An explosive discussion with ex-CDC scientist Norman Pieniazek
BY MARTIN NEIL, JONATHAN ENGLER, AND JESSICA HOCKETT | OCTOBER 30, 2023
Dr Norman Pieniazek is a molecular biologist, geneticist, epidemiologist with 147 publications in virology and parasitology. Before he retired, he spent 24 years working at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA. He has also spent time abroad including time working in Spain and Poland.
We met up with Norman for what was planned to be a short meeting to introduce ourselves and informally discuss common interests around covid. However, this turned into a two-hour long, wide-ranging and fascinating discussion that touched on a huge number of topics.
Early on in the meeting Norman made the wise suggestion that we record and share the discussion. So, he hit the record button on Skype and we started again. The video, accessible below, is approximately two hours long. Be aware that, given it wasn’t planned as an ‘interview’ or for broadcast, it is largely unstructured. However, for those short of time here is a synopsis of the discussion with a focus on what Norman said1:
- The bacterial pneumonia hypothesis suggests that early treatment – hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and antibiotics address bacterial infection. Norman confirmed bacteria are everywhere in our bodies including in the lungs, creating an ever-present potentially hazardous predisposition that, given the right circumstances, might cause a deadly bacterial pneumonia infection.
- Well-understood remedies such as the stockpile of antibiotics, as recommended by Fauci, were cast aside in 2020. Bacterial infection can cause sepsis hence we need antibiotics. A Cytokine storm is caused by bacterial infection in the lungs, filling them with fluid; this lowers the oxygen level in the blood because of poor lung function.
- In-person diagnosis by a physician based on physical symptoms was largely replaced by the PCR test, and with the rise in tele-health visits, social distancing etc physicians stopped using stethoscopes to listen to a patient’s chest. This is an essential diagnostic tool to enable a doctor to audibly tell whether a patient has crossed the line into a bacterial infection which will then require antibiotics.
- Norman knew Donald Henderson who co-authored a classic work on how to best respond to a flu epidemic. Henderson and colleagues did not recommend any of the NPIs that were followed during covid because of the obvious severe health, social and economic costs. (As an aside this work was co-authored by Prof. Thomas Inglesby at John Hopkins who attended Event 201 and, oddly, recommended NPIs be used for covid – the very same ones he had rejected previously).
- Orthodox immunology was ignored – herd immunity is a fiction given there is a ‘soup’ of constantly mutating coronaviruses.
- Why didn’t scientists at the CDC question things early in 2020? Work from home restrictions meant that people at CDC couldn’t communicate and coordinate to overturn the madness being imposed from the ‘sixth floor’ top brass. You could not isolate CDC from the HHS (Health and Human Services) and it was HHS that were calling the shots.
- The Wuhan scientists were on a routine ‘fishing expedition’ for coronaviruses and unusual pneumonias. Why was this work being done in Wuhan? It is easier to do in China because it is legal and because there are lots of hospitals, in a concentrated area, where the population is in relatively poor health. Also, it is easier to get permission to perform a painful bronchial lavage procedure on patients to obtain pathogens in China; this is much harder to do in the USA. This procedure is done in the lower respiratory tract and guarantees higher quality samples than can be obtained using swabs, which really just measure the quality of the air that has entered your upper respiratory tract.
- To determine what pathogen is causing lower respiratory tract symptoms you should not use swabs and PCR. Why not? CDC acknowledges the inability of swabs to collect causative agents as reported by the EPIC study in these 2015 NEJM articles (one done on adults and one on children). Hence a positive result gained from a sample taken from the upper throat or the nose does not mean an infection is caused by the detected pathogen.
- In 2002-2004 SARS-COV was not subject to mass PCR testing, yet SARS-COV-2 was. PCR was used for SARS-COV but only on samples taken using bronchial lavage, but NOT from swab samples taken from the nose or upper throat.2
- Wu et al discovered WH-Human-1 using samples collected by bronchial lavage, and next generation sequencing of the collected genetic samples, and ultimately reported it in GenBank.
- Before reporting on GenBank they published a preprint identifying the genetic sequences3, which was appropriated and found its way into the hands of Corman and Drosten, who then decided to exploit it for personal gain (via commercial PCR testing), fabricating a story about validating it against SARS-1. It was subsequently renamed SARS-COV-2. (For a proposed timeline of events see here).
- Norman thinks SARS-COV-2 is simply a beta coronavirus (a cold), one of the many thousands of cold viruses that had remained undiscovered until 2020, but which have always been ever present in nature.
- SARS-COV-2 cannot be a novel virus created in a lab or by natural zoonotic mutation. It is simply novel to detection4. As soon as the EUA approved PCR tests started to be used the virus was simultaneously discovered in a number of disparate geographical regions. There was no evidence of sudden spread.
- In effect the results of any test are as much determined by the choice of test to apply as by the presence/absence of viruses. Norman says, “you will find whatever you want to find”. Hence people will be symptomless yet will have a lot of, whatever viruses happen to be around in their nose or throat.
- The established taxonomy of viruses is unusable simply because there are so many unknown viruses circulating in the wild.
- The mRNA vaccine technology ended in a ‘garbage heap’, because it is extremely toxic, and was rendered obsolete by protein subunit vaccines by 2019. So, the mRNA vaccines were doomed from the start. Subunit (protein-based) vaccines have been known since the late 1970s, but Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech needed a way to realise a return on their vast investments in mRNA. Hence the pandemic.
- Novavax is a protein subunit vaccine, based on the spike protein, which was available in August 2020 but did not get approval from the FDA. Although it is protein based it will stay in the deltoid muscle injection site. It was however approved in Canada. It may not be very good for you (and ineffective against coronaviruses), but it is less dangerous than the mRNA vaccines.
- mRNA vaccines were found to be too dangerous for animals. Also, arguments that they are a safe basis for cancer drugs are based on lies. There is a competing technology called humanised monoclonal antibodies that cured President Carter from a melanoma that had migrated to his brain and there are now 500 versions of these drugs currently available.
- Norman was told that the patent on the flu vaccines, grown in eggs, expired in 2020. Hence there was little ROI in continuing with this technology.
- Viruses are in your respiratory tract and antibodies, responding to vaccines, are in your blood. These two things do not match well because the antibodies in the blood do not get into the lungs. The immune system ‘stays away’ from the complex respiratory system that deals with the thousands of pathogens we breathe in with every breath.
