Throughout my public career, I have traveled to cities and towns ravaged by wars, hurricanes, and natural disasters. But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw recently on the streets of communities in southern Israel still reeling after the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. I have seen tragedy up close, but I had never seen this. This was not the aftermath of war — this was the aftermath of evil. In all my travels, I have never experienced a greater combination of grief and anger than I felt that day.
In Kfar Aza, a small kibbutz ravaged by Hamas terrorists, I spoke to a father who saved his family from certain death by physically holding the door of their safe house shut to stop terrorists from breaking in. I heard from a mother who could only listen helplessly on the phone as her daughter was kidnapped and taken hostage. I walked into bullet-ridden homes with blood-stained walls and heard tales of unspeakable acts of violence committed against men, women, and children of every age.
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