further disrupt drug trafficking, and called for the shutdown of the country’s airspace.

“This type of declaration constitutes a hostile, unilateral, and arbitrary act, incompatible with the most fundamental principles of International Law and part of a permanent policy of aggression against our country,” said Yván Gil, Venezuela’s foreign minister wrote in a statement.