The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged the Biden administration to halt Israel’s attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp after an American’s family was killed in repeated airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement on Tuesday, October 15, a Palestinian American man from the state of Virginia, who was not identified, informed CAIR that his family home in Gaza was bombed in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp on Monday, October 14.
The house was reportedly occupied by 15 people, including seven children and the mother of an American citizen, a United States (US) resident.
After an initial strike, the mother and several family members were injured and alive, but trapped beneath the rubble. The family contacted Israeli authorities with the residential address and GPS coordinates of the house to facilitate the safe passage of an ambulance, said CAIR.
However, the Israeli military used the information to bomb the house a second time and then targeted the ambulance as it attempted to rescue the survivors, killing the doctor and several children. Only a seven-year-old boy survived the incident.
“This is a documented Israeli war crime of the execution of a US resident and her extended family in Gaza,” CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
“The only option the Biden administration has is to stop supplying Israel with American weapons, funded by our nation’s taxpayers, which are being used to kill our citizens, legal permanent residents, and their families.”
“The Biden administration has shown little concern for the mass killing of Palestinians, but perhaps it can be moved to recover the body of a U.S. resident who is also the mother of an American citizen,” Awad added. “There must be an immediate cease-fire to end Israel’s genocide.”
CAIR said it contacted the White House and State Department for details of an attack involving an American mother but has not received a response.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza, causing displacement of nearly the entire population of 2.3 million people since October 7, 2023.
