Dear President Joe Biden,
Representing the entirety of its over 50,000 Palestinian American Christian members in the American Federation of Ramallah Palestine (AFRP), I am issuing this urgent appeal, requesting you pressure Israel to immediately cease its military operation in the West Bank to avoid further catastrophe.
On August 27, 2024, Israel began the largest military invasion of the occupied West Bank since 2002, attacking Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps in the north and across the West Bank. Israel is intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure and violating international humanitarian law in the West Bank, just as it has in Gaza so blatantly for months.
Israel’s airstrikes have already killed dozens of innocent civilians using US made and provided weapons. Israeli soldiers have closed roads, besieged hospitals, blocked ambulances, and assaulted and detained paramedics–intentionally making life-saving care nearly impossible. Israeli bulldozers are targeting vital civilian infrastructure such as sewage systems, water, and electricity networks, causing widespread destruction. The Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has described this latest assault as “a war in every sense” and called for the evacuation of Palestinians in the West Bank similar to what has been done to Palestinians in Gaza.
As the White House is well aware, Israel often employs its settlers to carry out terror campaigns in the West Bank and this time is no different. The Israeli military has armed and unleashed its settlers on Palestinian towns and villages at an unprecedented rate, supporting them as they steal land from, terrorize, and kill Palestinians in the West Bank. Since October 2023, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed over 660 Palestinians in the West Bank all while slaughtering over 40,000 civilians in Gaza.
As President of the United States, you are the leader of the most powerful country in the world. As such, you must use your immense leverage to de-escalate Israel’s war on the West Bank and Gaza and bring about an immediate and complete ceasefire by enforcing US laws around weapons transfers. The US must withhold weapons to Israel. If the US wants stability in the region, it must not allow this incursion against civilians in the West Bank that will only fuel further escalation.
President Biden, you have the ability to stop the systematic butchering of Palestinians that Israel is carrying out using US made and provided weapons. It is your moral imperative to finally take decisive action.
Sincerely,
Fadi Harb
President, American Federation of Ramallah Palestine (AFRP)