Touring Be’eri, Lipstadt says world must ‘bear witness’ to the ‘horrors’ of Hamas
While visiting Israel, US antisemitism envoy also notes Islamic terror group has caused ‘untold suffering’ to the Palestinian people

Visiting US antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt said Wednesday that it is important to testify to the horrific Hamas assault against Israel on October 7, while noting that Hamas’s actions have also been the cause of “untold suffering” for Palestinians.
Following what she called a “somber and distressing” visit to Be’eri and Kfar Aza, two kibbutzim adjacent to Gaza that were largely destroyed during the Hamas onslaught, Lipstadt tweeted: “It is vital to bear witness to the horrors perpetrated by Hamas, whose brutality and cowardice also cause untold suffering for the Palestinian people.”
During her visit, the envoy met with Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who said the two discussed “the alarming increase in the number of antisemitic incidents around the world since the October 7th massacre, the most severe antisemitic attack to take place anywhere since the Holocaust, as well as the commitment of the international community to fight this ugly phenomenon.”
At the Foreign Ministry offices in Jerusalem, Lipstadt signed her name on a public memorial for those killed on October 7 that calls for the Israeli hostages taken on that day and still held by Hamas in Gaza to be returned home.
On Thursday, Lipstadt is slated to address an event sponsored by the Foreign Ministry entitled “Beyond the Battlefield: Contested Narratives in the Arab World,” which will commemorate the “expulsion of Jews from Arab countries.”
Lipstadt, a noted historian and professor involved with Jewish and antisemitic issues for decades, was appointed by the Biden administration in 2022 as the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. This position carries the rank of ambassador.
Somber and distressing visit to the Be’eri and Kfar Aza kibbutzim, where scores were killed or kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. It is vital to bear witness to the horrors perpetrated by Hamas, whose brutality and cowardice also cause untold suffering for the Palestinian people. pic.twitter.com/PCYMu0zWlu
— Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt (@StateSEAS) December 13, 2023
A noted speaker at the 300,000-strong pro-Israel rally in Washington DC in mid-November, Lipstadt has a long history of ties to the Jewish state and was a student at the Hebrew University during the 1967 Six Day War.
Addressing the rally last month, Lipstadt proclaimed that the Biden administration “stands shoulder-to-shoulder against Jew-hatred. We stand arm-in-arm to combat antisemitism, wherever it hides or attempts to reside,” she said to a cheering crowd.
“Today in America we give antisemitism no sanction, no foothold, no tolerance, not on campus, not in our schools, not in our neighborhoods, not in our streets or the streets of our cities. Not in our government. Nowhere. Not now, not ever,” Lipstadt declared.
The October 7 shock assault by Hamas saw terrorists burst through the border from the Gaza Strip and kill some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and take over 240 hostage. Israel then launched its campaign against the terror group, vowing to topple its regime in the Gaza Strip, where it has ruled since 2007.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has claimed that, since the start of the war, more than 18,600 people have been killed, mostly civilians. These figures cannot be independently verified and are believed to include some 7,000 Hamas terrorists, according to Israel, as well as civilians killed by misfired Palestinian rockets.