For detail on Israeli attacks in Gaza on Saturday, go here.
GAZA NEWS & HEADLINES:
(To understand what’s going on right now between Gaza and Israel, go here. For a bit more critical background, skim this, this, and this. To read about a remarkable but underreported, 20-month-long peaceful protest in Gaza against Israel, go here.)
Doctors in Gaza have warned that hundreds of babies are at risk of death amid a critical shortage of baby milk, as Israel continues to restrict the humanitarian aid that can enter the beleaguered strip.
Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the head of pediatrics at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said his ward had only about a week’s worth of infant formula remaining. The doctor has already run out of specialized formula meant for premature babies and is forced to use regular formula, rationing it between the infants under his care.
“I can’t begin to describe how bad things are. Right now, we have enough formula for about one week. But we also have infants outside the hospital without any access to milk. It’s catastrophic,” al-Farra told the Guardian over the phone.
Stocks of infant formula have dwindled in Gaza as Israel has blocked all but a trickle of aid into the Palestinian territory. Food aid that comes through the controversial US-Israeli-backed private company Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) does not include infant formula, according to doctors (continue reading here).
GOING DAYS ON END WITHOUT A MEAL: The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says that nearly one person in three is not eating for days at a time. Moreover, findings from the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report indicate a high risk that famine will occur as conflict persists and humanitarian agencies are unable to provide essential aid. Some 470,000 people are expected to face catastrophic hunger between May and September this year, it said, adding that flour for bread is 3,000 times more expensive than before the war, and cooking oil is unavailable.
ANOTHER HEALTH WORKER BRUTALLY KILLED: Mousa Hamdan Khafaja, a consultant in the obstetrics and gynecology department at Nasser Medical Complex, has been killed along with several members of his family, including his three children, in an Israeli air strike that targeted a tent for the displaced in the al-Mawasi area. Al-Mawasi was designated a “humanitarian zone” by Israel. More than 1,580 health workers have been killed so far since October 7, 2023, in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office. They include 90 doctors and 132 nurses.
PICTURING ETHNIC CLEANSING: A major US consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), was tasked by Israeli backers to model the costs of “relocating” Palestinians from Gaza as part of a project “imagining” post-war Gaza reconstruction, a Financial Times (FT) investigation published on 5 July revealed. In one scenario, Palestinians would be provided “voluntary relocation” packages valued at $9,000 per person, or $5 billion total. Each person would reportedly receive $5,000 in cash, subsidized rent for four years, and subsidized food for a year. The model estimated that 500,000 Palestinians, a quarter of the strip’s population, would leave and that “three-quarters of those relocated would never return,” FT added (continue reading here).
NOTE: There is nothing “voluntary” about this scheme for removal of Gazans from their homeland. Israel has destroyed the means of survival for the people of Gaza; now they suggest giving them a “choice” between leaving their homeland to survive, and staying to struggle and die. Forced population transfer is a crime against humanity, and a form of ethnic cleansing. If world leaders truly want to offer Gazans a good life outside Gaza, the just solution would be to return them to their homes in historic Palestine.
CEASEFIRE NEWS:
(To get an idea about past ceasefires between Gaza and Israel and how they ended, check out this and this.)
HAMAS WANTS GUARANTEE OF PERMANENT CEASEFIRE: Hamas says it is ready to start talks “immediately” on a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire, which will allow the desperately needed aid for Gaza, but Netanyahu says that “changes” made by the group to the proposal were “unacceptable”. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad says it supports plans for talks on a truce with Israel, but demanded “guarantees” that the process would lead to a permanent ceasefire.
WEST BANK/EAST JERUSALEM NEWS AND HEADLINES:
(For background on the West Bank, read this and this.)
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