Some U.S. serviceman's family members were rescued from Gaza following a secret and coordinated operation facilitated by the U.S., Israel, and Egypt.
Israel Defense Forces soldiers walk through Kibbutz Be'eri where days earlier Hamas militants killed over a hundred civilians near the border with Gaza on October 11, 2023 in Be'eri, Israel.
An unnamed U.S. official, citing security protocol, informed the Associated Press that Zahra Sckak and her brother-in-law Farid Sukaik, an American citizen, were evacuated from Gaza on New Year's Eve.
"The United States played solely a liaison and coordinating role between the Sckak family and the governments of Israel and Egypt," the official told the AP. The extraction involved the Israeli military and local Israeli officials who oversee Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the outlet continued.
There were few immediate details of the on-the-ground operation. It took place after the family, U.S.-based lawyers and advocacy groups had appealed numerous times to Congress members and the Biden administration to assist with the extraction.
Some Background On The Mission
The mission, as the AP report also revealed, is the only documented operation designated to evacuate American citizens and their immediate family members amidst the months-long devastating ground clashes and Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Many individuals who fled northern and central Gaza via the Rafah crossing into Egypt sought refuge to the south in the initial weeks of the war. The AP article also explained that escaping from the central region has become increasingly challenging due to the heightened intensity of combat in the area. Those still left in the territory face a dangerous and often impossible trip to Egypt's border crossing out of Gaza, and a bureaucratic struggle for U.S., Egyptian, and Israeli approval to get themselves, their parents, and young children out of Gaza.
According to an article published by The Messenger, there was no indication that American officials were on the ground in Gaza. The State Department, as published by The Mesenger, also reported that around 300 American citizens, legal permanent residents, and their immediate family members remain in Gaza, exposed to the dangers of ground battles, aerial bombardments, and the escalating threats of hunger and dehydration within the blockaded region.
Zahra's husband, Abdella Sckak, was shot, The Messenger article went on to reveal, in the Israel-Hamas war as the family fled from a building hit by an airstrike. He succumbed to his wounds days later. One of their three American sons, Spec. Ragi A. Sckak, 24, currently serves as an infantryman in the U.S. military.