- Are serology studies a pointless exercise? Because of wide variation between individual’s antibody measurement only makes sense by studying change in any single individual over time.
- Testing for antibodies means nothing because antibodies in the blood cannot travel to the lungs to react.
- Testing for antigens is a cheaper and less sensitive version of the PCR test with the same limitation.
- Norman is very sceptical of a number of covid virus theories including those by Walter Chesnut and JJCoey’s infectious clone theory, though they weren’t discussed in any great detail and were probably not characterised fully (or maybe even fairly).
- The issue with ‘infectious clones’ is that ‘you do not know what to create’ because there are millions of sequences of coronavirus so there is no ‘clonality’ and each one has 30 thousand nucleotides and there are combinatorically infinite changes you could potentially need to consider when creating a coronavirus5. It therefore isn’t possible to know what to change, via Gain of Function (GoF), to make the virus behave in more dangerous ways.
- As part of the ‘partnership for peace’ programme in 1994 Norman hired two ex-Soviet bioweapons scientists and asked them ‘how come you worked for 20 years and didn’t create any new deadly viruses?’
- They can create thousands of virus combinations, but the problem is how to test these creations. There is no way to test the billions and billions of possible changes to a virus and identify which changes to the sequence are ‘bad’. You need the phenotype, and you cannot deduce the phenotype from the genotype. So how would GoF researchers – E.g., EcoHealth alliance – know exactly what to create?
- The claim that Saddam Hussian had biological weapons was groundless and this was confirmed to Norman by Donald Henderson who was involved at the time and who said it was not possible.
- Thus, GoF claims that changes to spike protein and furin cleavage sites make a virus more deadly are fiction. It isn’t possible and there is no proof they can produce deadly bioweapons. Those advocating this position and making these claims – EcoHealth alliance (Fauci, Baric and Duszak) should get fired by their bosses for producing “not a tiger but a kitty”.
- We discussed Gulf War syndrome. Norman said people imagine anthrax is dangerous, but the ex-Soviet bioweapons researchers said to attack New York with anthrax would need 20,000 Boeing 747s flying over the city, dropping millions of tons of anthrax spores from a low height then people spreading it with shovels. The only way to infect people with anthrax is by direct means via an oxygen line or a direct injection.
- Norman said the Tokyo gas attack was successful in Japan because the terrorist used sarin, a nerve agent. The biological agents used, botulinum and anthrax, fortunately failed.
- Within the CDC Fauci was called the ‘mean midget’ and during the AIDS epidemic he sunk Robert Gallo by inventing the story that Gallo had stolen the HIV virus from Luc Montagnier, thus destroying Gallo’s chances of being awarded the Nobel prize (he was also denied a patent).
- Fauci is “not stupid, he is mean”. Fauci wanted to get a Nobel prize, but he didn’t get a Nobel prize for AIDS, so he wanted it for the Wuhan virus. In January 2023 knowing that he wasn’t going to get the Nobel prize he “pulled the plug” and published this paper saying new types of vaccines are needed for respiratory infections, as an act of spite.
We learned a lot from Norman and are very grateful to him for giving us his valuable time. You will notice that we briefly discussed the vaccines, but you will be very pleased to hear that Norman has agreed to follow up with another meeting in early December to share his thoughts on this important topic (see here for a sneak peek)
You can access Norman’s other material on YouTube and Facebook (much of his material is in Polish and Norman speaks six languages!) His twitter handle is @normanpie.
1 Note that this synopsis is not a verbatim and true transcription of the conversation.
2 This document presents evidence PCR was used to collect samples, but no mass testing was undertaken.
3 Submitted (05-JAN-2020) Department of Zoonoses, National Institute of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The first submission to GenBank had two subsequent revisions.
4 The supposed ‘novel and deadly’ attributes of the virus are discussed extensively here.
5 See this paper. “Mammals are the reservoir hosts of the majority of emerging zoonoses (2, 3, 18). If we assume that all 5,486 described mammalian species (19) harbor an average of 58 viruses in the nine families of interest (as estimated here in P. giganteus) and that these viruses exhibit 100% host specificity, the total richness of mammalian viruses awaiting discovery exceeds ~320,000.”
Horrific testimonies of Gaza workers held captive in Israel
Israel releases thousands of Gazan workers into Rafah
Palestine Information Center – November 3, 2023
GENEVA – The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor revealed that thousands of Gaza laborers were subjected to horrific forms of torture by Israeli forces during their four-week detention, which resulted in the death of one of them.
Horrific testimonies were provided to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor after the deportation of over 3,000 of Palestinian workers to the Gaza Strip on Friday. It was confirmed that the worker Mansour Nabhan Warsh Agha, from the northern Gaza Strip, was tortured to death, while the fate of thousands more is still unknown.
The deported workers were reportedly blindfolded, their hands and feet bound, and transported on private Israeli buses to the Kerem Abu Salem crossing in southeast Gaza, according to testimony gathered by Euro-Med Monitor.
They were forced to walk for more than five kilometers before reaching the Rafah crossing gate and entering the Gaza Strip.
A 62-year-old worker, identified as “A.S.,” told the Euro-Med team upon his arrival in the Gaza Strip: “They detained us for ten days, during which we were subjected to harsh interrogation. They asked us for details regarding the Palestinian resistance groups, and anyone who replied that he doesn’t have any information was mercilessly beaten.”
The workers were subjected to multiple forms of torture, beatings, and brutal abuse during their detention, as well as psychological intimidation during and after intensive investigations, Euro-Med Monitor said.
Euro-Med Monitor expressed its shock at these practices, calling on the International Labor Organization and all relevant organizations to investigate these incidents of torture and abuse and hold those responsible accountable.
Grooming our children, Part 1: Getting parents out of the picture
By Belinda Brown | TCW Defending Freedom | November 2, 2023
Are parents aware of what children from four years old are being taught about sex in our schools? Belinda Brown thinks not. In a series of articles she makes the case that, with the agreement of the Department for Education, our children are being exposed to what is tantamount to a national grooming programme. The first step of this successful sex educators’ coup, she explains today, was to get parents out of the picture, to take over their role, and then deny them any access to lessons. Miriam Cates is one MP who is fighting back.
