cease-fire

Israeli Assault on Gaza, West Bank Continues in ‘Final Stage’ of Cease-Fire Talks

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

A father cries while carrying the body of his child wrapped in a blood-stained shroud west of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on January 14, 2025. (Photo: Youssef Alzanoun/Middle East Images via AFP via Getty Images)

“As a cease-fire in Gaza is near, Israel is expanding its assault on the West Bank,” said one expert. “It was always a war on Palestinian existence.”

As negotiators in Qatar navigated the “final stage” of a cease-fire agreement to end the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, Israel’s forces on Tuesday continued to kill Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave and the illegally occupied West Bank.

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed at least 46,645 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 110,012, with over 10,000 others missing, health officials said Tuesday. The true death toll could be much higher. A peer-reviewed analysis published last week in The Lancetfound that the official tally through last June was likely a 41% undercount.

The Palestinian National Authority’s news agency WAFA reported Tuesday that IDF shelling killed at least two civilians at the Nuseirat refugee camp and a correspondent in Gaza City “said that Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, and another house in the Manara neighborhood, south of Khan Younis City, killing several civilians and injuring others.”

According to multiple media outlets, Israeli forces also killed at least 13 people in an attack on a home in Deir al-Balah.

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Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its assault on Gaza and in November the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.

In addition to waging war on Gaza over the past 15 months, Israel has stepped up its military activity in the West Bank—where a Tuesday strike on the Jenin refugee camp killed at least six Palestinians and wounded several others. The Times of Israel reported that “the IDF said it carried out the strike in a joint operation with the Shin Bet, without immediately providing further information.”

The Israeli newspaper also noted that “on Tuesday evening, as on many previous Tuesday nights, thousands gather for a unity rally of prayer and song held in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square,” while hundreds of right-wing demonstrators blocked “an intersection in central Jerusalem, in protest of the ongoing hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas.”

According to a draft obtained by The Associated Press, the first part of the three-stage deal would involve a halt to the fighting, both sides releasing captives, displaced Palestinians in Gaza returning home, and more humanitarian aid entering the strip.

Phase two would feature a declaration of “sustainable calm” and Hamas freeing more hostages in exchange for additional Palestinian prisoners and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, AP reported. The third part would include an exchange of bodies, a reconstruction plan for the strip—where civilian infrastructure is in ruins—and the reopening of border crossings.

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“The terms of the deal being negotiated are largely consistent with what was on the table last May when outgoing President Joe Biden first announced it. Biden allowed Netanyahu to steamroll him for months—rewarding Israel with billions of dollars in arms transfers and political support after rejecting that cease-fire deal,” Jeremy Scahill detailed at Drop Site News.

The latest cease-fire talks come as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his inauguration next Monday. The Republican has been pushing for a resolution to Israel’s assault on Gaza—or at least an appearance of one—before he returns to office.

“The fact that Trump emerged as the decisive player in pushing a potential cease-fire forward is evidence that Biden never used the full powers available to a sitting U.S. president to seal the deal in the summer,” wrote Scahill. “While Trump has publicly repeated his threat that he will ‘unleash hell’ on Hamas if the Israeli hostages are not freed, his pressure has not been solely focused on Hamas; Trump and his aides have made clear to Netanyahu that the president-elect expects Israel to comply with his demands, too.”

Netanyahu on Tuesday told hostages’ families that “he is willing to agree to a prolonged cease-fire Gaza in exchange for their return,” according toHaaretz. Later Tuesday, The Times of Israel reported that the prime minister was meeting with “Israel’s hostage negotiation team and with members of Israel’s security establishment,” and expected negotiations to go through the night.

Even if a deal is reached regarding Gaza, some experts fear the bloodshed will continue there and in the West Bank

“There will possibly be an end to the Gaza war, but there will be now another war in the West Bank,” Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian analyst and director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, told Scahill. “It may not be on the same scale, but it would be as vicious from the settlers, from the Netanyahu government.”

Gazan writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada wrote for the U.S.-based Center for International Policy last week that a senior Arab official told him the U.S. president-elect asked the Qataris and Egyptians to finalize a deal before he takes office but the Israeli prime minister “is not budging while at the same time issuing false positive statements of a breakthrough and progress to buy time and pretend to seek a deal until Trump is in office, where Netanyahu can trade the Gaza war for something big in the West Bank.”

