Biden says Israel hostage deal — which could reportedly include up to 80 women and children — is imminent: ‘Hang in there we’re coming’
WASHINGTON — President Biden said Tuesday that he believed Hamas would release dozens of hostages held in Gaza — after reports emerged that the terrorist group could soon free most of the women and children it kidnapped in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Jake Turx, a correspondent for the Jewish magazine Ami, asked Biden if he could “address the hostages directly and give them a message of hope and resilience.”
“Yes, I can,” Biden said after a climate change-focused event at the White House.
“I’ve been talking with the people involved [in negotiations] every single day,” the president went on. “I believe it’s going to happen, but I don’t want to get into detail.”
Asked for a “message for the families” of the hostages, the 80-year-old commander-in-chief added: “Hang in there, we’re coming.”
US officials say that nine American citizens are unaccounted for after last month’s Hamas attack, along with one legal permanent resident.
All ten — including a three-year-old whose parents were killed by terrorists — are believed to be held captive in Gaza, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House Monday that “I cannot look you in the eye and tell you how many of those hostages are still alive.”
The Israeli government has estimated that around 240 people are being held by jihadists following the Oct. 7 attack, which killed approximately 1,200 civilians — including at least 33 Americans.
Multiple press reports indicated that Hamas was prepared to release between 70 and 80 hostages, including children and most women, in exchange for a five-day pause in Israel’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, which the terror group has ruled since 2007.
The ongoing hostage situation has left Biden open to unwanted comparisons to the Iran crisis that began in late 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, during which 52 Americans were abducted by Islamic radicals and held for up to 444 days before being released in January 1981.
