Marking the second anniversary of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, federal lawmakers announced legislation to honor those whom Hamas took hostage or killed on Oct. 7, condemn the terror group and develop a curriculum for schools to teach about the attack and about Jew-hatred.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), lead sponsor of the three bills, unveiled the bipartisan legislation as he stood outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, alongside a former hostage and a relative of one murdered by Hamas.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since Hamas terrorists brutally raped, burned alive, decapitated and murdered more than 1,200 innocent babies, children, women, men and elderly, including dozens of Americans,” Gottheimer said at the press conference.
“We will fight to honor their memory by molding our pain from that tragic day into action,” the Jewish congressman said.
The press conference took place amid hope that the war in Gaza was nearing an end. Israel and several Arab states agreed on a deal brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump to end the fighting, free the remaining hostages and increase aid to Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Trump said on Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had “both signed off on the first phase of our peace plan.”
“This means that all of the hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed-upon line as the first steps toward a strong, durable and everlasting peace,” the president said.
‘Upside-down world’
Before Trump’s announcement, former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky, whose partner Matan Zangauker remains captive, said the deal offered the best chance to free the remaining hostages or recover their bodies.
“This is not about Israel. This is about humanity,” Gritzewsky said. “Do not let this chance to free the hostages slip away.”
Yasmin Magal, whose cousin Omer Neutra was one of the American-Israeli hostages whom Hamas murdered, said that “peace cannot begin until the hostages come home.”
“There will be no happy ending, but we can have closure,” she said.
One of the bills Gottheimer introduced would give the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the body confers, to the American hostages.
The last living American hostage, Edan Alexander, was released in May after 584 days as a Hamas prisoner. He and relatives of Neutra met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday, and Gottheimer met with Alexander earlier in the day.
“He is a very remarkable individual,” Gottheimer told JNS.
The second measure would condemn the Hamas attack, denounce antisemitism and reaffirm Israel’s right to self-defense.
And the third bill would require the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to develop a school curriculum to teach about Oct. 7 and the role antisemitism played before, during and after the attacks.
“We’ve seen relentless attacks against Israel’s very right to exist, and we’ve seen a terrifying surge in antisemitism,” said Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee.
“In this upside-down world that we live in, Hamas is so often praised while its hostage-taking atrocities and war crimes are ignored,” the former congressman said.
Deutch criticized the rhetoric that some politicians use, or don’t condemn.
“We need to reset the truth. Words matter and leadership matters,” he said. “When public figures slander Israel or normalize calls for violence—chants of ‘globalize the intifada,’ when there is open praise for Hamas—they help to create the conditions for violence.”
When Israeli women documented cases of rape and other sexual abuse at the hands of Hamas terrorists, feminist groups responded with an “effective malicious campaign of disinformation and denial,” said Meredith Jacobs, CEO of Jewish Women International.
“When it came to Israeli women, those who were supposed to stand with us delegitimized the evidence, dehumanized Israeli bodies and applied a double standard when responding to the rape and mutilation of Israeli women,” she said.
