At 02:00 on 21 May, a ceasefire entered into effect between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, bringing to an end the hostilities that began on 10 May.
The attacks ended leaving 243 civilian victims: 66 children, 39 women, 17 elders, and 1910 wounded.
Here a complete report of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory:
Al Mezzan
http://www.mezan.org/en/post/23989
Richard Falk
https://richardfalk.org/2021/05/19/palestine-is-winning-the-legitimacy-war/
INTERNATIONAL APPEAL IN SUPPORT OF HEALTH AND HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCY FOR GAZA
Child rescued from under the rubble of his house, May 16, 2021
Source- Days of Palestine
The Israeli operation “Guardians of the Wall” left more than 1442 wounded, and 213 dead by the morning of May 18th. Almost half of the dead are women (36), children (61), elderly (16). At least half of the injured are women and children.
These last most often require surgical operations and intensive care, and all need antibiotics and antipyretics and pain relievers. These are lacking. The suffering of those injured and the risk that they will not make it have increased.
The only biological and covid testing, laboratory, was destroyed on May 17, 6 Hospitals, 9 clinics were severely attacked and unable to function. The machinery and already scarce supplies within were destroyed. The local building of the Ministry of Health was bombed.
From Gaza, hospitals are asking for international help. They do not have capacity to take care of the victims of this latest massacre, nor to rehabilitate the lost facilities.
We launch this appeal for massive help, that will be delivered quickly, with your generosity. We aim to raise at least 200.000 euros in two weeks, primarily for oxygen, intensive care medicines, basic biological laboratory instruments.
DONATE
Please donate
– through Paypal to newweapons@libero.it
– through a bank transfer to account: IBAN IT59Y0501801400000011670924 to NWRG (NewWeapons Research Group) ONLUS
ABOUT US
We are a voluntary, no-profit association of professionals and academics.
Our websites: www.newweapons.org and www.we4gaza.org
Up to 9 pm ET of may 16, they are still digging up the victims of the attacks last night on the populated road al Wahda Street, leading to the main and emergency ambulances entrance of the al Shifa hospital.
Shifa is the only hospital equipped for emergency assistance, both in term of personnel, instruments and space. It has received over 490 seriously wounded of the total 1235 wounded in the last few days, and is struggling to cope. There is no other facility capable to cope with this amount of wounded all together, or the needed technical tools anywhere else in the Gaza strip.
In the past few days, the roads near the side entrances of the hospital were bombed, making roads unavailable for traffic, and also destroying the bank on the right side and affecting a major medical supplies store on the left side of main entrance.
Last night, a massive attack destroyed al-Wahda Street leading to the hospital. Several buildings were bombed, apparently no warning signal was given and entire families where buried while asleep. Search and rescue is still going on at 9pm, because people nearby were convinced there could be other families of residents under the rubble.
Below is a partial list of those killed with their age and names, with rising numbers. By this time the number of killed according to the Ministry of Health, has risen to 47, of which 16 were women and 10 children.. Among them are the families of 2 doctors, numbers 10 and 13 on the list. They were Dr Moen Al-Aloul, a retired psychiatrist, killed with his wife Mrs Raja’ Abu-Alouf a devoted psychologist and all their 5 children, and Dr Ayman Abu Al-Ouf, an internal medicine consultant with his wife and two children. Of the 50 seriously wounded, most were women and children
This was the most lethal single attack in these 6 days and its possible motivation was to block the wounded from hospital access.
So far the total casualty and death toll in Gaza over the last six days, since 10 May 2021, is 192 dead, of which 34 were women and 58 children, and 1235 were wounded; UN reports that about 30.000 were made homeless and displaced. Ten families of multiple generations were totally annihilated – with no survivors.
The road to the hospital has been destroyed and so now there is no way for ambulances to reach Shifa. The rescuers have to walk carrying the wounded over the rubble for at least a few hundred meters. Even the emergency supplies for the functioning of the hospital had to be manually carried over the rubble. The hospital by now has corridors lined with stretchers with wounded people. Most of the wounded that underwent surgery needed intensive care treatment, as the Director of Surgery Dr Marwan Abu Sada reported this evening, and these were already filled with Covid patients. Few spare ventilators could be found and Covid patients had to be moved to make space for the wounded patients that underwent serious surgeries. All supplies are scarce, and disposables had to be reused.
In addition, two small private clinics in al-Wahda street which were helping the wounded were also destroyed.
Shifa Hospital itself has not been bombed. This was to avoid a huge outcry from the international community. There was an attempt to do that in 2014 under the pretense that Hamas leaders were hiding in it. The ICRC exposed it as a lie, so the pretext for destroying Shifa Hospital was aborted.
