Washington, D.C. – What will you say when your children ask you what you did during the war in Gaza?

This is how a federal government employee in the United States described her motivation for organizing her colleagues for a “day of mourning” on Tuesday to more than pay tribute 100 days of war in the Palestinian enclave.

She and a group of federal employees, acting anonymously under the name Feds United for Peace, agreed to take mass furloughs from their jobs as part of a demonstration against the rising death toll in Gaza and the U.S. role in the war.

The move is the latest which underlines the dissatisfaction within President Joe Biden’s administration. Biden has expressed his “steadfast and unwavering” support for Israel despite growing human rights concerns over its months-long military operation in Gaza.

More than 24,200 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting and nearly 1.9 million displaced.

“When your kids ask you, ‘What were you doing?’, we don’t want to say we were just watching from the sidelines. And we hope that anyone with a conscience will look at this situation and make it a point not to watch from the sidelines,” the organizer said, adding that she has more than 15 years of experience in the federal government .

She and a second organizer spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. They said the group represents employees – both professionals and political appointees – in 27 government agencies, including the White House and Congress.

“We’re really not activists. There may be people in our group who are politically appointed, but we are not political in any way,” said the second organizer.

“This group really comes out of this immense frustration and sadness that the war has gone on for so long – the massive death and destruction that has occurred in Gaza over the last 100 days,” he said.

Months of internal strife

Members of the Biden administration have repeatedly expressed frustration with the president’s stance and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, including through public statements and open letters.

There were even some high-profile resignations. State Department official Josh Paul left his post over Biden’s handling of the war, as did Tariq Habash at the Education Department.

Habash had been the department’s only Palestinian-American political appointee at the time of his departure. He later said Al Jazeera that withdrawal was “the only thing” he could do in the face of US policies that had “a dehumanizing effect” on Palestinians on an almost daily basis.

Yet Washington continues to provide Israel with military aid without setting any “red lines” to limit its use. An estimated $3.8 billion is earmarked for the country annually, with Biden twice last month bypassing Congress to approve more arms sales.

The Biden administration has recently called on the Israeli government to shift to more targeted operations with fewer civilian casualties, but Palestinian-American advocates have expressed concern Words sound hollow without more decisive action.

Biden also drew the ire of Palestinian rights advocates after him questioned the death toll provided by the authorities in Gaza.

That’s why the latest move by federal employees “doesn’t come out of the blue,” said Jasmine El-Gamal, a foreign policy analyst and former Middle East adviser at the Pentagon.

“We have seen for months that federal employees in both the executive and legislative branches have tried to draw attention to the fact that there is a great deal of dissension within the Biden administration and also among people working on Biden’s campaign “against his policies regarding Gaza,” El-Gamal told Al Jazeera.

Critics said Biden’s statement on Sunday marking the 100th day of the war reflected a pattern of dehumanization toward Palestinians.

The US president condemned the “devastating and tragic milestone” for prisoners of Hamas, the group that attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing an estimated 1,139 Israelis and kidnapping hundreds more.

But Biden made no mention of the high death toll in Gaza or the ongoing humanitarian crisis there. United Nations experts warn of a “great risk of genocide” in the territory.

According to Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, these human rights concerns have led to an “extremely unusual, if not unprecedented” level of dissent within the Biden administration.

“We have never seen anything like this,” Parsi said. He said it took years for members of other governments to organize in protest against their president. “Even during the Iraq War, for example — not just at the beginning but afterward — in 2004 and 2005, more and more lawmakers began to express concerns and opposition.”

While Democratic Party members in Congress remain overwhelmingly pro-Israel, some have come forward to call for a ceasefire and push for greater controls on arms sales to Israel.

At least 63 members of Congress have called for a complete cessation of fighting. On Tuesday, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation that would require the US to conduct a human rights review of Israel before transferring more weapons.

The dismay at the government’s policies has also led to potentially harmful The political fallout for Biden in the election campaign as he seeks re-election in 2024.

The Democrat’s support among Arab and Muslim voters has fallen to a minimum All time low, according to a survey conducted in October. Biden is widely expected to face former President Donald Trump in a November general election.

“One of the defining characteristics that Biden, frankly any Democrat, had immediately over Trump was that he had the moral high ground in the eyes of many of his own supporters,” Parsi said.

“Biden squandered that by supporting a massacre in Gaza, refusing to listen to it and even spreading misinformation about it.”

“Our livelihoods are at risk”

But for those who want to send a message to Biden from within his administration, the stakes are high.

After a report about Feds United for Peace’s planned action on the Al-Monitor website last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, tweeted: “Any government employee who quits their job to oppose U.S. support for ours.” “Protesting Israel’s allies ignores its responsibilities and abuses taxpayers’ trust.”

“You deserve to be fired,” he wrote, adding that he would “work to ensure that every federal agency takes appropriate disciplinary action against any person who leaves their job.”

One of the organizers of Feds United for Peace told Al Jazeera: “As a federal workforce, we are prohibited by law from striking and therefore this action was never a strike.”

“It was never intended to be a strike. It was designed as a day of mourning. And staff took different types of leave and used it in different ways for this day of mourning,” she said, adding that watching the “horrors” unfolding in Gaza “took an enormous toll on the people.” “who care about what’s going on.”

“This was also an opportunity for people to just take a day and take care of themselves to continue their work and fight,” she said.

“Even as we try to protect ourselves, I think each of us realizes that we are putting our livelihoods at risk,” said the second organizer. While the organizer did not say how many took part in the strike, he said participation “exceeded expectations.”

However, many are holding back “due to perceived intimidation.”

The group is calling on the Biden administration to support an immediate ceasefire, to stop undermining international efforts to hold Israel accountable, to prioritize the entry of humanitarian supplies into Gaza and to facilitate the release of prisoners.

“We went into public service to serve the United States and to try to reflect the best of the United States,” said the first organizer. “And so, in this particular case, we believe it is a moral obligation and a patriotic duty to our country to use the tools at our disposal to try to demand a change in policy from the White House.”