A member of the Maldives parliament, Mohamed Nasheed Abdulla, put forth a proposal on 20 November to amend the national Immigration Act in order to prohibit Israeli passport holders from entering the country following Israel’s indiscriminate aggression against the Gaza Strip.
The MP affirmed that the objective of the amendment of the Immigration Act is to impose sanctions on Tel Aviv via a travel ban on its citizens in the wake of Israel’s deadly besiege of the Gaza enclave. Currently, the Israeli military has killed over 12,300 Palestinian civilians, including over 5,000 children, since the start of Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.
The Maldives is a member of the Organization for Islamic Corporation (OIC) member, which has already invoked a travel ban on Israeli civilians. Abdulla is pushing to pass his proposal in alignment with the rest of the IOC and expressing Maldives’ solidarity with Palestine.
Last week, demonstrators gathered in front of the Maldivian parliament, voicing their anger over Israel’s actions and violence in Gaza, and calling for an immediate travel ban.
In January 2022, Israeli government sources claimed that the Maldives had initiated steps to rekindle diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, a bond that was broken in 1974. Following the war on Gaza in 2014, the Maldives cut ties with Israel entirely and banned all imports from the country.
Since the start of the conflict, several countries have withdrawn their Israeli ambassadors, including Colombia, Honduras, Jordan, Bahrain, and Turkiye, while nations such as Bolivia and Belize have suspended relations with Israel.
Criticism of the Israeli government among EU officials has also heightened in recent weeks in response to Tel Aviv’s brutal campaign. Last week, the President of the Belgian Senate, Stephanie D’Hose rejected a request by the Israeli ambassador to Brussels to showcase a 47-minute film claiming to show atrocities committed by Hamas during its 7 October attack on Israel.
This came a week after the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Petra De Sutter, urged the EU community to impose sanctions against Israel.
“We cannot look away while children are killed every day in Gaza,” De Sutter said.
“It is time for sanctions against Israel. The rain of bombs is inhumane. It is clear that Israel does not care about the international demands for a ceasefire.”
On 15 November, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, also called on Israel to stop their aggression against Palestinians. His condemnation has been described as one of the harshest by a western leader since the start of the war. Madird’s Social Rights Minister, Ione Belarra, also condemned Israel’s approach.
TEHRAN – Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday called on BRICS leaders to use all economic and political opportunities to put pressure on Israel.
Amid escalating horrors in the Gaza Strip during the “second phase” of Israel’s conflict with Hamas, the former has intensified its actions, resulting in a rise in civilian casualties. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, in response, has called on BRICS leaders to leverage economic and political avenues to exert pressure on the Israeli government.
“The United States has made all international organizations faceless. Iran wants BRICS members and governments to stand up for security, establish justice and fight racial discrimination in the world, as well as use all their political and economic opportunities and power to exert pressure on Israel and its supporters from Western countries,” Raisi at the BRICS extraordinary summit on the Middle East.
Raisi urged the BRICS countries to recognize the Israeli government as a “terrorist regime.”
“Israel’s continuous attacks on hospitals, medical centers and religious sites, as well as the murder of women and children, doctors, nurses and journalists are acts of terrorism, and it is necessary to recognize the Israeli regime as a terrorist regime and its army as a terrorist organization,” Raisi said.
BRICS countries must adopt a resolution at the UN to stop Israel’s crimes in the Gaza Strip, Raisi said.
More than three years after 19-year-old Grace Schara died following treatment for COVID-19, a Wisconsin circuit court judge ruled that her father’s wrongful death lawsuit against Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin can go forward.
Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark J. McGinnis last month rejected all motions by hospital lawyers to dismiss charges by Scott Schara that his daughter died from intentional battery by doctors and nurses.
Schara in April sued Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital personnel alleging that they committed medical battery against his daughter — a legal standard doctors don’t typically face — which led to Grace’s wrongful death on Oct. 13, 2021.
According to the complaint, doctors and nurses defied the informed consent law, “fraudulently labeled [his daughter] as a DNR [Do Not Resuscitate] patient, administered a lethal drug cocktail known to kill” and blocked attempts to save the girl’s life.
