Thursday, May 16, 2024

Greg Abbott spits on veterans

joshs girlfriend

 

From earlier tonight, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Harrison Loves Josh."

 

Those Republicans are a joke. And a a very evil man.  CNN reports:



Daniel Perry, a former US Army sergeant who was convicted of murdering a protester at a Black Lives Matter rally in 2020, was released from prison Thursday after he was pardoned by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Abbott’s decision comes after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously Thursday to recommend a full pardon and the restoration of firearm rights for Perry, who was sentenced last year to 25 years in prison. Shortly after he was pardoned, Perry was released from Texas Department of Criminal Justice custody, a spokesperson for the agency told CNN.

Abbott asked the board to conduct an investigation in April 2023, and in a statement on Thursday, the board said its “investigative efforts encompassed a meticulous review of pertinent documents, from police reports to court records, witness statements, and interviews with individuals linked to the case.”

Perry faced between five and 99 years in prison for fatally shooting 28-year-old Air Force veteran Garrett Foster at an Austin, Texas, racial justice rally two months after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

 

From Wikipedia:


On July 25, 2020, Garrett Foster, a 28-year-old man, was murdered in Austin, Texas by 30-year old Daniel Perry. Perry had driven into a crowd of protesters during a Black Lives Matter protest following the May 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Foster, who had been legally open carrying an AK-47, approached Perry's vehicle, and Perry shot and killed him. Perry claimed that he had acted in self-defense, but in April 2023, a jury found him guilty of murder. He was acquitted of an aggravated assault charge. On May 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder.[1]

Perry had made numerous posts and direct messages on social media where he had expressed his desire to shoot protesters, which, along with contradictory statements to eyewitness accounts, brought into question his claim of self-defense. Following his murder conviction, messages Perry sent of him self-identifying as "a racist" and of him calling black protesters "monkeys" were revealed to the public.[2]

On May 16, 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott pardoned Perry.[3][4]


 Perry killed Foster.  He was convicted of murder.

Greg Abbott spits on veterans.  He's a hateful man, bitter because he's stuck in that wheel chair and he never cared enough about the country to join the military himself.  But kill a veteran and Greg Abbott will pardon you because that's how he rolls -- literally.


 

 

 

 

 

 

This  is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Thursday, June 16, 2024.  The slaughter in Gaza continues, War Criminal Netanyahu sees some splinters in his administration, another US official resigns from the administration over its refusal to stop the assault in Gaza, and much more.


This morning, Hadya al-Alawi (THE NATIONAL) reports:

 

Arab and world leaders have been arriving in Manama on Wednesday and Thursday for the 33rd Arab League summit, focusing this year on reaching a consensus to help stop the Israeli war on Gaza.

Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad, who is also Prime Minister, received Jordan's King Abdullah II, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid and Egyptian President Abdul Fattah El Sisi in Manama.

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has arrived and was received by Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Personal Representative of King Hamad and President of the Supreme Council for the Environment.

Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad, Bahraini King Hamad's representative for Humanitarian Work and Youth Affairs, welcomed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The final text of the summit, expected on Thursday, will announced "a tougher stance against Israel", a source told The National.

The preparatory meeting of Arab League foreign ministers on Tuesday saw a unanimous vote to adopt the “Bahrain declaration” calling for a peace conference on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.


As the slaughter continues, the world's objection increases and grows louder.  Dr Mahmoud Sabha writes at THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:


As an American doctor, I felt called to help Palestinians who have faced a collapsing healthcare system in Gaza. My first trip was in March and I returned for another mission earlier this month, before the Israeli military assault on Rafah, in southern Gaza, which has been catastrophic. Now we have no way out.

Israel’s seizure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt has complicated our medical team’s departure from Gaza, which was coordinated with the World Health Organization and scheduled for Monday.

We have been at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, near Rafah. If we leave, and no new mission can get in, the patients here will be abandoned and terrified. More than 1 million people had taken refuge in Rafah during the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza, and hundreds of thousands have now been forced to flee the area amid Israel’s offensive here.

Our patients ask me where they should go, to which hospital. They tell me that some facilities are still open and ask my opinion of them. What do I say? The patients know full well about the destruction of the Al Shifa and Nasser hospitals. They know patients have been killed with IV lines and catheters still inside, and they believe that will be their fate as well if they are left alone and vulnerable to the Israeli forces.

As the horrors continue, another US official resigns.  AP reports, "An interior department staffer on Wednesday became the first Jewish political appointee to publicly resign in protest of US support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Lily Greenberg Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff in the interior department, accused Joe Biden of using Jewish people to justify US policy in the conflict."  Ron Kampeas (JTA) notes, "While Greenberg Call is the first Jewish Biden administration staffer to resign publicly over the war, others in her movement say she isn’t alone in her sentiments. In memos, in internal staff meetings, and in occasional bursts of public protest, a cadre of mid-level D.C. bureaucrats is dissenting from the Biden administration’s backing for Israel in the war. They describe crushing disappointment in an administration that they feel is committed to defending innocents from carnage elsewhere — most notably in Ukraine — but not, they say, in Gaza."   Sanjana Karanth (HUFFINGTON POST) adds:


In her resignation letter, Lily Greenberg Call, the special assistant to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s chief of staff, Rachael Taylor, called President Joe Biden out by name and criticized his administration’s lack of condemnation.

“I joined the Biden Administration because I believe in fighting for a better America, for a future where Americans can thrive: one with economic prosperity, a healthy planet and equal rights for all people. I have dedicated my career to candidates who I believed would further this vision,” Call wrote in her resignation letter to Haaland.

“However, I can no longer, in good conscience, continue to represent this administration amidst President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

Call has served as a special assistant to Taylor since February 2023. She was appointed to her position after working as a field organizer for Vice President Kamala Harris’ primary campaign in 2019 and then for Biden’s campaign in 2020.


On Tuesday, Amy Goodman (DEMOCRACY NOW!) noted:


A U.S. Army officer working at the Defense Intelligence Agency has resigned to protest what he called the United States’ “unqualified support” for Israel’s war on Gaza. Major Harrison Mann wrote in a post online that the U.S. has “enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.” He went on to write, “As the descendant of European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing.”


Last night, John Bacon (USA TODAY) broke the news:

There is no humanitarian crisis in Rafah although almost 500,000 have fled the southern Gaza city in recent days as Israel's military gains traction, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday.
The Biden administration and much of the world has repeatedly urged Israel to abandon plans for a major invasion of the city, fearing a worsening of the humanitarian crisis that has swept across Gaza since the war began.


You have to wonder, do these Pol Pots believe their own lies?  Or do they end up believing their own lies?  Justifying years after, pretending they were something other than War Criminals?




I have been displaced 11 times since the start of Israel’s bloody campaign against Gaza. My husband, four kids, and I flee from one neighborhood in Gaza City to another, trying to stay ahead of the bombs, sheltering with relatives and friends. Each time we flee, fragments of my grandmother’s stories from 1948 come to mind.

My grandmother’s experiences during the Nakba, when the majority of Palestinians were expelled from their homeland during the establishment of the state of Israel, have taken root so deeply in my heart that I have often felt that her memories were my own. Of all her grandchildren, I was the closest. I even called her “Immi,” which means “my mother,” copying what my aunties called her, though her given name was, ironically, “Hejar,” derived from the word “Hejjra,” meaning “migration.” I drank in her stories about the Nakba. I never imagined that I would actually live the same terror and displacement that Immi did.

