Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that the U.S. is "actively working" to verify reports that several Americans may be among the dead in the Israel-Hamas conflict, as well as reports that there could be some U.S. hostages.
Hamas fighters on Saturday launched an attack on Israel through the country’s south. The ongoing attack has killed hundreds, and Hamas fighters have taken a number of civilians and soldiers hostage.
“Does the administration know at this point if U.S. citizens were among the dead or those taken hostage?” NBC News' Kristen Welker asked Blinken.
Blinken said: “So we have reports that several Americans may be among the dead. We are very actively working to verify those reports. Similarly, we’ve seen reports about hostages, and there, again, we’re very actively trying to verify them and nail that down.”
Pressed again about whether some U.S. citizens could have been taken hostage, as well, Blinken replied: “That’s correct.”
Meanwhile, in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog, indicated that Americans are among Hamas’ hostages.
“I understand there are, but I don’t have details,” he said, adding, however, that he couldn’t provide numbers.
Asked whether Iran played a role in the attack, Blinken noted its “long relationship” with Hamas but said the Biden administration doesn’t have any evidence it is involved.
“We don’t have anything that shows us that Iran was directly involved in this attack, in planning it or carrying out, but that’s something we’re looking at very carefully,” he said. “And we’ve got to see where the facts lead.”
Welker noted that Hamas attacked amid talks among the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel about a potential deal to normalize relations — a move Washington may see as a way to counter Iranian aggression in the region.
“What, if any, role do you think those talks may have played in these attacks, and does this is effectively mean that those talks are now dead?” she asked.
Blinken didn’t rule out the possibility: “It’s no surprise that those who are opposed to the talks, those who are opposed to Israel normalizing its relations with its neighbors and with countries beyond the region are: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
“And so it’s entirely possible that one of the motivations for this attack was to try to derail these efforts to advance normalization, something that is very hard,” he said. “There are a lot of really challenging issues to work through. We’re in the process of trying to do that.”
Republican presidential candidates have blamed the Biden administration for the attacks, with several arguing, without evidence, that the U.S. funded them as a result of a prisoner exchange with Iran, which has a history of funding Hamas. The deal resulted in a waiver that gave Tehran access to $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue that had been blocked by U.S. sanctions, according to a State Department document sent to Congress and obtained by NBC News.
Asked to respond to GOP critics who say the deal the Biden administration recently made with Iran funded the attacks, Blinken said he found it “very unfortunate that some are playing politics at a time when so many lives have been lost and Israel remains under attack.”
“The facts are that these were these were not U.S. taxpayer dollars; these were Iranian resources that it had accumulated from the sale of its oil that were stuck in a bank in South Korea from day one,” he said. “Under our law, under our sanctions going back many years, it’s always had the right to use those funds for humanitarian purposes, for food, for medicine, for medical equipment. Funds were moved from one bank to another where it could more easily do that.
“Not a single cent has been spent from that account," he added. "When any money is spent from that account, it can only be used for medical supplies, for food, for medicine, and those who are saying otherwise are either misinformed or misinforming, and it’s wrong either way.”
Welker asked: “What do you say about the argument that money is fungible — so Iran may have known this money is coming and use other funds to help fund this attack?”
Blinken said: “Iran has unfortunately always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism, on supporting groups like Hamas. And it’s done that when there have been sanctions, it’s done that when there haven’t been sanctions, and it’s always prioritized that.”
Blinken reiterated that the money the administration released was made available to Iran for humanitarian purposes: “The Trump administration set up a very similar mechanism to enable Iran to use these kinds of assets for humanitarian purposes. We’ve done the same thing.”
He also called on both chambers of Congress to “clearly show and express their support for Israel” on a bipartisan basis in the conflict.
“And so that’s something we want to see, and we hope that that happens quickly,” he said.
