Jonathan Ernst/Portal
US President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaks after a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the situation in Israel following the deadly Hamas attacks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, U.S. October 10, 2023. Portal/Jonathan Ernst
WashingtonCNN –
President Joe Biden confirmed Tuesday that Americans are known to be among the hostages held by Hamas after its weekend terror attack, saying the known number of Americans killed now stands at 14.
The president delivered the information during an afternoon address at the White House in which he emotionally described the horrors of the attack.
Biden, who previously spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, offered his own view of what the country’s response might be.
“I told him that if the United States experienced what Israel was experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive and overwhelming,” Biden said in the State Dining Room.
But he also insisted that any response must be in accordance with the rule of law, saying that this is what distinguishes Israel and the United States from Hamas militants.
“Terrorists specifically target and kill civilians. We uphold the laws of war. It is important. There is a difference,” Biden said.
Tuesday’s remarks were Biden’s most substantive since violence erupted early Saturday. Just hours after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel that killed hundreds of people, the president spoke to Netanyahu by phone.
When Biden’s counterpart – reeling from one of the worst attacks on his country in decades – raised the possibility of a push into Gaza, the president did not warn him against doing so, a US official briefed on the conversation told CNN.
This decision by the president – to hold back from urging Netanyahu to exercise restraint in the immediate aftermath of the attacks – reflects in no small part the sheer shock and scale of Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel, which makes this moment special, officials say.
“We are not urging restraint at the moment,” an official said.
The president and his national security team are aware of the increasing likelihood that Israel will launch a ground attack on the Gaza Strip. Over the past 72 hours, officials have acknowledged the extremely precarious position this possibility puts the government in. In general, the US has in the past called for a ceasefire from all sides when conflicts have broken out in the region.
To make matters worse, it is likely that American hostages are being held in the Gaza Strip. U.S. officials have said they accept the very real possibility that Americans may be among those forcibly taken to Gaza.
In his phone calls with Netanyahu, Israel’s response was one of the points of discussion, although officials are careful to share the extent to which Biden expressed his view on the extent of Israel’s response.
The Biden administration has always been careful to keep such discussions very private, and officials said this time will be no different.
Biden’s first written statement over the weekend omitted the term “ceasefire” – an omission that caught the eye of current and former administration officials alike.