WASHINGTON: More than 300 Americans, US residents and their families have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip as Israel’s fight against Hamas rages, the White House said on Sunday.
The evacuation, carried out in recent days, was the result of “pretty intensive negotiations with all sides relevant to this conflict,” White House deputy national security advisor Jonathan Finer told CBS News.
Despite these efforts, the United States believes there are still “a number” of Americans inside Gaza, he added.
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“This is obviously a major priority and one that we’re going to continue to work out until every American who wants to leave is able to do so,” Finer said.
The Rafah border crossing from Gaza to Egypt opened up Wednesday after weeks of war, allowing a trickle of wounded Palestinians and people with dual nationality to leave, all desperate to escape Israel’s bombardment.
Egypt has said it would help evacuate 7,000 foreigners through the crossing, but Hamas said late Saturday that the evacuation of dual nationals and foreigners from was being suspended until Israel lets some wounded Palestinians reach Rafah so they can cross the border for hospital treatment.
A senior White House official on Friday accused Hamas of abusing a US-brokered deal to open the crossing to get its fighters out of Gaza.
A third of the names on a list provided by Hamas of Palestinians needing medical evacuation were those of Hamas members and fighters, the official said.
Sunday’s latest count of evacuated Americans comes after the White House said nearly 80 US citizens and their family members had left Wednesday and Thursday.
The fighting in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s bloody raids into Israel on October 7, which Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people, mainly civilians.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 9,227 people have died in Israeli bombardments, mostly women and children.
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