BRUSSELS: Gaza hospitals are reduced to practicing “medieval medicine,” a British surgeon recently returned from the bombarded Palestinian territory said on Monday.
“It’s absolutely true to describe it as medieval medicine. It is what you would hear about or read about what would be happening in Europe maybe 300, 400 years ago,” Dr. Khaled Dawas, head of gastrointestinal surgery at University College London Hospitals, told AFP in an interview.
Dawas described dire conditions in Gaza, with medical staff operating virtually without supplies, power supplies intermittent and patients lying on the floor.
He returned at the end of April from his two-week stint to help overstretched Palestinian hospital surgeons — his second wartime stay there, following one in January.
“By April they were seeing this constant, constant volume of dying and dead bodies coming into the hospitals and any human wouldn’t be able to tolerate it,” he said.
“They carry on working, but you can see the effect of that. They’re all extremely burdened by what they’re doing.”
The 54-year-old surgeon, an Arabic-speaker who has Palestinian parents, said many people in Gaza wounded or needing other medical attention tried to avoid going to the hospitals because it “means pretty much a death sentence.”
That was “because of the wound infections, because of the conditions.”
While the doctor said he felt “guilt” about leaving Gaza to return to his regular British medical work, from which he had taken leave, he said he would be back.
“I do hope that when I go back next time, that it’ll be when the ceasefire is in place. Because watching it unfold when you’re there is unbearable,” he said.
“It becomes more unbearable when you leave, actually, when you think back on what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard. And you wonder how people, any human being, can survive this for so long.”
Dawas was in Brussels to describe his experience to European Union officials.
Gaza has been under Israeli bombardment and ground assault since October 7, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at 36,050 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Gaza hospitals operating in ‘medieval’ conditions: UK doctor
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Gaza hospitals operating in ‘medieval’ conditions: UK doctor
- Dawas described dire conditions in Gaza, with medical staff operating virtually without supplies, power supplies intermittent and patients lying on the floor
Jordan thwarts major drug smuggling attempts along eastern border
- Jordan is known as a transit point for the smuggling of captagon, an addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant
DUBAI: Security forces from Jordan’s Eastern Military Zone have again foiled two large-scale drug-smuggling attempts along the country’s eastern border on Monday.
Border guards detected aerial objects, equipped with primitive navigation devices, loaded with significant quantities of narcotics, state news agency Petra reported.
The guards swiftly intercepted and downed the devices at two separate locations before securing the illicit cargo inside Jordanian territory.
The seized materials were transferred to the relevant authorities for investigation and legal procedures, Petra added.
Jordan is known as a transit point for the smuggling of captagon, an addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant that for years has been mass-produced in Syria.
Smugglers are increasingly using drones, widely available in southern Syria, where they sell for between $4,000 and $8,000, to transport small quantities of high-value, low-weight drugs.
Jordan and Syria agreed in January to form a joint security committee to secure their border, combat arms and drug smuggling and work to prevent the resurgence of Daesh.
Israel sends tanks deeper in Gaza City, more families flee
- Residents said Israeli forces sent old armored vehicles into the eastern parts of the overcrowded Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, then blew them up remotely, destroying several houses and forcing more families to flee
CAIRO: Israel pushed tanks deeper into Gaza City and detonated explosives-laden vehicles in one suburb as airstrikes killed at least 19 people on Monday, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.
Reports of the offensive came as the president of the world’s leading genocide scholars’ association said it had passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
There was no immediate response from Israel on the reported offensive or on the statement from the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Israel has in the past strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide.
The Israeli military said its forces were continuing to fight Hamas across the enclave and over the past day had struck several military structures and outposts that had been used to stage attacks on its troops.
Residents said Israeli forces sent old armored vehicles into the eastern parts of the overcrowded Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, then blew them up remotely, destroying several houses and forcing more families to flee.
