Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Open letter to Joe Biden

baroness

From earlier tonight, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "From The River To The Sea No Student Shall Be Free"

 

New York Daily News reports, "President Joe Biden condemned Tuesday the student-led occupation of a Columbia University academic building, after protesters’ takeover of Hamilton Hall put the school on lockdown."  And then they sicked the cops on the kids.




I'm sorry, Joe Biden, but you're not getting my vote.  I was willing to play, "You're our only hope against Trump!"  I was willing to vote for the good things you've done -- and you have done some good things.

I'm a Green but was going to vote for the Democrat.  

And I've been horrified by the deaths of Palestinians all this time.  But I said, "Change moves slowly."  

That's gone.  There was no reason for you to attack the students.  There was no reason for you to condemn them.

American students were attacked and that's on you, Joe Biden.

You have lied every day since October 7th.  You didn't see photos of beheaded babies.  No women were gang-raped in the middle of an attack.

You're a liar.

And your lies have created this point in history.

The students' crime?  Telling the truth.

Yeah, Joe Biden, a liar like you?  I'm sure you find truth tellers frightening.

I hope it was worth it to you because I'm not voting for you.  

You showed no respect for the truth, no respect for the Palestinians and now no respect for American students.

So you're on your own Joe.

Up until yesterday, this Green Party member would have voted for you, Joe.  Never voted Dem my whole life.  But I was willing to hold my nose.  Not now.  

Don't mistake that, Joe, for me saying I'll vote Jill Stein.  I won't.  She's a bigger liar than you and has already proved to be a loser in two presidential runs and has also left our party in deep debt.  I most likely will not vote for president.  But I know I won't vote for you and that's on you, no one else.

 

 

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Wednesday, May 1, 2024.  Officials unleash the police on peaceful student protesters.


There are various versions going out to news consumers about what took place at Columbia University last night.  

 
Hundreds of New York Police Department officers entered campus on Tuesday night and cleared Hamilton Hall, which demonstrators occupied early Tuesday morning, arresting dozens of protesters. The sweep came after University President Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD “to clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments” on Tuesday.

Outside the admissions office entrance to Hamilton, officers pushed protesters to the ground and slammed them with metal barricades. Police began arresting protesters outside the main entrance of the building at around 9:30 p.m.

One protester lay on the ground in front of Hamilton unmoving as police officers stood over them. Three officers then carried the individual away from the building. Another protester was thrown down the stairs in front of Hamilton, according to videos reviewed by Spectator.

As they entered the building, officers threw down the metal and wooden tables barricading the doors and shattered the glass on the leftmost doors of Hamilton to enter with shields in hand. As they entered rooms in the building, several officers drew their guns, according to footage posted by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry.

The arrests came on the 56th anniversary of the 1968 police sweep of the Morningside campus, when the NYPD arrested hundreds of students occupying several buildings on campus, including Hamilton Hall.


That's sound and basic journalism.  Let's zoom in on a 'local' news report that was, in fact, aired nationally with a liar at each station pretending that they were the 'reporter' on the piece.


Who's a whore?  So many but let's go to a big market, let's not pick on someone already struggling in a small one.  So let's go to Los Angeles.

KTLA's Sandra Mitchell is a whore.  I get it, I do.  When you look like her in Chicago, viewers might just find you plain.  But for Los Angeles TV?  You're butt ugly.  You're the one they take up an office donations for cosmetic surgery.  So I get it, Sandra, you'll stoop to anything.  But your decision to pass someone else's report from New York off as your own on local Los Angeles television?

Well, whore, that means you have to answer for it.  

So she needs to answer for her report yesterday evening (which again she just narrated and pretended like she had done it herself) when you featured two people -- each billed solely as "Columbia student" -- praising the violent assault by the police.  Onscreen they were just "Columbia student."  And wasn't it, strange, Sandra, how "you" (reality: some reporter in New York) could only find two students to speak to and they weren't involved in the protest so they really weren't pat of the news.  But the two you provide for context both hate the protesters and these two are just students, just two students with no dog in the battle.  

No, they do have dogs in the battle.  Take bow wow Jessica Schwalb who is actually a journalist and is actually a Palestinian hater who has been Tweeting hatred at the protesters for as long as it's been going on and this Laura Loomer fan girl goes back even further on her Tweets attacking the Palestinians and attacking their supporters -- no links to trash.

She's not the only nightmare.  Playing a right-wing version of the Rupert Everett to her right-wing Julia Roberts, we get Jonas Du -- known as Jonas Doo-Doo to his friends?  This "Columbia student" who is also the only other student interviewed by "Sandra" also happens to be a right-winger. 

