Joe Biden condemns Hamas for ‘unadulterated evil’ in attack on Israel

It came as details emerged of a massacre at Kfar Aza Kibbutz Kfar Aza

Israeli soldiers carry a body of a person killed in Hamas attack in kibbutz Kfar Azza. Photo: AP Photo/Erik Marmor

US President Joe Biden last night condemned acts of “unadulterated evil” by Hamas in Israel as details began to emerge of a massacre in a kibbutz.

Israeli soldiers took reporters to a site in Kfar Aza, a short distance from the boundary with the Gaza Strip, where reports emerged of babies killed and terrorists bodies still lying in the grass.

Maj Gen Itai Veruv said: “You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms and how the terrorist kills them.

“It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre.

“It’s something I never saw in my life. It’s something I used to imagine of my grandmother and my grandfather in Europe and other places.”

Mr Biden condemned Hamas for “sheer evil” following its multipronged attack that is now estimated to have killed more than 1,000 civilians and at least 14 Americans.

The US State Department said secretary of state Antony Blinken will travel to Israel this week to show US support after the Hamas attacks.

Mr Biden said he and other allies will continue to take action to support Israel and expressed his horror over the “sickening” reports of torture inflicted by militants on innocent civilians.

“Our hearts may be broken but our resolve is clear,” Mr Biden said.

He added: “Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow as we always have.”

Mr Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone earlier yesterday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the situation on the ground.

Retaliatory strikes by Israel on the Gaza Strip have also left hundreds of dead and wounded Palestinians in the blockaded 141-square mile area, one the poorest places in the world.

The death toll was expected to grow as Israel pummelled Gaza with airstrikes and sent tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing into UN shelters.

Mr Biden said he has directed his team to share intelligence and military experts to consult and advise Israelis. He also confirmed that the US believes that Americans are among dozens of hostages taken by Hamas.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US, at the moment, has no plans of putting US troops on the ground.

“As president I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world,” Mr Biden said.

Mr Sullivan said US intelligence did not pick up signs of the Hamas attack.

“We did not see anything that suggested an attack of this type was going to unfold any more than the Israelis did,” Mr Sullivan told reporters.

As other White House officials have done in recent days, Mr Sullivan also reiterated that the US government has also not seen any direct linkage between Iran and the Hamas attack over the weekend.

“While Iran plays this broad role — sustained, deep and dark role — in providing all this support and capabilities to Hamas, in terms of this particular, gruesome attack on October 7, we don’t currently have that information,” Mr Sullivan said.

The White House on Monday confirmed that it has already begun delivering critically needed munitions and military equipment to Israel, and the Pentagon was reviewing its inventories to see what else can be sent quickly to boost its ally in the war against Hamas.

In the south of Israel near the volatile frontier with Gaza residents have grown so used to rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants that the wail of air raid sirens has taken on a grim routine.

But this time, after fighters entered their communities on Saturday in lorries, on boats and by hang-gliders, their worst nightmares came true.

For Israelis working and living within range of Gaza, the sight of Hamas militants roaming outside their homes, and reports that Hamas had taken dozens of civilians and soldiers captive, marked a terrifying turn of events unlike anything residents had experienced before.

“This was always the nightmare. We told ourselves that one day, the terrorists will come inside here,” said Jehan Berman, 42, in the small community of Avshalom near Gaza.

It took eight hours, he said, for the Israeli military to arrive at his kibbutz and start fending off the Hamas fighters.

Mr Berman, who suffers from multiple wounds and disabilities inflicted by the past four wars and countless other skirmishes between Israel and Hamas over the years, said that Israeli authorities had notified him that Hamas had kidnapped his 75-year-old mother-in-law, along with several friends in their 30s and their small children.

Israel’s Channel 12 aired a string of harrowing phone call recordings by civilians trapped inside their homes as militants closed in. The callers used hushed tones to describe terrifying scenes to their loved ones.

“We can hear them, they’re breaking in through the windows and there’s no one here to help us,” one caller said.

A son whispered to his mother that he could hear gunshots. She pleaded with him to find somewhere secure to hide. Another caller told her relative she was not sure whether she would get out safely. “I love you, I love you,” she said.

News of the invasion, with its haunting echoes of the 1973 Mideast War, sent millions of Israelis rushing to bomb shelters. Some in hard-hit communities were evacuated to protected spaces further north.

Families who were huddled in their basements had little idea what was unfolding above them but heard deeply disturbing sounds – not just the usual shriek of rockets and muffled bangs of explosions, they said, but the loud crackling of gunfire that indicated fighters were on the ground, and getting closer.