Israel is pushing ahead with a plan to take full control of the whole Gaza Strip, starting with Gaza City, with the goal of destroying Hamas after nearly two years of war.
In leaflets dropped over Gaza City, its military told residents to head south immediately, saying the army intended to expand its offensive westward of the city.
“People are confused, stay and die, or leave toward nowhere,” Sheikh Radwan resident Mohammad Abu Abdallah told Reuters.
“It was a night of horror, explosions never stopped, and the drones never stopped hovering over the area. Many people quit their homes fearing for their lives, while others have no idea where to go,” the 55-year-old said over a chat app.
SECURITY CABINET CONVENED
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet late on Sunday to discuss a new offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as the bastion of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Local health authorities said the 14 people, including women and children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on houses in Gaza City as tanks briefly crossed into Sheikh Radwan.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on those reports.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the planned Gaza City offensive could endanger hostages still being held by Hamas. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in past weeks.
The war began with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and 251 taken hostage. Twenty of the remaining 48 hostages are believed to still be alive.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 63,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials, and it has plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.
Ceasefire talks ended in July in deadlock and efforts to revive them have so far failed.
Thousands attend funeral of Houthi leaders killed by Israeli strike, vow revenge
- Israel said on Friday its airstrike had targeted the Houthis’ chief of staff, defense minister and other senior officials
Thousands of mourners attended a funeral at the largest mosque in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Monday for 12 senior Houthi figures, including their prime minister, who were killed by an Israeli strike. Last Thursday’s attack, the first to kill top officials, struck a large number of people who had gathered to watch a televised speech recorded by top Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, and it left most members of the group’s cabinet dead.
Mourners chanted the Houthi slogan “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam,” as Mohammed Miftah, now de facto head of the Iran-aligned government in Sanaa, vowed revenge as well as an internal security crackdown against spies.
“We are facing the strongest intelligence empire in the world, the one that targeted the government — the whole Zionist entity (comprising) the US administration, the Zionist entity, the Zionist Arabs and the spies inside Yemen,” Miftah told the crowd of mourners at the Al Saleh mosque.
Miftah became the acting head of the Houthis’ government on Saturday following the death in the Israeli strike of Prime Minister Ahmad Ghaleb Al-Rahwi. Al-Rahwi was largely a figurehead and not part of the inner circle of power.
Miftah had previously been his deputy. A raid on the United Nations offices in Sanaa on Sunday led to the detention of at least 11 UN personnel, the body said. The Houthis have given no reason for the raid but they have held a number of Yemeni employees of the UN and other aid agencies in the past on suspicion of spying.
Israel said on Friday its airstrike had targeted the Houthis’ chief of staff, defense minister and other senior officials and that it was verifying the outcome.
The fate of the Houthis’ powerful defense minister, Mohamed Al-Atifi, who runs the Missiles Brigades Group, remains unclear as he has not made an appearance since the attack.
THORN IN ISRAEL’S SIDE
Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, who remains alive, has emerged in recent years as one of Iran’s most prominent Arab allies and an enduring thorn in Israel’s side after it weakened many of its enemies in the region, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Since Israel’s war in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group Hamas began in October 2023, the Houthis have attacked vessels in the Red Sea in what they describe as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
The Red Sea attacks have drawn US and Israeli strikes. In May, President Donald Trump said the US would stop bombing the Houthis after a brief campaign, saying the group had agreed to halt interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East.
But the Houthis, one of Iran’s few allies still standing since the Gaza war spilled across the Middle East, vowed to continue attacking Israel and Israeli-linked shipping. The Houthis said on Monday they had launched a missile toward the Liberia-flagged Israeli-owned tanker ‘Scarlet Ray’ ship near Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port city of Yanbu.
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, scholars’ association says
- Since its founding in 1994, the genocide scholars’ association has passed nine resolutions recognizing historic or ongoing episodes as genocides
- Eighty-six percent of those who voted among the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars backed the resolution declaring: “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide"
THE HAGUE: The world’s leading genocide scholars’ association has passed a resolution saying that the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday.
