Abandoned preemies, destroyed center for the visually impaired; aid food delayed so long it is spoiling; AFSC head says starvation in Gaza “truly catastrophic”; Gaza hospital converted to Israeli military barracks; sewage mixing with clean water; Israeli commentator: “anyone over age 4 is a Hamas supporter”; Al Jazeera condemns Israel’s “heinous crimes” against journalists; Red Crescent rejects Israeli claim of “terrorists disguised as medical personnel”; Egypt reportedly prepping for influx of Gazans; 100th Palestinian child killed in West Bank; Netanyahu’s government rejects Palestinian statehood; Israel selling Palestinian natural resource rights; Israel spying on US on behalf of settlers
By IAK staff, from reports
Al Jazeera reports: Footage has emerged showing the decomposing bodies of premature infants at Al Nassr Pediatric Hospital in Gaza City, which was besieged earlier in the war. Al Jazeera’s verification unit, Sanad, confirmed the video shows the infants’ remains left unattended in one of the hospital’s wards.
“On November 10, the Israeli army besieged Al Nassr Children’s Hospital and then instructed the medical staff to evacuate the hospital along with the displaced persons,” Mohammed Hamouda, a doctor at the hospital, told Al Jazeera in a voice message.
“We were forced to merge the nursery with the intensive care unit for critical cases requiring artificial respiration,” he said. “We operated a generator to keep the equipment running. We left the hospital under the Israeli siege with the understanding that the Red Cross would follow up on these cases.”
“However, all of them passed away and were left to decompose,” he concluded.
UNRWA reports, “Nothing remains of UNRWA ‘s Rehabilitation Centre for Visually Impaired,” the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency says in a social media post.
“This center was available to all visually impaired children across the Gaza Strip and provided braille machines, canes, visual aids + access to recreational activities including arts, sports & music.”
![Nothing remains of UNRWA's Rehabilitation Center for Visually Impaired. This center was available to all visually impaired children across the Gaza Strip & provided braille machines, canes, visual aids + access to recreational activities including arts, sports & music.](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-15-vis-300x200.jpg)
Al Jazeera reports: Joyce Ajlouny – the general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning Quaker organization working in Gaza since 1949 – tells Al Jazeera starvation in Gaza is at a “just enormous and truly catastrophic” level.
“Some of the [aid] trucks have spoiled food because of the bureaucracy. … The trucks have been held for far too long [by Israel],” she said from Bethesda in the US state of Maryland.
“We have purchased a few trucks of aid in Egypt, but we are not able to get them in [Gaza]. I think we have got only one truck in since the beginning of this war,” Ajlouny added.
“Everyone is hungry in Gaza today. That is just enormous and truly catastrophic, and we’ve never seen anything like that before.”
![list of banned medical supplies](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-16-list-300x300.jpg)
Andalou Agency reports: The Israeli army has endangered the lives of patients at the Nasser Medical Complex, the main health care facility in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, by converting it into military barracks, the Health Ministry in the besieged enclave warned on Thursday.
It also issued a warning about “the cessation of generators due to fuel depletion within the next 24 hours, endangering the lives of patients.”
The ministry pointed out that “there is no food or milk for children, and there is a severe shortage of water.”
It added that “the occupation targets the ambulance headquarters and the tents of the displaced, and is excavating mass graves inside the Nasser Medical Complex.”
Mondoweiss reports: In an interview on Israeli television, former Mossad official Rami Igra said all Palestinians in Gaza over the age of 4 are “involved” and deserve to face Israel’s collective punishment policy of withholding food and humanitarian aid.
“In Gaza, everyone is involved. Everyone voted Hamas. Anyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter. And our goal at the moment, and this is in continuation of what you said, is to turn them from Hamas supporters to Hamas dislikers.”
This unhinged, delusional message is coupled with a supposedly “humanitarian” approach:
“And the way is supplying the humanitarian aid, through us [Israel].” Read the full article here.
![17,000 children torn from their parents. Starvation looms. Desperately needed aid is not going into Gaza. There's no sanctuary, says Philippe Lazzarini](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-15-cup-300x200.jpg)
The Al Jazeera network has released the following statement following Israel’s targeting of 2 Al Jazeera journalists with a drone this week:
Al Jazeera Media Network rejects the Israeli occupation forces’ attempt to justify the killing and targeting of journalists.
