There are 199 people held hostage by terrorist organizations in Gaza, according to the Israeli military, a number higher than estimates.
The families of the hostages have been notified, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said on Monday. There are women and children among the kidnapped who were taken more than a week ago during the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history, which was conducted by Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist organizations.
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Most of the terrorists are believed to be held by Hamas, though Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based terrorist group, has claimed to be holding 30 hostages of its own, which could complicate efforts to secure their release.
Among the hostages could be some of the roughly 15 Americans who remain unaccounted for, while 30 perished in the attacks. U.S. National Security Council coordinator John Kirby acknowledged on Monday that the United States has very limited insight into where the hostages are being kept and whether they're being moved around, even though the administration is assisting Israel's efforts to secure every hostage's release.
An Iranian official said Hamas is prepared to trade the hostages for the end of Israel's retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza.
Hamas officials “stated that they are ready to take necessary measures to release the citizens and civilians held by resistant groups, but their point was that such measures require preparations that are impossible under daily bombardment by the Zionists against various parts of Gaza,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said during a press conference in Tehran on Monday, according to the Associated Press.
Hamas has not publicly commented on Kanaani's claim.
Iran's possible involvement in the terrorist attacks has been widely debated amid speculation that it participated in the planning or had knowledge of the attack ahead of time, which Hamas and Tehran have denied. U.S. officials have denied Tehran was directly involved in the terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 people, the vast majority of whom were Israeli civilians, though they have noted Iran's support for Hamas as complicity in the most deadly day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Tehran not only supports terrorist groups that border Israel, Hamas and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, but the country's foreign minister threatened to expand the scope of the war by entering it.
“If the Zionist regime’s crimes against the Palestinian people and citizens continue, no one can guarantee that the situation in the region will remain the same,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said after meeting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar, according to Iranian media.
Tension and fighting between Hezbollah and Israel have increased since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. Israeli officials and observers have warned about the possibility that Israel may have to fight a war with multiple fronts, Hamas from the southwest and Hezbollah from the north, though it's not clear whether that will become a reality.
The IDF and the Defense Ministry announced on Monday the intent to evacuate civilians in 28 communities within 1.25 miles of the Lebanese border due to the increased rocket and missile attacks from Lebanon.
“Hezbollah carried out a number of attacks yesterday in order to try to divert our operational efforts [away from the Gaza Strip], under the direction and backing of Iran, while endangering the state of Lebanon and its citizens,” Hagari said. “We have increased our forces on the northern border and will respond aggressively to any activity against us. ... If Hezbollah dares to test us, the reaction will be deadly. The United States is giving us full backing.”
The two sides have exchanged rocket and missile fire since the attacks, though the tit-for-tat has remained limited in scope.
Israeli forces are preparing for a ground operation into northern Gaza in the coming days. Since Oct. 7, the IDF has dropped thousands of bombings and conducted significant airstrikes. The Gaza health ministry reported that 2,700 people have been killed in the Israeli strikes, while thousands of others have been wounded. Israel has ordered 1.1 million Gaza civilians in the northern part of the area to travel south ahead of the offensive, while there are reports of Hamas preventing people from going south and Israeli strikes causing deaths and injuries among those evacuating.
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Despite the evacuation orders, Palestinians were initially only given 24 hours to leave with nowhere to go, as both the entry points to Israel and Egypt were closed. The United Nations has warned that the Israeli military operations and the evacuation order pose grave humanitarian risks. The Hamas interior ministry said the bodies of more than 1,000 Palestinians are trapped under the rubble of buildings taken down by Israeli strikes.
Israeli leaders maintain that they seek the eradication of Hamas and its infrastructure, while Hamas has been known to hide among civilians to make it significantly harder for Israeli forces to discern the terrorist group's members.