US plans to evacuate citizens from Gaza ahead of Trumps Middle East visit source says
The Trump administration is planning to evacuate 20 US citizens from the Gaza Strip ahead of the president’s visit to the Middle East next month, Middle East Eye can reveal.
The evacuation of US citizens trapped in the besieged Gaza Strip is planned to take place in the coming week and is likely to occur on or before 7 May, a source with knowledge of the matter told MEE.
Approximately 20 Palestinian Americans will be evacuated from Gaza and bussed to Jordan, the source added.
The evacuation of US citizens via Jordan comes as Israel ups its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with Rafah, Gaza's southern border crossing with Egypt, shuttered.
Meanwhile, ties between Egypt and the US are frayed over Trump’s call earlier this year for Egypt to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians and rumblings that the White House could reduce military aid to Cairo.
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Rafah temporarily reopened during a short-lived truce in January, but was quickly closed after Israel refused to move towards phase II negotiations with Hamas on ending the war and resumed its attacks.
On Friday, the UN said no humanitarian or commercial supplies had entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed.
The source, citing security concerns, did not tell MEE which crossing the American citizens would exit from.
The plight of US citizens stuck in Gaza has stoked controversy.
In December, nine plaintiffs - a combination of US citizens, permanent US residents, and Americans with immediate family trapped in Gaza - sued the former Biden administration saying it had not done enough to evacuate US citizens from Gaza amid Israel's attack.
The plaintiffs argued that the US government had violated their right to equal protection under the US constitution by failing to provide the type of “normal and typical” evacuation services that have been extended to US citizens in other wars zones, most recently in Afghanistan and Lebanon.
The State Department has not provided recent figures about how many US citizens remain in the Gaza Strip. The current evacuation will only apply to US citizens, meaning that non-US family members like spouses or children would be left behind.
A US State Department spokesperson said previously that 1,800 "American-linked" people were evacuated from the Gaza Strip before Israel took control of Gaza’s southern Rafah border crossing in May 2024.
The evacuation of American citizens from Gaza would mark one of the first major forays by the Trump administration to address the concerns of Palestinian Americans inside Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories.
Trump's newly arrived ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, was a vocal proponent of settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank before his appointment.
Huckabee said on Monday blame should be placed on Hamas, not Israel, for aid not entering the Gaza Strip.
The Trump administration has strongly backed Israel’s decision to return to war in the Gaza Strip. However, the raging conflict is likely to loom over Trump’s visit to the Middle East next month, where he hopes to focus on an Iran nuclear deal and normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The White House confirmed that Trump is slated to travel to the Middle East between 13-16 May, visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.
Notably, Trump’s itinerary, so far, does not include Israel.
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