10 American hostages remain in Gaza, US says

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said 10 American hostages remain in Gaza as of Sunday, and that three of them qualify for release under the latest deal because they are women and children, as anticipation builds for more hostages to be freed this weekend.

Sullivan made the rounds on the Sunday political news shows as the deal continues to unfold, revealing that the U.S. expects at least one American hostage to be released Sunday.

The Biden adviser said on ABC’s “This Week” that there are two women, one child and seven men who make up the 10 Americans who remain as hostages taken by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7.

The three women and children meet the requirements to be released by Hamas under a deal reached by multiple countries, including the U.S., that established a four-day truce that began days earlier, in which a round of Thai, Filipino and Israeli hostages were released starting Friday.

Sullivan said the U.S. has “reason to believe” that one of the American hostages, a 4-year-old girl, will be released today, but he gave no guarantees.

“[U]ntil we actually see her safe and sound, out of Gaza, we cannot have 100 percent certainty that it will happen,” he said.

“So, we are going to watch this, hour by hour, and hopefully have a moment, a moment of joy, where one of the Americans is safely out and ultimately reunited with her family. That’s what we are waiting for as we speak,” Sullivan said.

The girl is Abigail Idan, who turned 4 years old while being held hostage in Gaza last week. Sullivan said Sunday while the U.S. does not know the current condition of Idan, they expect that she is alive.

“What we know or have reason to believe is that she is still alive, and we are hopeful that she will be reunited with her family soon,” Sullivan said. “But I don’t want to say more than that right now because, A, I don’t want to give any false hope, and, B, perhaps more importantly, I want to make sure that Hamas actually follows through with what it has committed to today and that we see the release of the 13, including one American.”

Fifty hostages total are expected to be released during the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas, but so far, no Americans have been freed. Twenty-four hostages were released Friday in the first wave, and an additional 17 were released Saturday, including a 9-year-old Israeli Irish girl who was believed to be dead, after an initial delay by Hamas.

In exchange for the hostages, Israel agreed to release about 150 Palestinian prisoners — women and teenagers — from prisons in the West Bank. Sullivan conceded Sunday that under the deal, Hamas “gained some benefits” from the release of prisoners and the time Hamas got to regroup under the pause in fighting.

“One of them is the ability to refit and retool inside Gaza,” he said. “Another is to try to use social media and other formats to generate some propaganda out of it. And these are difficult decisions that any Israeli prime minister has to make.”

About 240 people were taken hostage by Hamas militants when the group launched its initial attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 Israelis. Since then, Gaza has been under heavy bombardment by Israel, with the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reporting that more than 12,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting.