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bolverk

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. No Meals, Fainting Nurses, Dwindling Baby Formula: Starvation Haunts Gaza Hospitals After Israeli restrictions on aid, hunger has risen across Gaza. Doctors and nurses, struggling to find food themselves, lack the resources to stem the surge. In several of the hospitals still functioning in Gaza, nurses are fainting from hunger and dehydration. Managers often cannot provide meals for patients or medical staff. Doctors are running low on formula for newborn babies, in some cases giving them water alone. And at least three major hospitals lack the nutritional fluids needed to properly treat malnourished children and adults. Those scenes were described in interviews starting Friday with seven doctors — four from Gaza, and three volunteers from Australia, Britain and the United States. All of them worked this past week in four of the territory’s main hospitals. After months of warnings, international agencies, experts and doctors say starvation is now sweeping across Gaza amid restrictions on aid imposed by Israel for months. At least 56 Palestinians died this month of starvation in the territory, nearly half of the total such deaths since the war began 22 months ago, according to data released on Saturday by the Gaza Health Ministry. As starvation rises, medical institutions and staff, already struggling to treat war wounds and illness, are now grappling with rising cases of malnourishment. Weak and dizzy, medics are passing out in the wards, where colleagues revive them with saline and glucose drips. Persistently short of basic tools such as antibiotics and painkillers, doctors are also running out of the special intravenous drips used to feed depleted patients. In all four hospitals, the doctors described how they are increasingly unable to save malnourished babies and are instead forced to simply manage their decline. The babies are too weak to be flooded with nutrients, which could overload their system and cause them to suffer “refeeding syndrome,” which could kill them. In some cases, the fluids that the doctors can safely give to the babies are not enough to prevent them from dying. “I have seen ones that are imminently about to pass away,” said Dr. Ambereen Sleemi, an American surgeon who has been volunteering since early July at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. The babies were brought to the hospital “starving and malnourished,” Dr. Sleemi said in a phone interview on Friday, “and they haven’t been able to get them back from the brink.” Dr. Nick Maynard, a British surgeon who volunteered at the same hospital until Wednesday, described the shock of seeing a skeletal infant who looked only days old, but was in fact seven months. “The expression ‘skin and bones’ doesn’t do it justice,” Dr. Maynard said in a phone interview on Friday. “I saw the severity of malnutrition that I would not have thought possible in a civilized world. This is man-made starvation being used as a weapon of war and it will lead to many more deaths unless food and aid is let in immediately.” cont'd Hanin Barghouth with her 3-month-old daughter, Salam, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza this week. At birth, her doctor said, Salam weighed roughly 6.6 pounds, and three months later, she weighs only 8.8 pounds — at least three pounds underweight. Dr. Ambereen Sleemi with a malnourished infant at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. Naeema Abu al-Foul with her 2-year-old son Yazan, in Gaza City on July 19. Their family could not find enough food to feed him, and hospitals have told them that they cannot provide inpatient care.
  2. What's the deal with the occasional glitch that sometimes strikes through all the text in a post? You didn't inadvertently hit the strikethrough button. But when you post, there's that line through all your text, and it's impossible to fix with an edit.
  3. She's an extremely vocal and yet very confused person (arrogant ignorance, if you will), one of those kinds of people who you shouldn't take seriously but sort of have to because their financial success and social capital depend on destructive trolling. Oh, lookie here. The magazine, Tablet, that @Bevo tried to pass off a year or so ago as a credible and unbiased source, which published that easily debunked and laughably bad statistical "analysis," downplaying the deaths of Palestinian civilians, rewarded her online trolling with a fucking prize this past June.
  4. Not only does he have a very punchable face, but we actually have a patriotic duty to punch that Nazi in the face.
  5. Wordle 1,499 2/6 ⬛🟨⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #777 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1280 6️⃣7️⃣ 5️⃣4️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜🟨🟩⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
