Washington DC - Pro-Palestine peace activists disrupted a Senate Intelligence hearing on Tuesday during which US officials described China as the biggest threat to national security.

"The biggest threat to global security is Israel, and the whole world knows it! Stop funding Israel!" Tighe Barry, an activist with the feminist antiwar organization CODEPINK, said during testimony by FBI Director Kash Patel.

Barry and fellow CODEPINK members were taking a stand against the US' continued support for the apartheid regime of Israel, which has renewed its all-out assault on the people of Gaza. This includes killing more than 270 children in one week, according to the non-profit Save the Children.

As Barry was dragged from the room, Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, claimed CODEPINK was funded by "Communist China."

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Retired US Army Colonel and former State Department diplomat Ann Wright called out Cotton for his falsehoods, yelling: "I'm an Army colonel, and I know that CODEPINK is not funded by China. That is a lie."

"Let us be very clear. China or any other foreign government does not fund CODEPINK. No matter how many times Senator Cotton chooses to repeat that lie, the fact remains that CODEPINK is funded and powered by the people through thousands of individual donors who want peace," CODEPINK co-director Danaka Katovich said in a press release after the incident.

"CODEPINK passes its financial audits, unlike the Pentagon," Katovich added.

In a video statement after his removal, Barry pointed out Cotton's hypocrisy for taking money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) while accusing CODEPINK of working for China: "He is an agent for a foreign entity called Israel, whereas I am not getting not one dime, not one penny from any foreign agency."

"This guy is a lunatic! He's calling me a lunatic?" Barry continued. "This guy is responsible for millions of deaths worldwide. He's responsible for hundreds of billions – if not trillions of dollars – in US taxpayer money going to endless wars."

The disruption followed the release of annual US intelligence report, which claimed that China poses the top threat to American interests and security globally.

Beijing's "coercive pressure" against Taiwan and "wide-ranging cyber operations against US targets" were indicators of its growing threat to US national security, said the Annual Threat Assessment by the intelligence community.

"China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat to US national security," the report said.

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The assessment warned that Beijing would keep expanding its "coercive and subversive malign influence activities" to weaken the US internally and globally, and seek to counter what it sees as a "US-led campaign to tarnish Beijing's global relations and overthrow" the Chinese Communist Party.

China's military is gearing up to challenge US operations in the Pacific and "making steady but uneven progress on capabilities it would use in an attempt to seize Taiwan," it suggested.

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate hearing Tuesday that "China is our most capable strategic competitor" based on current intelligence.

The hearing also saw Gabbard and others grilled over the inclusion of a journalist in a Signal chat in which top Trump administration officials were discussing plans to bomb Yemen.

Beijing has denounced the new US report, calling it "biased" and accused it of "exaggerating the China threat" on Wednesday.

"The US publishes these kinds of irresponsible and biased reports year after year," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press briefing.

"We have no intention of surpassing anyone or replacing anyone," he added.

In addition to China, the assessment analyzed supposed threats to the US posed by Russia, North Korea, Iran, and "non-state transnational criminals," including Mexican drug cartels and other groups.

The report, meanwhile, affirms the US' continued alliance with Israel and makes no mention of its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.

Instead, the document classifies Hamas as a "threat to Israeli security" and states, "Low expectations on all sides that a ceasefire will endure and the absence of a credible post-fighting political and reconstruction plan, portend years of instability."