List of US officials resigned over Biden's support for Israel in Gaza war

A growing number of US staff, including officials who worked closely on the arms trade and human rights policy, have resigned over the Biden administration's continued arms transfers to Israel for its war in Gaza. The resignation came amidst anger in the country over Biden's support for Israel, despite rising casualties in the Gaza Strip and accusations that Israeli forces are committing genocide against Palestinians in the region.

In a joint statement entitled "Service in Dissent", the resigned officials wrote that "America's diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to, Israel has ensured our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza. This is not only morally reprehensible and in clear violation of international humanitarian law and U.S. laws, but it has also put a target on America’s back." Resigned officials who spoke to CNN stated that plenty of their previous workmates felt the same way but could not afford to resign. The officials included Lily Greenberg Call, Harrison Mann, Hala Rharrit, Maryam Hassanein, Mohammed Abu Hashem, Riley Livermore, Alexander Smith, Stacy Gilbert, Anna Del Castillo, Annelle Sheline, Tariq Habash, Josh Paul, and Andrew Miller. Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire outside the front gate of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C..

Background

Critics have called on Biden to freeze US arms sales as leverage against Israel to halt its military operations. The Leahy Act, prohibiting aid to foreign military units involved in crimes, and Section 620(I) of the Foreign Assistance Act, states that no aid shall be provided to any government that "prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance".

In November, more than 1,000 officials at the United States Agency for International Development signed an open letter asking Biden to call for ceasefire.

Resigned officials

Lily Greenberg Call

Lily Greenberg Call, Special Assistant to the US Department of the Interior's Chief of Staff, was the first Jewish political appointee to resign in protest at United States support for Israel in the Israel–Hamas war. She wrote she quitted since "as a Jew I cannot endorse the Gaza catastrophe." She condemned comments Biden including one in which she warned "there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who was safe" without Israel. "He is making Jews the face of the American war machine. And that is so deeply wrong," she told.

Harrison Mann

Earlier this week, U.S. Army officer Harrison Mann also left the military and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) because of the "moral injury" caused by United States support for Israel in the Israel–Hamas war and the damage done to the Palestinians. He said he kept quiet for months about his motivations for resigning out of fear. Man said he felt shame and guilt for helping advance US policy that he said contributed to the mass killing of Palestinians. "The policy that has never been far from my mind for the past six months is the nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel, which has enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians," he wrote. Harrison Mann resigned in November over Gaza policy and made his reasons public in May.

Hala Rharrit

Hala Rharrit, a U.S. diplomat and veteran Foreign Service officer the State Department's spokeswoman for the Middle East and North Africa, resigned on April 25 in opposition to the US policy in Gaza. “More bombs, more killings is not the answer,” said Hala Rharrit.

Maryam Hassanein

Maryam Hassanin, who was a special assistant to the Ministry of Interior, resigned from her job on Tuesday. He strongly criticized Biden's foreign policy, describing the war against Palestinian as "genocide". She wrote "When my family and I, alongside other Muslims and Arab Americans, turned up to vote for President Biden in 2020, it was because the Biden campaign promised justice. That promise and faith in the administration has been shattered."

Mohammed Abu Hashem

Muhammed Abu Hashem, a Palestinian American, said last month that he was ending his 22-year career in the US Air Force. He said he lost relatives in Gaza in the ongoing war, including an aunt who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said that it was "extremely emotional" for him to know that "the amount of bombs that are being supplied to Israel was the cause of her death."

Riley Livermore

Riley Livermore, who was a US Air Force engineer, said in mid-June that he was stepping down. "I don't want to be working on something that can turn around and be used to slaughter innocent people".

Alexander Smith

Alexander Smith, a USAID contractor, said he was forced to choose between resigning or being fired after preparing a speech on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, which USAID canceled shortly before it was to be delivered. In his resignation letter, he wrote:"I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race."

Stacy Gilbert

In another resignation on Tuesday, Stacey Gilbert, a State Department official in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, sent an email to colleagues explaining that she was resigning over an administration report to Congress that falsely claimed that Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Anna Del Castillo

Anna Del Castillo, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, left the post in April, becoming the first known White House official to leave the administration over Gaza policy.

Annelle Sheline

State Department official Annelle Sheline resigned in March from the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, in opposition to the policies of Joe Biden toward Israel, saying that Biden administration is breaking US law by continuing to arm Israel and covering up evidence the US has seen of Israeli human rights abuses. She said she believed Israel was clearly "in violation of so many laws and has broken so many of these boundaries," Often contradicting the government's public statements "that I don't expect we'll actually see a real shift." She said she could not serve a government that "enables such atrocities."

Tariq Habash

Tariq Habash, a political appointee to the Ministry of Education, resigned on January 4 in protest at President Joe Biden's handling of the Gaza war, while saying that U.S. government "does not value all human life equally." The resignation, he said, was after he and others did "everything imaginable" to work the system to register their protests with government leaders. "I cannot stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives, in what leading human rights experts have called a genocidal campaign by the Israeli government." He is at least the second official and the first known person of Palestinian descent to resign in protest over the US response to the war.

Josh Paul

Josh Paul, a senior State Department official specializing in arms transfers, resigned in October after stating the U.S. government continues to sell weapons to Israel despite its record of human rights abuses. As the director of the State Department's Office of Military-Political Affairs, he described Washington's support for Israel's war as "blind support." He described Biden policy in favor of "the status quo of the occupation" and a "shortsighted, destructive, unjust" policy that "will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people — and is not in the long term American interest."

Andrew Miller

According to the Washington Post, Andrew Miller, the assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, was a critic of Biden's "bear hug" approach to Israel during Israel-Hamas war.

Aaron Bushnell

Aaron Bushnell, 25, a US Air Force officer, set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington on February 24, declaring that he would "no longer be complicit in genocide".