It has been an absolutely brutal weekend of news, as our world is now different today than when we last talked on Friday. We’ve watched as Hamas terrorists carried out a coordinated and unprecedented holiday attack on Israel. Many are now calling it Israel’s 9/11.
Israeli officials are putting the death toll so far at 700, but it’s expected to continue rising. At least nine Americans are among the dead, and this is not including the number who have been kidnapped and are now in the custody of these Hamas terrorists.
The brutality of this attack is unlike anything many of us have seen, especially when it comes to Israel. The terrorists, unsatisfied with simply taking innocent lives, proceeded to mutilate the bodies, parading young victims in broad daylight through the streets. It’s been very difficult to watch just on X (formerly known as Twitter) never mind when you think about the people who actually had to live through it.
Civilians Targeted
One of the deadliest scenes took place at a music festival along the Gaza-Israeli border. In a video taken moments before the attacks began you see young people dancing, having the time of their lives. They all look like they’re about 20 years old. But as the video pans over, you see the beginning stages of the attack with dark plumes in the sky above. You start to see what appear to be hang gliders coming in above the skies where the young people are celebrating. Then came the armored vehicles and Hamas terrorists with machine guns. The young people began running for their lives as the sound of gunfire rang out behind them. The latest reporting has at least 260 young people killed. Their dead bodies are now being gone through by the Israelis.
One of the festival-goers was Shani Louk, a German-Israeli woman, who was at the mud festival. In one of the most disturbing scenes from this weekend, videos emerged of Shani being displayed nearly naked – seemingly dead and a minimum unconscious – as the terrorists held weapons above the body and shouted “Allahu Akbar” in celebration.
Shani’s mother told CNN that she was on the phone with her daughter as she tried to find a place to hide. Shani then stopped responding to the messages, and her mother only found out what happened to her when friends started sending her the video that showed her daughter being driven into the Gaza Strip. Her mother is holding out hope that perhaps her daughter was still alive in the video. We just don’t know.
Hamas Takes Hostages
Another young woman was seen in a now-viral video being put on the back of a motorcycle. She can be heard screaming “Don’t kill me” as she is driven away. The media is reporting that 70 to 100 people have been kidnapped and taken hostage – among them are children and grandmothers. Hamas is intentionally trying to complicate Israel’s efforts to strike back because they know Israel doesn’t like to target civilians; because they know Israel does everything within its power to protect the Palestinian civilians, never mind the Israeli civilians who have been captured and are now being used as human shields.
There are videos of young Israeli women sitting in what looks like some sort of an abandoned building – presumably in Gaza – terrified, crying, holding one another. You can hear rockets coming down. They know very well what the Israeli government is going to do in response to this terror attack, and they’re terrified. They’re hoping that they can live through the retaliation. Israel has zero desire to target civilians, but it now will have to figure out how to spare the innocent human lives as it tries to retrieve its citizens and ours who are being held hostage at this moment.
There are reports of terrorists going door to door. One mother told CNN she had been on the phone with her 16 year old and 12 year old who were home alone at the time. She heard the door break down. Imagine the terror of a 12 year old, a 16 year old on the other line and you’re not with that. The helpless mother heard terrorists screaming in Arabic and her younger child saying to them, ”I’m too young to go” and then the phone went dead. She hasn’t heard from her children since.
The Far-Left Response
I want you to think about the 12 year old who said “I’m too young to go” and hasn’t been heard from since as we get to the radical leftist response by people like the 31 student groups at Harvard, by people like elected representatives from Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Their response has been utterly inhumane, as inhumane – you could argue – as the terrorists who grabbed those children to begin with.
We have Rep. Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American a member of Congress, predictably saying: “The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” She 100 percent blames Israel. That’s what that statement is.
You’ve got Rep. Bush, who, as far as I can tell, has done absolutely nothing in her life other than protest the police killing of Michael Brown, now taking out her never ending life of grievance on the innocent Israelis. She tweeted that “violations of human rights do not justify more violations of human rights” and called on the U.S. government to end “support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid.”
We’ve got some raging antisemites in the halls of Congress. Thanks a lot, Minnesota. Thanks a lot, Missouri. Thanks a lot, the Bronx, where AOC purportedly came from. I mean, they’re open about it. They’re not even trying to hide it. And they’re the reason why a lot of this money gets funneled over to Gaza, Iran, and the like.
They really see Israel as the aggressor and, even in the wake of what I just described, they don’t have the thoughtfulness to just pump the brakes a minute. There are literally parents desperately searching for their babies right now. We saw a bus stop full of elderly women murdered. Who would murder a baby or an elderly person? Evil. Just absolute evil. And all they want to do is say, ‘Oh, Israel is evil, too.’
Pro-Hamas Protests
We have seen celebrations in support of this Hamas terrorism around the world, including right here at home. In New York City, a rally was held yesterday with participants chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They held signs reading, “When people are occupied, resistance is justified,” “End all U.S. aid to apartheid Israel,” and “Violence by any means necessary.” These are Americans sitting out there in Times Square. Unlike the left, it’s not that I feel they don’t have a right to be there, but their message is insane.
Up in Canada, our friends over at Rebel News caught video of young men cheering, waving flags, and honking in support of the Hamas-led terrorism attack on Israel. They’re having a great time. They’re thrilled. Ontario Premier Doug Ford – that’s Canada’s version of a governor – called these demonstrations “hate rallies that have no place in Ontario” and said they’re “reprehensible” and “disgusting.” He’s not wrong about that. Yet they continue. In Australia, pro-Palestinian protesters demanded that the country cut ties with Israel and ‘Free Palestine.’
There’s no sobriety. There’s no moment of honoring the dead and those who are still in harm’s way and suffering.
The Biden Administration’s Response
President Biden, meanwhile, has called the lid on any press availability today. He’s done working as of noon. That happened as we went to air. For 12 hours after the attack began, there was absolutely nothing from him. It seems the 3am phone call came and he didn’t pick up. It seems the American president was sleeping because he said he didn’t hear about this until 7:30am or 8am on Saturday morning. It had been going on all night. Finally, he managed to put out a statement.
What Comes Next
It has been confirmed by The Wall Street Journal that Iranian officials met with Hamas in Beirut a couple of months ago and gave the go ahead on this attack. This is clearly an Iranian operation and Hamas pulled it off.
We’ll get to how on earth Hamas managed to pull this off because I think a lot of our friends in Israel have been living under the belief that they were safe thanks to Iron Dome and so on. They discovered similar to the way that we did on 9/11 that, despite Israel’s strength and amazing intelligence capabilities, this was a catastrophic failure that will have to be seriously looked into.
Israel has now called up some 300,000 reservists, Gaza is under blockade, and we may be on the verge of witnessing a ground invasion. How is Israel going to get its people back if not a ground invasion?
And a note to the media: It’s not ‘Hamas militants’ who carried out this atrocity. Just stop. This is terrorism. Torturing, kidnapping, and murdering young women, grandmothers, children, babies, not to mention the young men whose lives have been taken is terrorism.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 643 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.