President Joe Biden and his administration are taking victory laps after Hamas began releasing some of the hostages who were kidnapped during the terrorist organization’s horrific and deadly Oct. 7 attack, but so far, none of the dozen or so Americans taken as well are among them.
On Friday, Biden credited “extensive U.S. diplomacy” for the release of some hostages, adding it’s “only a start” after none of those released were Americans, the Daily Mail reported.
“We don’t know when that will occur but we expect it to occur,” Biden said after a reporter asked him about the release of Americans during a press conference Friday afternoon from Nantucket’s White Elephant Hotel, where the first family is spending their Thanksgiving vacation.
“And we don’t know what the list of all the hostages are and when they’ll be released, but we know the numbers that are going to be released,” he continued, adding: “So it’s my hope and expectation it will be soon.”
“In the next hour or so we’ll know what the second wave of releases are. And I’m hopeful that is as we anticipate,” Biden said Friday.
But Fox News reported Saturday morning that the second wave of hostages being released also did not include captured Americans.
“We don’t expect any Americans to be released today but remain hopeful” some will be released in the coming days, a White House official told the outlet.
Fox News added:
Hamas is expected to release a second group of Israeli hostages on Saturday as part of a planned four-day cease-fire with Israel to allow an exchange 50 hostages for 150 Palestinian prisoners.
Egyptian security sources said they had received the names of 14 Israeli women and children from Hamas and were waiting for more details on when the hostages would be handed over to Egyptian authorities.
Last month, a week after the attack, the Biden administration admitted that more Americans had been killed in the fighting between Hamas and Israel following the terrorist group’s surprise attack and infiltration of the Jewish state, even as the CIA and Israeli intelligence failed to understand the significance of signs warning of an imminent attack.
The administration said during a press conference the number of Americans dead in Israel had risen to 27.
“I’ll start with the saddest of news. We can now update the number of Americans that we know have been killed to 27, and the number of unaccounted for stands today at 14. We’re obviously doing everything we can to support and inform the families,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said in a video posted to social media.
“Now, sadly, five more families have now gotten the worst possible news that any family can conceive of getting. And we’re going to stay in touch with them as appropriate,” he added.
“Same goes for those family members of those who are unaccounted for. And by ‘unaccounted for,’ we mean that. We don’t know where they are. They don’t know where they are,” he said.
In addition to anger and outrage over the brutality of the Iran-aligned Hamas attack, attention has since turned to how the U.S. and Israel intelligence apparatuses missed the attack.
According to Axios, “Israeli intelligence the night before the Hamas attack picked up signs of irregular activity among Hamas operatives in Gaza but top IDF and Shin Bet leaders decided not to put military forces on the borders of the enclave on high alert,” three Israeli officials told the outlet.
“While the Israeli intelligence failure was much broader and strategic, the events of the night before show how most senior officials in the Israeli defense establishment and intelligence community didn’t understand how bad the situation would become,” Axios noted further.
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