Recently, the attempt to evacuate hundreds of foreign nationals as well as dozens of injured Palestinians from the Gaza Strip has been hindered by Hamas‘ attempts to smuggle wounded fighters into Egypt at the Rafah crossing. On Friday, November 3, an anonymous senior Biden administration official revealed the shocking news in Washington.
According to the U.S official, Hamas agreed to let the evacuation proceed if some wounded Palestinians were allowed to cross into Egypt for medical treatment. However, when Egyptian authorities looked over the list, they discovered that several of them were suspected members of Hamas militants.
Knowing this would not be acceptable for either the U.S., Israel or Egypt, Hamas eventually removed these individuals from the list allowing for dozens of badly injured Palestinians to be evacuated with foreign nationals.
BREAKING: Israel opens safe evacuation corridor in Gaza under US pressurehttps://t.co/m1Joze9EMz
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 4, 2023
NBC News reported additional details:
“A senior administration official at the National Security Council said negotiations to get Americans out of Gaza through Rafah crossing were delayed by Hamas trying to include its own fighters in the list of wounded Palestinians.
On an initial list sent to the council by Hamas, one third of the names hoping to leave Gaza were members of the terrorist organization, said the official.
“It was just unacceptable to Egypt, to us, to Israel,” said the official. “And so, this went on for some time. Eventually what was worked out was that the wounded Palestinian civilians leaving with the foreign nationals were not Hamas fighters.”
6,000 foreign nationals, including around 400-500 U.S. citizens and their families, cannot leave Gaza, “because Hamas would not allow anybody to leave,” said the official.
The official added that another cause for delay when opening the Rafah crossing was the need to resolve Egypt’s concerns stemming from a 2008 episode when thousands of Palestinian civilians breached the Rafah crossing into Egypt.”
Medical evacuation of wounded IDF members by medical evacuation helicopters carrying dead and wounded soldiers from the battles in Gaza pic.twitter.com/scPE0DuHwU
— S p r i n t e r X (@SprinterX99880) November 3, 2023