Due to hospital protocols, Schara said, his daughter was given a knowingly lethal blend of drugs without informed consent from him or Grace’s mother, Cindy Schara, who possessed Grace’s legal and medical power of attorney.
When Schara protested, he was escorted out of the hospital by an armed guard, and he and his wife were forced to watch their daughter die on FaceTime.
An emotional Schara went on CHD.TV, the TV channel of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD), this month, jubilant over his court victory. He told “Good Morning CHD” co-host Polly Tommey what happened to his daughter.
“Instead of treating Grace to save her life, they used a combination of meds, Precedex, lorazepam and morphine — which is what you give people when they’re in hospice care to euthanize them in their last hour of life,” Schara said. “And they gave Grace that combination of meds in a 29-minute window.”
“To set up the kill, they put — the doctor put — an illegal do-not-resuscitate order on Grace’s chart,” he continued. “So when it came time to revive her, the doctors and nurses wouldn’t even step foot in the room.”
In July, Judge McGinnis set aside three weeks for the trial to begin on Nov. 4, 2024, the day before the U.S. presidential election.
But McGinnis asked the plaintiffs to submit an amended complaint making the case that charges of battery, a charge that would not be covered under traditional malpractice insurance, should go forward to trial.
Schara’s victory on Oct. 30 will allow the charge of battery — a standard of intentional harm by doctors and other providers beyond medical negligence — to be considered at trial, making this a potential landmark case.
In addition to Ascension Hospital System, the largest Catholic hospital system in the U.S., Schara sued five doctors, two registered nurses and four “John Doe” medical providers alleging the hospital’s COVID-19 treatment protocols caused his daughter’s death.
The jury will now have the ability to decide whether the hospital and its doctors and nurses did not merely violate laws to provide patient informed consent, but also committed battery.
The court accepted the distinction laid out in Schara’s legal brief.
“Imagine a physician who fails to fully inform a patient about the risks of a leg amputation, but the patient does agree to have his leg amputated,” the brief stated.“This violates the duty to obtain informed consent under Wis. Stat.§ 448.30.”
But “now imagine a physician who amputates a patient’s leg without obtaining consent or telling the patient or the patient’s family what he is doing (and, in this case, removing the patient’s power of attorney and parent from the hospital first). That is a battery.”
Dr. Meryl Nass, a member of CHD’s scientific advisory committee, told The Defender Schara had presented “a landmark case, and we all need to cross our fingers that he wins.”
“He has great documentation,” Nass said. “This was medical professionals, acting against all of their ethical obligations and harming a very functional young woman, who was able to drive and play violin, even though she had Down syndrome.”
Schara said the ruling that opens the door to physician battery could lead to historic reforms of doctors’ legal exposure for patient deaths.
“Our case simply surviving today should send shockwaves across the nation, because we showed how to pierce the medical malpractice veil with a legal brief,” he added. “Winning this claim will create a tidal wave.”
‘Grace’s death is one of many’
Schara has worked tirelessly to call attention to his daughter’s death and his lawsuit.
In addition to employing a legal team led by Warner Mendenhall, he created two websites about her case, Our Amazing Grace and graceschara.com, including videos about her playful personality, her love of horseback riding and Elvis. He calls his daughter “my best friend.”
Mendenhall, who appeared with Schara on “Good Morning CHD,” said Schara was “actually helping to carve a pathway for other families” that “is so important for attorneys and families to understand … Getting through this opens the doorway for you and for other people all around the country. And there’s a great many more.”
Schara has spent thousands of hours researching what he calls “medical murder.”
Medical malpractice has surpassed heart disease and cancer during the COVID-19 era, he said, as “the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S.”
Schara produced a documentary, “Breaking the Oath: Unauthorized,” chronicling Grace’s and other victims’ stories and calling on people to “once again sacrifice for the future of humanity” and step forward in an historic effort to stop it.
“Grace’s death is one of many,” he said.
Schara also launched a podcast, “Deprogramming with Grace’s Dad,” in which he acknowledges that his daughter’s death led him “to discovering he has been programmed to believe things that are not true” about the healthcare system, and urges his audience “to open eyes and hearts to start the process of deprogramming yourself.”
