Urgent Health Updates: Consequences of war on Gaza-April 14, 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, & Iran launched an attack on Israel threatening a regional war, this is a time to make your voices heard.

Numbers are cumulative, but there are less on the ground updates being made than earlier in the attack.

PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa and Dr. Mark Perlmutter, co-authors of a new piece for Common Dreams titled “As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.” https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/surgeons-cruelty-israel-gaza

Is This a Dream or For Real? A psychoanalytic reflection on inaction and impasse, by Lama Khouri DPSA https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/is-this-a-dream 

GAZA

·       Killed: 33,686, ~7,000, likely more, under the rubble

·       Injured: 76,309

·       244 aid workers killed, 181 UN staff, 26 PRCS staff and volunteers, 37 other aid workers

·       474 health workers killed

·       11 of 26 hospitals partially functioning

·       4 of 5 field hospitals fully functional, 1 minimally functional

·       ~30% of primary care facilities functional

·       WHO reports that following the destruction of Al Shifa Hospital, northern Gaza has been left without any CT scanning capabilities, significantly reduced laboratory capacity, & only 1 source for medical oxygen production. 

·       During the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital, the Israeli army shot patients in their beds & doctors who refused to abandon the sick, separated people into groups with differently-colored bracelets, & executed hundreds of civil government employees.

·       Many life-saving amputations might have been avoided if the health system in Gaza were still functional, reports Médecins Sans Frontières.  

·       A UNICEF convoy came under fire while en route to northern Gaza to deliver life-saving aid, including therapeutic food for children at risk of malnutrition & preventable death.

·       Damaged: 155 health facilities, 161 UNRWA installations, 126 ambulances

·       >640,000 cases of acute respiratory infection

·       >340,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea

·       emergency medical teams operational

·       ~1.1 million people catastrophic levels of food insecurity

·       28 children died of malnutrition & dehydration, >50,000 children acutely malnourished

·       Washington’s envoy for humanitarian efforts in Gaza said “there is an imminent risk of famine for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population off Gaza.”

·       1 of 3 water pipes from Israel operational at 72% capacity

·       2 of 3 desalination plants partially functional

·       ~57% of WASH facilities damaged or destroyed

·       Daily number of aid trucks entering Gaza this past week 103-246, prior to assault it was 500 and that was barely enough

·       UN & other aid agencies say Israeli authorities have blocked the following from entering Gaza at least once since 10/7:
anesthetics
animal feed
cardiac catheters
chemical water quality testing kits
chocolate croissants
crutches
field hospital boxes
flak jackets and helmets for aid workers
(and I would add delivery kits with surgical scissors)

·       [...] US official who visited the Rafah crossing point last month described meeting with aid workers who were deeply frustrated by the seeming arbitrariness of the rejected items. They included a pallet of chocolate croissants, which was apparently blocked because the Israelis deemed them luxury foods inappropriate for a war zone.

·       The review process of goods for entry is “totally arbitrary,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who visited Rafah in January. “When you’re turning back maternity kits and water purification tablets, that is a deliberate effort not to allow desperately needed goods into Gaza,” he said. “There’s no rational justification.”

·       Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs & Emergency Relief Coordinator said in a statement on 4/6, “Six months on, the war in Gaza is a betrayal of humanity.”

·       According to a report conducted with World Bank participation, Palestinians in Gaza account for 80% of all people worldwide who are facing famine & severe hunger. 14,000 children have been killed, 17,000 children remain without adult accompaniment.

·       As Israel’s military continues to impose famine on Gaza, & without any semblance of law & order, since local police are targets for Israeli soldiers, an estimated 500,000 people who stayed in the north are facing imminent death from starvation. The few orderly aid distributions that do come through are inevitably organized by UNRWA in coordination with law enforcement – as much as they can – & local clans.

·       Israel opened a new border crossing in northern Gaza near Kibbutz Zikim & a convoy of trucks with humanitarian aid entered Gaza after being thoroughly inspected. Israel promised a port to aid shipments. Israel & the UN also disagree on how much aid is reaching Gaza.

·       After a temporary pause announced last week, Anera is resuming all aid operations in Gaza.

·     After 6 months of war, tens of thousands have disappeared in Gaza, their whereabouts unknown to their relatives or friends. The International Committee of the Red Cross has recorded more than 7,000 calls to its missing persons hotline since the start of the conflict in Gaza but the total is almost certainly many times that figure.

