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Bernie Sanders on Monday was among critics denouncing AstraZeneca--one of the world's biggest and most profitable pharmaceutical corporations--for aggressively raising the prices of some of its best-selling drugs in recent months, even after it secured a more than $1 billion taxpayer handout for the development of a Covid-19 vaccine.
The Los Angeles Timesreports AstraZeneca has implemented two rounds of price hikes for some of its most popular medications in 2020. In January, the U.K.-based company announced it would modestly raise prices on 13 different products. Shortly after the company's January announcement, the coronavirus pandemic accelerated around the world. AstraZeneca subsequently instituted price hikes that were much steeper than some of its top competitors.
"It's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine."
--Sen. Bernie Sanders
The price of some AstraZeneca drugs has increased by up to 6%, according to an investigation by the Times and 46brookyln Research, a nonprofit group focusing on the pharmaceutical industry.
According toPharm Exec, AstraZeneca is the world's 11th-largest pharmaceutical company by 2019 sales. The Times reports it enjoyed over $3.6 billion in operating profits over the first half of 2020.
News of the price hikes sparked condemnation from progressive leaders and activists.
"It's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who made Medicare for All--including prescription drugs--a pillar of his near-miss 2020 presidential run, tweeted on Monday. "Big drug companies don't need more subsidies. We need to end their greed."
\u201cIt's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine.\n\nNo, Mr. President.\n\nWe don't need phony executive orders that do nothing to lower drug prices.\n\nBig drug companies don't need more subsidies. We need to end their greed.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1600101221
"Pharma corporations are sophisticated political actors that understand this is a risky time to be seen increasing prices, and yet these corporations are addicted to price increases," Peter Maybarduk, who oversees drug policy for the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen, told the Times.
In April, AstraZeneca entered talks with Oxford University to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, and the following month the company secured $1.2 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services to produce at least 300 million doses of a vaccine by January 2021. HHS Secretary Alex Azar, a former executive at U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly, hailed the contract as a "major milestone."
However, AstraZeneca's work on a Covid-19 vaccine hit a significant barrier last week, with U.S. and U.K. clinical trials temporarily paused after a patient developed a potentially dangerous complication. Trials partially resumed on Monday in the U.K., while they remain on hold in the U.S. pending an investigation into the British patient.
\u201cExclusive: The trial for a vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University remains on hold in the U.S. pending an investigation into a serious side effect in Britain https://t.co/Orx8dnEmZo https://t.co/Orx8dnEmZo\u201d— Reuters (@Reuters) 1600111128
Oxford University has also come under fire in Britain after the prestigious institution changed course under pressure from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from a plan to make any Covid-19 vaccine available for free or at a very low cost to signing the deal with AstraZeneca. The company said in July that it will not profit from its Covid-19 vaccine, although critics have noted that there is no way to guarantee that it won't, and the Oxford deal gives AstraZeneca sole rights without any affordability requirement.
News of the latest Big Pharma price hike came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order he said will lower prescription drug prices. Critics immediately dismissed Trump's move as an election year publicity stunt.
\u201cJust signed a new Executive Order to LOWER DRUG PRICES! My Most Favored Nation order will ensure that our Country gets the same low price Big Pharma gives to other countries. The days of global freeriding at America\u2019s expense are over...\u201d— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1600023520
The administration has not commented on AstraZeneca's move. Although the government has committed to providing pharmaceutical companies with over $10 billion in taxpayer funding to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, the administration has not required them to disclose how much they would charge for it.
The United States has the world's highest prescription drug prices. According to 2019 data from the House Ways and Means Committee, U.S. drug prices are nearly four times higher than the combined average price for 11 other similar countries.
"With one exception, we found that individual drug prices in the U.S. ranged from 70% (Lantus Solostar--a type of insulin) to 4,833% (Dulera--a prescription asthma medication) higher than the combined mean price in the other 11 countries," the report states. "Compared to individual countries, drug prices in the U.S. ranged from 0.6 to 67 times the price for the same drugs."
Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to afford their medicines. A recent Gallup poll found that one in five U.S. households were unable to afford medication prescribed by a doctor.
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Bernie Sanders on Monday was among critics denouncing AstraZeneca--one of the world's biggest and most profitable pharmaceutical corporations--for aggressively raising the prices of some of its best-selling drugs in recent months, even after it secured a more than $1 billion taxpayer handout for the development of a Covid-19 vaccine.