‘Case is about something much bigger than mere malpractice’
Schara said his most important message, the key point of his lawsuit, is to overturn “a legislative immunity” that surrounds the medical profession and that people don’t understand.
“The state statutes want to put lack of informed consent as a medical malpractice claim, but it also gives the doctors an out in paying for their fees because they have medical malpractice liability insurance that covers their legal fees.”
As outlined in the legal brief, Schara said hospital lawyers “want this court to rule that a patient with Down syndrome can be intentionally restrained, intentionally deprived of advocacy and intentionally administered deadly sedatives all without consent. And these actions are simple medical negligence.”
As a result, Schara said, “Defendants envision a world where there is no common law claim for the failure of a healthcare provider to obtain consent that falls outside of medical malpractice. In this world, an unethical financially motivated physician may administer deadly drugs without consent for malign purposes, including making room for new patients.”
At a critical moment in the case, Schara said, the defense moved to dismiss Schara’s wrongful death charges and dismiss the case, arguing that his claim should be covered under medical malpractice.
Hospital lawyers also moved to dismiss Schara’s request for a declaratory judgment regarding the illegal DNR, arguing that “The issue is moot, because Grace Schara, the subject of the order, is deceased.”
“This bellwether case is about something much bigger than mere malpractice, and its impact will reverberate nationally,” Schara said.
“Our goal is simple: Save lives. That’s why this case is first about the lack of informed consent — a battery — leading to negligence and malpractice, which then resulted in wrongful death.”
“Moreover, this case is about protecting the public from doctors unilaterally placing DNR orders on patients,” he said. “If we would have had informed consent, Grace would be with us today.”
Mike Capuzzo is the managing editor of The Defender. He is a former prize-winning reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald, a science writer, and a regional magazine founding editor and publisher who has won more than 200 journalism awards as a writer, editor and publisher.
Indonesia’s foreign minister has condemned in the strongest terms Israel’s attacks on Indonesian Hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip as a “clear violation of international humanitarian laws.”
“All countries, especially those that have close relations with Israel, must use all their influence and capabilities to urge Israel to stop its atrocities,” Retno Marsudi stated on Monday.
Israeli forces opened fire and launched artillery strikes on the hospital and the surrounding areas in the early hours of the day.
The Gaza Health Ministry’s General Manager Munner al-Bursh said the regime forces began artillery strikes “in the middle of the night and targeted the surgical department, wounding the doctors working there and killing 12 civilians who were taking refuge.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, Bursh said Israeli forces also targeted people leaving the facility and shot them outside the hospital. “Their bodies are still lying on the ground, and nobody has been able to bury them.”
“We are using a small power generator that runs on vegetable oil, manufactured by some creative individuals who sacrificed some of their food supply to run the generator,” Bursh said.
Ashraf al-Qudra, Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesman, said the situation is “catastrophic” in Indonesian Hospital. “The Indonesian Hospital staff are insisting they will stay to treat the wounded. There are about 700 people, including medical staff and injured people, inside the hospital.”
Reports said Israeli forces are going to repeat what happened at Shifa Hospital and will also occupy the Indonesian Hospital as tanks surrounded the facility.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has said the Israeli military operation in Gaza “is for the purpose of killing, in the spirit of revenge and with the aim of displacing our people.”
And UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said the number of civilians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza has been “unparalleled and unprecedented” since he took office in 2017.
Children make up virtually 47 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population. UNICEF has labeled the Gaza Strip “a graveyard for thousands of children.” It has also described the situation in Gaza as “a growing stain on our collective conscience”, calling the rate of children casualties “simply staggering.”
Save the Children says more children have been killed in Gaza than in all other conflicts around the world since 2019 combined.
Israel has killed 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7.
Israel’s military and government have a long and well-documented history of making false and misleading statements to cover up and deflect responsibility for war crimes they commit against Palestinians. The following document provides some of the most egregious examples in recent years.