IN JUNE Conservative MP Miriam Cates introduced the ‘sex education transparency’ Private Members’ Bill, putting Rishi Sunak under pressure to give schools a legal duty to publish materials used in sex education lessons. Backed by 70 Conservative MPs, the aim of the Bill is to secure parents’ rights to see their children’s Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) lesson plans: rights which parents thought they had, only to find them being denied.
Cates had already called for an urgent Government review into what was being taught in RSE since this programme was rolled out in September 2020, of such concern were the materials and lessons parents gleaned from their children. RSE, it emerged, was the brainchild of the ‘progressive’ independent Sex Education Forum, a busy organisation with a stipend of £200,000 a year and a clear ‘beyond biology’ agenda. The Prime Minister responded to Cates’s call and ordered the review last March. Unaccountably, his Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, refused to publish the findings and has no plans to do so. Why, we do not know. MPs had claimed the Department for Education’s (DfE) most recent relationships and sex education guidance, produced in 2019 in consultation with the LGBT+ charity Stonewall, had allowed ‘activist groups’ to overly influence teaching materials. The guidance does not set age limits on what can be taught.
In the meanwhile, the position of parents has not changed. One story catalysed Cates’s most recent initiative. Two years ago, Clare Page found out that her daughter had been taught at school that ‘heteronormativity’ (preferring the opposite sex) was a bad thing and had been told that she should be ‘sex positive’. Like any decent mother, she wanted to know more. Her request to see the material used in her daughter’s classroom was turned down, first by the Information Commissioner’s Office and then by a first-tier tribunal. She was not even allowed to find out whether her daughter had been taught by the ‘master fetish trainer’ who worked for the School of Sexuality Education (SSE) employed by her daughter’s school.
Page’s case marks another step in the long march through the institutions whereby parents are being excluded from once personal and family-based aspects of their children’s upbringing, now inappropriately and dangerously taken over by schools.
Her experience is far from exceptional. In Wales, where children are being exposed to a mandatory diet of explicit and highly ideological sex education, parents are not allowed to remove their children from these classes. Attempts to do so are repeatedly turned down.
Likewise, parents such as those trying to protect their children from sexual extremism in the London Borough of Redbridge are portrayed as religious fundamentalists and radical homophobic Islamists.
Some schools and local authorities even have a policy of not informing parents when a child expresses what the school categorises as ‘feelings of gender distress,’ a study found, though this flies in the face of safeguarding rules. More recent research indicates that it could be that the school’s teaching that is the source of distress.
In theory, parents do have rights in law. Under the European Convention of Human Rights, ‘the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions’. The 2002 Education Act Guidance repeatedly emphasises the role of parents. ‘Teaching must be done with respect to the backgrounds and beliefs of pupils and parents . . . All schools should work closely with parents when planning and delivering these subjects. Schools should ensure that parents know what will be taught and when, and clearly communicate the fact.’
Yet this is not happening. Any criticism that teaching places insufficient emphasis on the value of traditional marriage between a man and a woman, for example, is ignored.
When the School of Sexuality Education complained that the Department of Education’s guidance gave ‘problematic credence’ to long-term relationships and marriage, they had the government’s ear (p10). These sex education activists ‘provide in-school workshops on consent, sexual health, porn and positive relationships’. Their approach, they say, is rights-based – whose rights they do not say. They proclaim themselves as ‘sex-positive, non-binary and trauma informed’.
When they criticised the guidance section that suggested that primary schools should only teach pupils about LGBT when it was ‘age appropriate’ rather than from reception, these phrases were obligingly removed by the DfE.
Gillian Keegan should ask herself who these sex education providers are and why they want the material they are pushing at our children to be unrestricted by age.
This contempt for parents was expressed early on in an ‘Educate and Celebrate’ guidebook foisted on schools. Their proposal was that rather than get parents’ permission for children to attend LGBT events, they would organise LGBT events in the school (p24). When parents tried to protect their children from all this, they were told they were breaking the law.
The result of the government’s inadequate guidance, Cates says, is ‘a permission slip for teaching almost anything that is loosely associated with gender, sexuality or sexual practice – often with an assumption of the earlier, the better’ (p71).
Without providing any apparent curriculum, and without parents able to monitor what was being taught, these so-called specialist sex ‘educators’, heavily funded by the government, with clearly articulated curricula and political agendas, have zealously filled the gap.
Foremost of these is the ideology of queer theory that asserts that ‘heteronormativity’ – the natural biological sex preference for the opposite sex, should be ‘smashed’. It rejects all ‘binaries’ including distinctions between homosexuality and heterosexuality, male and female, and even more disturbingly, between adult and child.
This is the ideology that’s the foundation of the RSE curriculum that a Conservative government has sanctioned. It will be explored in greater depth in the rest of the series. Parents have a right to know, reject it and protest.
To be continued.
Critics of Biden’s ‘Censorship Regime’ Say Government Dragging Its Feet on Lawsuit
By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | November 3, 2023
M.J. Koch over at the New York Sun has published a very good article on Missouri v. Biden and the Supreme Court’s decision to place a temporary stay on the injunction until they can rule on the case:
Next year’s presidential election may have something to do with the slow pace of Missouri v. Biden.
The Biden administration is said to be dragging its feet on an explosive free speech case against its alleged “Orwellian” censorship of social media platforms. Those leading the lawsuit say it’s because the government wants to continue its censorship regime as long as possible before the presidential election.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, Missouri v. Biden. In certifying it, the high court last week also approved the government’s request for a stay on a preliminary injunction from the Fifth Circuit. The injunction would’ve enjoined the government from continuing what two lower courts called a “coordinated campaign” by top federal officials and agencies to suppress undesirable opinions on public issues such as Covid lockdowns and election integrity.
The suspension of that injunction “is a green light for future censorship,” the founder of the civil rights group representing four of the plaintiffs in the case, Philip Hamburger, of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, tells the Sun. The high court appears to be siding with the executive branch in its latest legal action…. “Undoubtedly,” Mr. Hamburger says, “there’s deference, in the sense of political deference, to the government.”
Next year’s presidential election might have something to do with this “deference.” Oral arguments in Murthy will be heard in January or February, but the court won’t complete its review until late in the spring. Even if the ruling requires the government to immediately desist its behavior, several more months of the status quo will have passed as the contest for the U.S. presidency intensifies.
You can read the rest of the article, which includes my comments on this issue, here.