The Los Angeles Timesreports AstraZeneca has implemented two rounds of price hikes for some of its most popular medications in 2020. In January, the U.K.-based company announced it would modestly raise prices on 13 different products. Shortly after the company's January announcement, the coronavirus pandemic accelerated around the world. AstraZeneca subsequently instituted price hikes that were much steeper than some of its top competitors.
"It's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine."
--Sen. Bernie Sanders
The price of some AstraZeneca drugs has increased by up to 6%, according to an investigation by the Times and 46brookyln Research, a nonprofit group focusing on the pharmaceutical industry.
According toPharm Exec, AstraZeneca is the world's 11th-largest pharmaceutical company by 2019 sales. The Times reports it enjoyed over $3.6 billion in operating profits over the first half of 2020.
News of the price hikes sparked condemnation from progressive leaders and activists.
"It's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who made Medicare for All--including prescription drugs--a pillar of his near-miss 2020 presidential run, tweeted on Monday. "Big drug companies don't need more subsidies. We need to end their greed."
\u201cIt's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine.\n\nNo, Mr. President.\n\nWe don't need phony executive orders that do nothing to lower drug prices.\n\nBig drug companies don't need more subsidies. We need to end their greed.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1600101221
"Pharma corporations are sophisticated political actors that understand this is a risky time to be seen increasing prices, and yet these corporations are addicted to price increases," Peter Maybarduk, who oversees drug policy for the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen, told the Times.
In April, AstraZeneca entered talks with Oxford University to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, and the following month the company secured $1.2 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services to produce at least 300 million doses of a vaccine by January 2021. HHS Secretary Alex Azar, a former executive at U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly, hailed the contract as a "major milestone."
However, AstraZeneca's work on a Covid-19 vaccine hit a significant barrier last week, with U.S. and U.K. clinical trials temporarily paused after a patient developed a potentially dangerous complication. Trials partially resumed on Monday in the U.K., while they remain on hold in the U.S. pending an investigation into the British patient.
\u201cExclusive: The trial for a vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University remains on hold in the U.S. pending an investigation into a serious side effect in Britain https://t.co/Orx8dnEmZo https://t.co/Orx8dnEmZo\u201d— Reuters (@Reuters) 1600111128
Oxford University has also come under fire in Britain after the prestigious institution changed course under pressure from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from a plan to make any Covid-19 vaccine available for free or at a very low cost to signing the deal with AstraZeneca. The company said in July that it will not profit from its Covid-19 vaccine, although critics have noted that there is no way to guarantee that it won't, and the Oxford deal gives AstraZeneca sole rights without any affordability requirement.
News of the latest Big Pharma price hike came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order he said will lower prescription drug prices. Critics immediately dismissed Trump's move as an election year publicity stunt.
\u201cJust signed a new Executive Order to LOWER DRUG PRICES! My Most Favored Nation order will ensure that our Country gets the same low price Big Pharma gives to other countries. The days of global freeriding at America\u2019s expense are over...\u201d— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1600023520
The administration has not commented on AstraZeneca's move. Although the government has committed to providing pharmaceutical companies with over $10 billion in taxpayer funding to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, the administration has not required them to disclose how much they would charge for it.
The United States has the world's highest prescription drug prices. According to 2019 data from the House Ways and Means Committee, U.S. drug prices are nearly four times higher than the combined average price for 11 other similar countries.
"With one exception, we found that individual drug prices in the U.S. ranged from 70% (Lantus Solostar--a type of insulin) to 4,833% (Dulera--a prescription asthma medication) higher than the combined mean price in the other 11 countries," the report states. "Compared to individual countries, drug prices in the U.S. ranged from 0.6 to 67 times the price for the same drugs."
Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to afford their medicines. A recent Gallup poll found that one in five U.S. households were unable to afford medication prescribed by a doctor.
Bernie Sanders on Monday was among critics denouncing AstraZeneca--one of the world's biggest and most profitable pharmaceutical corporations--for aggressively raising the prices of some of its best-selling drugs in recent months, even after it secured a more than $1 billion taxpayer handout for the development of a Covid-19 vaccine.
The Los Angeles Timesreports AstraZeneca has implemented two rounds of price hikes for some of its most popular medications in 2020. In January, the U.K.-based company announced it would modestly raise prices on 13 different products. Shortly after the company's January announcement, the coronavirus pandemic accelerated around the world. AstraZeneca subsequently instituted price hikes that were much steeper than some of its top competitors.
