In Rafah, 83% of refugees report no access to food – Day 265

contact@ifamericansknew.org June 28, 2024 baruch goldstein, gaza death toll, gaza pier, medical evacuation, military aid to israel, october 7, torture

At least seven Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded, including children, women and the elderly, according to initial estimates. Some civilians were struck while taking shelter at a UN school, and others while fleeing.

Another child dies of malnutrition in Gaza:

Reuters reports: The death of another girl in Kamal Adwan Hospital late on Wednesday raised the number of children who have died of malnutrition and dehydration to at least 31, a Gaza health official said, adding that the war made recording such cases difficult.

Israel denies accusations it has created the famine conditions, blaming aid agencies for distribution problems and accusing Hamas of diverting aid, allegations the militants (sic) deny.

Many more could suffer the same fate, as one in five Palestinians in Gaza face “catastrophic food insecurity”, according to the UN’s hunger monitoring system.

NOTE: Thousands of aid trucks are reportedly waiting just outside Gaza, where Israel has made it extremely difficult to pass, employing complicated and arbitrary procedures. Israel has on multiple occasionsfired at individuals waiting for food aid(once killing over 100); Israel has alsoattacked food aid convoys. Additionally, Israeli citizens have blocked a border crossing for weeks, and attacked and looted trucks they believed were heading to Gaza – all with no meaningful attempt by Israel to stop them.

In mid-March, Israel promised to “flood” Gaza with aid, but has failed to do so.

The US has for months expressed its desire to see appropriate amounts of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza on one hand, whileundermining Gaza’s largest aid organization on the other.

Meanwhile, the US has built a “temporary pier” off the Gaza coast to receive aid by sea – at a cost of at least $230 million (which has so far been ineffective) – and has, along with other countries, airdropped packages of aid into Gaza – causing over 20 Palestinian deaths due to malfunction.

The Biden administration has so far not used its leverage as the provider of billions of dollars in military aid to and for Israel (with one exception), a move that could potentially end the war in short order.

In the searing heat of the Gaza summer, Palestinians are surrounded by sewage and garbage:

Associated Press reports: Children in sandals trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s crowded tent camps for displaced families. People relieve themselves in burlap-covered pits, with nowhere nearby to wash their hands.

In the stifling summer heat, Palestinians say the odor and filth surrounding them is just another inescapable reality of war — like pangs of hunger or sounds of bombing.

The territory’s ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water has been virtually decimated…. This has made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people deprived of adequate shelter, food and medicine, aid groups say.

Hepatitis A cases are on the rise, and doctors fear that as warmer weather arrives, an outbreak of cholera is increasingly likely without dramatic changes to living conditions. The U.N., aid groups and local officials are scrambling to build latrines, repair water lines and bring desalination plants back online.

“Flies are in our food,” said Adel Dalloul, a 21-year-old. “If you try to sleep, flies, insects and cockroaches are all over you.”

Anwar al-Hurkali, who lives with his family in a tent camp in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, said he can’t sleep for fear of scorpions and rodents. He doesn’t let his children leave their tent, he said, worrying they’ll get sick from pollution and mosquitoes.

“We cannot stand the smell of sewage,” he said. “It is killing us.”

Solid waste piles up in Gaza due to fuel shortages, impacting essential services and increasing disease risk. — Solid waste piles up in Gaza due to fuel shortages, impacting essential services and increasing disease risk, May 23 (photo)

83 percent of Rafah’s displaced population has no access to food – Norwegian Refugee Council:

From Norwegian Refugee Council:The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) surveyed over 1,000 Palestinian families displaced from Rafah following Israel’s military operations in the area.

“Living costs are soaring beyond comprehension. Some items have increased at least 15-fold in cost. We can’t find basic items such as hygiene items that have disappeared from the market because of a severe drop in aid and commercial trucks arriving.

“The population density is very, very high. The tents, that are meant for temporary use only, are 3×4 in size and host more than 15 people, even 20 in some cases. Then you have families who don’t even have that sheet of plastic or plank of wood to build a shelter.

