Hundreds of foreign nationals and injured Palestinians left the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after the Rafah crossing to.Egypt was opened for the first time in weeks. According to Palestinian officials, some 335 foreign passport holders and 76 injured Gazans left the besieged territory, the BBC reports. President Biden said some American citizens were able to leave on Wednesday and more will follow in the coming days. "We're working non-stop to get Americans out of Gaza as soon and as safely as possible," said Biden, who thanked Qatar for assisting negotiations. British, French, and German officials said some of their citizens had also been evacuated.
US officials believe around 400 US citizens and their families are in Gaza. The Arab American Civil Rights League says almost a dozen Gaza-related lawsuits against the State Department are in the works. "It's a matter of time until I hear that a client of mine has been killed," immigration attorney Maria Kari, who is involved in three lawsuits, tells the Guardian. "I've never raced against the clock to file a lawsuit because it was life and death." She says she won't pause her legal actions until every client is out of Gaza. Kari and other attorneys argue that the government has done far more to repatriate citizens from Israel than those trapped in Gaza during Israeli bombing, violating the Constitution's equal protection clause.
Israel's military, meanwhile, said troops advanced to "the gates of Gaza City" Wednesday, the AP reports. The Institute for the Study of War says Israeli ground troops appear to be advancing on three routes, including one across the center of the territory. The Washington Post reports that dozens of people were injured in the third Israeli airstrike on the Jabalya refugee camp in the space of 24 hours. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that with the high number of civilian casualties, it is concerned that the strikes are "disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes." Israeli authorities say they are targeting Hamas militants operating in tunnels below the densely populated area. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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