Sharing on social media a video of the Tuesday strike on Jenin, Middle East expert Assal Rad said that “as a cease-fire in Gaza is near, Israel is expanding its assault on the West Bank. The Gaza genocide is only the most recent atrocity Israel—with the help of the U.S.—has carried out against Palestinians. The same story for 77+ years. It was always a war on Palestinian existence.”

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

Continue ReadingIsraeli Assault on Gaza, West Bank Continues in ‘Final Stage’ of Cease-Fire Talks

Israel Agrees to Cease-Fire With Lebanon’s Hezbollah—But What About Gaza?

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

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon on November 25, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

“It has long been clear that a cease-fire in Gaza is crucial to sustain any lasting cessation of hostilities across the region,” said one group.

Peace advocates on Tuesday cautiously celebrated Israel agreeing to a cease-fire with the Lebanese political and paramilitary group Hezbollah while also stressing the need for an immediate end to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

Despite concerns about whether the truce will actually happen, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a U.S.-based Quaker group, welcomed the plans for it and called on “all parties to ensure this agreement is swiftly enacted.”

“The time for peace is now—not just in Lebanon, but in Gaza and across the region,” FCNL declared on social media. “We urge U.S. officials to ensure this agreement brings an immediate end to the Israeli government’s devastating and indiscriminate bombing and attacks against Lebanese civilians, which have been fueled by U.S. weapons.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that the National Security Cabinet approved the cease-fire in Lebanon with a 10-1 vote—only far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir voted no. The office added that “Israel appreciates the U.S. contribution to the process, and reserves the right to act against any threat to its security.”

Netanyahu said in a speech to Israelis that “the length of the cease-fire depends on what happens in Lebanon. With the United States’ full understanding, we maintain full freedom of military action. If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to rebuild terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck carrying rockets, we will attack.”

Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden said that he worked with French President Emmanuel Macron to negotiate the cease-fire, which is set to begin at 4:00 am local time on Wednesday. The United States has spent at least tens of billions on Israeli military operations and related U.S. operations in the region since the Gaza-based Palestinian group Hamas led the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

“As Biden spoke tonight, Israel was raining U.S. bombs down on Lebanon and Gaza,” notedDrop Site journalist Jeremy Scahill.

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Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday thanked France and the United States for negotiating the truce, which he said is “a fundamental step towards establishing calm and stability in Lebanon” and “helps to establish regional stability.” He also reiterated his government’s intention to “strengthen the army’s presence in the south.”

Cross-border battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah over the past nearly 14 months have displaced tens of thousands of people in Israel and over 1 million in Lebanon. The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said Tuesday that Israel’s assault—which has intensified since September—has killed at least 3,823 people and injured another 15,859.

In Gaza, the death toll is at least 44,249, with 104,746 wounded, according to local officials. Israeli forces have also decimated civilian infrastructure and displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents, who are struggling to access necessities, due to limits on aid. Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court last week issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas leader.

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“It has long been clear that a cease-fire in Gaza is crucial to sustain any lasting cessation of hostilities across the region,” said FCNL. “More violence and suffering in Gaza will not make Israel, the U.S., or anyone safer or more secure. It must end now. We reiterate our calls for our government to use all U.S. leverage to bring about a full regional cease-fire to end the horrific suffering of Palestinians, protect all civilians, return all hostages home, de-escalate regional tensions, and begin the long road toward healing.”

“That must include prohibiting more offensive weapons shipments and U.S. military involvement, which would send a message of impunity to the Israeli [government] in the face of repeated and grave violations of U.S. and international law in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, and beyond,” the group added—just days after a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate rejected a trio of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have halted some arms sales to Israel.

Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the U.S.-based Center for International Policy, responded similarly to the Tuesday development, saying in a statement that “we welcome news of a cease-fire agreement in Lebanon and hope that it can be implemented and sustained to prevent further harm to civilians who have been under threat of attack or suffered other great loss during the fighting.”

“This agreement nonetheless comes too late. While Israel has the right to legitimate self-defense against Hezbollah, the Netanyahu government’s deliberate escalation of the conflict in September resulted in disproportionate harm to civilians, hundreds of whom have been wounded or killed, with hundreds of thousands more displaced,” Okail said. “Mixed messages and prevaricating by the Biden administration on its position on Israel’s escalation and the need for a cease-fire [have] further prolonged the fighting and exacerbated the death and destruction it has brought.”

