President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will memorialize the one-year anniversary on Monday of Hamas’s terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The three will attend separate events.
The president and Jill Biden intend to join a rabbi in lighting a memorial candle shortly before noon, according to a White House release.
The event will be covered only by the in-house pool, meaning a small number of reporters who represent their colleagues have an opportunity to shout questions at the president, who might opt to respond.
Only pool reporters will be permitted to cover Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff planting a “memorial tree” at the vice president’s residence to “honor the victims,” per the White House. The two will deliver remarks in the afternoon that the White House will livestream, the White House added.
Emhoff also plans to attend an American Jewish Committee memorial service in the morning, which will be live-streamed and open to the press, the White House said.
War on ‘our shared values’
Former President Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential nominee, plans to participate in an Oct. 7 remembrance event on Monday evening in Miami.
“Jewish community leaders will gather to honor the 1,200 lives lost after being taken hostage and killed on that fateful morning one year ago,” the Trump campaign stated. “The event will also remember the victims of antisemitic violence that has continued to afflict communities worldwide since that tragic day.”
The campaign added that Oct. 7 “was the day in which the most Jewish people were murdered since the Holocaust.”
“Hamas and other Iranian-backed proxies launched a war, not just against Israel, but against all of our shared values. What we have witnessed in the past year is a battle between the forces of good versus evil,” per the campaign.
–JNS.org | Used with permission