In one of the most moving moments of the Democratic National Convention last month, the parents of an American hostage of Hamas, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, spoke about their son as the delegates chanted, “Bring them home.” Overnight Sunday, Hersh’s dead body was discovered in a tunnel under Rafah with five other dead hostages.
According to the IDF, evidence suggests that the hostages had been alive for nearly eleven months, but were executed by Hamas within the past few days.
In a late-night statement, President Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” and declared, “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.” Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris responded with a statement declaring, “Hamas is an evil terrorist organization. With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands.” She added that “the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel—and American citizens in Israel—must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza.”
But it’s worth remembering that for months, Israel pushed to enter Rafah, which is where it believed Hamas terrorists were concentrated and where the terrorist group was holding hostages, and for months, Biden and Harris warned Israel in the harshest of terms not to launch a major offensive in that area of Gaza.
Biden warned that a major Israeli operation in Rafah was a “red line” for him and suggested it could trigger a cut-off of offensive weapons. In a March ABC interview, Harris said, “We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you something, I have been studying the maps.” She added that she would not rule out “consequences” if Israel moved forward.
Keep in mind, these statements came a month after Israel rescued two hostages in Rafah.
The murder of an American hostage is a tragic failure of Biden and Harris’s policy to restrain Israel for months from doing what it has needed to do to finish off Hamas. Forty-five Americans were killed on October 7, and now it looks like an American whose story was highlighted at the DNC was executed by Hamas mere days ago. The tough talk by Biden and Harris now rings hollow.
