U.S. cites ‘breakthrough’ as first foreign nationals allowed to leave Gaza
A “handful” of U.S. aid workers among foreign nationals who were able to leave Gaza for Egypt today, for the first time since the war began last month. Departures of foreigners expected to continue.
The first foreign nationals, including a “handful” of American citizens, were able to depart Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt today, for the first time since Hamas massacred 1,400 Israeli citizens on October 7th and Israel subsequently launched a war to uproot the militant group from the Palestinian territory.
“An initial group of foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens, departed Gaza through Rafah today, and we expect exits of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals to continue over the next several days,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists at the department press briefing today (Nov. 1).
“The situation remains extremely fluid. But this has been an important breakthrough,” Miller said. “And we will keep working to ensure that… all of the US citizens who wish to depart safely from Gaza can do so.”
“This is an important first step in a process that we expect to see continue over the coming days,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told journalists in a gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Minnesota today. “A handful of Americans are expected to depart today, and we expect to get more to come in future days.”
According to NPR and Fox News, the handful of Americans who were permitted to leave Gaza today were mostly aid workers. It was not immediately clear if some or all of those were dual nationals leaving on non-American foreign passports.
Miller said the State Department is in communication with about 400 U.S. citizens in Gaza who have expressed the wish to leave. With their family members, that brings the number of US citizens and dependents who wish to depart at about 1,000 people, he said.
“In the past 24 hours, we have informed U.S. citizens and their family members with whom we are in contact that they will be assigned specific departure dates,” Miller said. “We have asked them to continue to monitor their email regularly over the next 24 to 72 hours for specific instructions about how to exit. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo is standing by to provide assistance to U.S. citizens as they enter Egypt.”
“If there's any American citizen in Gaza who has not yet registered with the State Department and they want to leave, they should register with the State Department as soon as possible,” Miller later said. “Those American citizens in Gaza who have already registered with the State Department, they should watch their email, and we will get them a time and specific instructions for how to leave.”
President Biden, in a tweet, credited the breakthrough to behind the scenes American diplomatic efforts that were spearheaded by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues David Satterfield, mediated mostly by Qatar.
“Today, thanks to American leadership, we secured safe passage for wounded Palestinians and for foreign nationals to exit Gaza,” Biden tweeted. “We expect American citizens to exit today, and we expect to see more depart over the coming days. We won't let up working to get Americans out of Gaza.”
Hamas received no U.S. concessions for permitting the foreign nationals to leave, the State Department said. Asked why Hamas permitted the departures after over three weeks of foreigners being stuck, the State Department’s Miller noted that wounded Palestinians were also permitted to cross through Rafah today into Egypt to receive medical assistance.
Some 59 trucks of humanitarian aid were able to enter Gaza through Rafah today, Miller said, bringing the total number of aid trucks that have gone in to the densely populated strip of over 2 million people to 217, since October 21st. Gazans previously subsisted on over 500 trucks a day.
The U.S. is pressing for the amount of aid going in every day to go up, Miller said.
Secretary of State Blinken will travel to Israel and Jordan on Friday, with the possibility of adding additional stops.
On his trip agenda will be getting “an update from Israel on their military objectives and their plans for meeting those objectives,” Miller said. “He wants to talk about ways that we can increase the flow of humanitarian assistance and get to the point where it's a sustained, continuous flow getting in every day that meets the needs of innocent civilians in Gaza. He wants to talk about preventing the conflict from spreading. He wants to talk about the ability to get hostages back.”
He will also talk directly with the Israeli government “about our expectation that in …conducting this military campaign, that they do it do so in full compliance with international humanitarian law and the laws of war and we will be very direct about that,” Miller said.
Meantime, Jordan today recalled its ambassador to Israel, and notified the Israeli foreign ministry not to send a new ambassador back to Amman, “as an expression of Jordan’s firm rejection and utter condemnation of the raging Israeli war on Gaza,” the Jordanian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The return of the Ambassadors is contingent on Israel stopping its war on Gaza and putting an end to the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the war, as well as ending all measures that deprive the Palestinians of their rights… to live in peace and stability on their national land,” it continued.
The U.S. administration and Israel are likely to continue to resist such calls for a ceasefire, however.
“The sentiment here [in Israel] is that there's no way that we can't get rid of [Hamas], because that would be basically saying we can have them on our border, and then then you regionally will just be seen as weak and we won't be able to restore our proper status as the regional superpower,” Mairav Zonszein, Senior Analyst on Israel-Palestine for International Crisis Group, said on a Zoom forum on the Gaza war hosted by the Arab Center Washington,D.C. on Tuesday. “It's us or them, there's no middle ground. … I think Hamas is going to have to be…incapacitated in some way.
“Basically, they're going to have to come up with a way to restore safety and security for its citizens,” she continued, referring to the Israelis. “In the short term, I think they believe that they're going to do that through force. And, you know, time and time again, we've seen that that doesn't work. … So… my only hope in this horrible, horrible situation is that people will start to realize that there's just got to be another way….and this is putting aside the moral issue of what's being done in Gaza.”
As to whether Israel’s conduct of the war to date, including a strike Tuesday targeting a Hamas commander allegedly located in tunnels under the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza that reportedly killed a large number of people, has violated international laws of war, Miller said the State Department did not have an assessment.
But he did say the United States would like Israel to keep Internet services up in Gaza, including so that U.S. citizens can receive the emails from the department on the logistics for their possible departure.
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