President Joe Biden and US election rivals Kamala Harris and Donald Trump marked the first anniversary on Monday (7) of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, as the Middle Eastern conflict threatens to weigh on November’s presidential vote.
In a solemn Jewish ceremony of mourning at the White House, Biden lit a candle while a rabbi chanted a prayer for the victims, with the president calling for peace even as the region teeters on the edge of all-out war.
Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Harris separately planted a memorial tree at her Washington residence, while Republican former president Trump met Jewish leaders at a sacred gravesite in New York.
Today, @SecondGentleman and I planted a pomegranate tree on the grounds of the Vice President’s Residence in honor of the 1,200 innocent souls massacred by Hamas on October 7, 2023 in Israel.
For years to come, this tree will remind us all not only of the horrors of October 7… pic.twitter.com/IGvdkIScNB
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) October 8, 2024
“Far too many civilians have suffered far too much during this year of conflict,” Biden, who has backed key ally Israel with billions of dollars in arms, said in a statement.
The president lashed out at the “unspeakable brutality” of the attacks and said he and Harris were “fully committed” to Israel’s security against Iran and its regional allies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Huthis in Yemen.
But he also described October 7 as a “dark day for the Palestinian people” and said he and Harris “will not stop working to achieve a ceasefire deal in Gaza.”
As Israel pounds Lebanon to tackle the Hezbollah militia, both Biden and Harris said in separate statements that a “diplomatic solution” was the “only path” to a wider peace.
Protesters against the Gaza war could be heard in the background as Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a US president or vice president, planted a pomegranate tree in what she said was a symbol of “hope and righteousness.”
Today, Jill and I lit a yahrzeit candle in memory of the 1,200 innocent lives that were stolen in Israel during the unspeakable brutality of the October 7th attacks.
On this solemn anniversary, we honor the indomitable spirit of the Jewish people. pic.twitter.com/quY5RylKwD
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2024
Speaking afterward, Harris told reporters that a Gaza ceasefire deal was the best hope to “bring any type of stability to the region.”
“We’re not giving up. We’re doing everything we can possibly do to get the ceasefire hostage deal done,” Harris said.
Trump, Harris’s rival in the tooth-and-nail election, paid his respects at the final resting place of a famous rabbi in New York before delivering remarks at an evening event at his Trump National Doral Golf Club in Florida.
“We can never forget the nightmare of that day,” Trump told a crowd of a few hundred at his golf club, adding that “the October 7 attack would never have happened if I was president.”
And he hailed progress in Israel’s campaign to degrade Hamas’s military capabilities, telling his audience: “The dawn of a new, more harmonious Middle East is finally within our reach.”
Earlier he blasted Biden and Harris over their handling of the region in an interview, accusing the incumbent of having the “worst foreign policy of anybody in history probably.”
The anniversary has underlined Biden and Harris’s apparent powerlessness to influence Netanayhu’s conduct over the past year, and especially now as the Middle East is on the verge of full-scale war.
Israel is expected to retaliate imminently for a massive Iranian missile attack, but Biden has urged Israel not to attack Iran’s oil facilities, fearing it could push up oil prices and hit the US economy with less than a month until the election.
The Gaza war has also created a political minefield for Harris and Biden, with Arab and Muslim voters in key swing states and left-wing Democrats strongly opposed to the conflict.
A small protest against Israel’s war in Gaza and Biden’s support for Israel took place at New York’s Columbia University while hundreds of people rallied in the Wall Street financial district.
Dozens of pro-Palestinian Columbia students walked out of classes and marched around the central lawn, wearing keffiyehs and holding Palestinian flags. Some pro-Israel supporters demonstrated at the same time.
The Hamas attacks on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official Israeli figures.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 41,909 people, the majority civilians, have been killed since the start of the war. The figures have been deemed to be reliable by the United Nations. (AFP)
