American forces working in Israel to locate Hamas held hostages, says Pentagon

WASHINGTON: Amid the Hamas surprise attack on Israel, over 200 hostages are being held by the terror group. Now American commandos have been deployed in Israel to locate the hostages, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

It reported, quoting Christopher P. Maier, an assistant secretary of defence in the US, "We're actively helping the Israelis to do a number of things". He added that a main task was to help Israel "identify hostages, including American hostages. It's really our responsibility to do so."

A US official sharing about the deployment said that the Defence Department has dispatched several dozen commandos in recent days, in addition to a small team that was in Israel on October 7 but declined to give the specific number of the security forces deployment.

The New York Times reported that the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the commandos would join the FBI, State Department and other US government hostages' recovery specialists in their discussions with Israeli counterparts.

US forces are not assigned any combatant roles in Israel but are coordinating with the Israeli counterparts "counterparts on what is going to be a very complex fight going forward" in Gaza, Maier said. In his discussions with his Israeli counterpart, Defence Secretary Lloyd J. Austin II has stressed the need for careful consideration of how Israeli forces conduct a ground invasion of Gaza, where Hamas maintains an intricate network of tunnels under densely populated areas, The New York Times reported. "We will work with them as much as possible to help advise them on those types of activities," Maier said.

The New York Times reported that several Western countries have secretly moved small teams of their own special forces closer to Israel to help with any potential rescue operation and to be nearby to assist in any large-scale evacuations of their citizens from Israel or Lebanon. Mr. Maier said U.S. Special Operations forces in the region are also poised "to help our own citizens get out of places and to help our embassies be secure."

Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) reported that Tuesday evening its fighter jets, acting on intelligence provided by the ISA (Israeli Security Agency), killed Ibrahim Biari, the commander of Hamas' Central Jabaliya Battalion. Biari was one of the leaders responsible for sending "Nukbha" terrorist operatives to Israel to carry out the murderous terror attack on October 7th. Numerous other Hamas terrorists were also killed in the strike.

Biari, said the IDF, oversaw all military operations in the northern Gaza Strip since the IDF first began its ground offensive over the weekend. He was also responsible for sending the terrorists who carried out the 2004 terror attack in Ashdod Port, in which 13 Israelis were murdered. He was also responsible for directing rocket fire at Israel and advancing numerous attacks against the IDF over the last two decades.

The strike damaged Hamas' command and control in the area, as well as its ability to direct military activity against IDF soldiers operating throughout the Gaza Strip, according to the IDF. Also, underground terror infrastructure embedded beneath the buildings, used by the terrorists, collapsed after the strike. The IDF reiterated its call to the residents of the area to move south for their safety.