… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Tag: medicine

  • UN Warns 14,000 Babies in Gaza Could Die in 48 Hours Without True Lift of Israeli Blockade

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

    18-month-old Mayar El Arca is being treated at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on May 17, 2025. (Photo: Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “The limited entry of aid into Gaza cannot be mistaken for meaningful progress,” said one humanitarian expert.

    The United Nations estimated that the Netanyahu government’s continued starvation of more than 2 million Palestinians could kill up to 14,000 infants in the next two days without a serious influx of aid.

    News outlets have reported since Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allowed five aid trucks carrying baby food and other nutritional aid into the besieged enclave—but humanitarian experts and workers have decried the arrival of the aid as “a trickle among a sea of need.”

    Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs for the United Nations, said the tiny amount of aid was a “drop in the ocean” in a bombarded enclave where food security experts announced earlier this month that nearly a quarter of a million people are facing “extreme deprivation of food” and the entire population has “very high” levels of acute malnutrition and excess mortality.

    While many medical workers have been killed in Israeli bombings, Fletcher told the BBC‘s Radio 4 “Today” program that teams have assessed that 14,000 infants are likely to die within 48 hours if food aid can’t reach them. The small amount of trucks allowed in through the Karem Abu Salem crossing Monday—a fraction of the 600 per day that provided food, medications, water, and other aid to Palestinians during the recent cease-fire—have yet to actually reach civilians.

    On Tuesday, 100 more U.N. trucks were given clearance to enter Gaza. Fletcher said humanitarian workers fear potential looting of aid trucks due to the chaotic, desperate situation faced by Palestinians.

    The current blockade began March 2, and international humanitarian groups operating in Gaza have exhausted their reserves of food aid over the past 79 days.

    “For over 70 days Israel has been starving the people of Gaza, depriving them of food, water, medicine, and essential supplies while escalating its cruel and indiscriminate bombing campaign,” said Wassem Mushtaha, Gaza response lead for Oxfam. “Two million people are on the brink of famine, and they are not just starving, but also traumatized, sick, and displaced from their homes.”

    “The limited entry of aid into Gaza cannot be mistaken for meaningful progress, especially alongside the expansion of Israel’s brutal bombing campaign across the Gaza Strip,” said Mushtaha. “It is not a turning point, but at best a narrow concession that seems to reflect mounting international pressure.”

    The continued blockade on effectively all humanitarian aid prompted the United Kingdom, Canada, and France to issue a joint statement Monday saying that “the level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable” and threatening “targeted sanctions.”

    On Tuesday, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament that the government had suspended trade negotiations over Netanyahu’s blockade and plan to expand military operations across Gaza.

    French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Tuesday that the country also supports a review of the European Union’s trade relationship with Gaza.

    “The blind violence and the blockade of humanitarian aid by the Israeli government have turned the enclave into a death trap, not to say a cemetery,” Barrot said. “This must stop… It is an absolute violation of all the rules of international law.”

    The European leaders’ comments were a departure from many Western governments’ insistence since 2023 that Israel is operating in self-defense and that it is targeting Hamas in retaliation for the group’s attack on October 7, 2023. Humanitarian groups, rights experts, and progressive lawmakers have called on Western governments to end their support for Israel, which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

    Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory and Gaza, said Tuesday that “what is urgently needed is for all crossings to be opened to allow a full and proper humanitarian response that allows real access, with safe corridors and respect for international humanitarian law.”

    “A token convoy does not equal progress, only sustained, accountable access through every crossing will end the impunity that keeps aid from flowing,” said Khalidi. “We must also see an end to the relentless bombing and attacks on Palestinian people, with an urgent and permanent cease-fire, alongside justice and accountability for all.”

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

    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
    Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
    Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.

  • Aid workers slam plans by US contractors to take over Gaza aid distribution

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/aid-workers-slam-plans-us-contractors-take-over-gaza-aid-distribution

     Ward Nar (left) reacts as she speaks with the photographer after returning empty-handed from attempting to receive donated food for her family, including her husband Mohammed Zaharna (centre right) and their children, Sally (right) and Raed, at a communit

    AID workers expressed strong criticism today of plans by a group of US security contractors, former military officers and humanitarian aid officials to take over the distribution of food and other supplies in Gaza in line with proposals drawn up by Israel.

    The newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is reportedly attempting to implement a new aid distribution system that supplants the current arrangement run by the United Nations and other international aid agencies. 

    The UN and aid groups have rejected the Israeli authorities’ attempts to control aid distribution.

