We begin tonight with the rush to escape Gaza for hundreds of foreign nationals, including American citizens who have been trapped in the war zone for more than three weeks. Today, the border crossing with Egypt was opened for the first time since the start of the war allowing hundreds of foreign passport holders and some critically injured Palestinians to leave Gaza. Diplomatic sources tell CBSN that this first batch of evacuations was negotiated by Qatar in coordination with the US. The news comes as the war between Israel and Hamas escalates, with a second air strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in as many days. Israel says fighter jets hit a terrorist command-and-control center and killed several members of Hamas. The UN Human Rights Office says the strikes on Tuesday could amount to war crimes due to the high numbers of civilian casualties. All this as Israeli ground forces push deeper into Palestinian territory. An Israeli Defense Forces commander says troops have broken through Hamas’s front lines and are now at the gates of Gaza City.

Today, President B said we’ll see more from those negotiations in the coming days and the US government is working nonstop to get Americans out of Gaza as soon and as safely as possible. For fortunate few, the nightmare of living under the constant fear of bombardment is over today. Five hundred people mostly foreign passport holders, the first to cross from Gaza into Egypt since the conflict began, but only a handful of Americans so far. The US State Department says around four hundred US citizens still trying to get out of Gaza but more Americans are expected to leave tomorrow, plus their families.