Thursday, June 06, 2024

A multi-pronged genocide

First up, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "A Message From Governor Greg Asshole" went up tonight.


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Things keep getting worse in Gaza.  Today on DEMOCRACY NOW!, Amy Goodman noted:


Karin Huster, a medical adviser with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, said there has been an “insane escalation of hostilities” across the Gaza Strip over the last two days.

Karin Huster: “We have seen hospitals being bombed. We have seen refugee camps being bombed. We have seen humanitarian warehouses being bombed. The situation is apocalyptic. This morning on my way to the hospital, I saw two donkeys carrying the bodies of at least eight people who had died in the hostilities of the last night. When we arrived, the emergency room was completely packed. There were families screaming. There was a man screaming for his family that had died.”


 

At DAWN, Dr Usman Shah describes what he saw in Gaza:

Born in Pakistan and raised in Florida, Dr Shah, 43, was among the 17 British, American and African doctors who visited Gaza earlier this month as a part of a medical mission. For three weeks in April and May — on behalf of a non-profit organisation — he worked at the European General Hospital in Khan Younis, which was desperately short of everything except badly wounded patients.

The day he entered the Strip through the Egyptian border, the doctor was confronted with hunger, rubble and the perpetual buzzing of drones. But also in the midst of the destruction was the ‘I Love Gaza’ sign, situated at the entrance to the crossing in eastern Rafah, which was later run over by an Israeli tank.

Dr Shah stayed at a guest house that night, located in an area declared a “green zone” by the Israeli military.

“The next morning, as we drove towards the hospital, we saw bombed buildings, lots of camps and tents, and dishevelled people on the streets. There is no sewage system or clean water,” he recalled.

On reaching the medical facility, the group split into several teams. Dr Shah made his way towards the intensive care unit, where his expertise lay, and was introduced to the staff — all Palestinians.

“When I got a tour of the ICU, I was shocked to find that there was a dire shortage of supplies. The censors on the ventilators/respirators were not working which made them dangerous to use. These ventilators could not be fixed because they were old and needed repairs.

“Due to this, all the ventilators caught a bacteria called Acinetobacter, so if you were on the ventilator for more than a day, you would get pneumonia. A lot of these patients ended up dying,” he said.

Dr Shah recounts his experience calmly, the same way he treats his patients. But every day he spent in Gaza, there was the persistent pressure of deciding who could be saved and who was beyond hope. Patients with open wounds lay on the hospital floors, surrounded by blood and flies, the air filled with the cries of grieving families.

“I saw a lot of patients with shrapnel injuries … when the shrapnel hit their body, it was sometimes so strong that it would enter their organs i.e. brain and lungs, and caused trauma.”


It's not just a genocide.  It's a multi-pronged genocide where they kill Palestinians not just with bullets and bombs but by denying them medical supplies and by denying them food.


If you can't see that this is a genocide by now, I'm wondering when reality arrives at your doorstep.


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Thursday, June 6, 2024.  At least forty people dead from an Israeli attack on a refugee camp -- the attack carried out with US weapons -- the attack only one of at least three attacks on refugee camps taking place today.


As the day begins in the US, the killing continues in Gaza.  THE IRISH TIMES explains, "Forty people have been killed after an overnight Israeli strike on the UN-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, local authorities report."  Yes, the Israeli government has attacked another refugee camp and to really make it a War Crime, they attacked a school at a refugee camp.  The dead does include children as Australia's ABC notes and the outlet also notes, "Footage showed bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags being laid out in lines in the courtyard of the hospital, which was largely dark as staff try to conserve limited fuel for electricity."  SKY NEWS points out, "Eight months into Israel's offensive in Gaza, UNRWA schools in the region now function as shelters as the war has displaced most of the 2.3 million people in the territory."   Abeer Salman and Rob Picheta (CNN) note, "According to a journalist in the area working with CNN, the school was hit by at least three missiles that penetrated the three-story building. The facility was believed to be housing approximately 20,000 displaced people who had taken shelter in the school, its yard, and the surrounding area, according to the journalist."   Wafaa Shurafa and Samy Magdy (AP) remind, "It was the latest instance of mass casualties among Palestinians trying to find refuge as Israel expands its offensives in the Gaza Strip."   Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) offers this context, "The UNRWA school in Nuseirat was just the latest U.N. facility targeted by the Israeli military during its eight-month U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have damaged or destroyed more than half of Gaza's infrastructure, including all of its universities."  The criminal government of Israel claims terrorists were at the camp.  That would not justify dropping bombs on a refugee camp.  But let's note that the residents of the camp are rejecting the assertion.   Mohammed al-Haijar and Nader Durgham (MIDDLE EAST EYE) report:


