WASHINGTON

PEN America cancelled its prestigious annual awards ceremony Monday amid mounting nominee withdrawals over what a growing group of writers say is the organization's failure to denounce Israel's war on Gaza.

The free speech nonprofit said it made the "very difficult decision" not to move forward with next week's ceremony in direct response to the decision from dozens of writers to withdraw from consideration.

“We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories," PEN America’s Literary Programming Chief Officer Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf said in a statement.

"As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast," it added.

The discontent centered on what the authors said was PEN America's failure to adequately condemn Israel's ongoing war in the besieged Gaza Strip where over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 14,000 children as well as prominent writers, activists and journalists and their families.

In all, nearly 30 candidates have declined to be considered for an award, writing an open letter in which they said the literary organization "has shown such blatant disregard of our collective values."

"We stand in solidarity with a free Palestine. We refuse to be honored by an organization that acts as a cultural front for American imperialism," the withdrawn nominees wrote.

"We refuse to gild the reputation of an organization that runs interference for an administration aiding and abetting genocide with our tax dollars. And we refuse to take part in anything that will serve to overshadow PEN’s complicity in normalizing genocide," they added.

Nearly half of all writers who received nominations -- 28 of 61 -- declined their candidacies. That includes nine of the 10 individuals who were put forward for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.​​​​​​​