At least 11 Americans have been killed in the latest conflict between Israel and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas, President Joe Biden said on Oct. 9.
“It’s heart wrenching. These families have been torn apart by inexcusable hatred and violence. We also know that American citizens still remain unaccounted for, and we are working with Israeli officials to obtain more information as to their whereabouts,” President Biden said in a statement.
“My heart goes out to every family impacted by the horrible events of the past few days. The pain these families have endured, the enormity of their loss, and the agony of those still awaiting information is unfathomable.”
President Biden also said that “ it is likely that American citizens may be among those being held by Hamas.”
Earlier on CNN, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said “it’s very hard to say” how many U.S. citizens are missing in Israel as “it’s a number that moves all the time.”
“We are in close contact with the government of Israel as they continue to conduct security operations to locate missing U.S. citizens, missing Israeli citizens,” he said. “And we are, of course, in close contact with the families of these nine deceased Americans and offering them any consular assistance that we can provide.”
“We’ve continued to work. Some of them will be located, we suspect,” he said. “Some of them may unfortunately turn out to be deceased, but we will work on that with the government of Israel in the coming days.”
Regarding how many Americans are being held hostage, Mr. Miller said, “We cannot confirm that at this point. There are reports of that. But there are Americans who are unaccounted for and our first priority is to locate those Americans.”
Hamas launched attacks on Oct. 7, resulting in the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. In addition to launching rockets, Hamas terrorists infiltrated military bases and communal settlements, or “kibbutzim.” Israelis have been captured, raped, and killed, according to multiple reports. In response, Israel has officially declared war and has retaliated with strikes of Gaza, which Hamas controls.
An Israeli ground invasion of Gaza is expected at any time.
US Funding to Iran
Critics have blamed the Biden administration’s unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian assets as being the impetus for the latest conflict.“I actually think it was irresponsible for Secretary Blinken to say that the $6 billion doesn’t weigh in here. I mean let’s be honest with the American people and understand that Hamas knows and Iran knows they’re moving money around as we speak because they know $6 billion is going to be released,“ GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald Trump, told NBC’s ”Meet the Press” on Oct. 8.
“Look at what the Iranian people, the Iranian regime has done to threaten Israel over the years,” she continued. “To think that they’re not moving money around is irresponsible to say that to the American people. They are moving money around to threaten those they hate.
“They hate Israel. They hate America. They are going to continue to use this. It was wrong to release the $6 billion, but let me tell you what else was wrong. It was wrong to go and have that debacle in Afghanistan. It was wrong to waive sanctions on Iran that gave them even more money. Money has been flowing to Iran, and that is the problem because when Iran gets money, they use it for hate.”
