Biden Calls on Syria to Help Secure Release of Journalist Austin Tice

Tice, a freelance photojournalist, disappeared on August 14, 2012 after being detained at a checkpoint near Damascus (AFP)
Tice, a freelance photojournalist, disappeared on August 14, 2012 after being detained at a checkpoint near Damascus (AFP)
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Biden Calls on Syria to Help Secure Release of Journalist Austin Tice

Tice, a freelance photojournalist, disappeared on August 14, 2012 after being detained at a checkpoint near Damascus (AFP)
Tice, a freelance photojournalist, disappeared on August 14, 2012 after being detained at a checkpoint near Damascus (AFP)

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called on Syria to help secure the release of American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted a decade ago in Damascus.

"We know with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime," Biden said in a statement. "We have repeatedly asked the government of Syria to work with us so that we can bring Austin home.

"On the tenth anniversary of his abduction, I am calling on Syria to end this and help us bring him home," he said.

Biden said Tice, a former US Marine turned journalist, "put the truth above himself and traveled to Syria to show the world the real cost of war."

"There is no higher priority in my administration than the recovery and return of Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad," Biden said.

"That is a pledge I have made to the American people and to Austin's parents, and it is one that I am determined to uphold," he added.

Tice was a freelance photojournalist working for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other news organizations when he disappeared after being detained at a checkpoint near Damascus on August 14, 2012.

Thirty-one years old at the time he was captured, Tice appeared blindfolded in the custody of an unidentified group of armed men in a video a month later but there has been little news since.



Gaza Civil Defense Says Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 29

A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
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Gaza Civil Defense Says Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 29

A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
A Palestinian girl, wounded in an Israeli strike that killed people, who gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, receives treatment at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed at least 29 Palestinians, including six children near a water distribution point.

The attacks came with apparent deadlock in a week of indirect talks in Qatar between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire in the territory.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that Gaza City was hit by several strikes overnight and in the early morning, killing eight, "including women and children" and wounding others.

An Israeli airstrike hit a family home near the Nuseirat refugee camp, south of Gaza City, resulting in "10 martyrs and several injured", Bassal said.

In central Gaza, six children were among eight people killed when a drone "hit a potable water distribution point in an area for displaced people" in the Nuseirat camp, he added.

Several other people were wounded, he said.

In the territory's south, three people were killed when Israeli jets hit a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in the coastal Al-Mawasi area, according to the civil defense spokesman.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has recently intensified its operations across Gaza, more than 21 months into the war triggered by Hamas's October 2023 attack.

On Saturday, the military said fighter jets had hit more than 35 "Hamas terror targets" around Beit Hanun in northern Gaza.

The vast majority of Gaza's population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions in the territory.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.