  6. Oh wow. Good catch.
  7. A strong majority in the UK now thinks it was a mistake. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/europe/trump-brexit-scotland-uk.html On a sunny June morning nine years ago, Donald J. Trump arrived at his golf resort in Scotland, the day after Britain voted to leave the European Union. At that time, he took credit for predicting Brexit and said it foretold victory in the insurgent presidential campaign he was mounting back home. On Friday, a second-term President Trump returned to that resort, Trump Turnberry, with a good part of what he said in 2016 now a reality. He had correctly claimed that the political forces that drove Brexit went beyond a single country. Five months after that visit, Mr. Trump captured the White House, having played to anxieties about immigration in ways that echoed the “Vote Leave” campaign. Yet in Britain, history has diverged from Mr. Trump’s vision in important respects. Polls show that close to 60 percent of Britons now believe Brexit was a mistake. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made mending relations with the European Union one of the priorities of his Labour government. The populist wave that Mr. Trump predicted would wash across Europe has ebbed and flowed, leaving a fragmented political landscape with a handful of populist leaders whose fortunes are mixed. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy is on the rise, but Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary is struggling. “Populism is still a relatively limited phenomenon,” said Kim Darroch, who was Britain’s ambassador to the United States during Mr. Trump’s first term. “Brexit happened, but it’s very hard to argue, even by its most ardent proponents, that it has been anything other than a comprehensive disaster.” Still, in retrospect, he said, Mr. Trump’s 2016 visit came at a “turning point in history, and we haven’t seen how it’s all going to work out.” Mr. Darroch recalled that British officials were nervous that Mr. Trump, who had long been vocal about his support for Brexit, would land in Scotland before the vote rather than after it. With the polls showing a narrow margin, they worried that he would throw his support to the Vote Leave campaign at a critical moment. As it happened, the Brexiteers did not need Mr. Trump, winning by 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent. On that Friday morning, as a dazed Britain digested the implications of Brexit, he played the role of cheerleader and political analyst. “I said this was going to happen, and I think it’s great thing,” Mr. Trump said, as he emerged from a helicopter to the serenading of bagpipers. “Basically, they took back their country,” he told an audience that included journalists and greenskeepers from the resort. “People want to take their country back, they want to have independence in a sense, and you’re going to have more than just, in my opinion, more than just what happened last night. You’re going to have many other cases where people want to take their borders back.” Mr. Trump said he saw a “big parallel” between Brexit and his candidacy. That view has been endorsed by political analysts, who regard the referendum as a canary in a coal mine for Mr. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. In many ways, Scotland was the wrong place for Mr. Trump’s message. Scots voted by a wide margin to remain in the European Union. Two years earlier, in 2014, they had voted in a referendum to stay part of the United Kingdom. “He was talking to the non-converted,” Mr. Darroch said. Today, the regret about Brexit extends beyond Scotland. In a poll last month by the market research firm YouGov, 56 percent of people said leaving the European Union was a mistake, while only 31 percent said it was the right decision. Britain cycled through four Conservative prime ministers in the upheaval that followed the vote. Last July, the Tories were swept out of power by Mr. Starmer’s Labour Party. Mr. Trump himself remains stubbornly unpopular in Britain, particularly in Scotland, where he is viewed as an unreliable investor who clashed with neighbors at his other resort, Trump International Scotland, north of Aberdeen. But having returned to power, he is a commanding figure on the world stage. King Charles III has invited him to make a rare second state visit in September. And Mr. Starmer has assiduously cultivated him. He will visit the president at Turnberry on Monday before flying with him to Aberdeen. Mr. Trump has said little about the waning popularity of Brexit, preferring to focus on the trade deal he struck with Mr. Starmer in May. The president will even roll out the welcome mat for the European Union this time around, meeting on Sunday with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, to discuss trade negotiations between the United States and the E.U. It was not clear whether Mr. Trump would meet with Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-immigrant party, Reform U.K., during this visit. Mr. Farage is his most conspicuous political ally in Britain and has ridden Mr. Trump’s anti-establishment mantra to new prominence. Regardless of whether that prompts Mr. Trump to take another victory lap this weekend, his defenders argue that the rise of Reform U.K. shows that the essence of his populist message has been validated in Britain. “All the push-polls in Christendom won’t change the fact that the U.K. has its sovereignty back and they will never rejoin the E.U.,” said Stephen K. Bannon, a former chief strategist to Mr. Trump.
  8. Oh, of course, rural Texas is batshit. What I'm getting at is the concentration of crazy Texas Republican Party leadership stuff, meaning the organized bizarros of NE Tarrant County.
