… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: Fascism

  • Israeli Military Has Killed 500 Gaza Healthcare Workers—Two a Day Since Assault Began

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    Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

    Mourners carry the body of Palestinian doctor Hani al-Jaafarawi, Gaza’s ambulance and emergency teams chief, during his funeral in Gaza City, Gaza on June 24, 2024. (Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images)

    “This cannot be allowed to continue any longer,” said one advocate. “Every potential serious violation must be independently investigated and those responsible brought to justice.”

    Doctors and humanitarian organizations demanded international investigations and action on Wednesday after the United Nations announced that Israel’s military has now killed 500 healthcare workers in Gaza—roughly two per day on average—during its nearly nine-month assault on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

    The U.N. Human Rights Office said in a statement Tuesday that Israeli forces’ killing of hundreds of healthcare workers has “occurred against the backdrop of systematic attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities in violation of the laws of war.” The World Health Organization has documented more than 460 attacks on healthcare workers and infrastructure in Gaza since October 7.

    “The latest health worker reportedly killed was Mr. Hani Al Ja’afarwi, head of Emergency and Ambulance Services at a health clinic in Gaza City on 23 June 2024,” said the U.N. Human Rights Office. “Many health workers have also died with their family members when residential buildings were struck by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).”

    The U.N.’s latest tally did not include Fadi Al-Wadiya, a 33-year-old Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staffer who was killed along with five other people Tuesday in an attack in Gaza City. MSF did not explicitly assign blame for the attack, which the group described as “yet another brutal example of the senseless killing of Palestinian civilians and healthcare workers in Gaza.”

    Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), said Wednesday that “hospitals, medical staff, and civilians all have protected status under international law, law that the Israel military has flagrantly ignored every day through its repeated targeting of healthcare facilities and staff.”

    “Though now happening at an unprecedented rate in Gaza, attacks on Palestinian healthcare by the Israeli military have recurred over many years, ever-worsening because of chronic impunity,” said Talbot. “This cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Every potential serious violation must be independently investigated and those responsible brought to justice.”

    Not a single hospital is fully functioning in the Gaza Strip after months of relentless Israeli bombing, and medical workers have been forced to treat airstrike victims and other patients in overwhelmed facilities without necessary equipment and medications, including anesthesia.

    As Israel’s blockade leaves the occupied territory’s population without sufficient access to clean water and other essentials, infectious diseases have been spreading rapidly as the health crisis spirals out of control, starvation proliferates, and the death toll mounts.

    “Systematic attacks on healthcare by Israeli forces are exacerbating the worst humanitarian crisis ever seen in Gaza,” MAP said Wednesday. “More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed and at least 86,000 injured since Israel’s assault began, with an estimated 10,000 still trapped under rubble, most presumed dead. Instead of being able to safely provide medical care for those in urgent need, Palestinian healthcare workers have themselves come under both indiscriminate and apparent targeted attack by the Israeli military.”

    Tanya Haj-Hassan, a doctor who volunteered in a hospital with MAP earlier this year, said that “Palestinian healthcare workers have told me that when they leave the hospital, civilians give them civilian clothing because wearing scrubs is putting a target sticker on their back.”

    “This is how systematically healthcare has been targeted in Gaza,” Haj-Hassan added.

    Haider Al-Qudra, executive director of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Gaza, told MAP that “as long as the international community does not take any measures against Israeli forces that continue to violate international humanitarian law, we will lose more personnel working to meet the health and humanitarian needs of citizens on the frontline.”

    “Because of this systematic targeting from Israeli forces,” said Al-Qudra, “34 PRCS staff have lost their lives, most of them emergency medical services staff, including 19 while they tried to respond to emergency calls from citizens.”

    Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

    The Gaza Project Exposes Israel’s ‘Chilling Pattern’ of Killing Journalists

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    Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
    Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

  • HOW ISRAEL FUNDS UK PARLIAMENTARY STAFF

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    Aides to Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting took Israel lobby funding. (Photo: Stefan Rousseau via Alamy)

    Israel is quietly financing assistants of British MPs, Declassified has found.