Yet, blocking the wounded from receiving urgent life-saving care is an equally unacceptable way of creating more deaths and creates more stress to the hospital. Families will have to watch their loved ones die when the hospital is blocked.
We cry out in anguish for the lives of people and colleagues directly killed. We are outraged at these deliberate military “surgical strikes” around the hospital killing so many and doubtlessly more in the coming days, due to the access roads to the hospital being destroyed.
We denounce these crimes. We hope that you will give maximum visibility to this killing of innocent civilians and to the deliberate obstruction of the wounded from reaching help by bombing the road to the hospital and the structures around it.
Please help to spread this message.
On behalf of many European and US colleagues of the al Shifa doctors and personnel
List of victims at 2pm of may 16, from MoH
1 .عبد الحميد فواز الكولك 22 عاما
2.أمين محمد الكولك 85 عاما
3.محمد عوني الكولك17 عاما
4.آيات إبراهيم الكولك19 عاما
5. احمد شكري الكولك 17 عاما
6. ريهام فواز الكولك 30 عاما
7.فواز شكري الكولك 55 عاما
8.روان علاء أبو العوف 19 عاما
9.ديما رامي الفرنجي 16 عاما
10.معين أحمد العالول 66 عاما
11.لؤي محمد عودة 54 عاما
12.حازم عادل القمع 48 عاما
13. الدكتور في قسم الباطنة أيمن أبو العوف 50 عاما
14.أمل جميل الكولك 34 عاما
15.سامح فواز الكولك 28 عاما
16.سعدية يوسف الكولك 28 عاما
17.عزت معين الكولك 44 عاما
18.الطفل آدم عزت الكولك 3 أعوام
19.الرضيع قصي سامح الكولك عام واحد
20.الطفل آدم عزت الكولك 3 أعوام
21.الطفل زيد عزت الكولك 8 أعوام
22.طاهر شكري الكولك 23 عاما
23. الطفل زين رياض اشكنتنا 8 سنوات
24.الطفل يحي رياض اشكنتنا 5 سنوات
25.الطفلة دانا رياض اشكنتنا 9 أعوام
26.عبير نمر اشكنتنا 30 عاما
SIGNATORIES
1. Alan Meyers, MD,MPH, USA
2. Alice Rothchild, MD, USA
3. Amy Alpert CCC/SLP, USA
4. Bruno Cigliano, Pediatric Surgeon, Italy
5. Carla Ciccone, Gynecologist, Italy
6. Colin Green, Professor of Surgical Science, UK
7. Franco Camadona, Gynecologist, Italy
8. Gianni Tognoni,. MD, Italy
9. Guido Veronese, Prof. Clinical Psychology, Italy
10. Hans Husum, surgeon, PhD, Norway
11. Iain Chalmers, MD, Retired health services researcher, Uk
12. Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council, USA
13. Mariagiulia Agnoletto, Psychiatrist -Italy
14. Marina Rui, Prof. Chemistry, Italy
15. Maxine Fookson, RN, MN, USA
16. Paola Manduca, Geneticist, Italy
17. Peter H. S. Sporn, MD, USA
18. Rachel Rubin, MD, MPH, FACP, USA
19. Raija-Leena Punamäki-Gitai , PhD, MBA, prof.Phycology, Finland
20. Sergio Dagostino, , Pediatric Surgeon, Italy
21. Silvana Agatone, Gynecologist, president of Nat. Assoc. Laiga, Italy
22. Stefania Papa, Associate Professor of Ecology, Italy
23. Swee Ang, Orthopaedic Surgeon, UK
24. Trude Bennett, DrPH, USA
25. Vittorio Agnoletto, Prof. Global and Public Health, Italy
Download the document
A letter from Dr Abu Jamei, Director General of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.
After Saturday’s bombing raids in the heart of Gaza City killing at least 43 people including 10 children and 16 women, Gazans are once again struggling with traumatic memories. The atrocities that are happening now bring memories. Israeli planes have shattered our families so many terrifying and memorable times for decades. For instance, over and over again for three weeks during Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009; seven weeks in July and August 2014.
Collapsed buildings’ blocks and gaping holes in Alwehdah Street where there was normal life a week ago are traumatic sights, triggering memories of those earlier atrocities.
Read the whole letter here
Source: Ministry of Health, last update May 16th.
