One year ago on October 7, 2023, Hamas militants initiated a deadly surprise assault on Israel, slaughtering entire families in their homes and taking more than 250 people hostage. It was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Israel’s history.
In response to eyewitness accounts and video evidence of the atrocities, Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie voiced her support for Israel and issued the following statement:
“The Israeli people and Jewish Americans deserve our unequivocal support against threats to their very existence and the grotesque antisemitism displayed by groups here at home and in the Middle East.”
Israel wasted no time in launching its offensive and declared war on the terrorist organization, vowing to keep up the fight until Hamas is destroyed and removed from power in Gaza and all the hostages are freed.
More than 43,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Hamas set the conflict in motion to provoke Israel into an overwhelming response. In that, they were successful. The latest escalation in the Israel-Hamas war lays bare the reality that the area has grown profoundly more perilous since Hamas’s October 7 terror attack.