“People are starting to experience starvation in the Middle area and in the South. All indicators say that we will reach a point where they literally can’t find anything to eat if the situation persists, if the crossing, the main source of food supplies, remains closed. Farms are all destroyed. The few existing food supplies in Gaza cannot last forever.

Other findings:
– 83 percent reported no access to food.
– 52 percent had no access to a dignified shelter.
– On average, nine people stayed in the same shelter.
– 57 percent lacked access to safe water.
– Almost everyone had no access to adequate latrine facilities.

Israel permits 19 medical evacuations, leaves 10,000 stuck in Gaza:

Associated Press reports: Israeli authorities say 68 people — 19 sick or wounded children plus their companions — have been allowed out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt in the first medical evacuation since early May, when the territory’s sole travel crossing was shut down after Israel captured it. [NOTE: some sources report 21 patients evacuated.]

The World Health Organization notes that “more than 10,000 patients still require medical care outside the Strip.”

“Of the 13,872 people who have applied for medical evacuation since 7 October, only 35 percent have been evacuated,” Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a post on X.

“Medical evacuation corridors must be urgently established for the sustained, organized, safe, and timely passage of critically ill patients from Gaza via all possible routes.”

Physicians for Human Rights – Israel and the Israeli human rights organization Gisha have petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to create a “permanent mechanism” to allow people needing medical treatment to evacuate Gaza.

Adi Lustigman, an attorney with Physicians for Human Rights Israel, said that before May 7 – when Israel seized the Rafah crossing – about 50 Palestinian patients per day crossed into Egypt for medical treatment abroad.

Young patient in Al Aqsa hospital, Deir al Balah, suffering from severe burns and lacerations from flying glass. (screenshot)

Rescue missions ‘may stop at any moment’: Gaza’s Civil Defense:

The Civil Defense in Gaza has issued a statement, warning that it is running out of fuel and its rescue missions “may stop at any moment”.

It said on its Telegram channel that rescue crews carried out several missions this morning alone, involving recovering bodies and survivors from four homes attacked in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, as well as two separate houses in the Shujayea area.

“Our crews cannot deal with the huge number of targets while running out of fuel,” its statement said.

“The reality of the health system in the northern Gaza Strip is tragic as the aggression continues.”

Axios – U.S. to release part of suspended bomb shipment to Israel:

Axios reports: The Biden administration is expected to soon release 500-lb. bombs that were part of a weapons shipment to Israel put on hold in April over U.S. concerns about the Israel Defense Forces’ military operation in Rafah, one U.S. and one Israeli official told Axios.

The move suggests the U.S. is now less concerned about Israel possibly using these bombs in Gaza and that the White House wants to decrease some of the tension between President Biden and Israel’s supporters over his decision to withhold this specific shipment.

About 1,700 500-lb. bombs are expected to be delivered after Israel’s operation in Rafah ends, which is expected to happen in two weeks, according to an Israeli official.

Israel says it needs the bombs in case fighting with Hezbollah on the northern border escalates into an all out war.

U.S. and Israeli officials say the Biden administration is still reviewing another part of the shipment that includes 1,800 2,000-lb. bombs.

US has provided $6.5bn in aid to Israel since October:

Washington Post reports: The United States has provided $6.5 billion in security assistance to Israel since the start of the war — a previously unannounced figure that was part of discussions in Washington this week with a visiting delegation headed by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The announcement comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly accused the Biden administration of slow-rolling military assistance.

“This is a massive, massive undertaking,” said a senior administration official speaking on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the White House, who disclosed the totals as an indication of the depth and complexity of U.S. support for Israel.

What remains after Israel carried out airstrikes on Al Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Saturday, June 27, killing dozens of Palestinians. — What remains after Israel carried out airstrikes on Al Shati refugee camp in Gaza City – possibly using US-made bombs – on Saturday, June 27, killing dozens of Palestinians. (screenshot)

Senior US Republican demands Biden administration shut Gaza aid pier:

Reuters reports: The Republican lawmaker who leads the House Armed Services Committee has written to the Biden administration formally demanding it shut down its aid pier off the coast Gaza, calling the operation ineffective, risky and a waste of money.

