A group of Palestinian-Americans in Chicago are suing the Biden administration over its failure to evacuate their family members from Gaza.
Yasmeen Elagha, who helped organize the lawsuit, says she’s already lost more than 100 relatives as a result of Israel’s bombing. Ten of her family members (including 2 U.S. citizens) have been approved for evacuation by the State Department, but none of them have shown up on the Exit List. Five of them require medical attention and medication that they currently lack access to. Last month they fled their home in Khan Younis, but the area around their current shelter has been heavily bombarded.
breaking news spoke with Yasmeen about the lawsuit, her family, and the attack on Gaza
What’s the current status of your family and why was this lawsuit launched?
Yasmeen Elagha: My family are U.S. citizens, they were born and raised for the first part of their lives in the United States. I actually grew up with them for a bit, but they decided to move back to Palestine and have been trying to evacuate since the bombing began.
The United States has claimed that it is totally powerless to do anything to evacuate them, but that’s absolutely not true. The U.S. flew Israeli-Americans out on U.S. charter flights. They brought Israeli-Americans to the United States. We have spoken with senior officials at the State Department. We have called their emergency line. We’ve spoken with the embassies in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Cairo. We have spoken to officials on the ground in Rafah. Everyone has claimed that they are totally powerless to do anything to help these Americans. So you see, on the one hand, Israeli-Americans are being flown back, and Palestinian-Americans are completely abandoned. It’s an equal protection issue.
It’s been so terrible to watch what’s unfolding in Gaza from here in the United States, but I can’t imagine the feeling when so much of your family is there. Can you talk about that experience?
I’m hearing firsthand from my family members what they’re experiencing.
A few weeks ago, my family members were forced to evacuate their home by Israel. They fled to a shelter in West Khan Younis, where they are with around 30 people. They don’t have enough food for 30 people, so I asked what they eat. They said, “Oh, we survive on a few slices of cheese a day, maybe a tomato if we can find it.”
My two U.S. citizen cousins are both injured. One of them has a broken leg, and he’s wheelchair bound. The leg is likely infected, he can’t even stand on it. The other one has had several surgeries in the past year. He has no access to medication. My grandparents have high blood pressure. They have diabetes. They have no medication. My uncle is mentally disabled and he’s been on medication for his entire life. He has run out of it, and now he’s having severe withdrawal symptoms, like seizures and convulsions.
So, they’ve run out of food. They have run out of medication. My cousin says they walk at least one kilometer a day, just to retrieve contaminated water because that’s all they have to drink.
A few days ago, airstrikes hit around their home, and my cousin sent me a picture of the shelter’s backyard. It totally shattered glass, doors. There were pieces of shrapnel in their shelter. My uncle was injured. They have no way to seek treatment.
My cousin, as he was escaping an airstrike, ran into a live wire and was electrocuted in the face. So, it’s a really, really horrible nightmare scene. They don’t have fuel. They don’t have running electricity. They’re just huddled around in the freezing cold around a tiny fire, they have airstrikes hitting all around them, and when they try to access food and medication, they’re shot at by Israeli tanks. They’ve seen people get shot on the street and killed, so they just fled back to their shelter.
They don’t have the means for survival, and when they seek the means for survival their lives are immediately threatened. It’s truly a dystopian kind of nightmarish scene.
How does your family feel in Gaza? Do they feel torn between the destruction that’s happening in their homeland and wanting to be back home safe in the U.S.?
The decision to leave Gaza was not an easy one for my family, and we spoke with them in-depth before they decided to make the decision to leave.
I think ultimately they did decide to leave because Israel has made living in Gaza absolutely impossible. Even if Israel’s violence ended today, there would be nowhere to return to right now. There is still no future in Gaza for another several years. My cousin’s university has been destroyed, and their teachers and professors have been killed. There is no source of food or water. Even if they wanted to start working today, there are no physical structures available for work. There is no viable future in Gaza in the immediate.
So, if they want any chance of carving out a future for themselves, where they can assist people in Gaza, that has to start outside of Gaza right now. Israel has made it impossible to carve out any kind of life in Gaza right now.
What does it feel like to watch this unfold as a Palestinian-American? You’re living in a country whose government is supporting and funding this bombing against your family.
I feel fully betrayed by the United States. I was born and raised in the U.S., and I have spent my life contributing to my community here in the U.S. and trying to make a future for Palestinian-Americans like myself. I’ve tried to better my community.
I voted for the people who are now funding the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and when I have tried to call to their attention the issue of my family, my calls have been totally ignored. These people asked for something of me. They asked for my vote, they asked for my confidence in them. They asked for my trust in them. I gave that, and I’ve gotten nothing in return.
I’ve contributed to my community, I’ve bettered my society, and I’ve gotten nothing in return. So it’s hard not to feel betrayed. It’s hard not to feel like this isn’t truly my home.
I’m wondering what kind of reaction you’ve got to the lawsuit, either from elected officials or members of your local community.
I’ve been surprised by the lack of reaction to the lawsuit. We’re part of the second wave of lawsuits, and the first wave actually saw a lot of success in terms of actually getting American plaintiffs out of Gaza. The U.S. government and lawmakers don’t seem to really care about the second wave of lawsuits. I think they just see it as a tactic to put pressure on them to act, and they have totally waived it away.
I have spoken with my congressional officials. I’ve spoken with [Illinois Democratic Senator] Dick Durbin. I’ve spoken with internal officials at the State Department. I’ve spoken with so many different people, people high up in government, people at embassies all across the world. They know about the lawsuit, and they just don’t seem to care.
I have requested meetings with my congressional officials and I’ve been rejected. I’ve been told it’s a busy time. When I’ve responded with, “I hope my family’s lives are important issues during this busy time,” I’ve been met with total apathy and a lack of empathy. I believed that the lawsuit would pressure the U.S. to act in its duty to Americans, and it has not done that. Not because of any lack of merit within the lawsuit or any lack of action on the end of my team and the Arab-American Civil Rights Leaguewho I’m working with and with my lawyer Maria Kari.
It’s because the United States has fully washed its hands of Palestinian-American lives and has decided that it will not take action.