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By Joe W. Bowers Jr | California Black Media
October 7, 2023, will be known as Israel’s 9/11. Hamas terrorists crossed the Israel-Gaza border and indiscriminately slaughtered Israeli civilians in their homes and apartments. They killed nearly 300 young people at a music festival and took at least 200 hostages including 30 children. The atrocities they committed included massacres of entire families, the abduction of the elderly and young children, burning babies and rapes of women.
The horrific surprise attack by Hamas deserves universal and unequivocal condemnation. President Joe Biden called what Hamas did an act of sheer evil and pledged to defend the lives of Israelis and Jewish Americans. He said, “Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow as we always have.”
Hamas killed approximately1400 people including 32 Americans. Citizens from 40 different countries including the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, and Thailand were killed or reported missing.
Hamas fighters breached Israel’s border defenses on the final day of Sukkot while soldiers were away due to the holiday and launched attacks on 22 towns outside the Gaza Strip. This security lapse has been described as a catastrophic failure of Israel’s intelligence agencies, including Aman, Mossad, and Shin Bet.
Hamas is an extremist Islamist militant organization that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. It is recognized as an Iranian backed terrorist group by the US and European Union and has a long history of violence against Jews and Palestinians, the latter of whom they often use as human shields.