The Network condemns the accusations against its journalists and recalls Israel’s long record of lies and fabrication of evidence through which it seeks to hide its heinous crimes.
Al Jazeera ensures that all its journalists and correspondents adhere to the editorial standards.
The Network recalls the systematic targeting of Al Jazeera by the Israeli authorities, which includes the bombing of its office in Gaza twice, the assassination of its correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, the killing of colleagues Samer AbuDaqa and Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the deliberate targeting of a number of Al Jazeera journalists and their family members and the arrest and intimidation of its correspondents in the field.
Given Israel’s unprecedented campaign against journalists, Al Jazeera urges media outlets worldwide to exercise the utmost caution and responsibility when headlining Israel’s justifications for its crimes against journalists in Gaza.
![Mourners at the funeral of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Abu Hatab.](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-16-press-300x201.jpg)
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports: The Israeli army’s deliberate and pervasive targeting of educational institutions and cultural objects in the Gaza Strip is an additional manifestation of the ongoing crime of genocide that it has been committing since 7 October 2023, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said.
The current Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip have completely disrupted the educational process in all universities and colleges there, according to Euro-Med Monitor. Three university presidents have been killed in since 7 October, along with more than 95 university deans and professors. 88,000 students have been deprived of receiving their university education and 555 students who were granted international scholarships have not been able to travel abroad.
Israel’s actions fall within the framework of its public policies of making the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and expelling its Palestinian residents. Israel is accomplishing precisely this by establishing a coercive atmosphere devoid of basic services and necessities for survival, i.e. by destroying people’s physical safety and psychological stability, which may ultimately force the Strip’s inhabitants to evacuate. (Read the full report here.)
![A Palestinian man walks past the destroyed Islamic University in Gaza City](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-16-uni-300x200.jpg)
Shocking footage shows unimaginable destruction in📍#Gaza city, including our health centre.
+70% of civilian infrastructure- including homes, hospitals & schools- have been destroyed or severely damaged.
84% of health facilities have been affected by attacks.
Nowhere is safe. pic.twitter.com/9yRjJGvSMA
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) February 15, 2024
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says that Israeli claims that 20 “terrorists disguised as medical personnel” were arrested from al-Amal Hospital on Friday were “fabricated”.
The Israeli army raided the Khan Younis hospital last week after it had come under heavy bombardment for weeks. Thousands of displaced people had taken shelter there.
“The PRCS believes that these accusations are only part of a series of excuses fabricated by the occupation forces to justify the siege, bombing, storming of hospitals, and killing of PRCS medical staff and others in the Gaza Strip,” the group said in a post on X.
The aid organization added that Israeli forces arrested nine of its medical and administrative staff as well as nine elderly patients and their companions.
Al Jazeera reports: Orphaned children lose family, identity in Gaza:
Lying on a bed at the European Hospital in southern Gaza, hidden behind bandages that enveloped his disfigured face, five-year-old Ahmed Abu Zariaan remained unidentified for more than a week.
The injured boy was one of a growing number of children in the war-torn enclave to be registered as “unknown”, or under the acronym WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family.
Ahmed’s family was wiped out in an Israeli air raid as they travelled southwards along Salah al-Din Street, a route Israel designated for safe passage from northern Gaza, in early November.
Heeding the Israeli army’s order for residents in the northern part of the enclave to evacuate to the south, the family of five left Beit Hanoon on a donkey cart and headed for Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
A strike targeting a nearby house along the way killed the whole family but spared the five-year-old…
Reuters reported on November 15: “Bombarded twice in Gaza, 4-year-old Ahmed loses parents, then legs”
![Neehel is the 100th Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7.](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-16-100-300x300.jpg)
Defense for Children International-Palestine reports: Neehel Ziad Mohammad Bregheith, 16, was shot in the head by Israeli forces on February 14 in the Palestinian town of Beit Ummar, in the occupied West Bank.
He is the 100th Palestinian child killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
Neehel sustained a gunshot wound to the head as he and other students were leaving school for the day amidst intermittent confrontations with Israeli soldiers.
Israeli snipers were deployed on the rooftops of buildings in the town, while other Israeli soldiers deployed on the streets, opening fire with live ammunition. More than 10 injuries were reported,.
“Decades of systemic impunity has created a situation where Israeli forces shoot to kill without limit,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP.