My home in the western part of Gaza City was first struck by Israeli bombs on October 9. Terrified, my family groped our way out through dust and gunpowder, forgetting to grab the emergency backpacks I had prepared. We returned the next morning, and found jagged holes from airstrikes in the walls and ceilings. The windows and doors were blown out, and the kitchen entirely destroyed. Indeed, the entire street had been targeted. As we extracted the backpacks and important documents from the rubble, I remembered my grandmother describing mortar shells falling from the sky without warning in May 1948, and how she and my grandfather grabbed their children and fled for their lives, leaving all their valuables behind in their beautiful two-story home in Yaffa. How could Immi not carry her important belongings with her? I used to wonder. That judgment has entirely evaporated; in its place is my grandmother’s hard-earned wisdom that I cling to now.

My grandmother had moved to Yaffa some years earlier, after growing up in Gaza, where her father owned tracts of land planted with wheat and groves of olive trees. She had moved to the coastal city after marrying my grandfather, her cousin, who owned a tannery there. In 1948, the eldest of her (then) six children was ten years old, and the youngest was one month. I say a prayer of gratitude each time my four children survive a near miss, remembering the panic that rose in Immi’s voice as she recounted nearly losing her little girl.

As the bombing in Yaffa grew closer, my grandparents hastily lifted their children onto a passing truck, climbing up behind them. My grandmother counted her children, realizing that five-year-old Naema was missing. “Stop the truck!” she cried out desperately. They scrambled down, and my grandmother frantically stopped every passing truck, until finally she located Naema, who had been sobbing by the side of the road when another family found her and took her with them. 


Does War Criminal Netanyahu really not believe he's doing harm today? Do those responsible for decision making in 1948 -- any still alive -- continue to lie to themselves?

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram spoke with MSNBC's Chris Jansing about how this was a "catastrophe" for the children.   Unlike Netanyahu, Tess Ingram is on the ground in Gaza and visiting refugee camps.


This is the reality that Netanyahu and other sorry excuses for human beings deny.  You watch an idiot like bald headed Julianna Margulies defend the killing of children and you grasp that some blood thirsty monsters will defend anything other than human life.

THE NATIONAL quotes UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres declaring at the Arab Summit today,  "Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Yet the toll on civilians continues to escalate."
 

Netanyahu can lie but he can't stop reality from emerging.  That includes within his own government.  From last night's THE NEWSHOUR (PBS).




  • Geoff Bennett:

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back today against criticism of his Gaza strategy from within his own government.

    Israel's defense minister accused Netanyahu of indecision and leading Israel down a — quote — "dangerous course." The public infighting comes as the Biden administration this week said Israel did not have a political plan for what's next in Gaza.

    Nick Schifrin has been following this, and he's here with us now.

    So, Nick, what happened today in Israel? It looks like the private infighting has burst into public view.

  • Nick Schifrin:

    For months, the Israeli military has been pushing Benjamin Netanyahu to look beyond individual military operations and lay out a political plan for the future of Gaza, lay out the goals that the military operations that he's ordered are designed to achieve.

    And, today, Gallant, the defense minister, said that, since October, he and military commanders have been pushing for a plan to have governance in Gaza led by Palestinians with international actors, and that would presumably require the Palestinian Authority to participate.

    And, today, Gallant said that his proposal was never even debated and no alternative had ever been proposed.

  • Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister (through translator):

    Indecision is, in essence, a decision. This leads to a dangerous course which promotes the idea of Israeli military and civilian governance in Gaza. This is a negative and dangerous option for the state of Israel, strategically, militarily and from a security standpoint.

    We must make tough decisions for the future of our country, favoring national priorities above all other possible considerations, even with the possibility of personal or political costs.

  • Nick Schifrin:

    Those personal or political costs that he's speaking about is a direct reference to Netanyahu.

    There are senior U.S. officials who I speak to, Geoff, who are increasingly concerned that Netanyahu is prolonging the war in order to remain prime minister. Netanyahu, of course, denies that. And he said today that his plan was to install Gazan families unaffiliated with either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, but that plan had been blocked by Hamas.

  • Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister (through translator):

    Therefore, all the talk about the day after, while Hamas remains intact, will remain mere words devoid of content. Contrary to what is being claimed, for months, we have been engaged in various efforts to resolve this complex problem.

    In any case, there's no alternative to military victory. The attempt to bypass it with this or that claim is simply detached from reality. There's one alternative to victory, defeat, military, diplomatic and national defeat.

  • Nick Schifrin:

    Detached from reality. He's speaking about his own defense minister's comments there.

    It's important to note that Netanyahu is worried about his coalition staying intact, members of which have been called — have called for the reoccupation of Gaza and a much more punishing military operation in Gaza.

    One of them today, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, tweeted this. He said that "Gallant failed on October 7. He continues to fail now and must be replaced."

  • Geoff Bennett:

    So, how does the Biden administration view all of this?

  • Nick Schifrin:

    The Biden administration has been pushing Netanyahu to accept the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza after the war, and that would unlock some of the larger proposals that the Biden team has been pursuing, especially unlocking Arab participation in the day-after plan.

    And, this week, Jake Sullivan made another criticism public. He said that Netanyahu needed to embrace some kind of political strategy, those goals to — that he wanted to achieve in order to win this war. And U.S. officials tell me that call has not been heeded.


  • THE WASHINGTON POST reports, "The International Court of Justice will hold hearings Thursday and Friday on South Africa’s request that the court order Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah."  ALJAZEERA notes:


    South Africa’s minister of social development says the country is returning to the ICJ, where it will today request additional measures to end Israel’s Rafah invasion because it cannot leave its job undone as Israeli attacks intensify in the enclave’s last refuge.

    South Africa went to the ICJ in January to try to “halt this genocide, but unfortunately, this has not happened”, Lindiwe Zulu told Al Jazeera.

    “There’s been absolutely no respect for the action that we took … no respect for the ICJ,” she said, adding that Israel has only “escalated” its attacks on Gaza since the court’s ruling in January. “We believe we cannot leave it halfway.”


    This comes as another analysis finds genocide is taking place.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) reports:


       The University Network for Human Rights on Wednesday released and sent to United Nations offices a 105-page report that it called "the most thorough legal analysis" yet to find "Israel is committing genocide" against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

    The network partnered with the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law, the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School, the Center for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law School for the analysis, which draws from "a diverse range of credible sources" and the territory's history.

    "After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel's actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention," the report states. "Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the Palestinian people."

    As of May 1, Israel's assault had killed "more than 5% of Gaza's population, with over 2% of Gaza's children killed or injured," the analysis notes. In recent days, Israeli forces have ramped up their attack on Rafah—where over a million people from other parts of the besieged enclave sought refuge—and the total death toll has risen to 35,233, according to Gaza health officials, with another 79,141 Palestinians injured.

    "Israel's military operation has destroyed up to 70% of homes in Gaza, and has decimated civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, universities, U.N. facilities, and cultural and religious heritage sites," the document says, noting the "staggering" number of forced displacements. "Civilians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger and deprivation due to Israel's restriction on, and failure to ensure adequate access to, basic essentials of life, including food, water, medicine, and fuel." 


