HALC CONDEMNS HAMAS’s WAR ON ISRAEL

This Saturday — one day after the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Israelis awoke to an invasion and multi-front attack on Israel’s southern border by Hamas.

These Iranian and Turkish backed terrorists attacked from land, sea and air — launching 5,000 rockets and going door to door killing Israeli and kidnapping Israeli civilians.

We echo the immediate and unequivocal condemnation of these terrorist attacks by Prime Minister Mitsotakis and President Christodoulides, the Biden Administration, and by Israel’s many friends in the United States Congress. We are unsurprised by Iran’s celebration of these attacks and Turkey’s failure to condemn.

It should be noted that these attacks are in part motivated to prevent another peace initiative — this time between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Enemies of peace have found the multilateral diplomatic initiatives that Israel is part of — the trilateral with Greece and Cyprus; the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum; the Abraham Accords; the I2 U2 Group — inconvenient for their strategy of isolating and attacking Israel.

Blaming Israel for today’s war is absurd. The international community should continue to press for progress in the Middle East Peace Process but let us be clear: Hamas is not interested in peace, only in the destruction of Israel.

We join our partners at the American Jewish Committee in calling on Congress to pass the bipartisan Hamas International Financing Prevention Act (H.R. 340), which will impose sanctions on members of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and affiliates, cutting off access to funds that would be used to perpetrate terror. Israel has the right to defend itself and secure the release of its kidnapped citizens. We stand with Israel.