The White House held a scaled-down iftar dinner on Tuesday to celebrate the holy month of Ramazan, after some invitees turned the president down over frustrations in the Muslim community over his policy toward the Israel-Gaza conflict, Reuters reports.

President Joe Biden met with Muslim leaders before having a small dinner with senior Muslim officials in his administration, first lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband.

One of the attendees, Dr Thaer Ahmad, an emergency room doctor who spent at least three weeks in Gaza, told CNN that he walked out of Tuesday’s meeting before it ended.

“Out of respect for my community, out of respect for all of the people who have suffered and who have been killed in the process, I needed to walk out of the meeting,” Ahmad said.

Ahmad, who said he was the only Palestinian-American in the meeting, said “there wasn’t a lot of response” from Biden. “He actually said he understood, and I walked away,” Ahmad told CNN.