    Dropping back to yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!




    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

    As many as 20 American doctors and healthcare workers on a medical mission at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, in Gaza, are trapped after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. The Intercept reported on the Palestinian American Medical Association’s situation Monday, describing, quote, “Monica Johnston, a nurse volunteering at the hospital, said that a primary concern of those who will be leaving is that new humanitarian workers be allowed in, otherwise the hospital campus is more likely to get overrun by the Israel Defense Forces. The plan, she said, is for the U.N. to do a test run from the hospital to the border Tuesday, only carrying U.N. staff. If those staff are not killed by the IDF — as one international employee was on Monday — then on Wednesday two medical staff will be taken to the border, and two new volunteers will be allowed in to replace them, and so on in coming days,” she said.

    For an update, we’re joined by Dr. Adam Hamawy. He is a plastic surgeon, Army veteran from New Jersey who’s part of the volunteer mission with the Palestinian American Medical Association at European Hospital in Khan Younis. Twenty years ago, in 2004, he saved the life of Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois when she was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade while serving in the Iraq War, losing both of her legs and partial use of her right arm. She told NBC News Tuesday, quote, “We’re shaking every tree, calling everyone to make sure we do everything we can to ensure safe passage of these doctors to whatever crossing we can get them to,” Senator Duckworth said.

    Dr. Hamawy, thanks so much for being with us. Explain where you are and the situation you’re in right now.

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Thank you very much for having me.

    I am in the European Hospital in Gaza, which is in Khan Younis, on the border of Rafah. We’ve been over here over about two weeks now. And we are continuing to work the best we can with the resources we have. There’s no new updates about our status. So far, we have not been cleared to leave. We’ve heard many rumors, on and off, over the last few days about test runs and having, you know, two people leave, like you were just explaining. We were supposed have two people do a test run on Monday, but that did not happen, and I haven’t heard anything since. So we are currently on standby.

    We’re continuing to do our job. We came here to help the people, to provide medical care and assistance. And we’re still here, and we’re still doing that. We are doing it with the limited supplies that we have, the limited resources that we have. It’s tiring, but, you know, this is exactly what we need to be doing at this time, because they have nothing else.

    We are kind of their hope here in terms of safety. They feel secure that our presence is here, as well as the hospital, because of what happened at places like Shifa and Nasser. They feel that as long as there are foreigners here, that they are protected. They are concerned also that what happens when we leave. So, we completely understand that it’s not just about us leaving. We want to make sure that there’s continuous aid coming here and that we are replaced with another team with more supplies and resources, so that they feel safe and that we can also make this place function like a hospital.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Doctor, could you compare the situation in other war zones you have worked in, such as Iraq, to the situation in Gaza right now?

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: When I was in Iraq, I had the resources of the United States Army behind me. So, we had, you know, a combat support hospital. We had multiple specialists. We had a supply chain. Even though it might have been limited at some times, we continued to have that. And we were dealing basically with combat. You know, I was dealing with people who got injured because they were either soldiers, combatants. There were civilians that were injured, but it’s nothing compared to what I’m seeing right now. Ninety percent of who I see are civilians. And the injuries are just massive.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of your —

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Hello?

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — your ability to access electricity, internet, phone lines and communication to the outside world, what’s it been like?

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: So, we have intermittent internet at times. Electricity also is on and off. Electricity has been even worse over the last, I would say, four or five days, just because the fuel for the hospital is running out and they’re trying to conserve it. So they’ve been cutting off electricity to some of the wards and trying to preserve it for like the operating room and the ICUs in order to make it last as long as it can go. There is — again, I have almost no cellular service. The wireless does get internet in some locations, and it’s like random. So, like, I was having a little trouble before getting on the show, so was a little frantic trying to find a good spot, and finally got it, so I’m glad I’m here.

    AMY GOODMAN: Well, we really appreciate you making that contact with us. If you can describe the situation with the Israeli military moving into Rafah, cutting off the border crossing, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are displaced from all over Gaza now heading back north, and what’s happening in the hospital you’re in, in Khan Younis, and particularly the children that you’re treating?

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: So, most of my patients are children. My average patient is about 12 or 13 years old. They range from — the youngest one I’ve taken care of is about 4. And the age goes up to like mid-sixties or seventies. The people — since the invasion of Rafah, we’ve had a lot of the hospital personnel leave, because they are trying to get their families out of Rafah. Many of them have either moved there from other parts of Gaza, or they have, you know, lived there and are trying to flee.

    I just saw a nurse this morning. I met him the first week that I was here. He hasn’t been around for seven days, and I just saw him. He looked dehydrated. He looked completely exhausted. He basically broke down and cried, telling me what he went through. He basically went to take his family out of their home and take them basically along, you know, out into like a clear area that was a designated safe zone. He took his wife. He has two daughters, one that’s 2 years old, another that’s 3 months old. They went to a place that had absolutely no shelter. He basically said it’s like the desert there. He said that they had no tent, they had no water, they had no food. The other day, he had to stand in line from dawn to about sunset just to get a jug of water for the family. He says that he has, like, absolutely no electricity. He has no water. And he basically broke down and cried, because, he said, like, “I feel like an animal. I don’t know what to do. When we go to the bathroom, I dig a hole in the ground, and we go there.” And, you know, he says his family, a week before, like his extended family, his uncle and his cousins, were hit by a strike, an airstrike, during the night, which killed most of them, except one of his nieces and another cousin. So, he said that they all passed away and died, were killed while they were sleeping. He said, “I wish that would have happened to us, because at least we wouldn’t have to go through what we’re going through.”

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dr. Hamawy, 20 years ago, you provided lifesaving care to now-Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois when she was wounded in Iraq. Have you had conversations with her office about the situation there?

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Yes, her office has been in contact with me, and I know she’s doing everything she can to try to help us not only leave, but to provide that humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well. I really appreciate everything she’s doing.

    AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the United States, where you come from? On the one hand, you have President Biden announcing he’s halting a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs because he doesn’t want them used in Gaza. He also said he wants Israel out of Gaza. At the same time, on the eve of today, he announced $1 billion of weapons to Israel. If you could speak with President Biden today, what would you tell him, Dr. Hamawy?

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: I would tell him, like, “What difference is it from a 2,000-pound bomb from a 500-pound bomb?” They’re both going to kill civilians. He could stop this war right now. All he has to do is say, “We are not going to give anything, and you need to stop. I don’t care if you are our friend.” If my best friend is a serial killer, I’m going to stop being his friend, and I’m going to tell him to do something.

    This doesn’t — this isn’t who we are. This isn’t our country. This is not how I was raised, not any of us, you know, what we were taught what our nation is supposed to be. We’re supposed to stand for freedom. We talk about that all the time. We claim to be the banner carriers for freedom across the world. And yet we have this foreign policy that is so hypocritical in terms of providing a little bit of aid and a lot of bombs, and we’re supposed to be — you know, we’re supposed to be, like, the United States of America. I mean, really, that’s — this is— it’s disheartening. It’s going to haunt all of us when the truth — you know, I’m here. I see it with my own eyes. At some point in time, everyone’s going to see it.

