Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke at a State Department event Wednesday commemorating the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, attended by American families of victims of the massacre.

Rubio was reportedly directly involved in planning the event, which was supposed to take place on Sept. 30 but was postponed until Oct. 14. At least 46 American citizens were murdered on Oct. 7 or were taken into captivity in Gaza.

In his remarks, Rubio stressed the barbarity of the terrorists, saying that the word “terrorism” fails to convey the depth of their cruelty adequately.

“These terrorists, and terrorist almost doesn’t feel like that’s a strong enough term to describe who we’re talking about here,” he said. “But these barbaric terrorists, this was not a military operation. These were not warriors. They tried to cast themselves as [if] they had some sort of military operation.”

“This was not an attack on military posts,” he continued. “This was, these gunmen went in house to house, and they hunted families in their kitchens, in their bedrooms. They went into towns. They went into neighborhoods. They went to a music festival filled with young people in the prime of their lives, and they murdered, and they butchered.”

“They murdered parents besides their children. They carried away the elderly and the young, and they turned ordinary homes into scenes of unspeakable slaughter. What the world witnessed that day was frankly an evil that is even now difficult to describe. No language known to man can capture such bottomless darkness,” Rubio said.

Family members of the victims also addressed those in attendance, demanding justice for their slain relatives.

Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen, who was killed during the massacre, spoke at the event.

Chen said that his son chose to join the IDF instead of going to college.

“He enlisted in the IDF, because he believed that some things are worth standing guard over. He became a tank soldier and on Oct 7 was protecting the Gaza border,” the bereaved father said.

“This recognition, here in Washington, in the shadow of Oct. 7, tells our families something we needed to hear: Your loved ones were Americans. The United States remembers them,” he told the families in attendance.

“This must be a beginning, and not an end,” Chen declared. “The families of Americans killed by Hamas deserve justice, accountability, and the continued support of their government.”

“It is time for the United States Congress to create its own investigation committee,” he said, adding that anyone who contributed financially to the Oct. 7 attack “must be brought to the United States to stand trial for their crimes against American citizens.”