(NewsNation) — Two American doctors who volunteered to provide medical care in Gaza say they were stuck in the enclave without safe passage Monday following Israel's seizure of the Rafah border.

Mohamad Abdelfattah, from Southern California, and Dallas-based Mahmoud Sabha say they went to Gaza on May 1 as part of a medical mission at the European Hospital with the Palestinian American Medical Association.

Both were scheduled to leave Rafah Monday so another mission could take over the aid work but have since been told there is no longer a safe route to exit the besieged strip after Israeli troops seized control of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing last week. They were both sheltering at the hospital Monday evening as they waited for a way out.

“Since the Rafah invasion, the crossings and the route to cross have not been safe from what we were told, and so they [the organization] are working on coordinating a safe exit for us. That's all that we know,” Abdelfattah told NewsNation via a phone interview Monday.

Abdelfattah, an intensive care unit doctor, said there were potentially 20 to 30 more Americans along with them at the European Hospital who were also unable to evacuate.

"We're all waiting to get more concrete information," Sabha told NewsNation, adding he was hopeful they would get word of an exit route within the next 24 to 48 hours. The medical organization had a team waiting on the other side in Egypt, he said, and he hoped they could come in once his team was allowed to leave.

A State Department spokesperson told NewsNation it is aware of reports of U.S. citizen doctors unable to leave Gaza, adding the U.S. government has no........

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