A career State Department official has resigned from her post under the Biden administration on Tuesday after disagreeing with a U.S. report that concluded Israel was not impeding on aid flow into Gaza. Stacy Gilbert, who served as the senior civilian-military advisor to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM),  sent an email to staff stating that the State Department was wrong for making a report that Israel had not blocked aid into Gaza, according to the Washington Post. 

According to reports, this report plays a crucial role in justifying the Biden administration sending more weapons to Israel. 

Another former State Department official who resigned over the Gaza policy in October 2023, Josh Paul, shared his thoughts via LinkedIn. 

Part of it reads: 

“Today Stacy Gilbert resigned as senior civilian-military advisor to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). PRM describes itself as the ‘humanitarian bureau of the State Department,’ whose mission is to promote U.S. interests by ‘providing protection, easing suffering and resolving the plight of persecuted and forcibly displaced people around the world.’

“Stacy’s resignation from PRM underlines the absolute failure of the Biden administration and the Blinken State Department to do any of these things — through over seven months of slaughter in Gaza, the U.S. has not provided protection — it has provided weapons; it has not eased suffering — it has enabled a famine; it has not resolved the plight of persecuted and forcibly displaced people in Palestine — it has provided the diplomatic cover for Israel to continue their persecution and to repeatedly forcibly displace them without accountability or justice.”

Following pressure from congressional Democrats, in February Biden issued the “National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability With Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services” that required the State Department to evaluate and assess whether U.S. weapons being used by Israel in Gaza violated U.S. or international humanitarian law, as well as an assessment on humanitarian aid and whether it was intentionally blocked. 

The report that took various weeks of discussions within the State and Defense Departments, concluded that “aid remains insufficient”, the United Sates does not “currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

Most aid and humanitarian organizations have concluded that aid into Gaza has been obstructed and Gilbert’s words upon her resignation emphasize those views. The Washington Post reported that aid flows have been continuously constricted following the report that found inadequate reasons to cease export of weapons to Israel. 

“We continue to press the government of Israel to avoid harming civilians and urgently expand humanitarian access to and inside Gaza,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Post. “This includes facilitating provision of lifesaving assistance, allowing fuel entry and ensuring safe freedom of movement for humanitarian workers.”

Even more controversially, the report said the State Department did not “currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance” in Gaza.

It was a high-stakes judgment because under a clause in the Foreign Assistance Act, the U.S. would be obliged to cut arms sales and security assistance to any country found to have blocked delivery of U.S. aid.

Gilbert, a 20-year veteran of the State Department who has worked in several war zones, said that report’s conclusion went against the overwhelming view of State Department experts who were consulted on the report.

She said there was general agreement that while other factors impeded the flow of aid into Gaza at a time when famine has begun to take hold of its 2.3 million population – such as lack of security, caused by Hamas, Israeli military operations and the desperation of Palestinians to find food – it was clear that Israel was playing a role in limiting the amount of food and medical supplies crossing the border into Gaza.

“There is consensus among the humanitarian community on that,” Gilbert said. “It is absolutely the opinion of the humanitarian subject matter experts in the state department, and not just in my bureau – people who look at this from the intelligence community and from other bureaus. I would be very hard pressed to think of anyone who has said [Israeli obstruction] is not an issue. That’s why I object to that report saying that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance. That is patently false.”

A number of Biden administration officials have resigned in recent months since the issue sparked in October. Those individuals include Hala Rharrit, a former Arabic-language spokesperson with the Department, and Annelle Sheline, who was a foreign affairs officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for a year.

She released a statement regarding her resignation that read:

“Across the federal government, employees like me have tried for months to influence policy, both internally and, when that failed, publicly. My colleagues and I watched in horror as this administration delivered thousands of precision-guided munitions, bombs, small arms and other lethal aid to Israel and authorized thousands more, even bypassing Congress to do so. We are appalled by the administration’s flagrant disregard for American laws that prohibit the U.S. from providing assistance to foreign militaries that engage in gross human rights violations or that restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.”