Urgent Health Update: Consequences of the war on Gaza - March 24, 2024
The Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council is sharing information on the health implications of the attacks. We will update in a week. Please use this information to organize & educate. As the Israeli government threatens an all out assault on Rafah, increasing the risk of further massacres & genocide, starvation is rising & multiple countries move to defund & destroy UNRWA, this is a time to make your voices heard. The month of Ramadan has become a much more dangerous time for Palestinians in terms of Israeli aggression.
Day 170
Intense Israeli bombardment & ground operations as well as heavy fighting between Israeli forces & Palestinian armed groups continued to be reported across much of Gaza, particularly in southeastern Gaza City & areas surrounding Al Shifa Hospital. This has resulted in further civilian casualties, displacement, & destruction of houses & other civilian infrastructure.
Viewpont in JAMA, Wars in Gaza and Beyond: Why Protecting the Sacredness of Health Matters, by Gostin & Goodwin, JAMA, January 16, 2024 Volume 331, Number 3 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2812862?resultClick=1
After publication of that essay, the Journal of the American Medical Association published 4 letters rife with racist anti-Palestinian tropes. The prestigious platform created the appearance of intellectualism & expertise, but (as described by a primary care physician in Boston) it’s all just racism with a ribbon on it.
For analysis: https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/doctors-justify-genocide-in-a-prestigious-journal/
When children are present in a genocide, https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/when-children-are-present-in-a-genocide/ by a pediatric emergency room physician
Numbers are cumulative.
GAZA
· Killed: 31,988, including >9,000 women & >13,000 children. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 40,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. Actually, the numbers are likely conservative. The science is extremely clear.
In December, The Lancet, published two critiques of the death surveillance process done by extremely experienced scholars at Johns Hopkins & The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Both concluded that the Gazan numbers were plausible & credible, albeit by somewhat different techniques and logic.
· Injured: 74,188
· UN staff killed: 171
· UNRWA staff killed: 168, WHO: 1, UNDP: 1, UNOPS: 1
· 348 health workers killed
· 48 civil defense killed on duty
· 14 PRCS killed
· 17,000 children orphaned or separated from relatives
· Israel has killed over 100 aid workers in Gaza over the past week as its military siege of al-Shifa Hospital continues with tanks, heavy gunfire. IDF is threatening to blow up the hospital, 30,000 are trapped inside, fires broke out in the entrance, suffocating displaced women & children inside.
· Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza: 250
· Israeli soldiers injured in Gaza: 1,489
· 134 hostages in Gaza
· ~1.7 million internally displaced people
· 1,100,000 facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity- “the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded,” 1 in 6 children <2 are acutely malnourished, 1 in 3 babies under 2 in northern Gaza suffer acute malnutrition
· 854,000 facing emergency levels of food insecurity
· 265,000 facing crisis levels of food insecurity
· Nutrition screenings conducted in February show acute malnutrition rates among children in northern Gaza & Rafah have nearly doubled since January.
· The Famine Review Committee & UN Emergency Relief Coordinator emphasize that famine in Gaza can be averted, provided urgent measures are put in place, including the restoration of unfettered humanitarian access.
· World Health Organization warned many infants in Gaza are on the “brink of death” due to the lack of food. A WHO spokesperson said newborn babies are “simply dying because of low birth weight.” The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Israel may be committing war crimes by limiting aid into Gaza.
· During the first 2 weeks of March, 1 in 5 humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza were denied access by the Israeli authorities. 19 aid trucks arrived in Jabalia without being blocked or fired on by Israeli forces in months.
· The maritime aid corridor has received much attention, but organizations in Gaza say overland supplies are essential to meet urgent humanitarian needs. UN has documented 16 cases of shooting at aid convoys, & organizations believe Israeli troops are behind most of them.
· Israel bombs members of Palestinian clans & officers of Gaza’s emergency committee who handled aid supplies & delivery in north Gaza. Among people Israel killed was Amjad Hathat, director of Gaza’s emergency committee. Israel assassinated Faiq Mabhouh, head of police operations in Gaza, who handled delivery of food in north Gaza.
· 12 hospitals partially functioning, on 3/18 Israeli military launched an operation in the area Al Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, distributed leaflets instructing internally displaced persons to immediately evacuate to Al Mawasi area in southern Gaza. People reported being shot at if they tried to leave. All communications with medical staff trapped inside stopped since 3/19.
· Services have been cut to the bone at Rafah hospital in southern Gaza. Heavy demand for the dialysis machines means that patients have to endure lengthy waits before one becomes free. Most of the medicines the patients need are not available or very scarce.
· 2 of 3 field hospitals fully functional
· ~24% of primary health centers functional
· Severely injured patients are trapped in Gaza’s hospitals as evacuations are halted. Destruction of buildings, too few ambulances, & having to work in ‘red zones’ all add to the trauma.
· >200,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea
· >500,000 acute respiratory infections
· 17 emergency medical teams functional
· 1 of 3 water pipelines from Israel operational at 83% capacity
· 83% of groundwater wells non-operational
· >8,000 patients on wait list for medical referral outside Gaza
· 2,613 medical referrals abroad waiting, (1,698 wounded, 915 ill, 1,785 companions)
· Menstrual periods are extremely stressful under the living conditions for Palestinian women under assault. Some women have resorted to taking medication ordinarily prescribed as birth control to delay the onset of their periods.
