And … we’re just getting this confirmation now, almost two months after ten Americans got kidnapped in southern Israel. Let’s also not forget that Hamas’ October 7 massacres killed more Americans on a single day than any terrorist action since 9/11, along with being the worst one-day loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.

The White House, which took credit for the hostage deal/’pause’ with Hamas, finally confirmed the numbers yesterday afternoon. Spokesman John Kirby confirmed this after the first American hostage finally got released on Day 4 of the deal that Biden bragged about brokering:

Hamas still has nine American hostages, the White House confirmed on Monday, a day after a four-year-old girl became the first American hostage taken during the Oct. 7 attack in Israel to be released. …

President Biden wants the remaining Americans to be included in a new round of hostage releases expected over the next few days, John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said on Monday, soon after Israel and Hamas agreed to extend a ceasefire for two more days. Israel originally agreed to pause the bombardment of Gaza for four days and release 150 Palestinian prisoners held in the West Bank in exchange for 50 hostages being returned home from Gaza.

Hold the phone. What exactly did Biden bargain for in Qatar if not for the American hostages? The Thai government got several of its ag workers out in a unilateral release over the last few days, and the Russians got their one hostage out without any concessions. Where are the Americans?

If Biden wasn’t negotiating to get a firm commitment to release the American hostages, then what in the world was he negotiating in Qatar? And why is Biden’s team now playing catch-up on the extensions in order to get some of our fellow Americans included in the swap? Biden insisted that he brokered the deal to “bring Americans home,” but now it’s clear that Biden didn’t prioritize that at all.

In fact, it looks suspiciously like Hamas held onto the Americans for leverage on extension of the ‘pause.’ And it looks equally suspicious that Biden and his team played along with Hamas on that strategy — or that they were too stupid to grasp it. I’d normally bet on the basis of stupidity, but the failure to guarantee any release of Americans in the first four days of the pause goes well beyond the bounds of stupidity.

This part of the report from Time Magazine makes it look like Biden wanted to use the American hostages for leverage on Israel for the extensions:

Biden spent the weekend making calls on the negotiations around the ceasefire from Nantucket island off the coast of Massachusetts, where he spent the Thanksgiving holiday at the waterfront house of investor David Rubenstein.

On Saturday, Biden spoke with Qatar’s Emir Sheik Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at a “very critical moment” to “help resolve an impasse,” involving which hostages would be released, Kirby said. On Sunday, Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to find terms under which Israel would agree to extend the four-day pause in fighting by another two days.

The result of those talks was the release of one American hostage — and Israel’s compliance with extensions of the ‘pause.’ Does anyone think that’s coincidental to the fact that Hamas still holds nine Americans, whose release Biden didn’t bother to guarantee in the original ‘pause’ plan in the deal he claimed credit for making?

The fact that Biden decided to leave the White House during this crisis is yet another marker for the low regard he has for Americans held hostage by terrorists. And that goes well beyond a weekend in Nantucket at the home of a multi-billionaire booster, too. It’s been almost two months since a terrorist group massacred dozens of Americans and kidnapped ten others, and the US has not offered a single retributive response to that affront. We parked two carrier groups in the Mediterranean, but have done nothing with them to disincentivize further attacks on Americans by terror groups. At the moment, their only real purpose appears to be leverage on Israel rather than Hamas or Hezbollah.

Rather than make terrorists pay for killing and kidnapping Americans, Biden and his team are making it pay off for Hamas. This is a disgrace, and it will result in more Americans getting killed and kidnapped in the future.