U.S education official Habash resigns over Biden’s Gaza war policy

A top official in the U.S Education Department’s has resigned, criticizing President Joe Biden’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza.

This is the latest indication of dissatisfaction within the government as the number of casualties in the Palestinian region keeps rising.

Additionally on Wednesday, a letter signed by 17 Biden campaign staffers warning of potential voter losses due to the issue was sent anonymously.

In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Tariq Habash, special assistant in the Education Department’s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, said, “I cannot remain 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.”

Habash, a Palestinian-American student debt expert, was hired early in Biden’s administration as part of an effort to expand the Education Department’s student loan expertise.

The 17 anonymous Biden re-election campaign staffers, in their letter, published on Medium, urged Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller earlier on Wednesday said that the US has not observed acts in Gaza that constitute genocide.

In November, more than 1,000 officials in the US Agency for International Development (USAID), part of the State Department, signed an open letter urging the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire

After at least three cables criticising the administration’s policy were filed with the State Department’s internal “dissent channel,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged disagreements in a November letter.

According to Israeli estimates, Hamas’ strike on Israel on October 7 killed 1,139 people. 240 hostages were also returned to Gaza.

The entire reported Palestinian death toll from Israel’s retaliatory offensive had reached 22,313 as of Wednesday, accounting for about 1% of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants, according to the health ministry.

Israeli bombings have leveled parts of the densely populated region, displacing the majority of Gazans and threatening hunger.

The US has publicly criticised several Israeli officials who have campaigned for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, and has urged Israel to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza.