US Officials Who Have Resigned in Protest over Biden’s Gaza Policy

Destroyed buildings seen as the Israeli army issues an evacuation order, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 02 July 2024.  (EPA)
Destroyed buildings seen as the Israeli army issues an evacuation order, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 02 July 2024. (EPA)
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US Officials Who Have Resigned in Protest over Biden’s Gaza Policy

Destroyed buildings seen as the Israeli army issues an evacuation order, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 02 July 2024.  (EPA)
Destroyed buildings seen as the Israeli army issues an evacuation order, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 02 July 2024. (EPA)

President Joe Biden's support for Israel during its nearly nine-month war in Gaza has spurred a dozen US administration officials to quit, with some accusing him of turning a blind eye to Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian enclave.

The Biden administration denies this, pointing to its criticism of civilian casualties in Gaza and its efforts to boost humanitarian aid to the enclave, where health officials say nearly 38,000 have been killed in Israel's assault which has also led to widespread hunger.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

Here are the US officials who have resigned:

Maryam Hassanein, who was a special assistant at the Department of Interior, quit her job on Tuesday. She slammed Biden's foreign policy, describing it as "genocide-enabling" and dehumanizing toward Arabs and Muslims. Israel denies genocide allegations.

Mohammed Abu Hashem, a Palestinian American, said last month he ended a 22-year career in the US Air Force. He said he lost relatives in Gaza in the ongoing war, including an aunt killed in an Israeli air strike in October.

Riley Livermore, who was a US Air Force engineer, said in mid-June that he was leaving his role. "I don't want to be working on something that can turn around and be used to slaughter innocent people," he told the Intercept news website.

Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, left in late May. She said she resigned over an administration report to Congress that she said falsely stated Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Alexander Smith, a contractor for USAID, quit in late May, alleging censorship after the US foreign aid agency canceled publication of his presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians. The agency said it had not gone through proper review and approval.

Lily Greenberg Call, a Jewish political appointee, resigned in May, having served as a special assistant to the chief of staff in the Interior Department. "As a Jew, I cannot endorse the Gaza catastrophe," she wrote in the Guardian.

Anna Del Castillo, a deputy director at the White House's Office of Management and Budget, departed in April and became the first known White House official to leave the administration over policy toward Gaza.

Hala Rharrit, an Arabic language spokesperson for the State Department, departed her post in April in opposition to the United States' Gaza policy, she wrote on her LinkedIn page.

Annelle Sheline resigned from the State Department's human rights bureau in late March, writing in a CNN article that she was unable to serve a government that "enables such atrocities."

Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American, quit as special assistant in the Education Department's office of planning in January. He said the Biden administration was turning a "blind eye" to atrocities in Gaza.

Harrison Mann, a US Army major and Defense Intelligence Agency official, resigned in November over Gaza policy and went public with his reasons in May.

Josh Paul, director of the State Department's bureau of political military affairs, left in October in the first publicly known resignation, citing what he described as Washington's "blind support" for Israel.



Rafah Is a Dusty, Rubble-Strewn Ghost Town 2 Months after Israel Invaded to Root Out Hamas

 Israeli soldiers walk in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 3, 2024. (AP)
Israeli soldiers walk in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 3, 2024. (AP)
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Rafah Is a Dusty, Rubble-Strewn Ghost Town 2 Months after Israel Invaded to Root Out Hamas

 Israeli soldiers walk in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 3, 2024. (AP)
Israeli soldiers walk in the southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 3, 2024. (AP)

Two months ago, before Israeli troops invaded Rafah, the city sheltered most of Gaza's more than 2 million people. Today it is a dust-covered ghost town.

Abandoned, bullet-ridden apartment buildings have blasted out walls and shattered windows. Bedrooms and kitchens are visible from roads dotted with rubble piles that tower over the Israeli military vehicles passing by. Very few civilians remain.

Israel says it has nearly defeated Hamas forces in Rafah — an area identified earlier this year as the armed group's' last stronghold in Gaza.

The Israeli military invited reporters into Rafah on Wednesday, the first time international media visited Gaza's southernmost city since it was invaded May 6. Israel has barred international journalists from entering Gaza independently since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that sparked the war.

Before invading Rafah, Israel said Hamas' four remaining battalions had retreated there, an area of about 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) that borders Egypt. Israel says hundreds of fighters have been killed in its Rafah offensive. Scores of women and children have also died from Israeli airstrikes and ground operations.

The military says it has been necessary to operate with such intensity because Hamas turned civilian areas into treacherous traps. Eight soldiers were killed last month by a single blast.

“Some of these tunnels are booby-trapped,” the military's chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said during Wednesday's tour as he stood over a shaft that led underground. “Hamas built everything in a civilian neighborhood among houses, among mosques, among the population, in order to create its terror ecosystem.”

An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians crammed into Rafah after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza. The UN estimates that around 50,000 remain in Rafah, which had a pre-war population of about 275,000.

Most have moved to a nearby Israel-declared “humanitarian area” where conditions are grave. Many are clustering in squalid tent camps along the beach with scant access to clean water, food, bathrooms and medical care.

Efforts to bring aid into southern Gaza have stalled. Israel's incursion into Rafah closed down one of two major crossings into the south of Gaza. The UN says little aid can enter from the other main crossing — Kerem Shalom — because the route is too dangerous and convoys are vulnerable to attacks by armed groups searching for smuggled-in cigarettes.

On Wednesday, a line of trucks on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom was visible, but the trucks were hardly moving — a sign of how Israel's pledge to keep the route safe in order to facilitate the delivery of aid inside Gaza has fallen flat.

UN officials say some commercial trucks have braved the route into Rafah, but not without hired armed guards riding atop their convoys.

Israel says it is close to dismantling the group as an organized military force in Rafah. In a reflection of that confidence, soldiers brought journalists in open-air military vehicles down the road that leads into the heart of the city.

Along the way, debris lying by the side of the road made clear the perils of aid delivery: carcasses of trucks lying baking in the hot sun; dashboards covered in fencing meant to protect drivers; aid pallets lying empty.

The longer the aid delivery is frozen, humanitarian groups say, the closer Gaza comes to running out of fuel, which is needed for hospitals, water desalination plants and vehicles.

“The hospitals are once again short on fuel, risking disruption of critical services,” said Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean. "Injured people are dying because the ambulance services are facing delays due to fuel shortages.”

As the humanitarian situation worsens, Israel is pushing ahead with its offensive. Combat in Rafah is ongoing.

After journalists heard nearby gunshots on Wednesday, the soldiers told the group they would not be visiting the beach, as had been planned.

The group departed the city soon after, with clouds of dust kicked up by vehicles temporarily obscuring the mass of destruction behind them.