Lloyd Austin
Secretary of Defense (2021-2025)
Current: Retired
As Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin oversaw the board military support for the genocide and the distribution of at least $21.7 billion in military arms and hardware to Israel between October 2023 and September 2025. Between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2025—nearly the same period of time—Israel killed at least 67,075 people in Gaza.
In April 2024, in response to a Senate committee, Austin asserted, “We don’t have any evidence of genocide” being committed by Israel, adding that he denied the accusation that he had greenlit genocide. This was after the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and country of South Africa had accused Israel of committing acts of genocide, and after Senator Elizabeth Warren called the evidence of Israel’s genocidal acts “ample.”
By February 2025, the organization Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) submitted a 172-page report proposing that the International Criminal Court investigate Austin, as well as Joe Biden and Antony Blinken, for their “accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.”

