US rights groups file appeal against Biden, Blinken, Austin over Gaza war

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York civil liberties group, has filed an appeal on behalf of the Palestinian human rights organisations Al-Haq and Defence for Children International as well as Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinian Americans in the US in the Ninth District Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

They assert that the US (including the president, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin) is complicit in an Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The original lawsuit was filed in November in federal court, but it was dismissed in January on jurisdictional grounds.

“I promised my surviving family members in Gaza that I would do everything in my power to advocate on their behalf,” stated Laila El-Haddad, a plaintiff in the case who has lost five family members in the war.

Tel Aviv has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an October 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.The military onslaught enjoys unreserved military and intelligence support on the part of the US. Washington has also vetoed several United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the war.

More than 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 84,700 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.