complicity

Media Malpractice: Blacking Out Genocide and Disenfranchising Palestinian Pain

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Original article by ZACK KALDVEER and FATINAH JUDEH republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Pro-Palestinians in New York City join “Shut down colonial feminism” rally in front of Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s office, U.N. Women office and New York Times building on Friday, January 12, 2024. (Photo: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Now more than ever, Americans deserve objective, diverse, trustworthy, and contextualized coverage of Gaza.

America’s corporate media serves as a key cog in the machinery of genocide.

Rather than providing the kind of objective, fact-based reporting integral to an informed citizenry, our mainstream press bombards us with explicit and implicit biases, false narratives, dehumanization, and misdirection, serving to stifle public dissent and justify, rationalize, and conceal the systematic oppression and extermination of the people of Gaza.

As dependable propaganda tools for Israel’s aggression, our news censors truth not only by what they choose to cover and how they spin it—but what they deliberately omit. This orchestrated disinformation campaign helps ensure the ongoing and unconditional support of the U.S. government and its continued role as Israel’s dutiful genocidal benefactor.

This isn’t war. It’s mass murder. But this isn’t what most Americans are watching, reading, and hearing on the news.

How does a Palestinian-American with family in the region reconcile the disconnect between “reality” and the “story” our press is “telling”?

Consider a day in the life in Gaza: Palestinian schools, hospitals, universities, places of worship, and heritage sites are being systematically destroyed. Civilians, nearly half children, are being murdered on a mass scale (over 30,000 dead, nearly half children). The calculated deprivation of food and water is literally starving families to death. Babies are being born into a living hell, with screams of terror, the ear-piercing explosions of limb-searing U.S.-made bombs, and the painful moans of their parents among the first sounds they hear. The electricity powering the oxygen machines keeping sick patients alive cut off, leaving them to struggle to gulp each of their final breaths. Amputations of children’s limbs without anesthesia with barbed wire have become obscenely routine. Broken, but alive, Palestinian bodies riddled with shrapnel require each piece to be pulled from their flesh. Hungry children are found dead with single Israeli sniper shots to the head because they made the mistake of seeking out food from an aid truck. The deliberate decimation of Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure has left families unable to communicate with one another, or with the world, allowing daily atrocities to become increasingly invisible and unreported.

For those fighting for survival in Gaza, there is nowhere left to run, nowhere to turn, and no one to turn to. This isn’t war. It’s mass murder. But this isn’t what most Americans are watching, reading, and hearing on the news.

American Media’s Israel Bias and Censoring Journalists

Quantitative analyses conducted by The Intercept, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and an independent collective of U.S. journalists, writers, and media makers of coverage in The York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times lay bare our news media’s dramatic pro-Israel bias. The litany of press failings are disturbing in their sheer scope and intention. Findings included the systematic undermining of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim perspectives and the invocation of inflammatory language that reinforces Islamophobic and racist tropes. Misinformation spread by Israeli officials is commonly printed along with consistent failures to scrutinize Israel’s indiscriminate killing of civilians in Gaza. Israeli deaths are disproportionately emphasized, and more humanizing language is used to describe them than Palestinians. This is to name just a few.

Case-in-point: In what’s now being called the Flour Massacre, at least 112 Palestinians in Gaza were killed and hundreds more injured after Israeli forces opened fire on civilians while waiting for food from desperately needed aid trucks. Leading news media descriptions referred to the slaughter as “food aid deaths,” “food aid-related deaths,” “chaotic incident,” and “reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy.”

Do these headlines properly convey the massacre of starving civilians?