Eighty-six percent of those who voted among the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars backed the resolution declaring: “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).”
There was no immediate response from the Israeli foreign ministry. Israel has in the past strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as self defense. It is fighting a
case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague that accuses it of genocide.
Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in October, 2023, after fighters from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in control of the territory, attacked Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.
Since then, Israel’s military action has killed 63,000 people, damaged or destroyed most buildings in the territory and forced nearly all its residents to flee their homes at least once. A global hunger monitor relied on by the United Nations says parts of the territory are now suffering a man-made
famine, which Israel also denies.
In Gaza, Hamas welcomed the resolution: “This prestigious scholarly stance reinforces the documented evidence and facts presented before international courts,” said Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office.
The resolution “places a legal and moral obligation on the international community to take urgent action to stop the crime, protect civilians, and hold the leaders of the occupation accountable,” he said.
Since its founding in 1994, the genocide scholars’ association has passed nine resolutions recognizing historic or ongoing episodes as genocides.
The 1948 UN Genocide Convention, adopted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany, defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
It requires all countries to act to prevent and stop genocide.
Criminal acts comprising genocide include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, creating conditions calculated to destroy them, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children to other groups.
The three-page resolution adopted by the scholars calls on Israel to “immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza, including deliberate attacks against and killing of civilians including children; starvation; deprivation of humanitarian aid, water, fuel, and other items essential to the survival of the population; sexual and reproductive violence; and forced displacement of the population.”
The resolution also states that the Hamas attack on Israel which precipitated the war constituted international crimes.
“This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide,” the association’s president, Melanie O’Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia who specializes in genocide, told Reuters.
Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of international law at the Open University in the Netherlands who is not a member of the association, told Reuters the resolution showed that “this legal assessment has become mainstream within academia, particularly in the field of genocide studies.”
Several international rights groups and some Israeli NGOs have already accused Israel of committing genocide. Last week hundreds of UN staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk wrote to ask him to explicitly describe the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.
Yemen’s Houthis launch missile that lands near oil tanker in Red Sea
- Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for the launch
- He alleged the vessel, the Liberian-flagged Scarlet Ray, had ties to Israel
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi militants said Monday they launched a missile at an oil tanker off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, potentially renewing their attacks targeting shipping through the crucial global waterway.
Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for the launch in a prerecorded message aired on Al-Masirah, a Houthi-controlled satellite news channel. He alleged the vessel, the Liberian-flagged Scarlet Ray, had ties to Israel.
The ship’s owners, Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, could not be immediately reached. However, the maritime security firm Ambrey described the ship as fitting the Houthis’ “target profile, as the vessel is publicly Israeli owned.”
Eastern Pacific is a company that is ultimately controlled by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer. Eastern Pacific previously has been targeted in suspected Iranian attacks.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which monitors Mideast shipping, earlier reported a ship heard a splash and a bang off its side near Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.
From November 2023 to December 2024, the Houthis targeted more than 100 ships with missiles and drones over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. In their campaign so far, the Houthis have sank four vessels and killed at least eight mariners.
The Iranian-backed Houthis stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war. They later became the target of an intense weekslong campaign of airstrikes ordered by US President Donald Trump before he declared a ceasefire had been reached with the rebels. The Houthis sank two vessels in July, killing at least four on board with others believed to be held by the rebels.
The Houthis’ new attacks come as a new possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war remains in the balance. Meanwhile, the future of talks between the US and Iran over Tehran’s battered nuclear program is in question after Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in which the Americans bomb three Iranian atomic sites.
Israel just launched a series of airstrikes last week, killing the Houthis’ prime minister and several Cabinet members. The Houthis’ attack on the ship appears to be their response, as well as their raids on the offices of the United Nations’ food, health and children’s agencies in Yemen’s capital Sunday in which at least 11 UN employees detained.