Lying about use of white phosphorus in violation of international law – October 2023
On October 10 in Lebanon and October 11 in Gaza, the Israeli military used white phosphorus shells in violation of international law. Israel denied the claim, stating it was “unequivocally false.” However, Human Rights Watch verified videos of “multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus” launched by the Israeli military over the Gaza City port and along the Israel-Lebanon border, labeling it a violation of international humanitarian law. Amnesty International also documented the presence of white phosphorus shells at an Israeli army base in southern Israel near Gaza.
In 2009, during Israel’s attack on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead, Israel initially “denied outright” that it used white phosphorus. However, Human Rights Watch subsequently documented Israel’s widespread use of white phosphorus shells in Gaza, including in densely populated urban areas, a UN compound, and a UN school. In total, Israel fired more than 200 white phosphorus shells during the assault.
Israel also accused Hamas of firing a white phosphorus shell in 2009, a claim that Human Rights Watch concluded was false.
Unsubstantiated claims about beheading of children – October 2023
Israel’s military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office claimed that Hamas fighters beheaded up to 40 children during their October 7 attack on the town of Kfar Aza. The incendiary allegations spread quickly and were widely repeated in the media and by President Joe Biden, who falsely claimed during a meeting with Jewish leaders that he personally saw photos of beheaded children, which the White House later walked back, admitting he had not seen any such photos and that the US had not verified the claim. However, Israeli journalists who visited the scene of the alleged beheadings saw no evidence to support the allegation and the Israeli military officials accompanying them made no mention of it. The Israeli army subsequently refused to confirm the claim and more than a week later no evidence has emerged to support it.
Unsubstantiated claims of rape – October 2023
Israeli officials circulated claims that Hamas fighters raped women during their attack on October 7, which were widely repeated in the US media and by US politicians, including President Biden during an address on national television. However, on October 10 an Israeli military spokesperson told a journalist from the Forward, Arno Rosenfeld, that Israel “does not yet have any evidence of rape having occurred during Saturday’s attack or its aftermath” and more than a week later Israel has yet to provide any proof. Journalist Rosenfeld also traced how the story spread based largely on claims made by people who didn’t actually say they witnessed the alleged rapes.
Lying about deadly airstrike on civilian convoy seeking safety in Gaza – October 2023
On October 13, a civilian convoy fleeing Gaza City as ordered by the Israeli military on a road identified as a “safe route” by Israel, was hit by an Israeli airstrike, killing 70 people and wounding at least 200. The Israeli military denied attacking the convoy. However, Amnesty International verified videos of the attack and concluded it was the result of an airstrike.
Lying about the murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – May 2022
On May 11, 2022, renowned Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the neck and killed by an Israeli sniper while reporting on an Israeli army invasion of the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, even though she was nowhere near any fighting at the time and was wearing a vest clearly marked “Press.” Then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the Israeli military blamed Abu Akleh’s death on Palestinians, distributing unrelated video of Palestinian gunfire during the invasion as supposed proof. However, multiple independent investigations, including by The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and CNN, as well as by human rights groups like Amnesty International, and the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, all concluded that Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli soldier. The Israeli military itself later backtracked, stating that Abu Akleh may have been killed by one of its soldiers.
Lying about bombing of media offices in Gaza – May 2021
During its May 2021 assault on Gaza, Israel bombed a high-rise tower housing media outlets – including The Associated Press and Al Jazeera – leveling the 14-story building to the ground. Israel claimed the building contained “military assets belonging to the intelligence offices” of Hamas. However, Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel “provided no evidence to support those allegations” and that the attack “apparently violated the laws of war and may amount to war crimes.”
Lying about the killing of Ahmad Erekat at West Bank military checkpoint – June 2020
On June 23, 2020, 27-year-old Ahmad Erekat was on his way to pick up relatives for his sister’s wedding when he crashed his car at an Israeli military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank and was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. Israel claimed it was an attempted attack on soldiers from its occupying army. However, Forensic Architecture, a research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq conducted an in-depth investigation and concluded it was a traffic accident and that Erekat was extrajudicially executed.