The New York Times: “As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll”

The Washington Post: “Chaotic Aid Delivery Turns Deadly as Israeli, Gazan Officials Trade Blame”

The Guardian: “Biden Says Gaza Food Aid-Related Deaths Complicate Cease-Fire Talks”

BBC: “More Than 100 Killed as Crowd Waits for Aid, Hamas-Run Health Ministry Says”

Sadly, censored journalists who speak out are paying the price. The Los Angeles Times recently banned 38 journalists from covering Gaza for at least three months after they signed an open letter criticizing Western newsrooms for their biased reporting on Israel and their role in dehumanizing rhetoric that has served to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

But it’s not just print that is to blame. The Guardian reported the accounts of six CNN staffers from multiple newsrooms, including more than a dozen internal memos and emails, finding that daily news decisions are shaped by a flow of directives from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta that have set strict pro-Israel guidelines on coverage. Every story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem bureau—which has close ties with Israel’s military—before broadcast or publication.

In light of these exposes, it’s no wonder then, that after four months of some of the most indiscriminate and brutal attacks on civilians in human history, a global public outcry, and overwhelming support for a cease-fire in the United Nations, the U.S. continues to fund the slaughter and block international efforts to end it.

Holding Media Accountable, Supporting Journalists, and Promoting Independent News

There is no shortage of ways people can help bring this nightmare to an end. Among them should include pressure campaigns on the corporate media to commit to journalistic integrity and truth. Outlets like CNN and The New York Times have a unique opportunity to educate millions by providing rigorous, evidence-based reporting that could serve to end the ongoing genocide—rather than enable it.

Petitions to hold CNN and The New York Times accountable deserve support. But petitions aren’t enough.  (including protests, boycotts, and sit-ins) and strategies that target these institutions’ advertisers, revenues, and reputational interests are also required.

Israel’s ongoing genocidal annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza will be reviled by history—rendering the once solemn rallying cry “Never again!” cruelly hollow.

Over 122 journalists, more than any war in history, have been killed in Gaza. Journalists seeking to put their own lives at risk to report the truth must be protected. And journalists who have stories to tell about the censorship they have endured must be encouraged to tell them, anonymously if necessary.

Finally, independent, non-corporate news serves as dependable sources of fact-based information and a powerful check on the official narratives of their corporate counterparts. Now more than ever, Americans deserve objective, diverse, trustworthy, and contextualized coverage of Gaza. Thankfully, these alternatives exist, and need our support, from Pacifica radio to a long list of independent news sites.

Israel’s ongoing genocidal annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza will be reviled by history—rendering the once solemn rallying cry “Never again!” cruelly hollow. “Never again” is not meant to be a phrase of remembrance, but a call to action. Let’s not let the corporate media forget it.

Original article by ZACK KALDVEER and FATINAH JUDEH republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingMedia Malpractice: Blacking Out Genocide and Disenfranchising Palestinian Pain

Biden delivers State of the Union speech while under fire for supporting genocide

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Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Demonstrators outside of the Capitol blocked Biden’s motorcade, causing a delay in his State of the Union speech (Photo: NYC-DSA)

US President Joe Biden’s unwavering support for Israeli genocide in Gaza has earned him the nickname “Genocide Joe” and made it necessary to hide from constituents on the campaign trail, due to the frequency of pro-Palestine disruptions at his events.

Yesterday, on March 7, Biden gave the annual “State of the Union” address amid protests from lawmakers themselves on his Gaza policy. When Biden began to bring up Gaza in his speech, Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian in Congress, was joined by several other progressive representatives in holding up signs that said “lasting ceasefire now.” Biden did say in his speech that “we’ve been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks,” however, he still does not support a permanent ceasefire. Israel seeks the ability to revisit any ceasefire after six weeks. 

Outside of the Capitol, where Biden gave his speech, hundreds of protesters gathered to hold a “People’s State of the Union” and blocked the major streets outside the building. The protest was large enough to cause Biden’s motorcade to take the “long way” to the House of Representatives chamber to give his address, delaying his speech. Protesters held banners that read “Biden’s legacy is genocide” and “The people demand: stop arming Israel”. Left-wing and Palestine solidarity organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, Dissenters, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Adalah Justice Project participated in the demonstration.

