Urgent health update: Consequences of war on Gaza, West Bank/East Jerusalem, Lebanon, and now Syria 12/21/24
URGENT ACTION ITEM
Doctors Against Genocide Campaign to End the Silence on the Genocide in Gaza: Not Another Child/Not Another Hospital
This is a call to all of us, healthcare workers, to sign and widely share this important petition to our healthcare institutions (hospitals, professional organizations, and all health leaders) to end their silence, live up to their mission to "DO NO HARM" and speak out in their moral voice to call for an immediate ceasefire, an end to weapons to Israel, assurance of unhindered entry of needed humanitarian aid, and support for education in all our institutions about ethical responsibility to protect children and health infrastructure.
The JVP Health Advisory Council is a co-sponsor of this campaign, and we urge you to sign on and get all your colleagues and friends to do the same.
Link to the Not Another Child/Not Another Hospital petition here
FAQs about this campaign here
FUTURE ACTION ITEM
Doctors Against Genocide will be in Washington DC January 8 2025 for Hill Day, with a list of similar demands for congress, sign up to be in DC here
JOURNAL ARTICLES
BMJ 2024; 387 doi: here (Published 16 December 2024) Cite this as: BMJ 2024;387:q2828 UK doctors who have returned from Gaza have described the situation as “absolutely dire,” recalling blood soaked beds, emaciated colleagues and patients, and doctors forced to perform brain surgery on children without basic surgical equipment.
The Lancet, Will there be a future for newborns in Gaza? Volume 404, Issue 10464p1725-1726, November 02, 2024 here
REPORTS
The Human Rights Watch report, titled 'Israel's Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza,' highlights severe water shortages in Gaza, alleging Israeli actions may amount to genocide. Israel disputes these claims, emphasizing its humanitarian efforts. Mondoweiss
Three reports of Israeli detention. here
Report from Beit Lahia, Survivors of Israeli incursion in northern Gaza describe drone attacks on schools, lack of food and medicine and dodging bullets. here
Report on the Epidemiological War on Gaza: Disease is poised to become an even deadlier second front in Israel’s assault on the besieged Strip. here
Report from Defense of Children International: Palestinian children faced an unprecedented assault on their lives and futures as Israel’s genocidal campaign escalated across the occupied Palestinian territory this year. here
VIDEO/BROADCASTS
The West Bank: Healthcare Under Illegal Occupation, Medical Aid for Palestine, The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must be ended. MAP is supporting healthcare for Palestinians across the West Bank by providing essential equipment and training to local teams. here
Interview with Gideon Levy discussing Syria: “The only remaining colonialist country is Israel” here
Report on The Real News Network, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has put at least 114 hospitals and clinics out of service, yet nurses and doctors vow to continue providing care under the worst conditions imaginable. here
Dr. Nimer Sultany, a law professor at SOAS, speaks with host Diana Buttu about the unprecedented number of legal actions taken before international courts, and the double standards that have historically existed within international justice mechanisms. here
GAZA
Israeli air, land, & sea bombardment continues across Gaza, causing further civilian casualties, and destruction of houses & other civilian infrastructure. The 10-week siege of northern Gaza has choked off all humanitarian aid, denying 65-75,000 people access to food, water, electricity or reliable health care. Indiscriminate Israeli attacks increase casualties. Israeli violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon, widespread Israeli bombing of Syria, the expanded Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, and the expansion of the war to the West Bank constitute a regional health and human rights emergency.
Killed: 45,059+ (273 this week)
Injured: 107,041+ (853 this week)
Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza: 386 (2 this week)
Israeli soldiers injured in Gaza: 2,488
Hostages in Gaza: 100
(Numbers are cumulative through 12/17/24, per OCHAOPT & Palestinian Ministry of Health.)
For more details: here
Israeli attacks
• UN Human Rights Office reports Israeli military attacked 9 schools sheltering IDPs so far this month. Details here Between 10/6-12/15, 95 schools were hit, 61 in North Gaza.
• 12/14, 2 schools-turned shelters were hit in Gaza City, killing 7 (3 children), injuring many.
• 12/15, Israeli troops raided an IDP school-shelter in 'Izbat Beit Hanun, detaining the males and forcing the women and children to move south. Many were killed, including 10-15 incinerated, and the school was destroyed.