Ha’aretz reports: Six Israelis were wounded on Friday morning in a shooting attack in southern Israel; at least 2 have now died.
According to police sources, the suspect arrived at the Re’em-Masmiyya intersection and began firing at a bus stop. He was later shot.
This is a developing story.
Al Jazeera reports: Hamas has rejected Israeli allegations that the group uses Nasser Hospital, saying that they are in a “new episode in the series of lies” that Israel is using to justify its war crimes and attacks on medical facilities in Gaza.
Israeli forces raided the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis Thursday on the pretense that Hamas fighters and the Israeli captives they still hold are located inside. A spokesperson for the Israeli army said earlier that early searches of the hospital had not yielded evidence of the captives.
“We have repeatedly said that the policy of our Palestinian resistance was and remains to distance public and civilian institutions and the health sector from any military activity,” Hamas said in a statement.
“We have asked the United Nations and relevant organizations on several occasions to bring an international committee to examine the hospitals and prove that Israel’s narrative is a lie. But our demands have not been heard.”
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller was questioned about investigations into the killings of 6-year-old Hind Rajab and her family and Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa, and in Gaza. From 2011-2023 Miler was a partner at Vianovo, which announces:
Vianovo is a public strategy firm that specializes in high-stakes brand, political, and crisis issues. Drawing upon high-profile work and relationships from presidential elections, the White House, Capitol Hill, corporate boardrooms and Wall Street, our team moves at campaign speed to win for clients.
Washington Post reports: A report this week from U.K.-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, which has a monitoring team in northern Sinai, suggested that Egyptian authorities were creating an area to house Palestinian refugees who crossed the border.
Footage obtained by the organization and shared exclusively with The Post shows trucks and bulldozers clearing debris from a rectangular plot of land measuring about eight square miles adjacent to the Gaza border, with a concrete wall being built around the perimeter. The Post verified some of the footage and obtained satellite images that show that two square miles within that area were cleared between Feb. 5 and Wednesday.
Despite its public refusal to entertain any scenario in which Palestinians are pushed into Egypt, the country is probably preparing contingency plans, a former Egyptian official said.
“If as a result of the attacks [in Rafah] tens of thousands of Palestinians cross the border, do you think the Egyptian army would shoot at them? The answer is no,” they said. “Any responsible government would have to think, ‘Okay, if we have the worst-case scenario, how would we deal with that?’”
![A woman rests next to a damaged building as Palestinians arrive in Rafah after they were evacuated from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, February 15, 2024](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-15-tir-300x212.jpg)
Times of Israel reports: Gaza will need a new “Marshall Plan” to recover from Israel’s ongoing attack, a UN official says.
“This will need a new Marshall Plan,” said Richard Kozul-Wright, director at the UN trade body UNCTAD, referring to a plan for Europe’s economic recovery after World War II.
Early estimates suggest reconstruction could cost up to $50bn. It remains unclear who will pay for the devastation.
Reuters reports: Top ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government rejected Palestinian statehood on Thursday following a Washington Post report that Israel’s main ally the United States was advancing plans to establish a Palestinian state.
“We will in no way agree to this plan, which says Palestinians deserve a prize for the terrible massacre they carried out against us: a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said.
NOTE: Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres.
After that, Zionists won the “prize” of the State of Israel. (Read more here.)
Al Jazeera reports: John Kirby, the White House spokesperson, has confirmed that Israel is preventing flour from reaching Gaza, where people are facing an imminent risk of famine.
“I wish I could tell you that that flour was moving in, but I can’t do that right now. And all I can tell you is that it is absolutely critical as a staple for the Palestinian people,” Kirby told reporters.
He added that Washington will continue to work with Israeli officials to get the aid into the besieged territory.
The Biden administration has faced mounting criticism for refusing to use its leverage over Israel to pressure it to adhere to Washington’s stated demands of increasing the humanitarian assistance flowing into Gaza and protecting civilians.
The White House is working with Congress to provide $14bn in more aid to Israel.
American citizens Hashem Alagha, Borak Alagha and their father Ahmed were taken by Israeli forces in Khan Younis last week, and their family says the US has not done enough to secure their release.
Reuters has reported: Israeli officials have confirmed that soldiers took two Palestinian American citizens from their shelter in Gaza last week but have so far declined to detail any specific allegations against the men or provide evidence of wrongdoing.
