Does the Israeli government know or care what it’s doing?
And what if it does? (via The Guardian):
Summary of the day so far…
- Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Sunday that an Israeli airstrike targeting a house at Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 31 people, updating an earlier toll. “The civil defence crew were able to recover 31 martyrs and 20 wounded from a house belonging to the Hassan family, which was targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Nuseirat camp,” Gaza civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told journalists. He said rescue workers were continuing to search for missing people under the rubble.
- The stranglehold on aid reaching Gaza threatens an “apocalyptic” outcome, the UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Speaking on the sidelines of meetings with Qatari officials in Doha, he said: “If fuel runs out, aid doesn’t get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming any more. It will be present.” “And I think our worry, as citizens of the international community, is that the consequence is going to be really, really hard. Hard, difficult, and apocalyptic,” he added.
- Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said the kingdom demanded an international investigation into what it said were many war crimes committed during Israel’s war in Gaza. In remarks made during a press conference with the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa), Safadi said those responsible for documented crimes should be brought to justice.
- The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said rescue teams have recovered the bodies of 150 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in recent days.
- In the early hours of Sunday morning, Al Jazeera Arabic’s journalists on the ground reported Israeli raids in Rafah in the south of enclave and in the vicinity of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where raids were also reported in the sheikh Zayed and Zeitoun neighbourhoods.
Virtually all we know we get from reports like these.
U.S. medics trapped in Gaza share emotional testimonies
Perhaps one of the American doctors from the group tells NPR:
Dr. Adam Hamawy, a U.S. doctor and former U.S. Army combat surgeon who is currently in Gaza, says he has “never in my career witnessed the level of atrocities and targeting of my medical colleagues as I have in Gaza.”
Hospitals in Gaza are reported on the verge of collapse.
“The weight of it all”
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan shares with Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo her experience working two weeks in Gaza. It’s not pretty (40 min video):
“What I saw [in Gaza]… was utter and complete carnage,” Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan tells author and Zeteo contributor Fatima Bhutto in the latest episode of ‘The Exchange.’ Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor, recently spent two weeks in Gaza working at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central part of the enclave.
“You would smell the burning flesh of children sometimes when these mass casualties came in, and then you would hear the screaming,” Haj-Hassan says.
But it’s not just these horrific scenes and the limited resources that health workers in Gaza are contending with; they’re also being targeted, detained, and in some cases, abused or tortured, by Israeli forces, according to Haj-Hassan and Dr. Rebecca Inglis, a UK-based intensive care physician who also joins Zeteo on this episode of ‘The Exchange.’
The UN has documented more than 400 attacks on Gaza’s healthcare since the war began. Hundreds of health workers have been reportedly killed, and more than 200 have been detained by Israel. Of those detained, at least two-thirds were taken from hospitals or ambulances – while “doing their lifesaving work,” says Inglis. Haj-Hassan and Inglis have helped Palestinian health workers share their experiences through the @GazaMedicVoices Twitter account the two doctors started early in the war.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan describes the systematic destruction of any infrastructure that helps keep people in Gaza alive.
On the diplomatic front (New York Times):
The U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday as the United States and other countries push Israel to limit its incursion into Rafah, where Israel had initially encouraged Palestinians to seek safety.
The United States has repeatedly called on Israel not to launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza. Although Israel has labeled its current operation “limited,” about 800,000 people have fled after evacuation orders, while satellite imagery shows widening destruction.
A White House spokesman, John Kirby, said on Friday that Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Netanyahu were slated to discuss talks to release hostages being held in Gaza, the humanitarian crisis and the “enduring defeat of Hamas through both military pressure and a political plan.”
Plan? What kind of plan? I’m afraid to ask.
The Economist (subscription): The Israeli army is caught in a doom loop in Gaza
“They [the Israeli government] will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency,” Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, told cbs, a broadcast network, warning of the risks of leaving Hamas a vacuum to fill.
There is blame to go around. The idf pushed for a big ground offensive in October knowing full well that Mr Netanyahu would be loth to talk about post-war diplomacy. America supported that offensive. They are belatedly realising what should have been clear months ago: that without a plan to secure and govern Gaza, Israel will be fighting a war without end.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.