Talks With Hamas to Release Hostages Continue

As Israel continues its operation in Gaza to free hostages — and Hamas terrorists continue to use the holding of hostages and innocent Gaza civilians as their "human shields" — negotiations continue.

"I'm very careful in how I answer this question, because the negotiations are delicate, they're high stakes," national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "What is at stake is the recovery of a significant number of innocent people, including innocent Americans, currently being held hostage by Hamas, a murderous terrorist organization.

"It is the case that there are active negotiations underway between Israel and Qatar, who is communicating with Hamas, and the United States is involved in those discussions, very much involved in those discussions. But I'm not going to get into the specifics of what's on the table, only to say that we are actively working to ensure the safe return of every American being held hostage and every other person being held hostage by Hamas."

There remain nine Americans still missing after the Hamas Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel that touched off the war and Gaza operations to free those taken as human shields.

"We do not know the precise number of hostages," Sullivan told ABC News' "This Week" in another interview Sunday. "We know the number of missing, and that's the number the Israelis have given. But we don't know how many of those are still alive.

"As far as the Americans are concerned, there are nine missing American citizens, as well as a missing legal permanent representative, a green card holder. And so that's the number that we are working with.

"That's the number that we are trying to ensure the safe return of. And we have been engaging with the families. In fact, I will personally be seeing family members of the American hostages this coming week."

Hamas has made claims through its media ties, including The Associated Press and Reuters, to say the Israel operation on Gaza has killed hostages in addition to civilians that remain in the war-torn regions targeted as Hamas terrorist enclaves.

"We don't take anything Hamas says at face value, but we have no information that can either corroborate or counteract that," Sullivan told ABC of the Hamas claims of hostages being killed by Israeli airstrikes.

"We simply don't know how many of the hostages are still alive, how many have been mistreated, how many Hamas itself has killed just as it slaughtered hundreds and hundreds of people when it conducted those gruesome and horrific terrorist attacks on Oct. 7."

• Maher Rebukes Obama: 'Enough With the Moral Equivalencies'
• State Dept. Memo Rebukes Biden for Israel Support