Tel Aviv: The White House has announced that it will provide charter flights for American citizens who want to leave Israel, as the violence between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continues to escalate. At least 27 Americans have been killed and 14 are missing in the conflict, which has claimed over 2,000 lives in Israel and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a series of air strikes on southern Israel on Saturday, prompting the IDF to retaliate with multiple attacks on Hamas’ infrastructure. The two sides have been locked in a fierce confrontation for six days, the worst in decades. India was among the first countries to evacuate its citizens from Israel.
John Kirby, the Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, said that President Joe Biden has instructed his team to assist Americans who wish to depart from Israel. “Starting tomorrow, the US government will arrange charter flights to transport Americans from Israel to locations in Europe. We are still working on some of the details of this to help US citizens and their immediate family members who have not been able to find commercial flights out of the country,” he said.
He added that the US is also looking into other ways to increase its capacity to help Americans leave by land or sea. “We are working hard on this, we know there is a high demand, and we will do our best to meet it,” he said. He urged Americans who need help to fill out the form on the Travel.State.gov website.
He also said that the US is doing everything it can to support and inform the families of the 27 Americans who have been killed and the 14 who are unaccounted for. He said that Hamas often splits up hostages and moves them around in small groups, but he could not confirm if that was happening in this case.
US Denies Iran Allegations
Kirby also denied the accusations that Iran has used the USD 6 billion of US aid that was transferred from South Korea to Qatar.
“It’s still in a Qatari bank. All of it. None of that money has been spent, and I have no updates to provide today…What I can tell you is that every single penny of that money is still in a Qatari bank. Not one penny of it has been spent,” he said. He said that this account was established by the previous administration for humanitarian purposes only, and that there was oversight.
“We’ve done nothing different. It is the same process. All we’ve done is move that fund from South Korea – where it was not accessible for some technical reasons – to Qatar, where it is more accessible,” he said. He said that none of that money has been accessed by the Iranians at all.
