Tariq Habash, a political appointee at the Education Department, resigned Wednesday, citing the Biden administration’s approach to the Gaza conflict and its failure to halt what he termed as Israel’s “collective punishment tactics”, Anadolu Agency reports.

“I cannot stay silent as this administration turns a blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives, in what leading human rights experts have called a genocidal campaign by the Israeli government,” Habash wrote in his resignation letter.

Habash, who served for three years as a special assistant in the department’s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, was the sole Palestinian-American appointee at the agency.

He said that the administration failed to “leverage its influence as Israel’s strongest ally to halt the abusive and ongoing collective punishment tactics that have cut off Palestinians in Gaza from food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies, leading to widespread disease and starvation”.