President Joe Biden on Wednesday held an in-person meeting at the White House with the families of some of the eight Americans still unaccounted for and presumed taken captive by Hamas during its deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer joined Biden for the meeting. Thirteen of the family members attended the meeting in person, while three others joined the conversation with the president and his advisers by phone, according to the White House.
The Democratic president has previously met with some family members virtually and spoken to others on the phone. Biden was set to provide an update on American efforts to secure the release of those held by Hamas.
“He'll guarantee them that we are not going to lose sight of their loved ones, we're not going to stop trying to get them home,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on CNN as he previewed Biden's message to the families. Kirby stressed that U.S. officials are “trying to get more information about them and to get a deal in place where we can get them back home.”
Biden’s meeting with the families of hostages came as his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was to head to Israel on Thursday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, members of his war cabinet, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
It also came one day after the American president offered his most pointed criticism yet of the Israeli government, warning that the country was at risk of losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.
Biden, who has extolled the United States' support for Israel's right to defend itself, said at a fundraiser on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a "tough decision to make." He went on to describe Israel's government as "the most conservative" in its history, noting that it "doesn't want a two-state solution" with the Palestinians, and said that Netanyahu "has to strengthen and change" the country's government to find a long-term solution for the conflict.
“One of the things that Bibi understands is that Israel’s security can rest on the United States," Biden said. "But right now, it has more than the United States. It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has most of the world supporting them. But they’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
Biden also called out Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of a far-right Israeli party and the minister of national security in Netanyahu’s governing coalition. Ben-Gvir opposes a two-state solution and has called for the Israel to reassert control over all of the West Bank and Gaza.
Biden suggested that he wasn’t sure Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu’s war Cabinet understand the implications of the ongoing bombing.
The president also said he urged Netanyahu not to “make the same mistakes” the U.S. made after Sept. 11, saying the U.S. military response landed it in a long war in Afghanistan and “there’s no reason we did so many of the things we did.”
The eight Americans remain unaccounted for after Hamas’ surprise air, sea and land incursion into Israeli towns, where the group killed about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 people hostage. The White House has said that at least 31 Americans were killed by Hamas and other militant groups on Oct. 7.
Four Americans were released as part of a U.S.-negotiated cease-fire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza that was brokered with the assistance of Qatar and Egypt.
One American woman was supposed to be released by Hamas under the terms of last month’s cease-fire, but she remains unaccounted for — a development that contributed to the end of the temporary pause in the fighting.