In fact, he and Jessica are working with the right-wing press as he noted before he and Jessica spoke to "Sandra" for "her" "report" -- he Tweeted:

It’s an honor to work with
@bariweiss
and
@TheFP
in collaboration with
@jessicaschwalb7
to cover the madness that has engulfed Columbia



Get it? 


It took me less than two minutes -- while walking on the treadmill to warm up -- to find the information that "Sandra" should have found herself before putting a name to a report that she didn't do and couldn't have done.  

But that is what happens thanks to media consolidation.  Like far too many channels in this country, KTLA is owned by NEXSTAR MEDIA GROUP.  They own 197 TV stations throughout the country.

Shame on Sandra and KTLA and every other of the 196 that the garbage 'report' got aired on.  Sandra now resumes trying to pose her body seductively while doing hard hitting topics like dog safety.  Does she think this is the pose of a journalist or a sexpot?
 

 





Normal women don't angle themselves in a chair like that -- nor, and this goes for her co-host as well -- do they were Joan Crawford f**k-me heels for a mid-day segment.



They won't tell the truth about the protesters because the truth hurts their side.  The truth puts the blood on their hands.  So they lie about the protesters and NEXSTAR viewers were under the impression that they were watching a locally produced segment (how did their local TV favorite get to New York and back!!!!) with fairness and no distortions.  They didn't know that the students -- the only ones who got to speak on camera -- were both fright-wingers working with Bari The Transphobe Weiss.  Don't worry, Zac and Gavin will find a way to brag about Bari's ethics in yet another editon of THE VANGUARD.

Media consolidation hurts us all.  Might be something to remember as renewal licenses are sought.


WSWS continues its coverage of Columbia and the other universities where students are making their voices heard. 



From the report on Columbia University -- the first one listed above -- we'll note this:

In order to prevent objective documentation of their brutality, police forced legal observers, press and medics to leave the campus area, and even public streets nearby, before they began their assault. As of this writing it is unclear how many protesters have been arrested and the extent of their injuries. 

The police brutality witnessed at Columbia Tuesday night was replicated across the country. At the University of South Florida in Tampa, riot police were recorded firing tear gas and rubber bullets against unarmed and peaceful protesters. 

The coordinated and violent assaults on non-violent student encampments have been ordered from the White House. On Tuesday, the Biden administration issued a series of statements doubling down on the lie that anti-Gaza genocide protests continuing to spread across US university campuses are antisemitic, signaling its support for stepped-up police attacks and arrests of peaceful protesters. 

In response to the occupation of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall by pro-Palestinian students in the early morning hours of Tuesday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates declared:

President Biden has stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life. He condemns the use of the term “intifada,” as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days. President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful—it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.

Biden’s lead was taken up by New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop, who said “external actors” were behind the Columbia occupation and demanded that all protesters “leave the area now.” He added that the occupation “must end now.”

The occupation of the classroom building came in response to the university’s announcement that it had begun suspending students who defied its order that a protest encampment set up two weeks ago be disbanded. The administration effectively placed the entire campus on lockdown.

This followed the mobilization of New York City police to attack and arrest hundreds of protesters, who courageously refused to end their protest demanding that the university divest from Israel as part of the fight to stop the US/Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, which has already taken the lives of more than 34,000 defenseless civilians, mainly women and children.

Following the occupation of Hamilton Hall, the university announced that it would expel students who refused to leave the building.

The hypocrisy of the White House statement defies description. Biden and his accomplices in both parties and all branches of the government are supplying the fascistic government of Benjamin Netanyahu with the bullets, bombs, tanks, missiles and war planes that are being used to murder and starve Palestinians, while providing political cover for the murderous Zionist regime. Along with its imperialist and NATO allies around the world, the US is defying mass demonstrations all over the world demanding a halt to the greatest war crime since the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during World War II.



Fireworks, tear gas and fights broke out just after 10:50 p.m. Tuesday night and continued early Wednesday morning as around 100 pro-Israel counter-protesters attempted to seize the barricade around and storm the ongoing Palestine solidarity encampment in Dickson Plaza.

The chaos comes as Chancellor Gene Block faces criticism for improper handling of the encampment and the same day the university deemed the encampment to be unlawful, threatening students inside with suspension and expulsion. Security and UCPD both retreated as pro-Israel counter-protesters and other groups attacked protesters in the encampment – led by Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Divest Coalition at UCLA – that followed similar ones across the country. 

There has been a minimal police presence on campus despite multiple events of counter-protesters antagonizing the encampment since Thursday.

UC President Michael Drake released a statement Tuesday evening supporting the university’s decision to label the encampment as unlawful, adding that “when it threatens the safety of students, or anyone else, we must act.” 

