Fourteen Americans were among the hundreds of people who were killed in multipronged terrorist attacks across southern Israel this weekend, President Joe Biden said.
“More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered, not just killed, slaughtered in Israel,” Biden said on Tuesday afternoon while delivering remarks about the attacks. “Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed.” He confirmed “American citizens are among those being held by Hamas,” and added, “I’ve directed my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts.”
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National security adviser Jake Sullivan announced shortly after that there are “20 or more” Americans who remain unaccounted for, and he stressed that they are not certain whether they are among the 100-150 hostages Hamas took back to Gaza.
“We believe that there are 20 or more Americans that are missing, but I want to underscore and stress that does not mean necessarily that there are 20 or more American hostages,” he told reporters. “Just that is the number that are currently unaccounted for.”
Prior to Biden’s remarks, the last figure the administration had provided was from Monday afternoon, when the president said in a statement that 11 Americans were among the dead.
The president also compared Hamas’s attacks, which included the murdering of women and children and the perpetration of sex crimes, to those conducted by the Islamic State.
“There are still so many families desperately waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones,” Biden said. “Not knowing if they’re alive or dead or hostages. Infants in their mothers’ arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage. Hostages whom Hamas has now threatened to execute, in violation of every code of human morality. It’s abhorrent. The brutality of Hamas. This bloodthirstiness brings to mind the worst, the worst rampages of ISIS. This is terrorism.”
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Roughly 250 people were killed at the Tribe of Nova music festival while Hamas and other militant groups involved in the attack invaded Israeli villages, known as kibbutzim, near Gaza and slaughtered families.
“Parents butchered, using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of babies being killed. Entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace,” he said. “Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies. Families hidden in fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention. And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured.”