Amnesty International: A Template for Futility
Even in the worst period of the repression during the apartheid era in South Africa, the armed forces never bombed the townships
— Ronnie Kasrils, March 2009BY PAUL DE ROOIJ • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 3, 2023
One would hope that human rights NGOs would be influential, be tools to mobilise the public against oppression and barbarity, and maybe be of use in making the perpetrators of crimes accountable… Or is it the case that human rights NGOs are instruments of propaganda, means to deflect action against state power, and even instrumental in justifying state violence and war? Maybe Amnesty International’s latest press releases and the inevitable “reports” will enable one to determine on which side of the ledger its actions fall.
Yet again the Palestinians face massive Israeli attacks against Gaza, and the retail bombing of the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and even Egypt. Israelis engage in these attacks every four or five years; they call them “mowing the lawn operations”. Inevitably, the human rights NGOs utter clucking sounds, and issue press releases and reports; some of their insufferable researchers will appear on TV mouthing predictable trite statements. And if past experience is any guide, all that effort will be an exercise in futility. Who reads these materials, have they ever led to any action or change of state policy, or have they galvanised a public into action? The answer is self-evident.
Amnesty’s output also suggests that they are a lazy bunch incapable of improving their “product” to make it more effective. Invariably they utilise the same template; they just fill in the blanks whenever the level of violence has propelled a “conflict” onto the front pages or to the top of the hour news reporting. The template requires distressing clucking sounds about the violence, and a tally of those killed; it provides a few individual examples of violations. It then blames “both sides,” and asserts that the Palestinian violence was “horrific” and “indiscriminate”; both sides have perpetrated war crimes. It then urges both sides to cease and desist; return to the status quo ante. And finally, it calls on the “international community” to impose an arms embargo on “both sides”. And “independent” investigators should be allowed in to compile evidence of war crimes. That is it.
Basic Background
Gaza has been under military occupation and control for decades, and extreme Israeli violence has punctuated its history. Massacres, bombings, assassinations have been regular features; each military attack is increasingly more destructive and violent than the preceding ones. Furthermore, since 2006 Gaza was transformed into the largest open air prison with Israeli forces controlling who enters/exits the exclave; walls, razor wire fences, and watch towers armed with robotic machine guns surround the area; drones buzz overhead every day, especially at night. Dov Weissglas, a close confidant of Ariel Sharon, quipped that they’d put Gaza “on a diet”. Israelis calculated the basic caloric intake required to maintain the population just above starvation, and proceeded to limit food imports to that level; airplanes sprayed herbicides on crops, and even small allotments. The water supplied into Gaza was polluted with high levels of salt and over-fluoridation. Unemployment rate in Gaza has been staggeringly high. Gazans have lived in a terrible situation for many years. Non-violent resistance was brutally crushed. With no prospects political or negotiated solution what were Palestinians supposed to do?
It is this history that must serve as the foundation to guide solidarity with the Palestinians, and for any organisation to channel efforts to ameliorate the situation. It behooves us to understand why human rights NGOs are a failure by design; to understand why the human rights babble is equally a cruel fraud. Here is an explanation of this failure in Eight Acts:
They are so ahistorical…
Given the above snapshot history, the nature of the crimes requires recognising them as crimes against humanity, arguably one of the most serious crimes under international law. Second, Israeli crimes put the violence of the Palestinian resistance into perspective. Palestinians have a right to defend themselves. Third, the long history of violence perpetrated against the Palestinians, and the resulting power imbalance, suggest that one should be in solidarity with the victim.
Amnesty however refuses to acknowledge the serious nature of Israeli crimes, by using an intellectually bankrupt subterfuge; it insists that as a rights-based organisation it cannot refer to historical context; doing so would be considered “political” in its warped jargon. An examination of what AI considers “background” in its press releases/reports confirms that there is virtually no reference to relevant history, e.g., the prior attacks on Gaza, who initiated those attacks, the Goldstone report, etc. Presto! Now there is no need to mention serious crimes. Every time AI issues the same statements and even some reports; they are written from the same template. They may change a few details, but each of their statements and reports studiously ignores the previous attacks as if history didn’t matter. It also doesn’t recognise the nature of the Palestinian resistance, and their right to self-defence. Nowhere does AI acknowledge that Palestinians are entitled to defend themselves. And finally, AI cannot express solidarity with the victim; hey, “both sides” are victims!
Criminalising Palestinian Resistance
When Palestinians were engaged in non-violent demonstrations in front of the walls / fences surrounding Gaza, AI didn’t have much to say about the demonstrators who were shot by snipers. A demonstrator in a wheelchair shot and killed; dozens of demonstrators shot in the knee, kids flying kites shot, a journalist operating a drone killed… There are many Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily imprisoned, and when some of them engage in months-long hunger strikes, even resulting in death, AI barely utters a peep. So, non-violent resistance didn’t deliver much, and thus armed resistance seemed to be the only option.
When the Palestinians launch crude inaccurate missiles this is deemed “indiscriminate” in nature and ipso facto a war crime. AI also deems the taking of hostages to exchange for Palestinian prisoners to be a war crime. Attacking Israel and in the process killing civilians is also deemed beyond the pale. So Amnesty’s gang is not willing to state anything constructive about the Palestinian resistance other than to chastise them with accusations of serious crimes.
A blatant double standard is at play. Palestinian weapons are rudimentary and are not precise, and AI labels these as “indiscriminate” thus unlawful. On the other hand, Israeli weapons that are very accurate used to deliberately target civilians, hospitals, mosques, bakeries, ambulances, etc. These weapons are fine and dandy; AI will merely state that an independent body might have to “investigate war crimes” — knowing full well the fraudulent nature of these so-called independent investigations. What is worse: using inaccurate weapons that may result in civilian deaths, or use very accurate weapons to intentionally kill civilians? And what about the scale and proportionality of the weapons? Most Palestinian weapons are small, and not very lethal. Israelis use huge bombs to flatten buildings, hospitals, … with inevitable civilian deaths. For every Palestinian rocket, how many Israeli bombs have dropped? Amnesty usually reports the former, but not the latter.
When resistance fighters take hostages (both civilian and military) AI deems this to be a war crime. On the other hand, when Israeli forces routinely round up Palestinian civilians and arbitrarily imprisons them, this merits no comment. The use of an Israeli military kangaroo court to rubber stamp the imprisonment order is enough to keep Amnesty at bay. Recent video footage shows that Palestinian resistance fighters were captured alive, but a few minutes later they were executed. Does this merit any AI reproach? AI has a pompous sounding “Evidence Investigation Unit” — they may be taking a little nap now.
