One year after Hamas attacked Israel, both major-party presidential candidates marked the date on Monday with promises of continued support for the Jewish state.
Vice President Harris remembered the victims of the Oct. 7 attack by planting a memorial tree at her residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., while former President Trump visited a sacred site for Hasidic Jews in Queens, N.Y.
“I will never forget October 7, and the world must never forget,” Harris said during a tree-planting ceremony on the grounds of the vice president’s residence. “We must work to ensure nothing like the horrors of October 7 can ever happen again.”
Hamas, which controls Gaza, killed about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 and took some 250 hostage in Gaza, according to Israel. A year later, more than 100 hostages are still unaccounted for. Israel’s response to the attack has killed at least 41,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials.
Harris reiterated her support for Israel’s defense, and promised the Biden administration would continue working to free the remaining hostages in Gaza. She then read the names of seven missing American citizens.
Harris also called for efforts to “relieve the immense suffering of innocent Palestinians in Gaza who have experienced so much pain and loss over the year.”
She appeared alongside her husband Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish and and who has led White House efforts to fight antisemitism.
Trump visited a Jewish holy site in New York
Trump met with members of an Orthodox Jewish community in New York on Monday morning, and visited the grave of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, an influential orthodox rabbi who died in 1994. Trump was then scheduled to attend an Oct. 7 remembrance event Monday evening with Jewish leaders, according to Trump campaign officials.
Hamas’ stated goal is the elimination of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israel says the objective of the war in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas.
The war has exposed rifts within the Democratic Party over the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel. Those divides are particularly pronounced among younger voters — a key voting bloc for Democrats and a group more likely than older voters to express sympathy for the Palestinian people. According to the Pew Research Center, voters ages 18-29 also are less supportive of U.S. military aid to Israel.
Trump has sought to capitalize on those tensions within his rival’s party, saying recently that any Jewish voter who supports a Democrat is a “fool.” Those remarks drew widespread criticism from Jewish organizations across the ideological spectrum.
He continued emphasizing the message in an interview Monday with radio host Hugh Hewitt. "I did more for Israel than anybody, I did more for the Jewish people than anybody, and it's not a reciprocal, as they say," Trump said.
Copyright 2024 NPR
