Palestinian American plaintiffs filed a lawsuit urging a California federal judge on Friday to order the White House to withdraw US support for Israel, citing the alleged genocide in Gaza.
The situation comes pending a ceasefire agreement in the war-torn region and as the plaintiffs accused United States President Joe Biden and other administration officials of abetting a genocide of the Palestinian people.
During the more than two hours of testimony before Judge Jeffrey White, plaintiffs expressed their grief and outrage. They could be seen choking back tears as they spoke of their loved ones who had lost their lives in the Gaza war.
One Palestinian immigrant in the lawsuit who lived in Fairfield, California, said that seven members of his family were killed in airstrikes in Gaza. These include the children of a cousin who he said was like a brother to him.
Another individual, who lives in San Ramon, California, said that his family had lost more than 100 members, noting that a single Israeli attack killed his cousin, his cousin's son, and 14 members of a neighbor's family, as per the New York Times.
The testimony in the lawsuit came in the second judicial proceeding in a day from Israel's bombardment of the embattled Palestinian enclave as being a potential grave violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
A few hours before, the United Nations' highest judicial body ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts by its military forces in Gaza. This was part of the court's consideration of formal charges that the Middle Eastern country's response to Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, was crafted to deny Palestinians the right to exist.
Despite the allegations, the federal case in Northern California is unlikely to succeed in what it sets out to do. This is given legal precedents that limit judicial power over US presidents on foreign policy decisions.
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Withdrawal of US Support for Israel
The hearing was attended by lawyers representing Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. They are facing accusations of "failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government's unfolding genocide," according to Aljazeera.
US civil liberties group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the lawsuit on behalf of the human rights organization, Defence for Children - Palestine; Al-Haq; a Palestinian human rights group based in the occupied West Bank; as well as eight Palestinians and US citizens who have relatives in Gaza.
The court on Friday heard from lawyers, activists, and organizers, including doctors in Gaza, regarding the situation that Palestinians in the war-torn region have been facing for nearly four months.
The lawyers who are involved in the lawsuit said that the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) ruling bolsters their case. The case comes as the Biden administration has maintained that genocide allegations against Israel are "meritless" and "unhelpful."
The situation also comes as Israel's attacks in the last few months have killed at least 25,000 Palestinians, which equates to one in every 100 residents in Gaza. One Palestinian American writer, Laila el-Haddad, described her neighborhood being left as a "large pile of sand" and the death of her relatives, said The Intercept.
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