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‘An Avoidable Disaster’: Israeli Blockade of Gaza Could Starve Hundreds of Premature Babies

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

A newborn baby in an incubator struggles to survive following Israel’s blockade of food and medical aid in Gaza City, Gaza on March 11, 2025. 
(Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 580 premature infants are at risk of death due to “depleted” reserves of baby formula.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 580 premature infants are at risk of death, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, due to a shortage of medical-grade formula entering the strip.

Despite a recent policy change by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow “minimal aid” into the strip following a total blockade of food, water, shelter, and medication, it has proven far too little to keep hospitals running and keep people fed. It has proven especially deadly for children.

The AP report quotes Dr. Ahmed al-Farah, head of the pediatrics and obstetrics department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the few functional medical facilities left in Gaza.

Last week, al-Farah warned that the hospital’s stock of milk was “completely depleted,” and that unless aid was delivered immediately, the babies would face “an avoidable disaster.” The widely publicized call was answered with the shipment of 20 boxes of formula from the U.S. aid group Rahma Worldwide.

Al-Farah said this was enough to meet the needs of 10 babies for two weeks, but warned that in the long run it would be far too little, especially with no guarantee of aid in the future.

“This is not enough at all,” he told the AP. “It solved the problem temporarily, but what we need is a permeant solution: Lift the siege.”

Many other hospitals reported shortages of formula that had not been answered, such as Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, which was completely out of stock.

Fortified milk has become increasingly necessary in Gaza due to the increasing number of premature births. In May, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that as a result of widespread hunger, 1 in 5 children is now born pre-term or underweight. That malnutrition has also left many new mothers unable to breastfeed.

Dr. Asaad Nawajha, a pediatric specialist at Nasser Hospital, told Middle East Eye that the blockade has proven catastrophic for the health of both children and their mothers.

“This all goes back to the [harsh] conditions mothers endure amid this vicious war on the Gaza Strip,” Nawajha said. “Due to the lack of nutritious items entering the Gaza Strip, both mothers and children have been exposed to illnesses resulting from malnutrition.”

The Israeli government’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has insisted that the amount of aid allowed into Gaza is sufficient to provide for the population.

On June 22, COGAT announced that 430 aid trucks had been allowed to enter the strip during the preceding week. However, this is but a fraction of the more than 600 trucks per day that the United Nations is necessary to meet their needs.

Many people who have come to aid sites administered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), to obtain the meager supplies available, have been met with deadly violence from the Israeli military.

Since May 27, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 injured by Israeli forces at these sites, according to the U.N. Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Gaza Ministry of Health. The Gaza Media Office reports at least 19 fatal incidents at these GHF sites over the span of just one month.

Many of the victims have been children. According to a study released Thursday by the humanitarian group Save the Children, children have been killed at 10 of those 19 incidents.

“No child should be killed searching for food,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. “This is not a humanitarian operation—it’s a death trap.”

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

Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Continue Reading‘An Avoidable Disaster’: Israeli Blockade of Gaza Could Starve Hundreds of Premature Babies

Activists’ arrests must be reviewed after government drops anti-protest law

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Original article by Katy Watts republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

The UK government has quietly dropped its legal battle to uphold a law that allowed police to arrest peaceful protesters
 | Seiya Tanase/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Labour has quietly dropped legal fight over unlawful crackdown on protest. But what about those already arrested?

Two years ago, Suella Braverman made a law she had no power to make.

The then Conservative home secretary ignored normal parliamentary process to sneak unlawful anti-protest measures in by the back door.

Her new law fundamentally changed the threshold at which police could impose conditions on a protest in England and Wales. It went from anything that caused ‘serious disruption’ – itself a vague phrase that Braverman was asked to define but didn’t – to anything that caused ‘more than minor’ disruption.

Now, finally, those laws have been quashed. We at Liberty launched legal action against the government in June 2023, and five judges over two hearings have since agreed with us that the measures were unlawful and should never have been introduced in the first place.

This week, the Labour government quietly dropped its appeal over those court rulings. The law now reverts back to what it originally was. Police can no longer intervene in protests on trivial grounds, such as a person blocking the entrance to a hotel where a fossil fuel conference is taking place for a matter of minutes – an act for which Greta Thunberg was arrested and later acquitted.

