Washington

Amid the Hamas surprise attack on Israel, over 200 hostages are being held by the terror group. Now American commandos have been deployed in Israel to locate the hostages, source reported on Wednesday.

It reported, quoting Christopher P. Maier, an assistant secretary of defence in the US, We’re actively helping the Israelis to do a number of things. He added that a main task was to help Israel identify hostages, including American hostages. It’s really our responsibility to do so.

A US official sharing about the deployment said that the Defence Department has dispatched several dozen commandos in recent days, in addition to a small team that was in Israel on October 7 but declined to give the specific number of the security forces deployment.

The source reported that the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the commandos would join the FBI, State Department and other US government hostages’ recovery specialists in their discussions with Israeli counterparts.

US forces are not assigned any combatant roles in Israel but are coordinating with the Israeli counterparts counterparts on what is going to be a very complex fight going forward in Gaza, Maier said.

In his discussions with his Israeli counterpart, Defence Secretary Lloyd J. Austin II has stressed the need for careful consideration of how Israeli forces conduct a ground invasion of Gaza, where Hamas maintains an intricate network of tunnels under densely populated areas, source reported.