The National - March 22, 2024
Fifty people killed in Al Shifa Hospital in continuing Israeli assault
Total death toll now 140 since attack on largest medical facility in northern Gaza began on Monday
At least 50 people have been killed in Israel's latest raid on Al Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza's north, bringing the death toll to 140 since the operation began on Monday.
Israeli soldiers told those displaced inside the hospital to leave the complex at dawn on Thursday and threatened to carry out a strike if they did not comply, local reports and witnesses said.
Local Palestinian media reported that buildings surrounding Al Shifa complex were set on fire, including homes on Rashid Street and Al Mina neighbourhood, west of Gaza city.
In a video recorded in the hospital's courtyard, Israeli army spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said more than 250 people have been arrested and 350 others are “suspected to be connected to terror”.
Admiral Hagari also said the Israeli army is supplying food and water to those inside, without adding further details.
Palestinians within the hospital have reported that people have no food available to break their Ramadan fast.
Gaza's government media office said Israeli forces killed 13 hospital patients "by denying them medicine, food, refills, treatments, and oxygen in the intensive care rooms."
Four people on ventilators died after the electricity supply at the hospital was cut off, it added.
Doctors and nurses "were taken out of the departments, forced to take off their clothes, and prevented from reaching patient rooms to try to save them," the statement said, adding patients' wounds have begun rotting due to a lack of staff and medical supplies.
Emmy Shaheen, who lives near Al Shifa Hospital, has been posting videos from her family home nearby describing the shelling.
In her last post on Wednesday, she said members of her family were injured in attacks on her home. She also said the Israeli forces refused to grant emergency crew access to rescue them.
“The situation is catastrophic. Pray for us,” she said.
Local reports showed black smoke rising from the special surgery building, which houses one of Gaza's largest medicine storage units.
People inside the hospital also described groups of detained Palestinians being led into the hospital's morgue before being shot.
One witness, who was named only by their initials MK, told the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor he was stripped and handcuffed for nine hours.
“About four times during that period, I saw soldiers lead groups of detainees –[always] at least three people and [never] more than 10 – into the hospital buildings, particularly the morgue building where bodies had previously been kept."
“Gunshots were heard, with the soldiers then leaving the area to bring another group there.”
Another survivor also told the monitor he saw several groups of eight to 10 people being led into the morgue, before "heavy gunfire" was heard.
Israeli soldiers left the morgue with no civilians, they added.
The monitor called for the establishment of an international committee to investigate "the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israeli forces as part of its genocide campaign, which includes planned killings and executions against civilians that are outside the purview of the law and judiciary".
About 5,000 injured patients were being treated at the hospital, which also houses over 30,000 displaced people, the ministry said.
“We call on all warring parties to respect the grounds and perimeter of the hospital and ensure the safety of medical personnel, patients and civilians,” Doctors Without Borders said earlier this week.
Israel said it killed Faiq Mabhouh, the director of police investigations in northern Gaza. Hamas said Mr Mabhouh was responsible for protecting and securing aid lorries and co-ordinating with the UN over the protection and distribution of aid.
Hamas accused Israel of carrying out the attack “to influence the protection of aid and increase chaos as sought by the occupation (Israel)”.
The Hamas-linked Shehab news agency reported that Israel had also killed the police chief Raed Al Bana, who oversaw aid deliveries to Jabalia in northern Gaza. It said he died in a strike on his home which also killed his wife and children.
Israel did not immediately comment on the report.
Day 167: 31,988 killed, 74,188 injured in Gaza
The Israeli forces committed seven massacres in 24 hours in Gaza amid its ongoing genocide on Gaza, and hundreds of victims are still stuck under the rubble, unaccounted for.
The Ministry of Healthﾠin Gaza announced today that the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces since October 7 has risen to 31,988, with 74,188 others injured.
The Israeli forces committed seven massacres against families in Gaza in the past 24 hours, killing 65 Palestinians and injuring 92 others, it added.
The ministry also said that many victims remain under the rubble and on the streets as the IOF deliberately prevents ambulances and civil defense crews from reaching them.
Israeli forces blow up Al-Shifa Hospital specialized building in Gaza
Israeli occupation forces have blown up a specialized building that hosts a specialized medical unit in Al-Shifa Medical Complex in west Gaza, while the IOF continues to lay siege to the complex and attack Palestinians inside for the fourth consecutive day.
Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Gaza reported that the IOF is still targeting any moving body in the complex, stressing that all communications are still cut off, rendering everyone inside the complex unreachable.
Our correspondent added that the IOF also targeted a house within the vicinity of the complex in parallel with Israeli aircraft opening fire on the area.
