Medical Aid as a Weapon
By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | July 22, 2014
Q: Why is Egypt preventing medical aid to Gaza?
A: So that Israel can use it as a weapon, that’s why.
This explains why dozens of volunteer medical personnel cannot reach the desperately understaffed hospitals in Gaza. It explains why Egypt turned away a convoy of desperately needed medical supplies.
In this time of crisis, Egypt has sealed the border with Gaza, except occasionally to Palestinians who are registered with Israel as residents of Gaza. For anything else, please apply to Israel.
That’s fine for UNRWA, ANERA, UPA and other groups Israel has approved as relief agencies and who buy a lot of their supplies from Israeli sources, store it in Israeli warehouses, use Israeli transportation, have personnel that live in Israel and generally meet Israeli requirements and contribute to the Israeli economy. But what about doctors that carry Lebanese passports? Or Pakistanis, Algerians, Venezuelans, Sudanese, Iranians, Cubans or Syrians? Or who are not permitted to travel to or through Israel because they are on a long list of people who are critical of Israel, such as the organizers of the relief convoy that was turned away? Until the Sisi administration they used to be able to enter through Egypt.
That’s exactly the point. Israel wants them all to go to hell because they are not friends of Israel. Even better, let the people of Gaza go to hell – its children, mothers, grandparents – let them die or better still become infirm and a burden on this already crippled society.
Ashy grey faces – Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out – oh – the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas – the leftovers from death – all taken away…to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs. enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here – almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors – all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterdays hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormous resolute.
– Dr. Mads Gilbert, al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza
This is what Israel has in mind. In effect, it has turned back the clock to when it destroyed nearly two thousand homes along the Gaza border, making homeless around 20,000 Palestinians and creating the “Philadelphi corridor”, a path of destruction the width of three football fields and eight miles long. It then controlled all of the borders of the Gaza strip, encroaching and destroying everything on the Gaza side up to an average depth of a half kilometer, and in the sea from a treaty-protected twenty kilometers to less than three unprotected, confining the ever growing population into an ever shrinking area with ever fewer resources.
Now, with Israel’s sweethearts running Egypt, it is once again fully in charge of that border, as well, and can treat the Gaza Strip like a hunting reserve, where its troops can practice their skills every couple of years. This is necessary in order to assure that the new recruits acquire the same genocidal experience as their older peers and preserve Israel’s shared cultural traditions.
These are the real aims of the Gaza invasion.
Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.
Mississippi Cuts $1.3 Billion from Schools, Gives $1.3 Billion to Nissan
By Carl Gibson | Reader Supported News | July 23, 2014
Mississippi has proved to us all that austerity, or the political ideology of “government living within its means,” is a farce. All austerity means is taking money away from public services, and giving it to private business. Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant and the GOP-led legislature illustrated that perfectly in two ways.
Since 2008, Mississippi has violated a constitutional mandate to adequately fund the state’s public K-12 schools. The Mississippi Adequate Education Program, or MAEP, was established in 1997 to make sure a proper portion of taxes went to fund schools. A community’s ad valorem taxes will cover up to 27 percent of the cost, while the state covers the rest. The state’s contribution is essentially the base student cost times the daily attendance in a certain school district. The mandated amount would be readjusted every five years for inflation. Mississippi has spent $648 less per student than it did in 2008. Currently, Mississippi has underfunded its public schools by at least $1.3 billion.
In May of last year, the United Auto Workers released a study showing that Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, plant was getting $1.33 billion in tax breaks from the state in return for Nissan’s promise to provide Mississippians with good-paying, full-time jobs. $850 million in tax breaks would be spaced out over a 30-year period, with $400 million in cash aid. Mississippi would even pay $90 million in interest on the debt incurred to reward Nissan with its lavish tax breaks. Mississippi has already given $378 million to Nissan, which paid for its access roads, water usage, and worker training. Nissan also gets to keep $160 million in income taxes from workers over the next 25 years, which would normally have gone to Mississippi’s public programs. No employer has gotten that sweet a deal from any state government.
However, out of all 5,200 workers at Nissan’s Canton plant, most of them are employed by temp agencies. Regular, full-time employees are paid over $23 per hour and have benefits, but the temp workers at the Canton plant are often hired for just half that amount, given no healthcare, retirement, benefits, or paid time off, and have very little job security. The automaker has even issued a 5-year wage freeze for its Mississippi workers even as the company pocketed $3.3 billion in profit last year. Nissan likes to brag that it never lays people off, yet they don’t count temp workers who have been let go. While many other Nissan plants have unionized workforces, Nissan has indirectly threatened to close its Mississippi plant for good and move out of state if its workers organize.