"It's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine."
--Sen. Bernie Sanders
The price of some AstraZeneca drugs has increased by up to 6%, according to an investigation by the Times and 46brookyln Research, a nonprofit group focusing on the pharmaceutical industry.
According toPharm Exec, AstraZeneca is the world's 11th-largest pharmaceutical company by 2019 sales. The Times reports it enjoyed over $3.6 billion in operating profits over the first half of 2020.
News of the price hikes sparked condemnation from progressive leaders and activists.
"It's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who made Medicare for All--including prescription drugs--a pillar of his near-miss 2020 presidential run, tweeted on Monday. "Big drug companies don't need more subsidies. We need to end their greed."
\u201cIt's outrageous for Big Pharma to use the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices on life-saving medicine.\n\nNo, Mr. President.\n\nWe don't need phony executive orders that do nothing to lower drug prices.\n\nBig drug companies don't need more subsidies. We need to end their greed.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1600101221
"Pharma corporations are sophisticated political actors that understand this is a risky time to be seen increasing prices, and yet these corporations are addicted to price increases," Peter Maybarduk, who oversees drug policy for the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen, told the Times.
In April, AstraZeneca entered talks with Oxford University to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, and the following month the company secured $1.2 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services to produce at least 300 million doses of a vaccine by January 2021. HHS Secretary Alex Azar, a former executive at U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly, hailed the contract as a "major milestone."
However, AstraZeneca's work on a Covid-19 vaccine hit a significant barrier last week, with U.S. and U.K. clinical trials temporarily paused after a patient developed a potentially dangerous complication. Trials partially resumed on Monday in the U.K., while they remain on hold in the U.S. pending an investigation into the British patient.
\u201cExclusive: The trial for a vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University remains on hold in the U.S. pending an investigation into a serious side effect in Britain https://t.co/Orx8dnEmZo https://t.co/Orx8dnEmZo\u201d— Reuters (@Reuters) 1600111128
Oxford University has also come under fire in Britain after the prestigious institution changed course under pressure from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from a plan to make any Covid-19 vaccine available for free or at a very low cost to signing the deal with AstraZeneca. The company said in July that it will not profit from its Covid-19 vaccine, although critics have noted that there is no way to guarantee that it won't, and the Oxford deal gives AstraZeneca sole rights without any affordability requirement.
News of the latest Big Pharma price hike came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order he said will lower prescription drug prices. Critics immediately dismissed Trump's move as an election year publicity stunt.
\u201cJust signed a new Executive Order to LOWER DRUG PRICES! My Most Favored Nation order will ensure that our Country gets the same low price Big Pharma gives to other countries. The days of global freeriding at America\u2019s expense are over...\u201d— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1600023520
The administration has not commented on AstraZeneca's move. Although the government has committed to providing pharmaceutical companies with over $10 billion in taxpayer funding to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, the administration has not required them to disclose how much they would charge for it.
The United States has the world's highest prescription drug prices. According to 2019 data from the House Ways and Means Committee, U.S. drug prices are nearly four times higher than the combined average price for 11 other similar countries.
"With one exception, we found that individual drug prices in the U.S. ranged from 70% (Lantus Solostar--a type of insulin) to 4,833% (Dulera--a prescription asthma medication) higher than the combined mean price in the other 11 countries," the report states. "Compared to individual countries, drug prices in the U.S. ranged from 0.6 to 67 times the price for the same drugs."
Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to afford their medicines. A recent Gallup poll found that one in five U.S. households were unable to afford medication prescribed by a doctor.
"Look at what members of Congress are invested in private prison companies," said Ocasio-Cortez.
"It's corruption in plain sight."
That's how U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) described congressional colleagues who support Republican-authored legislation that immigrant rights advocates warn is a right-wing power grab under the guise of public safety.
The Laken Riley Act—named after a young woman murdered last year by a Venezuelan man who, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), entered the United States illegally—was passed by a vote of 263-156 in the House of Representatives on Wednesday afternoon. Forty-six Democrats and every Republican present voted "yes." That was a near-identical tally to the 264-159 vote on a previous version of the bill passed earlier this month.
Senate lawmakers passed the bill on Monday, with 12 Democrats joining 52 Republicans in voting for the measure, which, among other things, expands mandatory federal detention of undocumented immigrants who are accused of even relatively minor crimes. With the House's Wednesday vote, the Laken Riley Act is set to be the first bill signed into law since President Donald Trump returned to office.
