After weeks in war-torn Gaza, some foreign nationals and wounded leave to Egypt

Hundreds of foreign passport holders left the war-torn Gaza Strip Wednesday after Egypt opened the Rafah crossing to allow people in for the first time since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, as part of a reported deal brokered by Qatar.

The US State Department said some American citizens were among those who left, without giving specifics. It said it expected more Americans and other foreign nationals to get out of Gaza in the coming days. Talks were reportedly ongoing among Egypt, Israel and Qatar, which has been mediating with Hamas.

By mid-afternoon Wednesday, 335 foreign passport holders had left Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority.

Seventy-six Palestinian patients, along with their companions, have been evacuated for treatment in Egypt, Abu Omar said.

The authority said the plan was for more than 400 foreign passport holders to leave for Egypt. The White House said it expected a “handful” of American citizens to be among them, and German, French, British and Australian officials said their citizens were among those who left.

Hundreds more remain in Gaza. The US has said it is trying to evacuate 400 Americans with their families.

Egypt has said it will not accept an influx of Palestinian refugees, fearing Israel will not allow them to return to Gaza after the war.

As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to make another visit to the region, US President Joe Biden hailed progress and said to expect more Americans to cross through Rafah into Egypt “in the coming days.”

At the top of a speech in Minnesota, Biden said his administration was “working nonstop to get Americans out of Gaza as soon as safely as possible.”

“I want to thank our partners in the region and particularly Qatar who’ve worked so closely with us to support negotiations to facilitate the departure of these citizens,” he said.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States has contacted US citizens in Gaza over the past 24 hours to assign them “specific departure dates” to leave through Rafah, the only Gaza crossing not controlled by Israel.

Foreign nationals and dual nationals have been trying for three weeks to exit Gaza into Egypt but the border gates remained firmly shut despite efforts by Washington and other capitals to see them open.

Lines formed early Wednesday morning at the terminal. After people began to be allowed into the terminal area, huge lines formed around crossing booths for checks on passports and other documents.

Ambulances waited on the Egyptian side to take away the wounded and sick.

It was not clear how long the border will remain open.

Although more than 200 trucks of desperately needed aid have crossed into Gaza from Egypt during the fighting, no people had been allowed to flee the battered enclave.

Foreign governments say there are passport holders from 44 countries, as well as 28 agencies, including UN bodies, living in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza has essentially been sealed since October 7, when the Strip’s Hamas rulers sent some 2,500 terrorists into southern Israel by land, air and sea under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities. Some 1,400 people were killed in Israel during the onslaught, and at least 245 more taken hostage. The vast majority of those killed as terrorists seized border communities were civilians — including babies, children and the elderly.

Israel’s offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, and it has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group, by targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties and urging the civilian population to evacuate to southern Gaza.

Nonetheless, weeks of punishing airstrikes and a ground offensive launched over the weekend have created a humanitarian crisis in the Strip.

Egypt has refused to open its doors to those fleeing Gaza — in part because it doesn’t want to be seen as aiding Palestinian displacement, and also because it doesn’t want a massive refugee crisis within its borders.

Since the war broke out, the United States and other countries have scrambled to arrange charter flights — and even an evacuation ship — to ferry their citizens in Israel to various destinations, as the country has been bombarded by over 7,000 rockets targeting its cities and towns, with many border communities near Gaza and Lebanon evacuated.

But no such evacuation has materialized for foreign citizens stranded in Gaza, who are coping with the fiercest Israeli bombing campaign in the territory’s memory and dire shortages of food, water and fuel. The Jewish state accuses Hamas of maintaining significant fuel supplies for its own use, withholding them from the civilian population. It also says Hamas deliberately places military infrastructure in and near hospitals, schools and mosques.

Western diplomats estimate there to be some 1,700 Palestinians in Gaza with European or US citizenship.

The US State Department said last week that David Satterfield, recently appointed special envoy for humanitarian issues in the Middle East, was in Israel for negotiations with Israel, Egypt and the United Nations to get Rafah to open for US citizens, other dual nationals and employees of international organizations.

A day earlier, Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, blamed Hamas for the hold-up.

“We do believe that Egypt is ready to process American citizens if they can make it to Egyptian authorities,” he told reporters. “Hamas just has to stop blocking their exit.”

The week before that, Palestinian Americans and other dual citizens had rushed to the Rafah crossing as it opened for the first time since the war started to allow 20 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid into Gaza.

However, none of the foreigners were allowed to cross the other way into Egypt.

Israel is still tallying the number of people it believes were taken captive in the Hamas attack, but last week it said that over half — 138 — have foreign passports from 25 countries. Over 200 foreigners or dual nationals were killed or abducted in the onslaught.

The Hamas-run health ministry has claimed more than 8,500 people have been killed in the enclave, a figure that cannot be independently verified. Hamas has been accused of artificially inflating the death toll, and it also does not distinguish between civilians and terror operatives. Some of the dead are believed to be victims of Palestinian terrorists’ own misfired rockets.

Hamas and other Iran-backed groups around the Middle East have continued to barrage Israel, displacing over 200,000 people and periodically sending over a million scrambling for safety in bomb shelters.

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.