Addressing Apartheid
In its 26 October 2023 press release AI states: “The root causes of the conflict to be addressed, including through dismantling Israel’s system of apartheid against all Palestinians.” Maybe uttering this statement about 40 or 50 years ago would have been a bold statement. But as Ronnie Kasrils, the great anti-apartheid fighter, stressed: the Palestinians face a system of oppression far more serious, pernicious and violent than what was experienced in South Africa during the 1960-70s. The current Israeli policy is meant to drive the Palestinians off their land (ethnic cleansing) and it doesn’t shy away from implementing a genocidal plan. Amnesty lags behind these developments.
Appeals to the international community
In the 26 October press release, AI also states: “The international community to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict given that serious violations amounting to crimes under international law are being committed.” The day after the 7 October attack, the US and UK started flying in military materiel — by now amounting to about 60 military cargo plane deliveries. The US is itself militarily involved having assembled an armada in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf; it has sent senior military officers to advice on the attack on Gaza; and a US Seal team is on location. Thus AI’s statement is yet another example of its futility and impotence; maybe it was meant to add a bit of comic relief.
But this time it is different…
While in the past, Amnesty could engage in its ritual press releases and reports, and eventually revert to its regular routine, the current attack on Gaza may force Amnesty to adopt a different stance or risk exposure of its true spineless and duplicitous nature.
Top Israeli politicians and military officers have ordered cutting off Gaza’s access to food, water, and fuel; outright state that all inhabitants “are not innocent,” are “human animals,” that “there is no safe place in Gaza,” “There is no symmetry; the children in the Gaza Strip brought this on themselves,”or recite Deuteronomy 25:19 to smite the Amalek. Other religious figures have chimed in with other vengeful and chilling religious utterances. The same chapter in Deuteronomy urges Israelis to prise open the jaws of the Amalek and pour molten lead into their throats. (NB: this gave rise to the 2008 operation name “Cast Lead”.) Arnon Soffer, the infamous demographer, stated (2004): “we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.” And finally, a bevy of foreign prime minsters/presidents has flown in to repeat that: “Israel has a right to defend itself”. None of these dignitaries uttered a word urging restraint or a return to negotiations, let alone observance of international humanitarian law. Israel was given a green light to do whatever it wants with no impediments, and as a matter of fact, with the aid of recently flown-in military materiel. The UN will be rendered impotent given the US veto; and the lame ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel, thus any meaningful war crimes tribunal will never materialise.
So will Amnesty pursue its business as usual or opt for a stronger stance — preferably a pronouncement by a coalition of NGOs and solidarity activists. There will be an answer within a month.
The feces smellers
Agnes Callamard, AI’s Secretary General, is possibly one of the better and most outspoken general secretaries; there is no doubt that she is a well intentioned person. Many of her statements are clear and strong statements, but they are clearly limited by AI’s overall posture. But her stance is very much like that of a person who finds a fresh piece of feces in her path. After studying the sample, tasting it, and sniffing it, declares “that an independent investigation is necessary to determine if Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.” So why does AI hesitate to make a strong statement about Israel? It has to do with its funding; a strong stand would upset the main donors.
The nature of human rights organisations
Many little NGOs have popped up that are merely meant to assuage the liberal conscience. Thus one may be worried that bananas were produced under harmful and exploitative conditions, and thus a little sticker on the banana may warm the liberal soul. The sticker they offer is merely meant to reduce consumer hesitancy when buying a product. The human rights NGOs perform very much the same function. When sordid and violent acts occur somewhere in the world, well intentioned concerned individuals may want to do something about it. And what could be easier than sending a donation to a human rights NGO! You will even get an Amnesty sticker to paste on your forehead to boast your liberal righteousness. Furthermore, the NGO will enlist well intentioned people to perform next to useless tasks like writing overly polite letters to dubious politicians seeking to improve the prison conditions of their adopted “prisoner of conscience”. Resources and effort are deflected away from pressuring domestic politicians to stop aiding and abetting mass crimes. There seems to be no downside to the back slapping politicians visiting Netanyahu encouraging greater mass crimes. Where are the activists clamouring to stop weapons deliveries to Israel from the US, UK and Germany?
And of course, Israel views the human rights NGOs as a necessary nuisance — easily ignored. While volunteers write overly polite letters, the paper shredders in Israel are whirring away. There is no effective action sought by the human rights NGOs which would cause Israel to take notice. In the very least, the human rights NGOs could heed Palestinian civil society’s call to implement a boycott of Israel. The boycott campaign was effective against apartheid South Africa, and given that the Palestinians face conditions that are orders of magnitude worse than apartheid, it would suggest a boycott campaign would be in order. Amnesty claims to have seven million followers, thus a call to implement a boycott would have more effect than the empty exhortations to governments to do nothing.
In the end, one cannot expect an organisation to change its spots after such a long and dubious history which includes trumpeting for war (AI was instrumental in pushing the throwing-babies-out-of-incubators hoax), pushing state propaganda (e.g., putting Croatian propagandists on tour in the US to push the “rape camp” slur), and many more. Amnesty International was created by a Zionist, it is difficult to countenance that a critique of Israel would be tolerated even today. Amnesty International Israel was run for many years by Israeli Foreign Ministry officers; this gang blocked critical reporting and played the gate keeper function. Amnesty never responded to the revelation of the penetration of its Israeli branch. Even today, as Amnesty’s website shows, the Israeli branch of the organisation is based in Tel Aviv. Maybe a clarification about its contribution and about its personnel may be in order. AI must be aware that several prominent Palestinians refuse to meet with them. And if the Israeli branch contributes to or edits its reportage, then AI must confront the ethics of producing Palestinian human rights coverage by Israeli personnel. During the war in Yugoslavia, Serbian researchers were not allowed to report on the condition of Croatians, Bosnians; the evident bias was not tolerated. But when it comes to Palestinian issues, a different standard applies.
During the 1970s Dr. Israel Shahak, the well known scientist and activist, headed a human rights organisation which translated Hebrew texts into English. He related how the state attempted to harass and interfere with his organisation. Break-ins, intimidation, destruction of archives, and planting their own operatives in the organisation leading to successful violent takeover of the organisation. So, does Amnesty-Israel have the same fraught relationship with the state? Or are they on chummy terms with Israeli officials? If the latter, there may be a reason for that.