• 12/15, an attack on an UNRWA school in Al Mawasi (Khan Younis) flooded the Nasser Medical Complex sheltering mostly women and children, many injured so severely they died on site or en route to the hospital. Details here At least 18 people died in the ER, including 12 children.
• 12/10, 22 killed and others injured near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya.
• 12/12 &15, 17 killed and others injured in Gaza City.
• 12/12, 22 killed and others injured in Khan Younis and Rafah while providing security to aid trucks, raising the numbers aid truck security workers killed to 720.
• 12/12 & 15, 3 attacks killed 55 (8 children), and injured many, An Nuseirat camp, Deir al Balah. Another attack on 12/14 killed 12, including 2 children and the mayor of Deir al Balah.
• 12/16 Over two days, the Israeli military bombed at least four areas, including two schools, housing displaced families, across the Gaza Strip. Witnesses said the bombings left horrific scenes of decapitated and “shredded bodies.” The army also bombed a post belonging to Palestinian Civil Defense workers, killing five rescue workers and an Al Jazeera cameraman.
• 12/17 “A number of victims are still under rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.” At least one Palestinian was reported killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike which targeted a gathering of civilians near the Al-Tabe’een School in northern Gaza City. Earlier more than 15 Palestinians were killed in another deadly airstrike on a house sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
• 12/17 Gaza Humanitarian Zone Have Killed Scores of Palestinians, The Israeli army classified Mawasi as a humanitarian zone and directed Gaza's civilian population there. But despite its humanitarian classification, the IDF has never refrained from striking it – and the UN says attacks there have intensified recently
• 12/20 At dawn and late the previous night, Israeli forces carried out sporadic shelling across several areas in the Gaza Strip, including the destruction of residential buildings in Jabaliya. These attacks followed a day of heavy violence, resulting in over 50 Palestinian fatalities. This followed the targeting of two shelters in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood on Thursday, which caused 15 deaths, primarily among women and children, and left others injured
• Among the recent victims of Israel’s bombardment were twin sisters Sally and Dalia Ghazi Ibaid. The 26-year-olds had recently been accepted to attend the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, as part of the Global Student Relief Initiative, which supports students from conflict zones. They were killed by an Israeli bombing on December 5 as they attempted to leave Gaza via the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
• A new report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz finds Israel’s military has designated the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts the Gaza Strip in half, as a “kill zone.” The report quotes Israeli soldiers describing how they arbitrarily killed dozens of Palestinian civilians, including children, then posthumously declared them to be terrorists.
• Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said it stabbed to death three Israeli soldiers as it began a new operation in the middle of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Israeli military targeting of Kamal Adwan and other health facilities
Near daily attacks on and near Kamal Adwan Hospital, which currently houses 60 patients, has devastated the neighborhood and further damaged the hospital’s water tanks, electrical generators, oxygen supply network, and the building itself. Due to ongoing insecurity and the lack of ambulances and equipment, medical staff have been unable to assist people wounded and trapped under the rubble surrounding the hospital.
• 12/12 Dr. Saeed Judeh, the last orthopedic doctor in North Gaza, was killed en route from Kamal Adwan to the nearby Al Awda Hospital, as was a nurse travelling to Kamal Adwan.
• 12/14 after Israel denied 4 WHO hospital resupply missions, it finally made a delivery but found hospital conditions “appalling” Details here WHO’s request to re-deploy the Indonesian Emergency Medical Team (EMT) to the hospital continues to be denied, despite the urgent need.
• 12/16-17 Dr. Hassam Abu Safiya: from Kamal Adwan Hospital: “Unfortunately, since yesterday until now, we have faced the same bombings and violent targeting against Kamal Adwan Hospital. What was new yesterday was the arrival of ambulances that were coordinated through the DCO (U.N. Development Coordination Office), but there were attempts to target these ambulances, resulting in the wounding of two paramedics and disabling three out of four ambulances. Three of them are completely out of commission and are currently stranded in the streets. For the first time, the intensive care department was targeted by snipers, and all the windows of the hospital were hit. This indicates that the snipers are positioned at high points. Anyone moving within the hospital wards was at risk of being shot, creating a very dangerous situation for both patients and staff.”
“Since yesterday, we have been providing medical care for some individuals in the hospital corridors. From morning until now, the bombing has resumed, impacting the hospital buildings, its surroundings, and the courtyard. It is evident that the focus is on the hospital—its structure, its vicinity, and anyone moving within it. Since yesterday, we have received about 29 injuries and five martyrs.
