Attention to the Unseen

The Guardian reports: Even if the war in Gaza ended tomorrow, for some of the Palestinian territory’s children, it would not help. Hunger and malnutrition have already claimed an estimated 27 young lives, and for many more, it may be too late to reverse the excruciating toll that starvation takes on small, growing bodies. Nuzha Awad’s triplets, Malek, Khader and Moustafa, born two months before the war began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, did not stop crying as…

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Keith Gessen writes: For many people, in Washington and beyond, the American response to the 9/11 attacks settled an old question about the U.S. and its commitment to human rights. Clearly, it seemed to them, the U.S. had no such commitment. It was happy to preach to other people—to Serbs, Russians, Chinese—about human rights. But, when it came under attack, it would do just about anything to wipe out the threat. Paradoxically, though, it could be argued that the American…

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  We speak with two doctors who’ve just returned after two weeks at the European Hospital in Gaza. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa and Dr. Mark Perlmutter are co-authors of a new piece for Common Dreams titled “As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.” They describe a hospital “hanging on by a thread,” with the majority of patients being young children, and bombing targeted at Muslim Palestinians “concentrated at the time of evening prayer.” “Genocide was the…

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There’s a trickle of aid going into Gaza right now, as the population faces imminent famine. There needs to be a deluge. For every hour that the war goes on, the desperate need increases. I spoke to @WagnerTonight about the situation on the ground and the work of @RESCUEorg: pic.twitter.com/bYNsFTXtCC — David Miliband (@DMiliband) April 11, 2024

AFP reports: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned Wednesday that Israel’s “disproportionate response” in the Gaza war with Hamas risks “destabilising the Middle East, and as a consequence, the entire world”. Sanchez also insisted that the recognition of a Palestinian state, long resisted by Israel and its key allies, is “in Europe’s geopolitical interests”. Sanchez had already raised the subject of statehood during a visit last week to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, when he told reporters that Spain could…

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Reuters reports: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees is disputing claims by Israel and the US that aid into Gaza has been significantly increased. “There has been no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza or improved access to the north,” UNRWA says in its daily situation report. Red Crescent officials in Egypt say more than 350 trucks had crossed from there into Gaza on Monday and 258 on Sunday. That was much more than in recent…

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Palestinians look for survivors after a Israeli strike in Gaza on Oct. 31, 2023. AP Photo/Doaa AlBaz By Dima Nazzal, Georgia Institute of Technology Over a decade ago, a United Nations report described the Gaza Strip as virtually unlivable, adding that it would require “Herculean efforts” to change that. Today, after six months of bombardment, mass displacement and siege by Israel, the task of rebuilding Gaza seems practically unimaginable. I’m a scholar and a systems engineer who, as research director…

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Human Rights Watch: Children in Gaza have been dying from starvation-related complications since the Israeli government began using starvation as a weapon of war, a war crime, Human Rights Watch said today. Doctors and families in Gaza described children, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, suffering from severe malnutrition and dehydration, and hospitals ill-equipped to treat them. Concerned governments should impose targeted sanctions and suspend arms transfers to press the Israeli government to ensure access to humanitarian aid and…

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King Abdullah II, Emmanuel Macron and Abdel Fatah El-Sisi writes: The war in Gaza and the catastrophic humanitarian suffering it is causing must end now. Violence, terror and war cannot bring peace to the Middle East. The two-state solution will. It is the only credible path to guaranteeing peace and security for all, and ensuring that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis ever have to relive the horrors that have befallen them since the Oct. 7 attack. On March 25,…

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  This week Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the Israeli attack on a World Central Kitchen envoy an ‘inflection point’. President of the International Rescue Committee David Miliband tells Ali Velshi that what is really needed is a ‘paradigm shift’ to get more aid into Gaza. ‘Aid workers have a legal right to go about their business without being killed. This couldn’t be more serious.’