Dozens of US government employees – including those from the Department of Defense and State – plan to go on a hunger strike in front of Gaza on February 1 in protest of Biden’s support for Israel.

Dozens of US government employees will stage a one-day hunger strike to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel amid the war with Hamas.

Members of Feds United for Peace told The Guardian that employees of more than two dozen government agencies – including the ministries of Defense and State – are planning a fast day on Thursday.

Participating officials will show up to work either dressed in black or wearing “keffiyeh scarves or other symbols of Palestinian solidarity.”

They said they were protesting “starvation as a weapon of war by deliberately denying food access to Gaza,” where more than 26,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Hamas-ruled territory since the war began, according to the Health Ministry.

The activist federal employees say their goal is to force a conversation in their offices. They argue that many federal employees support a ceasefire but are afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation.

More than 26,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war between Hamas and Israel began

Residents and civil protection teams carry out a search and rescue operation around the rubble of a building demolished on January 29 after an Israeli attack in El-Zawaida, Gaza.

The group, which also includes Homeland Security personnel, cited the United Nations report that said as many as two million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine.

Feds United for Peace is the same group that organized a walkout earlier this month they called “Day of Mourning” to protest the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. According to Al Jazeera, the strike never took place and the group instead took collective leave to mark the 100 days of the war between Israel and Hamas on January 16.

“It was never intended as a strike. It was meant to be a day of mourning. And workers took different types of leave for this day of mourning and used it in different ways,” one of the organizers told Qatari state media.

Still, the planned walkout drew criticism from Republicans in Congress, with some, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, arguing that the workers should be fired.

Other groups of federal employees supporting a ceasefire in Gaza have emerged recently, including a group called Staffers for Ceasefire that published an open letter to Biden on January 3.

The seventeen staffers called on President Biden to demand a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

President Biden was hit from within after a group of seventeen current Biden campaign staffers published a letter criticizing Biden for his ‘tough love’ approach to the Israel-Hamas war

“As your staff, we believe it is both a moral and electoral imperative to publicly call for an end to the violence,” Biden campaign staffers wrote.

“Complicity in the deaths of more than 20,000 Palestinians, 8,200 of whom were children, simply cannot be justified.”

There are concerns that Biden’s support for the conflict is costing him significant political currency, especially among young voters, just as his 2024 re-election campaign heats up.

The Biden administration has so far sent more than $14 billion to Israel, in addition to significant military aid, with the United Nations estimating the number of displaced Palestinians since then at 1.9 million people – 85 percent of the population.

The protests expose the tensions Biden faces within his own party as he grapples with the fallout from his handling of the war while respecting his critics’ First Amendment rights to speak out. Biden’s ability to navigate these crosscurrents will be critical to his reelection efforts as he tries to energize Democrats this fall, especially young people who are particularly concerned about the fallout from the war.

“The president, as I said at the outset, is concerned about the more than 100 hostages,” national security spokesman John Kirby said. ‘He doesn’t look at the election calendar’

The Biden administration continues to pressure Israel to return to working with the Palestinians as partners once the fighting in Gaza is over and to support their eventual independence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps saying no.

It seems unlikely that this cycle, which has been frustrating for much of the world, will end, despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s fourth urgent diplomatic trip to the Middle East since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. Although the United States, as Israel’s closest ally and largest arms supplier, has stronger tools to pressure Israel, it has shown no willingness to use them.

Biden and his aides have said they do not want civilians to die in Hamas-ruled Gaza, and Biden helped broker a temporary ceasefire that allowed crucial aid to reach the area and the release of some hostages who were held by the militants.

During a visit to Tel Aviv, Biden warned Israelis not to be “consumed by anger.” But Biden has also said he believes Israel has the right to defend itself and has asked Congress for billions to help Israel in its war efforts.

“The president is concerned, as I said at the outset, about the 100-plus hostages,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said. “He doesn’t look at the clock and the election calendar.”

Democratic voters in New Hampshire’s primaries on Tuesday were broadly divided over Biden’s handling of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to AP VoteCast. Only four in 10 of those who disagreed with how Biden has managed the conflict voted for him. But among those who approve of Biden’s leadership in the Middle East, nearly eight in 10 voted for him.