While Mississippi is paying for a giant chunk of Nissan’s subsidies with the exact amount of money it cut from schools in the last six years, the state is actually following a nationwide trend. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank, most states are funding schools even less than they used to before the global recession, which officially ended in 2009. Out of the 35 states following this trend, ten of those states have cut education by more than 10 percent. And despite modest increases in their tax revenues, 15 states are providing less funding per student than they did last year.
Nor is Nissan alone in their greed-inspired quest for huge tax breaks without fulfilling their promises to create jobs. A New York Times database from 2012 shows that over 150,000 state-based tax handouts to private businesses amount to $80.4 billion each year. Many of these corporations, like General Motors, took these handouts, and then shuttered operations a short time later. New Jersey governor Chris Christie has awarded over $2 billion in tax incentives during his tenure. That’s more under just one governor than in the combined tenures of all of New Jersey’s governors since 1996. But despite the handouts to corporations, New Jersey’s job growth is still lagging behind the rest of the nation. As of December of 2012, New Jersey had only restored half of the private sector jobs lost since the start of the recession.
States all over should have already realized that since globalization has sent manufacturing jobs overseas, real job growth lies in highly-skilled, technical industries. And to attract those employers, a state needs to have an educated workforce ready to take on those jobs. Unless states stop the disturbing trend of cutting education funding in favor of giving big tax breaks to any corporation that asks for them, their economies will only get worse.
Carl Gibson, 27, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nonviolent grassroots movement that mobilized thousands to protest corporate tax dodging and budget cuts in the months leading up to Occupy Wall Street. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary We’re Not Broke, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Carl is also the author of How to Oust a Congressman, an instructional manual on getting rid of corrupt members of Congress and state legislatures based on his experience in the 2012 elections in New Hampshire. He lives in Sacramento, California.
Why Are These Indian Children Being Torn Away From Their Homes?
By Stephen Pevar | ACLU | July 23, 2014
Imagine entering family court and knowing that what’s at stake is the person you hold most dear – your child. Now imagine having a judge tell you that he’s removing your child from your custody, from your home. When you ask him why, the judge’s replies, “I honestly can’t tell you.” The judge then signs an order giving custody of your son to Social Services.
You might think that such a court proceeding could never happen in the United States – but you’d be wrong.
It happened not long ago to the father of an American Indian child in South Dakota. What’s more, many similar hearings in which Indian children are removed from their homes for no reasons given to the parents occur at least 100 times a year in Rapid City, South Dakota, alone.
Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978 in an effort to stop American Indian families from having their children removed by state and local officials for invalid and sometimes even racist reasons. Yet 36 years later, Indian children in South Dakota are 11 times more likely to be removed from their families and placed in foster care than non-Indian children.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in March 2013 in federal court on behalf of the Oglala Sioux and the Rosebud Sioux tribes in South Dakota and on behalf of a class of all Indian families living in Rapid City, South Dakota, the state’s second largest city. We sued state and local officials who, we contend, repeatedly violate ICWA.
We recently examined 120 transcripts of initial custody hearings – known as “48-hour” hearings – held during the past four years involving Indian children. Nearly 100 percent of the time, Indian children were removed from their homes in those hearings. The average length of time those hearings took was less than 4 minutes. Within that time, of the six different judges that oversaw the hearings, not one judge ever told one Indian parent that they have a right to contest the state’s petition for temporary custody of their children in the hearing on the petition.
During those hearings, the parents were not told the reasons for the removal, not provided with an attorney, not allowed to submit any evidence, and not allowed to cross-examine the Social Services worker who had submitted an affidavit against them. In most cases, the parents were not even allowed to see the affidavit.
And what were the parents in these hearings “guilty” of? Here is a snapshot of some of the cases discussed in the transcripts:
- A mother abused by her boyfriend lost custody of her child even though the abuser was not being allowed to return to the home. Before the judge’s decision, the mother pleaded with the judge not to punish her for what the abuser had done.
- A father going through divorce was denied custody of his children solely because his estranged wife got into trouble with the police, even though no evidence was introduced suggesting that the children would be at risk staying with the father.
- A mother lost custody of her daughter merely because the daughter’s babysitter had become intoxicated, without any showing that the mother knew that such a thing might occur.
- A father who tried to discuss the merits of his case was interrupted by the judge and told that the details of child custody removals were not to be discussed in 48-hour hearings, and then the judge signed an order removing the child from the father’s custody.
Our lawsuit seeks to stop state judges and social workers from continuing to remove Indian children from their homes unless the parents are provided with basic guarantees of due process of law and rights afforded 36 years ago in ICWA These include the right to a fair and prompt hearing, the right to notice of the charges against them, the right to an attorney, the right to present evidence, and the right to cross-examine the state’s witnesses.
