US President Joe Biden said during a fundraising event in Boston today (Tuesday) that the international community must condemn the rape and sexual violence committed by the Hamas terrorist organization during the massacre of October 7.
“Over the past few weeks, survivors and witnesses of the attacks have shared the horrific accounts of unimaginable cruelty," Biden said. "Reports of women raped — repeatedly raped — and their bodies being mutilated while still alive — of women corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them. It is appalling."
He added, “The world can’t just look away at what’s going on. It’s on all of us — government, international organizations, civil society and businesses — to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation. Without equivocation, without exception."
He stated that Hamas "refused to let go" many women during the ceasefire deal with Israel last week.
“These women and everyone still being held hostage by Hamas need to be returned to their families immediately. We’re not going to stop — we’re not going to stop until we bring every one of them home and it’s going to be a long process,” Biden said.
Yesterday, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller accused Hamas of refusing to release some of the hostages because it does not want them to reveal how they were treated while in its custody.
"The fact that it seems one of the reasons they don't want to turn women over that they've been holding hostage and the reason this pause fell apart, is they don't want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody," said Miller.