Another State Department Official Resigns in Protest Over U.S. Gaza Policy

Another employee of the U.S. State Department announced her resignation in protest of the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza.

Hala Rharrit, the department’s Arabic language spokesperson, wrote on her LinkedIn profile that she had “resigned April 2024 after 18 years of distinguished service in opposition to the United States’ Gaza policy.”

When asked for comment on Rharrit’s early retirement during Thursday’s regular press briefing, a representative declined to offer a specific response to the matter.

Her departure joins at least two other foreign policy officials, Annelle Sheline and Josh Paul, who left the organization for similar reasons.

Objections to the support that the U.S. has given to Israel as it fights Hamas terrorists have been growing in the country’s bureaucracies since the start of the hostilities.

On the day of the October massacre, the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs called for "all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks" on their X account.

In November, Bureau of Middle East Affairs employee Sylvia Yacoub, who accused President Biden of being "complicit in genocide," gathered more than 100 signatures on an internal State Department petition accusing the Jewish state of committing "war crimes."

In December, White House staff members held a protest outside of their workplace demanding that Israel immediately stop all military operations in the coastal enclave, after more than 400 of them signed an open letter expressing their rejection of the administration’s actions.

In January, 17 staffers on the Biden-Harris presidential campaign released a letter requesting that the U.S. restrict its military aid to Jerusalem, investigate the IDF, and take "concrete steps to end the conditions of apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing that are the root causes of this conflict."

Also in January, a policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Education stepped down, citing related concerns.