At Liberty, we took action against these laws not just because they were undemocratic and unlawful, but because of the real human impact they had on protesters and non-protesters across the country.

Take Susan* for example, who was wrongly arrested in January. Susan had gone to a vigil for Palestine in the morning, but left to go for lunch. As she was on her way to the shops with friends, she asked the police which way to go, and they directed her back into the protest area. A few minutes later, Susan was caught up in a kettle as the area had conditions imposed on it under these laws.

Susan was arrested, held in custody first on a coach for three hours, and then in a cell for the rest of the 24-hour period that a person can be detained for without charge. She was unable to even call home to tell her son she wouldn’t be allowed home that evening until 10pm.

Eventually, Susan was told that no further action would be taken against her, as was the case for dozens of others who got caught up in this injustice. Despite this, there have been long-lasting effects. In her own words, this has had a huge impact on her mental health. She feels scared for her family’s safety. She has lost all optimism, when she did nothing wrong in the first place.

What makes Susan’s case even worse is that the legislation had already been ruled unlawful at the point she was arrested. Just a few months earlier, the Labour government had chosen to appeal the court’s original decision that the Conservatives acted unlawfully. This is despite Labour’s home secretary, Yvette Cooper, having vocally opposed these same laws when she was in opposition.

Now, the government has finally accepted defeat and has decided to drop its appeal. This is a huge victory for democracy and our right to protest.

It’s important to note that these laws are just one in a long line of anti-protest legislation introduced over the past few years to crack down on our rights to protest.

Related story

Anti protest legislation

How the UK’s ‘free speech’ government banned protest

19 May 2025 | Sian Norris

Conservative ministers loudly championed free speech – right up until they outlawed it. Now, we’re all at risk

Through successive government acts and rhetoric, the ways in which we can protest have been narrowed. Restrictions have been placed on how we protest, and even how noisy a protest can be. And as we’ve seen recently, the sentences given out to protesters have only got longer and harsher.

This cannot go on. We need a reset on the way protest is treated, because it is leading to situations like Susan’s, where vague laws are causing very real damage.

If we’ve learnt anything from our legal action, it is that justice is possible. But, as Susan’s experience shows, there is still further justice that needs to be gained.

These laws should never have been made, and so, quite clearly, every incident under them must be looked at. There has to be an urgent review of every arrest and conviction made under these regulations.

Original article by Katy Watts republished from openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
Continue ReadingActivists’ arrests must be reviewed after government drops anti-protest law

UN warns against return to ‘dark ages’ as children suffer record violations in Gaza

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Palestinians search for usable items in the rubble of heavily damaged and collapsed buildings after Israeli attacks on Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Gaza on June 26, 2025. [Saeed M. M. T. Jaras – Anadolu Agency]

The UN’s top official for children and armed conflict issued a stark warning on Wednesday to the Security Council, urging immediate action to protect children amid surging violence in conflict zones, particularly in the Gaza Strip.

Virginia Gamba, the UN envoy for Children and Armed Conflict told the Council; “The year 2024 witnessed an unprecedented escalation of violence against children, as well as a devastating record of attacks on humanitarian personnel and United Nations staff on the ground.” 

“All too often, children continue to bear the brunt of relentless hostilities, indiscriminate attacks, blunt disregard for ceasefires, peace efforts, and shocking disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law,” she said. “All of these, in a context of deepening humanitarian crises at unprecedented levels.”

Gamba said the denial of humanitarian access has become “one of the gravest obstacles to protecting children in conflict zones,” citing attacks on aid convoys, detention of aid workers and bureaucratic barriers to essential services like food, healthcare and education.

“We cannot continue to stand by and watch with no action what is happening to the children globally, and especially in Gaza,” she said. “The scale of destruction and suffering borne by the children of Gaza defies and contravenes every human standard.”

READ: UN warns of devastating civilian toll amid Gaza aid crisis

“There is no justification for depriving children of access to the means for their survival, including access to food, health care and security,” she added.

Gamba said she has called on Israel “to facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief to civilians in need in the Gaza Strip,” and urged “all parties to the conflict in Gaza to expedite the distribution of aid because international humanitarian law applies to every party, in every conflict, and it must be respected.”

