John,

This weekend, President Biden signed a bill into law that most members of Congress voted for, which sent billions of American tax dollars to the Pentagon, ICE, and Israel’s military.

This just-passed legislation also ended U.S. funding for the UN agency known as UNRWA, which is the primary provider and distributor of aid within Gaza—including food, water, healthcare, and emergency shelter.

More than 1 million people in Gaza are facing imminent famine. Children, who are especially vulnerable, have begun starving to death. And our government is making it worse, blocking starving Palestinians from receiving needed assistance.

I voted no on the bill, which also prohibits funding for UN investigations into the Israeli government’s human rights violations.

Human rights experts agree that Israel’s government is violating international humanitarian law in numerous ways, including by using starvation as a weapon of war—intentionally targeting Gaza’s food and water infrastructure, bombing aid centers, blocking aid trucks carrying key supplies and baby formula, and massacring starving Palestinians seeking food.

Because of these horrors, the United Nations has been pushing for a ceasefire. The U.S. has blocked ceasefire votes in the UN Security Council, until today. Today the United Nations voted 14-0 in favor of a temporary ceasefire through the remainder of Ramadan. The U.S. abstained from the vote, allowing the vote to proceed.

While we need a lasting, permanent ceasefire, this is an important first step that shows that our pressure on President Biden is working. Now’s the time to keep pushing!

Sign the petition to Congress and the White House: Rather than arming and funding genocide with our tax dollars, the U.S. government must reinstate UNRWA funding, demand a permanent ceasefire, and invest in the needs of our communities at home.

The world’s highest court has demanded action to stop this unfolding genocide.

As the top funder and weapons provider for Israel’s military, the U.S. government should use our leverage to stop the violence and force Israel’s government to allow in sufficient aid.

Instead, the U.S. government is deepening our complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Already, thousands of U.S.-made bombs have forcibly displaced millions of Palestinians in Gaza. Nearly everyone in Gaza has had to move multiple times in the past five months, and most have sought shelter in UNRWA facilities.

As the best-equipped group to provide life-saving humanitarian aid on a massive scale in Gaza, UNRWA needs funding now more than ever.

Please sign on to demand Congress and the White House call for a permanent ceasefire, reinstate UNRWA funding, and invest in human rights in U.S. communities, too. We all have the right to housing, clean water, healthcare, and other essential survival needs.

Thank you for taking action to affirm our shared humanity. Please keep speaking up.

When our government contributes to such devaluing of human life, it endangers all of us—especially people in marginalized communities. I will continue demanding our government instead invest in and expand human rights.

In service and solidarity,

Rashida