    Israel has blocked food, fuel, medicine and all other supplies from entering Gaza for 10 weeks, worsening a humanitarian crisis affecting 2.3 million Palestinians, and said that it won’t allow aid back in until a system is in place that gives it control over distribution.

    The 14-page proposal circulated this week among aid groups and UN officials lays out plans similar to ones Israel has been discussing privately with international aid groups for weeks. For the first time, the proposal reveals plans to create the foundation and names the people who would be in charge.

    A UN official said last week that Israel’s plans would “weaponise aid” by placing restrictions on who is eligible to receive it.

    Aid workers have also condemned the plans, which would centralise distribution at four hubs under the protection of private security contractors. 

    Norwegian Refugee Council communications adviser Shaina Low warned that by forcing the population to relocate around aid hubs, the system would “depopulate entire parts of Gaza” and could be used to potentially expel the population.

    Tamara Alrifai, communications director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which has led the aid effort it Gaza, described the plan as setting “a very dangerous precedent” for countries to use “full siege as a tactic of war” to force the abandonment of “existing aid structures and the entire international system that exists and is recognised and start creating a new system.”

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/aid-workers-slam-plans-us-contractors-take-over-gaza-aid-distribution

    UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide providing Israel with army 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 Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army 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.

  • Israel’s most extreme genocidal violence beckons

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    Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants' surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
    Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

    https://www.owenjones.news/p/israels-most-extreme-genocidal-violence

    …

    16 days ago, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, preventing any humanitarian aid of any description from getting in – food, medicine, you name it. That’s caused the price of some staple foods to surge by 200%.

    This is a straightforward crime. Indeed, Israel had already repeatedly deliberately starved Gaza and prevented the essentials of life from entering and then from getting to the people who need it – but kept claiming otherwise. This time, they just went and said it – boasting of their criminal violation of international law. Indeed the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister centre on the crime of starvation.

    This criminality was apparently finally recognised by the British government. When asked about this siege, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament that Israel is “in breach of international law”.

    You might be relieved that, after all this time, the British government has said the obvious.

    Not so fast with any kudos for Lammy. The government came out and promptly rebuked him and instead said that Israel was only “at risk” of violating international law. Lammy – a self-aggrandiser devoid of principle or backbone – declared he “could have have been clearer”, backtracking on the truth.

    But this was nonetheless a confession. Lammy admitted Israel is violating the law, something he obviously knows is true, which means continued arms sales and diplomatic support for Israel constitute willing and knowing complicity in Israel’s crimes.

    …

    https://www.owenjones.news/p/israels-most-extreme-genocidal-violence

    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
    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

  • Israel turns Jabalia into ‘ghost town’ amid massive destruction: Report

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    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241222-israel-turns-jabalia-into-ghost-town-amid-massive-destruction-report

    Palestinians living in makeshift tents and ruined buildings in Jabalia Camp try to continue their daily lives under Israeli attacks in Gaza Strip on December 18, 2024. [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]

    The Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip has become a “ghost town” with around 70% of homes and buildings completely destroyed in Israel’s deadly onslaught in the area, Israeli media said on Sunday, Anadolu Agency reports.

    “As far as the eye can see lie miles and miles of destroyed homes. It’s hard to look away from the devastated remains of Jabalia’s refugee camp in northern Gaza,” Amos Harel, a military affairs analyst, writes in Haaretz newspaper.

    The Israeli army estimates that 70% of the refugee camp’s buildings were completely destroyed.

    “I could see that even the few buildings that are still standing were badly damaged,” Harel said.

    Israel has launched a large-scale ground operation in northern Gaza since Oct. 5 to allegedly prevent the Palestinian group Hamas from regrouping. Palestinians, however, accuse Israel of seeking to occupy the area and forcibly displace its residents.

    READ: US diplomat resigns from State Department over Gaza genocide

    Since then, no sufficient humanitarian aid including food, medicine, and fuel has been allowed into the area, leaving the remaining population on the verge of imminent famine.

    “The IDF (army) operated here twice before, in December 2023 and May 2024. But this time, the camp was taken apart,” Amos said.

    “Jabalia has become a ghost town. Outside, you mainly see pack after pack of stray dogs roaming around and hunting for scraps of food.”

    The Israeli onslaught in northern Gaza was the latest episode in a brutal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 45,200 people, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023.

    Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

    Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.