    I went out to Khan Younis, and it is flattened. It looks like a nuclear bomb hit the center of town. There is not one building standing. And every building was entered in after it was bombed and completely vandalized. There’s gunshots. There’s like, you know, graffiti everywhere that was placed after it was destroyed, making it completely uninhabitable. This is not a war against —

    AMY GOODMAN: Making it — vandalized by who, Dr. Hamawy?

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Well, all the words on there are in Hebrew.

    AMY GOODMAN: We only have 30 seconds. Why did you go to Gaza? You are risking your life.

    DR. ADAM HAMAWY: I am a surgeon. I have skills. I have been in war, and I’ve been on humanitarian missions in the past. I feel that I can make a difference. I’ve been trying to come here, actually, since December. I’ve reached out to many medical organizations, seeing who is coming and who has a slot. And I was offered one, and I came as soon as that opportunity was offered.

    This is who we are. You know, we try to help people. This is what I do. I did this, you know, when I was in Iraq. I was proud to be with a team of U.S. Army doctors that took care of everyone that came into our combat support hospital. We took care of U.S. military, we took care of contractors, we took care of Iraqis, and we took care of other nationals. It didn’t matter who they were, because we treat human beings. I had the best job in the country there, and this is what I continue to do. I treat people as humans. And the way I am seeing this war conducted is not how we conduct wars, and this is not how we are taught in the United States, and this is not who we should be supporting.

    AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Adam Hamawy, plastic surgeon, Army veteran, now trapped at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, in Gaza, where he’s volunteering with the Palestinian American Medical Association. Again, 20 years ago, in 2004, he saved the life of now-Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, whose legs were blown off when she was serving in Iraq.

    Next up, Palestinians across the globe are marking the 76th anniversary of the Nakba — in English, it’s “catastrophe” — when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes upon Israel’s founding. We’ll speak with a Palestinian historian in Amman. Stay with us.


    Gaza remains under assault. Day 223 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 35,272 Palestinians have been killed and 79,205 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the enclave's Health Ministry said on Thursday.  In the past 24 hours, 39 people were killed and 64 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:

     



    On bodies trapped under rubble, ALJAZEERA notes this morning:

    We’re talking about a three-storey building that housed not only residents but also dozens of other displaced Palestinians in Rafah that made it to Nuseirat three days ago.

    I met the neighbours. I met the family. I met one of the relatives of people still trapped under the rubble earlier today. They were telling me heartbreaking things.

    Imagine escaping the air strikes in Rafah, looking for a safe space but being killed after three days of evacuating – not only being killed but being trapped where the Civil Defence teams do not have any equipment to remove or pull these people from under the rubble.

    I saw Civil Defence teams doing their best to pull people from under the rubble. They were digging with their bare hands, with very basic tools. This was not the first time we have seen this scene. We have been seeing this for more than seven months now.

    Unfortunately, it may come to a point where the Civil Defence teams will give up on this house because there are more people being targeted every single hour across the Gaza Strip.


    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 following sites updated:




    Wednesday, May 15, 2024

    Such Sufferin' Give Me A Bufferin



    Remember Really Rosie?  Loved that cartoon.  "One Was Johnny" was one of my favorites from the cartoon.  It's Maurice Sendak's words set to Carole King's music and she also sings the songs (and plays the piano).  It's a good intro to someone who wants us to believe he truly suffers.
     
    Poor Harry Shearer.  The adversity he has to face now.  Poor Harry.  He whined in a recent interview and Variety reports:
    '


    "Folk say the show has become woke in recent years and one of my characters has been affected," Shearer said. "I voiced the Black physician, Dr. Hibbert, who I based on Bill Cosby. Back then he was known as the ‘whitest Black man on television.' Then, a couple of years ago, I received an email saying they'd employed a Black actor, who then copied my voice. The result is a Black man imitating a white man imitating the whitest Black man on TV."

    Shearer appeared to question his re-casting, as he always tried to make Dr. Hibberd's "whiteness" as a Black man part of the joke of the character since he modeled him after Cosby. The character is now voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. Another Black character on the show, Homer's friend Carl Carlson, is now voiced by Alex Désert after being originally voiced by Hank Azaria.

    "The Simpsons" producers announced in 2020 that characters of color on the long-running animated sitcom would only be voiced by actors of color from now on. Prior to the announcement, the show had been subject to heavy criticism for having white actors like Azaria play characters like the Indian store owner Apu. Azaria stepped away from voicing the character in January 2020 and admitted that his voice role "helped create a dehumanizing stereotype." The actor's controversial casting as Apu was the subject of the 2017 documentary "The Problem With Apu" from comedian Hari Kondabolu.


    Oh, the horror.  Poor White man.  For decades he got to voice whomever he wanted.  Didn't bother him.  He never asked, "As a White man, should I be taking this job from a Black man?"  

    Because he doesn't do much thinking.  

    There was never a reason to refuse to hire people of color.  But that's what they did.  They just hired people they knew and White people was who they knew.  

    Harry might try getting over his wallowing and grasping that it's insulting that he -- a non-African-American -- was allowed to voice a Black character and to mock the character by making him "the Whitest Black man."  Not really sure how Harry thinks that's appropriate.  And if The Simpsons has lost something, all these seasons and a refusal to expand will do that.  They have a really difficult time creating female characters who do something -- anything -- and always have.

     

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

     

    Wednesday, May 15, 2024.  The killing continues as England's INDEPENDENT publishes a report this morning that should leave US President Joe Biden feeling very exposed and uncomfortable.


    Campus activism continues around the world as the slaughter in Gaza continues.  Wendy Hurrell, James W Kelly and Adriana Elgueta  (BBC NEW) report:

    Students have occupied a building at the London School of Economics (LSE) to protest against what they say are the university’s ties with Israel.

    The pro-Palestinian activists are calling for the central London university to cut financial ties with the country over its conduct in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

    Protest encampments have sprung up at university campuses across the UK, US and European countries calling for an end to the war.

    A university spokesperson told BBC News its priority continued to be the "wellbeing of the LSE community”.

    The activists began their occupation of the Marshall Building, which contains the departments of accounting, finance and management on its Holborn campus, shortly after holding a rally outside on Monday afternoon.


    Also this morning, AFP reports:

    Swiss police moved in early on Wednesday to remove dozens of pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Bern.

    Student demonstrations have gathered pace across western Europe in recent weeks, with protesters demanding an end to the bloodshed in Gaza and calling on colleges to cut ties with Israel.

    Swiss police acted after a request by the university's management, which had described the student occupation as "unacceptable".

    The last of about 30 protesters left the university on Wednesday morning. They chanted pro-Palestinian slogans before leaving the area, a journalist from the Keystone-ATS agency said.

    Dozens of demonstrators had been occupying university premises, including the restaurant, since Sunday night.




    Seven students say they have been asked by the Australian National University (ANU) to leave an encampment on campus that was established in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

    The students, and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), say they were told by the university to leave by Friday, but were not given any reasons.

    The encampment has existed on the ANU campus for more than two weeks in solidarity with the people of Gaza amid Israel's war with Hamas.

     [. . .]

    Today, pro-Palestine students at Melbourne universities protested across the city, as university administrators continue to urge demonstrators to dismantle similar encampments there.

    A meeting was held this morning with the deputy vice-chancellor of ANU, in which the students say they were told to leave by Friday or face possible disciplinary action.


