Biden administration considers accepting Gazan refugees: Report

WASHINGTON

The Biden administration is considering bringing some Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the US as refugees, CBS News reported Tuesday.

Senior officials across several federal US agencies have discussed the practicality of different options to resettle Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent residents, the report said, citing internal federal government documents.

According to the report, one of the ideas involves using the United States Refugee Admissions Program to grant refugee status to those who have managed to escape Gaza into Egypt.

Coordination with Egypt would likely be required to get additional Palestinians out of Gaza and process them as refugees if they have American relatives, said the report.

Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7 which killed some 1,200 people.

More than 34,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and thousands injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.