  9. It feels like NE Tarrant County is the epicenter of GOP loony tunes land.
  10. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/us/politics/hegseth-pentagon-leadership.html In the spring, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decided not to promote a senior Army officer who had led troops over five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq because Mr. Hegseth suspected, without evidence, that the officer had leaked sensitive information to the news media, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. When Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II was cleared of the allegations, Mr. Hegseth briefly agreed to promote him, only to change course again early this month, the officials said. This time, Mr. Hegseth maintained that the senior officer was too close to Gen. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom President Trump has accused of disloyalty. Mr. Hegseth’s sudden reversal prompted a rare intervention from Gen. Dan Caine, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He urged Mr. Hegseth to reconsider, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Mr. Hegseth met with General Sims one final time but refused to budge. General Sims is expected to retire in the coming months after 34 years in the military, officials said. Through a spokesman, General Sims and General Caine declined to comment. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on Mr. Hegseth’s role. The standoff over his promotion reflects an ongoing clash between Mr. Hegseth’s highly partisan worldview, in which he has written that the Democratic Party “really does hate America,” and the longstanding tradition of an apolitical military that pledges an oath to the Constitution. Mr. Hegseth’s actions could shape the military’s top ranks for years to come. His insistence on absolute loyalty, backed with repeated threats of polygraphs, also creates uncertainty and mistrust that threaten to undermine the readiness and effectiveness of the force, officials said. The tension between top military officers and their civilian leaders has been persistent since the earliest days of Mr. Trump’s second term, when senior administration officials ordered the removal of General Milley’s portrait from a Pentagon hallway. General Caine, who pressed Mr. Hegseth on General Sims’s behalf, got the job of Joint Chiefs chairman after Mr. Hegseth and President Trump fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., his predecessor. Mr. Hegseth accused General Brown, who is Black, of prioritizing diversity over the combat effectiveness of the force. Also removed during the first months of the new administration were the first woman to command the Navy, Adm. Lisa Franchetti; the first woman to command the Coast Guard, Adm. Linda Fagan; Mr. Hegseth’s senior military assistant, Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short; and the U.S. military representative to the NATO military committee, Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield. All were dismissed as part of a campaign to root out diversity, equity and inclusion from the military and restore what Mr. Hegseth has described as a “warrior ethos.” cont'd
  11. Israel's own military came to the same conclusion. No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say Israel has long restricted or completely blocked aid to Gaza on the argument that Hamas steals it to use as a weapon of control over the population. For nearly two years, Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid provided by the United Nations and other international organizations. The government has used that claim as its main rationale for restricting food from entering Gaza. But the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations, the biggest supplier of emergency assistance to Gaza for most of the war, according to two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved in the matter. In fact, the Israeli military officials said, the U.N. aid delivery system, which Israel derided and undermined, was largely effective in providing food to Gaza’s desperate and hungry population. Now, with hunger at crisis levels in the territory, Israel is coming under increased international pressure over its conduct of the war in Gaza and the humanitarian suffering it has brought. Doctors in the territory say that an increasing number of their patients are suffering from — and dying of — starvation. More than 100 aid agencies and rights groups warned this past week of “mass starvation” and implored Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian assistance. The European Union and at least 28 governments, including Israeli allies like Britain, France and Canada, issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s “drip-feeding of aid” to Gaza’s two million Palestinian residents. Israel has largely brushed off the criticism. David Mencer, a government spokesman, said this week that there was “no famine caused by Israel.” Instead, he blamed Hamas and poor coordination by the United Nations for any food shortages. Israel moved in May toward replacing the U.N.-led aid system that had been in place for most of the 21-month Gaza war, opting instead to back a private, American-run operation guarded by armed U.S. contractors in areas controlled by Israeli military forces. Some aid still comes into Gaza through the United Nations and other organizations. The new system has proved to be much deadlier for Palestinians trying to obtain food handouts. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, almost 1,100 people have been killed by gunfire on their way to get food handouts under the new system, in many cases by Israeli soldiers who opened fired on hungry crowds. Israeli officials have said they fired shots in the air in some instances because the crowds came too close or endangered their forces. The military officials who spoke to The New York Times said that the original U.N. aid operation was relatively reliable and less vulnerable to Hamas interference than the operations of many of the other groups bringing aid into Gaza. That’s largely because the United Nations managed its own supply chain and handled distribution directly inside Gaza. cont'd:
  12. Wordle 1,498 4/6 ⬛⬛🟨🟨⬛ ⬛🟩🟨⬛🟨 🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #776 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🙂 Daily Quordle 1279 6️⃣4️⃣ 7️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟨🟨🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ 🟨🟩🟨⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
  13. Wordle 1,497 5/6 ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨 ⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩 ⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩 🟨🟩⬛🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #775 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🙂 Daily Quordle 1278 8️⃣5️⃣ 6️⃣7️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟩🟨 ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 🟩🟨🟩🟨🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  14. Jealous. Back in the '70s, we had to sing "Suicide is Painless" in elementary school music class with a couple of kids off to the side playing plastic recorders...poorly. The music teacher was the mom of one of my good friends. She was going through a divorce and drinking a lot at the time.
