Biden confirms US citizens are among Hamas' hostages and 14 Americans killed in attacks on Israel

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News Article :-
President Joe Biden confirmed Tuesday that Americans are known to be among the hostages held by Hamas after its terror rampage over the weekend, and said the known number of Americans killed now stands at 14.

The president relayed the information during an afternoon speech from the White House, where he recounted in emotional terms the horrors of the attack.

Biden, who spoke earlier with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, offered his own view of what the country’s response might look like.

“I told him that if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming,” Biden said from the State Dining Room.
The news of Americans among the hostages taken by Hamas since the attack began on Saturday confirms what had largely been assumed by administration officials but had not been confirmed until Biden’s speech. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said later that the administration believes there are “20 or more Americans” believed to be missing from Israel Tuesday, but that that number does not necessarily reflect the number of hostages in Hamas custody.

Biden said during his speech that he was “directing 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, because as president, I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being a hostage around the world.”

The president said he intends to ask Congress to approve more funding for Israel to help it defend its territory and people. He promised his administration would not allow Israel to run out of ammunition and interceptors for its Iron Dome air defense system, which is intended to shoot rockets out of the air before they strike Israeli territory.

“My administration has consulted closely with Congress throughout this crisis,” he said. “When Congress returns, I’m going to ask them to take urgent action to fund the national security requirements of our critical partners. This is not about party or politics, it’s about the security of our world, the security of the United States of America.”

But he also insisted any response must adhere to the rule of law, saying that is what differentiated Israel and the United States from the Hamas militants.

“Terrorists purposely target civilians, kill them. We uphold the laws of war. It matters. There’s a difference,” Biden said.

The remarks Tuesday were Biden’s most substantive since the outbreak of violence early Saturday. Within hours of the deadly Hamas attack on Israel that left hundreds of people dead, the president was on the phone with Netanyahu.

When Biden’s counterpart – reeling from one of the worst attacks on his country in decades – brought up the possibility of going into Gaza, the president did not warn him against doing so, a