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National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday the United States offered help with the rescue of four Israeli hostages over the weekend but did not specify how.
In the interview with host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” that aired Sunday morning, Sullivan declined to answer how the United States helped specifically due to security reasons.
“The United States has been providing support to Israel for several months in its efforts to help identify the locations of hostages in Gaza and to support efforts to try to secure their rescue or recovery,” Sullivan said. “I can only just say that we have generally provided support to the IDF so that we can try to get all of the hostages home, including the American hostages who are still being held.”
Four Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 were rescued on Saturday in an IDF special operation that the Gaza Health Ministry said killed 274 Palestinians.
Sullivan also said there was no confirmation any Israeli hostages were killed in the rescue mission, something Bash said Hamas has claimed.
But Sullivan added there is always a risk: “I believe that the Israelis have said they do not have any information to that effect,” Sullivan said. “With all of these military operations, hostages have been killed over the last eight months.”
In regards to a recently proposed cease-fire deal, Sullivan said he is waiting to hear from Hamas.
He said the plan would put in place a cease-fire and immediately begin the process of bringing hostages home. “To bring an end to this war, to get the hostages home, to get the full scope of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in a safe and effective way, we need this deal,” Sullivan said.
And when asked if President Joe Biden is pleased with how Israel handled the operation, Sullivan said the president “thinks the best way to get all of the hostages home is in a deal where they’re brought out diplomatically.”
“That would obviously be the best solution to this,” Sullivan said. “In the absence of that, without Hamas saying yes to the deal, unfortunately, we are going to continue to see ongoing conflict and military operations in which Israel makes efforts to recover its citizens and, frankly, to recover American citizens.”
