Israeli Hostage Crisis
Floor Speech
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Mr. RYAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida for the time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of my Hudson Valley community to honor the memories of the community members we lost on October 7 and to plead and to demand the safe return of all of the Hudson Valley families and friends still held hostage by Hamas.
Judith and Gadi Haggai, who you can see behind me, are both dual American and Israeli citizens, Judith was born in the Hudson Valley in Goshen, New York, in Orange County.
On October 7, Judith and Gadi were on their usual morning walk around Kibbutz Nir Oz when they were ambushed by Hamas, shot, and the last location of their phone was traced to Gaza.
Judith and Gadi are not combatants or soldiers. They are a schoolteacher and a musician. They are peace-loving people whose only crime was being Jewish.
Their niece, Ofri, took a one-way flight to the United States, came to my office, and made two powerful requests: Never allow our country to forget her aunt and her uncle and to fight with everything that we have to bring them back. I promised her I would do that, and I stand here today to honor that commitment.
Mr. Speaker, I served 27 months in combat. Our rule was that we never leave a fallen sister or brother behind.
I ask all to not forget Judith and Gadi, and I refuse, and I know my fellow Americans refuse to leave behind our Hudson Valley brothers and sisters.
Tragically, the Haggais are not the only Hudson Valley family grieving. Maurice Shnaider of Kingston, New York, my hometown, lost his sister, Margit, and his brother-in-law, Yosi, in these barbaric attacks.
While we honor their loss, it is impossible to mourn properly while the fate of their daughter, Shiri, and their grandsons, Ariel and Kfir, hang in the balance--Ariel, 4, Kfir, 10 months old.
My children, my two boys, Theo and Cameron, are 4 and 1. I cannot think every night as I put my boys to bed of anything other than the faces of the Bibas family.
These are not prisoners of war. These are children, babies ripped away from their home and taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. This is pure, unadulterated evil.
To the Haggai family, the Bibas family, to their friends, to my whole community, to every Jewish person worried about their safety amidst the historic rise in anti-Semitism, know this: We are here for you, we see you, and we will not give up until every single hostage comes home safely.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta), who I also had the privilege of traveling with to Israel in the days after the attacks.
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