  15. I'm really sorry to see this. My ex-wife and I had a couple of cats, plus our family dog. When we divorced, the ex took her favorite of the two cats with her. A couple of years later, I got a panicked call from my ex before work one morning, saying there was something wrong with that cat. She was really upset and freaking out and I loved that cat, too, since we had adopted her together as a kitten. So, I called into work and went over to her apartment, and it was doing something similar but more violently or vigorously than what yours is doing. It's honestly hard for me to picture in my head because it was so upsetting to see. We took it to the vet, and they said the cat had had a neurological event which they couldn't do anything for, and we had to put her down. RIP Buki.
  16. Ain't that the fucking truth. In many, many countries, the Dems would be considered right-of-center. For example, most French people now consider Macron to be somewhat to the right.
  17. Apologies to @Sbbruin for stealing this.
  18. Since BagOfHammers knows a little French, maybe he can just read about the guy passing away in 2018 himself. https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/societe/amiens-jean-claude-trogneux-le-frere-de-brigitte-macron-et-ancien-patron-de-la-chocolaterie-trogneux-1541777715 Jean-Claude Trogneux, l'ancien patron de la chocolaterie Trogneux à Amiens, et frère de Brigitte Macron est décédé ce vendredi 9 novembre. C'était une figure locale à Amiens. D'après nos confrères du Journal de Montreuil, Jean-Claude Trogneux, ancien patron de la chocolaterie familiale à Amiens est décédé ce vendredi matin à l'âge de 85 ans. Il était le frère aîné de Brigitte Macron, la Première dame. Comme le couple présidentiel, il avait ses habitudes au Touquet mais résidait toujours officiellement à Amiens dont il reste une figure locale. Il a développé la marque Trogneux On le croisait, il y a quelques années encore, dans la boutique de la rue Delambre en centre-ville d'Amiens. C'était en quelque sorte son QG. Mais touché par la maladie, Jean-Claude Trogneux passe la main à son fils, Jean-Alexandre Trogneux. En retrait, il profite de sa villa au Touquet mais garde toujours un œil sur les affaires. C'est à lui notamment qu'on doit l'essor et le développement de la marque à la fin du XXe siècle. "Il a su faire rayonner la ville d'Amiens en France et même au-delà, grâce à ses chocolats et ses macarons", affirme Fany Ruin, la présidente de la Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie d'Amiens-Picardie "Un pivot du commerce amiénois - Brigitte Fouré, maire d'Amiens Une figure de la vie associative Au-delà du chef d'entreprise, il y a l'homme "toujours très souriant", selon Brigitte Fouré. La maire d'Amiens perd un de ses "proches". Jean-Claude Trogneux était aussi très impliqué dans la vie associative locale. Il avait fondé l'association Sourire à l'avenir pour faire la promotion d'Amiens. Il était aussi un grand passionné de tennis. Il a dirigé pendant une vingtaine d'années l'Amiens AC, un club fondé par la famille Trogneux. Une passion pour la balle jaune, qu'il partageait avait son beau-frère, le président Macron.
  19. Everything that guy just posted is bullshit! /joepesci She's a woman who has given birth to three children, and she has an older brother. "Factual." BagOfHammers keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it means. /mandypatinkin
  20. bolverk

    South Park

    That one and the ManBearPig episode are the only ones that ever irked me, but I never stopped watching or enjoying the show. Of course, Matt and Trey eventually admitted they were wrong and apologized 12 years later with a 2-parter. If you recall the old Bada Bing and Cloak Room from TOS, invoking ManBearPig used to be a running gag for this community’s climate change deniers. None of those guys is man enough to admit they were ever wrong, though. I’d forgotten all about that one, which kind of goes to your point.
