White House not ruling out U.S. troops’ involvement in releasing hostages held by HAMAS

This is reported by The Hill, Ukrinform saw.

Asked on Fox News Sunday if he would "absolutely rule out" the possibility of any US troops being deployed on the ground, Kirby said: “What I won’t do is rule anything in or out when it comes to getting our hostages home.”

“We’re working on this literally by the hour but again, in order for you to develop specific policy options, you got to have a lot more contextual information than is available to use right now and we’re working at that,” Kirby said.

He also stated that there are currently "no plans or intentions to put U.S. troops on the ground to fight in this fight between Israel and Hamas."

Kirby also pointed to uncertainty regarding the details about the whereabouts of the American hostages and their numbers.

“We are actively trying to find out exactly where they are, I mean, Shannon, we don’t even know how many exactly. We saw a small handful, we know there could be more than we know that could be in different groups, it could be moved around,” Kirby said, noting the U.S. need to be “careful” about its public discussions of efforts to free the hostages.

The U.S. Department of State said on Saturday that the number of confirmed American victims had reached 27.

Hamas is believed to be holding more than 100 hostages, including civilians, Israeli soldiers, and an unspecified number of Americans. The State Department said on Saturday that 15 American citizens remained missing, but stressed that this did not mean that all of them were being held hostage.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that the confirmed number of Israeli hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza stands at 126.