The New York Times revealed on Tuesday that more than 400 employees and appointed politicians, representing about 40 US government agencies, wrote a letter to US President Joe Biden on Tuesday to protest his support for Israel in the war it is waging on the Gaza Strip, and demanded work on an “immediate ceasefire.” And pushing Israel towards allowing humanitarian aid to enter the Strip.

According to the newspaper, this letter is the latest in a series of protest letters and memos from US government employees, including three internal memos signed by dozens of State Department employees, and an open letter signed by more than 1,000 employees at the US Agency for International Development, last week.

The newspaper said that the signatories of the letter sent on Tuesday and the letter sent by the United States Agency for International Development did not publish their names due to “concern for their personal safety and the risk of losing their jobs,” while the Foreign Ministry memos indicate the names of the signatories according to a mechanism in the ministry that allows its employees to express their opposition to government policies with Attach their names, without fear of reprisal.

It is noteworthy that the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in his response to journalists’ questions, including the Al-Quds newspaper correspondent, in this regard, that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken encourages the channel for expressing opinions and understands the employees’ feelings and concerns about what is happening in Gaza.

According to the newspaper: “The letter signed by 400 people begins by condemning the Hamas attack on October 7, then calls on Biden to work to stop the war, as the letter stated: We call on President Biden to urgently demand a ceasefire, and to call for an end to the escalation of the current conflict by ensuring the immediate release of Israeli hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians, the restoration of water, fuel, electricity and other basic services, and the passage of adequate humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.”

The letter adds that "the overwhelming majority of Americans support a ceasefire," attaching an opinion poll that showed that 66 percent of Americans believe that the United States should pressure Israel for a ceasefire.

The letter also stated: “The Americans do not want the US military to be dragged into another costly and meaningless war in the Middle East.”

The newspaper attributes to two political appointees who helped organize this protest. The majority of the signatories are political appointees with different orientations, and they work in all sectors of the government, from the National Security Council to the FBI and the Department of Justice.

Some of the letter's signatories are those who helped Biden in his 2020 election campaign, and they said in interviews that they were concerned that the administration's support for the war conflicted with the position of Democratic voters on the issue.

Two people who helped organize the letter said they agreed to serve in the administration because Biden emphasized that he wanted a government more representative of American voters, but their concerns and those of other political appointees were "largely ignored."

On the other hand, the New York Times says that some American officials said privately that while senior officials welcome differences of opinion, government employees must understand and accept that they will not always agree with American policy.

The officials said opposition to the administration's policy "reflects a generational gap and the majority of opponents are employees in their 20s and 30s, although many older employees are also among the protesters."

The US administration opposes the ceasefire, fearing that it would allow Hamas to reshape its ranks to launch future attacks, and instead called for humanitarian truces to allow aid to be delivered to Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages.

The newspaper says that the protest letters came after a meeting of about 70 Muslim and Arab political appointees with senior officials in the Biden administration on October 23.

During the meeting, they said that they were under pressure from their friends and families to resign, and the meeting witnessed the crying of some of the attendees who were demanding a ceasefire, not ignoring the lives of civilians, and restricting the sending of weapons to the Israeli army.

The newspaper indicates that 3 protest notes were sent by State Department employees to Secretary Anthony Blinken. Two in the first week of the war and the third recently.

According to the newspaper, the memorandum stated that the measures taken by Israel in the wake of the October 7 attack, which include cutting off electricity, restricting aid, and launching attacks that led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, “all constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under international law.”

The New York Times said on Tuesday that Blinken responded on Monday to “internal opposition” by sending an email to ministry employees in which he wrote: “I know that the suffering resulting from this crisis has a profound personal impact on many of you,” adding that he realizes that “some people “In ministry they may disagree with our approach or have views on what we should do better.”

Blinken said in the letter that the State Department "organized forums in Washington to listen to you, and urged managers and teams to have frank discussions so we can hear your comments and ideas."