  21. Just checked. It's on D+/Hulu, which makes sense since it was an ABC show.
  22. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-join-south-africas-gaza-genocide-case-against-israel-icj-2025-07-23/ BRASILIA, July 23 (Reuters) - Brazil is finalizing its submission to join South Africa's genocide case against Israel's actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. South Africa filed a case in 2023 asking the ICJ to declare that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention. The case argues that in its war against Hamas militants, Israel's military actions go beyond targeting Hamas alone by attacking civilians, with strikes on schools, hospitals, camps and shelters. Other countries – including Spain, Turkey and Colombia – have also sought to join the case against Israel. In its statement, the Brazilian government accused Israel of violations of international law "such as the annexation of territories by force," and it expressed "deep indignation" at violence suffered by the civilian population. Israel denies deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians, saying its sole interest is to annihilate Hamas. Lawyers for Israel have dismissed South Africa's case as an abuse of the genocide convention. The Israeli embassy in Brasilia said the Brazilian statement used "harsh words that do not fully portray the reality of what is currently happening in Gaza," while Brazil also "completely ignored" the role of Hamas within Gaza's reality. Brazil's National Israeli association CONIB said in a statement in response to Wednesday's decision: "The breaking of Brazil's long-standing friendship and partnership with Israel is a misguided move that proves the extremism of our foreign policy." Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has long been an outspoken critic of Israel's actions in Gaza, but Wednesday's decision carries added significance amid heightened tensions between Brazil and Israel ally the United States. The Trump administration announced 50% tariffs on all Brazilian goods this month. A diplomat familiar with the thinking of the Lula administration told Reuters that Brazil does not believe its decision to join South Africa's case will impact its relationship with Washington. The United States has opposed South Africa's genocide case under both Democratic former President Joe Biden and Trump, a Republican. In February, Trump signed an executive order to cut U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, citing in part its ICJ case.
  23. "From the river to the sea." https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-votes-71-13-for-non-binding-motion-calling-to-annex-west-bank/ The Knesset approved a non-binding motion in favor of annexing the West Bank on Wednesday, a symbolic gesture that united the otherwise fractious right-wing governing coalition. The resolution, which passed 71-13, declared that the West Bank is “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel, the historical, cultural and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people” and that “Israel has the natural, historical and legal right to all of the territories of the Land of Israel.” It called on the government to “apply Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment and administration to all the areas of Jewish settlement of all kinds in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley,” the government’s term for the West Bank. The motion was advanced by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, Likud MK Dan Illouz and opposition Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War, and the territory is now estimated to be home to more than 500,000 Israeli settlers, in addition to millions of Palestinians. Much of the international community says Israel is illegally occupying the territory and views the settlements as violations of international law, which Israel disputes. “This is our land. This is our home. The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel,” Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana said after the vote. “In 1967, the occupation did not begin; it ended, and our homeland was returned to its rightful owners. We are the original first natives of this piece of land. Jews cannot be the ‘occupier’ of a land that for 3,000 years has been called Judea.” Annexation of the West Bank, or of its Israeli settlements, is a longtime aspiration of the Israeli right. In 2019, ahead of an election, Netanyahu pledged to annex the Jordan Valley, on the territory’s eastern flank. But that pledge and similar efforts took a backseat amid a protracted political crisis that saw a string of inconclusive elections. The government has not pursued binding annexation legislation since, though it voted in similar numbers last year against the establishment of a Palestinian state. Wednesday’s vote came days before lawmakers will break for a nearly three-month recess, and as the coalition fights for its political life. On the same day, Likud MKs voted to unseat their colleague Yuli Edelstein as chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, replacing him with Boaz Bismuth, a loyalist of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is expected to advance a law regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment. The ultra-Orthodox parties, which left the coalition due to disputes over the enlistment law, nevertheless