The U.S. military has been authorized to operate it until the end of July, but a U.S. Agency for International Development official said this week that the administration could seek to extend it for at least another month.

“I urge the Administration to immediately cease this failed operation before further catastrophe occurs and consider alternative means of land and air-based humanitarian aid delivery,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers wrote in a letter seen by Reuters.

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The letter, sent to White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has not been previously reported.

As of June 19, JLOTS had only been operational about 10 days and had only moved 3,415 metric tons onto the beach in Gaza,” Rogers wrote, using the U.S. military’s acronym for the pier system, known as Joint Logistics Over the Shore.

Middle East Eye adds: The Pentagon has said that since 17 May, it has delivered 2,500 metric tonnes of aid via the pier. The figure is only a trickle of the amount of aid that was entering the enclave before the war. Prior to October, roughly 7,500 metric tonnes were entering Gaza daily.

“This pier has been an immense and costly distraction from the work that we need to do and the problems we need to solve,” Scott Paul, who leads humanitarian policy at Oxfam, told Middle East Eye.

“This was a way of avoiding addressing the most critical obstacles to humanitarian assistance in Gaza, and so I think it’s fair to say that it has not met even the administration’s modest expectations for it.”

Widely reported Palestinian father-son ‘rape’ confession contradicted by piles of evidence:

Grayzone reports: On May 23, 2024, Britain’s Daily Mail published what it described as “exclusive” interrogation tapes it had been handed by Israeli intelligence. The Murdoch-owned tabloid claimed the supposed confessions exposed a pair of “father and son Hamas rapists” who had admitted “going house to house carrying out sex attacks and murder.”

The proof of this apparent bombshell story consisted of two short snippets of heavily edited footage in which a wide-eyed Palestinian father and son are shown confessing to raping, killing, and kidnapping Israeli civilians from Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel on October 7th.

In the videos, the pair, listed by the Daily Mail as “Shameless Jamal Hussein Ahmad Radi, 47, and his son Abdallah, 18,” seemingly admit to heinous crimes including a double homicide, kidnapping a mother and daughter, gangraping and murdering a woman, and kidnapping an Israeli resident.

In an appeal to emotion aimed at making the very questioning of the confessions’ reliability an act of siding with monsters, the Daily Mail writes, “An evil father and son have revealed…] how they killed and raped innocent civilians.” The opening sentence distills the essence of the article as a whole: “These confessions further prove that any attempt to deny the horrors of October 7th… is part of a campaign… to promote the justification of terrorism.”

This investigation will expose the videos, and the Western media coverage of them, as yet another cynical example of Israeli propaganda designed to manufacture support for Tel Aviv’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the claims made in the videos are not only uncorroborated by any evidence gathered by Israel, they are contradicted by copious documentation of the deaths which occurred in Nir Oz on October 7.

The co-author of the Daily Mail article promoting the supposed confession videos turns out to have been an obscure Israeli-based writer with little prior experience in investigative journalism, stridently anti-Palestinian views and a Twitter timeline featuring a smiling selfie of herself with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an official British embassy gala in Tel Aviv.

Named Natalie Lisbona, the Daily Mail writer has become a key conduit for Israeli propaganda related to sexual violence allegations against Palestinians…

None of the alleged crimes described in the supposed confessions align with any known details of actual October 7 victims, or how they died…..

Unless Israel is able to produce further explanations or evidence, there is every reason to conclude that these confessions were false, and coerced through torture. As with already debunked propaganda hoaxes spun out by Israel’s international propaganda apparatus, such as claims of babies beheaded and burned in ovens by Hamas, lurid Western media reports of the murder and gang-rape spree by a Palestinian father and son appear to have been orchestrated by an intelligence service notorious for its use of deception to generate further justification for the decimation of Gaza.

(Read the full article here.)

