WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – The Arabic language spokesperson of the U.S. State Department has resigned over Washington’s Gaza war policy, in the third resignation from the department since the war began.
Hala Rharrit, a Palestinian-American, posted her resignation on the LinkedIn social media site, stating: “I resigned April 2024 after 18 years of distinguished service in opposition to the United States’ Gaza policy.”
Rharrit, who joined the State Department as a political and human rights officer, was also the department’s Dubai regional media hub deputy director.
When asked about the resignation, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that the department has channels for its staff to share views when they disagree with government policies.
In late March, Annelle Sheline, a foreign affairs officer in the State Department’s human rights bureau, stepped down in protest over the Biden administration’s support for the Zionist regime, saying it had made her job promoting human rights “almost impossible”. 
Earlier, veteran State Department official Josh Paul, a former director overseeing U.S. arms transfers, resigned over Biden’s “destructive, unjust” supply of arms to Israel just days after the war on Gaza began.
In January, a senior Palestinian-American official in the U.S. Education Department, Tariq Habash, resigned from his post, saying he could no longer “stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives.”
Despite mounting international criticism of Israel’s carnage that has killed more than 34,300 people and flattened swathes of Gaza, the Biden administration has continued to provide its ally with a steady stream of weapons.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was eyeing an additional $1bn weapons deal with Israel.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate joined the House of Representatives in passing an aid bill that will provide $26bn in aid for Israel and Palestine, with $4bn set to replenish Israel’s missile defence system and roughly $9bn slated for humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.