Hostage Holders News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

"the story" with martha maccallum starts right now. >> martha: i'm martha maccallum. think about this. a 3-year-old american toddler whose parents were killed in this attack has been confirmed to be among the nine americans being held by hamas terrorists. this child's parents were killed in the attack. jake sullivan said he will be speaking to the families of the americans. people are asking, why aren't we hearing more about the americans being held? we have talked to one of the families. it's a strange dynamic of all of this that they're not front and center all the time in these pi...

Are still inside. there are at least six to eight hostage holders. jim bitterman is joining us from paris right now. jim, first of all, what else have you learned about this hostage situation that's still underway? >> wolf, it apparently still is underway. the police are still targeting the building upper floors on the building where the hostages apparently are being held. now, some people have been freed. there have been as your reporter from france 2 was reporting earlier, in fact some people have been evacuated from the building. our assistant producer's on the scene and he said he saw at l...

Unprecedented for coordination. really a level above what we saw even with "charlie hebdo" in january in paris, wolf. >> it sounds like that hostage situation over at the concert hall is still ongoing right now. the hostage takers, hostage holders are clearly there. police have presumably, jim, surrounded that concert hall right now. they're trying to get in there. >> if not surrounded the concert hall, they are at least exchanging gunfire with attackers, i'm told, on the roof of the concert hall. but we did hear the deputy mayor say early or witnesses reports of them trying to break into the ...

Rescues. you had that with a failed hostage rescue attempt in syria going after isis captives. they came to the right place, but it was too late. you had an operation in december the american luke summers killed not by the rescuers but by his hostage holders while that attack was underway. it's difficult to get these things right. there's the bigger question. you have enormous opposition to these striengkes from locals on the ground. the larger policy question raised do the costs out weight the benefits here. because it's not just local opposition which leads to anti-americanism. it's an extre...

His state of mind is. then they have various technical methods to hear what's going on inside the room and to actually view it as well. they make an assessment as to how many hostage holders they are. in this case one, that he's mentally unstable, that he has a history of violence. >> all of that is taken into assessments. decisions are made early on as to what point the assault was to took place. >> another thing we know is that law enforcement has time on their side. they're not desperate. they're not anxious. they're desperate to save lives but they have time on their side. one of the thing...