Israel

Israeli Raid Puts Last Hospital in Besieged Northern Gaza Out of Service

Spread the love

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

A view of destruction following the Israeli attack on the courtyard of Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surrounding buildings in Beit Lahia, Gaza on December 25, 2024. (Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The hospital’s director was detained by Israeli forces and his whereabouts are unknown.

The World Health Organization on Saturday demanded the protection of healthcare facilities in Gaza as it announced that Friday’s Israeli raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza put the facility entirely out of service—leaving the besieged region without any major health centers in operation.

WHO said parts of the hospital were badly burned and damaged, including a laboratory and surgical units.

On Saturday, 12 patients and a healthcare worker were reportedly forced to evacuate to Indonesian Hospital, which is not functioning, and “some people were reportedly stripped and forced to walk toward southern Gaza,” said WHO.

Fifteen patients who had been in critical care were forced to transfer to Indonesian Hospital on Friday, leaving medical experts concerned about their health conditions at the damaged facility.

“The movement and treatment of these critical patients under such conditions pose grave risks to their survival,” said the agency. “WHO is deeply concerned for their wellbeing, as well as for the Kamal Adwan Hospital director who has been reportedly detained during the raid. WHO lost contact with him since the raid began.”

Gaza health officials said Saturday that Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, had been taken by Israeli forces to “a detention center for interrogation” along with dozens of other hospital staff.

“With Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals entirely out of service, and Al-Awda Hospital barely able to function, and severely damaged due to recent airstrikes, the healthcare lifeline for those in North Gaza is reaching a breaking point.”

Israel raided Kamal Adwan claiming that the hospital served as a “Hamas terrorist stronghold,” but did not provide evidence for the allegation. Health authorities in Gaza strenuously denied the claim.

The U.S.-backed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Saturday that Abu Safia was among those who had been detained but did not say where he’d been taken.

“With Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals entirely out of service, and Al-Awda Hospital barely able to function, and severely damaged due to recent airstrikes, the healthcare lifeline for those in North Gaza is reaching a breaking point,” said WHO. “WHO calls for urgently ensuring that hospitals in North Gaza can be supported to become functional again. Hospitals have once again become battlegrounds, reminiscent of the destruction of the health system in Gaza City earlier this year.”

The Council on American Islamic Relations called on the Biden administration to demand the release of Abu Safia, who was reportedly beaten before he was detained.

“Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on medical personnel, patients, and hospitals must be condemned by all people of conscience who value international laws and norms,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the group. “The Biden administration, which is complicit with Israel’s genocide, must call for an end to Israeli attacks on medical facilities throughout Gaza and must demand the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.”

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

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 ReadingIsraeli Raid Puts Last Hospital in Besieged Northern Gaza Out of Service

The siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital: When Israel made a hospital, its staff, and patients, military targets

Spread the love

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

Scenes from Israel’s siege on Kamal Adwan Hospital. On the left, the last photo of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya as he walks towards Israeli tanks. On the right, IOF forced health workers and patients to strip and evacuate the hospital. Photo: Screenshots

As part of its ethnic cleansing policies, Israel continues to systematically target medical facilities and health workers across the Gaza strip.

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) set Kamal Adwan Hospital on fire on Friday, December 27, putting the largest medical facility in the northern part of the besieged enclave out of service. Kamal Adwan is located in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip and was one of the last functioning hospitals in the area.

According to the Director of Gaza’s Health Ministry, Munir al-Bursh, the IOF ordered 350 people including 75 patients and their escorts along with 185 medical staff to evacuate the hospital, and move to a nearby school sheltering displaced people.

Gaza’s Health Ministry stated that it has completely lost contact with medics inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital since the IOF stormed the facility.

The whereabouts of the hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, are currently unknown. Dr. Safiya had been providing constant updates on Israel’s siege of the hospital for the last several months and pleading for international institutions to take action to stop Israel’s attacks. On December 2, 2024, he penned a column in the New York Times titled, “I’m One of the Last Doctors in This Hospital in Gaza. I’m Begging the World for Help.” In the essay, he wrote, “We feel as if the rest of the world is wrapped up in a different world from the one we are in. We are suffering and paying the price of the genocide that is happening to our people here in the northern Gaza Strip.”