And then there is snake oil
Pushing for the observance of human rights doesn’t necessarily imply that one will obtain justice. The human rights agenda merely softens the edges of the status quo. As Amnesty’s position on the Israeli attacks on Gaza illustrate, pushing human rights can actually be incompatible with obtaining justice. Human rights are a bastardised, neutered, and debased form of justice. The application and effectiveness of international law is bad enough, but a pick and choose legal framework with no enforcement is even worse. If one seeks justice, then it is best to avoid the human rights discourse; above all, it is best to avoid human rights organisations. If one wants justice it is best to avoid the discourse that only delivers bandages.
Palestinians should be wary of sanctimonious do-gooders peddling human rights snake oil. In exchange for giving up their resistance and complying with AI’s norms, it is not likely that Palestinians will obtain a pixel of justice. One should be wary of human rights groups that don’t push for justice, play the role of Israel’s lawyer, and are bereft of solidarity with the victims. During the Algerian war for independence, Frantz Fanon related that whenever a European would come to talk with him about “human rights,” his urge was to fetch a gun. Palestinians could learn something from this. When the likes of Amnesty come wagging their finger, it is best to keep the old blunderbuss near at hand.
Palestine TV correspondent killed in Israel’s strikes on Gaza
Palestinian correspondent Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed in an Israeli strike on the besieged Gaza Strip on November 2, 2023
Press TV – November 3, 2023
A correspondent working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel, Palestine TV, has been killed along with a number of his family members in an Israeli strike in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“Our colleague Mohammed Abu Hatab fell as a martyr along with members of his family in an Israeli bombardment against his home in Khan Yunis” on Thursday, broadcaster Palestine TV station said.
Palestinian media reports said the airstrike killed 11 of Abu Hatab’s family members, including his wife, son, and brother.
The Palestinian Official Media described the attack as “a deliberate assassination” of Abu Hatab, noting that his house was targeted shortly after he arrived home after covering Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.
“It’s a message in blood to terrorize Palestinian journalists to prevent them from reporting on our people’s suffering and exposing Israel’s crimes.” the Palestinian Official Media said in a statement.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) States Broadcasting Union also mourned the death of Abu Hatab and his family members.
Amr Al-Laithi, the OSBU President, also denounced the “heinous crime” committed against Abu Hatab.
The union also urged civil society organizations and human rights groups to immediately intervene to stop Israel’s “barbaric, criminal and systematic attacks” against media workers.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
The regime has further ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the coastal sliver. However, it has continued to rain down bombs on the south.
Israel’s aggression on Gaza has so far killed more than 9,061 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured about 32,000 others.
50 press unions demand end to Israel’s systematic targeting of journalists in Palestine
MEMO | November 2, 2023
Fifty Arab and foreign media institutions, associations and trade unions have demanded the UN Secretary-General and the President of the International Federation of Journalists to take a quick and strong stance to protect journalists in Palestine, condemn the killing of media professionals as well as harassing them by Israel, and to implement the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to the protection of journalists in times of war.
This came in a joint letter, which the signatories said has been issued “based on the public’s right to the media … and the right of media professionals to practise their work freely … and in view of the systematic targeting that media professionals in Palestine are experiencing, which has reached the point of direct killing and the targeted, and harassment that makes their continued work pose a danger to them.
The signatories called on the international community to “immediately investigate the killings and ensure that criminals do not escape punishment”.
They also called on all countries of the world to “guarantee the freedom of media professionals and to take the necessary field measures to protect them and to guarantee freedom of media practice.”
The President of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) and one of the signatories to the petition, Sadiq Ibrahim, has “strongly denounced the continued aggressive escalation against journalists in Palestine” and the murders and attacks targeting them mercilessly, saying this violent escalation constitutes a serious threat to freedom of the press and the public’s right to access information.
The Secretary-General of the Palestine International Forum for Media and Communication and one of the signatories to the document, Ahmed Al-Sheikh, said, “We stand with the brave Palestinian journalists who risk their lives in order to present the truth, and we express our full solidarity with them. We call on all concerned parties to stop the violence against journalists and work to end this type of crime.”
According to independent human rights institutions, as many as 25 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October, in addition to 13 workers in the media sector.
Moreover, the homes of more than 35 journalists were destroyed, and more than 20 journalists were injured, in addition to the arrests of 18 male and female journalists in the West Bank.
Since 7 October, the Israeli army has been waging a ruthless war on Gaza, killing more than 8,525 Palestinians, including 3,542 children and 2,187 women, wounding about 21,543. In the Occupied West Bank, Israel has killed 126 Palestinians, and arrested about 2,000 others, according to official Palestinian sources.
CHD Sues Philadelphia Over Law Allowing 11-Year-Olds to Consent to Vaccines Without Parents’ Consent
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 1, 2023
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and several parents today filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a Philadelphia law that allows minors to consent to vaccination without their parents’ knowledge, saying the legislation violates the constitutionally protected doctrine of informed consent and fundamental parental rights.
The lawsuit alleges the City of Philadelphia engaged in a “wink and a nod” practice of vaccinating children behind parents backs without informed consent for the past 15 years, under the cover of the 2007 General Minor Consent Regulation.
That rule allows children 11 and older to consent to vaccination without parental knowledge as long as they receive a “vaccine information statement” (VIS) for the administered shot.
It also absolves the vaccine administrator of liability if the minor gives consent.
On May 14, 2021, the city’s Department of Public Health also enacted an additional COVID-19 Minor Consent Regulation, allowing children ages 11 and up to consent to the COVID-19 vaccine available under Emergency Use Authorization.
Under that regulation, children could give consent if they received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fact sheet because a COVID-19 VIS did not exist at the time.
Tricia Lindsay, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children are at stake in the case:
“The only time that a parent loses rights to their children is by a strict showing that they are not capable of taking care of their child.
“But here the government of Philadelphia is issuing a blanket statement and taking away parental rights without due process, and that is one of the greatest violations ever.
“They are using emergency powers and the excuse of concerns over ‘health and safety’ to justify it. But it’s camouflage. It’s a Trojan horse. They are using these buzzwords to justify their tyranny … which is what you call it when you remove a person’s fundamental rights without due process.”
