By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nine Palestinian Americans sued the U.S. government on Thursday, claiming it failed to rescue them or their family members trapped in Gaza, where Israel’s war has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.
The lawsuit accuses the State Department of discriminating against Americans of Palestinian descent by abandoning them in a war zone and not making the same efforts it would make to promptly evacuate and protect Americans of diverse descent in similar situations.
It was the second lawsuit against the US government this week, after Palestinian families sued the US State Department on Tuesday over Washington’s support of the Israeli military.
A US State Department spokesman said the department does not comment on pending litigation, although ensuring the safety of American citizens around the world is its “top priority.”
Thursday’s lawsuit was announced by the advocacy group Council on American Islamic Relations and attorney Maria Kari and filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiffs’ right to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution was violated by “depriving them of the normal and typical evacuation efforts exercised by the federal government on Americans who are not Palestinians.”
It mentions similar cases in which the US government evacuated its citizens from conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan, and names President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as defendants.
The State Department spokesman said the U.S. had evacuated Americans from insecure areas around the world, including Gaza.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, Israel’s war has killed over 45,000 people while sparking allegations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies. The military attack has displaced almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents and triggered famine.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israel.
