Official: US trying to broker way out for some
The US government is talking with Israeli and Egyptian officials about getting safe passage for American citizens, including Palestinian Americans, and other foreigners out of Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, but they are not discussing the possibility of getting Palestinians out, a senior State Department official said Friday.
The official said the United States is instead talking with the International Committee of the Red Cross and United Nations relief agencies about setting up “safe zones” for Palestinians inside Gaza. Israeli officials support that idea, the US official said. In theory, he said, Israel would not attack people in the safe zones.
The comments appeared to sharply narrow the idea of a “safe passage” that Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned at a news conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday, when he implied that if such a route were to be negotiated with Israel and Egypt, any civilian would be able to use it.
“We also talked about possibilities for safe passage for civilians who want to leave or get out of the way on Gaza, and that’s a conversation and discussion that we will pursue in the coming days in some of the countries that we’ll be visiting,” Blinken said Thursday when describing his discussions earlier that day with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv.
The State Department official spoke Friday in a briefing with reporters flying with Blinken from Jordan to Qatar. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic discussions.
The official said Arab nations in the region do not want Palestinians to leave the enclave, although he did not specify which countries. In the past, analysts have said Arab governments do not want Palestinians to be forced to leave because it could mean that Israel takes the land. The governments are also reluctant to deal with a flood of refugees in the region.
About 2 million people live in Gaza. US officials estimate that about 500 to 600 Palestinian Americans are in the narrow seaside strip of land.
There are only two ways out of Gaza: via Israel, which has said it is imposing a “complete siege” on the blockaded strip, and via Egypt, which is adamantly opposed to allowing Gazans to cross the border into its territory for fear it could be sucked deeper into the crisis. On Thursday, responding to growing calls to allow safe passage for civilians fleeing Gaza, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah elSissi said Gazans must “stay steadfast and remain on their land.”
Egypt has signaled that it would help to get emergency aid into Gaza, and its Foreign Ministry on Thursday urged countries and aid groups to send shipments to the international airport at El Arish, in Egypt’s North Sinai region, 35 miles from the border. But it has not shown any sign of opening the border crossing to fleeing Palestinians.
Asked whether the United States supported Israel’s call for 1 million Palestinians to leave northern Gaza, the US official avoided answering the question.