Soldiers in Gaza declare support for Hebron mass murderer Baruch Goldstein:

Electronic Intifada reports: A scene of mass destruction awaited us when we returned to Khan Younis in southern Gaza after being displaced for months. Among the things that caught our attention were how Israeli soldiers had written Hebrew-language messages on the walls in areas they had attacked.

One of these messages read, “We are all Baruch Goldstein.”

Baruch Goldstein was the settler from New York who massacred 29 men and boys as they prayed at Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque in the occupied West Bank during February 1994.

The message written in Gaza appears to endorse the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians. It indicates, too, that some of the troops perpetrating the current genocide hold far-right views.

Although the Hebron massacre was condemned internationally, Goldstein’s admirers are now represented in Israel’s ruling coalition. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister and one of the politicians demanding that the war in Gaza continues unabated, has named Goldstein as his hero.

On the same wall, soldiers appeared to make fun of how they are laying waste to Gaza.

“Buildings for clearing out and rebuilding in Gaza,” another message reads. The apparent “signature” on that message reads “your real estate agent.”

Yet another message on the wall says, “We are heading for Jerusalem.”

Israeli soldiers ‘openly brag’, share images of tortured Palestinians – Rights group:

Marking the UN’s international day in support of victims of torture, a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group has accused Israeli forces of practicing the “harshest forms of torture” on people detained in Gaza and bragging about their abuse.

Addameer, a Ramallah-based prisoners’ rights group, shared a series of posts on social media, which contain video clips from Israeli soldiers “openly sharing their torture of Palestinian detainees on social media to brag about their actions”.

“Due to the lack of accountability for the occupying state’s crimes over the years, soldiers deliberately document their acts of torture against Palestinian detainees and post these videos and photos on their personal social media accounts,” the rights group said.

The group warns that the scenes depicted in the video clips are disturbing.

62 Democrats join 207 Republicans in vote to conceal Gaza death toll:

The Intercept reports: The House of Representatives has voted to effectively conceal the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza.

On Thursday, lawmakers voted 269-144 on an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. The measure is part of the annual State Department appropriations bill. It was led by Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, N.J., and Republican Reps. Joe Wilson, S.C.; Mike Lawler, N.Y.; and Carol Miller, W.V.

In total, 62 Democrats joined 207 Republicans in supporting the amendment.

[Congressman Thomas Massie from Kentucky has pointed out that virtually everyone in Congress has an AIPAC personwho directs them on this issue.]

Mohammed Khader, policy manager at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, told The Intercept that the amendment is part of a trend of anti-Palestinian sentiment in Congress since the start of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. “By preventing any recognition of the number of Palestinians killed since October, this amendment is a clear example of genocide denial and is no different from what was done towards victims of genocides in Rwanda and Armenia.”

On Wednesday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian member of Congress, took to the floor to make a similar argument. “This is genocide denial,” she said.

West Bank – Israeli operations, detentions off the charts:

MORE NEWS:

IMEMC Daily Reports.

AFP: Urbicide: ‘Even if Israel stops bombing Gaza tomorrow, it will be impossible to live there.’

Mondoweiss: Israel’s leaked plan for annexing the West Bank, explained.

Palestine Chronicle: “They laughed as I bled” – PC speaks to wounded man who was tied to Israeli military vehicle.

Middle East Eye: Top US Republican lawmaker calls for Gaza pier to be shut, replaced by land routes.

Middle East Monitor: Hamas fighters use Israeli mines to explode tank in Gaza.

The New Arab: Israeli army officer who secretly filmed female soldiers nude found guilty.

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – JUNE 27:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – June 27: at least 38,317* (37,765 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 15,747 children as of June 17.

This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 552 in the West Bank (~134 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 45,223 Palestinian deaths. (Ralph Nader has estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.)

At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank).
At least 40 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – June 27: at least 91,799 (including at least 86,429 in Gaza and 5,370 in the West Bank, including 830 children).

[It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – June 27: ~1,466 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 315 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.**

Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.

† For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

Friday, 28 June 2024