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WHO never Discovered SARS-COV-2 Artificial Origin but Promotes VIPs Calling for New Deal on Future Pandemics 28 Marzo 2024 FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmailLinkedInTelegramCondividi 12.285 Views by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio VERSIONE IN ITALIANO “I love my brother Bobby, but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues, including the COVID pandemic, vaccinations, and the role of social media platforms in policing false information,” she said at the time. “It is also important to note that Bobby’s views are not reflected in or influence the mission or work of our organization.” These were the sentences about Robert F. Kennedy jr statements released by Kerry Kennedy, former wife of New York Governor Andrea Cuomo and Chair of the Amnesty International USA Leadership Council. Nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate. She serves on the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace, as well as Human Rights First, and Inter Press Service (Rome, Italy). Zuckerberg Confession: “Establishment asked Facebook to ‘censor’ Covid posts” Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, is one of the VIPs who signed the “Call for urgent Agreement on International Deal to Prepare for and prevent future Pandemics” (whole text below) meanwhile World Health Organization is loosing many hopes that WHO Assembly will approve the Pandemic Treaty due to the opposition of Russia an many other nations. WHO, EU Launch New Global Vaccine Passport Initiative: “Death Sentence for Millions” The appeal was launched by Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown, the website of former UK prime minister., who signed it as Tony Blair, the Former UN General Secretary Ban-ki Moon, New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Cark and Italian former PM Mario Monti, life senator and former manager of New York bank Goldman Sachs in business with Pfizer, nominated as president of Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, a body created by the World Health Organization during Covid-19 emergency despite his ties with Wuhan Institute of Virology. WUHAN-GATES – 68. THE SMOKING GUN OF MANMADE SARS-COV-2. Fauci, Wuhan & Chinese Military Scientists behind Research on Vaccine for Biodefense Indeed Monti was in the European Commission which financed the EPISARS project for the developing of dangerous research on Coronavirus SARS from which, in a huge affair among China and US, emerged the artificial SARS-Cov-2. WUHAN-GATES – 65. L’ANELLO MANCANTE DEL DIABOLICO COMPLOTTO NWO-UE: Dal SARS da Laboratorio di Monti al Vaccino COVID col Grafene di Capua Although WHO has not yet been able to prove the laboratory origin of the Covid-19 virus, also because it has entrusted the investigations to doctors with enormous conflicts of interest for having worked in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, today it continues to insist on launch the global agreement on pandemics thanks to those same people who supported Bill Gates’ global immunization plan and the “Covid-19 pandemic planned for decades” as declared by the lawyer Robert F. Kennedy jr and as demonstrated by the patents expert David Martin on the role of Anthony Fauci, and detailed by the Gospa News investigations of the “Wuhan-Gates” cycle. WHO claims to develop more and major researches on viruses when it is now well established that the Covid-19 pandemic was caused by man precisely because of research on biological weapons. Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio © COPYRIGHT GOSPA NEWS prohibition of reproduction without authorization follow Fabio Carisio Gospa News director on Twitter follow Gospa News on Telegram Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published MAIN SOURCES GOSPA NEWS – WUHAN-GATES INVESTIGATIONS GOSPA NEWS – COVID, BIG PHARMA, VACCINES WHO: “Call for urgent Agreement on International Deal to Prepare for and prevent future Pandemics” Article originally published on World Health Organization All links to Gospa News articles have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published A high-powered intervention by 23 former national Presidents, 22 former Prime Ministers, a former UN General Secretary and 3 Nobel Laureates is being made today to press for an urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord, under the Constitution of the World Health Organizaion, to bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics. WUHAN-GATES – 69. How and Why the Spy of Biden & Gates Hid ManMade SARS-Cov-2 in US Intelligence Dossier Former UN General Secretary Ban-ki Moon, New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Cark, former UK Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, former