Families of Oct. 7 Victims Rally at U.S. Embassy to 'Let Israel Win'

Families of victims of the October 7 terror attack, and fallen Israeli soldiers, rallied Tuesday at the Tel Aviv branch office of the U.S. embassy in Israel to demand the Biden administration allow Israel to win the war against Hamas.

Biblical scholar Dr. Sarah Schwartz, whose son, Sgt. Major David Schwartz, fell in battle in Gaza, said: “You should support us … not only with ammunition, with the ideas of destroying the Hamas.”

Israelis broadly support the ongoing attack on Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah, in southern Gaza, which the Biden administration has vigorously opposed.

Reports also emerged Tuesday that the Biden administration went behind Israel’s back to encourage Hamas to say it agreed to a ceasefire — on Hamas’s terms — as a way of dissuading Israel from entering Rafah. The U.S. has also been withholding some ammunition from Israel as a form of pressure.

The protest recalled an earlier demonstration in February, when thousands of Israelis marched in Jerusalem to demand that their government continue the fight against Hamas until victory.

Such protests typically receive less attention than protests to strike a deal to release the hostages, or to call new elections, but often represent a broader segment of Israeli public opinion.

There have been protests recently in Israel on both sides of the issue — with some demonstrators blocking roads in Tel Aviv to demand a hostage deal, and some blocking roads in Jerusalem to demand that Hamas be destroyed.

Israelis broadly support both goals, but some fear that Israel is being pressured into a weak hostage deal whose terms would require Israel to allow Hamas to survive, resulting in the defeat of one of Israel’s major war objectives.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.