Three days after the bodies of six hostages were found in a tunnel in Gaza, National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby made clear the five Israelis and one American Israeli were executed by Hamas. 

“Hamas is responsible for their deaths,” Kirby said during a press briefing Monday. “Hamas leaders will pay for their crimes.”

What You Need To Know

  • President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met in the White House Situation Room with the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team on Monday to talk about next steps in their effort to secure the remaining 101 hostages held by Hamas

  • On Saturday, Israel discovered the bodies of one American Israeli and five Israeli hostages in a tunnel in Gaza

  • The White House is working on a proposal to secure the release of the remaining hostages, provide massive and immediate relief for the people of Gaza and result in a stoppage of the fighting

  • Since May, the U.S. has been working with co-mediators in Qatar and Egypt to secure the hostages' release and a ceasefire

Kirby said President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with the parents of Hersh Goldberg Polin, the 23-year-old American Israeli who was kidnapped by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Re’im music festival in Israel. His body was found in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Saturday.

Biden and Harris met in the White House Situation Room with the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team Monday to talk about next steps in their effort to secure the remaining 101 hostages held by Hamas.

“We’re working on a proposal that will secure the release of the remaining hostages and will include massive and immediate relief for the people of Gaza and also result in a stoppage of the fighting,” Kirby said.

He declined to discuss the specifics of the deal, only that the U.S. has “heard” from Israel and Hamas and is consulting with co-mediators in Qatar and Egypt, who are communicating with Hamas directly.

“The killings over the weekend — the executions is the only way to put it — just underscores for us how important it is to keep that work alive and keep going,” Kirby said.

Protesters have swarmed the streets of Israel since the hostages’ bodies were discovered, calling on Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire and hostage release proposal the United States has been working on since May with Qatar and Egypt.

Last month, negotiators from all three countries were confident a deal was imminent, only to have the plan shot down by Hamas and Israeli leadership. On Monday, Netanyahu said Hamas needs to make more concessions for a deal to take place.

Biden said Monday that Netanyahu is not doing enough to secure a cease-fire and hostage release agreement. Kirby said a meeting or phone call between the two leaders hasn’t been scheduled, but he assumes there will be additional conversations coming shortly.

“We still believe the best way to get all the hostages back with their families is to get this deal in place. We believe we’re close enough and that the gaps are narrow enough to achieve that outcome,” Kirby said, adding that reaching a deal is not easy.

“When you get that close, when you get to that level of detail, that’s when the horse trading gets incredibly difficult. That’s when the task of negotiations really intensifies. We still believe that where we have gaps they can be narrowed, but there’s no guarantee that they will be. We just have to keep working as hard as we have been.”