Doctoring video to falsely claim medic murdered by Israeli sniper was human shield – June 2018
In June 2018, an Israeli sniper murdered a 21-year-old medic, Razan al-Najjar, during protests by Palestinians imprisoned by Israel’s occupation and siege of Gaza. In an attempt to smear her and justify her killing following an international outcry, Israeli officials circulated a video purporting to show her saying she was acting as a human shield for Hamas. However, the video was subsequently revealed to have been doctored by the Israeli military to take her comments out of context. As noted by Israeli rights group, B’Tselem, the Israeli military initially claimed “soldiers did not fire at the spot where she had been standing. Later, the military said al-Najjar might have been killed by a ricochet, before finally accusing her of serving as a human shield… Contrary to the many versions offered by the military, the facts of the case lead to only one conclusion… al-Najjar was fatally shot by a member of the security forces who was aiming directly at her as she was standing about 25 meters (82 feet) away from the fence, despite the fact that she posed no danger to him or anyone else and was wearing a medical uniform.” According to the UN, in total Israeli soldiers killed 214 Palestinians protesters in Gaza during the Great Return March, including 46 children.Those killed included at least 3 medical workers and 2 journalists, all of whom were clearly identified as such.
Lying about the murder of two Palestinian teenagers during West Bank protest – May 2014
On May 15, 2014, two unarmed Palestinian teens, 17-year-old Nadim Nuwarah and 16-year-old Mohammed Salameh were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers using live ammunition during a protest in the occupied West Bank. Israel initially claimed its soldiers did not use live ammunition. Contradicting Israel’s claims, based on videos from the scene and autopsy results, Human Rights Watchconcluded both were killed by live ammunition. An investigation by CNN also came to the same conclusion.
The United States regime has picked sides in the Israel-Hamas war and has committed to funding Israel’s ongoing bombing of non-combatant men, women, and children in the Gaza strip. Northern Gaza’s infrastructure is now all but destroyed, with millions of Gazans displaced and homeless. Nearly ten times more Gazans than Israelis have now died in the conflict. Many Gazans have fled to the southern portion of Gaza, but homelessness and abject poverty awaits them there.
By employing what is essentially the carpet-bombing approach, Tel Aviv has made the choice of adopting a policy that is sure to produce hundreds of thousands of refugees—or perhaps even more than a million. Indeed, many in the Israeli regime are motivated to maximize refugees, and push Gazans out of the country altogether using the Orwellian phrase “voluntary migration.”
On a military, tactical level, the Israeli state will have no problem accomplishing this. Tel Aviv has an air force, a deep reservoir of American-funded weapons, and a nuclear arsenal. The Israeli military can easily reduce all of Gaza to rubble. But what is sure to result from this is a humanitarian disaster accompanied by a global debate over which foreign country will host the refugees.
Israeli mouthpieces are already at work pushing the cost onto foreign taxpayers, including American ones. This week, two Israeli politicians—one from the militarist Likud party, and one from the center-left Yesh Atid party—took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal to demand that “countries around the world should offer a haven for Gaza residents who seek relocation.” According to these politicians, “[t]he international community” — i.e., not Israel — “has a moral imperative” to resettle Gazans somewhere outside Israel at not-Israel’s expense.
It is significant these claims appeared in an American publication. Tel Aviv is the latest welfare-queen regime—in the tradition of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky—repeatedly haranguing the American public with demands for free money. It’s no coincidence that Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is now seemingly ubiquitous on American prime-time news programs. His primary job right now is to demand money and favors from Washington and from other Western regimes.
It will probably work. Americans should get ready for plane-loads of Gaza refugees arriving in their cities, funded by the American taxpayers who can now barely afford to keep up with the price of groceries. This will be sold as a “humanitarian” effort, but anyone who sees through the propaganda will see that it’s really all a cynical effort to please pro-Israel interest groups and Israeli politicians.
A Pattern of War and Refugees
This was all predictable from the minute the war started last month.