Notably, in its report on Israel’s final siege on the hospital, the Times depicts the travesty at Kamal Adwan as collateral damage in Israel’s “offensive against Hamas militants” uncritically repeating Israel’s allegation that “the hospital was a stronghold for Hamas and that it was carrying out ‘targeted operations’ in the area.”

In a statement published on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) slammed Israel’s arson attack on the hospital, which used to serve over 400,000 Palestinian citizens. “This morning’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service. Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the statement reads.

“60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including those on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital. The patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed and non-functional Indonesian Hospital. WHO is deeply concerned for their safety,” the statement continues.

The WHO clarified that the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital followed Israel’s escalating restrictions on the organization and its partners to access the hospital. The raid also came after repeated attacks on the hospital and its vicinity since early October. The organization considered the assault on the hospital as part of the systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza, labeling it as a “death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.”

For its part, the Palestinian Presidency slammed the attack considering it as “part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of genocide and displacement against the Palestinian people”, and a “serious and blatant violation of international law and international agreements and conventions that protect medical facilities and personnel during armed conflicts.”

The Palestinian Presidency urged global health organizations, including WHO, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and other international humanitarian bodies “to fulfill their responsibilities toward stopping this crime against the Palestinian healthcare sector.”

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) condemned the attack calling it a “war crime” committed amid “international inaction and full complicity from the US administration.”

In an Al Jazeera interview on Friday, Hamas official Osama Hamdan refuted Israeli claims that there were Palestinian fighters in the hospital and stated that Kamal Adwan Hospital has been subjected to a massacre for 75 days. Hamdan added that the attack on the hospital is part of an attempt by Israel “to end all manifestations of civilian steadfastness in northern Gaza.”

One day prior to setting the facility to fire, Israeli fighter jets launched an airstrike on a building opposite of Kamal Adwan Hospital. At least 50 people were killed in the attack, including three health workers. Earlier in the month, IOF placed booby trapped devices around the hospital, and eyewitnesses said they saw explosive robots and hidden bombs deployed around the facility.

Kamal Adwan was not the only major medical facility to be targeted by IOF in Gaza during the past two weeks. Israel also intensified its attacks on the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and the Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia refugee camp north of Gaza city, which has prompted doctors and authorities in Gaza to request immediate intervention by the international community.

Yet, despite the numerous cries for help and warnings of dangerous escalation by Gaza’s health workers, Israel has been able to proceed with the destruction of healthcare and its genocide of the Palestinian people thanks to the full backing it enjoys by the United States government.

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

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 Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE

Continue ReadingThe siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital: When Israel made a hospital, its staff, and patients, military targets

Outcry After Biden Admin Pushed for Retraction of Northern Gaza Famine Report

Spread the love

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

Five-year-old Misk Bilal al-Madhoun struggles to survive due to health problems such as cerebral palsy and body weakness as a result of malnutrition in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on December 18, 2024. (Photo: Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“It sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations—the Biden administration’s worry about funding Israel’s starvation strategy—to interfere,” said one human rights expert.

Veteran human rights expert Kenneth Roth said Thursday that the withdrawal of a report on imminent famine in northern Gaza negates “the whole point” of the office that produced the analysis: “to have a group of experts make assessments about imminent famine that are untainted by political considerations.”

The decision by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) to retract its December 23 alert on the rapidly spiraling starvation crisis in the northern part of the besieged enclave came after the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, publicly criticized the report.

FEWS NET, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), said in its report that Israel’s “near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies” for nearly 80 days has made it “highly likely that the food consumption and acute malnutrition thresholds for famine… have now been surpassed in North Gaza Governorate.”

The report referenced the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the United Nations-backed assessment that classifies famine as “phase 5” and declares famine in a region once more than 30% of children under age five are acutely malnourished, more than two people per 10,000 die each day from starvation, or once 20% of households face an extreme lack of food.

On Thursday, a note on the group’s website said the “December 23 Alert is under further review and is expected to be re-released with updated data and analysis in January.”

FEWS NET is hardly the first group to warn of impending famine in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have been carrying out a ground offensive since early October and where nearly all humanitarian aid has been cut off for thousands of Palestinians who are trapped in the region.

Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, said the area was facing a “full-blown famine” in May, and independent United Nations experts made a similar assessment in July.

But the FEWS NET report drew criticism from Lew, who said the analysis relied on “outdated and inaccurate” data pertaining to how many people are currently in northern Gaza.

The report was based on a population of 65,000-75,000 people in northern Gaza, said Lew, but Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) “estimates the population in this area is between 5,000 and 9,000,” said Lew, while the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) “estimates the population is between 10,000 and 15,000.”

“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this,” said Lew.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations was among those who said Lew appeared to reject the report by boasting “about the fact that [northern Gaza] has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population.”

https://twitter.com/YousefMunayyer/status/1871566784807293241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1871566784807293241%7Ctwgr%5E174f36dfd5b42060f2dcf44402a64b5200808372%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Ficc-report-no-famine-in-gaza

Sorry, this content could not be embedded.
X

Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Lew’s “quibbling over the number of people desperate for food seems a politicized diversion from the fact that the Israeli government is blocking virtually all food from getting in.”

“The Biden administration seems to be closing its eyes to that reality, but putting its head in the sand won’t feed anyone,” he told the Associated Press.

The Biden White House has been a vehement supporter of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza since October 2023, insisting that the country is only defending itself following a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel—even as the death toll has passed 45,000 and as numerous reports have shown that Israel is waging attacks that officials know will kill hundreds of civilians.

In October the administration said it was giving Israel a month to ensure sufficient humanitarian aid was getting to Palestinians and threatened to cut off military aid, but when the deadline passed, no changes to U.S. political and military support were made.

The U.S. is prohibited from supplying weapons to countries that are blocking U.S. humanitarian aid under its own laws, including Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”

Roth suggested that by pushing for the retraction of the FEWS NET report, USAID was acting on its vested interest in denying that Israel is starving Palestinians.

“It sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations—the Biden administration’s worry about funding Israel’s starvation strategy—to interfere” with the report, Roth told the AP.

Scott Paul, a senior manager at Oxfam America, told the outlet that Lew “leveraged his political power to undermine the work of this expert agency.”

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

Continue ReadingOutcry After Biden Admin Pushed for Retraction of Northern Gaza Famine Report

Morning Star Editorial: The West won’t rein in Israel, because its savagery is ours

Spread the love

Original article republished from https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/west-wont-rein-israel-because-its-savagery-ours

Relatives and friends mourn over the bodies of five Palestinian journalists who were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, December 26, 2024

ISRAEL bombing the airport in Yemen’s capital Sana’a when World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was actually at it shows a brazen contempt for the United Nations.

It is not new. Israel has expressed this contempt repeatedly. Most dramatically when its ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan used a miniature shredder to shred the UN Charter after the general assembly voted in favour of giving Palestine full membership in May.

But it is seen too in the bombardment of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. In the evidence-free assertion that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA harbours Hamas fighters and subsequent decree banning the agency from operating in Israel-controlled territory — meaning the whole of Palestine.

Benjamin Netanyahu accuses the United Nations of intrinsic hostility to Israel, calling it an “anti-Israel flat Earth society” which has “an automatic majority willing to demonise the Jewish state.”

The siege mentality is deliberate: only by presenting this fortress state, so extravagantly armed by its Washington sponsors that it can extend its bombing campaigns across Lebanon, Syria and Yemen after over a year of carpet-bombing Gaza, as under constant existential menace can he justify its frenetic aggression.

Enforcing this narrative is why Israel has become more authoritarian in step with its increasing belligerence, codifying institutional racism through measures like the Nation-State Law and pending legislation that could bar parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel (and the Communist Party of Israel to boot) from standing in elections.

As its suspended communist MP Ofer Cassif warns, there is no positive outcome possible from this vicious cycle: an unendable, unwinnable war against the world will bring Israelis neither security nor peace.

Israel is a rogue state, a danger to itself and others, but it will not be stopped by other rogue states. Just as the agony of the Palestinians continues due to the US policy of unlimited support for Israel, we cannot expect the so-called “free world” to step in on Yemen’s behalf.

Least of all Britain. When evidence of Saudi Arabia deliberately bombing Yemeni schools and hospitals became undeniable, even the United States paused arms sales — but Britain did not.