·     Khan Younis is marred by profound destruction to homes, schools, hospitals, roads & other infrastructure. Residents returning to their homes following the withdrawal of Israeli troops found utter ruin, a bulldozed bombed out wasteland. Residents attempted to retrieve whatever they could salvage. Drones continued to buzz overhead. Graffiti on the walls of what appeared to be the office of a telecoms company are Stars of David & anti-Arab profanities written in English. “Gaza belongs to the Jews,” reads a marking in Arabic on the wall inside a torn-up building.

·     European Hospital in Gaza said the bodies of 46 Palestinians had been recovered following the Israeli withdrawal from Khan Younis, most of them “found dead under the rubble of demolished buildings.”

·       Israeli forces again bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing five and wounding dozens

WEST BANK AND EAST JERUSALEM

·       Killed: 463

·       Arrested: 7,350 (3/22)

·       Political prisoner Walid Daqqa, one of Palestine's most famous writers, academics & artists, died of cancer due to deprivation of care in Israeli prison after 38 years of detention. He had already finished serving his prison term. Rights groups said he was in dire need of medical attention. Last month Amnesty International called for his release, saying that since October 7, he had been tortured, humiliated & denied family visits.

·       Mobs of armed Jewish settlers have continued their rampage across the West Bank, killing another young Palestinian man, & setting fire to homes as well as attacking an ambulance. They have attacked several villages including al-Mughayyir, Abu Falah, Duma, al-Sawiyeh and Huwara.

·       ~114 new closures have been erected throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 10/7, further disrupting freedom of movement, access to basic services, workplaces, & markets, as well as movement by aid workers, initial results of a new OCHA closure survey show.

ISRAEL

·       After multiple provocations by Israel, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones which were mostly intercepted by the Iron Dome and US navy ships.

·       A doctor at a field hospital for detained Palestinians at Israel’s Sde Teiman army base has described “deplorable conditions” & “routine” amputations due to handcuff injuries. 

·       Jewish Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote: "Let's say it for the millionth time: The pattern, established for decades, shows that the Israeli authorities – who do not prevent, arrest, detain, prosecute or punish anyone – want the settler attacks on Palestinians to continue. FYI President Joe Biden: Their guns are U.S.-made, and the goal is for these weapons to terrorize people.”

US

·       A growing movement inside Google is calling on the company to drop Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with Israel, jointly held with Amazon. No Tech for Apartheid now has more than 200 Google employees closely involved in organizing, according to members, who say there are hundreds more workers sympathetic to their goals.

·       At universities across the country, any criticism of Israel’s policies, expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, organized calls for a cease-fire or even pedagogy on the recent history of the land have all emerged as perilous speech. In a letter to university presidents in November, the A.C.L.U. expressed concern about “impermissible chilling of free speech and association on campus” in relation to pro-Palestinian student groups and views; since then, the atmosphere at colleges has become downright McCarthyite, with frequent weaponization of the charge of antisemitism.

·       Harvard medical students and faculty protested the American Medical Associations refusal to support a ceasefire.

INTERNATIONAL

·       >1,600 North American academics have signed an open letter condemning "Israel's systematic attacks on, educational life in Gaza," noting that all 12 universities in Gaza have been either destroyed or damaged since the Israel-Gaza war erupted.

·       As of 4/9 negotiations were set to continue in Cairo between Hamas & Israel, as Hamas held to demands of a permanent ceasefire & return of Palestinians to north Gaza. Meanwhile, Netanyahu vowed to invade Rafah.

·       European Union has given the green light to a large number of new science grants for Israel since 10/7. Israel Aerospace Industries, a weapons maker that has boasted of playing a “pivotal role” in the current war against Gaza, is taking part in at least 2 of those projects.

·       Germany's deportation of Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a leading war surgeon who recently served in Gaza & was elected as Rector of the University of Glasgow this month, is a shocking affront to free speech in Germany. Dr. Abu-Sittah had arrived in Berlin to deliver a speech at the Palaestina Kongress conference about the atrocities he witnessed in Gaza. 

SOURCES

OCHA, WHO, Palestine Chronicle, Aljazeera, CNN, Haaretz, The Guardian, Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, Time.com, New York Times, DAWN MENA, Times of Israel, Washington Post, Democracy Now, ANERA, Portside, Boston Globe