A high-powered U.S. official is being harshly criticized after attacking UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese as Israel steps up its attacks against the UN to advance its genocide in Gaza. On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the U.S. believes Albanese is “unfit for her role.” She baselessly accused Albanese…
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Biden administration officials are sweeping aside hundreds of reports of Israeli forces using U.S.-provided weapons to slaughter civilians in Gaza, new reporting finds, flouting the administration’s own policies regarding weapons to give Israel a pass. According to a new report by The Washington Post published Wednesday, the State Department has received nearly 500 reports of U.S.
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A prominent journalists’ rights group is calling for international investigations into Israel’s pattern of killing journalists amid its assault of Lebanon, saying that the longtime impunity for Israel’s occupation and massacres will only allow it to kill more of the people exposing the military’s violence in the Middle East to the world. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) raised alarm…
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A far right commentator has been banned from appearing on CNN after he spewed a hateful, Islamophobic comment at journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday night when Hasan expressed his support for Palestinian rights. During a roundtable segment on Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden that commentators have likened to an infamous 1939 Nazi rally at the same venue for its bigoted and inciting…
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On Tuesday, the Israeli Knesset passed legislation banning the main aid group for Palestinians from operating in the occupied Palestinian territories — a move that world leaders, humanitarian groups and the agency itself have warned will spell certain death for those starving amid Israel’s genocide and vastly erode Palestinians’ rights in the long term. The two bills passed with overwhelming…
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This story originally appeared in Truthout on Oct. 28, 2024. It is shared here with permission.
Israeli forces have arrested all but one of the medical staff at the only operational hospital left in north Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday, after a days-long siege left the facility in ruins.
Only one pediatrician remains at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was treating hundreds of patients and serving as a shelter to more than 600 Palestinians, after Israeli forces “arrested and deported all the medical staff” there, the ministry said. The Ministry of Health called for those with surgical skills to go to the hospital in order to help the patients left there.
Kamal Adwan Hospital was the last fully functional medical center in north Gaza before Israel’s siege, with the other two facilities in the region only partially operational.
The fate of the medical workers is currently unknown. The Israeli military reportedly pulled out of the hospital on Saturday after having caused extensive damage to the facility. Earlier reports found that Israel had imprisoned the majority of the hospital’s 70 staff members and later released roughly a dozen of them, including the hospital’s director Hossam Abu Safiyeh. Israeli forces later claimed, without evidence, that they had arrested fighters at the hospital.
“The smell of death has spread around the hospital,” Gaza Health Ministry’s director of field hospitals Marwan al-Hams told Al Jazeera. The UN has estimated that 440,000 Palestinians remain in north Gaza, with almost no option to obtain health care amid heavy Israeli shelling and attacks; the Gaza Civil Defense agency reported last week that it has had to suspend emergency services in northern Gaza due to Israel’s siege.
World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the situation there is “catastrophic.”
“Intensive military operations unfolding around and within healthcare facilities and a critical shortage of medical supplies, compounded by severely limited access, are depriving people of life saving care,” Tedros said.
MedGlobal, a U.S.-based humanitarian group, said on Monday that five of its staff have been detained at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
“With limited communication access to our team in northern Gaza, MedGlobal is gravely concerned for their safety and well-being amid increasingly perilous conditions.”
On Friday, Israeli forces killed Safiyeh’s son after Safiyeh refused to evacuate the hospital. Safiyeh had been outspoken about Israel’s assault as Israeli forces closed in on the hospital in recent weeks.
Israel’s siege on the hospital has had horrific consequences. At least two children died due to the Israeli military’s destruction of the oxygen station and generators on Friday. Israeli forces shelled the hospital’s courtyard and surrounded the hospital and began shooting, witnesses told Al Jazeera, while soldiers inside used the hospital speakers to call for Safiyeh. This is reportedly the 14th time Israeli forces have attacked the hospital.
Israel’s siege on north Gaza has killed at least 1,000 Palestinians so far, with no end in sight to the slaughter.
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Over 1,000 authors and literary industry workers have signed a letter vowing to boycott any Israeli literary institutions that are complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine, in an effort that organizers say is the largest cultural boycott of Israel in history. In the open letter, signatories say they “cannot in good conscience” work with Israeli institutions that have…
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Israeli forces have arrested all but one of the medical staff at the only operational hospital left in north Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday, after a days-long siege left the facility in ruins. Only one pediatrician remains at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was treating hundreds of patients and serving as a shelter to more than 600 Palestinians, after Israeli forces “arrested…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The UN’s human rights chief has warned that Israel’s siege of north Gaza is the “darkest moment” of Israel’s year of genocide and suggested that Israeli forces may be violating the UN’s Genocide Convention as reports emerge of Israel seizing a hospital in the region. In one of the UN’s strongest statements on the assault so far, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that…
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Israeli soldiers attacked UN peacekeepers at an observation post in south Lebanon who were observing the military’s nearby raids, the UN said Friday, as Israeli forces appear to be targeting people documenting their assault on the country. In a statement, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said that peacekeepers were at a permanent observation post near Dhayra on Tuesday…
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Israel’s genocide has so devastated every aspect of Gaza’s infrastructure and economy that it would take centuries just to restore the Gaza Strip’s GDP back to the already-depressed level from 2022, the UN has found in a report. Based on the growth rate of Gaza’s economy under Israeli blockade between 2007 and 2022, it would take 350 years to restore Gaza’s GDP from before the genocide…
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First responders have been forced to completely halt operations in north Gaza, officials have announced, as Palestinians say that there is nothing left but death in the region as a result of Israel’s horrific siege. The Gaza Civil Defense agency, the government’s first responders, said that recent Israeli attacks on its workers have forced it to suspend its operations in the north.
