A senior Biden administration official has said the US was also negotiating with Hamas over allowing foreign nationals trapped in the tiny enclave safe passage out of Gaza, Reuters reports.

Explaining why it took “so long” to get foreign nationals out, the official said Hamas conditioned the release of foreigners on wounded Palestinians being able to exit as well.

“But the list that was provided, once it was vetted, (about) a third of the wounded Palestinians on the list were members of Hamas… That was just unacceptable to Egypt, to us, to Israel,” the official claimed.

“And so this went on for some time. Eventually, what was worked out was that the wounded Palestinian civilians leaving with the foreign nationals were not Hamas fighters,” the official added.