--- title: Biden Faces Hard Choices on American Hostages in Gaza description: Biden confirmed U.S. citizens are among the hostages held by Hamas, but the White House offered few other details canonical: https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-10-10T23:03:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:27:20.775Z article:section: Politics og:title: Biden Faces Hard Choices on American Hostages in Gaza og:description: Biden confirmed U.S. citizens are among the hostages held by Hamas, but the White House offered few other details og:url: https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9b0ce39b99c9b55f/698a4122929fad060abfa401/GettyImages-1716883749.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Biden Delivers Remarks On Hamas Attacks In Israel og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Biden Faces Hard Choices on American Hostages in Gaza twitter:description: Biden confirmed U.S. citizens are among the hostages held by Hamas, but the White House offered few other details twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9b0ce39b99c9b55f/698a4122929fad060abfa401/GettyImages-1716883749.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Biden Faces Hard Choices on American Hostages in Gaza > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=c51b4d5e-1c1c-4671-982b-3ff74b4d95ce&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: White House Raises Death Toll of Americans Killed in Israel, Announces Evacuation Flights [Watch (HLS stream): White House Raises Death Toll of Americans Killed in Israel, Announces Evacuation Flights](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ImaVlJxM.m3u8) (2:54)  _Published 2023-10-12. The death toll of U.S. citizens in the Hamas attack on Israel has risen to 27, and the number of missing is now at 14, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Oct. 12._  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME. Oct 10, 2023 11:03 PM UTC The death toll of U.S. citizens in the Hamas attack on Israel has risen to 27, and the number of missing is now at 14, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Oct. 12.  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME. Oct 10, 2023 11:03 PM UTC President Biden is faced with the thorny reality that American citizens are among the hostages Hamas terrorists kidnapped and took into Gaza over the weekend, but the U.S. government doesn’t know exactly how many of its citizens are in that situation or where they are. "We now know that American citizens are among those being held by Hamas," Biden told reporters in the White House State Dining Room on Tuesday. He said the U.S. military would be helping Israeli forces in the planning and intelligence collection for efforts to rescue hostages and that he had “no higher priority” as President than the safety of Americans held hostage around the world. Speaking forcefully in front of a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, Biden called Hamas’s rampage through towns and farms in southern Israel and the slaughter of more than 1,000 Israelis “pure, unadulterated evil” and confirmed that those killed include 14 Americans. “At this moment, we must be crystal clear,” Biden said. “We stand with Israel." Beyond confirming that some of the hostages are US citizens, White House officials had few other details about them or what options for their rescue are available to Biden. “We do not know about their condition and we cannot confirm a precise number of American hostages,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House. More than 20 American citizens who were in Israel are missing, Sullivan said, but it is unclear how many among those are being held captive by Hamas. The lack of clarity was especially upsetting for some of the family members of American citizens caught up in the crisis. Nahar Neta doesn't know whether his 66-year-old mother, Adrienne Neta, is still alive after she was kidnapped on Saturday by Hamas from her home on Kibbutz Be’eri. “It is a little bit ridiculous at this stage to say that the optimistic scenario is that she is held hostage in Gaza and not dead on the street of the kibbutz where we grew up,” he said during an event in Jerusalem where family members of kidnapped Americans called on Biden to take action to bring their loved ones home. Nahar described how Adrienne was on the phone with him and her daughter during the assault when they heard her scream. Neta said that his mom, who had worked as a nurse and midwife, spoke in Arabic to try to calm down the attackers. If the U.S. is able to locate any of the Americans being held by Hamas, a U.S. rescue mission would be incredibly complex and dangerous for U.S. military personnel and any civilians on the ground in the densely populated Gaza Strip, which is currently under regular barrage by Israeli missiles. Also, the kidnappers may be holding U.S. citizens alongside Israeli captives, leaving open the question of which country would lead such an operation. Hamas is believed to have more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including children and the elderly, making the Israeli offensive into Gaza that much more challenging and complex, says Uzi Arad, who served as national security advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2009 to 2011\. "This is a complicating factor to an incredible degree, because the hostages may be now used as a card in the management of the war,” says Arad, who was part of the 1976 Israeli commando raid to rescue hostages at the Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. Arad praised Biden’s statement of support for Israel on Tuesday. “The effect this has on Israeli morale and attitude is galvanizing," he