US State Dept human rights officer resigns, says US has evidence of human rights violations by Israel

A human rights official has resigned from the US State Department in protest of the US's Israel policy, saying that the Biden administration is flouting US law by continuing to arm Israel, and is covering up evidence that the US had seen on Israeli human rights abuses.

Annelle Sheline announced her resignation on Wednesday (27 March), as the official death toll in Gaza reached 32,490 since 7 October and the World Food Programme warned that famine in the strip is imminent.

"I wasn't able to really do my job anymore," Sheline told the Washington Post in an interview. "Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible."

Her resignation is the third US official to resign in protest over US policy with Israel, following Josh Paul, a director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, who resigned in October of last year, and Department of Education official Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American and Biden political appointee, who resigned in January, says Al Jazeera.

Sheline said that the State Department was aware of plenty of evidence that Israel was violating international law in its conduct of the Gaza war, and that the Biden administration was violating US law by continuing to supply weapons, the Guardian reported.

However, the State Department said it had received assurances from Israeli officials and "not found them to be in violation of international humanitarian law". But Sheline said, "The law is clear here and we do have evidence. But the specifics are just not being followed."

"There are a lot of people working on this at State but at the end of the day, the public policy does have to be something that the White House signs off on," Sheline said. "Until the White House is ready to take a different line, some of the other things happening in State are just not going to come out."

"I do think the president's view of Israel is deeply influenced by a generational divide," she said. "I think it's taken this administration a long time to realise that the previous political calculus on this, in terms of big donors, in terms of the Israel lobby, … is seeing a shift."

On Wednesday, Gallup published a new poll showing a significant drop in American public support for Israel's conduct of the war, from 50% in November to 36% now, with 55% disapproving of Israel's actions.

A recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University reveals that a considerable portion of Americans are against the United States providing additional military aid to Israel for its efforts against Hamas. The survey, which gathered responses from 1,569 U.S. adults between 21 March and 25 March, indicates that 52 percent of US voters oppose increasing military aid, while 39 percent are in favor of it.