Expecting our government to be persuaded or even shamed into upholding international law is a fool’s errand.

There is much to criticise in the United Nations: its undemocratic structure, the way the veto power can be wielded to shield perpetrators of war crimes.

Even so, since the beginning of the 21st century a clear division has emerged between the US-led West, awarding itself the right to violate international law by invading, bombing and assassinating whoever it likes, and emerging powers which support the United Nations — a creation of the Allied victory over fascism, intended to prevent the lawless aggression that characterised Nazi Germany and its allies.

China brokered peace in Yemen through a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. China continually makes the case too for UN recognition of a Palestinian state, and hosted talks between 14 Palestinian factions last year in an attempt to forge a united Palestinian leadership capable of taking that project forward.

China, like most of the global South, is not happy with an international system designed in Western capitals 80 years ago, and calls for a more equitable international order. Yet China, unlike the Western founders of that system, is acting to uphold its principles and prevent the world descending into the kind of “might is right” violence the UN was supposed to stop.

We need to recognise how the world looks from outside the West. The “rules-based international order” is not threatened by emerging powers, but by the US-led imperialist camp. We don’t rein in Israel, because its violence is ours.

This is why solidarity with Palestine means fighting for peace and disarmament in Britain, and resisting the constant militarist propaganda pretending our country is under threat.

Original article republished from https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/west-wont-rein-israel-because-its-savagery-ours

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: The West won’t rein in Israel, because its savagery is ours

US Doctor Warns of ‘End of Humanity’ in Northern Gaza as Israel Assails Hospitals

Spread the love

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

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital was treated by colleagues for injuries caused by an Israeli strike on the medical compound in northern Gaza on November 23, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

The comments from emergency physician Mimi Syed came as the Israeli military forcibly evacuated Kamal Adwan Hospital, endangering patients and medical workers.

An American emergency and trauma physician currently working in Gaza warned Friday that the Israeli military’s evacuation order at a barely functioning hospital in the northern part of the enclave means “the end of humanity” there, as the dozens of patients receiving treatment at the besieged facility have nowhere safe to go and the healthcare system in the region has collapsed.

Mimi Syed, who is based in Olympia, Washington and is on her second stint in Gaza since Israel’s latest assault began last year, told Al Jazeera that she “can totally imagine deaths taking place as a result” of Israel’s evacuation order at Kamal Adwan Hospital, given that patients who are reliant on electrical appliances cannot easily be transported.

Syed’s comments came as the head of Gaza’s health ministry said he has lost contact with Kamal Adwan, one of several northern Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces have encircled and attacked in recent weeks.

Citing a nurse and a journalist inside Kamal Adwan, CNN reported Friday that everyone inside the facility has “been ordered to leave the hospital and go to the yard of the compound.”

“Earlier on Friday, a video shared by nurse Walid Al Budi, who is also inside the hospital, showed a fire burning in the archive department of the hospital,” the outlet added. “Heavy gunfire can be heard in the background.”

Video footage posted to social media by Quds News shows patients and medical personnel walking south following the evacuation order at Kamal Adwan:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1872593797408059807

Sorry, this content could not be embedded.
X

The forced evacuation came hours after an Israeli airstrike near Kamal Adwan killed dozens of people, including medical workers.

Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan, wrote in a social media post early Friday that Israeli forces are “burning all the operating departments in the hospital while we are still here.”

“The army evacuated the entire medical staff and the displaced people and arrested a number of the medical staff,” he added. “There are a large number of injuries among the medical staff.”

In an interview released earlier this week, Syed issued an “urgent plea for help,” saying Israel’s assault on Gaza’s overwhelmed and underresourced hospitals and other civilian infrastructure “needs to stop.”

“I’m seeing civilian casualties on a regular basis,” said Syed. “Camps and tents are being struck with airstrikes routinely. We’re seeing children with traumatic amputations shrapnel injuries, open skull wounds with brain matter out.”

“We’re seeing so many children with kidney failure and gastritis that it’s leading to significant dehydration,” Syed added. “All of this is unnecessary.”

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

Continue ReadingUS Doctor Warns of ‘End of Humanity’ in Northern Gaza as Israel Assails Hospitals