Around a hundred Britons were able to leave the Gaza Strip, which has been bombarded relentlessly by Israel since the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, by crossing the Rafah border post towards Egypt, the British government said on Monday.
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Fourteen British nationals have died and three are missing since the conflict began on October 7, “which does not necessarily mean they have been taken hostage,” Energy Minister Claire Coutinho told SkyNews.
The attack, carried out in Israel by militants from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, prompted a response of nearly 2,500 Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, according to the army.
Several hundred injured, foreigners and dual nationals have been able to leave Gaza for Egypt through the Rafah border crossing since November 1, but the Hamas government decided on Saturday to suspend those evacuations because Israel refused to let other wounded Palestinians go.
The UK is trying to evacuate about 200 British nationals and their families who were put on a list after they asked to leave the enclave.
Some British Embassy staff in Lebanon and their families have been “temporarily recalled” amid daily exchanges of fire on the border between Israel and Lebanon – where Lebanon’s Hezbollah, pro-Iran and Hamas ally – fears the conflict could spread .
According to the latest Hamas report on Sunday, 9,770 people have been killed in Israeli bombings since the start of the war – half of them children.
According to Israeli authorities, at least 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side since October 7, most of them civilians killed in the bloody Hamas attack on the same day.