President Donald Trump marked the third anniversary of Hamas's October 7, 2023 terror attacks on Wednesday with a personal tribute to the 1,200 Israelis murdered and the 251 taken hostage, writing on Truth Social that the world witnessed "one of the darkest and most evil days in the history of Israel."
In the post, the 47th President recalled the brutality of the attack — "innocent men, women, and children were murdered, kidnapped, and subjected to unimaginable horrors at the hands of Hamas TERRORISTS" — and pointed directly to his own record on the hostage file.
"I fought relentlessly to bring the hostages home, and reunite them with their loved ones, and I did, both the living and the dead!" Trump wrote.
The White House echoed that message in a statement posted to X: "Today, three years after the horrific October 7 attacks, we remember the innocent lives taken by Hamas terrorists. The Trump Administration remains committed to confronting terrorism and bringing hostages home. America will always stand as a beacon of freedom, defending our allies and values around the world."
Trump also discussed the anniversary in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, according to RedState, which first reported the President's statement and the exchange with the Israeli leader.
Wednesday's memorials stretched from southern Israel to Tel Aviv. According to the BBC, families and survivors gathered at the site of the Nova music festival — where 378 people were killed — from sunrise, while tens of thousands attended a national vigil at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv. Israeli President Isaac Herzog, speaking at the Nova site, said, "We are here to tell their story and to remember and reflect and reminisce in this solemn day and say to the world, we shall dance again, we shall live again."
Sharone Lifschitz, a British-Israeli whose parents were both taken hostage, told the BBC at a London vigil that "you live through it in your body and your soul" on the anniversary. Her father was killed; her mother was later released.
Not everyone in New York marked the day the same way. RedState flagged a statement from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on the anniversary, calling it "disgraceful and, frankly, un-American" — a charge that drew immediate attention given Mamdani's office and the city's large Jewish population.
The contrast between the two men's remarks was the through-line in conservative coverage of the anniversary. As one editor's note attached to RedState's report put it, "Thanks to President Trump and his administration's bold leadership, we are once again respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice."
Three years on, the region remains volatile. The Hamas-run Ministry of Health says more than 74,200 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military offensive in response to the attacks, a figure the BBC reported but which cannot be independently verified. On the same day as the memorials, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that at least one Palestinian was killed and 14 injured when Jewish settlers attacked olive farmers near Nablus in the occupied West Bank; the Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams treated two people for gunshot wounds and three who had been beaten.
For American voters, the anniversary lands in a second Trump term built around strength abroad and order at home — and the President is using the moment to remind the country who he says got the hostages out and who, in his view, would not have.
Our Take
Three years ago, Hamas terrorists livestreamed their butchery. They raped, they burned families alive, they dragged grandmothers and toddlers into tunnels. And within hours, the usual suspects in the legacy media and the activist class started explaining why it was complicated. It wasn't complicated. It was evil.
On Wednesday, President Trump did what an American president is supposed to do: he named the evil, he honored the dead, and he told the truth about the hostages — that his administration fought to bring every last one home, living and dead. That is what moral clarity looks like. That is what strength looks like.
And then there's Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of America's largest city, on the same day, with a statement so callous that even RedState had to call it what it is: un-American. This is the same radical Left that spent three years telling you October 7 was "resistance," and now they run major American cities. Patriots, that is not a policy disagreement — that is a sickness in our body politic, and it will not cure itself.
Which raises the question every voter should be asking tonight: if the Left can't bring itself to mourn Jewish children slaughtered by terrorists, what exactly will it defend? And how much longer do we keep electing people who won't answer that question honestly?