 
Mohammed al-Hajjar in Deir al-Balah, occupied Palestine and Nader Durgham in Beirut     
“They’re saying they were targeting fighters. What fighters? We don’t have any weapons, we came here for safety with nothing but our tents and the clothes on our backs,” said Ansam. 

Gaza's media office also strongly rejected Israel claims.

“The occupation uses lying to the public opinion through false fabricated stories to justify the brutal crime it conducted against dozens of displaced people,” Ismail al-Thawabta, the director of the office, told Reuters.


Some video reports from this morning.





Some Tweets about the slaughter.








The Israeli government is carrying out these War Crimes but the US government is backing the War Crimes by supplying the weapons.  CNN’s Allegra Goodwin reports:

US-made munitions were used in a deadly Israeli airstrike on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza on Thursday where Palestinians were sheltering, a CNN analysis of video from the scene and review by an explosive weapons expert has found.  

At least 45 people died in strike on the school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, a spokesperson for Gaza's Ministry of Health told CNN. 

CNN identified fragments of at least two US-made GBU-39 small diameter bombs (SDB) in video filmed at the scene by a journalist working for CNN.  

[. . .]

US munitions again used: This incident is the second time in two weeks that CNN has been able to verify the use of US-manufactured munitions in deadly Israeli attacks on displaced Palestinians.

At least 45 people were killed and more than 200 others injured on May 26 after a fire broke out following an IDF strike on a displacement camp in Rafah, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics.   



As THE NATIONAL notes, the above refugee camp bombing was not the only attack on refugee camps that Israel has carried out this morning, "'Violent bombardment' was also reported at Bureij refugee camp, with strikes also hitting Al Maghazi refugee camp, both also in central Gaza. Strikes were also reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south





AMY GOODMAN: Israeli forces began an escalated offensive on areas of central Gaza today, with airstrikes and ground forces moving into parts of Deir al-Balah, including the Bureij refugee camp. Al Jazeera reports at least 75 people have been killed in the past 24 hours in central Gaza, and the partially functioning hospitals in the area are struggling to cope with the surge in casualties.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops are continuing their offensive on Rafah in the south, where more than 1 million people have fled over the past few weeks, many of them heading back toward central Gaza. Airstrikes are also continuing in the north, as well. Over the past eight months, Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced over and over again, as they flee from one area to the next in a desperate search for safety.

Today we look at one young Palestinian story. He’s 19-year-old Helmi Hirez. He’s from Gaza City in northern Gaza. As Israel escalated its attacks on Gaza City, he fled south to Rafah with his parents and identical twin brother. A few days after they left, an Israeli airstrike hit their family home in Gaza City, killing 14 members of their family. Helmi spent three months sheltering in Rafah, until an airstrike slammed into the building next to where he was staying, burying him, his parents and his twin brother under the rubble. His mother was killed in that attack. Helmi then relocated yet again, this time to al-Mawasi, a coastal plot of land east of Khan Younis.

Helmi joins us now to tell his story. He’s joining us from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, and there is a very long delay between when we ask the question and he’ll be able to answer it.

But, Helmi, welcome to Democracy Now! If you can start off by telling us your story? Talk about your journey from Gaza City and what has happened to your family all along the way.

HELMI HIREZ: OK. OK. Thank you, Amy, for having me.

Well, as you can see, I’m now in Deir al-Balah, in al-Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital. And it’s super crowded here, because several bombings have happened in the last two hours. The hospital is super crowded, and many injured people are here.

