Two American families of Palestinian origin have filed a lawsuit against the administration of President Joe Biden, alleging that the government has made little effort to evacuate their American relatives stranded in Gaza as they did for Israeli citizens with dual nationality. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, accuses the federal government of failing to protect its citizens in a war zone and depriving Palestinian Americans of their constitutionally enshrined right to protection. The legal action seeks to compel the U.S. government to initiate evacuation efforts and ensure the safety of citizens “on equal footing with other civilians in the same war zone.”
Following the operation named “Al-Aqsa Flood,” launched by the Palestinian resistance on October 7th and the subsequent Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the U.S. government organized charter flights to assist its nationals to leave Israel for Europe after many airlines suspended their services to Israel. The U.S. State Department claims it has assisted about 1,300 Palestinian-origin citizens to leave Gaza and escape Israeli retaliatory bombing through various means, including coordination with Israeli and Egyptian authorities to transfer them to Egypt.
Violation of rights
The American families suing the Biden administration state that the United States has not taken steps to allocate flights or assist in securing the departure of an estimated 900 American citizens, residents, and families still trapped in Gaza, emphasizing that this constitutes a violation of their constitutional rights.
Reuters news agency reports Yasmin Agha, who has family stuck in Gaza and assisted in filing the lawsuit, as saying, “There is a lot that the American government could do, and it has chosen not to do for the Palestinians.” The State Department has refrained from commenting on the lawsuit, but a spokesperson said that the department is working on getting more Americans and their family members out of Gaza. The White House has referred questions related to the lawsuit to the Justice Department, which has not yet commented.
According to health officials in Gaza, Israeli bombings have resulted in approximately 19,000 Palestinian deaths and injured over 50,000 others. United Nations estimates indicate that up to 85% of the population of this besieged, densely populated area, amounting to 2.3 million people, have been displaced.
