The United States President, Joe Biden alongside his Vice President, Kamala Harris have held a meeting at the White House with hostage deal negotiation team following murder of American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas.
According to the statement released by the White House on Monday, stating that the President expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder, and reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable.
Report has it that the hostages, aged between 23 and 40 years old, were “brutally murdered” a short time before Israeli forces found them in an underground tunnel on Saturday night, according to the Israeli military.
The bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino were brought back to Israel.
They were among the 250 hostages taken on 7 October when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas made an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies, and triggering the war.
At least 40,691 Palestinians have been killed and 94,060 injured in Israel’s subsequent military offensive in Gaza, the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
During the meeting, President Biden and Vice President Harris received an update from the U.S. negotiation team on the status of the bridging proposal outlined by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.
As the meeting unfolded, they discussed next steps in the ongoing effort to secure the release of hostages, including continuing consultations with co-mediators Qatar and Egypt.
The Vice President, Harris while reacting to the hostage deaths said with these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands and strongly condemned the Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world.
She said, “From its massacre of 1,200 people to sexual violence, taking of hostages, and these murders, Hamas’ depravity is evident and horrifying. The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel and American citizens in Israel must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza.
“The Palestinian people too have suffered under Hamas’ rule for nearly two decades. As Vice President, I have no higher priority than safety of American citizens, wherever they are in the world. President Biden and I will never waver in our commitment to free the Americans and all those held hostage in Gaza”, she added.