    WATCH: Gazan family finds warmth, unity around a fire

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

  • Lawsuit Claims State Department Illegally Arming Israel via Leahy Law ‘Loophole’

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

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on October 12, 2023. (Photo: Eyepress Media Limited/Reuters via Getty Images)

    “This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” said one advocate.

    Palestinians and Palestinian Americans on Tuesday filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. State Department of creating a “loophole” allowing Israel to skirt federal legislation barring American military aid to foreign militaries that violate human rights law.

    The lawsuit, which was filed by five individuals and supported by the group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), accuses the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken of violating the Leahy Law, legislation passed in two parts in the late 1990s that built on the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961‘s proscription of U.S. military aid to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations.

    According to DAWN, the suit “documents how the State Department has created unique, insurmountable processes to evade the Leahy Law requirement to sanction abusive Israeli units, despite overwhelming evidence of their human rights violations” including “torture, prolonged detention without charge, forced disappearance, and flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, and security, such as genocide, indiscriminate and deliberate killings, and deprivation of items essential to survival, including food, water, fuel, and medicine.”

    https://twitter.com/DAWNmenaorg/status/1869116126929604998?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1869116126929604998%7Ctwgr%5E722c9214c88bdca37da3a994b4adabb07dca3986%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fstate-department-leahy-law

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    Case plaintiff Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American from the southern Gazan city of Rafah who has lost numerous relatives in Israeli attacks, toldZeteo‘s Prem Thakker, “I’m hoping, through this action, through this lawsuit, that we can just call out the federal government to begin to enforce American laws.”

    The State Department has sparked international outrage by repeatedly finding that Israel is using U.S.-supplied arms in compliance with domestic human rights law, citing the key ally’s right to defend itself and the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. However, Israel’s 438-day retaliation has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Thousands more have been killed or maimed in the West Bank.

    South Africa is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Both men have been warmly welcomed in Washington, D.C.. Congress and the Biden administration have approved tens of billions of dollars in arms transfers to Israel. U.S.-supplied bombs have been used in some of Israel’s most notorious airstrikes. The U.S. has also vetoed numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding a Gaza cease-fire.

    Today, the White House welcomed Yoav Gallant, charged by the ICC with the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. What a disgrace.

    — Adil Haque (@adhaque.bsky.social) 2024-12-10T20:21:30.596Z

    “This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement on Tuesday. “For too long, the State Department has acted as if there’s an ‘Israel exemption’ from the Leahy Law, despite the fact that Congress required it to apply the law to every country in the world. As a result, millions of Palestinians have suffered unimaginable, horrific abuses by Israeli forces using U.S. weapons.”

    Stephen Rickard, a former U.S. official who helped pass the landmark legislation, said that “long-standing concerns that the State Department was not cutting off aid to specific Israel units as required by the Leahy Law… have been given dramatic urgency by the tragic ongoing crisis in Gaza.”

    “If the State Department will not comply with the law, then it is time for the courts to vindicate the rule of law and order it to do so,” Rickard added.

    https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1868764026018447375?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1868764026018447375%7Ctwgr%5E722c9214c88bdca37da3a994b4adabb07dca3986%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fstate-department-leahy-law

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    The new lawsuit came a day after relatives of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi—the Turkish American woman who, according to witnesses, was deliberately shot in the head while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank in September—met with Blinken in search of justice and accountability for the activist’s killing.

    Referring to another American activist killed by Israeli forces while defending Palestinian homes, Hamid Ali, Eygi’s widower, said that Blinken “was attentive in listening to us, but unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie’s killing.”

    Ali called Blinken “very deferential to the Israelis,” adding that “it felt like he was saying his hands were tied and they weren’t able to really do much.”

    A journalist asked State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a Tuesday press conference why the U.S. has not suspended arms transfers to Israel by invoking the Leahy Law and citing the cases of victims like Eygi or Shireen Abu Akleh—the Palestinian American Al Jazeera correspondent who, according to witnesses and several independent probes, was deliberately shot dead by an Israeli sniper in the West Bank in May 2022.

    https://twitter.com/AnnelleSheline/status/1869107213631189063?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1869107213631189063%7Ctwgr%5E722c9214c88bdca37da3a994b4adabb07dca3986%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fstate-department-leahy-law

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    “We have taken those cases extremely seriously,” Miller claimed. Referring to Eygi, he added that he made it clear to Israel that “her death was unacceptable, that it should have been avoided, it should have never happened in the first place, that we want to see the results of their investigation, and we want to see them change their rules of engagement.”

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