There are urgent maintenance needs, such as repairs to generators, electricity, water, and oxygen supplies. Unfortunately, we cannot go out to fix the damage caused by the attacks yesterday and today. We are currently enduring difficult hours without electricity, oxygen, or water. The situation in the hospital is becoming increasingly dire and will turn into a graveyard for everyone inside. We are appealing to the world for help. We urgently call for international protection for the healthcare system and its workers.
In wartime, taking care of children in Gaza has turned into a daily fight for survival, sometimes forcing parents to sell their belongings to buy diapers or milk for their kids and turning routine caregiving into an agonizing struggle. Some parents report hindered development due to malnutrition.
• 12/17, Israeli jets bombed near the hospital, followed by tanks and bulldozers attacking the hospital directly, destroying the ICU. here
• Dr. Abu Safiya: “The intensive care unit was targeted, and it was being clearly fired upon.” He reiterated that the unit was the only remaining ICU in the northern Gaza Strip which has been under siege for more than 70 days. “We managed to control the fire, but it was a miracle that we evacuated the patients on ventilators and oxygen support,” the director continued. He explained that they managed to extinguish the fire manually, using some blankets and a small amount of water originally designated for medical use. “We have already been suffering from a severe water shortage for more than 8 days due to the targeting of water tanks and the water network and oxygen network.” Dr. Abu Safiya emphasized “The occupation army has deliberately rigged booby traps in the streets around the hospital and targeted the intensive care unit using snipers stationed on the roofs of nearby buildings as well as quadcopter drones.”
• As of 12/4, WHO recorded 591 attacks on health facilities throughout Gaza. Here
• An NGO-operated medical point in An Nuseirat refugee camp (Deir al Balah) has been evacuated 5 times, 3 times in November. It offers 3,000 consultations/month, 25% related toinfectious diseases. UTIs are prevalent among pregnant women due to the lack of clean water and bacterial testing shortages. Unavailability of other diagnostics result in late diagnoses of cancer, forcing hysterectomies rather than treating conditions. Severe shortages of medical supplies deny medicines to all but 5% of the 80-100 patients visiting the medical point daily.
• Nasser Medical Complex (Khan Younis) has 655 patients, with pediatric occupancy at 250%. Heart surgeries have been halted due to the lack of supplies, only life-saving operations are being performed, chemotherapy and other procedures have stopped.
Children
• >160 children (4 per day) have been killed since the beginning of November (https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-executive-director-catherine-russell-children-and-continued). UNICEF’s Catherine RusselI notes there is no safe space in Gaza, that children lack everything from food to safe water, medical supplies and clothes: “The world cannot look away when so many children are exposed to daily bloodshed, hunger, disease, and cold.” A recent report reveals 96% of children feel that their death is imminent, while 49% express a desire to die. Most show signs of withdrawal, anxiety, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. Here
Evacuations and displacements
• 12/11-14: Israeli military issued 4 evacuation orders affecting 69,000 people in Gaza City, north Gaza, Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis. The orders cover the Patients Friends Association Hospital and 5 other health facilities, an UNRWA shelter and 10 other IDP sites, a UN-supported bakery, 2 distribution centers, 24 water distribution points and the suspension of water, sanitation and nutrition services. 80.5% of Gaza remains under active evacuation orders.
• An assessment in Khan Younis found people living in damaged or destroyed homes, erecting shelters on ruins risking collapse as the winter rains begin. Winterization assistance to protect shelters and tents from harsh winter conditions is needed. There is not enough water to meet needs. Sanitation and hygiene conditions are poor, many rely on pit latrines. Sewage systems are destroyed, sewage pools in the streets. Rodents are everywhere. People must walk several kilometers to reach markets and hospitals. Closer medical points lack medications.
• There is a critical lack of food. Food aid distribution has stopped, as have malnutrition screenings and nutrition supplements. Charity kitchens provide occasional hot meals but quantities are scarce. People go entire days without eating. Baby formula, diapers, and children’s clothing are desperately needed. Information access is poor. With low internet coverage, radio is the primary source of information.
Aid
• 12/11, a 70-truck convoy entering through the Kerem Shalom crossing was violently attacked by looters, leading to the loss of nearly all food and aid supplies. The same day, a WFP convoy at the Kissufim crossing came under fire and 4 of 5 trucks were looted.
