National Security Council spokesman John Kirby would not rule out the possibility of US troops being deployed in Gaza to free the American hostages abducted from Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7 but said that currently, there were no plans to do so, The Hill reported.
While appearing on “Fox News Sunday” last week, Kirby was asked by host Shannon Bream if he would “absolutely rule out” using American troops on the ground. He said that when it came to bringing US hostages home, he wouldn’t “rule anything in or out.”
Kirby added that the Biden administration is working on this “by the hour,” but added that for the administration to develop any specific option, there must be more “contextual information” than what is currently available.
At this time, Kirby told Bream, the administration has “no plans or intentions” to have US troops involved in the war between Israel and Hamas.
When Bream asked if US troops would be used to retrieve the hostages, Kirby said the US is “actively” trying to determine where the hostages are and exactly how many Americans are being held.
Kirby said the administration has to be “careful” about what it says in public about its efforts to free the hostages.
Last Friday, the president spoke for more than an hour with the families of the Americans held in Gaza.
While speaking in Philadelphia, Biden said he gave the families his “personal commitment to do everything possible to return every missing American.”
While appearing on “60 Minutes” last Sunday, President Biden told CBS News’s Scott Pelley that the US is “working like hell” to find the Americans being held hostage by Hamas, but refused to go into detail on what his administration is doing to find them, saying only that the US would “do everything in our power to find them.”
