WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is working to get US doctors out of Gaza, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday, as fighting intensified in the seaside enclave.
A group of American doctors from the Palestinian American Medical Association told the Washington Post this week that they were stuck in Gaza after Israel closed the border crossing in the southern city of Rafah.
“We’re tracking this matter closely and working to get the impacted American citizens out of Gaza,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre said the United States was engaging directly with Israel on the matter.
The Biden administration has been warning Israel against a major military ground operation in Rafah, but Jean-Pierre said efforts to get the doctors out are continuing regardless of what happens there.
“We need to get them out. We want to get them out and it has nothing to do with anything else,” she said.
Israeli troops battled militants across Gaza on Wednesday, including in Rafah, which had been a refuge for civilians, in an upsurge of the more than 7-month-old war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Gaza’s health care system has essentially collapsed since Israel began its military offensive there after the Oct. 7 cross-border attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants on Israelis.
Humanitarian workers sounded the alarm last week that the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza could force aid operations to grind to a halt.
The Israeli assault on Gaza has destroyed hospitals across Gaza, including Al Shifa Hospital, the Gaza Strip’s largest before the war, and killed and injured health workers.
US working to get American doctors out of Gaza, White House says
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US working to get American doctors out of Gaza, White House says
- “We’re tracking this matter closely and working to get the impacted American citizens out of Gaza,” Jean-Pierre said
- The Biden administration has been warning Israel against a major military ground operation in Rafah
Syria army’s clashes with Kurds ‘setback’ to Turkiye peace process: PKK spokesman
- “The developments in Syria and the larger Middle East have a direct effect on the peace process in Turkiye,” said Hiwa
- The attacks “against the Kurds are a plot and conspiracy against the peace process”
BAGHDAD: Recent clashes between Syria’s military and Kurdish forces are a “setback” and a “plot” to derail the PKK peace process with Turkiye, a spokesman for the Kurdish militant group told AFP on Tuesday.
“The developments in Syria and the larger Middle East have a direct effect on the peace process in Turkiye,” said Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
The attacks “against the Kurds are a plot and conspiracy against the peace process and they indicate a setback in the process,” he said.
Syria’s government and Kurdish forces on Saturday extended a truce by 15 days after the Kurds lost large areas to government forces during weeks of clashes.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) find themselves now restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the country’s north.
Turkiye is a close ally of Syria’s new leadership that overthrew Bashar Assad in December 2024, and which is now seeking to extend state control across Syria.
Ankara is simultaneously leading a drive to reach a settlement with the PKK — listed as a terror group by Turkiye and its Western allies.
Last year, the PKK said it was ending its four-decade insurgency in favor of democratic means but the process has largely stalled amid the stand-off in Syria.
Turkiye accuses the Syrian Kurdish forces of being an offshoot of the PKK.
Hiwa said the PKK’s “commitment to the peace process is a strategic issue.”
But he added that “the new strategy does not exclude the urgency of self-defense against genocidal attacks.”
