Successful ‘polio pause’ prompts renewed calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire

Special Successful ‘polio pause’ prompts renewed calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire
A child receives a vaccination for polio at a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict in a school run by the UNRWA in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 09 September 2024
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Successful ‘polio pause’ prompts renewed calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire

Successful ‘polio pause’ prompts renewed calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire
  • Destruction of water and sanitation services caused the highly infectious virus to re-emerge
  • With most primary roads destroyed, families and aid agencies faced perilous journeys to vaccination sites

LONDON: The UN’s polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has been deemed a success, even though it was conducted in “the most dangerous and difficult (place) on the planet.” However, Palestinian civilians remain at significant risk of injury, illness and death amid the ongoing conflict.

A pause in the fighting between the Israeli military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in and around the vaccination sites has been critical for the immunization campaign. However, elsewhere in the war-torn territory, the fighting continued.

On Sept. 7, just as medical teams were wrapping up the second phase of the vaccination campaign, Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip killed scores of people — including children.




A man inspects the damage following an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City on September 7, 2024. (AFP)

The vaccination campaign was launched in Gaza after an 11-month-old baby was diagnosed with the viral disease in August, marking the first case in the Strip for 25 years, raising fears it could spread to neighboring countries.

Adele Khodr, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at UNICEF, described the three-phase campaign as one of “the most dangerous and difficult vaccination campaigns on the planet.”

“Even with a polio pause, the vaccination campaign faces grave danger and immeasurable obstacles, including damaged roads and health infrastructure, displaced populations, looting and disrupted supply routes,” she said in a statement on Sept. 4.

“Children have suffered enough,” she added, warning that the reemergence of the virus is now “threatening other children in the region.”




A child has their finger marked after receiving a vaccination for polio at a makeshift camp in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024. (AFP)

Polio, which spreads through contact with the feces, saliva or nasal mucus of an infected individual, attacks nerves in the spinal cord and the brain stem, leading to partial or total paralysis within hours.

It can also immobilize chest muscles, causing trouble breathing, even leading to death.

Wild poliovirus cases have fallen by more than 99 percent since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries, to six reported cases in 2021.

Of the three strains of wild poliovirus, Type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and Type 3 was eradicated in 2020. As of 2022, endemic Type 1 remained in just two countries — Pakistan and Afghanistan.




Children stand next to raw sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on August 19, 2024. (AFP)

In Gaza, overcrowding, a lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of Type 2 in the water supply.

According to UNICEF, the first phase of the polio vaccination program, which ran from Sept. 1 to 3 in central Gaza, reached more than 189,000 children under the age of 10.

The second phase was carried out in southern Gaza, particularly in Khan Younis and Rafah, from Sept. 5 to 8, targeting approximately 340,000 children under 10.

The third phase, which was launched on Sept. 9, is scheduled to run until Sept. 11, targeting some 150,000 children in the north.

IN NUMBERS

  • 680K Children in Gaza targeted under the UN’s polio vaccination campaign.
  • 92% Primary roads damaged or destroyed, obstructing vaccine distribution.
  • 70% Water and sanitation plants damaged or destroyed, contributing to outbreak.

(Source: UN, World Bank)

Coinciding with the vaccine’s rollout on Sept. 1, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on the social media platform X that “ultimately, the best vaccine for these children is peace.”

However, the area-specific truces that allowed the rollout to take place have done little to provide the children of Gaza with hope of a lasting end to the violence.

While vaccination sites have not been targeted, Gazan families, wearied by 11 months of war and worsening humanitarian conditions, had to make the perilous journey with their children to these locations amid the ongoing bombardment.




Lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of polio in Gaza. (AFP)

Khodr praised the families for turning out “in high numbers” at vaccination sites, “despite relentless attacks on schools and sites sheltering uprooted children, exhausting displacement orders forcing families to relocate time and again, and widespread hunger levels that have at points pushed parts of Gaza to the brink of famine.”

Not only has the journey to vaccination units been long and exhausting for Gazan families, but also for humanitarian teams delivering and administering the vaccines.

With 92 percent of Gaza’s primary roads damaged or destroyed, according to the World Bank, civilians and medical workers were all forced to use a single route — Al-Bahar Street.

“Unfortunately, only one road in Gaza remains operational, and it’s Al-Bahar Street,” Fady Abed, the Gaza communications officer for the medical NGO MedGlobal, told Arab News.

