Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest-ranking Jewish elected leader in American history, marked the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel as a “day that will go down in infamy” and pledged America “will never forget.”
“The viciousness and brutality of Hamas’s attack remains overwhelming and heart wrenching: murdering nearly 1,200 Israelis, raping and abusing innocent victims, taking hundreds hostage, killing young people at a music festival, and burning homes to the ground to smoke out women and children,” Schumer said in a statement.
He recalled his trip to Israel after the attacks to express American solidarity and meet with the families of the American victims.
“I still remember when one of the family members told me every minute is an hour, every day is a year not knowing the fate of their loved ones held in Hamas’s captivity,” he said.
“We must not and we cannot waver in our efforts to bring the hostages home. It is long past time,” he said.
He noted that seven American hostages including several of his constituents from New York remain captive with Hamas and the bodies of several hostages have yet to be returned to their families.
“Hamas displayed such viciousness on that horrible day to try to scare the Israeli people, the American people and freedom-loving people of the world into submission—but they failed,” he said. “We will never forget.”
Schumer released the statement after spending the morning at his synagogue in Brooklyn.