Noting that almost half of all grave violations in 2024 were committed by non-state armed groups, including “killing and maiming, abduction, recruitment and use, and sexual violence,” she emphasized that “this is unacceptable.”

“The deliberate targeting and military use of schools, hospitals, and essential water and sanitation infrastructure must end,” she said, urging states to uphold international legal commitments to protect children.

“Let us renew the global consensus on child protection and uphold every child’s fundamental right to life, health, education, and a safe future,” Gamba said.

“We cannot afford to return to the dark ages, where children were invisible and voiceless victims of armed conflict,” she warned. “Please do not allow them to slip back into the shadows of despair.”

Echoing Gamba’s concerns, UNICEF Director of Child Protection Sheema Sen Gupta told the Security Council: “Each violation against children in every country around the globe represents a moral failure. And each leaves scars that may never fully heal.”

“In Israel and the state of Palestine last year, over 8,000 grave violations have been verified,” she said. “In Gaza, children bear the brunt of this suffering. Nowhere else in the world has such a high number of grave violations been recorded since this Council established the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism 20 years ago.”

“Children are not collateral damage. They are not soldiers. They are not bargaining chips. They are children. They deserve to be safe. They deserve justice. They deserve a future,” she said. “This just cannot be the new normal.”

READ: Hamas urges international, Arab countries to stop Israel’s daily massacres of starving Gazans

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Continue ReadingUN warns against return to ‘dark ages’ as children suffer record violations in Gaza

Sky’s the limit for government on arms spending

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by Lindsey German

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/skys-the-limit-for-government-on-arms-spending/

Nuclear bombs cannot be used without the permission of the US president

The sky’s the limit seems to be the attitude of this Labour government – at least when it comes to spending on arms. On Tuesday it committed to 5% of GDP on ‘defence’ spending by 2035 at the Nato summit – which will mean around double being spent on war than at the beginning of Keir Starmer’s term of office. The next day, defence secretary John Healey announced that Britain was buying 12 F35 jets, which are nuclear capable, and which are to carry US nuclear bombs.

These bombs cannot be used without the permission of the US president and will be on the frontline of nuclear confrontation with Russia.

The cost of these fighter planes is around $82.5 million, with millions more on preparing the air force base at RAF Marham to house them and paying for the bombs. While these Labour ministers seem to delight in amassing ever more weapons of war, they are singing a different tune when it comes to public services and welfare payments. Indeed, Starmer faces one of the biggest rebellions of his own party for decades as he tries to put through cuts for disability payments to some of the poorest people in the country.

It is hard to credit the logic of the cuts when we are told that the government must cut welfare payments to balance its books but grovels to Donald Trump and the Nato leaders to implement policies which will make the vast majority of people in Britain poorer and more of a target in the event of war.

It is also hard to credit a government that supports the bombing of Iran, supposedly to rid it of nuclear weapons, but in that very same month decides that it will spend huge amounts expanding its already substantial nuclear arsenal.

…

Continues at https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/skys-the-limit-for-government-on-arms-spending/

Continue ReadingSky’s the limit for government on arms spending

Starmer imperils government with welfare cuts

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-imperils-government-welfare-cuts

 Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a reception for London Tech Week, at no 10 Downing Street, London, June 10, 2025

MPs will vote next week on welfare cuts aimed at disabled people, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Deputy Leader Angela Rayner pledged today.

Playing a game of chicken with the growing number of Labour rebels prepared to defy the government on the issue, Sir Keir pledged to press ahead with his savage cuts.

One Labour MP described it as a “charge of the political light brigade” by Blairite budgetary hardliners.

But Sir Keir told LBC radio that “there’ll be a vote on Tuesday, we’re going to make sure we reform the welfare system,” while Ms Rayner told MPs  simply: “We will go ahead on Tuesday.”

This does not mean that the debate will definitely proceed as planned, only that Downing Street has not yet made a final determination.

The number of Labour MPs prepared to back an amendment which would end all progress on the Bill has risen to over 120.

This would mean that Sir Keir could only prevail with Tory support.  

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is flirting with backing the government, but is demanding a pledge of no tax increases in the autumn Budget in return, something no government could offer while retaining any self-respect.

Sir Keir now faces several choices, all damaging to his political future.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-imperils-government-welfare-cuts

Continue ReadingStarmer imperils government with welfare cuts