WASHINGTON, DC — US Se nator James Lankford (R-OK), co-chair and co-founder of the Abraham Accords Caucus and Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, spoke on the Senate floor today to mark two years since Hamas’ brutal terrorist attacks on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people and launched a war that continues to this day.

Remarks (as delivered):

“Mr. President. Today is October 7, 2025. It’s been 731 days — two years. That the war that has been raging in Israel. October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists stormed through a fence line separating Gaza and Israel and early that morning, they brutally slaughtered over 1,200 people — men, women, children, moms and dads, grandparents.

“There were 4,000-plus people injured. There were 251 people taken hostage. 48 still remain today. Two years later.

“It’s hard to process what it’s like for those hostages living in tunnels, stored underground, moved from place to place. Who knows what has happened to them? Two years.

“For two years, Israel has said one simple thing: this war ends when Hamas, that terrorist organization, is not in charge of Gaza, because clearly, they cannot be trusted — and when our hostages come home.

“For two years, this war has raged unnecessarily because a terrorist organization is determined to drive Jews out of Israel. For two years.

“I’ve been in Israel a couple of times during the war, to be able to visit with senior leadership there, to be able to get a status update. But I also took the opportunity to drive south, right along the Gaza border, to visit the Kibbutzim that are now empty, which were previously full of families and children.

“I was there in the springtime last year and saw the flowers popping up just organically on their own in an empty kibbutz and realized the horror of what could have happened that day.

“I visited the Nova Music Festival — just a big open field with trees around it. You can look across the horizon to see Gaza. The Nova Music Festival site, of that field, was just a gathering place for literally an all-night set of concerts that were running early into the next morning.

“People just there enjoying the music. Until terrorists came into that field and started killing as many people as they could, raping as many women as they could, and tormenting as many people as they could. And grabbing folks and taking them back into Gaza as hostages.

“Elkana [Bohbot] one of those men was a husband who’s a dad of a young son. He was actually taken hostage back to Gaza from the Nova Music Festival while he was literally trying to help the wounded. But he remains a hostage still today — one of those 48.

“President Trump has laid out a 20-point plan and has presented it between Gaza — the folks in Gaza and Hamas — and Israel. To leadership all in the Arab world, and has made a very simple statement: we have to find a way to be able to end the fighting, or when the fighting ends, Hamas cannot be in leadership in Gaza. Not only do they not have the trust of Israel, they don’t have the trust of anyone in the region. They have to go.

“The hostages have to be released. There’s going to have to be restoration in Gaza in the days ahead. That should be led by the Arab communities around them. But there has to be a different path, and there has to be a recognition that Israel has a right to exist.

“In the last two years, we’ve seen not only Hamas attacking Israel, Palestinian Islamic Jihad attacking Israel, Hezbollah attacking Israel, the Houthis attacking Israel, and then missiles and rockets being fired and drones being fired from Iran — all the while, we hear some protesters in the streets of America, on college campuses, chanting, ‘From the river to the sea,’ literally in support of some of those terrorists that are trying to kill as many Jews and drive the Jews out of Israel.

“So on this day, on October the 7th, I want to remind this body and Americans that we continue to stand by Israel. We continue to stand by their right to not only exist, but to be able to thrive and to live in peace. That is their right as a nation.

“As we have faced terrorism and the threats of terrorism that come to us, we as a nation have pushed back against terrorism around the world, and said, ‘We will live in freedom and in peace regardless of your opinions of us.’

“We have the right to live in freedom and peace, and we stand with Israel’s right to be able to do the same — to be able to live in freedom and peace.

“Now, we all grieve for innocent civilians that are living in Gaza right now, as Hamas literally uses them as a shield to protect their terrorist ambitions. No one wants to see civilians killed. But leave no doubt — Hamas cannot exist as an organization and an entity.

“And the folks in Hezbollah should hear clearly and the Houthis should hear clearly: if you stand with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, you’re a threat to the security of the entire world and the region.

“You cannot continue to function as a terrorist organization and think that Israel will look away, or that America will look away. We will not and cannot and will not.

“So I encourage this body to pause and realize what’s happening on the other side of the world right now and what has been raging for two years today.

“And those hostages that are still being held today — that we would remember, and we would continue to be able to stand against antisemitism and with the nation of Israel.”