“This is the sole road servicing about 1.9 million displaced people in Al-Mawasi, western Khan Younis, Rafah and Deir Al-Balah.”




Palestinian residents walk along a road now dirt, past destroyed and razed buildings east of Gaza City on July 11, 2024. (AFP)

An April report by the World Bank and the UN highlighted that severe damage to road networks and the communications infrastructure has hampered the delivery of much-needed basic humanitarian aid to people across Gaza.

When he spoke with Arab News on Sept. 5, Abed of MedGlobal had just returned to Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza from working in Khan Younis.

Describing the logistical challenges his team has been facing, he said the journey between Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, normally no more than 15 minutes, now takes over an hour.

Abed also said transportation has been a major challenge due to fuel shortages. “There is no fuel for cars,” he said. “Drivers have resorted to mixing vegetable oil with diesel to keep vehicles running, which results in harmful smoke emissions.

“To vaccinate your child, you risk them suffocating from vehicle fumes.”




MedGlobal’s team delivering polio vaccines in Khan Younis on Sep. 5. (Supplied)

And since the vaccine must be kept cold at all times, MedGlobal could only carry as many doses as they expected to administer. Abed said his team “avoided carrying large quantities of the vaccine to prevent it from spoiling after being kept outside coolers for too long.

“At one point, the number of children arriving at the vaccination unit exceeded the available doses. Members of our team had to make the long, arduous journey back and forth to replenish the supply while families waited.

“This was frustrating for both our team and the families, who were exhausted yet eager to have their children vaccinated.”

Israel mounted its Gaza operation in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which saw 1,200 killed and 250 taken hostage. At least 40,900 Palestinians have been killed and more than 94,450 injured since the conflict began, according to Gaza’s health authority.




Palestinian children receive malnourishment treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024. (AFP)

Around 90 percent of the population has been displaced at least once, fleeing from one Israeli-designated “safe zone” to another.

The Israeli bombardment has devastated much of Gaza’s infrastructure, bringing the health sector and sanitation services to their knees and causing the resurgence and spread of multiple infectious diseases.

According to UN figures, the conflict has damaged or destroyed 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants.




Palestinian children queue at a water distribution point in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on August 25, 2024. (AFP)

In late July, Gaza’s health authority declared the enclave a “polio epidemic zone,” attributing the resurgence of the virus to the damage caused by Israel’s bombing campaign.

UNICEF’s Khodr called on the warring parties to continue to respect the polio pauses. Achieving at least 90 percent vaccination coverage in Gaza would stop the virus from spreading, she said.

“Preparing for this ambitious campaign and securing these pauses was not easy but it demonstrates that it is possible to allow supplies into the Strip, silence the strikes and protect civilians.”

 


40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’

40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’
Updated 12 min 21 sec ago
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40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’

40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’
  • At least five peacekeepers were wounded by Israeli fire in the past 48 hours as Israel takes its fight against Hezbollah into southern Lebanon
  • UNIFIL, which involves about 9,500 troops of some 50 nationalities, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah

UNITED NATIONS, United States: Forty nations that contribute to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Saturday that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.
“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.
Other signatories include Ghana, Nepal, Malaysia, Spain, France and China — all countries that have contributed several hundred troops to the force.
At least five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as Israel takes its fight against Hezbollah into southern Lebanon.
The peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, has accused the Israeli military of “deliberately” firing on its positions.
The 40 contributing countries “reaffirm our full support for UNIFIL’s mission and activities, whose principal aim is to bring stabilization and lasting peace in South Lebanon as well as in the Middle East,” the statement read.
“We urge the parties of the conflict to respect UNIFIL’s presence, which entails the obligation to guarantee the safety and security of its personnel at all times,” it added.
UNIFIL, which involves about 9,500 troops of some 50 nationalities, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
Its role was bolstered by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of that year, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.
At a summit on Friday, French, Italian and Spanish leaders said the “attacks” on UNIFIL peacekeepers violated Resolution 1701 and must end.
UNIFIL said that, in recent days, its forces have “repeatedly” come under fire in the Lebanese town of Naqura where it is headquartered, as well as in other positions.
The mission said that Israeli tank fire on Thursday caused two Indonesian peacekeepers to fall off a watch tower in Naqura.
The following day it said explosions close to an observation tower in Naqura wounded two Sri Lankan Blue Helmets, while Israel said it had responded to an “immediate threat” near a UN peacekeeping position.
On Saturday UNIFIL said a peacekeeper in Naqura “was hit by gunfire” on Friday night.
UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP the peacekeeping mission’s work had become “very difficult because there is a lot of damage, even inside the bases.”
 

