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A Biden administration official said Friday that efforts to remove Americans and other foreign nationals from Gaza, a process that finally began on Wednesday, had been slowed by Hamas, which was trying to include its own wounded fighters among those who would be escorted to Egypt through the Rafah gate.
The explanation offered the first window into the kind of details that were being negotiated with Hamas leaders, even as Israel began a campaign of airstrikes in response to the killing of 1,400 people and the taking of more than 200 hostages by Hamas terrorists. Hamas in attacks. against Israel on October 7 launched from Gaza. Hamas politically governs Gaza and also has an armed wing whose fighters are integrated among the enclave’s civilian population.
People with dual citizenship, American or foreign, repeatedly gathered at the gate on Gaza’s southern border shortly after October 7. But for weeks, the Rafah crossing remained closed. For most of that time, U.S. officials said only that Hamas was preventing the departure of foreign citizens and that the group was making unreasonable demands.
On Friday, a senior administration official provided more details about those demands and spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate negotiations. The official said Hamas repeatedly provided Israel, the United States and Egypt with lists of Palestinians who had been wounded and who should be allowed to leave with the Americans and others. But the investigation showed that many of them, the official said, were Hamas fighters.
The official said that about a third of the wounded Palestinians on the first list were Hamas fighters and that allowing them to leave Gaza was unacceptable to officials in Egypt, the United States and Israel. The delays continued for some time, the official said, because Hamas continued to offer lists that turned out to include its members.
Biden administration officials have said that negotiations with Hamas for the release of Americans and other foreign nationals were indirect and conducted with the help of representatives of the Qatari government, which has long maintained lines of communication with Hamas. .
The official who spoke to reporters on Friday said Hamas eventually relented on its demands for passage of its fighters. The prospect of Hamas fighters leaving Gaza was especially worrying for Egypt, which remains concerned about the possibility of terrorists entering its country.
Ultimately, the official said, the sides agreed on a list of wounded Palestinians who were not Hamas fighters. The Palestinians who left were rightfully caught in the middle of the fighting, the official said.
The official said negotiations with Hamas and Israel over delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza had also been difficult, but that about 100 trucks of aid were now expected to enter Gaza each day.