• Between 12/1-16, of 339 planned aid movements coordinated with Israeli authorities, 30% (102) were facilitated, 42% (141) denied, 18% (62) impeded, and 10% (34) cancelled. Aid missions to North Gaza governorate were particularly disrupted: UN attempted to reach these besieged areas 40 times from 12/1- 16, of which 38 attempts were denied and 2 were impeded. Missions to Rafah, facing an ongoing Israeli military operation since May, face similar challenges: of 20 attempts between 12/1-16, all were denied.
• Margaret Harris, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), warned that the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza was likely to become even worse. “Everybody everywhere [in Gaza] has dire health needs now because they’re starving, because they lack clean water, and [they’re] crowded together,” she said at a UN briefing in Geneva, before concluding with an ominous pronouncement: “Eventually, we will see more people dying from disease than we are even seeing from the bombardment.” According to public health scholar Barry Levy, indirect health-related deaths—which are seldom discussed when reporting the death toll of a war—can outnumber direct deaths by more than 15 to 1.
• In the past four months alone, nearly 19,000 children were hospitalized due to acute malnutrition – nearly double the cases in the first half of the year, UNRWA says. The lives of more than 8,500 infants in Gaza are at risk as milk supplies are “nowhere near enough” in the besieged enclave, UNRWA has warned. “One of our only functioning health centers has just 6 boxes to distribute – the first delivery in 3 months,” UNRWA said on 12/15.
• The World Food Program (WFP) says that since October, it has requested from Israel that it be able to deliver food to areas in Gaza’s northern governorate, which includes Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, 101 times. However, 97% of those requests were rejected or impeded on the ground.
Destruction of infrastructure
• Satellite imagery collected 12/1 shows 69% of all structures (170,812) are either damaged or destroyed, up from 66% in September. Destruction is worse in North Gaza and Rafah.
• Education Cluster reports 88% of school buildings (496 of 564) need full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to regain use. 55% are government schools, 33% UNRWA schools, and 12% private schools. Prior to the war, 20,320 teachers served 542,959 students in these schools.
• The eventual removal of destroyed infrastructure is complicated by unexploded ordnance under the rubble. The Mine Advisory Group (MAG) has 20 teams delivering risk education and emergency briefings in communities and on the streets. They conduct hazard assessments at humanitarian sites, including schools and IDP shelters, health centers and UN facilities.
Mental Health
• After months of Israel banning psychiatrists, Dr. Ammar al-Attar was allowed into Gaza on 4/20 where he helped launch an online therapy clinic primarily aimed at helping people experiencing trauma and shock during the ongoing genocide. In-person follow-up sessions were also offered to those who signed up online. “I was surprised by the warm reception at the crossing and the hope Gazans have. For a moment, I forgot that I’m among people who have been at war for a long time,” al-Attar said, referring to Gaza’s Rafah crossing and his three weeks working in the enclave. He led a group of 11 Jordanian doctors who, as he described them, are highly experienced in various specialties and have a strong sense of loyalty to their Arab brothers and sisters in occupied Palestine.
WEST BANK, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM
This week, Israeli forces killed 4 Palestinians and injured 31 (11 children).
Killed since October 2023: 972 (210 children) and injured: 16,110 (2,452 children)
Find more detail here:
Israeli attacks
• 12/12 Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man in Qalqilya City. Footage shows Israeli soldiers kicking his corpse and then withholding his body.
• 12/12 Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man and injured 3 in a raid in Balata Refugee Camp, near Nablus. They raided homes and assaulted an elderly couple.
• 12/13 Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man with disabilities fleeing them in Beit Awwa village, near Hebron. Palestinians threw stones at the military, who in response injured 3.
• 12/1, Israeli forces shot and killed an 18-year-old during a raid on Askar Refugee Camp, near Nablus. When Palestinians threw stones, the military fired live ammunition. After shooting him, they held him; when they handed him over to a medical team, he was pronounced dead.
• 12/14 Palestinian forces shot and killed a Palestinian man and boy in Jenin Refugee Camp. The UN Human Rights Office called upon Palestinian authorities “to launch an effective, transparent, and impartial investigation into each killing that raises concerns about serious violations of international human rights law, and to ensure accountability.” Unrest in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus has led to confrontations between Palestinian forces and residents, affecting schooling and access to essential services.
• 12/17 Israeli forces shot and killed 2 men crossing the Barrier near Qalqiliya to get to work.
