Saturday, February 17, 2024

Gaza remains under assault

 In Turkey today, as ALJAZEERA reports in the video above, hundreds (thousands) marched against the ongoing assault on Gaza.  REUTERS adds, "G7 ministers called for 'urgent action to address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, particularly the plight of 1.5 million civilians sheltering in Rafah, and they expressed deep concern for the potentially devastating consequences on the civilian population of Israel's further full scale military operation in that area,' according to a statement released by Italy."  The G7?   The Canadian government describes the group,  "The Group of Seven (G7) is an informal grouping of seven of the world’s advanced economies, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union."    Dylan Donnelly (SKY NEWS) notes:


Scottish Labour has unanimously backed an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with MSPs calling for "unequivocal" support and putting pressure on the rest of the party.

All delegates backed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar's calls for an immediate end to the Israel-Hamas war at the party conference in Glasgow.

[. . .]

The vote came as thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through Glasgow to protest outside the conference.


A march also took place in London.  ITV NEWS notes, "Between 200,000 and 250,000 people were expected at the demonstration, according to a spokesman for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The Metropolitan Police put the number at 30,000."  SOCIALIST WORKER adds:


Around 250,000 people poured onto the streets of London on Saturday. And they would have brought their fury to the Israeli embassy if the cops hadn’t prevented them from gathering directly outside it.

The march was part of a global day of action, with organisers saying there would be demonstrations in 100 cities in 45 countries. Around 10,000 marched in Glasgow (see below). 

The imminent Israeli ground offensive in Rafah added to people’s determination on the demonstration, which marched to near the embassy. “It’s unreal that Israel is preparing for an all-out assault on a place where over one million are crammed into a tiny area,” said hospital worker Eileen. 

“We know it’s happening, everyone knows it will be a massacre and yet the US and Britain make only ineffective noises.” She added that her Unison union needs to do more to put people on the protests.

[. . .]

The London protest was part of a global day of action that saw protests in 145 cities and hundreds more towns.

From Sydney in Australia through Seoul in South Korea to Turkey, solidarity was everywhere. In Oslo, Norway, hundreds gathered in -15 degree Celsius temperatures.

Up to 50,000 people took to the streets of Dublin. Karen Gearon, who was a shop steward for the Dunnes Stores strikers who protested against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s, was among those leading the march. She said that there should be sanctions against Israel in the same way there were against South Africa.

Across Ireland, there were protests including Ennis, Cork, Armagh, Drogheda, Skibbereen, Clonakilty, and Waterford.

Cities in Italy saw protests, with a large demo in Turin. Thousands marched in Munich, Germany.

The US saw a wave of demonstrations against president Joe Biden’s backing of Israel. In New York there was a protest following a walkout of school students the day before. Washington, Houston, Philadelphia and San Fransisco all saw lively demonstrations of solidarity.

In Paris over 10,000 marched and protesters repeatedly focused on the shop chain Carrefour which provides goods for the Israeli army.

Some 3,000 people took to the streets in the capital of the Spanish state, Madrid, chanting, “Free Palestine, killer Israel.” Six government ministers took part, five from the left party Sumar and one from the Labour-type Socialist party.


And ALJAZEERA notes:

Activists have displayed banners saying “Let Gaza Live” and “Ceasefire Now” at basketball games in the United States, the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace said in a post on social media.

The protest comes as four WNBA and three retired NBA players signed on to a statement called “Athletes for ceasefire”.



Gaza remains under assault. Day 134 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  Emine Sinmaz and Patrick Wintour (OBSEVERER) notes, "At least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza, according to the health ministry. More than 68,000 people have been wounded, including 11,000 who need urgent evacuation for treatment outside Gaza, it added." Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:






And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."   


D Parvaz (NPR) reports:

It's been two days since the family and colleagues of Dr. Khaled al-Serr have heard from him.

On Thursday, Israel's military surrounded Nasser Hospital, where Serr worked. The Israeli military fired shots, killing one patient and wounding six others, before entering the hospital.

For three weeks, Nasser Hospital has not had the resources to send patients to other hospitals for specialized care. So Serr, a general surgeon, had to use WhatsApp to ask specialist colleagues for surgical guidance.

On Thursday, Khaled's messages to them grew dire: He wrote that no one could enter the ICU and that the backup ventilators could go out soon, leaving the lives of six patients on respirators in danger.

He sent a video showing an ICU patient he said had died because the electricity had been cut off.

"And another six patients is awaiting the same fate," he said. That was his last communication to his colleagues.

By Saturday evening, frantic colleagues from the groups Healthcare Workers Watch - Palestine, Gaza Medic Voices and Health Workers 4 Palestine issued a statement.

"We are deeply concerned that the Israeli military has abducted and unlawfully detained Khaled Al Serr. We demand his immediate release," it read, sharing Serr's messages, photos and a video.



Lauren Izso (CNN) reports;


A“large number” of medical personnel, patients and displaced people remain trapped inside southern Gaza’s Nasser Medical Complex, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said in a statement on Friday night local time.