Based on the 120 transcripts, we recently filed motions asking the federal court to rule that South Dakota officials engage in a pattern and practice of denying Indian families and Indian tribes their basic rights to fairness under ICWA and the Constitution. And next month, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will consider a report submitted by the ACLU on U.S. failure to meet its international treaty obligations to end pervasive and institutionalized discrimination, including the lack of due process in American Indian child custody proceedings in South Dakota.
Ultimately, we hope to restore justice to a group of people who our legal system has repeatedly failed.
How Have Latin America’s Political Leaders Responded to Israel’s Siege on Gaza?
By Stephan Lefebvre | Center for Economic and Policy research | July 21, 2014
On July 10th, just two days after Israel launched Operation Protective Edge (the largest attack on Gaza in several years) President Obama released a statement in which he “reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.” With a death toll now over 550, it is important to look beyond U.S. government sources for information and perspective. Foreign policy among the countries in Latin America conforms to the long-standing, overwhelming international consensus that opposes Israeli aggression and occupation, but it also reflects the region’s “second independence.” Over the last 15 years, most countries in Latin America have increased their ability to pursue a foreign policy agenda separate from the goals of the U.S. State Department. In the vast majority of cases, reactions to the latest hostilities are fundamentally at odds with the U.S. position, but they are also varied: many governments directly criticize Israel, using words like “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” to describe recent events; other official statements limit themselves to calling for a ceasefire and a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Some of the strongest statements were issued by left-leaning governments in South America, including those of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. The government of Argentina issued a statement “strongly condemn[ing] that Israel — defying calls by the Security County, by the Secretary General and by the many voices of the international community – has decided to escalate the crisis by launching a ground offensive.” President Evo Morales of Bolivia announced that he had petitioned the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR) to consider a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.” (Bolivia broke diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009 over Israel’s Operation Cast Lead assault on Gaza.) The statement from Brazil reads in part:[1]
The Brazilian Government vehemently condemns the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, with disproportionate use of force, which resulted in more than 230 Palestinians dead, many of them unarmed civilians and children. It equally condemns the firing of rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel.
The foreign ministry of Chile released a statement that “strongly condemns the Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip,” also saying that “The reprehensible kidnappings and deaths of three young Israelis and one young Palestinian cannot serve as an excuse to initiate terrorist actions nor to attack areas densely populated by civilians.” Chile has reportedly suspended trade talks with Israel and is considering withdrawal of its ambassador in Tel Aviv over Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. The Government of Ecuador released a statement saying that it:
strongly condemns the disproportionate military operations by the Israeli army against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, which have left more than a hundred deaths [sic] and considerable damage to property and civil infrastructure, demands an immediate cessation of these aggressions against the Palestinian civilian population and called [sic] the State of Israel to exercise maximum restraint and act in accordance to international law and humanitarian law.
Uruguay issued a similar statement condemning the military attacks by Israel in the Gaza Strip, which “caused dozens of civilian deaths and injuries, including women and children, in a disproportionate response to the launch of rockets against the Israeli territory on the part of armed Palestinian groups.” The statement also condemns the “repeated [rocket] launchings that put the civilian population in central and southern Israel at risk.” On the whole, this was not positively received by the Israeli ambassador to Uruguay. Finally, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela issued a statement lamenting the murders of three young Israelis, saying it is a case that “demands a full investigation.” He also rejected the attacks by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, saying:
the Bolivarian Government of Venezuelan energetically condemns the unjust, disproportionate and illegal military response of the State of Israel against the historic Palestinian nation and urges its government to immediately end this aggression which goes against international law and against the most elemental sense of respect for life and human dignity.
Clearly the language used by each country varies, but it is interesting to note that Venezuela’s response falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum in terms of condemning the Israeli siege. The Venezuelan foreign ministry issued a separate statement on behalf of the ALBA counties which echoes the Venezuelan government’s statement and reaffirms the ALBA group’s “unconditional solidarity, support and influence for the people of Palestine before this new wave of violence.”
Outside South America, several other countries issued strong responses, including Cuba and El Salvador. Cuba’s foreign ministry condemned Israel for “us[ing] its military and technological superiority to execute a policy of collective punishment with a disproportionate use of force which causes civilian casualties and enormous material damage.” El Salvador issued a statement in which the government “strongly condemns and rejects Israel’s increased armed aggression against the Gaza Strip” which caused the “loss of human lives, hundreds of injuries and the flight of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, besides serious material damage.” Also, the statement explains that the U.N.’s legitimate self-defense clause “does not justify the use of disproportionate military force against another State, much less against its civilian population.”
As an historical aside, the United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and several of the countries that introduced the resolution to the General Assembly were from Latin America, including Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guayana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Colombia stands out, not only in South America but in Latin America as a whole, for condemning the “acts of violence and terrorism” against Israel and its civilian population. They called on both Israel and Palestine to end the confrontations and return to the dialogue and negotiation. Colombia has not supported U.N. membership for Palestine, abstaining during the 2012 vote.