The US and its allies have settled into a predictable pattern in foreign policy over the past thirty years: force the taxpayers to pay for the regime’s wars which involve bombing various poor foreign countries “back into the stone age.” Then, once the refugees start pouring out—and the Americans have lost the war, of course—Western regimes then tell the taxpayers back home to cough up even more money to pay for resettlement of all those refugees whose countries were needlessly destroyed by the bombs dropped by Washington and its allies.
This is no small phenomenon. A 2020 report from Brown University estimated that 37 million people have been made refugees by the US-led “War on Terrorism.” By 2016, 5.2 million of them reached Europe. In 2022 alone, more than 159,000 refugees arrived by sea in Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, and Malta. Thousands more arrive at the land borders of the EU every year.
Thanks to the distance from western Asia and North Africa, refugees totals have been smaller in the United States. Nonetheless, the total number of refugees has ranged from 50,000 to 90,000 per year in most years since the US began its war in Afghanistan. This has transformed a number of communities in the United States, however, since refugees often tend to concentrate in specific places along ethnic or religious lines. In the decades of the US’s endless on-again, off-again military meddling in Somalia, tens of thousands of Somali refugees have been relocated to Minnesota at taxpayers’ expense. Since 2018, Minnesota has hosted more than 40,000 Somalia-born migrants (many classified as refugees). Most of the refugees, of course, are concentrated within Minneapolis’ metro population of only 3.5 million. In democracies, this has political consequences.
It is also important to remember that migrants who enjoy the legal status of refugees are not normal immigrants. Ordinary immigrants arrive at the United States at their own expense. The vast majority must find work on their own if they wish to have an income. They are eligible for few social benefits. Those seeking legal residency, of course, must go through a lengthy administrative process. For example, Mexicans who obtain a work visa in the United States have to work. They don’t show up and receive “free” help from government-funded refugee agencies in finding jobs, apartments, and other government freebies.
In contrast, all of that is fast-tracked for people labeled “refugee” by the federal government, and most of these refugees are immediately eligible for a wide array of taxpayer funded benefits. In total, this all costs the taxpayers nearly two billion dollars per year, or $80,000 per refugee per year in the form of federal and state programs including food stamps, child care, and public housing.
It’s not enough that you pay for the bombs that create the refugees, dear American taxpayer. You’ll also have to pay to resettle those refugees in your town.
One person was killed and one was injured in an attack on Saturday on a convoy of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff members and their families who had been attempting to evacuate from northern Gaza.
The person who was killed was a relative of an MSF staff member. “MSF condemns in the strongest terms this deliberate attack.”
“The convoy was made up of 137 people — Palestinian MSF staff members and their families, including 65 children. Since November 11, they have been trapped in MSF’s guesthouse, office and outpatient clinic near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza because of ongoing fighting, and we have repeatedly called for their safe evacuation,” MSF said in a statement on Saturday.
MSF explained that on Saturday morning, its convoy of five vehicles departed at 9:00 a.m. local time, all clearly marked with MSF identification, including on the roofs.
MSF said it arranged for the movement of the convoy, but when the convoy reached the point where the Israeli army had constructed a newly erected checkpoint, the area was already overcrowded with Palestinian civilians seeking to flee.
However, after hours of waiting, the Israeli army did not allow the convoy to cross toward the south and shots were fired to push it back to Gaza City, MSF added.
When the convoy was on its way back, it was attacked. “Two of the MSF cars were deliberately hit, killing one MSF staff’s family member and injuring another.”
MSF has called again to urgently allow the evacuation of its staff and their families as well as of thousands of other people, who are trapped by fighting and living in extremely dire conditions in northern Gaza.
“We are calling for an immediate ceasefire, which is the only way for corridors to be implemented to safely evacuate trapped civilians.”
Ministers from Arab and Muslim-majority countries are to head to China tomorrow as part of the first leg of a tour aimed at ending Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.
In an announcement shared on social media platform X, the Kingdom’s top diplomat said “The first stop will be in China and will then move to a number of capitals to deliver the clear message that there must be a ceasefire immediately as well as aid and humanitarian needs must be immediately delivered to Gaza.”
Prince Faisal made the comments after a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue 2023 conference in Bahrain.
“We must work to end this crisis and end this war on Gaza as soon as possible,” Prince Faisal added.
