[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 7, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6964-S6965]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Israel

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, today is October 7, 2025. It has been 
731 days--2 years--that the war has been raging in Israel.
  On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists stormed through a fence line 
separating Gaza and Israel, and early that morning, they brutally 
slaughtered over 1,200 people--men, women, children, moms and dads, 
grandparents. There were 4,000-plus people injured, and there were 251 
people taken hostage. Forty-eight still remain today, 2 years later.
  It is hard to process what it is like for those hostages--living in 
tunnels, stored underground, moved from place to place. Who knows what 
has happened to them.
  Two years--for 2 years, Israel has said one simple thing: This war 
ends when Hamas, that terrorist organization, is not in charge of 
Gaza--because, clearly, they cannot be trusted--and when our hostages 
come home. For 2 years this war has raged unnecessarily because a 
terrorist organization is determined to drive Jews out of Israel--for 2 
years.
  I have been in Israel a couple of times during the war. I have been 
able to visit with senior leadership there to be able to get a status 
update, but I also took the opportunity to drive south, right along to 
the Gaza border, to visit the kibbutzim that are now empty, which were 
previously full of families and children. I was there in the springtime 
last year and saw the flowers popping up just organically, on their 
own, in an empty kibbutz, and I realized the horror of what happened 
that day.
  I visited the Nova music festival--just a big, open field with trees 
around it. You can look across the horizon and see Gaza. The Nova music 
festival site of that field was just a gathering place for literally an 
all-night set of concerts that were running early into the next 
morning. People were just there enjoying the music, until terrorists 
came onto that field and started killing as many people as they could, 
raping as many women as they could, tormenting as many people as they 
could, and grabbing folks and taking them back into Gaza as hostages.
  Elkana was one of those men. He was a husband. He was a dad of a 
young son. He was actually taken hostage back to Gaza from the Nova 
music festival while he was literally trying to help the wounded. But 
he remains a hostage still today, one of those 48.
  President Trump has laid out a 21-point plan and has presented it 
between the folks in Gaza and Hamas and Israel to leadership all along 
the Arab world and has made a very simple statement: We have to find a 
way to be able to end the fighting, and when the fighting ends, Hamas 
cannot be in leadership in Gaza. Not only do they not have the trust of 
Israel; they don't have the trust of anyone in the region. They have to 
go. The hostages have to be released. There will have to be restoration 
in Gaza in the days ahead that should be led by the Arab communities 
around them. But there has to be a different path, and there has to be 
a recognition that Israel has a right to exist.
  In the last 2 years, we have seen not only Hamas attacking Israel, 
the Palestinian Islamic Jihad attacking Israel, Hezbollah attacking 
Israel, the Houthis attacking Israel, and then missiles and rockets 
being fired and drones being fired from Iran; and all the while, we 
hear some protesters in the streets of America, out on college 
campuses, chanting ``from the river to the sea,'' literally in support 
of some of those terrorists who are trying to kill as many Jews and 
drive the Jews out of Israel.
  So on this day, October 7, I want to remind this body and Americans 
that we continue to stand by Israel. We continue to be able to stand by 
their right to not only exist but to be able to thrive and to live in 
peace. That is their right as a nation.
  As we have faced terrorism and the threats of terrorism that come to 
us, we as a nation have pushed back against terrorism around the world 
and said: We will live in freedom and in peace.

  Regardless of their opinions of us, we have the right to be able to 
live in freedom and in peace, and we stand with Israel's right to be 
able to do the same, to be able to live in freedom and in peace.
  Now, we all grieve for innocent civilians that are living in Gaza 
right now, as Hamas literally uses them as a shield to protect their 
terrorist ambitions. No one wants to see civilians killed. But leave no 
doubt, Hamas cannot exist, as an organization and an entity.
  And the folks in Hezbollah should hear clearly, and the Houthis 
should

[[Page S6965]]

hear clearly: If you stand with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic 
Jihad, you are a threat to the security of the entire world and the 
region. You cannot continue to function as a terrorist organization and 
think that Israel will look away or that America will look away. We 
will not and cannot and will not.
  So I encourage this body to pause and realize what is happening on 
the other side of the world right now and what has been raging for 2 
years today; and for those hostages that are still being held today, 
that we would remember and we would continue to be able to stand 
against anti-Semitism and with the nation of Israel.