US defense stocks surge amid Hamas attacks on Israel

The valuation of US defense company shares has seen a jump as Israel continues its battle against Hamas and other terrorist attackers.

Notable surges include Lockheed Martin going up 7 percent, Northrop Grumman climbing 10 percent, and RTX (formerly known as Raytheon) rising over 3 percent.

According to the Wall Street Journal, European defense companies also saw a boost in valuation; BAE Systems, Italy's Leonardo and France's Dassault Aviation all saw increases of over 4 percent. Meanwhile, German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall rose over 6 percent.

This increase in stock prices comes after Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel over the weekend. The attacks often targeted innocent people, and proved brutal; invaders in one instance crashed a music festival and began to kidnap and kill attendees.

Israel's prime minister responded with a declaration that "Hamas started a cruel and evil war" and that while Israel will win, "the price will be heavy."

"What happened today will not be seen in Israel, and I will make sure that it does not happen again," the prime minister promised, "The entire government stands behind this decision. The IDF will immediately use all its power to disable Hamas' capabilities. We will beat them to death, we will take revenge on them for the black day they have inflicted on the State of Israel and its citizens."

The Biden administration notably decided to release $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds just about a month before the carnage began, leading some to question whether any of this money may have been used to help finance the attacks by Hamas. 

Upon being pressed on the issue on Saturday, Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the decision, insisting that the Islamic Republic has "always" funded terroristic operations. 

"Iran has unfortunately always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism, on supporting groups like Hamas," stated Blinken. "And it’s done that when there have been sanctions, it’s done that when there haven’t been sanctions, and it’s always prioritized that."

Former President Trump spoke out against the violence on Saturday and appeared to imply that the Biden administration may have routed American taxpayer money in a manner that helped to finance the violence.