    Israel has paid for at least a dozen UK parliamentary staff to visit the country on special delegations in the last five years.

    A further 18 staffers have accepted funding or hospitality from pro-Israel lobby organisations in Britain such as Labour Friends of Israel and We Believe in Israel.

    Several worked for MPs in Keir Starmer’s front bench team, including shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting and shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson.

    Our investigation found how the Israeli embassy in London, its ministry of foreign affairs and associated lobby groups seek to influence not only MPs but also their assistants.

    Declassified previously revealed that one in four British MPs in the last parliament accepted funding from pro-Israel lobby groups or individuals. 

    …

    Israel lobby organisations have also sought to gain backdoor influence by funding, meeting, and providing hospitality to ministers’ special advisers, known as SPADs.

    Special advisers are exempt from the Civil Service Code’s requirement of political impartiality. 

    Governmental departments are therefore [not?] required to publish the gifts and hospitality that they receive.

    Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden accepted funding from CFI when he was David Cameron’s SPAD in 2014. 

    Dowden was a prospective parliamentary candidate for Hertsmere at that time.

    CFI paid for a special adviser to Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude to travel to Israel that same year, while in 2015 another four Downing Street special advisers received hospitality from CFI.

    The group has continued to lobby SPADs in the prime minister’s and deputy PM’s office, as well as the leader of the House of Lords.

    …

    Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
    Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

  • As she is arrested, a Youth Demand Activist explains “the Labour Party is complicit in Genocide.”

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    As she was arrested following a flash sit down Gaza ceasefire now protest at Oxford Circus earlier this afternoon (Saturday 22 June 2024), a Youth Demand Activist declared that “the Labour Party is complicit in genocide. They refuse to call for a ceasefire. They refuse to stop buy and selling weapons with Israel. These weapons are creating tens of thousands of deaths. Our government is able to do something about this but they refuse to;” adding “We can not vote Tory. We can not vote Labour. We must act. We must take to the streets. We must civilly resist. Join us at YouthDemand.org.” My own comment – Although some Labour Party MPs have made some fairly empty and vague declarations in support of a “sustainable” ceasefire, it’s clear they are not willing to declare that Israel must commit to one immediately, let alone to exert any real pressure on the Israeli government.

    As of 11 June 2024, at least 37,702 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, including more than 15,000 children. An estimated 10,000 are missing, of whom most are probably dead.

    There is also an unknown number of additional deaths due to excess mortality from food shortages, disease and difficulties in obtaining essential medical care and medicines, while more than 84,000 Palestinians have been injured, many of them with life-changing injuries including many amputations.

    According to the United Nations, as of 9 June, more than half of all residential buildings have been destroyed or damaged but with some key infrastructure the destruction is even more devastating – including 130 ambulances, 267 places of worship, 80% of commercial facilities and 88% of school buildings damaged or destroyed. Additionally some 83% of groundwater wells are no longer operational.

    Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
    Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

  • Netanyahu refuses to end Gaza war

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/netanyahu-refuses-to-end-gaza-war

    A Palestinian family mourns a loved one killed by Israeli bombardment, as they take a last look before their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 21, 2024

    Israeli air strike kills director of Gaza’s Ambulance and Emergency Department

    ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said that he would not agree to a deal to end his war in Gaza but only to a “partial” ceasefire agreement.

    In an interview with Israeli Channel 14, Mr Netanyahu said that he was “prepared to make a partial deal — this is no secret — that will return to us some of the people,” referring to the roughly 120 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.

    “But we are committed to continuing the war after a pause, in order to complete the goal of eliminating Hamas,” he said.

    “I’m not willing to give up on that.”

    Hamas has insisted it will not release the remaining hostages unless there is a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

    When US President Joe Biden announced the latest proposal last month, he said it included both.

    In the interview, Mr Netanyahu said that the current phase of fighting is ending, setting the stage for Israel to send more troops to its northern border to confront the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

    But he said that did not mean the war in Gaza was over.

