The US is still not aware of any American citizens taken hostage by Hamas, but concerns remain “high” as US President Joe Biden's administration offers Israel assistance, National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby told CNN Tuesday.
“Our concerns were high immediately. You can't take a threat like that lightly. You’ve got to take it seriously, because of the barbarity that Hamas has already shown that they're capable of. So obviously, we're watching it very, very closely. We have talked to the Israelis about offering them additional intelligence information as well as hostage recovery expertise,” Kirby said during an appearance on “CNN This Morning.”
Pressed on what lengths the US is willing to go to bring possible American hostages home, Kirby said the administration will “work with might and main,” but declined to speculate.
“We don’t know if there are Americans in this population, we don’t know where they are, we don’t know how they’re being held, and it’s an active warzone – so that complicates the options. But clearly, we’re going to do everything we can to help with this hostage crisis, with or without Americans being in the population,” he said.
Kirby also declined to say whether the Biden administration has issued any warnings to Israel as it mounts its response.
“We don't want to see any innocent civilians killed anywhere in the world, and that certainly includes in Gaza and in Israel. And sadly, there have been too many innocent civilians that have already been killed in this conflict by Hamas now, almost 1000 Israeli citizens. But we also know that as a vibrant democracy, Israel shares many of our values and interests and certainly. one of those values is that respect for life, and we're always better together when we are observing that respect for life and for the laws of war as well,” he said.
There is still “no direct evidence” that Iran was involved in the sourcing or planning of these attacks, Kirby reiterated, though he said there is a “level of complicity.”
