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14 Children From Same Family Among at Least 38 Killed by Israeli Strike on Gaza
"There is apparently no limit to the crimes against humanity that Biden administration officials will support or excuse," said one observer.
Oct 25, 2024
Dozens of Palestinians including many children from the same family were killed in an overnight Israel Defense Forces airstrike on their homes in the southern Gaza Strip following an IDF attack on a hospital in northern Gaza, where a number of children died after their oxygen was cut off.
Reutersreported Friday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes across Gaza have killed at least 72 Palestinians since Thursday night. At least 38 members of the al-Farra family, including women and 14 children, were killed when Israel bombed their residences in Khan Younis. Multiple local and international media outlets reported the children—whose bodies were intact after the strike—suffocated to death.
Some Palestine advocates slammed the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars worth of military aid for Israel and provides diplomatic cover for its war—for unconditionally supporting the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"If the slaughter of babies in hospitals and children in their sleep does not shock the conscience of the Biden administration officials supporting the far-right Israeli government's genocide in Gaza, nothing will," Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement Friday.
Warning: The following video contains images of dead children.
"What crime would Israel have to commit that would end the Biden administration's complicity in genocide?" Awad added. "There is apparently no limit to the crimes against humanity that Biden administration officials will support or excuse."
Israel's 385-day assault on Gaza—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case—has left tens of thousands of children dead, maimed, missing, or orphaned and hundreds of thousands more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Experts also say the war has wrought the "complete psychological destruction" of Gaza's children.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Gaza is "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." For the first time, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres this year added Israel to his "list of shame" of countries that kill and harm children during wars and other conflicts.
Overall, nearly 43,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets, with more than 100,000 others wounded and at least 10,000 more believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Israeli forces also attacked the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Thursday after besieging the facility for days. Eyewitnesses said IDF tanks and bulldozers repeatedly entered the hospital compound and fired on the facility, damaging the intensive care unit with sick children inside and the storage tanks that provide its water and oxygen supplies. Hospital staff and wounded patients were reportedly kidnapped by IDF troops.
According toAl Jazeera, a number of children including babies died in the hospital due to a lack of oxygen.
"All departments of the hospital are under direct shelling," director Dr. Hussam Abu Safia
toldCNN. "Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks."
Kamal Adwan is one of only three minimally functional hospitals in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been carrying out an offensive that has left thousands of Palestinians dead or wounded in recent weeks.
On Friday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that WHO officials have "lost touch with the personnel there."
"This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there," Tedros added.
The IDF said in a statement Friday that its assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital is "based on intelligence information regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure" and claimed it has "facilitated the evacuation of patients from the area while maintaining emergency services."
However, Abu Safia said Thursday that "we lose at least one person every hour because of the lack of medical supplies and medical staff."
"Our ambulances can't transfer wounded people," he added. "Those who can arrive by themselves to the hospital receive care, but those who don't just die in the streets."
UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said Friday that "children are being medically evacuated from Gaza at a rate of fewer than one child per day."
"If this lethally slow pace continues, it would take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care," he continued. "As a result, children in Gaza are dying—not just from the bombs, bullets, and shells that strike them—but because, even when 'miracles happen,' even when the bombs go off and the homes collapse and the casualties mount, but the children survive, they are then prevented from leaving Gaza to receive the urgent care that would save their lives."
"This is not a logistical problem—we have the ability to safely transport these children out of Gaza," Elder added. "It is not a capacity problem—indeed, we were evacuating children at higher numbers just months ago. It is simply a problem that is being completely disregarded."
Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director at the U.K.-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, said in a statement Friday that "this assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital is yet another atrocity by Israel that is eradicating Palestinian life in Gaza."
"Patients in need of lifesaving care are now left helpless under siege," Shalltoot added. "Healthcare workers, who should be able to provide care with dignity, are now fearing for their lives."
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory recently released a report concluding that "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
Israel's intensified assault on Gaza comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed during a meeting with Arab leaders in London to work with "real urgency" toward a cease-fire.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who attended the meeting, admonished Blinken: "We look at northern Gaza and we do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop."
Many observers including IDF participants in the war believe that Israel has implemented the so-called "General's Plan," a blueprint for the starvation and forced expulsion of Palestinians from northern Gaza. Hundreds of Israelis including senior government officials recently attended a conference geared toward ethnically cleansing and recolonizing Gaza.
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Israel's Ferocious Bombing of Northern Gaza Halts Polio Vaccination Effort
"It is imperative to stop the polio outbreak as soon as possible," the World Health Organization warned, "before more children are paralyzed and poliovirus spreads further."
Oct 23, 2024
Israel's intensified bombardment of northern Gaza—which according to Palestinian officials has killed or wounded more than 1,700 people since early October—has forced a halt to the third phase of a polio vaccination campaign scheduled to begin Wednesday.
"Due to the escalating violence, intense bombardment, mass displacement orders, and lack of assured humanitarian pauses across most of northern Gaza, the Polio Technical Committee for Gaza—including the Palestinian Ministry of Health, World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and partners—have been compelled to postpone the third phase of the polio vaccination campaign, which was set to begin today," WHO said in a statement Wednesday. "This final phase of the ongoing campaign aimed to vaccinate 119,279 children across northern Gaza."
"The current conditions, including ongoing attacks on civilian infrastructure, continue to jeopardize people's safety and movement in northern Gaza, making it impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination, and health workers to operate," the agency continued.
On Tuesday, UNRWA staffers in northern Gaza issued a desperate plea to the international community as Israeli forces continued to massacre Palestinians and besiege area medical facilities. More than 100,000 wounded and sick Palestinians urgently need medical treatment that is unavailable as area hospitals cannot operate.
"People are just waiting to die," UNRWA said. "They feel deserted, hopeless, and alone. They live from one hour to the next, fearing death at every second."
Following numerous warnings, Gaza earlier this year recorded its first case of polio since the highly contagious virus—which often causes paralysis and can kill—was eradicated there 25 years ago, prompting calls by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and others for a temporary truce to enable a vaccination drive.
"It is impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign with war raging all over," the U.N. chief said at the time after a 10-month-old infant became Gaza's first new poliomyelitis case this century.
In late August, Israel agreed to a staggered series of three-day "polio pauses" to allow healthcare workers to fan out across the enclave and vaccinate 640,000 children under the age of 10. However, Israel's recent escalation in northern Gaza is threatening to derail much of the progress made so far.
According to the WHO:
To interrupt poliovirus transmission, at least 90% of all children in every community and neighborhood must be vaccinated—a prerequisite for an effective campaign to interrupt the outbreak and prevent its further spread. Humanitarian pauses are essential for its success, allowing partners to deliver vaccination supplies to health facilities, families to safely access vaccination sites, and mobile teams of health workers to reach children in their communities. A delay in administering a second dose of [vaccine] within six weeks reduces the impact of two closely spaced rounds on concurrently boosting the immunity of all children and interrupting poliovirus transmission. Having a significant number of children miss out on their second vaccine dose will seriously jeopardize efforts to stop the transmission of poliovirus in Gaza. This could also lead to further spread of poliovirus in the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries, with the risk of more children being paralyzed.
"It is imperative to stop the polio outbreak as soon as possible, before more children are paralyzed and poliovirus spreads further," WHO asserted. "It is crucial therefore that the vaccination campaign in northern Gaza is facilitated through the implementation of the humanitarian pauses, ensuring access for wherever eligible children are located."
"WHO and UNICEF urge all parties to ensure that civilians, health workers, and civilian infrastructure, such as schools, shelters, hospitals, are protected and renew their call for an immediate cease-fire," the agency added.
Earlier this month, the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released a report detailing how "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
Israel's obliteration of Gaza's healthcare infrastructure and targeting of healthcare and medical workers has been entered as evidence in the South Africa-led genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Meanwhile, as Common Dreamsreported Wednesday, Israel's bombardment and invasion of Lebanon—which has killed and wounded thousands of people while displacing around 1.2 million others in recent weeks—is causing a health crisis in which cholera and other diseases are rapidly spreading.
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'We Cannot Allow This to Happen Again': Israeli War on Lebanon Sparks Cholera Resurgence
"We have already seen in Gaza how the lethal combination of mass displacement, attacks on healthcare, and lack of nutritious food and water can impact children's lives," said Save the Children's Lebanon director.
Oct 23, 2024
Israel's invasion and intense bombardment of Lebanon—including recent attacks on hospitals and other medical infrastructure—have sparked a potentially catastrophic health crisis in the country, with cholera and other diseases spreading among the more than a million people who have been displaced over the past month.
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it was working to stem the spread of cholera after Lebanon's health ministry confirmed the country's first known case of the bacterial disease since a deadly outbreak that began in October 2022.
Particularly vulnerable to the worsening public health crisis are the hundreds of thousands of children who have been displaced by Israel's bombing and ground attacks. The United Nations Children's Fund stressed that cholera is a severe threat to kids under the age of 5, the unvaccinated, and those suffering from malnutrition.
The humanitarian group Save the Children said Tuesday that "over 400,000 children forced from their homes by the escalating conflict in Lebanon are at risk of skin diseases, cholera, and other waterborne diseases due to overcrowded, basic conditions in collective shelters and a lack of water and sanitation facilities."
Kamal Nasser El Deen, Save the Children Lebanon's emergency response coordinator, said Wednesday that he has been in "multiple" shelters in which families were forced to wait in long lines to access bathrooms.
"The facilities are inadequate for the number of people, and to make matters worse, the water supply is inconsistent," he continued. "This lack of clean, reliable water creates a significant risk for waterborne diseases. It's heartbreaking to know that these children, already displaced and vulnerable, face the additional threat of illness simply because basic needs like sanitation and clean water aren't being met."
"The international community must act now to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and exert pressure for an immediate cease-fire."
Jennifer Moorehead, Save the Children's country director in Lebanon, likened the intensifying health crisis to the dire conditions in Gaza, which the U.S.-armed Israeli military has decimated with more than a year of relentless bombings and ground attacks, obliterating the enclave's healthcare system and causing the reemergence of polio. Experts have also warned of a looming cholera outbreak in Gaza.
"Thousands of vulnerable children are now unprotected and with winter just round the corner and temperatures dropping, they will become even more susceptible to diseases such as measles, meningitis, and hepatitis A," Moorehead said of the Lebanon crisis. "We have already seen in Gaza how the lethal combination of mass displacement, attacks on healthcare, and lack of nutritious food and water can impact children's lives. We cannot allow this to happen again. The international community must act now to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and exert pressure for an immediate cease-fire."
Save the Children's warning came as rescue teams searched the rubble for survivors in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike that hit across the street from Beirut's main public hospital earlier this week, killing at least 18 people including four children.
"Hussein al-Ali, a nurse who was there when the attack happened, said it took him a few minutes to realize it was not the hospital that was hit. Dust and smoke covered the hospital lobby," The Associated Pressreported Tuesday. "The glass in the dialysis unit, the pharmacy, and other rooms in the hospital was shattered. The false roof fell over his and his colleagues' heads."
Some hospitals and clinics operated by humanitarian groups have been forced to shut down due to Israel's military campaign. The New York Timesnoted that facilities that have not been damaged by Israeli bombings "have been abandoned after staff fled, fearing for their safety."
"The ones that remain operational say they are quickly running out of beds as patients evacuated from other facilities are brought in," the newspaper added.
The WHO said last week that it had verified nearly two dozen attacks on healthcare in Lebanon since mid-September. Those attacks killed at least 72 patients and healthcare workers, according to the U.N. body.
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said Tuesday that he was "appalled" by Israel's strike near Beirut's public hospital.
"Hospitals, ambulances, and medical personnel are specifically protected under international humanitarian law because of their lifesaving function for the wounded and the sick," said Türk. "When conducting military operations in the vicinity of hospitals, parties to the conflict must assess the expected impact on healthcare services in relation to the principles of proportionality and precautions. Any incidents which affect hospitals must be subjected to a prompt and thorough investigation."
"I repeat the U.N.'s call for an immediate cessation to hostilities," he added, "and remind all parties that the protection of civilians must be the absolute top priority."
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