“The U.S. and its partners must ensure that the terms of this agreement are fully honored so that civilians on both sides of the border can safely return to and rebuild their communities,” she added. “What remains of the utmost urgency, however, is also ending the war in Gaza, where the U.S. arming of the Netanyahu government’s campaign of displacement, starvation, slaughter and—per the repeated vows of senior Israeli officials—settlement continues in violation of American and international law.”

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

Continue ReadingIsrael Agrees to Cease-Fire With Lebanon’s Hezbollah—But What About Gaza?

Lifesaving Gaza Aid ‘Has Fallen to an All-Time Low’ Under Israeli Siege

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

A driver prepares a truck full of humanitarian aid from the European Union for entry into Gaza at the Erez West crossing in Israel on November 11, 2024.  (Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images)

“There is a strong likelihood that famine is already occurring in northern Gaza, and that immediate action is required within days, not weeks, to address the crisis,” a new analysis warns.

More than two dozen international relief groups operating in Gaza warned Thursday that humanitarian assistance entering the embattled Palestinian enclave “has fallen to an all-time low” as Israel continues to block lifesaving aid, fueling nascent famine in the north.

“An average of only 37 humanitarian trucks per day entered Gaza in October, and an average of 69 per day during the first week of November. This is still well below the average of 500 per day which entered Gaza… before October 7, 2023, and was insufficient to meet the needs of the population,” the seventh Gaza Humanitarian Aid Snapshot notes.

“For almost a month, Israel has blocked attempts by aid organizations to deliver aid in areas of northern Gaza, effectively severing the population from access to vital lifelines, including food, medical supplies, and all other humanitarian aid,” the report continues, adding that “there is a strong likelihood that famine is already occurring in northern Gaza, and that immediate action is required within days, not weeks, to address the crisis.”

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“Tragically, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 20 aid workers from both Palestinian and international organizations,” the analysis laments. “Staff were killed in their homes, in displacement camps, and while delivering lifesaving aid. Many aid workers lost close family members and relatives.”

One forcibly displaced resident of northern Gaza told the report’s authors:

Everyone has received this call before: One of your friends or colleagues or relatives or cousins is under the siege or bombs. And they ask for help. And you can’t do anything. You can’t do anything for them. And they die. They die while they are asking us to help them. This is the worst thing.

The report also notes widespread looting by desperate Gaza residents—a consequence not only of the bombing, invasion, and siege but also of Israel’s targeted killing of Palestinian police officers—and criminal gangs extorting aid groups for “protection” money.

The new analysis came on the same day that a United Nations committee published a report concluding that Israel’s policies and practices in Gaza “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide” and two days after the Biden administration—which backs Israel with arms and diplomatic support—sparked worldwide anger by asserting that Israel is not violating humanitarian law during the war.

A scorecard published earlier this week by some of the same groups that compiled the Humanitarian Aid Snapshot detailed how Israel has failed to fully comply with any of the Biden administration’s 19 demands indicating compliance with humanitarian law.

As children in Gaza began starving to death earlier this year, the International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—ordered the Israeli government to stop blocking aid from entering the enclave. Israel has been accused of ignoring the order.

As the Humanitarian Aid Snapshot notes, Israeli forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded over 103,000 others as of November 12. Approximately 80% of Gazans are under forced displacement orders—a policy denounced by many as ethnic cleansing—and around 90% of Gaza residents have been forcibly displaced, most of them multiple times.

“The population in northern Gaza faces starvation, severe shortages of clean water, critical supply scarcity, and ever-increasing desperation,” Mercy Corps, one of the groups that contributed to the analysis, said in a statement. “We call on all those with influence and power to take urgent action to de-escalate and halt the unrelenting violence in Gaza, to protect civilians and aid workers, and to do everything possible to achieve an immediate and lasting cease-fire.”