More measured statements were issued by the governments of Costa Rica, Honduras [PDF], Mexico, and Peru. These statements typically called for a ceasefire, a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and condemned both sides equally for the violence. Several countries have not issued official responses, including the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. Panama’s foreign minister did not release a dedicated statement on the recent events, but received the Israeli Ambassador for a meeting to strengthen the bilateral relationship during which time the Panamanian official expressed concern over the rise in violence in the Middle East and expressed support for a peaceful resolution.
These statements clearly show not only that the vast majority of Latin American countries are at odds with U.S. foreign policy, but also that these countries are more and more able to articulate opposing views that challenge U.S. State Department narratives. Back in 2010, CEPR examined the region’s response to Israel’s deadly raid of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and then as now we found that there was a “hemispheric isolation of the U.S. on critical foreign policy issues.” While the era of U.S. supported coups and interference in the region is not over, significant progress has been made to increase national sovereignty and independence in Latin America, and these are changes that reverberate not just throughout the hemisphere, but across the world.
[1] In this blog post, estimates for casualties and other statistics included in official statements are quoted as written in the original versions, not corrected for the latest information available. The latest numbers for the death toll indicate over 550 killed since July 8, 2014.
Israeli military falsifies photograph to justify bombing el-Wafa hospital
International Solidarity Movement | July 23, 2014
Gaza, Occupied Palestine – On the 21st July at 2:17 PM, the IDF spokesperson released an image on twitter showing an aerial picture of a building marked as ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital. In the image there is a red circle, which they designated as the location from which a M75 rocket was launched.
The building in the picture marked ‘Al-Wafa’ hospital is in fact not the el-Wafa hospital but the Right to Life Society.
“Israel has targeted our hospital based on false and misleading claims. They are targeting medical facilities, the wounded, the sick, and our children, all over the Gaza Strip. They want us to know that nowhere is safe.” Said executive director of el-Wafa hospital, Dr. Basman Alashi.
According to the Gazan Ministry of Health, seven out of 13 hospitals, including el-Wafa, have been severely damaged.
Al Atatra Medical Clinic and 12 ambulances have been completely destroyed, seven other clinics have been damaged, 12 medical staff members have been injured, and three have been killed.
El-Wafa hospital was bombed once again by the Israeli military today after Dr. Alashi, received two phone calls from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations (UN). They passed a message from the Israeli military that, “there are activities in the hospital and the Israeli military may take a bigger action against el-Wafa.”
Dr. Alashi explained to both callers that the hospital is empty; all patients were evacuated on the 17th of July and that the hospital holds seven million dollars worth of essential medical equipment, as well as two safes that were irretrievable during the emergency evacuation.
“I will hold Israel personally responsible for seven million dollars if they have destroyed the hospital. It has already been bombed and shelled, I don’t understand what they are trying to achieve.” Dr. Alashi stated to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Ally Cohen, media coordinator for the ISM states, “anyone on the ground in Palestine knows that the Israeli military are constantly releasing completely fabricated information and reports. The only difference in this case, is that we can prove it.”
European Killers Enjoy Fascist ‘Safari’ in Ukraine
By Nikolai MALISHEVSKI | Strategic Culture foundation | 23.07.2014
The self-defense forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic reported the elimination of two enemy’s block posts in the area of Donetsk in the first half of July. According to their Minister of Defense Igor Strelkov, one of them was defended by people in NATO combat fatigue who were foreign passport holders.
It’s not only the hired personnel of Western private military contractors who do their job by killing for money. There are also people who go to Ukraine to get pleasure and are ready to pay for it.
Stan Patton, soldier of fortune, Blackwater, shares a quotation in his Twitter saying what the prices are: a shot of howitzers – $ 100 from the tank – $ 200, a shot in the village is priced at U.S. $ 350…
The Kiev regime converts the battle area into an entertainment place – firing range for blood thirsty foreign tourists, the government is even involved in advertising business. The clients don’t hide their passion for this kind of fun and even show it off. Here are some of them: Mikael Skillt is a Swedish sniper, with seven years’ experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard. He is currently fighting with the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian volunteer armed group in eastern Ukraine. He is known to be dangerous to the rebels: reportedly there is a bounty of nearly $7,000 (£4,090; 5,150 euros) on his head. Don. Francesco Fontana – one of several hundred Western adventurers who flew to Ukraine and said in his video that he always dreamed to have a chance to kill people without responsibility.