During Biden’s speech, he claimed that he is directing the US military to build a temporary pier on the Gaza coast that would increase the amount of humanitarian aid entering the Strip. At least five people were killed on March 8 after being struck by aid dropped into Gaza via planes. The United States has been carrying out aid drops, despite posing danger, in lieu of pressuring Israel to open land routes to allow aid trucks to move into Gaza freely. 

Aid to the besieged Gaza Strip has fallen due in part to Israeli restrictions on two crossing points, according to the UN. In February, an average of just 98 trucks entered Gaza per day, in comparison to around 200 trucks per day in January. Before October 7, Israel would allow around 500 trucks a day into the besieged territory for a population of over 2.3 million.

“That’s not what Gaza needs,” said a protester outside of the Capitol. “Gaza needs liberation. They need an end to US military funding for Israel, and they need to be able to finally end… 75 plus years of ethnic cleansing.”

Biden caves to right-wing on immigration

In his speech, Biden also appeared to continue the process of caving entirely to the right-wing about tougher policies against migrants and refugees, and the further militarization of the US-Mexico border. Biden was heckled at one point during his speech by ultra-right-wing lawmaker Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who shouted about Laken Riley, a student in Georgia allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant. 

The right-wing has been using the example of Riley to push a racist anti-migrant policy, despite many studies showing that undocumented immigrants are less likely to engage in violent crime than US residents.

Instead of challenging the right, Biden caved to Taylor-Greene’s remarks by holding a pin that allegedly she gave him, and going on an anti-migrant rant. Getting Riley’s name wrong and referring to undocumented migrants as “illegals”, Biden made a jumbled comment saying, “Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right. But how many of the thousands of people being killed by illegals—to her parents, I say my heart goes out to you.” 

Biden also promoted a bipartisan bill to restrict immigration at the border, which would expand the authority of the president to crack down on migrants. “It would also give me as President new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming,” he said. 

Protest votes threaten Biden’s run

Biden has been hemorrhaging support in the statewide Democratic primaries, with large percentages of Democratic voters casting protest votes against the incumbent President. This movement began with the Michigan primary, where over 100,000 voters voted “uncommitted”, with Arab-majority city Dearborn voting 56.22% uncommitted. The recent Democratic primary in US-occupied Hawaii generated 29.1% uncommitted votes, the highest percentage of any statewide primary in this election cycle.

The growing deluge of protest votes against Biden poses a looming threat for him in the election. Anger at Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide is growing in states like Georgia, which, like Michigan, became critical for Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election. In 2020, Biden won Georgia by only 11,779 votes.

Peoples Dispatch spoke to Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a board member with CAIR Action, the newly formed political arm of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR Action is a part of the Listen to Georgia coalition, which is encouraging Georgia voters to cast a protest vote against Biden in the March 12 Georgia Democratic primary. 

“The people of Georgia, like many people across America, do not want our tax dollars funding a genocide overseas,” Mitchell said. “That’s why Georgia voters are trying to send a message to President Biden in the Democratic primary. The message is: you risk losing the state of Georgia and the 2024 election if you continue to enable the genocide in Gaza.”

Original article by Natalia Marques republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingBiden delivers State of the Union speech while under fire for supporting genocide

Starving Children in Gaza ‘Cannot Wait’ Weeks for US Port, Aid Groups Say

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

Palestinian children are pictured near makeshift tents in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on March 7, 2024.  (Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“They are already dying from malnutrition and saving their lives is a matter of hours or days,” said Jason Lee of Save the Children.

Leading humanitarian groups said Friday that starving people in Gaza, including more than a million children, are in need of immediate aid and can’t afford to wait for the U.S. military to construct a port on the enclave’s coast, a project that’s expected to take weeks.

“Children in Gaza cannot wait to eat,” said Jason Lee, country director for Save the Children in the occupied Palestinian territory. “They are already dying from malnutrition and saving their lives is a matter of hours or days—not weeks.”

At least 17 children have starved to death in Gaza, according to Defense for Children International – Palestine, and many more are currently struggling to survive.

Condemning Israel’s obstruction of ground-based aid deliveries as “a grave violation against children” and international law, Lee stressed Friday that “there is already a tried and tested system in place to effectively coordinate aid.”