To start, I’m Helmi Hirez, 19 years old, from Gaza City, al-Rimal neighborhood, near Al-Shifa Hospital. Me and my family got out of Gaza on November 11th. After Al-Shifa Hospital and the entire Rimal neighborhood got invaded, we went into Rafah city, walking five kilometers on foot, while the Israeli army was pointing guns at us. And sometimes in this long road — I mean Salah al-Din Street road — sometimes we needed to jump over dead bodies just to don’t walk on them, dead bodies that were left intentionally to create this horrifying mental effect. After one week of our department from Gaza, our house in al-Rimal neighborhood got bombed with two rockets, exactly on November 18th, and 14 beloved family members were killed there. In that day, November 18th, Israel killed over than 1,000 Palestinians.

After that, we spent three months in Rafah city. And on February 12th, the building next to us got bombed. And we were in the center of Rafah city in two-floors building, and the building next to us was four-floors building. And the spaces between the houses in the center of Rafah city is sometimes less than one meter. So, when that building was bombed with four rockets, we got buried with the rubble. And I was able to get myself out of the rubble, and my twin brother and my father, and start digging over my mother. We dug over than one meter of rubble, and we got our mother breathing. And some guys took her to the hospital as fast as possible. And we kept digging over our sister. We got our sister awake, but not aware. She was vomiting blood. We went to a near house, and we hid there. And unfortunately, my mother suffered from internal bleeding, and she didn’t make it.

After that, we went to al-Mawasi area, living in a tent. After two months in al-Mawasi area, a near place in less than 200 meters — a near place in less than 200 meters where our camp was got bombed with two rockets also, and which destroyed our entire camp, killing over than four people, and it burned our tent. And we needed to buy a new one and to move to another area in al-Mawasi.

And this is just my continuous journey of displacement from one place to another, my continuous journey of loss from one place to another. We now live in al-Mawasi area, in less than two kilometers far from where the Israeli army exists. We are super worried. And all we are in al-Mawasi area are super worried that the Israeli army may come again to Khan Younis city or may invade al-Mawasi area. There is a lot of rumors about that. And whenever you walk in al-Mawasi, people are always looking towards the south, where the fire and the flames are coming out of Rafah city. And we can hear the sounds of the shelling and the bombing in Rafah city all day long and all night long.

We really don’t know where we can go. It’s very hard to know where the safe place is. I mean, we’re now in a green area, and you can hear the bombing every 10 or 15 minutes. In al-Mawasi, we’re in a green area also, and you can hear the bombing all day long, and you can be targeted in any minute. We now live in a tent, which is super hard for me and my family. Because al-Mawasi and Rafah city has kind of a desert climate, because we are near to Sinai Desert, it is super hot. And living in a tent is exactly like living in an oven. Sometimes, in some hours in the day, like 1 p.m., you need to get out of the tent so you can be able to breathe. You get out of the tent, sitting in the sun, just so you can be able to breathe. Cooking on fire and all of these hard life conditions isn’t suitable, isn’t working for us. Me and my twin brother are programmers, and we would never experience this kind of hard lifestyle.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Helmi —

HELMI HIREZ: Well, I also want to talk about that I started a campaign to help my family. Can you hear me?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Helmi, I wanted to ask you — you were a — first of all, condolences again for the loss of so many members of your family. Before the war, you and your twin brother were students. Could you talk to us about what you were studying and what your hopes were for your own future before the war?

HELMI HIREZ: Yes. Yes. I’m a computer engineering student, and my brother is an AI engineering student. I learned programming since the age of 10 years old. And I have worked for so many projects and so many companies. I got pro in the field, and I learned so many skills. And my brother is a brilliant AI engineer. He developed so many great inventions. In coronavirus crisis, he developed a system so all the malls and all the public places can identify by camera if this person is wearing a mask or not, allow him to enter the building or not, and to limit the disease transportation. And it actually helped a lot in Gaza City. Most public places in Gaza City took his invention and used it.