    THE AGE notes, "The students staging the sit-in said they were willing to risk arrest" and quote art student Gemma O'Toole stating, "This is indefinite. This is about disclosing and divesting and nothing will change until the demands are met."  In the United States, an encampment in Berkeley has been folded.  KGO reports:

    The pro-Palestinian encampment at UC Berkeley is being dismantled Tuesday afternoon.

    The university says negotiations with demonstrators have led to an agreement to expedite what it calls a new "socially responsible investment strategy."

    This comes after a hearing from the UC Board of Regents on Tuesday who said if the UC system followed the students' requests, they would have to divest $32 billion worth of assets.

    Chancellor Carol Christ says she's relieved to bring the campus protest to a peaceful end.

    Demonstrators say they're going to protest at the UC Regents meeting at UC Merced tomorrow -- as other activists from across the state are doing.




    The move to dismantle the encampment, which swelled to more than 180 tents and hundreds of students at its peak, notably included no police presence or arrests at a time when some universities — including UCLA, USC, Pomona College and Cal Poly Humboldt — have faced immense criticism for using police to clear camps or building takeovers by pro-Palestinian protesters. Ongoing turmoil has racked UCLA since an encampment there came under a violent mob attack two weeks ago.

    In two letters released Tuesday on the university website, Christ rejected calls for UC Berkeley to directly target Israel through divestment or cutting ties with Israeli universities. Instead, she said the university would review complaints about discrimination against Palestinians and other groups in academic partnerships such as exchange programs. And the chancellor said she supported examining Berkeley’s investments in “a targeted list of companies due to their participation in weapons manufacturing, mass incarceration, and/or surveillance industries.”

    The letters said that the university would create a task force by the end of June that includes faculty, students and staff to examine whether the investments of the UC Berkeley Foundation, the university’s primary private fundraising arm, “align with our values or should be modified in order to do so.”

    As of last June 30, UC Berkeley’s endowment had a total market value of $7.4 billion, with $2.9 billion held by the UC Berkeley Foundation and $4.5 billion held by the University of California Regents.


    The students of Columbia University kicked off the wave of protests that not only spread across the country but also spread across the world.  Sarah Huddleston (COLUMBIA SPECTATOR) reports:


     Over 200 independent student workers pledged to withhold their labor—which includes withholding final grades—until the University grants amnesty to all students, faculty, and staff disciplined for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protest activity and permanently removes New York Police Department personnel from campus.

    The student workers sent letters to their deans on Sunday informing them of their pledge. The group also announced the action in a May 6 press release, which condemns the April 30 sweep of occupied Hamilton Hall, subsequent restrictions on campus access, and University President Minouche Shafik’s request to have NYPD remain on campus until May 17.

    “These workplace conditions are unsafe and unacceptable. The actions of the Columbia administration are sickening,” the press release reads. “Because of this, as independent and unaffiliated student workers, we call for a sickout until our demands of full amnesty for disciplined students and cops off campus are met. There will be no grading and no research until the militarized lockdown of campus is lifted and all suspended and expelled students are granted amnesty.”

    A sick-out is “an organized absence from work by workers on the pretext of sickness,” according to Merriam Webster. In a Monday Instagram post, the organizers wrote that graduate student workers and faculty participants will either call out sick or withhold work and tell their supervisors they are sick “once prompted to do so.” The Instagram post also encourages faculty to join the sick-out, not replace the lost labor, not report those participating, and participate in similar organizing efforts.

    The sick-out action is not affiliated with any union, but builds off a foundation of rank-and-file organizing at Columbia, according to a PhD student worker who spoke to Spectator under the condition of anonymity. The student said that student workers have been meeting for a while to discuss their “outrage at the actions by the administration of Columbia,” but were motivated by a call from Columbia University Apartheid Divest directed to faculty and staff that “encouraged them to take labor actions to call the function of the University.”

    The student said that the group decided to focus their demands on amnesty and NYPD removal after witnessing the mass arrests on April 18 and April 30, which were both authorized by Shafik. As NYPD officers swept Hamilton, they threw one protester down the stairs, slammed protesters with metal barricades, deployed stun grenades, and accidentally fired a gun. The NYPD arrested over 200 individuals across both sweeps.

    “We stay resolute on our call for the liberation of Palestine. But upon discussing in these last meetings, we saw that the level of repression, sometimes brutally so by the police, on our students was untenable,” the student said. “And the presence of NYPD on campus posed an unsafe labor and work conditions for us, the student workers, as well.”


    Retired Colonel Waibhav Anil Kale is dead.  Another murder in Gaza carried out by the Israeli government.  THE HINDUSTAN TIMES reports:

    MEA condoled the death of Colonel Waibhav Anil Kale (retd) on Wednesday, extending all assistance to bring his mortal remains back to India.

     The ministry of external affairs on Wednesday condoled the death of Colonel Waibhav Anil Kale (retd), the Indian national who was working with the UN in Gaza. The MEA said India's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York as well as its mission in Tel Aviv and Ramallah are extending all assistance in the repatriation of mortal remains of Waibhav Anil Kale to India.

    Kale, 46, prematurely retired from the Indian Army in June 2022. He was a counter-terrorism specialist who also served as a UN peacekeeper before his retirement.

    Kale's death marked the first time an international staff member of the UN has died in the Israel-Hamas wa[r] since October 2023.



    1. Colonel Waibhav Anil Kale, 46, spent over two decades in the armed forces. He came from a family dedicated to military service, with his brother, Group Captain Vishal Kale, serving in the Indian Air Force, his cousin Colonel Amey Kale in the army, and his brother-in-law, Wing Commander Prasant Karde (Retd). 

    2. Colonel Kale was from Nagpur and he studied at the Somalwar high school. He later got a BA degree in Humanities from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, before getting a Diploma of Education in Senior Defense Management from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, as per his LinkedIn



    The Indian government says it is “deeply saddened” by the killing of one of its retired army officers who was working for the United Nations in a suspected Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip.

    Waibhav Anil Kale, 46, retired as a colonel in the Indian Army in 2022 and was working as a security coordination officer in the UN Department of Safety and Security in Gaza’s embattled Rafah region.

    He was en route to the European Gaza Hospital in Rafah along with a colleague, when their vehicle came under attack on Monday. The colleague was wounded in the strike.

    “We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and dear ones,” said a statement by India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday, without mentioning the circumstances in which Kale was killed.

    “Our Permanent Mission to the UN in New York and our Missions in Tel Aviv and Ramallah are extending all assistance in the repatriation of mortal remains to India and continue to be in touch with relevant authorities regarding the investigation into the incident,” said the statement.

    Kale is survived by his wife Amruta and two teenage children, son Vedant and daughter Radhika, India’s NDTV network said in a report.



    As the assault on Gaza continues, more and more people around the world see it for what it is: genocide.  Julia Conley (COMMON DREAMS) reports:

    A widely respected humanitarian law expert who has resisted using the term "genocide" for Israel's killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza—a word used "sparingly" in the international human rights movement, he noted—said Tuesday that he has concluded a genocide is indeed taking place, evidenced particularly by Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid.

