A group of Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza have sued the Biden administration, alleging it has abandoned them and their families, leaving them trapped in a war zone despite rescuing “similarly situated Americans of different national origins”.
The plaintiffs – Khalid Mourtaga, Salsabeel ElHelou, Sahar Harara, Sawsan Kahil, Marowa Abusharia, Mohanad Alnajjar, Mariam Alrayes, Heba Enayeh and Samia Abualreesh – are all either US citizens, legal permanent residents or their immediate relatives.
All have been approved by the US state department to leave the territory, but have been unable to since their names were left off the department’s final crossing list for the Rafah border located on the Egypt–Palestine border which closed on 6 May.
The lawsuit, which directly names Joe Biden; the secretary of state, Antony Blinken; and the secretary of defense, Lloyd J Austin III, points to instances when the US took action to evacuate Israeli Americans and their families shortly after Hamas’s 7 October attacks and Lebanese Americans and their families in September of this year.
The lawsuit says the state department “initiated departure assistance on cruise ships for Americans and their families wishing to depart Israel and come to the United States” on 13 October, shortly after Hamas’s attacks.
“Everyone holding a United States passport in Israel, whether or not they had registered with the United States embassy in Jerusalem, was allowed to board. Passengers were greeted with champagne, mimosas and lavish buffets. In one instance, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, funded a flight to evacuate Floridians from Israel.”
Maria Kari, whose law office is representing the plaintiffs, said: “The Biden administration has exactly a month to act because it does not want the death of these Americans to be its enduring legacy.”
Kari, who brought her first lawsuit against the US government last year, said the legal action was her last ditch effort to save her clients before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to bar refugees from Gaza and to immediately expand the Muslim travel ban he enacted during his first term.
She said: “This administration’s refusal to treat Americans in Gaza the same as Americans in other conflict zones is part of its systemic dehumanization and delegitimization of Palestinian American life and suffering.
“While waiting to evacuate, our plaintiffs have suffered all sorts of horrors. All of these people could be killed by Israeli bombardment or from disease and starvation any day.”
Kari and her team have appealed to their plaintiffs’ elected officials, the state department and White House officials for help, but said she keeps getting the same response: that the US government cannot control who comes and goes from the Gaza Strip.
“This is simply not true,” she said. “Even after the closure of Rafah crossing, we have seen the state department work with its Israeli counterparts to consistently evacuate Americans and non-Americans through the Kerem Shalom crossing.”
The state department said it would not comment on pending litigation, but on Thursday during his last press briefing as Trump will soon be inaugurated, the department’s principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in response to a question about the lawsuit: “Whether it was Sudan, whether it was Niger, whether it was Lebanon, whether it was the conflict in Gaza, Israel – we have unearthed avenues to help American citizens safely depart in creative ways.
In response to Patel’s comment, Kari said: “Why then has this administration failed to do the same for Americans of Palestinian national origin?”
Kari’s co-counsel, Yasmeen Elagha, said she was in the same position as her clients one year ago.
“While my family was awaiting evacuation, they were taken by Israeli forces and have since disappeared in the Israeli administrative detention system. I know and have experienced directly the devastating harm that can befall innocent Americans not evacuated in time by the US government.”
Elagha said: “This is an equal rights issue. All Palestinians deserve safety and security. We are doing everything in our power to bring that safety and security to those Palestinians within our reach.”
