The desperate scramble to get Americans home from the front lines of the Israel-Hamas War is making its way to the courts, with one Bay Area law firm joining a nationwide case.
Attorneys from across the U.S., including Ghassan Shamieh of San Francisco firm Shamieh, Shamieh & Ternieden, on Thursday made a public announcement of a lawsuit against the U.S. government.
The lawsuit alleges the State Department and Defense Department aren't doing enough on behalf of Americans stranded in Gaza. Shamieh is representing two Palestinian-American grandmothers who live in the Bay Area and are stuck in the middle of the war.
“We are here to demand that the U.S. government immediately and safely evacuate every single American citizen from the Gaza strip,” said Shamieh.
One of the women he’s representing is an 82-year-old grandmother of Sayed Bseiso.
He hasn't been able to talk with her in the last couple days because of a new communications blackout imposed on Gaza by Israel.
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Bseiso and his wife say they're hoping she will be able to get into Egypt now that the Rafah crossing is open.
“There is a major risk of her leaving the shelter she's in to go try, to keep continuing to try without any communication or anyone out there looking for them, or trying to help them get over,” said Bseiso.
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According to a deal between Egypt, Israel and Hamas, that was brokered by Qatar and supervised by the United States, people with foreign passports in Gaza will be able to leave.
Along with the injured, which includes some Palestinians without foreign passports.
A list of about 300 people was posted at the Rafah border crossing Thursday, of those who are already cleared to leave.
But attorney Shamieh alleges the U.S. Department of State is not providing the same resources to Palestinian Americans as it did for Israeli Americans who have already been evacuated.
“There is no U.S. representative there to help guide and address and facilitate the eventual evacuation of these U.S. citizens,” said Shamieh.
Named in the lawsuit filed in San Francisco Thursday is Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
As he departed to the Middle East in the morning to continue on the ground negotiations there, he addressed ongoing concerns over the exit of U.S. citizens.
“We've been working to make sure that our nationals and other foreign nationals can get out and over the last two days you've seen Americans and their families begin to come out of Gaza," said Blinken.
After Thursday's news conference in San Francisco, the second woman cited in the suit, Asher Rous’s grandmother, made it safely into Egypt.
The attorney who filed this legal claim said that if both grandmothers are able to get out of Gaza safely and back to the United States, he will drop the lawsuit.