Italian IL Giornale correspondent Fausto Biloslavo writes that foreigners are welcome to join the battalion of Azov established by Ukrainian homosexual MP Oleg Lyashko. There are volunteers from Italy, Sweden. Finland, Norway, France and Baltic States. International rabble gets on Ukraine thanks to the skillful recruiter – 46-year-old Frenchman Gaston Besson. He advertises on the Internet with an offer to take part in the bloody ‘safari’ in Ukraine. “We invite you to join a battalion of Azov. No payment. We are ready to meet you in Kiev. From you I need information about your family and social situation. Let us know if you are ready to participate in the battles themselves, or will train young soldiers. Upon arrival in Kiev, you will get the contact number of our English-speaking employee. Sleeping, eating, and so on – on our base in the south-east,” – said the ad. A native of Mexico, he served in the French commando and special forces in Southeast Asia. Member of three coups and two wars. Laos, Burma, Suriname… In 1991, the same mercenary killed Serbs in Croatia, then – in Bosnia.
“People come from many different countries. Finland, Norway, Sweden, England, France, Italy… We do not take the fanatics and extremists. We need people with military experience, professionals. We are not for NATO or for the European Union; we have no interest in politics. Every day I get about 15 letters from those who want to come to Ukraine to fight. We all understand that there is a war, and every day you can be hurt or killed,” – says Gaston Besson.
The U.S. attracts these masters of dirty work to all the hot spots – Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The presence of American advisers in Ukraine is accompanied by the appearance of foreign mercenaries and the south-east part of the country.
Gaston says he is not a mercenary, or even a secret agent. He is not hiding. He sees himself as a revolutionary and an idealist having gone through two war and the uprisings in Croatia, Bosnia, Burma, Laos and Surinam. It’s his experience in former Yugoslavia that is important. It gives clue to what is done and why in Ukraine. Twenty years ago Yugoslavia was partitioned.
Back then, the Sunday Mirror did the same thing its Italian colleagues do today. Some advertisements of a tourist company were published and repeated in neo-fascist outlets and on theInternet. The hunting tours were arranged by British mercenaries with combat experience in Croatia. They were reported to launch branches in Munich and Zagreb and the business was flourishing.
Europeans were offered to hunt civilians in Serbian Krajina and Croatia. The price was $3000 (1995). Hunters were offered bullet-proof jackets, ammunition and rifles with optical guidance. Hunters – ‘international brigades of Croatian army’ guaranteed security. Rape and plundering were offered for special pay. The clients were mainly ethnic Croats from Australia, Germany, Canada, Switzerland and Austria, as well as European felons and Neo-Nazi. Gaston Besson started his business and combat experience there to continue to do what he likes most in Ukraine now.
What do these war dogs need? The Croatian army and the Ukrainian military don’t put them on the payroll. But in Croatia the ‘international brigades warriors’ got booty making many of them rich in no time. In 1994 the war was raging. German police was involved in investigations trying to find out how come this had nothings before the war all of a sudden started to buy land, equity, establish companies employing European neo-fascists. It was an open secret: plundering and arms trade and drug dealings.
What did Croats need mercenaries for? They almost made no contribution as fighters. They were needed for the very same thing the Ukrainian regime needs them now. Hunting and shooting does bring in certain profit. But it’s not the main thing. They protect the officials from accusations of being involved in genocide. The government can say the regular armed forces are not involved in plundering and expulsions. 20 years ago European politicians approached Former Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granić with demands to stop ethnic cleansing and providing the people with opportunity to get back home. Back then he smiled and said that the responsibility lied with «private» people from Europe who were not members of regular military.
Interview with an international human shield in Gaza
By Roqayah Chamseddine | Al-Akhbar | July 23, 2014
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continues, with a death toll that has reached 655 – and just as an array of munitions rain down indiscriminately on the heads of those living in Gaza, turning night into day and forcing the residents of one of the most densely populated places on earth into becoming mourners in an instant, Gaza’s hospitals are made to endure the incoming salvo of missiles as well as a crippling siege.
Israel has a well-documented history of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon – homes, police stations, mosques, power plants, sport facilities, schools and hospitals. On Monday in central Gaza the floor housing operating rooms and the intensive care unit of al-Aqsa Hospital was struck by at least three tank shells, which killed five, according to Al-Jazeera correspondent Stephanie Dekker in Gaza. Gaza’s Ministry of Health released a statement denouncing the attack and demanding medical facilities be protected and medical staff, who have also been targeted by Israel, be allowed to provide urgent medical care:
We deplore the escalating violence against Gazan civilians and civilian infrastructure, and demand that the Israeli occupation respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians, health facilities and health professionals.
We note that attacks against health facilities can be considered war crimes under international law, and call upon the international community and the United Nations to take immediate action to prevent further such outrages against the Gazan citizenry by the Israeli occupation.