    Aryeh Neier, who co-founded Human Rights Watch in 1978, served as its executive director for 12 years, and also led the American Civil Liberties Union and the Open Society Foundations, noted in an essay in The New York Review of Books that his organizations have used the term "genocide" to describe few mass killings.

    Neier was not convinced of South Africa's genocide claim against Israel when it argued its case with the International Court of Justice in January, even though he was "deeply distressed" by the human impact of Israel's relentless U.S.-backed bombing campaign in Gaza.

    The 2,000-pound bombs being used against Gaza's population of 2.3 million Palestinians were "clearly inappropriate," wrote Neier in the magazine's June 6 issue. "Yet I was not convinced that this constituted genocide."

    Neier wrote that he believed at the time that Israel's retaliation against Hamas for the October 7 attack it led in southern Israel could "include an attempt to incapacitate" the Palestinian group, necessitating the wide-scale assault on Gaza, where it operates.

    "I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," wrote Neier, whose family escaped Nazi Germany as refugees when he was an infant. "What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."

    Israel's intent to block aid—and to treat Gazans as "collectively complicit for Hamas's crimes"—has been clear since shortly after the October 7 attack, when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: "There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly." 


    As more and more people around the world reject the genocide, US President Joe Biden is preparing to send more weapons of death.  THE WASHINGTON POST reports, "The Biden administration plans to push ahead with more than $1 billion in weapons deals for Israel, U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter told The Washington Post, despite withholding a shipment of bombs this month due to concerns over Israel’s plans for a major offensive in Rafah. The European Union’s top diplomat urged Israel to “immediately” end its operation in the southern Gaza city."  Murtaza Hussain (INTERCEPT) offers:


    Well before October 7, the Israeli government decided that the Palestinians, whether in the West Bank or Gaza, were no longer politically relevant. Rather than dealing with the Palestinians as political agents, Israeli leaders have taken the position that Palestinians are merely a subject population to be suppressed and controlled with a mixture of military, technological, and economic tools.

    While continuing a policy of blockading and periodically bombing Gaza, Israel has either ignored or rejected the Palestinian Authority’s calls, with the support of international law, for a two-state solution. Instead, Israel proceeded unilaterally with its colonization and annexation of the West Bank, cementing a consensus among major human rights groups that Israel is an apartheid state.

    The U.S. under President Joe Biden, following in the line of other administrations, abetted this process of dismissing the political claims of Palestinians. Most notably, Biden followed the Trump administration in its pursuit of faux-diplomacy in the form of regional arms deals and normalization agreements between Gulf Arab states and Israel: the so-called Abraham Accords. That myopia eventually produced the current conflagration in Gaza, when the October 7 Hamas assault exposed Israel’s technological and military control over the Gaza Strip as much less robust than advertised.

    From a U.S. perspective, Biden’s reflexive backing for a war that has proven to be equal parts aimless and brutal has now trapped the U.S. in a situation where it is the primary enabler of an alleged genocide.

    The war has not only tarnished America’s reputation abroad but is also increasingly tearing at its own social fabric. Even diehard subscribers to the U.S. foreign policy consensus have been forced to reckon with the failures of treating the Palestinians as politically irrelevant.


    This morning at THE INDEPENDENT, Richard Hall, Bel Trew and Andrew Feinberg report:

    resident Joe Biden and his administration have been accused of being complicit in enabling a famine in Gaza by failing to sufficiently act on repeated warnings from their own experts and aid agencies.

    Interviews with current and former US Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department officials, aid agencies working in Gaza and internal USAID documents reveal that the administration rejected or ignored pleas to use its leverage to persuade its ally Israel — the recipient of billions of dollars of US military support — to allow sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza to stop the famine taking hold.

    The former officials say the US also provided diplomatic cover for Israel to create the conditions for famine by blocking international efforts to bring about a ceasefire or alleviate the crisis, making the delivery of aid almost impossible.

    “This is not just turning a blind eye to the man-made starvation of an entire population, it is direct complicity,” former State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned over US support for the war, told The Independent. 

    [. . .]

    From the time of the first warning signs in December, intensive US pressure on Israel to open more land crossings and flood Gaza with aid could have stopped the crisis taking hold, the officials said. But Mr Biden refused to make US military aid to Israel conditional.

    Instead, the Biden government pursued novel and ineffective aid solutions such as airdrops and a floating pier. Now, some 300,000 people in Gaza’s north are experiencing a “full-blown” famine, according to the World Food Program, and the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger.

    The level of dissent within the US government agency responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and combating global hunger has been unprecedented.

    At least 19 internal dissent memos have been sent since the start of the war by staff at USAID criticising US support for the war in Gaza.

    In an internal collective dissent memo drafted this month by numerous employees of USAID, the staff assail the agency and the Biden administration for its “failure to uphold international humanitarian principles and to adhere to its mandate to save lives.”

    The leaked draft memo, seen by The Independent, calls for the administration to apply pressure to bring “an end to the Israeli siege that is causing famine.”

    Not acting upon repeated warnings like these was a political choice.

    “The US has provided both the military and the diplomatic support that enabled famine to emerge in Gaza,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former high-ranking USAID official under both Barack Obama and Joe Biden who worked on famine prevention in Yemen and South Sudan, told The Independent.

    This investigation by The Independent chronicles the Biden administration’s repeated failures to act forcefully in response to months of warnings of a looming famine. Those failures continue to this day.

     

    Let's drop back to yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!


    AMY GOODMAN: More than half a million Palestinians — nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population — have been displaced over the past week alone, according to the United Nations. Over 450,000 people have fled Rafah since Israel launched an offensive on the city, with another 100,000 displaced in the north amidst escalated bombing and ground attacks.

    Humanitarian organizations say they’re struggling to provide dwindling supplies of food, tents and blankets to the large numbers of newly displaced. In a social media post today, the U.N. refugee agency UNRWA said, quote, “People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear. Nowhere is safe. An immediate #ceasefire is the only hope,” unquote. No food, aid or fuel has entered the two main border crossings in southern Gaza for the past week, since Israeli forces entered Rafah and took over the border crossing there. Some 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of starvation, and a full-blown famine is taking place in the north, according to the U.N. and the World Food Programme.

    By some accounts, a number of hospitals are on the brink of having to shut down major departments due to a lack of fuel and supplies. Gaza’s Government Media Office says hospitals are no longer operating in the north, while in the south, the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah has received an evacuation order from Israeli forces. Doctors and nurses are resisting that evacuation order because they don’t want to leave their patients.

    This comes as Gaza’s Civil Defense teams are struggling to reach victims trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings as daily airstrikes continue. At a news conference today, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense said Israeli forces’ continued targeting of heavy equipment that its teams use to recover victims in the rubble, in addition to a severe fuel shortage, may soon bring rescue efforts to a total halt.

    At least 82 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the last 24 hours. The death toll after seven months of Israel’s assault has now topped 35,000 Palestinians killed, including over 14,000 children. Nearly 80,000 people have been wounded.

    For more on the latest, we go to Gaza to speak with journalist Akram al-Satarri. He’s joined us multiple times over the past several months from Rafah in the south, but today he’s joining us from outside the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

    Akram, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain why you’ve moved from Rafah to Deir al-Balah. Talk about the situation with the hospitals and the number of people, nearly half a million, who are on the move once again.

    AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Good morning, Amy. Good morning from Gaza. Good morning from Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital.

