[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 171 (Wednesday, October 18, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S5068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISRAEL

  Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, I come here to join my colleagues to 
talk about the events of the past 10 or so days in Israel and the 
horrible attacks.
  I want to talk a little bit about two visits that I have made there 
over the past year or so, the most recent one back in February. But I 
want to start with holding our Members accountable here on Capitol 
Hill.
  This was posted on social media, and it reads like false statements 
that we have seen from Hamas and other groups that want to foment hate 
and death in the region. It reads like this: Israel just bombed the 
Baptist Hospital building, killing 500 Palestinians--doctors, children, 
patients--just like that.
  That was within an hour or two of the bombing. Before we knew 
anything, before any of us could have possibly had a secured briefing, 
before we had gotten an assessment from the President of the United 
States or any of our intelligence sources here, before we could go down 
to the SCIF and actually understand the details, that statement was 
made.
  You would think that would come from a member of Hamas, but it came 
from a Member of our Congress. If that Member of Congress wants to take 
responsibility for the protest that we now see in Beirut--good on you, 
in Jordan, in Amman, and in Egypt. This sort of leadership or failure 
of leadership has no place on Capitol Hill.
  Now I want to talk about why I think Hamas is evil and why Iran is a 
part of this and why this is not surprising that the very details of 
this attack took place.
  Earlier this year, in February, I was in--well, let me back up. A 
couple of years ago, I was in Israel, and we went down to the Gaza 
Strip. We saw a tunnel head. We actually walked into a tunnel that was 
discovered by the Israelis. We went to a Patriot battery or an armed 
dome battery that every day is prepared to shoot down missiles because 
that always happens. Before this attack, it happened almost on a daily 
basis. I have literally been in Israel when I am having lunch, in 
northern Israel--this was near the Golan Heights--and I am asking 
somebody to pass a plate of food, and a bomb goes off. And the people 
living in this kibbutz did not even miss a beat. Every day they have to 
live with this stuff.
  So now, down in Gaza, we see the tunnel system that is in Gaza. If 
you go north to the Lebanese border, you will see an entire network of 
tunnels that the Israelis identified just in time. It had been a 
project, it was estimated to be, 10 years in the making, funded by 
Iran. Hezbollah is in Lebanon. Hamas is down in the Gaza Strip. They 
had developed these tunnel networks, and they were prepared to do the 
same thing in northern Israel that we saw in southern Israel over the 
past week and a half. They even want to design this to strike fear and 
terror in the Israeli people. They want them to think--they want their 
children to think that they are going to pop out of the ground and 
kidnap them and kill their parents. This is a part of the terror that 
they want the Israeli people to live with every single day.
  The Iranians were absolutely responsible for funding Hamas to build 
that tunnel network in northern Israel, and they do the same thing with 
Hamas in southern Israel.
  Ladies and gentlemen, first off, this has to end. Let us work with 
facts. If Israel doesn't abide by the rules of war, then we should hold 
them accountable. But what we are finding out now from additional 
intelligence sources is that it does appear as though this was not an 
Israeli strike; that it was probably a failed missile launch from 
Hamas.
  Well, let the facts lead where they may, but here is what I do know: 
This congressional Member and others, before they can actually stand up 
to the Palestinian people--who I believe the majority of whom are good 
people who want to live free and live in democracy--they have to 
recognize that Hamas is evil, every single one of them. From their 
leadership down to their rank and files to the ones who flew the 
ultralights in to the people who came out of the tunnels and murdered 
over 1,200 people, they have to be held accountable. Their funder has 
to be held accountable. Their strategists in Iran have to be held 
accountable.
  We in the United States have to stand by Israel and by freedom-loving 
Palestinians and freedom-loving members of the Middle East, but we 
cannot let this go. We cannot let this evil go unchecked.
  We have to stand by Israel, and we have to make sure that we do 
everything we can to educate the American people on the facts and 
disabuse them of any notion that this congressional Member or anyone 
else has any place in communicating that misinformation to the American 
people and across the world. And the violence that can come from making 
people believe that, they have to own.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

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