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On Wednesday, Israel issued a clear threat to six journalists who are among the only journalists left documenting atrocities in north Gaza as Israel carries out its extermination and ethnic cleansing campaign against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the region. In a post on X, the Israeli military accused six Al Jazeera journalists of being affiliated with “Hamas and Islamic Jihad…
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is blasting the Biden administration for its refusal to investigate an Israeli attack on a group of journalists, including an American, for over a year, and is urging the administration to open a probe. In a letter sent to President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Sanders and 11 other members of Congress said…
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Israeli forces have attacked UN peacekeepers in Lebanon at least a dozen times in recent weeks, including one attack in which 15 peacekeepers were injured by white phosphorus, according to a new report. The Financial Times says there have been a dozen Israeli attacks on UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers, damaging bases and wounding peacekeepers, according to a leaked report by…
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The health of hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced children in Lebanon is at risk, Save the Children warns, as health officials have detected a case of cholera and Israel continues attacking health care centers and workers in its assault on civilians in the country. On Tuesday, Save the Children reported that overcrowding in shelters and a lack of resources for basic hygiene are…
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Israeli forces are only allowing a handful of aid trucks to enter north Gaza each day after weeks of a total aid blockade, the UN reports. With crucial supplies depleted, the estimated 440,000 Palestinians still trapped in the region are simply “waiting to die,” one UN official said. According to World Food Programme (WFP) country director for Palestine Antoine Renard, Israel is allowing a…
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Dozens of House Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to end Israel’s ban on foreign journalism and attacks on journalists in Gaza, saying that press freedom in the Strip is “more critical than ever” as Israel embarks on a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against all Palestinians left alive in north Gaza. In a letter sent to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month…
A U.S. weapons system has landed and is “in place” in Israel, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin said on Monday, as the Biden administration beefs up U.S. support of Israel and Israeli forces prepare to attack Iran and continue their bombardments of Lebanon and Gaza. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, worth between roughly $1 billion to $1.8 billion and made by…
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Israeli forces are blocking humanitarian missions aimed at rescuing people who are trapped under the rubble due to Israeli strikes in north Gaza, the UN has reported. The development comes as Israel wages a horrific ethnic cleansing campaign in the north that has killed hundreds of Palestinians so far. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied…
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Israel’s genocide in Gaza is the “most profound crisis” globally since World War II, UN experts have warned, adding that impunity for Israel as it has killed tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of Palestinians endangers the very structure of international humanitarian rights. On Friday, the group of 37 UN experts, including UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian…
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The UN peacekeepers’ headquarters in Lebanon came under Israeli attack for the second time in two days on Friday, the group reported as human rights experts raise alarm about Israel’s continued impunity for committing likely war crimes against UN staff and facilities. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in Naqoura, Lebanon, “was affected by explosions” on Friday morning…
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The World Food Programme (WFP) has reported that it has been forced to suspend distribution of food parcels across all of Gaza, and food distribution “in any form” in north Gaza, as Palestinians across the region starve due to Israel’s humanitarian aid blockade. The group said on Wednesday that aid entry into Gaza has hit its lowest point in months and that food distribution has been halted…
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The Israeli military opened fire on UN peacekeepers and their facilities this week as part of its ground invasion of southern Lebanon, the latest example of Israel targeting UN workers amid its genocide. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported that Israeli forces fired at peacekeepers in three attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, as Israel’s recent escalation causes “widespread…
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Human rights groups are demanding international powers intervene to stop Israel’s creation of an “extermination zone” in northern Gaza this week, as Israeli forces are attacking hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who they have trapped in the region, and are demanding that hospitals evacuate. Several advocacy groups have raised alarm as Israel has embarked on a campaign to seemingly…
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In chilling remarks on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly threatened civilians in Lebanon with “destruction and suffering” similar to what the Israeli military has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza. In a video statement, Netanyahu urged the people of Lebanon to fight against Hezbollah, a political group formed in the 1980s to resist Israeli occupation…
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Israel’s mass forced displacement campaign in Lebanon may soon cause major disease outbreaks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned as Israel attacks health care centers in the country. In a press briefing on Tuesday, WHO Deputy Incident Manager for Lebanon Ian Clarke warned of the danger of the crowded conditions in displacement shelters within Lebanon, where officials report an…
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Biden officials have reportedly admitted that ceasefire negotiations amid Israel’s war on Lebanon and genocide in Gaza have been suspended, despite public insistence by high-powered figures within the administration that they are working around the clock for a ceasefire. The Biden administration has given up on ceasefire talks after first proposing a deal for a 21-day ceasefire between…
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In the early days of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed off on a policy for Israeli forces to attack humanitarian convoys carrying much-needed aid for the millions of Palestinians trapped in Gaza, new reporting finds. Drop Site News, citing reports from Israeli media, revealed in a report this week that the powerful Israeli Security Cabinet developed a plan…
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As Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza and now threatens to unleash its aggression across the Middle East, the U.S. has sent Israeli forces a record $17.9 billion in military assistance, a new report released on the one-year mark of the genocide finds. According to Brown University’s Costs of War, this is the highest amount of military aid sent to Israel in a year since the U.S.
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