    Hamas said Mr Netanyahu’s comment was “in contrast” to what the US administration said Israel had approved.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/netanyahu-refuses-to-end-gaza-war

  • UN to Warn Half a Million Gazans Facing ‘Catastrophic’ Food Insecurity

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    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Children receive malnourishment treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024, amid Israel’s ongoing assault on the besieged enclave. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

    “The international community must apply relentless pressure to achieve a cease-fire and ensure sustained humanitarian access now,” said one advocate.

    More than 1 in 5 people in the Gaza Strip are “facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity” amid Israel’s relentless assault and siege against the Palestinian territory, according to a draft report set to be published Tuesday by the United Nations’ hunger monitoring system.

    The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Food Insecurity Special Snapshot—which was previewed by various news agencies—says that more than 495,000 Gazans—who already face “an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion”—are expected to suffer the highest level of starvation over the coming months.

    The draft report states that while a sharp increase in food aid in northern Gaza in March and April can be credited with “likely averting a famine,” the situation is “deteriorating again following renewed hostilities.”

    “A high risk of famine persists across the whole of the Gaza Strip as long as conflict continues and humanitarian access is restricted,” IPC noted.

    The IPC draft report also says more than half of all Gaza households had to sell or swap clothing in order to obtain food, and that the majority of Gazan families often “do not have any food to eat in the house, and over 20% go entire days and nights without eating.”

    “The population cannot endure these hardships any longer.”

    Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of global policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, an Oregon-based humanitarian NGO, told The Guardian that “people are enduring subhuman conditions resorting to desperate measures like boiling weeds, eating animal feed, and exchanging clothes for money to stave off hunger and keep their children alive.”

    “The humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly, and the specter of famine continues to hang over Gaza,” she added. “The international community must apply relentless pressure to achieve a cease-fire and ensure sustained humanitarian access now. The population cannot endure these hardships any longer.”

    Although the IPC stopped short of the rare step of declaring a famine in Gaza, it warned that “the recent trajectory is negative and highly unstable.”

    “Should this continue, the improvements seen in April could be rapidly reversed,” the agency added.

    The IPC’s famine review panel previously said there is not enough data to make a determination on whether there is a famine in Gaza since research was being blocked by “conflict and humanitarian access constraints.”

    The Geneva-based group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Monday that “the Famine Review Committee’s inability to declare the current food situation in the Gaza Strip to be a famine does not negate the existence of famine in the strip, as pockets of famine are forming and spreading among different age groups, particularly children, and there is a noticeable increase in deaths from hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases.”

    “The committee’s failure to declare the existence of a famine is solely related to its inability to provide certain technical information because of illegal Israeli restrictions and policies that aim to conceal evidence related to the crimes it commits and prevent criminal investigations into them by independent U.N. and international committees, particularly by preventing these committees from entering the strip,” the group added.

    U.N. World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said last month that “full-blown famine” had taken hold in Gaza and was spreading south. According to Gaza officials, at least 40 people—mostly children—have died from malnutrition and dehydration during the 262-day Israeli onslaught. Almost all of the victims are from northern Gaza.

    Israel began bombing, and later invaded, Gaza after Hamas-led attacks left more than 1,100 Israelis and others dead and over 240 others kidnapped on October 7. At least some of the victims were killed by Israeli forces in so-called “friendly fire” incidents, according to Israeli and international media reports.

    Since then, Israeli forces have killed at least 37,626 Palestinians—most of them women and children—in Gaza, while wounding over 86,000 others, according to Palestinian and international agencies. At least 11,000 people, including over 4,000 children, are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.

    Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food and a law professor at the University of Oregon, said in late February that Israel is committing genocide by intentionally starving Gazans. Israel’s siege—and Israeli attacks on humanitarian aid shipments, workers, and recipients—are being reviewed by the International Court of Justice as part of a South Africa-led genocide case backed by over 30 countries and regional blocs.

    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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