Malawi President Joyce Banda, former Peru President Franciso Sagasti, and 3 former Presidents of the UN General Assembly are amongst 100+ global leaders, from all continents and fields of politics, economics and health management who today issued a joint open letterurging accelerated progress in current negotiations to reach the world’s first ever multi-lateral agreement on pandemic preparedness and prevention. “A pandemic accord is critical to safeguard our collective future. Only a strong global pact on pandemics can protect future generations from a repeat of the COVID-19 crisis, which led to millions of deaths and caused widespread social and economic devastation, owing not least to insufficient international collaboration,” the leaders write in their joint letter. WUHAN-GATES – 60. NEW SCANDAL INTO WHO. French Co-Chair of Investigative Group on SARS-2 Worked in the China Bio-lab which Enhanced Coronavirus In the throes of the COVID-19 disaster which, officially, claimed 7 million lives and wiped $2 trillion from the world economy, inter-governmental negotiations to reach international agreement on future pandemic non-proliferation were begun in December 2021 between 194 of the world’s 196 nations. Nations set themselves the deadline of May 2024 by which they should reach agreement on what would be the world’s first ever Pandemic Accord. The Ninth round of Pandemic Accord negotiations are underway this week and next. Signatories of today’s open letter hope their combined influence willencourage all 194 nations to maintain the courage of their Covid-years conviction and make their own collective ambition of an international pandemic protocol a reality by the intended May deadline to enable ratification by the World Health Assembly at its May 2024 Annual General Assembly. And they urge negotiators “to redouble their efforts” to meet the imminent deadline and not let their efforts be blown off course by malicious misinformation campaigning against the WHO, the international organisation which would be tasked with implementing the new health accord. Taking a swipe at those who wrongly believe national sovereignty may be undermined by this major international step forward for public health the signatories say “there is no time to waste” and they call on the leaders of the 194 nations taking part in the current negotiations to “redouble their efforts to complete the accord by the May deadline.” WUHAN-GATES – 72. THE SUMMARY: WHO Intrigues on the SARS-Cov-2 Bioweapon & Vaccine Plots – McCullough reveals The letter, hosted on the website of The Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown states, “Countries are doing this not because of some dictum from the WHO – like the negotiations, participation in any instrument would be entirely voluntary – but because they need what the accord can and must offer. In fact, a pandemic accord would deliver vast and universally shared benefits, including greater capacity to detect new and dangerous pathogens, access to information about pathogens detected elsewhere in the world, and timely and equitable delivery of tests, treatments, vaccines, and other lifesaving tools. “As countries enter what should be the final stages of the negotiations, governments must work to refute and debunk false claims about the accord. At the same time, negotiators must ensure that the agreement lives up to its promise to prevent and mitigate pandemic-related risks. This requires, for example, provisions aimed at ensuring that when another pandemic threat does arise, all relevant responses – from reporting the identification of risky pathogens to delivering tools like tests and vaccines on an equitable basis – are implemented quickly and effectively. As the COVID-19 pandemic showed, collaboration between the public and private sectors focused on advancing the public good is also essential.” WUHAN-GATES – 24. WHO & Pandemic in Gates-China’s Puppet Hands: Dr. Tedros Leader of TPLF, Islamic-Communist Rebels blamed of Last Massacre in Ethiopia by Amnesty “A new pandemic threat will emerge; there is no excuse not to be ready for it. It is thus imperative to build an effective, multisectoral, and multilateral approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. Given the unpredictable nature of public-health risks, a global strategy must embody a spirit of openness and inclusiveness. There is no time to waste, which is why we are calling on all national leaders to redouble their efforts to complete the accord by the May deadline.” “Beyond protecting countless lives and livelihoods, the timely delivery of a global pandemic accord would send a powerful message: even in our fractured and fragmented world, international cooperation can still deliver global solutions to global problems.” Article originally published on World