Hamas hostages’ families plead for help on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON – One month after Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,400 people and took hundreds more hostage in a brutal terror attack targeting Israel, families of the missing begged for help Tuesday during the weekly House Republican press briefing, where GOP leadership also criticized President Biden’s calls for Israel to pause their offensive.
Doris Liber, an American citizen, told the story of her son, Guy, who has been missing since he attended the Oct. 7 Nova music festival, where Hamas slaughtered more than 260 revelers.
“I’m here because it’s been 30 days – every day is like eternity to me, and I can’t wait any longer because I know that he was shot,” she said through tears. “We don’t know anything – we don’t have a list of the hostages, we don’t know their condition. I don’t have anything, so I need your help.”
Liber, who was born in Queens but now lives in Israel, said her past month has been full of “head games,” as she has heard both that her son was taken hostage and that he was killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza.
“Nobody knows anything. We don’t know if he’s killed; it was only like the next day that it spread out that there were hostages,” she said. “I was just waiting to get a message that that he was identified, but we didn’t get that. Lucky me.”
“I’m so proud of being an American and being an Israeli, as well,” she added. “But I do need you now because there’s nothing helping me now. I pray, which I didn’t do before, but – but just please help me.”
Liber’s plea came as the Biden administration continues pushing Israel to execute “humanitarian pauses” in their ground attack on Gaza. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said his country would not pause its operations without “a return of our hostages.”
State Department and White House officials say such pauses are needed to secure the release of hostages and get humanitarian aid into the territory– a move House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) criticized Tuesday.
“This is not a time to be talking about ceasefires, pauses,” Scalise told reporters. “Hamas gave that up on [Oct.] 7 when they went into villages and slaughtered people, when they attacked music festivals – peaceful music festivals – mowing down people, taking more hostages, including American citizens.”
“The State of Israel has a right to exist and to defend its people, and Israel is completely justified in its mission to eradicate Hamas once and for all.”
Scalise spoke three days after pro-Palestinian protests erupted in the nation’s capital, with tens of thousands marching on the National Mall to call on the US to stop aid for Israel out of concern for civilian casualties in Gaza.
Follow along with The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel
But House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said Tuesday said “there can be no moral equivocation” about the conflict.
“Posters of innocent victims have been ripped down, American universities [are] failing to protect their Jewish students from intimidation, harassment, and violence, and just yesterday, an elderly Jewish man in Los Angeles was beaten to death by a pro-Palestine protester,” she said. “Hear this loudly and clearly: House Republicans stand with these families [of hostages] next to us.”
“We will do everything in our power to ensure that Israel has the resources to return every last hostage to their family from these Hamas terrorists,” she added.
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who has helped evacuate more than 200 Americans from Israel in the past month, said Biden has “emboldened adversaries like the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist organization and left our key allies vulnerable in their positions today.”
“The bottom line is that Joe Biden time and time again has proven he is not prioritizing the well-being of the American people at home or abroad,” he said. “We must not forget about those who are still stranded, including the innocent hostages that Hamas, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, still has in their control.
“It has now been over a month since Hamas terrorists took innocent American hostages,” he added, “and yet we have no resolution and no plan or strategy by the administration.”
Read the full article Here