 


Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds

Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds
Updated 12 October 2024
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Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds

Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds
  • The ministry reported “nine dead and 15 wounded” in an “Israeli enemy strike“

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said Saturday that at least 15 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on three areas considered outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds, updating earlier tolls.
The ministry reported “nine dead and 15 wounded” in an “Israeli enemy strike” on the village of Maaysra north of Beirut, raising an earlier toll of five dead.
It also reported two dead, four wounded and unidentified “body parts” in a Israeli strike on Deir Billa, near the northern town of Batroun, and said four people were killed and 18 wounded in a strike on Barja, raising an earlier toll of 14 wounded for the raid in the Shouf district south of the capital.


’Very challenging’: Israel faces Hezbollah in tricky terrain

’Very challenging’: Israel faces Hezbollah in tricky terrain
Updated 12 October 2024
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’Very challenging’: Israel faces Hezbollah in tricky terrain

’Very challenging’: Israel faces Hezbollah in tricky terrain
  • After “Operation Litani” against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1978, Israeli troops invaded four years later for the wider-ranging “Peace for Galilee” operation, again targeting the PLO
  • Mounir Shehadeh, a former Lebanese government coordinator for the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL, told AFP that Hezbollah had a substantial stockpile of anti-tank missiles and other weapons

PARIS: As Israel undertakes its fourth ground offensive in southern Lebanon in 50 years, its troops again face rocky terrain mined with explosives and full of hiding places that previous generations of soldiers have battled over.
After pounding Gaza for nearly a year, Israeli forces began “targeted” ground raids on September 30 intended to push back Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon who have been bombarding northern Israel over the last year.
The decision has sparked a debate about the wisdom of opening up a second front and presents Israeli soldiers with a different challenge to the flat, densely packed urban environment of Gaza.
Jonathan Conricus, who fought in Lebanon and served as an Israeli liaison officer to United Nations peacekeepers from 2009-2013, said the terrain was “vastly different” and forms a combat zone that is “many times larger.”
“The topography is very challenging for an invading force and convenient for an enemy like Hezbollah,” Conricus, a former military spokesman who now works for the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, told AFP.
“The terrain also allows multiple ways for a defending enemy to use anti-tank missiles and IEDs against a conventional army,” he added, referring to improvised explosive devices.
Miri Eisen, who served as an Israeli intelligence officer in Lebanon, remembers the steep hills and ravines she encountered during Israel’s 1978 invasion.
“As soon as you cross the border, you go down drastically and up drastically,” Eisen, who now works at the Institute for Counter Terrorism at Israel’s Reichman University, told AFP.
“There are boulders that can be used as hiding places and there are areas that you can’t just drive through with vehicles. It is also hard to walk through,” she recalled.
Analysts believe Hezbollah constructed an intricate network of underground tunnels cut deep into the hills, with openings hidden inside homes among other locations.