“But trucks of food and medicines that could save lives are waiting at crossings, while children are starving just miles away,” Lee continued. “Airdrops, with no on-the-ground coordination of who it reaches, and maritime corridors like the one announced yesterday, are no solutions to keep children alive. Neither are substitutes for unimpeded humanitarian assistance via the established land routes.”

U.S. President Joe Biden announced during his State of the Union address Thursday night that he has directed the nation’s military to “lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.”

The president also said Israel, whose military is armed to the teeth with U.S. weaponry, “must do its part” by allowing “more aid into Gaza”—but did not threaten any consequences if the Netanyahu government refuses.

“Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies. This is not a logistics problem; it is a political problem.”

Ground deliveries into Gaza have plummeted in recent weeks as Israeli forces have attacked aid convoys and prevented trucks from entering and moving through the territory. A World Food Program (WFP) official said earlier this week there’s enough food to feed Gaza’s “entire population” sitting just outside of the strip.

“We need land crossings, we need access to get it into Gaza, whether in the southern parts of Gaza or the northern part of Gaza because the situation is catastrophic. So having access is really our number one priority,” said Samer AbdelJaber, WFP’s director of emergency.

The WFP has said aid airdrops—which Biden authorized last week—are a “last resort” and “will not avert famine.” On Friday, aid packages dropped into Gaza by U.S. military planes killed five people and injured at least 10 others.

Avril Benoît, executive director for Doctors Without Borders, argued Friday that Biden’s plan for a temporary port “is a glaring distraction from the real problem: Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign and punishing siege.”

“The food, water, and medical supplies so desperately needed by people in Gaza are sitting just across the border,” said Benoît. “Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies. This is not a logistics problem; it is a political problem. Rather than look to the U.S. military to build a workaround, the U.S. should insist on immediate humanitarian access using the roads and entry points that already exist.”

Refugees International said in a report released Thursday that its research teams found Israel is engaged in “routine and arbitrary denial of legitimate humanitarian goods from entering Gaza,” forcing aid convoys to undergo “a highly complicated” inspection process “without clear or consistent instructions.”

“Our research makes clear that conditions inside of Gaza are apocalyptic,” the group said. “After five months of war, Palestinians are struggling to find adequate food, water, shelter, and basic medicine. Famine-level hunger is already widespread and worsening.”

Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote Friday that while “more aid for Palestinians on the brink of starvation is obviously good,” the Biden administration’s airdrops and plan for a temporary port underscore “the incoherence of U.S. policy right now, in which we’re trying to ease Palestinian suffering while continuing to unconditionally arm and support the government that is intentionally inflicting that suffering.”

“The president seems to recognize that ultimately this conflict will require a political solution, but is still unwilling to bring the full weight of America’s considerable leverage to that goal,” wrote Duss.

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

Continue ReadingStarving Children in Gaza ‘Cannot Wait’ Weeks for US Port, Aid Groups Say

30+ Arrested in Chicago Protest Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire

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

More than 30 Chicago demonstrators demanding a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip were arrested on March 8, 2024.  (Photo: Benjamin Lorber)

“We can’t go on acting as if the genocide isn’t happening,” said one demonstrator who blocked traffic. “We’re raising our voices to say no genocide in our name!”

Organizers said over 30 protesters were arrested in Chicago on Friday morning for blocking rush-hour traffic to demand a cease-fire in Israel’s U.S.-backed war on the Gaza Strip.

“We can’t go on acting as if the genocide isn’t happening,” said Deborah Adelman, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Chicago who blocked traffic at W. Jackson Boulevard and S. Dearborn Street. “We’ve been out on the streets for five months and we’re not going anywhere.”

The demonstration capped off a 24-hour vigil backed by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Chicago Educators for Palestine, Chicago Teachers Union Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators, Dissenters, Jewish Fast for Gaza, Tzedek Chicago, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and local chapters of American Muslims for Palestine, IfNotNow, and JVP.