Speaking on the House floor on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez said:
I want the American people to know, with eyes wide open, what is inside this bill because we stand here just two days after President Trump gave unconditional pardons to violent criminals who attacked our nation's Capitol on January 6th, and these are the people who want you to believe, who want us to believe that they're trying to quote unquote "keep criminals off the streets," when they are opening the floodgates...
In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime, if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they will be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and... sent out for deportation without a day in court, without a moment to assert their right, and without a moment to assert the privilege of innocent until proven guilty without being found guilty of a crime they will be rounded up, that is what is inside this bill, a fundamental suspension of a core American value, and that is why I rise to oppose it.
"You may wonder why so many of our friends across the aisle who care so deeply about the rule of law happen to be so desperate to pass this bill," Ocasio-Cortez continued. "Look no further than the price tag of this bill, $83 billion. [Lawmakers] know that it can't be paid for. They know that the capacity is not there, and you know what will be there? Private prison companies are going to get flooded with money."
"Look at what members of Congress are invested in private prison companies who receive this kind of money and look at the votes on this bill," she added. "It is atrocious that people are lining their pockets with private prison profits in the name of a horrific tragedy and the victim of a crime. It is shameful. It is absolutely shameful."
The congresswoman's comments came two days after Trump reversed a 2021 executive order issued by former Democratic President Joe Biden meant to phase out U.S. Department of Justice contracts with private prisons. Despite Biden's order, more than 90% of people held by ICE in July 2023 were locked up in for-profit facilities, which are rife with serious human rights abuses, according to the ACLU and other advocacy groups.
Anthony Enriquez, vice president of U.S. advocacy and litigation at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Hill opinion contributor, recently called the Laken Riley Act "a sweetheart deal for the private prison industry."
"Private prison executives look poised to pull off a multibillion-dollar cash grab at taxpayer expense via a cynical ploy to capitalize on the tragic death of a Georgia nursing student," he warned.
Shares in private prison stocks, which had been languishing for much of 2024, have soared since Trump's victory in November, with GeoGroup surging more than 127% since Election Day and competitor CoreCivic up over 63%.
Responding to reporting that ICE is preparing to more than double its detention capacity by opening 18 new facilities, American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said on social media Wednesday: "That would likely mean tens of billions in taxpayer funds sent to private prison companies. They are salivating."
"This bill is the very definition of pernicious: It attacks women's healthcare using false narratives and outright fearmongering," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked from a final vote a Republican bill that, according to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, made clear that under newly sworn-in President Donald Trump, "it will be a golden age, but for the extreme, anti-choice movement."
"This bill is the very definition of pernicious: It attacks women's healthcare using false narratives and outright fearmongering, and adds more legal risk for doctors on something that is already illegal," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber's floor before senators voted 52-47 along party lines, short of the 60 votes needed to advance the so-called Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (S. 6) to a final vote.
Introduced by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), S. 6 would "prohibit a healthcare practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion," under the threat of fines and up to five years in prison. Healthcare professionals and rights advocates have condemned the legislation as deeply misleading.
"So much of the hard-right's anti-choice agenda is pushed, frankly, by people who have little to no understanding of what women go through when they are pregnant," said Schumer. "The scenario targeted by this bill is one of the most heartbreaking moments that a woman could ever encounter, the agonizing choice of having to end care when serious and rare complications arise in pregnancy. And at that moment of agony, this bill cruelly substitutes the judgment of qualified medical professionals, and the wishes of millions of families, and allows ultraright ideology to dictate what they do."
After honoring Cecile Richards, a longtime Planned Parenthood leader who died earlier this week, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Wednesday that "of all the bills that we could be voting on—lowering the cost of healthcare, expanding childcare, helping our families—it's an absolute disgrace that Republicans are spending their first week in power attacking women, criminalizing doctors, and lying about abortion."
"This isn't how abortion works; Republicans know it," stressed Murray, a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. "All babies are already protected under the law, regardless of the circumstance of their birth. Doctors already have a legal obligation to provide appropriate medical care. And we already know this sham bill from Republicans is not going anywhere."
"Last time we voted down this bill, I actually spoke about something Republicans refuse to acknowledge in this debate: the struggles, the struggles of a pregnant woman, who has received tragic news that her baby had a fatal medical condition and would not be able to survive, and who were able to make the choice that was right for their family," she noted. "But now, here we are, already hearing stories of women who were denied that choice by extreme Republican abortion bans."
