Your Majesty, Prime Minister, Ministers, Members of Parliament, President of the Jewish Community, friends and supporters.
Exactly one week ago our world changed.
More than 1,500 Palestinian terrorists infiltrated Israel with one aim - and one aim only – to murder as many innocent civilians as they could. Combined with a massive attack of many thousands of rockets, those bloodthirsty murderers went from house to house, butchering whoever was inside: babies, Holocaust survivors, children, men, women, entire families – GONE.
Hundreds of young women and men, celebrating life in a music festival, brutally executed.
Over 1,300 lives taken in a few hours.
Ladies and Gentlemen, under normal circumstances I would not have elaborated the terrible details. However, these are not normal circumstances. In fact, these are the most abnormal circumstances imaginable!
My heart goes out to every family, every woman and man who lost their loved ones, who lost their world.
It is the worst mass killing of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.
Everyone in Israel knows someone who is directly affected – a few days ago we got terrible news from a good friend of ours that her niece and her whole family were murdered in their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
In these unimaginable times and in the face of these inhumane atrocities, there is no room for “but”, no time for “however”. Israel has the right and the duty (!) to defend itself and its citizens. Full stop.
It is in the darkest times that every ray of light shines the brightest. And indeed, the support we are receiving from our Danish friends is giving us strength and warming our hearts.
The presence of the top leadership of Denmark here, today, attests to this support.
I would like to thank you Prime Minister Frederiksen, Foreign Minister Rasmussen and friends from Government and Parliament for your full sympathy, your clear condemnation of Hamas’ murderous attack, and your unwavering support of Israel’s right to defend itself.
I would like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, every Dane who came to lay flowers, light a candle, and those who sent us many messages of support.
Make no mistake, the terrorist organization Hamas, whose barbarism is rivaled only by ISIS, is part of an axis of evil, led and supported by Iran, which proactively promotes terrorism and instability in Israel and around the world.
More than 150 people, some as young as a few months old, others as old as 85 are either kidnapped or unidentified, including a Danish Israeli citizen. As we speak, Israelis are running to shelters, as more and more rockets are directed at civilians all over the country.
We will act to free the hostages and bring them to safety and stop Hamas and the Islamic Jihad from harming Israeli citizens.
October 7th 2023 is a date we will never forget. A joyous Jewish holiday, “Simchat Torah”, was turned into a day of grief.
To my sisters and brothers in the Danish Jewish community and communities around the world: throughout history we stood together in difficult times, we survived, we built and we thrived.
Today we are mourning but we stand united, supported by our friends.
Together we will overcome this challenge.
Together we will prevail.
We have no choice.
We have no other homeland.
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