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

Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that his active support and that of UK's air force 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
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 Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government's support for Israel's Gaza genocide and the UK government and military's active participation in genocide.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
Continue ReadingLifesaving Gaza Aid ‘Has Fallen to an All-Time Low’ Under Israeli Siege

Amid War Crimes Charges, Human Rights Watch Says Israel Must ‘End Attacks on Hospitals’

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

Wounded people receive treatment at the Aqsa Indonesia Hospital after an Israeli attack on the Jibalia refugee camp on November 13, 2023. (Photo: Fadi Alwhidi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Israel’s broad-based attack on Gaza’s healthcare system is an attack on the sick and the injured, on babies in incubators, on pregnant people, on cancer patients. These actions need to be investigated as war crimes.”

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday demanded that the Israeli government immediately cease its deadly attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, arguing they’re part of a far-reaching and unlawful assault on the territory’s crumbling healthcare system.

In a new report, HRW examines the impacts of the Israeli bombing campaign, ground invasion, and siege on Gaza’s medical personnel and facilities, a majority of which have stopped functioning due to airstrike damage or lack of critical supplies, from fuel to anesthetics.

“Israel’s repeated attacks damaging hospitals and harming healthcare workers, already hard hit by an unlawful blockade, have devastated Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure,” said A. Kayum Ahmed, special adviser on the right to health at Human Rights Watch. “The strikes on hospitals have killed hundreds of people and put many patients at grave risk because they’re unable to receive proper medical care.”

Over the past week, Israeli forces have surrounded and intensified their bombardment of several hospitals in northern Gaza including al-Shifa, the enclave’s largest medical facility. Israel has also bombed ambulances and people desperately attempting to flee hospitals as they’ve come under attack.

“On November 3, the Israeli military struck a marked ambulance just outside of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital,” HRW said. “Video footage and photographs taken shortly after the strike and verified by Human Rights Watch show a woman on a stretcher in the ambulance and at least 21 dead or injured people in the area surrounding the ambulance, including at least 5 children.”

“An IDF spokesperson said in a televised interview that day: ‘Our forces saw terrorists using ambulances as a vehicle to move around. They perceived a threat and accordingly we struck that ambulance,'” the group added. “Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the ambulance was being used for military purposes.”

HRW similarly questioned Israeli assertions that Hamas is using Gaza’s hospitals, including al-Shifa, for military operations.

Targeting hospitals is a war crime under international law, but medical facilities can lose their protected status if they’re used to commit an “act harmful to the enemy,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

HRW argued that Tuesday that “no evidence put forward” by the Israeli government thus far “would justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law.”

“When a journalist at a news conference showing video footage of damage to the Qatar Hospital sought additional information to verify voice recordings and images presented, the Israeli spokesperson said, ‘Our strikes are based on intelligence,'” HRW said. “Even if accurate, Israel has not demonstrated that the ensuing hospital attacks were proportionate.”

The group said Israel “should end attacks on hospitals” and urged the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the International Criminal Court to investigate.

“Israel’s broad-based attack on Gaza’s healthcare system is an attack on the sick and the injured, on babies in incubators, on pregnant people, on cancer patients,” said Ahmed. “These actions need to be investigated as war crimes.”

The new analysis came amid horrific reports of the impact that Israel’s assault is having on healthcare workers, patients, and displaced people seeking refuge from near-constant airstrikes.

Reuters reported that people trapped inside al-Shifa Hospital “plan to start burying bodies within the hospital compound” on Tuesday “because the situation has become untenable.” The World Health Organization said over the weekend that the facility is “not functioning as a hospital anymore” due to power outages and a lack of supplies, which have caused the deaths of a number of patients—including premature babies.

Dr. Ahmed Al Mokhallalati, a surgeon at al-Shifa, told Reuters that “the bodies were generating an unbearable stench and posing a risk of infection.”

“Unfortunately there is no approval from the Israelis to even bury the bodies within the hospital area,” he said. “Today … civilians started digging within the hospital to try and bury the bodies on their own responsibility without any arrangements by the Israeli side. Burying 120 bodies needs a lot of equipment, it can’t be by hand efforts and by single-person efforts. It will take hours and hours to be able to bury all these bodies.”

Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said that on Tuesday morning, “bullets were fired into one of three MSF premises located near al-Shifa hospital and sheltering MSF staff and their families—over 100 people, including 65 children, who ran out of food last night.”

“Thousands of civilians, medical staff, and patients are currently trapped in hospitals and other locations under fire in Gaza City; they must be protected and afforded safe passage if they wish to leave,” the group added. “Above that, there must be a total and immediate cease-fire.”