In an emailed statement sent at 12:40 a.m., Mary Osako – the vice chancellor of strategic communications – said the university had called law enforcement personnel for immediate support.

“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight,” she said in the statement. “The fire department and medical personnel are on the scene. We are sickened by this senseless violence and it must end.”

At around 10:50 p.m., counter-protesters – who had been gathering around the encampment since that afternoon – began wrestling with protesters inside and CSC security hired by UCLA over the metal barricades surrounding the Gaza solidarity encampment. The barriers came down shortly afterward, and counter-protesters wearing masks then began shoving the wooden boards surrounding the encampment, attempting to topple them onto the protesters inside.

“If they can be there, so can we,” a counter-protester shouted through a megaphone as they tore down the metal barriers. Just before the barriers came down, another yelled, “You guys are going to want to get this. This is history being made.”

CSC security officers hired by the university retreated into Kaplan Hall shortly after, refusing to allow entrance into the building to anyone, including Daily Bruin reporters. The Daily Bruin had previously been pledged 24-hour access to Haines Hall by UCLA Media Relations to protect the safety of its staff, but when reporters attempted to access the building, they found it locked. No immediate remedy was provided, and Media Relations only said that they were working on providing a solution.

After the barricades came down, counter-protesters and protesters inside the encampment began to fight. Counter-protesters shot fireworks into the encampment just after 11 p.m., and irritant gasses were released from both sides. A Daily Bruin reporter was indirectly sprayed in the face.


That might shock you if you read the bulk of the coverage with one outlet after another attempting to pretend that both sides started it.  No, for hours it had been egged on by the pro-genocide activists.  Unlike many others, ALJAZEERA gets the reality correct;

The People’s City Council, a collective of different activist organizations, has published a statement on behalf of the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment.

It said that the encampment was attacked with gas canisters, pepper spray, fireworks and bricks overnight.

According to the statement, the university’s external security watched and filmed the attack, while law enforcement did not intervene.


Even the use of police force to silence democracy will not work.  Protests continue to pop up.  Dallas; WFAA reports on Denton's University of North Texas:



  Hundreds of students marched Tuesday at the University of North Texas, demanding the school disclose any foundation investments that might benefit Israel’s military.

The Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student organization, coordinated the walkout. 

“Our youth is fighting a just cause for the liberation of Palestine,” Palestine Solidarity Committee member Talia Irsh told WFAA. “They are standing up to say that we are not okay with genocide. We are not okay with our institutions funding genocide and profiting off of genocide.”

 
[, , ,]

The demonstration was considerably larger than similar protests last week at UT Dallas and UT Arlington, which also finished without incident. UNT has more than 49,000 students enrolled, about 10,000 more than UT Arlington and about 20,000 more than UT Dallas.

A friend who's a college professor at UNT told me over the phone that UNT has not seen this kind of turnout and activity since 1994 when Pearl Jam played live on campus.




 

AMY GOODMAN: As police crack down on student protesters around the country, we begin today at Columbia University, where scores of students took over Hamilton Hall just after midnight last night after the school began suspending students who refused to leave the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which began almost two weeks ago. Columbia’s Emergency Management Operations Team says it has now locked down the main campus following the occupation. Hamilton Hall was also the site of a historic student occupation in 1968. Students have renamed the building Hind’s Hall in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

PROTESTER: [echoed by the people’s mic] This building is liberated in honor of Hind, a 6-year-old Palestinian child murdered in Gaza!

AMY GOODMAN: Students are calling for Columbia University to divest from Israel. Democracy Now! was on campus Monday. We spoke to professors and students after a vote around noon to stay in the encampment despite being sanctioned with interim suspension.

PROTESTERS: Disclose! Divest! We will not stop! We will not rest! Disclose! Divest!

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! We’re on the Columbia University campus. Right behind us is the tent encampment. There are dozens of tents there. And then you see around me are people in orange fluorescent vests. They are the faculty. They are the professors at Columbia University who are here to protect their students. It’s just before 2:30, when a news conference will be held. We just passed a 2 p.m. deadline, when Columbia President Shafik said after this point that the students can be suspended. It’s not clear whether they will be moving in the police. On Friday, President Shafik said they would not send in the New York police. But as we were coming up from the subway, there were scores of police. And I now have heard that they’re standing there with plastic handcuffs. But these students are determined.

SUEDA POLAT: My name is Sueda Polat. I’m a student organizer. I’m a graduate student at Columbia University. I study human rights here. I’m also part of the negotiating team.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you could tell us what is it exactly you’re demanding?