joined Likud and other right-wing parties in voting for the annexation resolution. The opposition Yisrael Beiteinu also voted in favor. The Knesset approved a non-binding motion in favor of annexing the West Bank on Wednesday, a symbolic gesture that united the otherwise fractious right-wing governing coalition. The resolution, which passed 71-13, declared that the West Bank is “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel, the historical, cultural and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people” and that “Israel has the natural, historical and legal right to all of the territories of the Land of Israel.” It called on the government to “apply Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment and administration to all the areas of Jewish settlement of all kinds in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley,” the government’s term for the West Bank. The motion was advanced by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, Likud MK Dan Illouz and opposition Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War, and the territory is now estimated to be home to more than 500,000 Israeli settlers, in addition to millions of Palestinians. Much of the international community says Israel is illegally occupying the territory and views the settlements as violations of international law, which Israel disputes. “This is our land. This is our home. The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel,” Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana said after the vote. “In 1967, the occupation did not begin; it ended, and our homeland was returned to its rightful owners. We are the original first natives of this piece of land. Jews cannot be the ‘occupier’ of a land that for 3,000 years has been called Judea.” Annexation of the West Bank, or of its Israeli settlements, is a longtime aspiration of the Israeli right. In 2019, ahead of an election, Netanyahu pledged to annex the Jordan Valley, on the territory’s eastern flank. But that pledge and similar efforts took a backseat amid a protracted political crisis that saw a string of inconclusive elections. The government has not pursued binding annexation legislation since, though it voted in similar numbers last year against the establishment of a Palestinian state. Wednesday’s vote came days before lawmakers will break for a nearly three-month recess, and as the coalition fights for its political life. On the same day, Likud MKs voted to unseat their colleague Yuli Edelstein as chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, replacing him with Boaz Bismuth, a loyalist of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is expected to advance a law regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment. The ultra-Orthodox parties, which left the coalition due to disputes over the enlistment law, nevertheless joined Likud and other right-wing parties in voting for the annexation resolution. The opposition Yisrael Beiteinu also voted in favor. Voting against were the Arab parties as well as the left-wing Democrats. The largest opposition parties, Yesh Atid and Blue and White, did not vote on the motion. “Annexation of Judea and Samaria is a clear danger to the future of the state of Israel and the Zionist enterprise,” Democrats MK Gilad Kariv posted on X, calling the motion “a smokescreen for abandoning the hostages [held by Hamas in Gaza] and advancing an evasion law.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s deputy, Hussein al-Sheikh, called the annexation vote a “dangerous escalation that undermines the prospects for peace, stability and the two-state solution.” Sheikh also called the vote “a direct assault on the rights of the Palestinian people,” who ostensibly would not receive equal rights to their Israeli settler neighbors in a scenario where Jerusalem annexes the West Bank. Urging the international community to intervene to roll back Israeli “violations,” the senior Palestinian official said countries should recognize a Palestinian state in response.
  24. Major media say their journalists in Gaza are ‘increasingly unable to feed themselves’ Four leading news organizations said Thursday that their journalists in Gaza are facing the threat of starvation as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on, while top U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff was to meet with key negotiators from the Middle East for talks on the latest ceasefire proposal and the release of hostages. The media outlets’ joint statement called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza and allow adequate food supplies into the territory. “For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering,” said the joint statement by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the BBC. The statement came a day after more than 100 charity and human rights groups said Israel’s blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation. “We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families,” said a joint statement by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the BBC. “For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.” The statement called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza and allow adequate food supplies into the territory. Israel has barred international media from entering Gaza independently throughout the 21-month war.
  25. Even the doctors and nurses treating starving people are suffering from hunger. "Yesterday, some staff members ate just 10 spoons of plain white rice." Gazans Are Dying of Starvation Severe hunger has gripped the war-torn Palestinian enclave, where growing numbers of people are starving and the doctors treating them are working on empty stomachs. Atef Abu Khater, 17, who was healthy before Gaza was gripped by war, lies in intensive care in a hospital in the north of the Palestinian enclave, suffering from severe malnutrition. “He is not responding to the treatment,” said his father, A’eed Abu Khater, 48, who has been sheltering in a tent in Gaza City with his wife and five children. “I feel helpless,” he added in a phone call, his voice strained with grief. “We lost our income in the war. Food is unaffordable. There is nothing.” Gaza’s hospitals have struggled since early in the war to cope with the influx of Palestinians injured and maimed by Israeli airstrikes and, more recently, by shootings meant to disperse desperate crowds as they surge toward food convoys or head to aid distribution sites. Now, according to doctors in the territory, an increasing number of their patients are suffering — and dying — from starvation. “There is no one in Gaza now outside the scope of famine, not even myself,” said Dr. Ahmed al-Farra, who leads the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. “I am speaking to you as a health official, but I, too, am searching for flour to feed my family.” The World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations, said this week that the hunger crisis in Gaza had reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row.” Dr. al-Farra said the number of children dying of malnutrition had risen sharply in recent days. He described harrowing scenes of people too exhausted to walk. Many of the children he sees have no pre-existing medical conditions, he said, giving the example of Siwar Barbaq, who was born healthy and now, at 11 months old, should weigh about 20 pounds but is under nine pounds. After 21 months of devastating conflict set off by the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the lack of available food and water is taking a heavy toll on Gaza’s most vulnerable civilians — the young, the old and the sick. The Gaza ministry of health has reported more than 40 hunger-related deaths this month, including 16 children, and 111 since the beginning of the war, 81 of them children. The data could not be independently verified. Throughout the war, U.N. agencies and independent aid groups have accused Israel of allowing far too little food into Gaza, warning of impending famine for its more than two million people. For much of that time, Israel has said that enough food was reaching Gaza, blaming diversions by Hamas and mismanagement by aid groups for problems. Yahia al-Najjar was 4 months old when he died of severe malnutrition on Tuesday at the American Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, his aunt, Safa al-Najjar, 38, said in an interview. Yahia was born without serious health issues, but his condition soon deteriorated, she said. The family has been sheltering under a tent made of a blanket held up by four poles. Yahia’s mother, subsisting on one meal of lentils or rice per day, could not produce enough milk to nurse him, though she had no problems nursing her previous three children. The family could not afford baby formula. At the hospital, the doctors tried to help, but he was already in critical condition and had lost weight. He died shortly after, she said. After Israel ended a two-month cease-fire in mid-March and resumed its military campaign in Gaza, it imposed a total blockade on the entry of goods for about 80 days to try to pressure Hamas into surrendering, exacerbating the already severe deprivation. Now, aid enters in two ways. One is a new, much-criticized system run by private American contractors under the auspices of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private Israeli-backed group, which has a few set distribution sites in southern Gaza and one in the center of the strip. The other consists of convoys of aid brought in by independent international organizations. Both systems have been plagued by worsening chaos and violence after months of siege, war, mass displacement and lawlessness. Most of the Israeli shootings, according to the United Nations, have occurred around the Israel-backed distribution sites. The hunger crisis is the result of human failings, with each of the involved parties blaming someone else for the suffering. Israel accuses Hamas of engineering a narrative of starvation by looting aid trucks and disrupting the distribution of aid to Gazans. It also accuses the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations of failing to collect hundreds of truckloads of aid that have piled up on the Gaza side of the border crossings. Aid groups blame Israel for laying siege to Gaza, restricting supplies and failing to provide safe routes for their convoys inside Gaza. The only solution, they have long said, is an extensive increase in food deliveries. Israel countered the images of starving children this week with images of pallets of supplies lying uncollected on the Gaza side of a border crossing and footage of what the military described as Hamas terrorists enjoying platters of food and fresh fruit in the group’s underground tunnels. The military declined to say when the video was recorded. The leaders of Israel and Hamas are engaged in sluggish negotiations, through mediators, for another temporary cease-fire that could bring relief and have Hamas release hostages it is holding in the tunnels in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. Doctors warn that malnutrition in early childhood can have long-term effects, disrupting growth, cognitive ability and emotional development. Mohammad Saqr, head of the nursing department at Nasser Medical Complex, said that on Monday afternoon alone, the hospital received 25 women and 10 children requesting intravenous glucose solution. While the treatment may briefly relieve symptoms, Mr. Saqr warned, “they feel the hunger again soon after.” He added, “Some arrive shivering from hunger.” The hospital’s limited supply of IV solution cannot meet the growing demand, he said, adding: “The team is exhausted from hunger. Yesterday, some staff members ate just 10 spoons of plain white rice.” Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City had recorded three deaths from malnutrition in the previous 36 hours, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the hospital director, said in an interview on Tuesday. One was a 5-month-old baby. Collecting water in Gaza City last week. Children outside a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Wednesday. A man carried the body of an infant who died of starvation, according to health officials, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday.
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