The Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations on Tuesday led condemnation of Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza that killed at least 14 Palestinians—including the mother of an American citizen who was a permanent U.S. resident—and demanded that the Biden administration stop supplying Israel with arms.
In a
statement Tuesday, CAIR "called on the Biden administration, the U.S. State Department, and elected officials in Virginia to demand that the Israeli government cease its attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza after the mother of an American citizen, a U.S. resident, and other family members were reportedly executed in a repeat Israeli attack on their family residence, despite the family's pleas to Israeli authorities to stop the bombing and allow the evacuation of surviving family members."
This, after "an American citizen and Virginia man of Palestinian descent informed CAIR that his family home in Gaza was bombed in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp."
"There were reportedly 15 people in the house, seven of them children, including the man's mother, a lawful permanent resident of the United States," said CAIR, which did not identify any of the individuals described.
CAIR continued:
After the initial Israeli military strike on the family residence, the U.S. resident mother and an unknown number of relatives were reportedly injured but alive, trapped under the rubble. In an effort to rescue the survivors, the family contacted Israeli authorities, providing them with the residential address and GPS coordinates of their home to arrange for the safe passage of an ambulance. However, the Israeli military apparently used that information to bomb the house a second time and then targeted the ambulance as it attempted to rescue the survivors, killing the doctor and several children. Only a 7-year-old boy survived the incident.
The attacks came amid intensified Israeli bombardment of Jabalia and other parts of Gaza that killed 50 Palestinians on Tuesday,
according toReuters. Israel—which receives tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid and diplomatic support including vetoes of multiple United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions—is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health and international agencies, Israel's 375-day assault on Gaza has killed or wounded more than 150,000 Palestinians, including at least 10,000 people who are missing and believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Millions more Palestinians have been forced from their homes—often several times—starved, and sickened.
"This is a documented Israeli war crime of the execution of a U.S. resident and her extended family in Gaza," CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement. "The only option the Biden administration has is to stop supplying Israel with American weapons, funded by our nation's taxpayers, which are being used to kill our citizens, legal permanent residents, and their families."
"The Biden administration has shown little concern for the mass killing of Palestinians, but perhaps it can be moved to recover the body of a U.S. resident who is also the mother of an American citizen," Awad added. "There must be an immediate cease-fire to end Israel's genocide."
While President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris—the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee—have repeatedly affirmed their unwavering support for Israel, multiple media outlets
reported Tuesday that the Biden administration recently threatened to cut off U.S. arms shipments if the Israeli government does not take "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza within 30 days.
"No need to wait 30 days," CAIR said in a separate
statement earlier Tuesday.
