secretary of state antony blinken arriving israel a short while ago. this is his second trip to the middle east in less than a month. blinken is expected to discuss ways to free the remaining hostages, minimize harm to palestinian civilians, and get all who want to leave gaza out. we ve seen americans and their families begin to come out of gaza, and we expect that to continue over the coming days. this has been a very deliberate effort on our part working with other countries to make sure we can get passage out for our citizens and citizens from other countries. blinken s trip comes as israeli ground forces now gaza city, surrounded. and air strikes continue to pound hamas targets inside the strip. the conflict has, according hamas officials, killed more than 9000 people in gaza. more than 1400 israelis have also lost their lives. secretary blinken also says while they re dealing with getting the hostages released and minimizing civilian deaths, now is also the time to come