Biden In Tel Aviv Recounts the Horrors Of Hamas’s Terror Attack, Announces Deal to Allow Humanitarian Aid Into Gaza
President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke from Tel Aviv after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and survivors of Hamas’s devastating terror attack on the south of Israel that left over 1,300 people dead and over 200 kidnapped
Biden unequivocally offered support to Israel and called for Congress to pass additional aid for Israel to maintain its “qualitative military edge” in the reason. Biden also said there is an agreement for humanitarian aid to move into Gaza from Egypt while denouncing the hundreds of civilians killed by an Islamic Jihad rocket misfire at a hospital.
“I know the recent terrorist assault on the people of this nation has left a deep, deep on more than 1,300 innocent Israelis killed, including at least 31 American citizens by the terrorist group Hamas,” Biden said, adding:
Hundreds, hundreds of young people at a music festival, festival for peace, for Peace gunned down as they ran for their lives. Scores of innocents from infants to elderly grandparents, Israelis and Americans taken hostage, children slaughtered, babies slaughtered, entire families massacred, raped, beheaded, bodies burned alive. Hamas committed atrocities, that recall the worst ravages of ISIS, unleashing pure, unadulterated evil upon the world. There’s no rationalize, you know, excusing it, period.
The brutality we saw would have cut deep anywhere in the world but cut much deeper here in Israel, October 7th, which was sacred to a sacred Jewish holiday, became the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. It has Brought to the surface painful memories of the scars left by millennia of antisemitism and the genocide of the Jewish people.
“To those who are living in limbo, waiting desperately to learn the fate of a loved one, especially to families of the hostages. You’re not alone. We’re working with partners throughout the region, pursuing every avenue to bring home those who are being held captive by Hamas. I can’t speak publicly about all the details, but let me assure you, for me, as the American president, there’s no higher priority than the release and safe return of all these hostages,” Biden added.
The president then spoke about the pain of grieving loss and eventually turned to the concern of a wider regional conflict.
“The world will know that Israel is Israel stronger than ever. And my message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago. Don’t, don’t, don’t. Since this terrorist terrorist attack took place, we’ve seen it described as Israel’s 9/11. But for a nation size of Israel. It was like 15 9/11s,” Biden added.
He then offered a warning about responding with rage:
I caution this, while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were in rage in the United States while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes. I’m the first U.S. president to visit Israel in a time of war. I made wartime decisions. I know the choices are never clear or easy for the leadership.
Biden then turned to Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there.
“The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. Hamas uses innocent, innocent families in Gaza as human shields, putting their command centers, their weapons, their communications tunnels in residential areas. The Palestinian people are suffering greatly as well. We mourn the loss of innocent Palestinian lives like the entire world,” Biden said, adding:
I was outraged and saddened by the enormous loss of life yesterday in a hospital in Gaza. Based on the information we’ve seen today, it appears a result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza. The United States unequivocally stands for the protection of civilian life during conflict. And I grieve. I truly grieve for the families were killed and wounded by this tragedy.
The people of Gaza need food, water, medicine, shelter. Today, I asked the Israeli cabinet, who I met with for some time this morning to agree to the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza based on the understanding that there will be inspections, that the aid should go to civilians, not to Hamas.
Watch the full clip above.