    To start speaking about the situation, I would portray to you and all the viewers a situation that was taking place not far away from me. A few yards in the background, there were some mothers, sisters, daughters and grandmothers also weeping over the death of their dears. Not far away from me is the morgue of the hospital, where people come to claim the bodies of their dear ones. Some of them are lucky enough to find the bodies of their dears. Some others are not lucky enough to have that privilege.

    In al-Nuseirat refugee camp, a house was targeted, was reduced to rubble. Thirty people were killed overnight. Some of them were retrieved. Some other people are still under the rubble of the houses that were destroyed. People are frantically trying to retrieve the bodies of their dears and of their relatives who went there. We saw the destruction. We saw the suffering. We saw the people frantically trying to retrieve the bodies of their dears. And one of them was happy to find the body of his relative. The house was sheltering an internally displaced family, a family that was displaced for around eight times, Amy, eight times in Gaza — one time from the Gaza north to Gaza City, one time from Gaza City to Gaza central area, another time from Gaza central area to Khan Younis area, and a third and a fourth time from Gaza area to Rafah area, and then from Rafah area to another area in Rafah that was deemed safe according to the prescription of the Israeli occupation forces.

    People have been moving. People have been hopeful that they would survive, thinking that following the orders of the Israeli occupation forces would make them safe. However, they were shocked. And I don’t think they had the time that is enough for them to be shocked. They were targeted. They were killed. Most of them were retrieved, and many of them are still under the rubble.

    That describes the exact situation in the Gaza Strip, the way people are living for the last seven months, the way displacement has been weaponized when it comes to dealing with the largest population of the Gaza Strip. People were killed. People are dead. People are displaced. People are losing their dears. People don’t have enough food. People are suffering to secure anything that has to do with a normal life in Gaza.

    And those people are now described by Israel as people who were treated with dignity and that this war is the most civilized one on Earth in the history of the mankind. The things that we are seeing, the way we are being treated is far away from being a human way. People are treated as a herd of sheep that is being herded by a shepherd who has no mercy whatsoever and who is dictating whatever he wants or she wants, because they have the ultimate power to do things, and they have the ultimate power to destroy anything they want, with the most sophisticated technology they have been using. They have been very happy and proud about the artificial intelligence they have been using for the sake of just identifying who’s combatant, who’s noncombatant.

    Unfortunately, the statistics from the ground explains how shocking the way people are being targeted. Mothers are killed with their sons. Fathers are killed with their daughters and sons, whole families wiped out, and even now in Rafah area, in the east, west, south now and north in Rafah. In the Gaza south area, in the Gaza north area, in the Gaza central area, nonstop bombardment. And people who were asked to leave Rafah are now in Gaza central area or in Khan Younis, and they are still seeing with their own eyes — I mean, again, the lucky ones who are surviving the bombardments are seeing with their own eyes that there is no safe haven in Gaza Strip. Death is the one major risk enveloping the lives of the people of Gaza.

    However, starvation is one more equally important threat that the — and challenge that the Palestinians are seeing. Those people who have been living this displacement, destruction and fear for the last seven months are now struggling to secure water for their children — to start with the water, because water is the gift of life, and water is not available in Gaza. Water desalination plants were destroyed. I live in an area that is called Hamad City. There were four wells to serve the whole area, around 137 residential towers. Around 98 of those towers were destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces, including the four main facilities that have to do with the water desalination or water treatment. People are staying there. They have no water. They have to fetch the water. They have to go for around one kilometer or to two kilometers or to contact some suppliers, who find a great challenge in just getting water to the people because of the lack to fuel.

    So, no infrastructure, no food supplies, no water supplies, no medical consumicals or medications allowed into the Gaza Strip. And people are left there to face that unconceivable situation, unconceivable situation when it comes to the access and protection. The whole population is not protected. And the whole population of 2.37 million Gazans are facing this critical problem of not being able to access anything decent, anything decent, neither the shelter nor the supplies of any kind. And they are left to do that, and the ones who are targeted are just killed. And others, tens of thousands of Gazans, are injured.

    And the ones who are injured are unable to go to the hospitals, because hospitals are already out of services. The Kuwaiti Hospital was communicated with by the Israeli occupation forces. They asked them to leave the area. The area itself is part of the area that was asked to leave by the Israeli occupation forces. The situation continues to be very dire. People even with normal health diseases are not able to access the hospital, are not able to find proper medication for their wounds or for their diseases or for whatever things they need. And they end up facing that type of slow death, a slow death which means they don’t have access to food, they don’t have access to water, they don’t have access to supplies of any kind, and they are still suffering. And that speaks for the people in Gaza south, in Gaza north, in Gaza central area. People cannot get anything decent to help them survive. And they are afraid also of the major situation, the death. And as I’m talking to you now, you can hear the ambulance coming currently with more people who are injured because of the ongoing bombardment in Gaza central area, that is not witnessing major ground operations as described by the Israeli occupation forces.

    So, the whole situation is dire, is extremely catastrophic, is aggravating into something extremely ugly, unacceptable and unbearable, is not justifiable according to the dictates of international humanitarian law nor the international law and the instruments that have to do with the dignity of the people, with the safe and sound access to resources at the times of conflict. People have been deprived. People have been deprived from that decent access for around 17 years now because of the strict blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip. And now they are being targeted, they are being deprived, they are being displaced, and they don’t know what next is going to happen. They are afraid from death. They are afraid from hunger. They are afraid from the very lacking situation they have been living. And they don’t know what the future holds for them.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Akram, Akram, I wanted to ask you — you mentioned northern Gaza. The Israelis had claimed that they had pacified the area. Many people have started to come back. Now they’re attacking again. What are you hearing about what’s happening in northern Gaza?

    AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Northern Gaza has been seeing a large-scale ground operation. Israeli occupation forces declared that they have won the war in Gaza north. They declared that they have destroyed Hamas power. And now they’re coming back, apparently, to win again Hamas, up 'til some certain time when they will come back one third time to also win again. They came back to Gaza north. They targeted al-Zeitoun neighborhood. Al-Zeitoun neighborhood was declared as a clear area from Hamas like around three months ago. And now they're coming back there. They are conducting a major operation. They’re using three battalions in that fight, three brigades in that fight. And they have been attacking the infrastructure. The image that is coming from al-Zeitoun area shows very comprehensive and intensified bombardment. Whole blocks are in smoke. The horizon is filled with black smoke, which is indicative of the ongoing fires resulting from the ongoing bombardment.

    And with that ongoing bombardment comes the ongoing death and destruction and injury resulted to the people. And people who are living there are also having this extremely serious problem of not having enough access to the ambulances, enough access to the hospitals, enough access to primary healthcare clinics. And the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the Palestinian Civil Defense, the UNRWA, the World Food Programme, all the international organizations have been voicing their concern over the safety of the people, over the safety of the people who might be injured and might end up dying because of the fact that, no, there is no vehicles to go and collect them and take them to the hospitals. The situation is extremely catastrophic, in the sense that the Civil Defense forces, the Civil Defense crews are not able to move their vehicles because of the fact that Gaza and Gaza terminals have been controlled and seized by the Israeli occupation forces for the last eight days. And before that, there was the Jewish Passover vacation, and there were 11 days of total disruption of the supplies into the Gaza Strip. And then, four days after that, these supplies were extremely slow.