I was talking also about that I started a campaign to help my family, because my father was working in Israel before the war. He has permission to work in Tel Aviv. And when this war started, he lost his job. And after three months, we lost our mother, who was a digital marketing agent, so we lost our sole source of income. And we suffered a lot to provide the needed things for our family. So I started a GoFundMe campaign in hopes to help us, like, hold the living experiences of the war, and, after that, at least to rent an apartment and to help me and my brother to our college tuitions to finish our education, after we lost all of our sources of income.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about your FundMe page, donate to help a twin. We’re showing a photograph right now — we’ve been showing it — of you and your identical twin brother Mohammed. You’re both, what, AI-tech twins, because you’re known for working on AI. But I also wanted to comment on the noise behind you. Our radio audience cannot see this, but we have seen dead bodies behind you wrapped in shrouds, because the place you are right now, right nearby, these attacks have taken place, just in the last 24 hours, so there’s a lot of chaos behind you. But we think it’s worth working hard to hear what you have to say, given your incredible journey. And again, our condolences on the loss of so many of your family members, including your mother. I’m wondering, Helmi, if you can tell us more about your mother, the picture of you and your brother in your graduation gowns with your mom, with that lovely smile, and what her aspirations were for you, and where you plan to go to now, given that the place you have moved to for, I don’t know how many times, is now the site of Israeli bombing.

HELMI HIREZ: Yes. About the picture, this picture was taken last year in my high school graduation in my last year in high school. The person on the left is me, Helmi. My name in Arabic means “my dream.” My mother named me. The person in the middle is my mother, Ibtisam, which means “smile.” And she always smiled. And the person on the left is my identical twin brother Mohammed.

We don’t really know where we can go right now, because there is no safe place in Gaza. I mean, we went to Rafah city. Since the day one of the war, they told us, they throw from the plane, they throw papers from the plane saying, “Go to Rafah city. Go to this specific area.” And they drew it on the map. We went there since the beginning of the war. And eventually, they got orders to get out of this area. So, we didn’t know where to go. Especially in this time of the war, people don’t know where to go. They are afraid from going to Deir al-Balah, and because the Israeli army didn’t invade Deir al-Balah before, so they may invade it now. They don’t know where to go. They can’t go to al-Mawasi. I mean, it’s very close to Rafah city, where the Israeli army exists. And they may invade it from this area. Now we’re just squeezed in the middle.

And, I mean, you can see the place I’m in right now. Every single second, you can see an ambulance coming here. And I’m still under shock, because just two minutes before this interview starts, I saw a shattered dead body. And it was a super horrifying scene. I still can’t, like, process that. After all I went through, I still can’t process seeing this kind of destructive.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Helmi, what would you — if you could reach out and tell the rest of the world, the people outside of Gaza, what you’re hoping the world can do to assist you and the other Palestinians in Gaza right now?

HELMI HIREZ: Well, they can raise their voices to ask for the stop of the genocide that is happening in Gaza. And I can’t find any other word that describes what is happening other than “genocide.” They can donate to help the people of Gaza and donate to help build in Gaza all over again, where the destruction in Gaza has removed the entire city, just make it sands over sands. Two days ago, I was in Khan Younis city. And, well, as far as your eye can see, it is only sands. The city does not exist anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: Helmi Hirez, we want to thank you so much for —

HELMI HIREZ: For me personally, you can help me by donating to my GoFundMe and my campaign to help my family.

AMY GOODMAN: Helmi, thank you so much for joining us in this extremely difficult, difficult time. We can’t say enough how much we send our condolences to your entire family. Helmi Hirez is a 19-year-old Palestinian, originally from Gaza City, 14 members of his family killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, just after he, his mom and his dad, his twin brother and sister left and went to Rafah, where they were then struck in an airstrike, struck into the rubble, his mother killed. We will continue to follow Helmi’s story and bring you more later.

Next up, the board of directors at the Columbia Law Review shuts down the law review’s website after student editors published an article by a Palestinian legal scholar on establishing Nakba as a formal legal concept. Stay with us.


Gaza remains under assault. Day 244 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."  THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 36,654, with 83,309 injured."   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:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 

As for 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."



The UN children's agency said on Thursday that nine out of 10 children in Gaza could not get nutrients from enough food groups to ensure their healthy growth and development.

"In the Gaza Strip, months of hostilities and restrictions on humanitarian aid have collapsed the food and health systems, resulting in catastrophic consequences for children and their families," Unicef said.

It said that five sets of data collected between December 2023 and April 2024 had found that nine out of 10 children in the Gaza Strip, which has been pounded by an Israeli offensive since last October, are suffering from severe food poverty.

This means they are surviving on at most two food groups a day.

"This is evidence of the horrific impact the conflict and restrictions are having on families' ability to meet children's food needs – and the speed at which it places children at risk of life-threatening malnutrition," Unicef said.




The following sites updated:







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