WASHINGTON: A US State Department official on Thursday said she had resigned from her post to protest a report to Congress that falsely stated Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, was an expert working on the report.
“There is so clearly a right and wrong, and what is in that report is wrong,” Gilbert said in an interview.
The United Nations and humanitarian aid groups have long complained of the consequences and obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.
As the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 36,000 and a humanitarian crisis has engulfed the besieged enclave, human rights groups and other critics have criticized the US for providing weapons to Israel and largely defending the conduct of Israel.
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Earlier the State Department submitted the 46-page report to Congress as required under a new National Security Memorandum.
The report said that after October 7 Israel did not fully cooperate with US and other efforts to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
But it said that this did not mean that it was breaching a US law that blocks the provision of arms to nations that restrict US humanitarian aid.
Gilbert, who worked for the State Department for past 20 years, said she informed her office the day the State Department report was released that she would resign.
US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel on Thursday told reporters that he would not comment on personnel issues.
He said the administration stood by the report and continued to press the government of Israel to avert harming civilians.
“We are not an administration that twists the facts, and allegations that we have are unfounded,” Patel said.
Earlier Arabic language spokesperson of the State Department Hala Rharrit and Annelle Sheline of the human rights bureau had also resigned in protest to US policy on Gaza.
