GEOFF BENNETT: The Biden administration says its priorities include preventing the kind of regional escalation that Nasrallah warned about and evacuating American citizens from Gaza.

More than 380 Palestinian dual nationals and wounded were allowed to leave Gaza today.

That's according to Hamas.

It's unclear how many of those were Americans, but the U.S. State Department says about 75 of the 400 Americans who want to leave have made it out.

Nick Schifrin speaks with one of those American families who were stuck in Gaza.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Americans who woke up in Gaza on October the 7th found themselves in the middle of a combat zone.

The Hamas terrorist attack that morning included thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.

And now Israel has waged war from the air, sea and land inside Gaza for three weeks.

One of the American families who managed to get out is Emilee Rauschenberger and her daughter Noora Abuhamad, who join us now from Cairo.

Thank you very much.

Welcome, both of you, to the "NewsHour."

Emilee, you were visiting your husband's family in Gaza.

Tell us, what does it feel to be out?

EMILEE RAUSCHENBERGER, American Evacuee: It's a huge relief.

I mean, it was just such a struggle, that we're so happy to be on the list and then through the gates.

And it's really a surreal experience just being out, because we just didn't know when this day would come.

Noora, how do you feel?

NOORA ABUHAMAD, American Evacuee: Absolutely thrilled, really.

It's a great relief, like hot shower, great, great food.

But it's just an awful feeling knowing that we just left so many people behind.

EMILEE RAUSCHENBERGER: We left 20 other members of our family in another apartment.

These are the people that helped us survive.

We split up the daily chores of getting bread and getting water and finding some place to charge our devices.

And we really worked as a team.

It's just an awful feeling to leave them behind and not be able to help them and not know when and if we will see them again.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Did you have second thoughts about leaving?

EMILEE RAUSCHENBERGER: No, not second thoughts, really, because you never know if that opportunity will come back.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You have mostly been in Southern Gaza in what Israel identifies as a safe zone.

But, Noora, let me show this photo of your room.

This is damage from an Israeli airstrike that was nearby.

Can you tell us what happened?

EMILEE RAUSCHENBERGER: Yes.

This is our family home in Abasan in the southeast of the Gaza Strip.

And if we had been there, my 14-year-old daughter and my 4-year-old would have been sleeping in those beds.

There was no safe area.

The south is not safe.

I had such a horrible experience where we stayed in the apartments, because apartments were bombed right around us.

It was just luck of the draw that it wasn't your building.

NOORA ABUHAMAD: The bomb that did break my window, it broke not just mine, but all the houses on the street of the -- of our house, all the windows gone, shattered.

It's a relief to just know that I'm safe right now.

Like, there's no chance of anything, like, hitting me or my family.

But then I think about the millions of people who every single hour, every single minute, every single night just hoping and praying that them and their family will be safe.

It's -- I know exactly how they feel right now.

It's just -- it's just devastating.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And do you think the State Department did everything it could to get you and your family out?

EMILEE RAUSCHENBERGER: I hope so.

I believe so.

But it is frustrating that it took so long, because we really felt in danger the whole time.

And that for a country that America is so close with, I would just hope that American lives on both sides of the border would have been equally able to leave as sooner than later.

It was just hard to understand why the border couldn't be opened.

We literally just had to get there and be processed across.

There was no checkpoints or anybody stopping us from within.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Do you accept the explanation from American officials that it is a lot more difficult to negotiate with Hamas, Egypt and Qatar as an intermediary than it is to evacuate from Israel?

EMILEE RAUSCHENBERGER: Again, I don't have any good insight into the issue, other than, again, what I saw, which is no resistance, nothing stopping us within the strip.

But, again, we were cut off from all communication, really hunkered down in an apartment.

So, I wouldn't have any good insight into that.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Emilee, Noora is your oldest child.

You have four younger ones.

What do you tell the younger ones about the violence?

EMILEE RAUSCHENBERGER: My 4-year-old was blissfully unaware, except bombs entered her vocabulary.

But my boys, they grew anxious and frustrated, and one was always fighting with other kids.

And so you could see the stress in other ways, even though they didn't really verbally go on about their fears and their anxieties, but it definitely had a toll.

I tried to explain that this is part of a larger regional conflict and it's complicated, but we do believe, one day, there will be a solution, and people in Gaza will be easier to visit and will have human rights that all humans deserve.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Emilee Rauschenberger, Noora Abuhamad, thank you very much.

Really appreciate your time.