Wednesday's vote fell on the 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that affirmed abortion rights nationwide—until it was reversed by right-wing justices in 2022, with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which provoked a fresh wave of state-level restrictions on reproductive freedom.
"It's no accident that congressional Republicans used the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a watershed case for liberty, equality, and bodily autonomy, to vote on a bill that perpetuates myths about abortion care, shames the people who seek that care, and vilifies those who provide it," said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, in a statement.
"A majority of the electorate continues to support abortion rights and access," she noted. "Americans have seen the results of the Supreme Court's unjust and callous decision to overturn Roe v. Wade—from abortion bans forcing people to travel across state lines to access the care they need to pregnant people being denied care and even dying to an exodus of doctors that is exacerbating the existing maternal health crisis we face—and they reject restrictive abortion policies. That's why anti-abortion advocates must rely on disinformation like this bill to further their extreme agenda."
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, also highlighted the country's sweeping healthcare crisis in her Wednesday statement about Republicans' failed bill.
"This bill is deliberately misleading and offensive to pregnant people, and the doctors and nurses who provide their care," she said. "At a time when we are facing a national abortion access crisis, lawmakers should be focused on how to bring more care to the communities they serve, not spending their time spreading misinformation, criminalizing doctors, and inserting themselves further into medical decisions made by healthcare professionals."
"This bill is not based in any reality of how medical care works," she added, "and it's wrong, irresponsible, and dangerous to suggest otherwise."
As the GOP works to restrict reproductive rights, advocacy groups are determined to fight back. All* Above All marked the Roe anniversary by releasing an Abortion Justice Playbook that the organization's president, Nourbese Flint, said "is our blueprint for a future where abortion access is equitable, universal, and free from discrimination."
"This wasn't an accident. The far-right members of the Israeli government wanted to render Gaza unlivable with the aim of forcing 2 million Palestinians to flee (forever)," said one human rights leader.
Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are returning home after a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel went into effect Sunday, halting 15 months of war that local health officials say killed over 46,000 people. But for many, there are no homes to return to.
Footage of Gaza shows what once were houses, shops, and other buildings severely damaged or completely reduced to gray rubble.
One Gaza resident, Islam Dahliz, told The New York Times that he and his brother and father set out to find their family home—a once spacious two-story dwelling in Rafah—almost as soon as the cease-fire went into effect. What they found instead was unrecognizable.
"It took us a few minutes to accept that this pile of rubble was our home," said Dahliz. The house had been built by Dahliz's father, Abed Dahliz, in the 1970s.
"I was shocked when I saw my entire life—everything I worked for—flattened to the ground," said Abed Dahliz, according to the Times. "The home I spent so many years building, pouring my savings into, is gone."
Versions of this story are playing out all around Gaza. All told, roughly 90% of the population across Gaza was displaced from their homes, many multiple times, according to the United Nations.
"The images emerging from Gaza are haunting. This is a site where Palestinian captives were forced to strip, their clothes left behind among the ruins as a reminder of what Israeli soldiers did," wrote Assal Rad, a scholar of modern Iran, on X. Rad's post is accompanied by a video of a man showing a strip of land covered in clothes. In the video, the man says that the clothes are from Palestinians who were arrested by Israeli forces after they stormed areas in northern Gaza, like the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
In response to reporting of Gazans returning home to destruction, Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote: "This wasn't an accident. The far-right members of the Israeli government wanted to render Gaza unlivable with the aim of forcing two million Palestinians to flee (forever), "
Human Rights Watch, which late last year issued a report accusing Israel of committing "acts of genocide" by depriving Palestinians of water access in Gaza, wrote in November 2024 that "the destruction [in Gaza] is so substantial that it indicates the intention to permanently displace many people."
A preliminary U.N. satellite imagery analysis found that as of December 1, 2024, 60,000 structures in Gaza have been destroyed. The total number of damaged or destroyed structures constitutes roughly 69% of the total structures in the enclave, according to the analysis. A separate U.N. estimate published in January found that 92% of homes have been destroyed or damaged.
The footage coming out of Gaza underscores how long it will take for Palestinians to reconstruct their communities. The cease-fire deal that went into effect Sunday includes three phrases, the third of which is supposed to entail reconstruction of Gaza. Dima Toukan, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told NPR that it's important to note the last phase could be a long way off, and could possibly never happen at all.