By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has been able to get 74 Americans with dual citizenship out of the Gaza Strip, President Joe Biden said at the White House on Thursday, one day after evacuees began crossing into Egypt.
“Good news, we got out today 74 American folks, dual citizens,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office at the start of a meeting with the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader.
Biden had said U.S. citizens would be able to start leaving on Wednesday from Gaza, a narrow strip under Israeli bombardment since Palestinian Hamas gunmen on Oct. 7 killed what Israel said were 1,400 people and took more than 240 captive into Gaza.
Further details were not immediately available on who had been able to leave Gaza and when.
Biden has thrown his support behind Israel – and visited the country last month – but he has shifted his response in recent weeks as the humanitarian situation worsens in Gaza and the civilian death toll rises.
Gaza health authorities say more than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in the narrow coastal enclave since Oct. 7.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Paul Grant; writing by Susan Heavey; editing by David Ljunggren and Howard Goller)