SUEDA POLAT: Simple. We don’t want to trade in the blood of Palestinians. And that means divestment from all direct and indirect holding that this university has, whether that be weapons manufacturing, companies that operate illegally in occupied territory, companies that produce information technology for the occupation army. Complete divestment.

We’re also requesting disclosure. We don’t have transparency on this university’s investments. And we need that to be able to push the movement further.

We’re also requesting amnesty. Hundreds of our students have been disciplined over the past six months on unfair premises. We’re willing to put a lot on the line for this cause. My right to education shouldn’t come before the right to education of Gazans.

LINNEA NORTON: My name is Linnea Norton. I’m a Ph.D. student here.

AMY GOODMAN: In?

LINNEA NORTON: In — I study ecology and climate science. I’m a second-year. And yeah, I’ve been part of the initial encampment and was one of the over a hundred students who were suspended and arrested, or first arrested and subsequently suspended.

We have our doctors in John Jay Hall, just there. And my shoulder was injured during the arrest because we were zip-tied for like seven hours straight. And I couldn’t go to the doctor. So I had to go to — because I wasn’t allowed to enter campus and be on campus property. So I had to go to urgent care.

AMY GOODMAN: So you had to pay for that.

LINNEA NORTON: Yeah, yeah.

PROTESTERS: Hey hey! Ho ho! The occupation has got to go!

SHANA REDMOND: My name is Shana Redmond. I am a professor of English and comparative literature and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. And I’m here today because this is leadership in action. These students have taken the worst of circumstances on a global scale and the worst of circumstances at a very localized university scale and turned it into something beautiful. The encampment here, complete with a library, complete with a deescalation team, complete with lessons and teach-ins, has modeled for this campus what open and free inquiry and debate actually looks like.

As the students say, we keep us safe. And so, we, as faculty, are here to assist in ensuring that that is made true.

NADIA ABU EL-HAJ: I’m Nadia Abu El-Haj. I’m an anthropologist, a professor of anthropology, and the co-director of the Center for Palestine Studies. The people behind me in the orange vests are mostly faculty, some staff, who have been mobilized since the last police raid, however long ago it was. We’ve mobilized faculty who would come out and stand sort of both guard but also mostly witness if the police came in again. The president has promised that the police would not come in. That was a promise made two days ago. But this morning, her email said that the encampment would be cleared after 2 p.m. if the students didn’t leave. So we’re not quite clear what that means, how they’re going to clear the encampment.

I mean, the core issue in the immediate is, of course, the genocide going on in Gaza. And the kind of depiction of the students as somehow Hamas supporters or antisemites and sort of dangerous rabble-rousers is a complete misrepresentation of these students. They’ve been calm. They’ve been incredibly well organized. And they’re taking a principled stance.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the fact that today a Jewish student sued the university, saying they don’t feel safe on campus?

NADIA ABU EL-HAJ: I think that there is a really important distinction to be made between feeling unsafe and being unsafe. So I would start with that. I am more than willing to engage any student in a conversation about feeling unsafe. And we’re hearing a lot of that from Muslim and Palestinian students, as well. But as I told the Palestinian students I met with about this months ago, I think it’s helpful to disentangle: When you say, “I feel unsafe,” what are you feeling? Are you uncomfortable? Are you offended? Are you angered? Or are you actually unsafe?

Being doxxed makes you unsafe. Being sprayed by chemicals makes you unsafe. Having the right-wing Christian nationalists on the outside trying to climb the fences into Columbia makes people unsafe. But a lot of what is being labeled as unsafe is being made uncomfortable. And if there are specific instances of physical threats and violence against Jewish students, of course they need to be dealt with. But the depiction of campus as a kind of hotbed of antisemitism that makes Jewish students unsafe is just not true. And there are lots of Jewish students in the encampment. JVP is a very powerful force on this campus, and they don’t think it’s an accurate description.

MAHMOUD KHALIL: Throughout the negotiations, the Shafik administration treated this movement as a matter of internal student discipline rather than a movement or rather than as one of the great moral and political questions of this generation.

ANURIMA BHARGAVA: Anurima Bhargava, civil rights lawyer and filmmaker. This is, you know, we’re into the second — third week of the encampment. Obviously, this morning, there was a statement by the president, very much sort of putting people on alert and trying to give herself the legal foundation that she didn’t have when she arrested students the first time.

And I think, in many ways, we continue to see a very — very much an encampment that has been peaceful. There are many, many students who came here when they heard about the fact that there’s action that has been promised to be taken today. And so we see a lot of people. A lot of students have come in support of the students who have been part of the encampment for all of these days. And I think this is somewhat of a situation of the university’s own creation, right? Because by suggesting that they’re going to take action today, there have been a lot more students who have come onto campus.

