President Biden’s Middle East Coordinator and National Security Council member Brett McGurk told the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit that Hamas leader and Oct. 7 architect Yahya Sinwar will face "justice” at some point. “Justice will come to Yahya Sinwar, make no mistake!” McGurk told cheering IAC Summit participants on Friday.
IAC Board Member Shawn Evenhaim introduced and thanked McGurk and the Biden Administration for steadfastly supporting Israel, especially since the barbaric Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror massacres, rapes, and hostage-taking, the deadliest single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust. A video tribute showcased President Biden’s lifelong support for the Jewish state, drawing a standing ovation. The president and Vice President Kamala Harris were invited to the Summit but unable to attend.
A lead member of the White House hostage negotiations team, McGurk said the Biden Administration has been focused on Israel every day since Oct. 7. “Honestly, Israel is on our hearts and in our minds every single day, every single waking moment it’s on the president’s mind,” McGurk said.
At this moment, “there is a significant risk of escalation” from conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas to a wider Mideast war, McGurk said, but the U.S. believes a diplomatic agreement can and should prevent that and allow 80,000 displaced Israelis to return home in the north, he added.
“We do not think a war in Lebanon is the way to achieve the objective of returning people to their homes. There are disagreements with Israel about how you measure escalation risks. It is a concerning situation. But I’m very confident that through diplomacy, through deterrence, and other means, we will work our way out of it.”
But, he added, “We also fully stand with Israel in their defense of their people and their territory against Hezbollah.” Referring to Hezbollah senior official Ibrahim Akil, who planned the 1983 U.S. embassy and Marine barracks bombings in Beirut and who was killed along with other Hezbollah commanders in an Israeli airstrike this past week, McGurk said: “Nobody sheds a tear for him.”
The White House is simultaneously seeking a hostage deal with Hamas and McGurk blamed the lack of a deal and rising Lebanon violence on Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “It is Nasrallah’s decision to tie the fate of Lebanon to Yahya Sinwar in a tunnel in Gaza, the Lebanese people did not vote for that, and that is a very unfortunate, very bad decision.”
On the Gaza front, McGurk said Israel had agreed to a deal including the release of six hostages but “three we were negotiating were killed in a tunnel underneath Rafah. That said a lot about the willingness of Hamas to do a deal,” he said. Sinwar “is the obstacle to the deal.” Ultimately, “this war will not end until the hostages come home, that’s been a principle for some time,” he added.