President Joe Biden during a campaign event at Mother Emanuel AME Church on Jan. 8, 2024 in Charleston, South Carolina. Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images

By Camillo Barone February 16, 2024

Describing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a “mass genocide,” leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the nation’s oldest predominantly Black denomination, have called for the U.S. to halt “all funding and other support” for the Jewish state.

The statement came from the church’s Council of Bishops Thursday as the Israeli army continued to move into Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where 1.6 million Palestinians are sheltering.

Israel has “denied them access to food, water, shelter, and health care. After this torture, they plan to murder them,” the statement reads.

Several major American Christian churches and the National Council of Churches have come out in support a ceasefire in Gaza. Some have called for the U.S. to end military aid to Israel, as opposed to the AME’s call for the U.S. to end all its support for the Jewish state.

Israel has said its purpose in Gaza is to wipe out Hamas before it can make good on its stated intention to repeat attacking Israel until it is destroyed, and to free the hostages the militant group took on Oct. 7. It blames Hamas, which rules Gaza, for the high Palestinian death toll, pointing to its strategy of hiding militants and weapons among civilians.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israel has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in its four-month military campaign. The terror group killed about 1,200 people and took 240 hostage in its Oct. 7 attack. The bishops refer to Hamas’ killings in Israel as “brutal murder.”

“The cycle of violence between historically wounded peoples will not be dissolved by the creation of more wounds or through weapons of war,” the statement continued. “We remain in solidarity with Jesus Christ of Nazareth, a Palestinian Jew, and the Prince of Peace.”

The bishops noted that they issued their statement on the birthday of  Richard Allen, an enslaved person who bought his freedom and founded the AME Church in the late 18th century.

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