White House: A ‘Number’ of Americans Being Held Hostage in Israel, Their Conditions Unknown

The White House said on Wednesday that 17 Americans are currently unaccounted for or missing in Israel and “a number” of them have been taken hostage in Israel but that it had very little information about them.

“We know that a number of those Americans are being held hostage right now by Hamas,” John Kirby, White House coordinator for Strategic Communications said during a briefing on Wednesday.

“I think we all need to steel ourselves for the very distinct possibility that these numbers will keep increasing and that we may, in fact, find out that more Americans are part of the hostage pool,” he said.

Kirby said not much was known about the condition of the hostages or their whereabouts.

“Where they are and in what condition — no, sadly we don’t know. And that makes efforts very, very difficult,”

“We don’t know if they’re all in one group or broken up into several groups. We don’t know if they’re being moved and with what frequency and to what locations. All of those questions, we’re working hard to answer,” he said.

He added, “I think, just like in any other case when we’re talking about getting Americans home overseas that have been held hostage and wrongfully detained, the less you say out there publicly, the better.”

He also said the number of Americans killed in Israel during the terrorist attacks by Hamas has risen from 14 to 22. Earlier in the week, the White House had said at least 20 Americans were unaccounted for or missing. It is not clear if the updated number of unaccounted for or missing meant that some were found alive or added to the number dead.

Kirby said the U.S. was in discussions with Israelis and other allies and partners in the region to discuss hostage recovery and indicated that the Israeli Defense Forces are in the lead on hostage recovery, adding that they have a “very robust hostage-recovery capability.”

“Sadly, they have been forced to perfect that particular kind of capability. But we also have a lot of know-how, too, and we’re — we’re offering to share that with the Israeli Defense Forces,” he said.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Wednesday that Israeli forces should be in the lead, but that the U.S. can provide capabilities such as intelligence and explosive ordnance disposal.

“It’s Israel’s home plate. What we should be doing is coordinating with the minister of Defense and see what augmentation they need,” he said. “We routinely work with Israeli specialized forces. And there are a lot of roles and missions that the U.S. can participate in. But I would say we should ask the minister of Defense what resources he needs.”

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