US working to get trapped American doctors out of Gaza, White House says

US President Joe Biden’s administration is working to get a group of American doctors out of Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah Border Crossing, the White House says.

The State Department said earlier this week that the government was aware that American doctors were unable to leave Gaza, after the Intercept reported that upwards of 20 American doctors and medical workers are trapped in Gaza.

The Palestinian American Medical Association, a US-based non-profit, said on Monday that its team of 19 healthcare professionals, including 10 Americans, had been denied exit from Gaza after a two-week mission providing medical services at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, a city near Rafah in southern Gaza.

Israel seized and closed the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 7.

“We’re tracking this matter closely and working to get the impacted American citizens out of Gaza,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters.

Jean-Pierre says the United States is engaging directly with Israel on the matter.

The Biden administration has been warning Israel against a major military ground operation in Rafah, but Jean-Pierre says efforts to get the doctors out are continuing regardless of what happens there.

“We need to get them out. We want to get them out and it has nothing to do with anything else,” she says.