Nobody can give a better picture of what is going in Gaza today than those who work in the remaining medical facilities, desperately trying to save lives. An article for NPR (National Public Radio) by Sacha Pfeiffer, Majd Al-Waheidi and Alice Woelfle and an interview with Dr. Nick Maynard by Sacha Pfeiffer describe the situation there.

Dr. Maynard is a British surgeon who, for the last 15 years, has traveled from Oxford, England, to Gaza, mentoring young doctors and training surgeons. This year, though, he has added to those tasks performing emergency surgeries under fire, treating malnourished children and taking care of patients with catastrophic injuries.

He spoke to NPR from Nasser Hospital, the main medical facility in Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, which has largely been destroyed during the ongoing attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mostly against the Palestinian civilian population. Dr. Maynard describes these attacks as a systematic effort to dismantle hospitals as infants die from hunger and children are shot while desperately trying to reach food.

The Israeli military routinely state that it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to individuals, and that binding orders prohibit forces from intentionally firing at minors, and casualties at aid distribution sites are under examination.” Although the Israeli military denies targeting civilians intentionally, it has been accused by the U.N. and international aid agencies of carrying out a systematic campaign of genocide, an accusation that has been supported even by present and former Israeli leaders.

The IDF claims are belied by what Dr. Maynard says are specific gun shots against Palestinian teenagers of ages 11,12,13 and 14. Dr. Maynard said that he and other doctors have seen clusters of injuries –head injuries, abdominal injuries, injuries to the testicles in young men- that, he said, “are beyond coincidence.”

Many of these injuries are caused by fragmentation bombs which release thousands of small metal pieces that tear through the victims’ body, causing extensive internal damage that requires major surgery. Cluster bombs are the delivery system for these fragmentation submunitions.

The Israeli armed forces’ attacks are not limited to people. They are carrying out a systematic campaign of destruction of every living support system, withholding medicines and food, destroying hospitals and laboratories, dismantling dialysis machines, water and sanitation plants, agricultural systems and fishing industries, churches, mosques and schools. “So, there’s no doubt in my mind what we are witnessing is a deliberate destruction of the whole infrastructure of living in Gaza with the very clear aim of ethnic cleaning and getting the whole population out of this land,” says Dr. Maynard.

This is happening as Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister has issued plans to force all Palestinians from Gaza into a camp, which he has called a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of the city of Rafah from where Palestinians would not be allowed to leave. “Katz laid out an operational plan for a crime against humanity. It is nothing less than that. It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip,” said Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers.

This policy is in agreement with President Donald Trump’s plans who suggested at the start of the year that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “clean out” the strip, a position enthusiastically supported by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to build a “Gazan Riviera.”

“While the [Israeli] government still calls the deportation ‘voluntary,’ people in Gaza are under so many coercive measures that no departure from the strip can be seen in legal terms as consensual. When you drive someone out of their homeland that would be a war crime, in the context of a war. If it’s done on a massive scale like plans, it becomes a crime against humanity,” said Sfard.

As the Palestinian genocide continues, to almost universal silence, Netanyahu said recent visit to the White House, that the U.S. and Israel were working with other countries on plans to give Palestinians a “better future.” It is odd to equate this view with the genocide actually taking place in Gaza.

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