“We’re raising our voices to say no genocide in our name!” Adelman declared. “We’re here risking arrest to show our solidarity with the people of Gaza who are suffering an unfathomable assault.”

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Since Israel launched its brutal retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 30,878 people in Gaza, injured another 72,402, displaced most of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents, restricted humanitarian aid, and devastated civilian infrastructure including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

For the morning action in the Illinois city—whose council called for a Gaza cease-fire in a contentious January resolution—protesters linked arms and held banners that read, “>30,000 Dead—Not One More” and “End the Siege on Gaza Now!”

Vigil participants also spent several hours reading aloud the known names of those killed. After his turn, Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein told the Chicago Tribune: “At least at the bare minimum, we will pronounce somebody’s name correctly and have a moment of dignified memorialization for blessing for people who were killed prematurely in such a grotesque way… I have to imagine they did not have proper burials according to their beliefs and traditions and customs.”

As the death toll mounts in Gaza, Israel is facing a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice while U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are the targets of a complicity case in federal court.

Biden has made promises to step up humanitarian efforts for Gaza in recent days, but the United States also gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and since October 7, his administration has repeatedly bypassed Congress to arm Israeli forces while seeking a package worth over $14 billion.

Since last fall, critics of the Israeli assault and U.S. complicity have taken to streets, bridges, tunnels, transit hubs, government buildings, and the campaign headquarters of Biden—who is seeking reelection in November—to call for an end to the genocide.

“Civil disobedience is integral to what my family and my ancestors have practiced for generations,” said Nitaawe Banks, a member of the Native American and Indigenous Students Association at DePaul University who blocked traffic in Chicago. “My grandfather was kidnapped by the U.S. government and taken 2,000 miles away to a boarding school where the federal government attempted to forcibly assimilate him.”

“At that time it was illegal for him to practice his religion and traditions,” Banks noted. “He went on to participate in the occupation at Wounded Knee. I’m here today to protest in solidarity with Palestine and to illustrate the lack of legitimacy the U.S. empire has.”

In addition to the Friday morning action, the #StateOfTheGenocide vigil included an alternate State of the Union that coincided with the president’s annual address. There were prepared speeches from In These Times executive editor Ari Bloomekatz and Eman Abdelhadi, an organizer, writer, and professor at the University of Chicago, along with remarks from other attendees.

“Biden is addressing the nation without listening to his public and, as he speaks, the death toll rises in Gaza. Just last week the Israeli military opened fire on crowds of starving Palestinians waiting for aid,” said Aaron Neiderman of IfNotNow Chicago ahead of the speeches. “We demand a permanent cease-fire and an end to this genocidal war.”

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

Continue Reading30+ Arrested in Chicago Protest Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire

Israel’s blocking of aid to Gaza is a weapon in its brutal war against Palestinians

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Original article by Abdul Rahman and Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Photo: UNRWA

Israel’s deliberate blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza has emerged as key weapon against the people of the territory. More than 20 Palestinians have reportedly been killed due to starvation in the last few weeks and numbers are expected to explode in the coming days.

Though Israel denies it has any such policy, almost all UN agencies working to provide aid on the ground in Gaza, as well as several other groups, have termed the deliberate blocking of aid as the most important reason for an imminent famine in the besieged Palestinian territory. 

Research conducted by organizations such as Refugees International show that, “Israeli conduct has consistently impeded aid operations within Gaza, blocked legitimate relief operations, and resisted implementing measures that would genuinely enhance the flow of humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

By denying adequate aid to Gaza, Israel has been in violation of the interim order passed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on January 26 while hearing the genocide petition filed by South Africa. The ICJ had asked Israel to facilitate “urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life.”

In its submission to the court in February, Israel claimed it had complied with the ruling. However, UN data shows that the actual number of trucks with aid reaching Gaza decreased by half in February in comparison to the previous month. International organizations still describe experiences where the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) block their entry into Gaza, especially North Gaza, after being made to wait for hours on end.