Their mother said Israeli soldiers tied up and blindfolded the women and girls in the family and threw them outside, where neighbors later found and untied them…
Middle East Monitor reports: Israel has given exploration licenses for natural gas in locations that are considered to be within Palestine’s maritime boundary in preparation for “occupying” these areas.
The Israeli administration granted licenses to six Israeli and international companies to explore natural gas in areas that are deemed to fall under Palestinian maritime borders in accordance with international law.
Read about Palestinian efforts to cancel this expropriation of Palestinian natural resources here.
Rights groups say exploration licenses handed to companies in first weeks of war encroach on Palestinian waters and may amount to the war crime of pillaging. Read more here.
![Injured children often have to deal with the loss of their families as well as the pain of their wounds. Pictured here is a child at the Kuwaiti Hospital after an Israeli attack on al-Ghoul family home in Tal as-Sultan, Rafah on January 25, 2024](https://iakn.wpmudev.host/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2-16-bb-300x225.jpg)
+972Mag reports: Israel has been surveilling information provided to the United States by the Palestinian Authority regarding settler violence in the occupied West Bank in recent months, +972 Magazine and Local Call have learned.
Sources in Israeli intelligence told both sites that they have been tracking materials passed through private channels by the PA to the Office of U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC) in Jerusalem in order to “understand what the U.S. knows about settler violence.”
The intention, they explained, is not to act against the perpetrators but to prevent the collected information from “developing into sanctions.”
U.S. officials, who confirmed that PA officials have been sending a great deal of information to the USSC on incidents of settler violence, told +972 and Local Call that this information contributed in part to President Joe Biden’s decision earlier this month to impose sanctions against four settlers known to have attacked Palestinians and left-wing Israeli activists. (Read more here.)
The health situation in #Gaza is beyond words.
In my conversation with @BeckyCNN I reiterated our grave concern about a potential full-scale assault on Rafah, which would cause unimaginable suffering. I repeated our call for all parties to work for peace.pic.twitter.com/RhU8yfI94E
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) February 15, 2024
Very fruitful meetings today with @LeoVaradkar @MichealMartinTD discussing the dramatic situation in #Gaza + the essential role of @UNRWA & 🇮🇪 political & financial support. pic.twitter.com/7brasDDdZk
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) February 15, 2024
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – FEBRUARY 15:
Palestinian death toll from October 7 – February 15: at least 28,969* (28,663 in Gaza* (over 12,300 children, 8,400 women), and at least 394 in the West Bank (100 children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 36,671 Palestinian deaths.
About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
Palestinian injuries from October 7 – February 15: at least 72,766** (including at least 68,395 in Gaza and 4,499 in the West Bank).
It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – February 15: ~1,374 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~574 were civilians, 373 or 337 were security and/or military forces, ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 232 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza;, 10 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.
NBC reports: “According to the latest available IDF data… nearly 1 in 5, or 17%, of all Israel’s losses have come not at the hands of Hamas but from mishaps on its own side.”
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.
Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.
For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org
- These Are the Jewish Megadonors Helping Fund Biden’s – and Republican Congress Members’ – Reelection Campaigns
- If you love babies, this is a must-read
- A wave of new post-Oct 7th “antisemitism” bills completely miss the point
- CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’
- Facts For Peace: the billionaire-backed campaign attacking the Palestinian cause
- Top military expert Col. Douglas MacGregor warns against attack on Iran (video)
- October 7th myths are still out there, killing Palestinians
- NYT: Where Is Hamas Getting Its Weapons? Increasingly, From Israel.
- 12 Essential Facts for Understanding the Current Israel-Gaza Violence
- Falk: Israel used Oct 7 attack as a pretext for its plan to expel Palestinians
- Synopsis of ICJ’s decision on Israeli genocide, reactions, and take-aways
- The West’s complete contempt for the lives of Palestinians will not be forgotten
- Israel has repeatedly rejected Hamas truce offers
- Why the Guardian’s ‘Hamas mass rape’ story doesn’t pass the sniff test
- Israel’s torture and humiliation of female and male Gazan prisoners
- Coverage of Gaza War in NYTimes & other major papers heavily favored Israel, analysis shows
- Two reports debunk New York Times ‘investigative report’ of mass rape on October 7th
- Israel’s Assault on Gaza Is Unlike Any War in Recent Memory
- US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year
- Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace