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BARCELONA/SANA'A, YEMEN - Following the August 15 aerial bombing of Abs Hospital in Yemen's Hajjah governorate, which killed 19 people and injured 24, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has decided to evacuate its staff from the hospitals it supports in Saada and Hajjah governorates in northern Yemen.
MSF is withdrawing its staff members from Haydan, Razeh, Al Gamouri and Yasnim hospitals in Saada governorate and Abs and Al Gamouri hospitals in Hajjah governorate. The airstrike on Abs Hospital was the fourth and the deadliest attack on an MSF-supported medical facility during this war, while there have been numerous attacks on other health facilities all over Yemen.
Since the suspension of the peace talks between the Saudi-led coalition (SLC) and the Houthi forces in Kuwait 11 days ago, the SLC has resumed an intensified bombing campaign in northern Yemen.
Over the last eight months, MSF has met with high-ranking SLC officials on two occasions in Riyadh to ensure that humanitarian and medical assistance can reach Yeminis, as well as to seek assurances that attacks on hospitals would end.
Aerial bombings have however continued, despite the fact that MSF has systematically shared the GPS coordinates of hospitals in which the organization works with the parties involved in the conflict. Coalition officials repeatedly state that they honor international humanitarian law, yet this attack shows a failure to control the use of force and to avoid attacks on hospitals full of patients. MSF is neither satisfied with nor reassured by the Saudi-led coalition's statement that this attack was a mistake.
Given the intensity of the current offensive and MSF's loss of confidence in the coalition's ability to avoid such fatal attacks, MSF considers the hospitals in Saada and Hajjah governorates to be unsafe for both patients and staff.
The decision to evacuate the staff, who include obstetricians, pediatricians, surgeons and emergency room specialists, was not taken lightly, but in the absence of credible assurances that parties to the conflict will respect the protected status of medical facilities, medical workers and patients, there may be no other option. This is the case in Hajjah and in Saada governorate based on recent events.
While an independent investigation remains necessary, previous military coalition investigations related to attacks on MSF facilities have not been shared with MSF.
"This latest incident shows that the current rules of engagement, military protocols and procedures are inadequate in avoiding attacks on hospitals and need revision and changes," said Joan Tubau, MSF general director. "MSF asks the Saudi-led coalition and the governments supporting the coalition, particularly the U.S., U.K. and France, to ensure an immediate application of measures to substantially increase the protection of civilians."
The hospitals that MSF supports in Saada, Haydan, Razeh, Abs, Yasnim, and Hajjah will continue to operate with staff from the Ministry of Health and local volunteers. These hospitals are already struggling to keep up with the medical needs caused by the renewed bombing campaign, which are exacerbated by the numerous supply shortages in Yemen. MSF asks all parties to ensure the safety of these hospitals and to allow them continue to provide medical care with neutrality and impartiality.
MSF deeply regrets the consequences of this evacuation for MSF's patients and Yemeni Ministry of Health medical colleagues who will continue to work in the health facilities under unsafe conditions. MSF hope that the security situation will improve so that the population will have some respite and MSF teams will be able to return to providing much-needed medical care. MSF regrets the collective failure to protect Yemeni civilians from military action and to provide an adequate humanitarian response.
MSF condemns the way all actors involved in the conflict, including the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis and allies, are conducting this war and carrying out indiscriminate attacks without any respect for civilians. MSF offers its sincere condolences to the families of MSF's staff member and patients who died during the attack. The killing of people inside a hospital speaks to the cruelty and inhumanity of this war.
Before the August 15 bombing of Abs Hospital, MSF has been working in 11 hospitals and health centers in Yemen and providing support to another 18 hospitals or health centers in eight governorates: Aden, Al-Dhale', Taiz, Saada, Amran, Hajjah, Ibb and Sanaa, with more than 2,000 MSF staff in the country, including 90 international staff.
This press release can be found online here. See also MSF's recent update on the bombing of Abs Hospital, online here.
Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. MSF's work is based on the humanitarian principles of medical ethics and impartiality. The organization is committed to bringing quality medical care to people caught in crisis regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. MSF operates independently of any political, military, or religious agendas.
"While this temporary cessation of fighting and bombing must be both respected and long-term, this is only the beginning of addressing the immense humanitarian, psychological, and medical needs in Gaza."
As Israel's military continued its 15-month assault that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and decimated the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office confirmed that early Saturday the full Cabinet approved a recently announced cease-fire and hostage-release deal that is set to take effect at 8:30 am local time Sunday.
The 24-8 vote on the three-phase deal negotiated by Egypt, Qatar, and the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations came after the Security Cabinet endorsed it on Friday.
Later Saturday, Netanyahu said that "we will be unable to move forward with the framework until we receive the list of the hostages who will be released, as was agreed. Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. Hamas is solely responsible."
Since negotiators announced the agreement on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed over 100 more Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health's figures.
Gaza health officials said Saturday that the Israeli assault has killed at least 46,899, with another 110,725 wounded since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. More than 10,000 people remain missing in the Palestinian region reduced to rubble, and experts warn the official death toll is likely a significant undercount.
"The temporary cease-fire agreement in Gaza is a relief, but it arrives more than 465 days and 46,000 lives too late," Doctors Without Borders said in a Saturday statement. "While this temporary cessation of fighting and bombing must be both respected and long-term, this is only the beginning of addressing the immense humanitarian, psychological, and medical needs in Gaza."
"Israel must immediately end its blockade of Gaza and ensure a massive scale-up of humanitarian aid into and across Gaza so that the hundreds of thousands of people in desperate conditions can begin their long road to recovery," added the group, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières. "The toll of this hideous war includes the obliteration of homes, hospitals, and infrastructure; the displacement of millions of people that are now in desperate need of water, food, and shelter in the cold winter."
After reaching a cease-fire deal to stop Israel's assault on Lebanon late last year, the IDF was accused of violating it with continued strikes allegedly targeting the political and militant group Hezbollah.
According toDrop Site News: "Egyptian media reported the formation of a joint operations room in Cairo, with representatives from Egypt, Palestine, Qatar, the United States, and Israel, to oversee the Gaza cease-fire and 'ensure effective coordination and follow up on compliance with the terms of the agreement.'"
Israel—whose troops have been armed by the United States—faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its war on Gaza and the International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
After the Israeli Security Cabinet's Friday decision, Kenneth Roth, the former director of Human Rights Watch, said: "Keep in mind that a cease-fire is NOT an amnesty. Senior Israeli officials must still be prosecuted for genocide and war crimes. Otherwise, governments could commit atrocities with impunity by simply agreeing to a cease-fire at the end."
This post has been updated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's later Saturday statement.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions."
As Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepares to further accelerate already near-record liquefied natural gas exports after taking office next week, a report published Friday details how soaring U.S. foreign LNG sales are "causing price volatility and environmental and safety risks for American families in addition to granting geopolitical advantages to the Chinese government."
The report, Strategic Implications of U.S. LNG Exports, was published by the American Security Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and offers a "comprehensive analysis of the impact of the natural gas export boom from the advent of fracking through the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and provides insight into how the tidal wave of U.S. exports in the global market is altering regional and domestic security environments."
According to a summary of the publication:
The United States is the world's leading producer of natural gas and largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Over the past decade, affordable U.S. LNG exports have facilitated a global shift from coal and mitigated the geopolitical risks of fossil fuel imports from Russia and the Middle East. Today, U.S. LNG plays a critical role in diversifying global energy supplies and reducing reliance on adversarial energy suppliers. However, rising global dependence on natural gas is creating new vulnerabilities, including pricing fluctuations, shipping route bottlenecks, and inherent health, safety, and environmental hazards. The U.S. also faces geopolitical challenges related to the LNG trade, including China's stockpiling and resale of cheap U.S. LNG exports to advance its renewable energy industry and expand its global influence.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions," the report states.
American Security Project CEO Matthew Wallin said in a statement that "action needs to be taken to ensure Americans are insulated from global price shocks, the impacts of climate change, and new health and safety risks."
"Our country must also do more to protect its interests from geopolitical rivals like China that subsidize their growth and influence by reselling cheap U.S. LNG at higher spot prices," Wallin asserted. "U.S. LNG has often been depicted as a transition fuel, and our country must ensure that it continues working towards that transition to clean sources instead of becoming dependent on yet another vulnerable fuel source."
Critics have
warned that LNG actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Despite President Joe Biden's 2024 pause on LNG export permit applications, his administration has presided over what climate campaigners have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy acknowledged that approving more LNG exports would raise domestic energy prices, increase pollution, and exacerbate the climate crisis.
In addition to promising to roll back Biden's recent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory, Trump—who has nominated a bevy of fossil fuel proponents for his Cabinet—is expected to further increase LNG production and exports.
A separate report published Friday by Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen examined 14 proposed LNG export terminals that the Trump administration is expected to fast-track, creating 510 million metric tons of climate pollution–"equivalent to the annual emissions of 135 new coal plants."
While campaigning for president, Trump vowed to "frack, frack, frack; and drill, baby, drill." This, as fossil fuel interests poured $75 million into his campaign coffers, according to The New York Times.
"This research reveals the disturbing reality of an LNG export boom under a second Trump term," Friends of the Earth senior energy campaigner Raena Garcia said in a statement referring to her group's new report. "This reality will cement higher energy prices for Americans and push the world into even more devastating climate disasters. The incoming administration is poised to haphazardly greenlight LNG exports that are clearly intended to put profit over people."
"Academics will make careers out of writing about past atrocities while ignoring the ones happening in real time," said one critic.
In what one observer decried as an "absolutely shameful" rebuff of American Historical Association members' overwhelming approval of a resolution condemning Israel's annihilation of education infrastructure in Gaza, the elected council of the nation's oldest learned society on Thursday vetoed the measure over a claimed technicality.
AHA members voted 428-88 earlier this month in favor of a resolution opposing Israeli scholasticide—defined by United Nations experts as the "systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure"—during the 15-month assault on the Gaza Strip.
However, the AHA's 16-member elected council voted 11-4 with one abstention to reject the measure, according toInside Higher Ed, which noted that the panel "could have accepted the resolution or sent it to the organization's roughly 10,450 members for a vote."
While the council said in a statement that it "deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza," it determined that the resolution does not comply with the AHA's constitution and bylaws "because it lies outside the scope of the association's mission and purpose."
Council member and University of Oklahoma history professor Anne Hyde told Inside Higher Ed that she voted to veto the resolution "to protect the AHA's reputation as an unbiased historical actor," adding that the Gaza war "is not settled history, so we're not clear what happened or who to blame or when it began even, so it isn't something that a professional organization should be commenting on yet."
However, Van Gosse, a co-chair and founder of Historians for Peace and Democracy—the resolution's author—told the outlet that "we are extremely shocked by this decision," which "overturns the democratic decision" of members' "landslide vote."
Lake Forest College history professor Rudi Batzell said on social media: "Shame on the AHA leadership for vetoing the scholasticide in Gaza resolution. Members voted overwhelmingly to support, and the resolution was written so narrowly and so carefully to meet exactly this kind of procedural objection. Craven."
The AHA council's veto follows last week's move by the Modern Language Association executive council, as Common Dreamsreported, to block members of the preeminent U.S. professional group for scholars of language and literature from voting on a resolution supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.