    So, people are suffering. They are deprived from everything. And the ones who are injured and the ones who are seeing now the ongoing fight or the ongoing destruction in al-Zeitoun area are asked to move to another area further inside Gaza City. And then that other area is targeted. We have been hearing the recent news about the bombardment and the tens of people killed in a bombardment or a strike that took their lives, and then another eight people, and then 10 people, and then five people, and then two people, and then three people and a mother, a child and her son.

    So, it is extremely catastrophic. And people are moving, and they are hoping that they would survive, but, unfortunately, many of them are not surviving. They’re hoping to keep their shelter, but, unfortunately, they end up being killed in the shelter, that has been also reduced to rubble on their head. They are hopeful that they would be treated once they are injured; unfortunately, they cannot access any healthcare, and they have been left with that suffering for such a very long time now. And they are, unfortunately, expecting to see more of the same today and tomorrow and in the coming days, with no ceasefire reached and with the international community failing to do something that would change the dynamics when it comes to that kind of continuous escalation and conflict.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Akram, now that Israel has gained control of the Rafah crossing, as well, is there any — are any of the wounded or any people who want to leave Gaza able to do so, and also of the foreigners who are there?

    AKRAM AL-SATARRI: No human being whatsoever is allowed to cross Rafah crossing or Kerem Shalom crossing. In the second day of that seizure of the border, a truck was summoned by the Israeli occupation forces for a transporter that is known and identified and recognized by the Israeli army. They went there. Ten people went there. Six of them were shot by the Israeli army. And the truck that was suppose to enter Gaza did not enter Gaza. So, it’s a full and complete closure of the border. No foreigners, no Gazans, no one is allowed to move from that area. And no supplies whatsoever have been entering that area ever since this whole process started in Rafah and Kerem Shalom area.

    AMY GOODMAN: Akram, this is going to be our last question. I just want to emphasize to people how rare it is to hear a reporter inside Gaza, so we thank you so much for this report. Now, you have moved out of Rafah. Is this the full ground invasion of Rafah that we’re witnessing? And also, can you comment on the Civil Defense group that held a news conference today saying that Israel is targeting their heavy machinery that helps to get people out of the rubble, that they are increasingly unable, also not having fuel, to save people from the rubble, where it’s expected over these months there are over 10,000 people, at least, buried, but continuing each day?

    AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Reporting from Gaza — to start with, reporting from Gaza, Amy, is a great challenge for me and for every single reporter who’s in Gaza. We are part of this fight. We were made to be part of this fight by the Israeli occupation forces, although our job as journalists is to provide as accurate and sound image about the situation as we can. And we have been trying. We are humans, and we are Gazans, and we are suffering just like these other people. We have this problem with accessing food and water, with accessing supplies. And we are struggling. But we are willingly undertaking that responsibility, because this is a moral and national obligation, to start with.

    And then, when it comes to the Palestinian Civil Defense, it’s not only the Palestinian Civil Defense heavy machinery that is being targeted. Also, the Gaza municipality heavy machinery is being divided, is being — sorry, is being targeted by incendiary materials. There were some reports for the last two months and a half of Israeli quadcopter pouring some incendiary materials over those heavy machinery and targeting and burying them. I think the way things are being done now is a way that would add ultimate objective of crippling all the humanitarian relief systems in Gaza, leaving people extremely vulnerable and exposed to bottlenecks because of that ongoing operation. And I think they are trying to prepare the Palestinians for full subjugation by doing that. We have been hearing about this issue in the Gaza north, Gaza City and also in the Gaza south, the way the Israeli occupation is dealing with the heavy machinery that is supposed to be doing the leveling work for the sake of just helping the people and also removing the rubble.

    We have around 10,000 Gazans who are still under the rubble, who are still — their condition is unknown. Absolutely, they are dead, which makes the number, the true number, of people dead 45,000, not 35,000. Ten thousand people are still under the rubble. Some of them are under the rubble for seven months. Seven whole months, bodies are under the rubble. Very close friend of mine was also under the rubble for three months, three months and a half, he and his mother. And no heavy machinery, no excavators, no vehicles of any kind were allowed in to Khan Younis area. And he ended up being retrieved after three months and a half. This is one story of tens of thousands of stories of misery and fear, of no mercy over the life of the people, and also of an issue that has no consideration whatever for the lives of people and no treatment of people as humans. This is one critical issue.

    The Palestinian Civil Defense is going to be here. Like, the podium is — they are just setting up the podium. They’re going to talk about the situation. They’re going to talk about their suffering. They’re going to talk about their hopes and expectations. And they’re going to make an appeal to the international community to try to do something. And unfortunately, the project that the international community, that has failed in the past to do anything, will fail just today to help the people who are under the rubble and to help the Gaza population that has been seeing horrors that were not mentioned or documented in the history of the mankind, a blockade on 2.37 [million] Gazans, suffering for 2.37 [million] Gazans, bombardment of whole built areas that left around 1.9 million Gazans without any shelter and left them exposed to the problems and to the health diseases and all kinds of things that are unimaginable; however, Gazans are living them.

    AMY GOODMAN: Akram al-Satarri, I want to thank you so much for being with us. The noise is loud behind you, as you are in an increasingly packed Deir al-Balah, speaking to us in front of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, usually reporting to us from Rafah, where hundreds of thousands — nearly half a million — Palestinians have moved from as Israel moves in.

    This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll be joined by the president of Union Theological Seminary. Its Board of Trustees has voted to endorse a divestment plan from companies profiting from war in Palestine/Israel. Stay with us.

    [break]

    AMY GOODMAN: “If I Must Die,” performed by the Tunisian musician Emel. The song sets to music the poem by Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in December.


    Gaza remains under assault. Day 220 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 35,173, with 79,061 wounded."  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:

     



    On bodies trapped under rubble, ALJAZEERA notes this morning:

    We’re talking about a three-storey building that housed not only residents but also dozens of other displaced Palestinians in Rafah that made it to Nuseirat three days ago.

    I met the neighbours. I met the family. I met one of the relatives of people still trapped under the rubble earlier today. They were telling me heartbreaking things.

    Imagine escaping the air strikes in Rafah, looking for a safe space but being killed after three days of evacuating – not only being killed but being trapped where the Civil Defence teams do not have any equipment to remove or pull these people from under the rubble.

    I saw Civil Defence teams doing their best to pull people from under the rubble. They were digging with their bare hands, with very basic tools. This was not the first time we have seen this scene. We have been seeing this for more than seven months now.

    Unfortunately, it may come to a point where the Civil Defence teams will give up on this house because there are more people being targeted every single hour across the Gaza Strip.


    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."

    ALJAZEERA reports this morning:

    Israeli forces have shot and killed 20-year-old Aysar Muhammad Safi in the city of el-Bireh in the occupied West Bank, reports the Wafa news agency.

    Safi, a student at Birzeit University near Ramallah, died in the hospital after being shot in the neck as Israeli forces attacked Palestinians, according to Wafa.

    Israeli forces also fired tear gas and sound canisters at the Palestinian youth, injuring dozens.

    Safi is one of nearly 500 people to be killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7. More than 4,950 people have also been injured.




    The following sites updated: