Joe Biden says fourteen Americans in Israel were killed in an ‘act of pure EVIL’ by Hamas terrorists – and more were taken hostage – in first public speech in THREE days
- Biden says fourteen Americans were killed in Hamas attack on Israel
- He confirmed that American citizens are also being held by the terrorist group
President Joe Biden delivered a dramatic speech on Tuesday in which he pledged to support Israel and denounce the “unadulterated evil” of terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,000 people, including 14 Americans, over the weekend.
He warned that American citizens were also among those captured by Hamas gunmen.
“You know, there are moments in this life — I mean this literally — when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” he said, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“The people of Israel experienced such a moment this weekend.”
He was criticized for his slow response to the crisis, hosting a barbecue for staff on Sunday and not appearing in public on Monday.
US President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, makes remarks after a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Biden was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and senior security officials for a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel before delivering his speech
But he broke his silence with a speech dripping with anger at the horrors unleashed by Hamas terrorists.
“Parents were slaughtered while using their bodies to protect their children,” he said.
‘Stomach-turning reports of babies dying. Whole families murdered.
“Young people are being slaughtered while attending a music festival to celebrate peace… to celebrate peace… women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.”
Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the heaviest airstrikes in its 75-year-old conflict with the Palestinians, turning districts into dust despite a threat from Hamas militants to execute a prisoner for each hit.
Biden addressed the nation after his third phone call in four days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A day earlier, the White House said it expected to meet additional security requests from Israel as soon as possible.
The United States has no plans to send American forces to the scene, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
People mourn at the grave of Eden Guez, who was killed at a festival attacked by Hamas gunmen killing at least 260 people, during her funeral in Ashkelon, southern Israel.
Rockets fired from Gaza City (R) are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense missile system (L) on October 10, 2023
Israel has called up an unprecedented 300,000 of its own reservists.
Biden and Netanyahu, despite differences over the way forward in the Middle East, have found themselves in a war partnership following Hamas militants’ multiple attack from Gaza on Israel.
The Israeli embassy in Washington said the death toll from Hamas’s weekend attacks has surpassed 1,000, dwarfing all modern Islamist attacks on the West since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
