President Joe Biden announced that the United States has finally secured safe passage for Americans and wounded Palestinians through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt:
“We expect American citizens to exit today, and we expect to see more depart over the coming days,” Biden wrote in a post on X. “We won’t let up working to get Americans out of Gaza.”State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller later said during a press briefing that “there are around 400 Americans in Gaza with whom we are in communication, who have expressed a desire to leave” and that “There are a number of American citizens who have crossed through Rafah and are in Egypt today.”
Miller also said: “Hamas was impeding the departure of American citizens and other foreign nationals. We’ve talked before about how, at times, they had no one there at Rafah gate to process individuals who were attempting to leave. At other times, they were actively preventing them from approaching the gate, and they have now agreed to no longer stand in the way.”
No one has a timeline, though.
Those with foreign passports and some of those critically injured may leave.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby accused Hamas of purposely setting up ways to keep people from leaving:
“Why have Americans and foreign nationals still been unable to get out of Gaza, even though aid trucks have been going in?” a reporter asked Kirby during Tuesday’s White House press briefing. “Beyond putting blame on Hamas, what more can you say about what’s going on here and what the progress is?””I mean, they are putting obstacles up to allow us to get folks out,” Kirby said.
However, Kirby admitted it could be complicated:
He cautioned that “the situation remains very fluid” and explained the “complicated process” to identify Americans, make sure they had proper documentation, and then get a route available to them to exit safely and efficiently.”A lot of work went into this, I mean, this has been building now for quite some time. So it — it wouldn’t be — I don’t think it’s accurate to say there was like one thing sort of like tripped the switch here.”
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