It said those trapped in the maternity building of the enclave's largest functioning medical center had been subjected to “interrogation in harsh and inhumane conditions” by Israeli forces.

Electricity also remains cut off to the complex as a result of generators not working, increasing the chances of death for cases requiring oxygen.

Five medical personnel and 120 patients remain in the old building of the compound without food or water, it said.

The statement also claimed Israeli forces had prevented the evacuation of serious cases to other hospitals.

 

Zoe Holland and Mirna Alsharif (NBC NEWS) add:

 

Israel has arrested a "large number" of administrative employees and crews at the Nasser Hospital complex in Khan Younis as they were on duty, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said today.

Nasser Hospital, southern Gaza’s main medical facility, has been besieged by Israel for weeks. Intense fighting in and around Khan Younis over the last three weeks “is causing loss of life and damage to civilian infrastructure,” according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Around 10,000 people are seeking shelter at the hospital.

"The Israeli occupation forces arresting a large number of the administration and staff of the Nasser Medical Complex is a war crime and a disregard for the lives of the sick and wounded who are in dire need of direct care and treatment," the health ministry said in a Telegram statement.


Doctors have witnessed the War Crimes.  At THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, Dr Irfan Galaria writes:


In late January, I left my home in Virginia, where I work as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and joined a group of physicians and nurses traveling to Egypt with the humanitarian aid group MedGlobal to volunteer in Gaza.

I have worked in other war zones. But what I witnessed during the next 10 days in Gaza was not war — it was annihilation. At least 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. From Cairo, Egypt’s capital, we drove 12 hours east to the Rafah border. We passed miles of parked humanitarian aid trucks because they weren’t allowed into Gaza. Aside from my team and other envoy members from the United Nations and World Health Organization, there were very few others there.

Entering southern Gaza on Jan. 29, where many have fled from the north, felt like the first pages of a dystopian novel. Our ears were numb with the constant humming of what I was told were the surveillance drones that circled constantly. Our noses were consumed with the stench of 1 million displaced humans living in close proximity without adequate sanitation. Our eyes got lost in the sea of tents. We stayed at a guest house in Rafah. Our first night was cold, and many of us couldn’t sleep. We stood on the balcony listening to the bombs, and seeing the smoke rise from Khan Yunis.

As we approached the European Gaza Hospital the next day, there were rows of tents that lined and blocked the streets. Many Palestinians gravitated toward this and other hospitals hoping it would represent a sanctuary from the violence — they were wrong.

People also spilled into the hospital: living in hallways, stairwell corridors and even storage closets. The once-wide walkways designed by the European Union to accommodate the busy traffic of medical staff, stretchers and equipment were now reduced to a single-file passageway. On either side, blankets hung from the ceiling to cordon off small areas for entire families, offering a sliver of privacy. A hospital designed to accommodate about 300 patients was now struggling to care for more than 1,000 patients and hundreds more seeking refuge.

There were a limited number of local surgeons available. We were told that many had been killed or arrested, their whereabouts or even their existence unknown. Others were trapped in occupied areas in the north or nearby places where it was too risky to travel to the hospital. There was only one local plastic surgeon left and he covered the hospital 24/7. His home had been destroyed, so he lived in the hospital, and was able to stuff all of his personal possessions into two small hand bags. This narrative became all too common among the remaining staff at the hospital. This surgeon was lucky, because his wife and daughter were still alive, although almost everyone else working in the hospital was mourning the loss of their loved ones.


Voices of reason and sanity can be heard. Kathy Hochul and other idiotic voices are heard more often because the media loves them.  Andrew Cuomo left the governorship in disgrace.  And Kathy, his running mate, slide right in.  Strange that the media didn't want to connect her to the scandals of his administration -- which did include -- and Kathy was hands on for this -- pushing back against the women who said Cuomo harassed them.

If the media did it's job, Kathy wouldn't be creating an international embarrassment right now as we speak.  The only thing worse than her remarks about attacking Canada was her 'apology.'


In other news, THE JORDAN TIMES reports:


His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday met Iraq Prime Minister Mohammed S. Al Sudani on the sidelines of the 60th Munich Security Conference in Germany.

Discussions covered the importance of ending the war on Gaza and ensuring the delivery of relief aid around the Strip to prevent further deterioration of the humanitarian catastrophe there, according to a Royal Court statement.

His Majesty noted the importance of Arab coordination to continue supporting Gazans and push towards an immediate ceasefire, while also working to create a political horizon to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state solution.

The meeting also covered the deep-rooted ties between Jordan and Iraq, with the King stressing that Jordan and Iraq’s security is one.

Also in Munich, His Majesty met with President of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq Nechirvan Barzani, with discussions covering bilateral ties and the latest regional developments, the statement said. 

For more on Iraq, I did an entry -- "NYT continues to sell the Iraq War, trans blogger Simsim is killed in Iraq" -- about 23 hours ago here to cover some developments.  Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Charm Free Marjorie" went up Friday.  The following sites updated:







 

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