WEST BANK AND EAST JERUSALEM
· Killed >435
· ~900 Palestinians have been displaced due to the destruction of their homes during search-and-arrest & other operations carried out by Israeli forces across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem since 7 October.
· Israeli army has blocked entry to West Bank villages since the start of the Gaza war. Even in emergencies, residents & volunteer medics have to use dangerous dirt roads & notify settlements in order to travel.
ISRAEL
· Netanyahu administration shows no intention of ending its war on Gaza anytime soon, despite a growing choir of voices, including Israeli allies, calling for the end to the ongoing assault.
· Netanyahu says he’s trying everything to get more aid to Gaza. Aid groups say that’s not true
· Israeli authorities denied permission for the head of UNRWA to enter Gaza, an unprecedented move.
· According to Oxfam, the Israeli authorities have been arbitrarily rejecting the entry into Gaza of civilian goods that have a potential military use. [such as surgical scissors]
· Palestinian Commission for Detainees & Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, & the family of the senior Fatah member Marwan Barghouti, who is serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail, say he was attacked with clubs by prison guards, & have asked countries involved in mediation between Israel & Hamas to intervene so he can receive an external medical evaluation. According to the claims, Barghouti suffered bleeding near his eye as a result of injuries.
· Israel’s Supreme Court has temporarily halted a government plan to send a group of Palestinian patients being treated in East Jerusalem & Tel Aviv hospitals back to Gaza. The decision follows a petition by the Israeli non-profit organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel.
· Israel will take control of Rafah even if it causes a rift with the US, a senior Israeli official said, describing the city packed with refugees as a final Hamas bastion harboring a quarter of the group’s fighters.
US
· Nick Maynard, part of a delegation of doctors who volunteered in Gaza, described appalling atrocities & the need for an immediate ceasefire at a news conference at the UN.
· When the Hayward Community Coalition in CA began investigating the city’s investment portfolio, they learned that there were some companies they could organize the community to demand that the city remove from its holdings. Hayward owned $1.6 million worth of shares in 4 companies that profit from Israel’s occupation: Caterpillar, Chevron, Hyundai, & Intel. The community wanted to enact a lasting, material consequence on US corporations & inspire others to do the same, the Hayward city council voted in favor of divestment.
· Oxfam & Human Rights Watch sent a joint memorandum to the Biden administration detailing Israel’s alleged violations of humanitarian law – including with US weapons & blocking US funded humanitarian aid – which they say necessitates the immediate suspension of US arms transfers to Israel.
· Oxfam reports that Israeli government continues to block aid despite International Court of Justice ruling.
· A delegation of American & British doctors went to Washington DC to tell the Biden administration the Israeli military is systematically destroying Gaza’s health infrastructure in order to drive Palestinians out of their homes. The doctors, who have recently returned from volunteering at Gaza’s hospitals, expected to meet White House officials & senior members of Congress to warn that pledges of increased aid to Palestinians under bombardment are largely meaningless without an immediate ceasefire to allow safe distribution of food & the revival of healthcare services.
· An open letter has been signed by prominent Jewish Americans from every walk of life, all of whom have decided to publicly repudiate both AIPAC’s unconditional embrace of the Israeli government & its attempts to crush the nascent movement within the Democratic Party for a new approach to Israel & Palestine.
· Agreement was made between White House & US Congress - bars US funds to UNRWA until March 2025.
· US drafted a new UN security council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, amid mounting pressure on Israel to halt its military campaign & allow the delivery of substantial amounts of humanitarian aid into the territory. Resolution was vetoed by Russia & China. The US resolution used nebulous language that did not call for an “immediate” ceasefire.
· 19 Senate Democrats call on Biden to make major step toward Palestinian state. The senators said they recognize none of these efforts are possible until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, all hostages are released, & "unfettered" humanitarian aid is allowed into the enclave.
· Biden-Gaza Genocide Case: Constitutional and International Law Scholars, Ex-Diplomats, Service Members, & Intelligence Officers Back Palestinians’ Appeal. Groups submitting amicus briefs also include 139 NGOS from around the world, Arab American orgs, Jewish Voice for Peace.
· New poll by the Pew Research Center has found that half of Americans have no idea whether more Israelis or Palestinians have died in the so-called “Israel-Hamas war”.
INTERNATIONAL
· EU’s top humanitarian aid official says Israel did not present any evidence of claims against UNRWA to him or any official at the EU executive or to any other donor.
· Canada to halt arms sales to Israel after non-binding vote in parliament
· Spain agreed along with Ireland, Malta, & Slovenia to take the first steps towards recognizing a Palestinian state.
· The bombardment blockade of Gaza have created a hellscape in which safe pregnancies, births, & parenthood have become entirely unfeasible. South Africa has argued in its case against Israel in the International Criminal Court that the prevention of births is itself a genocidal tactic.
SOURCES:
OCHAOPT, New York Times, The Guardian, Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, Haaretz, Democracy Now, The Nation, CNN, Center for Constitutional Rights, Oxfam, The Jerusalem Post, Time Magazine, Portside