From BBC on November 13: “A retired surgeon who volunteered at a hospital in Gaza has told MPs that Israeli drones would target children who were lying injured after bombings. Prof Nizam Mamode, from Brockenhurst, Hampshire, worked at Nasser hospital for a month in August and September. Giving evidence to the parliamentary International Development Committee, he broke down as he described children's accounts of being shot by quadcopters. Labour MP Sarah Champion, who chairs the committee, said his evidence was "profound and deeply chilling". The 62-year-old surgeon told MPs: "What I found particularly disturbing was that a bomb would drop, maybe on a crowded, tented area and then the drones would come down." His face shook with emotion as he paused for several seconds to compose himself. He continued: "The drones would come down and pick off civilians - children. "We [were] operating on children who would say: 'I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.' "That's clearly a deliberate act and it was a persistent act - persistent targeting of civilians day after day."
President Biden’s administration continues to supply and fund Israel while knowing since October 2023 that Israel has been targeting civilians. Secretary Blinken knew that Israel was blocking aid from entering Gaza and lied about it. This is continued participation in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and a violation of Leahy Law, which prohibits our government from funding foreign forces who are implicated in gross human rights violations, including targeting civilians and deliberately preventing access to humanitarian assistance.
International scholar and lawyer, Francesca Albanese, has documented how Israel’s gross human rights violations and war crimes are genocidal acts, including their targeting of hospitals and healthcare workers, targeting journalists and civilians, using starvation as a weapon, etc. Israeli government officials have repeatedly expressed genocidal intent. Sites of learning, culture, and historical memory — universities, mosques, churches, museums — have been decimated. As people of conscience, we will not ignore this.
I am demanding you to take immediate steps to stop Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and massacres in Lebanon by calling for no more weapons or funding to the Israeli military. I support Senator Sanders’ Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block arms sales to Israel.
The ICJ ruled that Israel should do everything in its power to prevent genocide. Never again means never again for anyone. All people - including Palestinians - deserve to live with freedom and safety which means first stopping this genocide and then ensuring liberation from occupation and apartheid. The liberation and safety of Palestinians, Israelis, Jewish people, Muslim people, and Lebanese people are intertwined. There can only be true safety when we are all free from oppression.
First sent on November 16 by Alice
