A senior official at the U.S. Department of Education resigned Wednesday over President Joe Biden's handling of the Gaza conflict, the latest sign of dissent within the administration as the war's death toll continues to mount. .
Also on Wednesday, 17 Biden reelection campaign staffers warned in an anonymous letter that Biden could lose voters over the issue.
Tariq Habash, special assistant in the Department of Education's Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, said in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona: Leading human rights experts have called this a genocidal operation by the Israeli government. ”
Habash, a Palestinian-American student loan expert, was appointed early in President Biden's inauguration as part of the Department of Education's efforts to strengthen its student loan expertise.
In a letter posted on Medium, 17 anonymous Biden reelection campaign staffers called on Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“President Biden's staff is seeing volunteers quit in droves, and people who have voted blue for decades are nervous about voting blue for the first time because of this conflict.” the staff wrote. letter.
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The Biden campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said early Wednesday that the United States had not observed any acts that amounted to genocide in Gaza.
His remarks were in response to a lawsuit launched by South Africa at the International Court of Justice over Israel's military operations in Gaza.
Israel also denied claims of genocide in Gaza.
