‘President Biden has our backs,’ says survivor of Oct. 7 Hamas massacre

When U.S. President Joe Biden paid an unprecedented visit to Israel during a war last month, 12 Israelis who were directly impacted by the brutal Hamas terror attack had the opportunity to meet with him. One of them was Amir Tibon, an Israeli journalist who writes for the Haaretz news outlet.

Tibon lives in one of the hardest-hit communities from the Oct. 7 massacre, Kibbutz Nahal Oz.

Hamas terrorists murdered 14 members of the kibbutz in the most atrocious ways, and kidnapped seven others. Tibon and his family were hiding in a safe room for hours before they were rescued in a heroic military act, led by his father, retired IDF general Noam Tibon (62).

During a conversation with ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg for his TBN program ‘THE ROSENBERG REPORT,’ Tibon revealed what it was like to share his story with the U.S. president.  

[Click to watch the full interview on The Rosenberg Report.]

“We had very little expectations because we knew he was busy, and he was meeting for hours with the prime minister and the war cabinet,” Amir recalled. “As we were waiting, and we thought, each of us will get a handshake and a picture and that's it. But that's not what happened. President Biden walked into the room, and he started moving around the room to each and every one of us.”

Biden then gave a strong handshake to each of the attendees in the meeting and looked straight into their eyes, according to Tibon.

“He said, I'm so sorry for what happened to you… And he started asking us, tell me about your family, tell me what happened to you on that day.”

Tibon had a very short message for Biden.

“I told him, 'Mr. President, we have people who are now kidnapped in Gaza from my own community. A teenage girl, a grandfather.' And I told him, 'Your friend John McCain survived five years in the Vietnamese prison. I don't think the teenagers and the women and the children will survive five years in the hands of Hamas. Please take action through diplomatic channels with Arab countries to release them,'” he continued.

“He looked straight into my eyes. He held my hands. He said, 'I'm working on it'. And indeed, two days later, two women from my community, who are dual American-Israeli citizens, were released from the prison of Hamas, the Ra'anan family. They are the daughter and granddaughter of Tammy, my neighbor. 'And I told her after the meeting, 'Tammy, President Biden said he's working on it, and we got a little sign of hope. But it's not enough. We still have 200 people there,'” Amir stressed.

Biden’s visit to Israel and his meeting with Israeli victims was a big boost of superpower support, as Rosenberg defined it.

For Amir Tibon, it was a personal boost.

He told Rosenberg that when Biden finished delivering a short statement to the media, the Secret Service was rushing him to leave as the plane was waiting for him. But Biden urged them to wait a little longer.

“He put his fingers like this and said, 'No… I want to speak to these people,'” said Tibon.

When they all gathered around him, standing really close, the president then spoke quietly, in a soft voice.

“You could see he was emotional... He started talking about his own loss, his own grief, the history and his family, the car accident where his wife and daughter had died in the 70s and the loss of his son, Beau, who died from cancer,” the Israeli journalist explained.

“And he said, 'You have to stand… Guys, you are never going to forget the loved ones that you lost on this day, on October 7th. They're going to be with you until the last day of your lives. You're going to think about them every day. I think about my wife and daughter and son every day. And he started talking about how you can't let the grief and the sadness turn into rage and anger. You have to think about more constructive ways.”

In the meeting, there were Muslims and Jews who lost their loved ones at the same Nova music festival that turned into a bloodbath in Kibbutz Re’im, where some 326 Israelis were murdered and violated by Hamas terrorists and their civilian accomplices.

Biden invited Eyal Waldman, an Israeli tech entrepreneur, whose daughter was murdered at the party, and Mohammad Darawshe – the uncle of Awad Darawshe (23) – an Arab Muslim citizen of Israel who, as a paramedic, was treating injured festival attendees and paid the ultimate price to save others.

“Both of them had lost their loved ones at the same event in the hands of the same terrorists,” said Tibon, referring to Waldman and Darawshe who represent victims from the Jewish and Muslim faiths.

“The president brought them together and spoke about how we should never let hate divide us in these situations.”

One moment that especially touched Tibon, was when Biden mentioned the Holocaust and promised that, as president, he would not allow the Jewish people to lose their safe place on this earth.

“We felt so close to him, Joel," Tibon shared.

We hugged him at the end, and I just wanted to say thank you to the president. Putting politics aside for now – whether you think he's doing good things or bad things on the humane level – that hug he gave us was so important. We knew that he had our backs,” Tibon concluded.

Some believe that Biden's continued support for Israel's military strategy, and his administration's foreign policy and handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, may have cost the U.S. leader American votes in the 2024 presidential election next November.

According to a just-released poll conducted by NBC News, Biden's popularity has been plummeting, with a dismal 40% approval rating – its lowest level since he assumed the presidency in 2021.

In a recent interview, ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg spoke about Biden's perceived weakness on the world stage and the negative impact it may have in the next presidential election.