Israel’s multiple wars in Lebanon have always had the same objective — dealing with a security threat on its northern border — but have produced highly contested results.
After “Operation Litani” against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1978, Israeli troops invaded four years later for the wider-ranging “Peace for Galilee” operation, again targeting the PLO.
That invasion saw Israel briefly lay siege to Beirut, and left about 20,000 people killed by the end of the same year. Israeli troops ended up occupying the south of the country for 18 years.
During this period, the Shiite Islam Hezbollah group emerged under the supervision of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
After Israel’s withdrawal, a series of violent incidents involving Hezbollah followed, culminating in another ground offensive and war in 2006.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in an air strike on September 27, proclaimed a “divine victory” in that 2006 war which was widely seen as a failure for Israel at a cost of 160 lives, mostly soldiers.
The 33-day war also killed 1,200 mostly civilian Lebanese people.
In his final speech days before his killing, Nasrallah warned his arch-enemy about the dangers of trying to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
“This security belt will turn into a quagmire, a trap, an ambush, an abyss, and hell for your army if you want to come to our land,” he warned on September 19.
So far, after nearly two weeks of combat, 14 Israeli soldiers have died, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Experts say both the Israeli army and Hezbollah have transformed since their last open confrontation.
Israeli military planners pored over the setbacks of 2006 to learn lessons.
“The IDF has been following the threat from Hezbollah for many years and it has had the additional past 11 months to prepare while they were fighting Hamas (in Gaza) before turning to Hezbollah,” said Eisen.
Israel escalated an air campaign against Hezbollah on September 23, targeting senior figures and weapons dumps as it sought to degrade the organization before the ground offensive.
The escalation came just after booby trapped communication devices used by Hezbollah detonated, wounding thousands.
The bombardment has killed more than 1,200 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, while the International Organization for Migration says it has verified around 690,000 internally displaced people.
Since 2006, Hezbollah is known to have benefitted from years of weapons transfers from Iran, including ballistic missiles, while many of its troops are battle-hardened after fighting in Syria to support the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Rabha Allam from the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, an Egyptian research institute, stressed that Hezbollah operated in “a decentralized way” like a guerilla army, enabling it to fight back in the south.
“The assumption that striking the (group’s) leadership and communications would paralyze the movement was wrong,” she told AFP.
Mounir Shehadeh, a former Lebanese government coordinator for the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL, told AFP that Hezbollah had a substantial stockpile of anti-tank missiles and other weapons.
“This is what it is heavily depending on to stem the advance of (Israeli) tanks. It is not using them yet. It is relying on ambushes, traps and explosives against advancing forces,” he said.
 

 

 


Is Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal to drag the US into war with Iran?

Is Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal to drag the US into war with Iran?
Updated 12 October 2024
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Is Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal to drag the US into war with Iran?

Is Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal to drag the US into war with Iran?
  • Ithaca College Professor Jeff Cohen says Israeli PM is ‘close to succeeding’ in drawing the US into a full-scale conflict with Iran
  • ‘Intentional’ targeting of medical professionals will set healthcare in Gaza and Lebanon ‘way back,’ says Dr. Zaher Sahloul

CHICAGO: A prominent American academic with decades of expertise in Israeli politics believes the year of violence in Gaza and the expansion of the conflict into Lebanon are designed to pull the US into a direct war with Iran.

During a taping of “The Ray Hanania Radio Show” on Thursday, former Ithaca College Professor Jeff Cohen said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intentions have been evident for some time, even suggesting that if Hamas had not attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Netanyahu would have found another pretext to blame Iran, in an effort to draw the US into a broader regional conflict with Israel’s longstanding adversary.

“It’s this one-sidedness that empowers the right wing in Israel. We (the US) are not arming Hamas, we are not arming Iran. We arm Israel. And no matter what they do with those weapons, in violation of US law, they just keep getting more weapons and more ammunition and more bombs to kill innocent civilians,” Cohen said.

In this file photo, an Israeli artillery crew prepares shells at a position near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The US has been Israel’s primary military backer in the ongoing conflict, with nearly $23 billion spent in support of its war on Gaza and operations against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, according to a report by Brown University’s Watson Institute. When adjusted for inflation, total economic and military aid to Israel since its founding in 1946 rises to $310 billion.

Cohen, who is Jewish, highlighted the deeply entrenched relationship between the US and Israel.

“We have to stop arming Israel. And there needs to be a solution from the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli leadership. There has to be equality on both sides,” Cohen said, adding that “what we’re moving toward” is the opposite of what should be pursued and would eventually lead to the US being dragged into a wider, regional conflict.

Israeli army soldiers sit by a deployed infantry-fighting vehicle (IFV) at a position along the border with Lebanon in northern Israel on October 1, 2024. (AFP)

On Oct. 7, people around the world held vigils and protests to mark first anniversary of a Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. The Palestinian militant group and its allies killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages to then Hamas-controlled Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed so far and most of the 2.3-million-strong population displaced by Israel’s retaliatory attacks, according to Gaza health authorities.

Cohen argued that Netanyahu, who has repeatedly claimed that Iran funded and coordinated the Hamas-led assault of Oct. 7 and Hezbollah’s rocket attacks, has long sought to push the US into a war with Iran.

“He’s very close to succeeding,” he said, noting that Iran is often portrayed as the root of all regional problems.

On Friday, the Biden administration announced fresh sanctions targeting Iran’s energy trade following an attack on Oct. 1 launched by the country against Israel, involving nearly 200 ballistic missiles. It was Iran’s second such attack on Israel this year, after it launched about 300 missiles and drones in April, both conducted in response to killings of high-level Iranian, Hamas and Hezbollah officials thought to have been carried out by Israel.