says. Biden ordered U.S. military aircraft to Israel loaded with additional weapons, equipment and supplies, and a U.S. carrier strike group armed with guided missiles is loitering in the Eastern Mediterranean to deter other Iran-backed militants based in Syria and Lebanon from taking advantage of the moment to step up their own attacks. The U.S. Navy strike group, led by the USS Gerald R. Ford—the newest, most sophisticated carrier in the U.S. fleet—is manned by more than 5,000 sailors and Marines and places additional US special operations forces, intelligence collection equipment, and attack planes closer to Gaza. Those could be used in potential hostage rescue operations, if the U.S. can learn more about their fate. The families of the missing Americans who spoke to reporters in Jerusalem on Tuesday were frustrated that they hadn’t been told anything by the US State Department or Israeli government about what may have happened to their loved ones. Neta wanted to hear what US and Israelis officials know about his mother at this point. “I think that after three days—more than three days now—it is more than a reasonable request to have somebody from the Israeli government or the U.S. administration approach us with any type of information they may have on our family members,” Neta said. —WITH REPORTING BY ERIC CORTELLESSA ## Transcript I'll start with the saddest news. We can now update the number of Americans that we know have been killed 227 and the number of unaccounted-for stands today at 14. We're obviously doing everything we can to support and inform the families. Now, sadly, five more families. Have now gotten the worst possible news and any family can conceive of getting and we're going to stay in touch with them as appropriate. Same goes for those family members of those who are unaccounted for and buy on the counter for we mean that we don't know where they are, they don't know where they Jordan obviously stay in touch with them as well and certainly were continuing to work with Israeli officials to make sure that that I will get him as much contact information as possible that we will share with them. As president has asked his team to ensure that we are. Assisting US citizens who do want to leave his role in. Providing them with a safe means of doing that. So beginning tomorrow, United States government will arrange charter flights to provide transportation from Israel to sites in Europe. They're still working through some of the details of that to assist you as Citizens and their immediate family members who have for whatever reason, not been able to provide commercial Transit, out of the country and I would add that. We're also exploring other options to expand the capacity of of doing this including exploring, whether it's possible to help Americans leave by land. And by sea, States. And they specifically said, the United States is traded prisoners before signing, the Iran deal that was just made in the United States. We obviously take seriously, our responsibility is to get Americans held overseas back with their families. We have in the past entered into negotiations, to do exactly that. And we have not foreclose any option right now. In terms of these particular hostages, obviously, if they can, if they return to their families, can be arrived at in a peaceful way without additional risk to their lives. That is certainly something we would take very, very seriously. If there are no intentions, no plans to put American troops on the ground in combat. And there is no interest by the Israelis Planning efforts underway to do that. And he's really so made clear that they would not welcome that in any event. What we're going to do is make sure that it is a very capable small but very capable in with military and we're going to do everything we can to improve those capabilities. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/"},"headline":"Biden Faces Hard Choices on American Hostages in Gaza","datePublished":"2023-10-10T23:03:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T07:27:20.775Z","description":"The White House confirmed US citizens are among the hostages held by Hamas, but offered few other details","url":"https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/","keywords":["Biden Administration","Joe Biden","Israel"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9b0ce39b99c9b55f/698a4122929fad060abfa401/GettyImages-1716883749.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9b0ce39b99c9b55f/698a4122929fad060abfa401/GettyImages-1716883749.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Biden Delivers Remarks On Hamas Attacks In Israel","caption":"President Biden Delivers Remarks On Hamas Attacks In Israel","creditText":"Ting Shen—Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/biden-administration/","name":"Biden Administration"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/","name":"Biden Faces Hard Choices on American Hostages in Gaza"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"White House Raises Death Toll of Americans Killed in Israel, Announces Evacuation Flights","description":"The death toll of U.S. citizens in the Hamas attack on Israel has risen to 27, and the number of missing is now at 14, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Oct. 12.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ImaVlJxM/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-10-12T20:07:06.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ImaVlJxM.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/","duration":"PT2M54S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6322472/hamas-american-hostages-gaza-rescue/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```