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Minister: ‘We won’t rest until we’ve protected every British national we can in Gaza’

We’ve just been speaking with security minister Tom Tugendhat, and we started by asking him about the situation in Israel and Gaza.

Mr Tugendhat declined to say how many British nationals have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, saying, there are “a lot of moving parts here and I don’t want to alert people to the different issues that might arise”.

But he said a “phenomenal amount of work” has gone in with the authorities in Egypt, Gaza, and Israel to enable people to leave and ensure that it “goes as smoothly as possible”.

Asked if he could confirm that 92 British nationals are on the list to be evacuated from Gaza today, Mr Tugendhat refused to comment again, citing the complexity of the operation.

Sky News understands that there are around 200 British nationals who need to be evacuated from Gaza, so we also asked the minister about those not on today’s list.

He said: “I can give this absolute assurance – that the UK government, from the prime minister, the foreign secretary, me, and many others have been absolutely committed to making sure that we look after British citizens as best as we possibly can and we help to get them out of this incredibly dangerous situation.

“We are working tirelessly to make sure that happens.”

Mr Tugendhat added: “We will not rest until we’ve protected everybody we can.”

As well as working on evacuating British nationals from Gaza, the foreign secretary has been working to “try to get a resolution to this, including trying to get those hostages out”.

He went on: “Let’s not forget there’s some 200 hostages who were taken only three weeks ago who are still being held by Hamas, who are still being held in the most vile conditions, and who are literally in fear of their lives.”

He added: “The work that the Foreign Office has been doing over the last few weeks has been exemplary. And I think that the consular aspect of that looking after British citizens has been absolutely front and centre of their efforts.”



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