Cohen, the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, argues that “bias” in the mainstream American media has heavily influenced coverage of the conflict, reinforcing US support for Israel regardless of its military actions, while marginalizing Palestinian voices.

Jeff Chen, retired associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College in New York. (Supplied)

“My main message as someone who worked in mainstream media and taught journalism at college is we have to, as journalists, understand that all lives matter. That Palestinian lives are as important as Israeli lives,” said Cohen, referencing the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza.

“You don’t get that from the US news media. You get it in a lot of other countries that all lives matter including Palestinians. In our country (the US), it’s just Israeli lives. Israeli suffering. Israeli deaths. Israeli hostages.

“There are far more Palestinian detainees who are in many ways ‘hostages.’ They aren’t charged. They’re tortured. They’re abused. There’s thousands and thousands of them, including children.”

Caption

Cohen argued that while violence is often attributed solely to groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, with Israeli victims predominantly highlighted by mainstream media, the history of terrorism in the Middle East traces back to Zionist extremists operating before the founding of the State of Israel.

“We have to understand, and any historian of Israel knows, there were Israeli terrorists, before the State of Israel, trying to bring a state into existence. They bombed the King David hotel. They killed civilians. They killed British civilians,” said Cohen, citing Jewish extremist groups from the 1940s led by future Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who opposed Palestinian statehood.

“If you’re an oppressed group and you’re a stateless group, there will be people within your community turning to violence. The only way to prevent that is peace and justice for all sides,” he said.

Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into Israeli cities from Lebanon on Oct. 8 last year in solidarity with Palestinian militant groups, and Hamas, which Israel is still fighting in Gaza, are two members of an alliance of Iran-funded militias that also operate in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

The Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza erupted last October. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors. Similarly, Iraqi militias vowed since October 7 to support Hamas’s war effort and have launched hundreds of rocket and drone attacks at Israeli cities and US military bases in the region.

Indiscriminate violence against civilians, as well as targeted attacks on media workers and medical professionals, have become a central issue in protests and discussions surrounding the conflict. These groups, often viewed as “intentional targets,” are seen as part of a broader strategy to force civilian displacement in both Gaza and Lebanon.

Dr. Zaher Sahloul, founder of the non-profit MedGlobal. (AFP)

In a separate segment of the “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” Dr. Zaher Sahloul, founder of the non-profit MedGlobal, which provides medical support to civilians caught up in conflicts in the Middle East, South America, and Ukraine, remarked that the number of medical professionals killed and hospitals destroyed by Israeli bombings has reached “unprecedented levels.”

“There are new norms, if we can call it that way, that are now being created, especially in Gaza and now in Lebanon,” said Sahloul. “And we’ve seen that in Syria and a little bit in Ukraine, where you have hospitals, doctors and ambulances targeted intentionally to cause displacement and deprive communities of healthcare.”

According to UN statistics, more than 600 medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and first responders, have been killed in Gaza, while 39 hospitals have been bombed and 97 medics killed in Lebanon over the last two weeks.

A man pushes an injured boy in a wheelchair past the destroyed al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on September 17, 2024. Once the crown jewel of Gaza's proud medical community, the Palestinian territory's main Al-Shifa hospital has become a stark symbol of the utter devastation wrought by the Israel-Hamas war. (AFP)

“You didn’t see these numbers in previous conflicts,” Sahloul said. If Israel is not held to account for violations of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, he said such war crimes would only persist.

“It looks like it’s becoming the norm. There is no accountability. When there is no accountability, murderers tend to repeat the crime,” he said. “These attacks on healthcare in Gaza and Lebanon are not just collateral damage. They are intentional. And they are causing more harm and, of course, displacement of the population.”

Both Article 9 of the Geneva Convention and the statutes of the International Committee of the Red Cross classify the killing of medical personnel as a war crime. Sahloul argued that Israel’s current operations in Gaza, and similar tactics being employed in Lebanon, exceed what is justified, designed to hasten the displacement of civilians.

Israel has denied deliberately targeting medical facilities, but has accused both Hamas and Hezbollah of commandeering civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and residential buildings to coordinate attacks and store weapons, using their occupants as human shields.

A man looks at destroyed buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, on  Oct. 7, 2024. (AP)

The Israeli military has released photos and videos purporting to show these weapons depots as well as underground tunnels since it launched its military operations last year.

