Biden says 14 Americans died in Israel during ‘act of sheer evil’

President Joe Biden delivered a dramatic speech on Tuesday pledging to stand by Israel and denouncing the “unadulterated evil” of terror attacks that killed more than 1,000 people, including 14 Americans, over the weekend. He warned that US citizens were among the civilians captured by Hamas gunmen.

“You know there are times in this life — and I mean that literally — when a pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed in this world,” he said, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “The people of Israel experienced such a moment this weekend.”

He had been criticized for a lackluster response to the crisis, holding a staff barbecue on Sunday and not appearing in public on Monday. But he broke his silence with a speech dripping with anger at the horrors unleashed by Hamas terrorists.

Parents were slaughtered using their bodies to try to protect their children,” he said. “Stomach Reports of Baby Murders. Entire families were killed. “Young people were massacred while attending a music festival to celebrate peace … to celebrate peace … women were sexually assaulted, assaulted, paraded as trophies.”

Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the heaviest airstrikes in its 75-year conflict with the Palestinians, reducing the neighborhoods to dust despite a threat by Hamas militants to execute a prisoner for every strike at home.

Biden spoke to the nation after his third phone call in four days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A day earlier, the White House said it expected to fulfill additional security requests from Israel as soon as possible.

The United States has no plans to put American military forces on the ground, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. Israel has called up an unprecedented 300,000 of its reservists.

Biden and Netanyahu, despite differences on the way forward in the Middle East, have been thrust into a wartime partnership following the multi-pronged attack by Hamas militants from Gaza into Israel.

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