Al-Aqsa Hospital was not the only medical facility directly targeted by Israel, but one of four – another casualty of Israel’s unrelenting assault on the people of Gaza is charity-run al-Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital, the only medical rehabilitation hospital in Gaza that treats and rehabilitates those with special needs and functions as a nursing home. On July 11, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) released a statement on the conditions around the hospital, relaying that not only had Israel fired “warning missiles” at the roof of al-Wafa but international activists were hearing missiles falling nearby Israel and so in an act of selflessness, foreign activists from the USA, Sweden, Spain, UK, Venezuela, Australia, New Zealand and France were maintaining a presence in the hospital so as to protect the patients and doctors inside. “The civilian population of Gaza is being bombed. We will stay with them in solidarity until the international community and our governments take action to stop Israel’s crimes against humanity,” states Swedish International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Fred Ekblad.
Joe Catron, a freelance reporter who writes for the Electronic Intifada, Middle East Eye and other media outlets, is one of the ISM activists from the United States who remained inside al-Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital. He entered the Gaza Strip in 2011 as part of the first solidarity delegation to arrive after the fall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and has lived there since. Catron and I spoke by way of email regarding his experiences as well as how doctors and Gaza’s medical facilities are coping as a result of Israel’s continued bombing:
Al-Akhbar English (AAE): What is the situation on the ground in Gaza currently, and how are Palestinians coping?
Joe Catron (JC): The situation is very difficult. Aside from the rapidly-mounting deaths and injuries, tens of thousands have been displaced by Israel’s destruction of their homes, or shelling and airstrikes on their neighborhoods. With many businesses and charities shuttered due to the risks of commuting, obtaining even basic supplies has become difficult for many. And Israel’s attacks on electrical and water infrastructure have made these resources even more inaccessible than the ongoing siege already had.
But people are pulling together, as they always do in times of escalated Israeli aggression, opening their homes to the displaced and sharing what they have. It’s the worst of times; in a strange way, it’s also the best of times. Palestinians are rarely more united than during an offensive.
AAE: What hospitals have you visited and what have you witnessed?
JC: I and seven other foreign activists spent a week in shifts at al-Wafa hospital, the only rehabilitation facility of its kind dedicated to occupational and physical therapy in the Gaza Strip. After an initial flurry of five Israeli missiles damaged it on July 11, we hoped our presence might discourage further Israeli aggression against it.
Unfortunately, it was insufficient. After a week of telephone threats and heavy shelling of the area, Israeli forces struck the hospital hard on July 17, forcing the evacuation of its patients at great risk and leaving smoking craters in its walls.
Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s main and largest medical facility, is simply flooded. With new patients pouring in every hour, others are being discharged or transferred as quickly as possible.
On Sunday, four international activists accompanied rescue workers into Gaza’s Shujayeh neighborhood, the site of Israel’s largest massacre yet in its current offensive. Days of Israeli shelling have reduced this once-thriving neighborhood to an apocalyptic landscape of fire and rubble, bombed ambulances and demolished homes. We saw a young man trying to reach his family’s home and locate survivors shot by an Israeli sniper, then repeatedly shot again while prone on the ground. He lay only meters from us, but Israeli gun and artillery fire blocked us from reaching him.
AAE: What else can you tell me about the situation in the hospitals?
JC: Hospitals are crowded and chaotic, but also oddly inspiring. They’re sites to treat the wounded, but also for others to show support for them, their families, and the health care workers looking after them. A number of my friends here are doing what they can for the struggle by preparing food and bringing it to al-Shifa. Many political factions and civil society organizations are doing the same.
AAE: How are doctors dealing with what has been transpiring in Gaza?
JC: Doctors and other health care workers face grave challenges not only from a massive influx of new casualties and critical shortages of medications and other supplies, but also in threats to their own safety. Israel’s attacks on at least four hospitals and six clinics have shown that in its current offensive, they are its targets as much as anything else.
Hospitals and clinics face critical shortages not only of essential medications, but also of supplies as routine as bandages. In some cases, like Israel’s shelling of el-Wafa hospital, staff have been forced to abandon supplies in their facilities while evacuating patients, which hasn’t helped matters.
AAE: What do you want people to know about Gaza, in terms of this situation and beyond it? Anything else to add?
JC: Like most places, the Gaza Strip is a product of its history more than the news. The overwhelming majority of its population are Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed from land now claimed by Israel. This is the single most important factor in its resistance to the occupation, and also the one most quickly obscured in mainstream reporting, which focuses instead, and almost exclusively, on the events of the day.
You can follow Joe Catron’s updates from the Gaza Strip on Twitter @jncatron
Roqayah Chamseddine is a Sydney based Lebanese-American journalist and commentator. She tweets @roqchams and writes ‘Letters From the Underground.‘
24 Palestinians killed in Israeli assault on Gaza Wednesday morning
Ma’an – 23/07/2014
GAZA CITY – The death toll on the 16th day of Israeli military offensive on Gaza rose to 24 on Wednesday after an Israeli airstrike killed 70-year-old Hasan Abu Hein, 34-year-old Osama Abu Hein, and journalist Abdul-Rahman Abu Hein, 24, in the Shujaiyya neighborhood of Gaza City.
