The White House has confirmed the deaths of “at least” 11 Americans in Israel as the war escalates between them and the terrorist group Hamas.
As news broke that hundreds of people were killed during Hamas’ coordinated attack on Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on Sunday that the U.S. was investigating reports that Americans were among the dead or those taken hostage. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller spoke with CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Monday.
“We are in close contact with the government of Israel as they continue to conduct security operations to locate missing U.S. citizens, missing Israeli citizens,” Miller said. “And we are, of course, in close contact with the families of these nine deceased Americans and offering them any consular assistance that we can provide.”
Miller declined to put a number on how many Americans in Israel are currently missing, saying, “It’s very hard to say. It’s a number that moves all the time.”
“We’ve continued to work. Some of them will be located, we suspect,” he said. “Some of them may unfortunately turn out to be deceased, but we will work on that with the government of Israel in the coming days.”