Efforts to secure hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip have required an “incredibly intense process,” with “absolutely no guarantee,” the Biden administration revealed on Nov. 3.
“We are going to do all we possibly can to make sure that all the hostages of all nationalities come out of Gaza,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters in a call, noting that the process is “incredibly difficult, complex, [and] time-consuming.”
The official said the exact number of hostages is unclear but is more than 100 and possibly more than 200. Securing their release involves multiple approaches, including “indirect engagement to try to find a framework to get the hostages out of Gaza,” he said.
“Any arrangement to get 200 hostages out of Gaza is going to require a fairly significant pause in hostilities and the framework [is] being discussed,” he said.
“Should we get to that point, that [framework] would obviously go into place. ... Should that get into place, there'll be a very significant pause in hostilities to make sure that that arrangement can actually be implemented.
“In fact, when we got the two Americans out a couple of weeks ago, there was a limited pause, a kind of testing, pilot, to ensure that the hostages will be handed over to the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] and then taken out of Gaza. So that was something that had been worked out and it went quite well.”
However, due to the difficulty with communicating with Hamas, the official said he “can’t put a timeframe” on getting the remaining hostages released.
Hamas Tried to Sneak Fighters Out of Gaza: White House
The White House shared on Nov. 1 that five Americans, who weren’t hostages, were able to leave Gaza.The arrangement came after Hamas had finally agreed to allow American civilians to leave the enclave, along with wounded Palestinians and other foreign nationals.
Hamas had significantly delayed efforts to evacuate civilians from the Gaza Strip, the senior Biden administration official said on Nov. 3. The terrorist group “did not allow anyone to leave Gaza,” he said, noting that this affected some 6,000 foreign nationals and about 500 U.S. citizens, mostly dual nationals, inside Gaza.
During a congressional hearing on Oct. 31, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that about 400 U.S. citizens and their families were stuck in Gaza, estimating the number to be about 1,000 including the families.
Hamas later said it would allow U.S. and foreign nationals to leave, “subject to a number of wounded Palestinians ... being allowed to leave as well,” the official told reporters on Nov. 3. However, when the list of wounded Palestinians was provided and vetted, about a third of them “were members of Hamas.”
This was “unacceptable” to the United States, Israel, and Egypt. The process of finding a mutually acceptable solution took time, and negotiations continued until the wounded Palestinians leaving Gaza didn’t include Hamas terrorists, the official said.
Qatar and Egypt “were critical” in the negotiations with the terrorist group, he noted.
The official also noted that the Rafah border crossing, where foreigners were to exit Gaza and enter Egypt, has a history of security concerns from Egypt dating back to 2008. At the time, there was a breach of the Rafah crossing by Hamas, which led to an influx of people from Gaza into Egypt. As such, the official said, the United States had to work carefully with Egypt and the United Nations to ensure the safe passage of people through the crossing.
The Gaza border authority on Nov. 2 released a list of foreign passport holders, totaling 600 individuals, who are allowed to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing, according to multiple reports. The number includes 400 Americans, as well as people from 14 other countries.