Several other people were also injured when Israeli forces bombarded a 700-year-old mosque known as Al-Shamaa mosque (also known as Bab ad-Darum) in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City before noon time.
More than 650 Palestinians — the vast majority of whom have been civilians, including more than 160 children — have been killed in the assault so far, while Israel has suffered 29 deaths, 27 of whom have been soldiers.
The Gaza Strip continued to be bombarded from air, land, and sea on Wednesday morning, a day after the the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA accused Israeli of shelling a UN school sheltering the displaced for the second time in two days.
“UNRWA condemns in the strongest possible terms the shelling of one of its schools in the central area of Gaza,” it said in a statement.
“The location of the school and the fact that it was housing internally displaced persons had been formally communicated to Israel on three separate occasions. We have called on the Israeli authorities to carry out an immediate and comprehensive investigation.”
During the offensive, more than 135,000 Gazans have fled their homes, seeking shelter in 69 schools run by UNRWA.
Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra on Wednesday said that the evacuation of dead bodies and injured people had been very slow in a number of areas because Israeli forces had impeded the movement of ambulances and rescue teams.
Al-Qidra highlighted that the total Palestinian death toll had risen to 647 on Wednesday morning, including 161 children and 35 elderly people.
More than 4,000 Palestinians had also sustained injuries in the assault, he said, while hospitals were running dangerously low on medical supplies amid the most deadly sustained Israeli assault on the besieged coastal enclave since 2008.
Israeli leaders on Tuesday hinted that the assault would not end until Hamas’ entire tunnel network had been destroyed, suggesting that the goals of the offensive had shifted from halting rocket fire to undermining the group’s military infrastructure more broadly.
Hamas, meanwhile, has demanded that any ceasefire include the lifting of the Israeli blockade, which has been in place for the last seven years and includes Israeli control over all imports, exports, and movement of people in the tiny coastal enclave.
Israel launched the assault earlier in the month after a sustained offensive on Hamas across the West Bank in June and early July in order to find three missing Israeli teenagers, which left 10 Palestinians dead, more than 130 injured, and 600 Hamas-affiliated individuals in prison.
The offensive — which was accompanied by airstrikes on the Gaza Strip — led to a sharp rise in rocket fire from the area into Israel.
24 dead Wednesday morning
Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said on Wednesday that Nidal Hamad al-Ejla, 25, was killed and 30 others were injured, including two children with serious injuries, in Israeli shelling in the al-Shamaa area of Gaza City. The body and the injured were moved to al-Shifa medical center.
Muhammad Ziyad Habib, 30, was also killed in an Israeli attack on eastern Gaza City.
Palestinian medical sources said earlier that 12-year-old Rabee Qasim was killed and four other people injured when an Israeli shell hit a cart pulled by a donkey in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Naser in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning.
Ashraf al-Qidra said that at least five people were killed in the village of Khuzaa east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip early Wednesday as well.
Medical sources said that Adnan Ghazi Habib from al-Mughraqa neighborhood succumbed to wounds he sustained overnight.
In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, rescue teams pulled four dead bodies from the rubble of houses destroyed by Israeli airstrikes Tuesday night. Medical sources identified them as Muhammad Abu Riddiya, his wife, Shama, as well as Khalil Abu Jami and Husam al-Qarra.
Among the victims were two children Muhammad Mansour al-Bashiti, 7, and Zeinab Abu Teir. Bassam Abu Tueima, 23, Mahmoud Abu Tueima, 25, and a senior leader in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Ismail Abu Tharifa were also killed.
Earlier on Wednesday morning, Israeli airstrikes and artillery shells killed 18-year-old Hamza Abu Anza in Khan Younis.
Ibrahim Abu Asi and Wisam al-Najjar succumbed to their wounds also in Khan Younis.
Four Palestinians were also killed in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip in two separate Israeli airstrikes.
The first strike in the early dawn hours killed 21-year-old Osama Bahjat Rajat and 23-year-old Muhammad Dwood Hamoudah. The second strike was around 8 a.m. and it killed two people in al-Shayma neighborhood of Beit Lahiya.
Mujahid Skafi, a young man from the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City died Wednesday morning of wounds he sustained during artillery shelling Tuesday.
Israeli warplanes struck on Wednesday morning home of Hamas’ leader Nizar Awadallah in al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip for the second time.
A mosque known as Omar Ibn Abdul-Aziz Mosque in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza was also hit Wednesday morning as well as a house belonging to al-Masri family in Beit Lahiya.
The home of a leader in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Ziad Jarkhoun was also targeted in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
AFP contributed to this report.
Netanyahu to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize?
Al-Manar | July 23, 2014
The Zionist entity’s impudence knows no limits! As the death toll of the brutal Israeli offensive on the besieged strip of Gaza passes 630, with most of them children and women, Tel Aviv calls for giving it a Noble prize!