And in many ways — again, this is the last day of classes. This is a time where we’re going into study period. And if you can see around you, there’s a lot of efforts to get ready for commencement. And so, we’re at the end of the school year. And in many ways, this request to sort of remove students because of a safety concern — obviously, two weeks ago, when this happened, it was, you know, even the chief of police of the New York Police Department was saying that these students were peacefully protesting, and they were not resisting arrest, and they were peacefully here.

PROTESTERS: Disclose! Divest! We will not stop! We will not rest! Disclose! Divest!

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices of students, professors and their supporters at Columbia University, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment Monday, as many students refused to leave even as they faced suspension. Standing outside of Columbia University on the sidewalk, I then spotted civil rights activist Reverend Herbert Daughtry. I asked why he was there.

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: My name is Herb Daughtry. My church is the House of the Lord Churches. And I’m standing out here today to support the students, the right to protest for what they believe is right. That’s our tradition. I’ve stood on many lines before, across the world, for Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, for Jews here, for Palestinians. I just believe that somebody somewhere must be advocating for peace.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you: Did you know Dr. King? And when were you with him?

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: Well, Dr. King, yes, we go back, 1958, ’59, something like that, particularly on the War in Vietnam, 1967. I was at the Riverside Church when he made his famous “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.” And —

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see this as a similar moment? Where people take a position that — even people in King’s inner circle said, “You shouldn’t take on the Vietnam War. It’s not your war. You are a civil rights leader.” And he said, “No, all of these issues are connected.”

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: And I’m a follower of Dr. King. I believe our efforts are to save the planet, save the people. That’s what I believe that I’ve been called to do. And wherever there are oppression, exploitation, wherever there are people who — listen, Jesus said, told us, the least of these, to struggle for, speak for, work for, the least in society. And so we try to identify where are — where’s the pain, where’s the misery. And I’ve been to Sudan. I’ve been to Israel. I’ve been to Ireland, you name it, and Saigon. So, you know, I’m 93 now, so been —

AMY GOODMAN: So, you were here at Riverside Church, just down the road from Columbia University, on April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before Dr. King was assassinated, when he gave his speech here against the War in Vietnam. What was it like to be in there?

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: Well, I had taken some young people. And it was an electric moment. Everybody was waiting for him and when he speaks, because he was mesmerizing. And when he speaks, his reasoning was compelling, persuasive, for anybody who had even a balanced mind. And it was an electric moment. And, well, it was an unforgettable moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see parallels to today?

REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY: Yeah, where people are gathered to make these issues, to raise these issues, yes. What impressed me is when people are putting their lives on the line, their conveniences on the line. That impressed me. So, when you run across people who are willing to risk something precious, you take note. And so, if Dr. King were here, I believe he’d be here. And it was he who said, “If we haven’t found something to die for, we haven’t found something to live for.”

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the legendary civil rights activist Reverend Herbert Daughtry at 93. His daughter, Reverend Leah Daughtry, was the CEO of the Democratic National Conventions in 2008 and 2016. As her father proudly said, they were rated the best conventions ever.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we take a journey 56 years ago, to 1968, when Hamilton Hall was occupied. Stay with us.


This morning, THE NATIONAL reports:

Jordan has strongly condemned an attack it said was carried out by Israeli settlers on two Jordanian aid convoys.

The two convoys were on the way to Gaza, state news agency Petra reported.

The condemnation comes ahead of an expected visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Jordan as part of a Middle East trip that included a visit to Israel.


Gaza remains under assault. Day 208 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, "At least 34,568 Palestinians have been killed and 77,765 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Wednesday.  In the past 24 hours, 33 people were killed and 57 injured, the ministry 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:

 



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."



Foreign doctors returning from Gaza describe being left “speechless” by the overwhelming scenes of trauma in the enclave’s hospitals.

Shariq Sayeed, a vascular surgeon from Atlanta, Georgia, says his team treated 40 to 60 patients a day, most of them young people with shrapnel injuries he had never seen before.

“Most were patients 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 years of age,” Sayeed said. “… And unfortunately, there is a very high incidence of infection, … so once you have an amputation that doesn’t heal, you end of getting a higher amputation.”

Ismail Mehr, an anaesthesiologist from New York who led the medical mission, said the foreign doctors were “speechless” when they saw the number of injuries and warned that a looming Rafah offensive would push Gaza’s health sector beyond its capacity.

“I hope and I pray that Rafah is not attacked,” Mehr said. “The health system will not be able to take care of that. It will be a complete catastrophe.”






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