Israeli Soldiers Raid And Detain Two More Americans In Gaza | EUROtoday

Israeli forces carried out an in a single day raid within the Gaza Strip and detained two American brothers, whose whereabouts are actually unknown, their cousin informed HuffPost.

Borak and Hashem Alagha, ages 18 and 20, have been sleeping when Israeli forces raided their residence in western Khan Younis, south of Gaza City, at round 5 a.m. Thursday, stated cousin Yasmeen Elagha.

Soldiers allegedly assaulted the boys’s mom and 14-year-old brother earlier than blindfolding and tying up the ladies and kids there. Soldiers then trashed their residence and slashed automobile tires earlier than leaving with the Alagha brothers, their Canadian father, and an uncle who’s mentally disabled, Elagha stated. Soldiers additionally detained different members of her prolonged household in close by houses, she added.

Elagha, who lives in Chicago, bought a telephone name from her aunt — the mom of the 2 detained males — late Thursday evening.

“Tell the Americans to save my sons,” the boys’s mom stated by tears, in response to Elagha.

“It is the worst news,” Elagha informed HuffPost. “It is the thing that I have been dreading for months at this point. I have been waiting for the U.S. to act so that it doesn’t happen.”

The Alagha brothers are the second and third U.S. residents stated to be detained by Israeli forces this week. A Palestinian American girl, Samaher Esmail, was reportedly pulled from her mattress and taken by Israeli troopers who raided her residence within the occupied West Bank. Esmail’s household has not been in a position to find her because the incident. And earlier this month within the West Bank, an American teen named Tawfic Hafeth Abdeljabbar was shot and killed.

The U.S. State Department is conscious of Esmail’s detention and the reporting on the Alagha brothers, division spokesperson Vedant Patel stated at a press briefing Thursday, with out commenting additional.

“The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas,” a division spokesperson informed HuffPost, declining to remark additional on Esmail or the Alagha brothers.

On Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden known as Israel’s army response in Gaza — launched after an Oct. 7 assault by the Hamas militant group reportedly killed round 1,200 individuals in Israel — “over the top.” Biden added that he was pushing for a “sustained pause” in preventing there.

His feedback got here as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departed Tel Aviv on Thursday, marking the tip of a Middle East tour supposed to de-escalate tensions.

But Elagha, a regulation pupil at Northwestern University, stated that the White House’s makes an attempt to evacuate and advocate for Palestinian Americans within the Gaza Strip have paled compared to what the administration has completed to free hostages who have been captured from Israel by Hamas.

“I feel betrayed. I feel helpless,” she stated. “I feel like I am pleading and begging for the lives of my family, and it doesn’t seem like anyone cares.”

Since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza started, Elagha has known as her representatives in Congress, in addition to embassies in Tel Aviv, Cairo and Jerusalem, to push for the evacuation of her American cousins, to no avail. The solely technique to evacuate Gaza is thru the Rafah crossing to Egypt, however most members of the Elagha household haven’t been in a position to get their names on the record of individuals permitted to cross. Elagha’s grandparents have been in a position to evacuate Gaza lately, touring to the U.S. simply three days earlier than the raid on their household’s residence.

According to the U.S., it has assisted almost 1,600 people — together with U.S. residents, lawful everlasting residents and different eligible members of the family — with entry into Egypt from Gaza since Oct. 7.

But many within the U.S. — notably Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Americans — have criticized Biden for not doing sufficient to evacuate their households and shield individuals in Gaza. Many members of these communities have vowed to not vote for him as he seeks reelectionand a few leaders have declined to fulfill with administration officers trying reconciliation with their communities.

Elagha and different Palestinian Americans filed a lawsuit towards the federal authorities in December, alleging that the federal government has failed to guard its residents, as HuffPost beforehand reported.

The Alagha brothers, who have been born in Chicago, are amongst fewer than 50 U.S. residents recognized to nonetheless be attempting to flee Gaza amid the battle. Since Oct. 7, Israel’s army marketing campaign has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, in response to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Elagha stated that nobody from the White House has reached out to her.

“I wish that we could get any kind of indication that we matter, that our lives are not disposable, and that when we’re in danger, the U.S. government will be there to help,” she stated.

“I am getting messages every day from my family, asking me, ‘When are the Americans coming?’”