The Nobel Peace Prize should be given to Israeli forces for their “unimaginable restraint” in their offensive against the blockaded Gaza Strip, said the Israeli envoy to the United States, Ron Dermer, at a pro-Israeli event in Washington on Tuesday.
The Israeli forces “should be given the Nobel Peace Prize… a Nobel Peace Prize for fighting with unimaginable restraint,” Dermer said, claiming the Israeli soldiers do not “target a single Palestinian civilian.”
“Our soldiers are dying so that innocent Palestinians can live,” he said, censuring Human Rights Watch for its criticism of the Israeli aggression.
At a different event in Tal Aviv, UN chief Ban Ki-moon extended his condolences to the Israeli regime for its losses during the offensive against the besieged sliver.
According to Palestinian medical workers, more than 160 Gazan children have been among the martyrs.
Earlier in the day, Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), put child fatalities from the 15-day offensive at 121, adding that more than 900 Palestinian children were also injured.
Featured Video
Israeli forces use Palestinian boy as a human shield in Nablus
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
2013: Arctic ice-free by 2016
The Guardian, December 9, 2013
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
Aletho News- THE ARRESTS MORE OR LESS REAL OF KHAN, TRUMP AND PUTIN: THE PANIC OF THE DEEP STATE March 29, 2023
- Bulgaria refuses to send weapons to Ukraine, joins Hungary and Austria’s neutrality stance March 29, 2023
- Ex-UN Rapporteur Reveals 8 Ways Int’l Nord Stream Probe Can Be Pursued Despite UNSC Stonewalling March 29, 2023
- China wants Nord Stream attackers ‘brought to justice’ March 29, 2023
- IAEA on Kiev’s Remark on Capturing ZNPP by Force: Nuclear Plant Should Not Be Target March 29, 2023
- Serbia and Hungary form Strategic Council despite EU opposition March 29, 2023
- The depopulation agenda, Part 3: Vaccines and infertility March 29, 2023
- Israeli forces use Palestinian boy as a human shield in Nablus March 29, 2023
- Autopsy Studies of COVID-19 Illness Rule Out Extensive Myocarditis March 29, 2023
- RFK, Jr. and CHD Sue Biden, Fauci for Alleged Censorship March 28, 2023
- Trudeau invokes “flat-earthers” and “anti-vaxxers” as he calls for social platforms to be liable for “disinformation” March 28, 2023
- Baltimore blocks East Palestine toxic water dump March 28, 2023
- Japanese environment economist says ALPS-treated Fukushima radioactive wastewater still contains radionuclides March 28, 2023
- Climate Change Is “Bigger Existential Threat Than Nuclear War”, Says Nutty Sustainability Advisor March 28, 2023
- Funding Ukraine ‘War Machine’ Against Russia Means Austerity in Europe March 28, 2023
- Use of Depleted Uranium in Ukraine Could Spark Global Health Crisis: Here’s Why March 28, 2023
- Here’s why HRW deliberately only scratched the surface in exploring Ukraine’s use of banned ‘petal’ mines March 28, 2023
- Japan’s Opposition Blasts PM Kishida’s Silence on Depleted Uranium Ammo to Ukraine March 28, 2023
- If Americans Knew
- Book Review: “The State of Israel vs The Jews” March 28, 2023
- Netanyahu’s covert operation to manipulate 2016 US election March 25, 2023
- Israeli hacking & disinfo team meddling in elections around the world March 24, 2023
- Brownstone Institute
- The Inherent Deceit of Modern Medicine March 29, 2023
- The mRNA Platform: What It Is, What It Means March 28, 2023
- Sweden Did Exceptionally Well During the COVID-19 Pandemic March 28, 2023
- The Reopening Racket March 28, 2023
- The Alien and Sedition Acts are Back March 28, 2023
- The Decline in Patriotism March 27, 2023
- Richie Allen
- 60% Of Scottish Trans Prisoners Began Transitioning After They Were Convicted March 28, 2023
- Change To This Week’s Schedule March 27, 2023
- NHS Chiefs Told To Review Stonewall Link & Scrap Diversity Officers March 27, 2023
- 267% Rise In People Helped By Irish Refugee Council March 27, 2023
- Not A Lot Of People Know That
- Antarctic Ice Cap To Grow Despite Global Warming–New Study March 29, 2023
- Landlords Will Be Forced To Spend Thousands To Meet Net Zero Targets March 29, 2023
- Saudi Aramco To Build $10 Billion Refinery And Petrochemical Complex In China March 28, 2023
- BBC Cover Up EU’s U-Turn On Car Ban March 28, 2023
- No Tricks Zone
- Consent Factory
- The Censorship Industrial Complex March 10, 2023
Aletho News 