Seven Pennsylvania parents joined CHD in suing the City of Philadelphia, its Department of Public Health and City Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole, M.D., MPH, alleging the regulations violate their rights.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said those regulations also “raise troubling issues of informed consent, freedom of religion, parental rights, and due process, implicating both the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and other federal and Commonwealth laws.”
The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare Philadelphia’s 2007 and 2021 Minor Consent Regulations illegal and to stop them from being enforced.
CHD President Mary Holland told The Defender :
“It’s absurd to imagine that it is safe or desirable for 11-year-olds to make potentially life-altering medical decisions on their own without parental guidance, knowledge or consent. Philadelphia’s so-called consent policies violate state, federal and constitutional laws. I am happy that CHD is able to help put an end to these policies that actually endanger children’s health.”
National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and VISs
Plaintiffs allege that Philadelphia’s regulations conflict with the consent requirements of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA), the federal law that has primacy over conflicting local laws on such matters, according to the U.S. Constitution.
They also argue that the complicated requirements for seeking compensation — if someone is injured by a vaccine protected by the NCVIA — would be incomprehensible to most, if not all, children.
Under the NCVIA, vaccine manufacturers are protected from liability for a vaccine’s adverse effects if the vaccines are listed on its “Vaccine Injury Table.” The table lists covered vaccines, their recognized injuries and the timeframes within which those injuries must occur to be considered compensable.
Liability for injuries caused by vaccines listed on the table cannot be pursued in a regular court of law, but are instead compensated through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
The VICP also can provide compensation for an injury by a covered vaccine, even if the injury isn’t listed as compensable on the Vaccine Injury Table. However, the legal and administrative process is more complicated.
Even for listed injuries, it can be difficult to obtain compensation from the VICP. The backlog of cases is substantial and the proceedings are often drawn out by contentious expert battles.
The NCVIA mandates that the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services create and publish VISs that detail the risks and potential adverse events associated with covered vaccines. Those sheets must be presented to children’s parents or legal guardians prior to vaccine administration.
The VIS is important, the complaint says, so that parents can recognize adverse events if and when they happen, and seek necessary medical treatment and also document such events in a timely manner, which is essential for seeking compensation through the VICP.
“If a parent is not aware of what their child has done,” Lindsay said, “then they don’t know what to look out for and they don’t know if the problem they are seeing is related to a vaccine.”
The NCVIA specifically mandated that VISs must be presented in a jargon-free and straightforward way that parents can understand.
The NCVIA doesn’t mention making them comprehensible to children, because the drafters of the NCVIA never imagined children would have to understand them on their own, the complaint alleges.
“The NCVIA simply does not contemplate that a child may be vaccinated without parental consent,” the complaint states. “Quite the opposite — the language of the NCVIA is clear that the VIS is provided to the parent who is able to offer informed consent on behalf of his or her child.”
But this law, the lawsuit alleges, removes parents from the equation altogether.
What about COVID vaccine injuries?
The COVID-19 vaccines are not covered by the NCVIA or the VICP.
Instead, under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, people injured by a COVID-19 vaccine or “countermeasure” can seek compensation only under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
Since 2010, when the CICP approved its first claim, the program has compensated a total of 36 claims for vaccine injuries — six of those awards were for COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries.
The complaint also noted that COVID-19 vaccines available for 11-year-olds are still investigational. “Children are not capable of understanding the risks associated with a novel vaccine and cannot appreciate that there are no long-term studies of the safety or effectiveness of these vaccines,” the complaint states.
Lindsay said it was particularly concerning that Philadelphia specifically included the COVID-19 vaccines in the regulations and that the regulations continue to stand even though the Biden administration ended the COVID-19 public health emergency in May.
She said:
“Why would we extend this risk further to a novel vaccine, which we now know has many more problems? Why would we be signing up children to a mass experiment and taking away their guardian, the person that stands on the frontline, that’s there to protect them, to cover them, to guide them?
“It has nothing to do with the benefits of children because if it did, you would approach the guardian of that child, the person that is given the authority and has the responsibility of that child to see that that child is safe and allow them to make an informed decision as to what they deem best for their child.”
Can 11-year-old children give informed consent for medical interventions?
The complaint cites a long list of activities that are typically restricted for minors or restricted without parental consent in Pennsylvania.
For example, minors under the age of 21 cannot purchase alcohol or tobacco or enter a casino. A person must be 18 to enter into a contract or to register for the selective services without parental consent. One must be 16 to donate blood and 14 to consent to mental health treatment.
It is also illegal, the complaint notes, for pharmacists to administer vaccines to children 5 and older without parental consent.
According to the complaint:
“Philadelphia’s Minor Consent Regulations turn these requirements on their head. Rather than protecting children, Philadelphia’s Minor Consent Regulations let any child walk into a temporary vaccine ‘pop-up clinic’ or elsewhere on a whim, roll up her sleeve and receive a vaccine without her parents’ knowledge and even more importantly, her parents’ protective veil of consent. …
“The Minor Consent Regulations are a house of cards built on the unsupported, unsupportable and preposterous presumption that every Philadelphia child aged eleven and up is capable of true informed consent, that every child knows her own medical history, her family’s medical history, and can truly ascertain the potential serious risks and alleged benefits of a treatment, and can read and understand any written information — written for adults — presented to her without further explanation.”
The lawsuit alleges children likely cannot fully comprehend the VISs, let alone consent to the vaccines. Philadelphia children, it notes, have very low reading proficiency scores — only 34% of elementary students and 43% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading.
It also raises concerns that no concrete proof a child-provided consent is even required.
This, the plaintiffs say, is in conflict with both the federal NCVIA and Pennsylvania law. The latter requires the written informed consent of a parent before a physician is allowed to perform medical or surgical procedures on a child.
The complaint cited the Troxel v. Granville Supreme Court case and a series of other cases that found “the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children” is a constitutionally protected right.
Other minor consent lawsuits and struggles
When the pandemic began, most states had existing laws mandating parental consent for vaccination, with a few limited exceptions. But once the vaccines became available, some states and localities attempted to lower the age at which children could consent to vaccination on their own.
During Tennessee’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, the state’s Department of Health invoked the “mature minor’ doctrine” to allow minors 14 and older to be vaccinated without a parent’s consent.
But in response to grassroots mobilization and testimony by CHD, Tennessee lawmakers in April passed a law requiring healthcare providers to obtain consent from a parent or legal guardian before vaccinating a minor.
In March 2022, CHD prevailed in a lawsuit against Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, the D.C. Department of Health (D.C. Health) and D.C. public schools after the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order granting a preliminary injunction prohibiting the schools from enforcing the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020 — a law that would have allowed children as young as 11 to be vaccinated without the knowledge or consent of their parents.
In that lawsuit, the D.C. District Court ruled in favor of CHD’s argument that the NCVIA pre-empted D.C.’s law that attempted to lower the age of consent for vaccinations to 11, and prevented the mayor of the District of Columbia, the D.C. Department of Health and D.C. public schools from enforcing the law.
The court, in that case, commented specifically on the intended function of the VIS:
“If Congress did not mean for the legal representative of a child to receive a VIS when his child receives a vaccine, then the phrase ‘the legal representatives of any child’ would be superfluous. All Congress would have needed to say is that a healthcare provider should give a VIS ‘to any individual to whom such provider intends to administer such vaccine.’ But it did not do that.”
In June, New York legislators also attempted to pass Senate Bill S762A, which would have allowed minors to be vaccinated without parental knowledge or consent. But grassroots efforts, including those undertaken by CHD, prevented that from becoming codified into New York state law.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
The other mass displacement: while eyes are on Gaza, settlers advance on West Bank herders
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | November 1, 2023
Shortly after armed Israeli settlers threatened to kill them if they did not leave, 24 Palestinian households totaling 141 people, half of whom are children, were displaced from Khirbat Zanuta in the southern West Bank.
On 28 October 2023, the families dismantled about 50 residential and animal structures and vacated the area with their 5,000 livestock. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously documented settler attacks in this community, most recently on 12, 21 and 26 October. About two thirds of the families that comprised this community are now displaced.
“On 26 October, settlers attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels, and cars,” said 43-year-old Abu Khaled from Khirbet Zanuta. “I felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes. I was torn between staying in or leaving the place I love, where I belong, where I may die. On 28 October, I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.”
These experiences are not unique to Khirbat Zanuta. In 15 herding communities across the West Bank, at least 98 households comprising 828 people, including 313 children, have been displaced amid settler violence or increased movement restrictions since 7 October. Since then, Israeli settler violence has increased significantly, from an already high average of three incidents per day thus far in 2023 to a current average of seven per day.
In this period, OCHA has recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian casualties (26 incidents), damage to Palestinian properties (115 incidents), or both (30 incidents). Cases of harassment, trespass, and intimidation are not included in these statistics when they do not result in damage or casualties, although they too increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave.
On 9 October, 40 people were displaced from the herding community of Al Ganoub. Armed Israeli settlers had raided the community, threatening residents at gunpoint, saying they would kill them if they did not leave within an hour. Abu Jamal, 75, is one of those who were displaced. “Settlers set fire to our tent and stole my goats,” he told us. “They destroyed everything that had kept me here.” Another residential structure was also set on fire during this incident.Since 7 October, access restrictions, typically imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities, have intensified throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These are particularly severe in areas near illegal Israeli settlements and in the ‘Seam Zone,’ the Palestinian area isolated by Israel’s 712-kilometre-long illegal Separation Wall in the West Bank. Settlers too have imposed movement restrictions, blocking access roads to Palestinian communities. Such measures have limited Palestinians’ access to essential services and livelihoods. In some cases, settlers have also damaged water resources relied upon by herding communities, depriving them of a fundamental human necessity. Palestinian herding communities are often highly dependent on humanitarian assistance, including health and education services. However, since restrictions intensified, many of the services have had to stop.
On 12 October, eight households, comprising 51 people, were displaced from Shihda WaHamlan herding community in Nablus, after settlers threatened them at gunpoint, saying they would kill them and set their tents on fire during the night. One of the family members, 52-year-old Abu Ismail, stated: “I had no choice but to leave everything behind to protect my children.” More than one in every three settler-related incidents since 7 October has involved settlers using firearms to threaten Palestinians, including by opening fire. In almost half the cases, Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers. Many of the latter incidents were followed by confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians, where three Palestinians were killed, and dozens injured. Eight Palestinians were killed by settlers directly, as of the end of October. Damage or destruction was caused to 24 residential structures, 40 structures used for farming, 67 vehicles and more than 400 trees and saplings. Settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law and, compounded by settler violence, they have for many years resulted in increased risks and heightened humanitarian needs among Palestinians.
At the same time, concerns are high over families who have remained and continue to endure attacks by settlers. Mohamad Abu Seif (Abu Khalid), 90, has been living with his family in the herding community of Ein Shibli for over 40 years. While they have remained, they are exposed to repetitive threats and harassment by settlers. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,” he told us.
He and his family are among five Palestinian households, comprising 33 people, who remain in this community. All of them are at risk of displacement as grazing areas diminish by the actions of Israeli settlers. Eight families, comprising 51 people, have already left this area since 7 October. While Abu Khalid is still there, he and his family have no assurances that they would be able to remain for much longer.
At General Assembly, Russia calls for immediate halt to bloodshed in Gaza Strip
Press TV – November 2, 2023
Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has called for an immediate end to the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli regime continues its deadly bombing campaign in the besieged enclave.
Nebenzya made the appeal during the General Assembly special session on Palestine on Thursday, stressing that the bloodshed must be stopped in order to prevent the ongoing crisis from spreading to the entire.
“First of all, it is necessary to stop the bloodshed and to prevent the crisis from engulfing the entire region. Otherwise, the conflict will never be stopped,” he said.
Nebenzya also demanded that the mediators be allowed to work on a diplomatic solution, including the release of hostages.
“One will have to walk down this path sooner or later; the only question is how many innocent people will die in the meantime,” he said.
The Russian envoy said Israel is an occupying regime and therefore it does not have the right to defend itself in the current conflict as it claims.
On Tuesday, Nebenzya blamed the United States for the ongoing atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians, after Washington opposed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an urgent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The envoy also slammed Western countries that abstained at the vote on Russia-proposed draft resolutions that called for a ceasefire.
A week earlier, Nebenzya said Moscow has for years been warning about the soaring tensions in West Asia and that the ongoing crisis in the region results from longstanding “destructive” policies of the United States.
Israel has been heavily bombing Gaza since October 7 when the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched a surprise operation in the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The aggression has so far killed 8,800 Palestinians and left more than 23,000 wounded.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
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Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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