More than 600 Americans have been stuck in Gaza since the latest conflict there began in early October. Some Americans in Israel have been able to leave with the help of the U.S. State Department…but Palestinians have had little chance to get out.
Now in a letter to the U-S Secretary of State, Governor Whitmer is requesting an update on Michigan residents still in the war zone.
Whitmer writes that numerous Michiganders have family members in Gaza. Experts estimate roughly eight thousand people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the region and others have been displaced.
Whitmer recently cancelled a speech set for a fundraising event in Dearborn for a free health care clinic. Arab American activists planned to protest Whitmer’s visit because she has not called for a ceasefire in Gaza or in the activist’s view shown sufficient concern for Palestinians. Whitmer said in a statement that she did not want her speech in Dearborn to create a distraction and pledged to ask members of Congress to “bring families stranded in Gaza back home to Michigan."