• 12/17 a man was shot by Israeli forces raiding Qusra, near Nablus. He died the next day.
• 12/19 Israeli forces shot and killed a man and an 80-year-old deaf woman in a raid on Balata Refugee Camp (Nablus), forcing UNRWA staff and 3,000+ pupils in 4 schools to shelter in place.
• 12/19 an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle killed 4 and injured 3 in Tulkarm Refugee Camp.
Settler Attacks
• This week, settlers carried out 32 attacks against Palestinians, causing injuries and/or property damage. Since 10/7/23, OCHA documented 1,769 attacks by settlers against Palestinians. Since 10/7/2023, settler attacks and access restrictions displaced 300 Bedouin households (1,762 people, 856 children).
• 12/10 a settler purposely ran over a 12-year-old boy in Al Lubban ash Sharqiya, near Nablus.
• 12/13, a group of masked, armed settlers blocked a Ramallah-Jericho road, threw stones at Palestinian vehicles, and attacked and injured a man, later taken to a hospital in Jericho.
• 12/15, Israeli settlers and soldiers assaulted 2 men from the Makhul herding community in the northern Jordan Valley after attempting to steal their animals.
• Israeli settlers set a West Bank mosque on fire. Video footage shows the burned mosque, with the word 'revenge' and Star of David symbols painted on its walls and floor. The governor of the local district said that the attack “wouldn't have occurred without the constant protection that settlers receive from the Israeli army.”
Demolitions
• This week, Israeli authorities demolished 76 Palestinian-owned structures for lack of Israeli-issued building permits, displacing 103 (46 children). Since 10/7/23, Israeli authorities destroyed 2,032 Palestinian West Bank structures, displacing 4,832 Palestinians (2,046 children).
• The Israeli army has forced two Palestinians to demolish their homes south of Jerusalem.The Wafa news agency reported that the all-Israeli Municipality pressured Hani Shkeirat to demolish part of his home in the Jabal al-Mukaber neighborhood after saying it was built without a permit.
• 12/16 Israeli authorities set a new record by displacing 78 Palestinians in a single day. Among the most affected were 2 herding communities in Israeli-designated “firing zones,” military training areas covering nearly 30% of Area C where the Palestinian communities are most vulnerable and have limited access to essential services and basic infrastructure.
• Education Cluster reports there are 59 Palestinian-run schools (where 715 teachers serve 6,600 students) in Area C and East Jerusalem under stop-work, partial, or full demolition orders. Currently, 7 of the 59 schools have exhausted all legal avenues to prevent demolition. From 2010-2024, Israeli authorities carried out 43 school demolitions in Area C and East Jerusalem, as well as 9 kindergarten demolitions. Demolitions and their threat pressure residents to leave their communities and places them at risk of forcible transfer.
• A report revealed that Israel soldiers have been systematically abusing Palestinians in Hebron. Whipped with a belt, beaten in the groin, threatened with rape: Palestinians recount a pattern of arbitrary attacks in the West Bank city this year.
• The Palestinian Authority recently launched a deadly military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp, assassinating a member of an armed group on 12/14 and killing both a Palestinian teen and a child. Anwar Rajab, the spokesperson of the PA “security” forces, claimed the military operation – dubbed “Operation Protect the Homeland” – was intended to “put an end to sedition and chaos,” The New York Times reported, a euphemism for the PA doing Israel’s bidding by targeting armed Palestinian groups resisting Israel’s land grabs and military occupation.
• Palestinian factions – including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Islamic Jihad – have released a joint statement on the situation in Jenin, where Palestinian armed groups and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are fighting.
ISRAEL
• People chanted slogans and held placards during an antigovernment protest in front of the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv as they call for action to secure the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza
• Israeli soldiers told Haaretz that buildings in Gaza marked as homes of terrorists or enemy staging areas have not been removed from the IOF's target list even after being targeted by airstrikes, which means innocent civilians seeking shelter have been killed in subsequent strikes. Anyone – including noncombatants – who enters such a building risks being attacked by the IDF and being classified posthumously as a terrorist, even if no terrorist activity is occurring there anymore, the soldiers said.
• Israeli Defense Minister Katz: Israel Will Have Full Security Control in Gaza, Like in West Bank, After War, Defense Minister Israel Katz says Israel will have full freedom of action in Gaza and won't allow for 'any terrorist activity against Israeli communities and citizens.' Opposition leader Yair Lapid welcomes his remarks but warns Israel should not settle Gaza.
• Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid says he is not afraid to dissolve the government during protests for a deal to release Israel captives held by Hamas in Gaza
LEBANON
• Israeli soldiers removed a small far-right group of Israeli civilians who had crossed into Lebanon, appearing to put up a tent settlement, in what the military said was a serious incident now under investigation.
SYRIA
• Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight on 12/14 with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel. Jolani’s comments came as Netanyahu announced that he had approved a plan to expand settlement building in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
US
• After 16 years behind bars, Mufid Abdulqader, a member of the “Holy Land Five” has been released from prison into a halfway house. The Palestinian American is slated to spend one year at the facility. The case of the Holy Land 5 has become a symbol of the unconstitutional overreach associated with U.S. counterterrorism since 9/11.
• Despite overwhelming documentation of plausible genocide and medical war crimes in Gaza, major U.S. medical organizations, journals, and lobbies have failed to adopt a meaningful stance against these atrocities. Organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the American Medical Association, and American Pediatric Associations have not called for a ceasefire or investigation of war crimes. This is in sharp contrast to their earlier reaction to the Ukraine war, the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, and even the recent statements of the U.S. government.
• Rochelle McLaughlin, longtime Professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy at San Jose State University (SJSU) in California, resigned with a letter to the university’s trustees stating, “I can no longer ethically or morally consent to use my labor in any way that supports an institution that is explicitly manufacturing consent for the unrestrained, illegal, apocalyptic, ongoing series of “genocides to destroy Palestine.”
• 12/17 Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans filed a federal lawsuit against Secretary of State Antony Blinken accusing him and his department of failing to implement a law that prohibits the US from sending military aid to foreign security forces committing gross violations of human rights. “This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said, referring to the Leahy Law. DAWN is helping support the lawsuit.
• A key source named by The New York Times as an expert helping to verify the authenticity of internal Hamas documents in a major report in October told Drop Site News he had raised concerns about the veracity of the documents in his interviews with The Times. Israel provided the paper with alleged Hamas meeting minutes as part of its campaign to directly link Iran to the planning of the October 7 attacks.
• NYU barred two tenured faculty members, Andrew Ross and Sonya Posmentier, from entering some buildings after they joined a sit-in at the library and other protests over two days last week to demand the university make public its investments in companies tied to Israel and close its campus in Tel Aviv. On the second day, they were arrested and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct, relatively minor offences that do not result in a criminal record. The university also imposed PNG orders against students who took part in the protest as well as non-tenured faculty including Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor of journalism. Kumanyika said on Bluesky that NYU had not provided guidance on how long the designation would last or how it could be appealed.
INTERNATIONAL
• UK: BBC is facing an internal revolt over its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza. Their primary battlefield has become the online news operation. Drop Site News spoke to 13 current and former staffers who mapped out the extensive bias in the BBC’s coverage and how their demands for change have been largely met with silence from management. At times, these journalists point out, the coverage has been more credulous about Israeli claims than the UK’s own Conservative leaders and the Israeli media, while devaluing Palestinian life, ignoring atrocities, and creating a false equivalence in an entirely unbalanced conflict.
• UK: More than 50 British MPs have petitioned their government to assist in evacuating seriously injured and sick children from the Gaza Strip to receive medical treatment in the UK. “Many require urgent medical attention that is simply unavailable in Gaza due to the current blockade and the complete collapse of the healthcare system,” the MPs said in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “Without immediate intervention, the lives of countless children hang in the balance.” They highlighted the British government’s refusal to allow a four-year-old boy from Gaza to enter the UK for medical treatment.
• Sweden: UNRWA Sweden will no longer fund UNRWA and plans instead to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, its aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, told Swedish TV4.
• UN: The UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on Israel's legal obligations to ensure the operation of UN humanitarian agencies, particularly UNRWA. The resolution, which was initiated by Norway, passed with 137 countries in favor and 12 against.
• Vatican: Pope Francis has condemned Israeli air strikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
SOURCES
OCHAOPT, British Medical Journal, Mondoweiss, The Guardian, +972. Electronic Intifada, New York Times, Jewish Currents, Palestine Chronicle, Haaretz, Zeteo, Drop Site News, Haaretz, Democracy Now, The Guardian, Aljazeera, Jewish Currents, The Real News Network, This is Palestine, Reuters, Truthout
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