Israeli aircraft also targeted a house in al-Shati refugee camp and shelled many houses in al-Rashid Street and its vicinity in al-Mina neighborhood, west of Gaza.
In central Gaza, IOF warplanes targeted al-Nuseirat refugee camp four times up until the early morning hours today.
West of al-Nuseirat, nine Palestinians were killed after the IOF bombed a house. In Southern Gaza, the perpetual Israeli artillery shelling targeted east of Rafah in parallel with IOF vehicles opening heavy fire.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/day-167--31-988-killed--74-188-injured-in-gaza
World Socialist Web Site – March 22, 2024
The fraud of Biden’s call for a “ceasefire” in Gaza
By Andre Damon
The Biden administration, the leading imperialist sponsor of Israel’s Gaza genocide that has killed 32,000 Palestinians, displaced nearly 2 million, and imposed starvation on the entire population, is introducing a UN resolution supporting an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
The cynicism of Biden’s call for a “ceasefire” while continuing to fund and arm the government massacring over a hundred Palestinians every day and starving the entire Gazan population is beyond description. The Biden administration hopes that by proclaiming its support for a “ceasefire” loudly enough, it will make the world’s population forget that it fully supports and enables the US-Israeli “final solution” of the Palestinian question.
In reality, every major action taken by the Netanyahu government, from the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza in October to the assault on al-Shifa Hospital over the past weekend, has been coordinated and approved by the Biden administration, which continues to funnel to Israel the weapons used to massacre the population of Gaza.
In a call with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, Biden called for discussions with a “team” of “military, intelligence and humanitarian experts” on Israel’s impending onslaught on Rafah, underscoring once again American imperialism’s direct participation in the genocide against the Palestinians. The southernmost city in Gaza is currently packed with over 1.5 million Palestinians with nowhere else to go.
Unlike multiple UN ceasefire resolutions previously vetoed by the United States, the latest resolution explicitly links a ceasefire to the achievement of Israel’s military goals.
The resolution ties the call for a ceasefire to the demand for the release of hostages by Hamas, stating, “The Security Council determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire ... and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”
This is a restatement of language used by Biden in his warmongering State of the Union address earlier this month, in which he declared, “Hamas could end this conflict today by releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7th.” In that speech, Biden said that the US has “been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks.”
The claim by the Biden administration to support a “ceasefire” in Gaza is belied by one fact: It continues to be the policy of the United States government that Israel has carte blanche to commit any war crime in Gaza, without leading to a reduction of US weapons shipments.
Earlier this month, Biden declared, “The defense of Israel is still critical. So there’s no red line where I’m going to cut off all weapons.”
Last week, when asked if there was anything Israel could do that would curtail US funding, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton replied, “I don’t think it’s productive to assign ‘red line’ terminology to what is a very complex set of policies.”
The unmatched hypocrisy of the Biden administration on the Gaza genocide flows from the contradiction between the interests of American imperialism and the sentiments of the vast majority of the American and world population. While Washington is determined to resort to the most barbaric methods, including genocide, to secure its hegemonic position in the latest redivision of the world among the great powers, millions of workers and young people around the world oppose the war crimes being perpetrated by the US and Israel against the population of Gaza.
It is for this reason that the White House has deliberately sought to hide its leading role as the enabler of the Gaza genocide. Earlier this month, press reports revealed that the Biden administration sought to hide weapons transfers for use in Gaza by splitting them up into over 100 separate transactions, each falling below a minimum threshold for reporting to Congress.
The secret weapons shipments include, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “at least 23,000 precision-guided weapons, including Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, drones, and Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which turn unguided bombs into ‘smart’ bombs,” as well as bunker-buster bombs.
The Biden administration has spread falsehoods about every aspect of Israel’s genocide. On March 18, the Washington Post published an article based on extensive interviews with Biden administration officials, revealing the extent to which the White House consciously lied to the public to justify the genocide.
Three weeks after the October 7 attacks, “top Biden officials” delivered a private briefing in which they admitted that Israel was carrying out deliberate airstrikes against civilians.
The article reported, “On Oct. 27, three weeks into Israel’s punishing counterattack in Gaza, top Biden officials privately told a small group assembled at the White House what they would not say in public: Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets.”
And yet, to this day, every time a White House official is asked this question, the White House asserts that the bombings of civilians amount to a series of unfortunate accidents. For example, when asked in December whether Israel was carrying out indiscriminate bombing, White House spokesman Matthew Miller said, “We have not made a formal determination to that question.”
In a subsequent statement, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “There is a clear intent by the Israelis ... that they are doing everything they can to reduce civilian casualties.”
The Washington Post account proves that both of these statements were flat-out lies.
In yet another example, the Biden administration gave Israel a green light in November to attack al-Shifa Hospital by declaring, in the words of Kirby, “We have information that confirms that Hamas is using that particular hospital for a command-and-control node.”
In reality, no such information existed, because the Biden administration knew the claims by Netanyahu were false. The Post cited Senator Chris Van Hollen, who declared there was a “disconnect” between the “administration’s public statements and the classified findings” presented to Congress.
The Biden administration, together with the other major imperialist powers, bears responsibility for the Gaza genocide. American imperialism sees it as an essential component of its efforts to subjugate and dominate the Middle East, which is focused on preparations for a region-wide war targeting Iran.
The struggle against the Gaza genocide is the struggle against the imperialist governments that are enabling it, as part of a global eruption of imperialist barbarism throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Workers and young people all over the world must take up the struggle against the Gaza genocide as a critical component of the building of a mass antiwar movement armed with a socialist perspective.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/22/gorq-m22.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
Yemen's Red Sea blockade forces mass layoffs at key Israeli port
Revenues from the port of Eilat have plummeted by 80 percent since the Yemeni operations began
Israel’s port of Eilat in the occupied south is set to fire half of its employees due to the devastating effects of Yemen’s maritime blockade on Israeli shipping.
The main Israeli labor federation, the Histadrut Labor Federation, said on 20 March that port authorities have announced their intention to lay off half of the 120 people employed at the Eilat port.
It added that the workers plan on protesting the decision on Wednesday.
“It would have been right for the company at this time to have embraced the workers and their families, and not chosen the easy way of attempting mass layoffs. We won’t be a part of this,” said Eyal Yadin, the chairman of Israel’s transportation workers union, in a statement.
Nir Eisenberg, head of the Maritime Division at the Histadrut Transport Workers Union, said, “Port management is trying to take advantage of the war situation and harm the livelihood of dedicated workers in the southern periphery.”
Israeli media outlet Calcalist reported recently that 149,000 vehicles entered Eilat port last year, as opposed to none in 2024. In December 2023, Calcalist said that revenues from Eilat port plummeted by 80 percent since the start of Yemen’s campaign against vessels bound for or linked to Israel.
Since November, Yemen’s Armed Forces – which is aligned with the Ansarallah resistance movement – have targeted Israeli-linked ships in the Red and Arab Seas in solidarity with the people of Palestine, who are currently facing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
They have also launched numerous drones and missiles toward Eilat, known in Arabic as Umm al-Rashrash.
As a result of Yemeni operations, major international shipping companies have been forced to reroute their vessels around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi announced on 14 March that Ansarallah and the Yemeni army willﾠexpand its maritime operations against Israeli-linked shipping and prevent ships from being able to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope.
Yemeni operations have caused a significant strain on the Israeli economy, which has plummeted nearly 20 percent since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has inflicted similar losses on Israel’s northern settlements, where sales have plummeted 70 percent since October. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis were forced to flee from the north.
https://thecradle.co/articles/yemens-red-sea-blockade-forces-mass-layoffs-at-key-israeli-port
US opposes Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, trying to halt its construction: Official
The US assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia says the United States opposes the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project.
Speaking to congressmen during a congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday, Donald Lu said the US is exerting maximum efforts to prevent the construction of the IP project.
He added that the US is concerned about the strain in Pakistan’s relations with neighboring Iran, particularly on the IP gas pipeline project.
The US official noted that Washington was in contact with Islamabad on the matter.
Emphasizing the importance of monitoring the funding for the mega energy project, Lu said the US is keeping a close watch on it.
"Washington has not received any request from Islamabad regarding sanctions relief, so our efforts to stop Pakistan from Iran’s gas project will continue," the diplomat added.
Lu claimed that the project was not in the interest of Pakistan as international companies would not invest in it.
Back in February, Pakistan gave the green light for advancing much-delayed work on the joint gas pipelines project with Iran within its territory in a significant step towards enhancing energy cooperation between the two countries.
Pakistan’s Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) granted its approval to start construction on the 80-kilometer pipeline from the Pak-Iran border to Gwadar.
The project, launched in 2013, had initially required Pakistan to finish the construction of the pipeline on its territory by the end of 2014.
However, the project faced prolonged delays due to the potential challenges it posed for Pakistan amid international sanctions targeting Iran.
Pakistan is likely to face an $18-billion fine if it terminates the gas pipeline agreement.
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