According to the Saudi Gazette, the extraordinary joint Arab-Islamic Summit, which was held in Riyadh last week, issued a resolution tasking the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Palestine to initiate immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League.
“The goal is to formulate an international initiative to halt the war in Gaza and push for a genuine and serious political process, leading to a permanent and comprehensive peace in accordance with established international references,” it said.
The forthcoming meeting in Beijing was confirmed today by China’s state broadcaster CCTV, citing the country’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.
“During the visit, China will have in-depth communication and coordination with the delegation on ways to deescalate the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, protect civilians and seek a just settlement of the Palestinian question,” said Mao.
In May, a poll conducted for Arab News by Yougov found that the majority of Palestinian respondents – 80 per cent, preferred China as a potential peace broker in the conflict with the occupation state, with the US seen as the least trusted mediator.
The Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council Dr Ahmed Bahr died on Friday as a result of his wounds from an air strike during the attack launched by the occupation forces on the Gaza Strip.
On 23 October, his son Muhammad, his wife and children were martyred when the occupation aircraft bombed their house.
PLC Deputy Speaker elected in 2006 Hasan Khreisheh mourned the martyr Bahr, expressing: “In my name and in the name of the members of the Legislative Council elected in 2006, we mourn with all pride the acting Speaker of the Legislative Council, Dr Ahmed Bahr (Abu Akram), who was martyred as a result of the occupation’s bombing.”
Khreisheh posted on Facebook: “You will remain present in the memory of our people and everyone who knew you as an honest and genuine national symbol and a partner in advocating for Palestine, Gaza and its people. We are a nation that sacrifices its leaders for the sake of pride and freedom. To Him we belong, and to Him we return, my dear brother and colleague Abu Akram.”
The martyred Palestinian politician Bahr was born in the Gaza Strip in 1949. He was a member of the Hamas political bureau and assumed the position of first deputy speaker of the PLC after obtaining around 74,000 votes in the legislative elections.
After the occupation arrested PLC President Aziz Dweik in the West Bank, Dr Bahr became the acting speaker of the PLC.
The martyr obtained a doctorate in the Arabic language, and the occupation forces arrested him for two years without charge in 1989.
On 23 October, Jamila Al-Shanti, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau, was also martyred. Al-Shanti was the founder of the Women’s Movement of the Hamas Movement and the first female member of the political bureau.
Zakaria Abu Muammar was the head of the National Relations Department of the Hamas Movement in the Gaza Strip, while Jawad Abu Shamala was the head of the Economic Department.
Israeli forces ordered doctors, patients and displaced people at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital to evacuate the medical compound, giving them an hour to do so and forcing some to leave by gunpoint, Al-Jazeerareported on 18 November.
Israeli forces issued the demand to evacuate in “one hour” at around 9 am local time, but it was “impossible” to evacuate everyone, a doctor in Al-Shifa told Al-Jazeera.
Medical sources inside the facility said there are more than 7,000 people sheltering from Israeli bombing in the Al-Shifa complex, including 300 patients in critical condition.
It also includes “at least 35 premature babies who already for eight days now have been out of their incubators because of the lack of oxygen and the lack of electricity,” Al-Jazeera’s correspondent in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, said. Four babies died late on Friday and five are severely ill now, the correspondent added.
“There is no transportation means in Gaza City and the northern parts because of a lack of fuel. So people are expected to evacuate on foot. And doctors are telling us it’s impossible to evacuate with this many people on foot.” She added that doctors also did not want to abandon their patients.
“We were told to leave through al-Wehda road. Dozens of dead bodies are scattered on the road,” Omar Zaqout, the hospital’s supervisor, said. “Many homeless people who cannot walk are left out in the open.”
“Many of the patients were put on wheelchairs or rolling beds. Family members were forced to carry their wounded children or parents themselves … These are horrible, unprecedented scenes,” explained Munir al-Barsh, a doctor at the hospital.
The hospital has also been without food, water, electricity and oxygen for at least a week, while Israeli troops and tanks raided the facility over the last couple of days. Some 37 patients have died as the hospital’s ability to operate has collapsed.
