Written by Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nine Palestinian Americans filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on Thursday, alleging it failed to rescue them or their family members trapped in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and created a humanitarian crisis.
The lawsuit accuses the State Department of discriminating against Americans of Palestinian origin by abandoning them in a war zone and not making the same effort it would immediately evacuate and protect Americans of different origins in similar situations.
This is the second case against the US government this week after Palestinian families filed a lawsuit against the US State Department on Tuesday over Washington's support for the Israeli army.
A US State Department spokesman said the department does not comment on pending lawsuits, adding that the safety and security of American citizens around the world is a “top priority.”
The lawsuit was announced Thursday by CAIR and attorney Mariah Carey, and was 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 denying them “the normal and exemplary eviction efforts provided by the federal government to non-Palestinian Americans.”
He cites similar examples of the US government evacuating its citizens from conflict areas, as is the case in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Sudan, and names President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as defendants.
A State Department spokesman said that the United States evacuated Americans from unsafe areas around the world, including Gaza.
The Israeli war has killed more than 45,000 people, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, while also sparking accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies. The military offensive displaced Gaza's population of approximately 2.3 million people and caused a hunger crisis.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage, according to Israeli statistics.