Note: the overall data for the past seven days is not reliable, due to the aggression on Gaza, involving damage by bombing of the testing laboratory, impossibility to move in the Strip and reduced capability of patients to reach hospital in the context of heavy bombing and destruction of many roads, preventing access to the main hospital hub for covid patients, Shifa hospital. Also, data was not issued for some of these days.
An interesting analysis by Lazar Berman on The Times of Israel:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-may-toss-millions-of-vaccines-why-wont-it-give-them-to-the-pa-instead/
Step by step we reached the goal.
Thank you for supporting and advocating for the cause of better care for Gaza’s children. We were able to purchase the ultrasound system for Al Shifa hospital through this fundraiser and specific donations !!! And it’s on his way to Gaza in late December 2020.
Thanks to the new ultrasound system, many children and women will have a different future, a better future, a future.
We are happy to be able to celebrate and share this milestone with you, a glimmer of light in this dark 2020.
Thanks and best wishes!
Appreciation Letter – Ultrasound
Meanwhile, we continue to support maternity and neonatal intensive care, knowing that as long as this siege continues, it will never be enough.
Our goal by renewing this window for donations is to buy an ultrasound system for the Nasser Children’s Hospital which finds yours in conditions that are no longer compliant.
THE CALL: https://buonacausa.org/cause/diamo-un-futuro-ai-bambini-di-gaza
Meanwhile, the critical issues and emergencies in Gaza do not end.
We have therefore also started a fundraiser for the Covid19 emergency to provide oxygen and drugs that are often not available.
To help Palestinians deal with the virus that is deciding for our lives we cannot stop. Help us not to leave them alone.
Donations for this purpose can be made to NWRG IBAN: IT59Y0501801400000011670924 causal: Oxygen for Gaza
Each contribution is an important and concrete help for the children and women of Gaza or for the sick of CoviD 19
Thanks for your support and sincere wishes for a better year.
Each donor will be informed about the different steps we will take to reach the goal.
Confident of a positive response, we thank you wholeheartedly.
“Stay Human”. (Vittorio Arrigoni)
Our group, New Weapons Research Group (NWRG), was founded in 2006 to scientifically study the impact of war on the Gazawi community. In particular, we are concerned with studying the impact of war residues on people’s health, focusing specifically on new generations of chemical weapons. Since 2011 we have been carrying out a work to monitor the health of newborn children and the contamination of mothers by heavy metals. The core of our group is made up of local and international doctors and researchers who work in close collaboration with professionals from the scientific community.
We began our work by taking side “on the side of victims”. This is why we work to identify and remedy the direct and indirect damage inflicted on people by weapons.
Our method is that of using scientific dissemination as a weapon of advocacy and political pressure. By publishing the results of our research in recognized international scientific journals, we seek to raise awareness of the world community and influence the political choices linked to this tormented territory.
Since 2012, together with university students and doctors from Genoa, we have procured various equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of newborns to the neonatal and maternity intensive care units of the Al Shifa and Nasser hospitals in Gaza City, remedying a significant lack of equipment.
The equipment is never enough, while the problems of this community continue to increase, as its births.
The call translated in italian
Here an interview to Dr. Shirine Abed, from the Nasser Hospital in Gaza (in French)
The interview translated in in English and Italian
To the attention of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/V-ce President
Dear Mr. Borrell,
As civil society organisations from different European countries, we would like to alert you to the responsibility of the European Union to protect the Palestinian elections scheduled for 22nd May, 31st July and 31st August 2021, under Israeli occupation and blockade.
We know that the European Union intends, as in 2006, to send observers to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem to verify the proper conduct of the elections. We understand that to date the Israeli authorities have not allowed the delegation responsible for organising this observation mission to visit Palestine.
Our second concern is the participation of the Palestinians residing in East Jerusalem, which is illegally annexed by Israel, in these three votes. Their participation is unanimously demanded by all Palestinian parties, but on this point Israel has so far given only extremely negative signals.
Our third concern is the increasingly frequent imprisonment by Israel of candidates for these elections, of political leaders of parties involved in them, and of members of civil society who want to express their views on their context and the issues at stake.
On these three points, Mr. Borrell, we ask you to convey forcefully the will of the European Union to protect the Palestinian people, and the demand to Israel that these obstacles be lifted. We ask you to put on the agenda of a forthcoming Foreign Affairs Council the imposition of sanctions against the State of Israel if it does not respect these demands.
We also trust that the European Union and its Member States will make a solemn declaration at the next Foreign Affairs Council that they will respect the results of the forthcoming Palestinian elections, recognise all the institutions and individuals that will be accredited as a result of these elections (parliament, government, president, council and executive of the PLO), and collaborate with and protect them.
The latest news