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

Continue ReadingAmid War Crimes Charges, Human Rights Watch Says Israel Must ‘End Attacks on Hospitals’

‘As a Human Being, I Beg’: Doctors Say Cease-Fire in Gaza Only Way to Save Countless Lives

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

Trauma surgeons treat an injured man after Israeli bombardment, at the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023  (Photo: Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

Fresh demands for a major increase in humanitarian aid and an end to the bombing came as Gaza’s only cancer hospital shut down due to a lack of fuel.

As the World Health Organization warns of an “imminent public health catastrophe” in Gaza amid Israeli attacks on medical workers and infrastructure, doctors and other frontline medics said Wednesday that only an immediate cease-fire would give them a fighting chance to save countless lives.

Responding Wednesday to the shutdown of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital—Gaza’s only cancer treatment center—due to lack of fuel and damage from Israeli airstrikes, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “no words can describe our concern for the patients who have just lost the only possibility to receive lifesaving cancer treatment or palliative care.”

Tedros added: “I urge and I plead—for full medical and fuel aid access NOW! The more we wait, the more we put these fragile lives at risk.”

The WHO chief’s plea came a day after Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the Geneva-based United Nations agency, warned that “an imminent public health catastrophe… looms with the mass displacement, the overcrowding, the damage to water and sanitation infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said Tuesday that “child deaths due to dehydration, particularly infant deaths due to dehydration, are a growing threat.”

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called Gaza a “graveyard” for children, more than 3,600 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombardment, with another 1,000 minors reported missing, according to Palestinian and other officials.

Israeli forces have attacked numerous hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and medical workers, including the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital and al-Hilu Hospital. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that the bombardment that damaged al-Hilu “endangers the lives of women in the maternity wards and medical staff.”

According to an “urgent call for protecting healthcare workers in Gaza” published Tuesday in the British medical journal The Lancet, Israeli forces have attacked 57 medical facilities since launching the war on Gaza on October 7, killing 73 workers—including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and others—as of October 24. Sixteen of the medical personnel were killed while on duty.

As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza exacts a heavy toll on overwhelmed medical workers and infrastructure in the besieged strip, frontline medics like Dr. Noureddein al-Khateeb—a 38-year-old resident doctor in the emergency department at the Nasser Medical Center in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis—say they are living “in a constant state of threat and fear.”

“It’s constant fear on top of the exhaustion we’re experiencing,” al-Khateeb toldThe New Humanitarian on Wednesday. “But one shouldn’t think of that too much. I can’t. If I do, I won’t get any work done.”

Al-Khateeb added that “we’re also afraid for our families’ safety, but what can we do?”

Dr. Mohamed Abu Mousa, a radiologist at Nasser, said one of the few trips he’s made outside the hospital since Israeli bombardment began was to bury his 7-year-old son after he was killed in an October 15 Israeli airstrike on their family home.

“We don’t have the luxury of pausing to grieve,” he told The New Humanitarian. “The heartache is immense, but the wounded are endless. We have to keep going.”

Conditions are dire inside Gaza’s hospitals, which are running out of or low on fuel, medicines, equipment, and other essential services and supplies.

“We’re operating on children without anesthetics,” Léo Cans, who heads the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mission in Palestine, toldCNN Tuesday. “We don’t have morphine for them.”

On Wednesday, MSF international president Dr. Christos Christou said in a video published on social media that “we’ve seen and heard the stories of the hell being unleashed on Gaza” as “helpless people are being subjected to horrific bombing” and “families have nowhere to run or hide.”

Christou continued:

So many people need help. What medical staff can do is just a drop in the ocean compared to the immense needs. Our teams working in Gaza are exhausted and terrified. Our staff tell us that pregnant women can’t get to hospitals to deliver. People are stuck under the rubble of shelled-out buildings. Children are having limbs amputated while lying on the floor.

“An immediate cease-fire is the only way the people of Gaza can find safety and the essential aid they urgently need,” Christou asserted. “The bombing, the all-out assault, needs to stop now… As a human being, I beg—stop the bombing and allow people in Gaza to live.”

The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday afternoon that at least 8,796 Palestinians—including nearly 2,300 women and over 3,600 children—have been killed in Israeli attacks, while around 23,000 other people have been injured.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common

Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘As a Human Being, I Beg’: Doctors Say Cease-Fire in Gaza Only Way to Save Countless Lives