Sahloul, who has led numerous medical missions to conflict zones, pointed out the devastating long-term impact of losing key medical professionals.

“It is not normal. And imagine how long it will take to get a doctor, to become a physician. You know, it takes 30 years of education and then specialization. If you remove a surgeon or a head of department in Gaza or in Lebanon, it’s very difficult to replace them. It takes years and generations to replace these doctors.

“And if you bomb their hospitals and universities, that means this will set healthcare in Gaza and other places way, way back.”

A man standing atop a heavily damaged building views other destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2024 on the first anniversary of the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

He also criticized the mainstream media for its lack of coverage on this aspect of the conflict.

“The media, of course, is not giving justice to this,” he said. “There were bits and pieces, especially at the beginning of the war in Gaza. But after that the media, for some reason, turned away from what’s going on in Gaza. It is inhumane. It is immoral. It’s unethical to ignore this, but for some reason, the media is not paying attention.”

“The Ray Hanania Radio Show” is broadcast every Thursday on the US Arab Radio Network on WNZK AM 690 Radio in Michigan Thursday at 5 PM EST, and again the following Monday at 5 PM. The show is sponsored by Arab News and is available by podcast at ArabNews.com.rayradioshow or at Facebook.com/ArabNews.
 

 


Medical charity workers recount plight of Sudan war victims

People wait outside a hospital for medical checkup in the Red Sea State following recent heavy flooding in eastern Sudan. (AFP)
People wait outside a hospital for medical checkup in the Red Sea State following recent heavy flooding in eastern Sudan. (AFP)
Updated 12 October 2024
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Medical charity workers recount plight of Sudan war victims

People wait outside a hospital for medical checkup in the Red Sea State following recent heavy flooding in eastern Sudan. (AFP)
  • Army and RSF accused of targeting civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas

NAIROBI: Aid workers with medical charity Medecins Sans  Frontieres described the “nightmare” facing the people of Sudan and appealed for the warring sides to allow humanitarian access as the civil war leads to soaring malnutrition.

The conflict between Sudanese paramilitary chief Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and the regular military led by army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan has killed tens of thousands of people since it began in April last year, unleashing the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Access to the conflict zones is minimal, with Doctors Without Borders — known by its French acronym MSF — among the few international bodies still operating on the ground.

FASTFACT

MSF has recorded acute malnutrition in 32 percent of people in Zamzam Camp in North Darfur and Nyala in South Darfur.

At a briefing in Nairobi, MSF said that 26 million people, or about half the population face severe food insecurity.
“We’re not talking about an emergency anymore. We’re talking about a nightmare,” said MSF coordinator Claire San Filippo, describing the malnutrition crisis as “terrifying.”
Recently back from Chad, San Filippo recalled meeting a mother of three  who had fled the violence in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher in Darfur, which has endured intense paramilitary attacks in recent weeks.
“She told me war is everywhere. Everywhere, there are killings. Everywhere, there are bombings, shootings,” San Filippo said.
It took the mother, who lost eight members of her family in the conflict, a month to reach a camp in eastern Chad.
“What she described is a nightmare. It’s simply hell,” said San Filippo, detailing how many of the refugees were women and children — most of whom had suffered from a dire lack of food, water, and primary healthcare.
“She told me that people are simply dying everywhere.”
San Filippo said MSF had recorded acute malnutrition in 32 percent of people in Zamzam Camp in North Darfur and Nyala in South Darfur.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of repeated atrocities in the war, including targeting civilians, indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, and looting or blocking aid.
San Filippo said blockades forced MSF to make the “heartbreaking” decision to stop nutrition activities in Zamzam camp, where famine has been declared.
“As supplies run low, we had no choice but to stop caring for 5,000 children,” she added.
Beyond the blockades, she described how healthcare facilities supported by MSF in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum and El-Fasher had been “looted, occupied, shelled on multiple occasions.”
Medical workers have been harassed and assaulted, she said, with front lines perilously close to the medical facilities still functioning.
“I woke up at about three, four o’clock in the morning to the sound of heavy machine gunfire,” said Lisa Searle, a doctor who spent four months working in Khartoum.
“This new wave of violence has really ... shocked an already traumatized population,” she said.
She emphasized the toll on her Sudanese colleagues: “They’re facing the same trauma that the people that they’re helping are facing.”