Israel claimed Hamas has a command center underneath the hospital and released video footage claiming to show weapons its troops found in various rooms. It also released footage claiming to show its troops unloading boxes full of medical supplies.
However, a BBC analysis of the footage clearly showed Israeli forces themselves brought the weapons into the hospital in the boxes of medical supplies in an effort to fabricate claims that Hamas was active there.
Before raiding the hospital, Israel also claimed that captives taken by Hamas on 7 October were being held there, and that a major Hamas “command center” was present below the hospital. But Israel could provide no evidence for either claim after taking control of the hospital.
The Palestinian Authority, released a statement in response to the evacuations saying, “The evacuation of al-Shifa deepens the humanitarian and environmental catastrophe Gaza faces.” Israel’s actions represent “another hideous facet of the crimes of ethnic cleansing and genocide committed by the occupation forces against Palestinians,” the statement said.
United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Pedro Arrojo-Agudo on Friday called on the occupying state to stop using water as a weapon of war against the Palestinians and called on it to provide clean water and fuel to the besieged Gaza Strip.
The UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation issued a statement in the context of the water crisis in the Gaza Strip due to the strip being subjected to an Israeli siege and intense attacks.
“Israel must stop using water as a weapon of war and allow clean water and fuel into Gaza to activate the water supply network before it is too late,” Arrojo-Agudo urged.
Arrojo-Agudo pointed out: “Every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water.”
He stressed: “I want to remind Israel that consciously preventing supplies needed for safe water from entering the Gaza Strip violates both international humanitarian and human rights law,” adding that the impact on public health and hygiene will be “unimaginable.”
The UN rapporteur pointed out that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) had previously announced that 70 per cent of Gaza’s population drinks salty and dirty water.
For the 42nd consecutive day, the Israeli occupation army continues to launch devastating attacks on Gaza. Its planes target buildings and residential homes, destroying them above the heads of their residents and depriving the Gaza Strip of water, food and fuel. This has led to the deaths of more than 11,630 Palestinians, including 4,710 children and 3,165 women, as well as more than 31,800 wounded people, 70 per cent of whom are children and women, according to official Palestinian sources.
GAZA – The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it received referrals from five states seeking an investigation into Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan disclosed that South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Comoros, and Djibouti submitted the referrals.
Khan confirmed in a statement that the ICC is already investigating the situation in Gaza.
“In accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, a State Party may refer to the Prosecutor a situation in which one or more crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court appear to have been committed requesting the Prosecutor to investigate the situation for the purpose of determining whether one or more specific persons should be charged with the commission of such crimes,” he said.
Khan mentioned the establishment of a specialized team upon assuming his term in June 2021, aimed at advancing the investigation in Palestine.
The prosecutor emphasized that the team will probe crimes suspected to be committed during the Israeli aggression on Gaza.
South Africa declared that it had submitted the referral request with “other countries that share the same concerns”, demanding that the International Criminal Court would urgently pay “attention to the seriousness of the current situation.”
The South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed in a statement that Pretoria “urges other signatory states to the Rome Statute to join this referral request, or to submit their referral requests independently.”
The ICC opened an investigation in 2021 into war crimes suspected to be committed by the Israeli occupation forces in Palestine.
Since October 7, Israel has been waging a bloody aggression on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 12,000 Palestinian civilians, most of whom are children and women.
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent.
A dust storm originating in the Sahara Desert swept across parts of Spain, France, the UK, and Ireland last month. In addition to bringing a red tinge to the sky, the dust caused a slight, yet noticeable, spike in radiation in the areas it reached. This radiation spike was caused by the presence of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope produced through the nuclear fission of uranium-235 in nuclear weapons. A legacy of French nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Algeria during the 1960s, the cesium-137 contamination is a reminder that while the testing of nuclear weapons may have been halted for the time being, the consequences of these tests live on through the poisoning of the planet mankind calls home.
The Saharan radioactive dust cloud is but the most recent visible phenomenon of a plague that has infected much of the world. … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Aletho News
Aletho News 