The Biden administration still does not know anything about the condition of Americans taken hostage by Hamas, a US official told CNN Wednesday.
There are around 20 Americans currently unaccounted for, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday. But he said the government does not know how many of them have been taken hostage by Hamas.
That number would be revised down if the person is confirmed dead, the US official said, and many of those 20 are expected to be dual Israeli-American citizens.
The US special operations forces that have been deployed to offer their expertise on hostage situations are not engaged in a mission to physically extract American hostages, the official added.
The Biden administration is engaged in a cross-government effort to try to account for missing Americans in Israel and those who may have been taken hostage into Gaza.
A US official familiar with the efforts says the administration is working through phone calls coming into the US embassy in Israel, the FBI and the White House from family and friends of Americans believed to be missing. Those individuals are being directed to fill out an intake form, which launches a formal verification process by the State Department and FBI.
Some of these phone calls have been based on eyewitness accounts of people being taken by Hamas. But one challenge has been trying to verify second-hand accounts, the US official said.
The government has been in touch with the next-of-kin of any American they are aware of as being missing.
Nearly two dozen Americans dead: The death toll of Americans killed in Israel rose dramatically Wednesday, climbing to 22, according to a State Department spokesperson. President Biden had said Tuesday that 14 Americans had died.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected,” the State Department spokesperson said Wednesday.
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