FBI director: Hamas could carry out attacks on US soil; antisemitism at historic high

In Senate testimony, Christopher Wray warns Oct. 7 atrocities ‘will serve as an inspiration’ to extremists, says Jewish community is ‘targeted by terrorists across the spectrum’

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 31, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP)
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 31, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP)

WASHINGTON — The Israel-Hamas war has raised the threat of attacks against Americans in the United States to a whole new level, while antisemitism in the United States has soared to “historic” heights, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Tuesday.

“We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate several years ago,” Wray told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security.

“We also cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit the current conflict to conduct attacks here on our own soil,” he said.

Wray said the most significant threat was to Jewish and Muslim communities in the United States. He noted that while Jews account for less than 3% of the US population, around 60% of religious-based hate crimes target Jews.

“This is a threat that is reaching, in some way, sort of historic levels,” Wray said.

“The Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum — homegrown violent extremists; foreign terrorist organizations, both Sunni and Shia; domestic violent extremists,” Wray said.

“This is not a time for panic, but it is a time for vigilance,” he said.

“Our most immediate concern is that violent extremists, individuals or small groups, will draw inspiration from the events of the Middle East and carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives,” he added. “That includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities.”

Wray noted the arrest in Houston last week of a man who had been studying how to build bombs and posted online about “killing Jews” and the stabbing death of a six-year-old Muslim boy in Illinois by his landlord, a murder being investigated as a hate crime.

A man walks as police patrol a neighborhood in Brooklyn with a large Orthodox Jewish community on October 12, 2023, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)

“The ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole ‘nother level,” Wray said.

Wray said Al-Qaeda had issued “its most specific call to attack the United States in the last five years” and ISIS had urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe.

He said the Iranian-backed Hezbollah has also threatened to attack US interests in the Middle East and there had been an increase in strikes on US military bases overseas by militia groups supported by Iran.

War erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 2,500 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,400 people and seizing some 230 hostages of all ages. The vast majority of those killed were civilians. Entire families were executed in their homes, and over 260 were slaughtered at an outdoor festival, many amid horrific acts of brutality by the terrorists.

Israel, in response, has vowed to destroy Hamas’s military and governance capabilities. It says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas claims over 8,000 people have been killed in Gaza. The figures cannot be independently verified, and are believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires.

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