US President Joe Biden expressed “ironclad” support for Israel in a message marking the coming of Passover, linking the Jewish holiday to Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

“This holiday reminds us of a profound and powerful truth: that even in the face of persecution, if we hold on to faith, we shall endure and overcome,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House on Sunday.

The Jewish holiday of Passover, which celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt, will begin on Monday evening and end next Tuesday. In his statement, Biden noted that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group in control of Gaza, represented the latest chapter in a long story of enemies seeking to destroy the Jewish people.

“As Jews mark Passover with storytelling, songs, and rituals, they will also read from the Haggadah how, in every generation, they have been targeted by those who would seek to destroy them,” Biden said, before turning to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel that launched the ongoing war in Gaza.

“This year, those words carry deeper resonance and pain in the wake of Hamas’ unspeakable evil on Oct. 7 — the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Biden said. “More than 1,200 people were brutally massacred. Women and girls were subjected to appalling sexual violence. More than 250 innocents were taken hostage, including Americans. We can never forget the horror of Hamas’ despicable atrocities.”

Biden noted that Jews around the world have been coping with the “trauma” of Oct. 7, highlighting how more than 130 hostages remain in Gaza and will not be able to celebrate Passover with their families. Former hostages have recounted harrowing tales of sexual abuse at the hands of Hamas terrorists while they were in captivity.

“My commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad,” Biden said. “My administration is working around the clock to free the hostages, and we will not rest until we bring them home. We are also working to establish an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza as a part of a deal that releases the hostages and delivers desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.”

The US, Egypt, and Qatar have been mediating ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas. Over the past few months, Hamas has rejected all ceasefire offers, while Israel agreed to a deal that would end fighting for six weeks and release 700 Palestinian terrorists from jail, in exchange for 40 hostages seized during Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel.

More recently, Hamas rejected the latest Israeli proposal that had been discussed earlier this month.

Israel has said any ceasefure must include the release of all remaining hostages and be temporary, warning that a long-term truce would allow Hamas to regroup and strengthen its position to continue attacking the Jewish state. Hamas leaders have pledged to carry out massacres against Israel like the one on Oct. 7 “again and again.”

Meanwhile, Hamas has demanded that any truce must include a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Biden’s statement came against the backdrop of rising tensions between the US and Israel over the war in Gaza. After pledging strong support for Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror onslaught, the Biden administration has adopted an increasingly critical posture toward the Jewish state amid mounting pressure from Democrats to do so. That transition peaked earlier this month, when Biden threatened to pull back support for Israel due to the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also reportedly expected within days to announce sanctions against the Israel Defense Forces’ “Netzah Yehuda” battalion for alleged human rights violations in the West Bank, leading to outcry from Israeli officials.

Beyond the Israel-Hamas war, Biden noted Iran’s recent and unprecedented direct attack against the Israeli homeland. The US, along with other allies, helped Israel successfully repel Iran’s massive salvo of over 300 drones and missiles.

“We are leading international efforts to ensure Israel can defend itself against Iran and its proxies,” the US president said.

Biden also focused his Passover message on the historic surge in antisemitism across the US since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.

“The ancient story of persecution against Jews in the Haggadah also reminds us that we must speak out against the alarming surge of antisemitism — in our schools, communities, and online,” he said. “Silence is complicity. Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous — and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

The Anti-Defamation League released a report last week showing antisemitic incidents in the US rose 140 percent last year, reaching a record high. Most of the outrages occurred after Oct. 7, during the ensuing war in Gaza.

Christopher Wray, the director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said last week that his agency was on alert for threats posed to the Jewish community during Passover.

Wray said the FBI was “particularly concerned” that lone-wolf attackers may target Passover gatherings, high-profile events, and/or religious locations. At the same time, he said that while “I’m not providing these updates in any way to alarm you, because this is not a time for panic,” it was “a time for continued vigilance.”

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US forces in Iraq and Syria faced two separate rocket and explosive drone attacks in less than 24 hours, Iraqi security sources and US officials told Reuters on Monday, the first reported after a near three-month pause.

At least one armed drone was launched at the Ain al-Asad air base that hosts US troops in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, a US official said.

That followed five rockets fired from northern Iraq towards US forces at a base in Rumalyn in remote northeastern Syria, on Sunday, according to US and Iraqi officials.

There were no reports of casualties or significant damage from the drone attacks.

On Saturday, a massive explosion at a military base in Iraq killed a member of an Iraqi security force that includes Iran-backed groups.

The force commander said it was an attack while the army said it was investigating and that there were no warplanes in the sky at the time. The US military denied involvement.

Near-daily rocket and drone strikes on US forces began in mid-October and were claimed by a group of Iran-backed Shi’ite Muslim armed groups known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, who cited US backing for Israel‘s war in Gaza.

The attacks stopped in late January under pressure from Iraqi authorities and Iran, following deadly US retaliatory airstrikes in Iraq, after three US soldiers were killed in a drone strike on a small base on the Iraqi-Jordanian border.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani returned at the weekend from a week-long visit to the United States where he met President Joe Biden in an effort to turn a new page in US-Iraqi relations despite soaring regional tensions.

The US invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled strongman leader Saddam Hussein, withdrawing in 2011 before returning in 2014 at the head of an international military coalition at the Baghdad government’s request to help fight Islamic State terrorists.

The US has some 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in eastern Syria on an advise-and-assist mission.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei thanked the country’s armed forces for their attack this month on Israel, saying the country had demonstrated its power regardless of how many targets were hit, Iran’s official news agency reported on Sunday.

In its first ever direct attack on Israel, Iran sent a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones on April 13 in what it said was retaliation for Israel’s suspected deadly strike on its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1.

Most of the missiles and drones were shot down by Israel and its allies and the attack caused modest damage in Israel.

“How many missiles were launched and how many of them hit their target is not the primary question, what really matters is that Iran demonstrated its power during that operation,” Khamenei said on Sunday.

Early on Friday, explosions echoed over the Iranian city of Isfahan in what sources said was an Israeli attack. Tehran played down the incident and said it had no plans for retaliation – a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war.

“In the recent operation, the armed forces managed to minimize costs and maximize gains,” Khamenei added, urging military officials to “ceaselessly pursue military innovation and learn the enemy’s tactics.”

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