Nearly two dozen American citizens have died since the Hamas terrorist attack that ignited a war with Israel, U.S. officials have confirmed.
“At this time, we can confirm the deaths of at least 22 U.S. citizens,” a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday. “We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected.”
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Those figures, up from nine confirmed U.S. citizen deaths on Monday, could still rise, not least because an indeterminate number of Americans are believed to be among the approximately 150 hostages that Hamas captured and transported to the Gaza Strip. Neither Israeli nor Hamas officials have evinced interest in negotiating for their release, as Israeli forces hammer Hamas targets across the Palestinian-populated territory in response to a terrorist attack that IDF officials calculate killed at least 1,200 people and wounded 3,000 more.
“The military operation is still continuing … therefore there is currently no chance for negotiation on the issue of prisoners or anything else,” Hamas official Husam Badran, who is based in Qatar, said Monday.
Other Hamas terrorists threatened to execute hostages in retaliation for the bombardments, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unleashed in response to a raid in which Hamas caught Israeli security forces blindsided with a shocking infiltration of the districts bordering Gaza. The infiltrators rampaged through lightly-guarded Israeli border communities, massacring civilians, including more than 250 people who attended an outdoor music festival.
“We’ve never seen such savagery in the history of the state,” Netanyahu told President Joe Biden, according to a readout of a call released by his office. “They took dozens of children, bound them up, burned them, and executed them. They beheaded soldiers, they mowed down these youngsters who came to a nature festival, you know, put five jeeps around this depression in the soil and like Babyn Yar, they mowed them down, making sure that they killed everybody.”
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The death toll among Israelis and Palestinians surged to 2,200 on Wednesday, as health ministry officials in Gaza announced that more than 1,000 Palestinians have died in Israel bombardments. An international humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, said that “medical facilities have not been spared” in the Israeli strikes.
“The intensity of the violence and bombardment is shocking, as is the death toll,” Leo Cans, the MSF head of mission for the Palestinian territories, wrote Tuesday. “One of the hospitals we support was hit by an airstrike and damaged. Another airstrike destroyed an ambulance carrying the wounded, right in front of the hospital where we work. The MSF team was operating on a patient and had to leave the hospital in a hurry. We repeat: Medical facilities must be respected. This is not something that should have to be negotiated.”