Massacre

Major speech will come day after US president visited Israel on a wartime solidarity trip as he works to secure US defense assistance for Israel in wake of Hamas October 7 massacre

Taking a rare step, Biden to deliver Oval Office address about Israel

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the war between Israel and Hamas after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, October 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. (AP/ Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — US President Joe Biden will deliver an address to the nation from the White House’s Oval Office on Israel and Ukraine on Thursday, a sign of how invested the United States is in the outcome of Israel’s war with Hamas.

“Tomorrow, President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia’s ongoing brutal war against Ukraine,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House spokeswoman, said in an email Wednesday night to reporters. The speech will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.

Oval Office addresses are rare and signify major crises. President George W. Bush used the Oval Office in 2003 to announce his intention to invade Iraq.

President Barack Obama spoke about a deadly Islamist mass shooting in San Bernardino in 2015. President Donald Trump announced measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in a March 2020 address.

Biden wants Congress to fund US defense assistance for Israel as it deals with the aftermath of the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, and as Ukraine seeks gains in its bid to oust Russian invaders.

War erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw at least 2,500 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing over 1,400 people and seizing 200-250 hostages of all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities. The vast majority of those killed as gunmen seized border communities were civilians — men, women, children and the elderly. Entire families were executed in their homes, and over 260 were slaughtered at an outdoor festival, many amid horrific acts of brutality by the terrorists, in what Biden has highlighted as “the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

Biden made a lightning visit Wednesday to Israel to show his support. While there, he secured an agreement from Israel to allow the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which Hamas controls, from Egypt.

He also urged Israelis to learn the lessons from US campaigns after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“Justice must be done,” said Biden, speaking in Tel Aviv after a six-hour visit to Israel, the first by a US president during a war.

“But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it,” he continued. “After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Congress remains stuck in neutral as Republicans remain unable to replace Kevin McCarthy as speaker, after radicals on the party’s far right engineered his ouster two weeks ago.

There is widespread support for Israel funding in Congress but growing Republican opposition to additional funding for Ukraine. The latest Republican to seek the speakership, Ohio’s Jim Jordan, says he would not advance funding for Ukraine. Jordan failed Wednesday in his second bid this week to be elected speaker, as Republican moderates and right-wingers remain incapable of reconciling.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.