(WWJ) - Representative Rashida Tlaib D-Detroit is calling on the Biden Administration to do more to save civilian lives in Gaza in response to the war in Israel.
“I am calling for the immediate de-escalation and ceasefire to save countless civilian lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity,” Tlaib said in a statement released October 13.
“Millions of people in Gaza–half of them children–have been given an impossible 24 hour evacuation order, but they have nowhere to go,” Tlaib said. Israel has issued an evacuation l for Gaza ahead of an expected ground invasion by the country in response to the Hamas attack last weekend, experts said.
Tlaib said Palestinians in the area have been without food, water or electricity for days, and that hospitals are also struggling with a lack of electricity.
“War crimes cannot be answered with war crimes,” Tlaib said, and stated that the “collective punishment of Palestinian civilians” and the “confirmed use of white phosphorus bombs in Gaza” are both considered war crimes.
“President Biden has not expressed one bit of empathy for the millions of Palestinian civilians facing brutal airstrikes and the threat of a ground invasion of Gaza that would intensify this humanitarian crisis,” Tlaib said.
Tlaib also said that many people in the U.S. with family members in Gaza feel Secretary of State Antony Blinken “is not making their safety a priority” and that the Biden Administration is not protecting civilian and American lives in Gaza.
The war in Israel began last weekend following attacks by Hamas that left over 1,000 people dead and a further hundred kidnapped, officials said. Israel began launching rockets into Gaza following the attacks.