According to Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of UNRWA, in February, on an average just 98 trucks entered Gaza in comparison to around 200 trucks a day in January. Before October 7, Israel used to allow around 500 trucks a day to the besieged territory for a population of over 2.3 million.

Israel’s denial of adequate aid to Gaza also violates the UN Security Council resolution adopted in December which talks about greater access to humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. 

The US, which was the primary mover of the UN security council resolution, recently airdropped aid to Gaza. While delivering his State of the Union address on March 7, President Joe Biden also talked about opening a temporary port in Gaza to deliver faster aid. Both the moves confirm the claims that there is not enough aid reaching Gaza at the moment, despite Israeli claims.

However, the US act is widely seen as a face-saving exercise given the Biden administration’s reluctance to press Israel for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and its supply of arms and ammunition which is used by Israel to bomb Palestinians.

The Biden administration has failed to make Israel comply with its own National Security Memorandum (NSM 20) as well. It requires that countries seeking security aid from the US make arrangements for adequate humanitarian assistance.

Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK highlighted on her page on X that Biden says “Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and protect civilians. But it doesn’t. And Biden keeps sending them more weapons.”

Meanwhile “after five months of war, Palestinians are struggling to find adequate food, water, shelter and basic medicine. Famine level hunger is already widespread and worsening” in Gaza, Refugees International’s report says. The lack of adequate food has significant health implications for children in Gaza who have been the primary victims of Israel’s war since October 7.

Israel weaponized starvation against Palestinians

Israel has killed over ten thousand children in its bombings and ground offensives in Gaza since October 7. In addition to that, the health effects of Israel’s blockade on aid delivery are worsening by the day.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age in Gaza are acutely malnourished. The combination of food shortages, lack of clean water, and inadequate healthcare provision is having devastating effects, particularly on young children and mothers.

Many women are facing extreme difficulties in initiating and continuing breastfeeding due to their own nutritional status and stress. “People are hungry, exhausted, and traumatized,” said Adele Khodr, Regional Director of UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa office.

The food shortage in the north is so severe that health workers report 95% of female patients are suffering from anemia. “There have been many operations performed, such as cesarean sections, to remove fetuses, [which] died of malnutrition among women,” Mohammed Salha, director of Al-Awda Hospital, told ActionAid.

Pediatricians at Kamal Adwan Hospital have reported not having the resources to treat more than half the children admitted to the hospital for malnutrition, as there is no food or medical supplement the staff can give them. “The most we can do for them is give them a saline solution or sugar solution,” physician Imad Dardonah told UN teams visiting the institution.

Israeli obstacles to aid delivery also mean that there is not enough infant formula or diapers. On the rare occasions when these essential supplies are found, their cost puts them out of reach for most of the population in Gaza.

A box of diapers in northern Gaza now costs around ILS 200 (USD 55), while monthly income before October 7, 2023, was reported around ILS 1,200 (USD 343)— not even enough to cover a newborn’s monthly supply during her first month of life, let alone food on top of that.

Restrictions are also being applied to the number of international medical teams allowed into Gaza and to field hospitals, which would allow for a partial expansion of much-needed health service capacities.

The siege is causing a devastating paradox: at the same time, there are too few health workers to respond to the needs of the population and those who have been working in Gaza’s healthcare system since October; and there are too many health workers in comparison to the operational surgery capacities—the only remaining functional operation rooms are located at the European Hospital in southern Gaza, according to surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah.

Some countries have attempted to circumvent Israel’s aid blockade by airdropping supplies, but the amounts reaching the population in Gaza this way are nowhere near sufficient. To adequately stock hospitals and health centers, several international agencies have warned, it is paramount to ensure unimpeded passage for truck convoys carrying a wide range of supplies, not just a specific type of food or sanitary bandages.

When it comes to aid delivery, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, James McGoldrick, said, “There is no alternative to food trucks, to road transports.”

Original article by Abdul Rahman and Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael’s blocking of aid to Gaza is a weapon in its brutal war against Palestinians