Health Organization Joint letter to leaders of WHO member states calling for an urgent agreement on a pandemic accord Originally published on the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown website on March, 20, 2024 The overwhelming lesson we learned from COVID-19 is that no one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere – and that can only happen through collaboration. In response, the 194 countries which are members of the World Health Organization decided in December 2021 to launch negotiations for a new international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, a Pandemic Accord, as a “global framework” to work together to prepare for and stem any new pandemic threat, including by achieving equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. WUHAN-GATES – 62. MANMADE SARS-Cov-2 FOR GOLDEN VACCINES: Metabiota, CIA, Biden, Gates, Rockefeller intrigued in Ukraine, China and Italy Negotiation of an effective pandemic accord is a much needed opportunity to safeguard the world we live in. Countries themselves have proposed this instrument, individual countries are negotiating it, and only countries will ultimately be responsible for its requirements and its success or failure. Establishing a strong global pact on pandemics will protect future generations from a repeat of the millions of deaths and the social and economic devastation which resulted from a lack of collaboration during theCOVID-19 pandemic. All countries need what the accord can offer: the capacity to detect and share pathogens presenting a risk, and timely access to tests, treatments and vaccines. An agreement is meant to be reached just two and a half months from now – countries imposed a deadline of May 2024, in time for the 77th World Health Assembly. WUHAN-GATES – 73. Half of Century of Covert Bioweapon Development Leading to Fauci’s SARS-Cov-2 and to mRNA Lethal Vaccines As countries now enter what should be the final stages of the negotiations, they must ensure that they are agreeing on actions which will do the job required: to prevent and mitigate pandemic threats. We urge solutions which ensure both speed in reporting and sharing pathogens, and in access – in every country – to sufficient tools like tests and vaccines to protect lives and minimise harm. The public and private sectors must work together towards the public good. This global effort is being threatened by misinformation and disinformation. Among the falsehoods circulating are allegations that the WHO intends to monitor people’s movements through digital passports; that it will take away the national sovereignty of countries; and that it will have the ability to deploy armed troops to enforce mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns. All of these claims are wholly false and governments must work to disavow them with clear facts. WUHAN-GATES – 47. SARS-2 BIOWEAPON. Pentagon’s DARPA Stopped a Risky Test in US but Funded a Secret one in UK with Gates It is imperative now to build an effective, multisectoral and multilateral approach to pandemic prevention,preparedness, and response marked by a spirit of openness and inclusiveness. In doing so we can send a message that even in this fractured and fragmented world, cross-border co-operation can deliver global solutions to global problems. We call on leaders of all countries to step up their efforts and secure an effective pandemic accord by May. A new pandemic threat will emerge – and there is no excuse not to be ready for it. Originally published on the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown website on March, 20, 2024 Name Title Carlos Alvarado* President of Costa Rica (2018-2022) Michelle Bachelet* President of Chile (2006-2010) Jan Peter Balkenende* Prime Minister of The Netherlands (2002-2010) Ban Ki-moon* Eighth Secretary General of the United Nations Joyce Banda* President of Malawi (2012-2014) Kjell Magne Bondevik* Prime Minister of Norway (1997-2000; 2001-2005) Kim Campbell* Prime Minister of Canada (1993) Alfred Gusenbauer* Chancellor of Austria (2007-2008) Seung-Soo Han* Prime Minister of the Rep. of Korea (2008-2009) Mehdi Jomaa* Prime Minister of Tunisia (2014-2015) Horst Köhler* President of Germany (2004-2010) Rexhep Meidani* President of Albania (1997-2002) Mario Monti* Prime Minister of Italy (2011-2013) Francisco Sagasti* President of Peru (2020-2021) Jenny Shipley* Prime Minister of New Zealand (1997-1999) Juan Somavía* Ninth Director of the International Labour Organization Helen Clark** Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Micheline Calmy-Rey** Former President of the Swiss Confederation Baroness Lynda Chalker** Former Minister of Overseas Development of the UK Chester A. Crocker** Former Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, USA Marzuki Darusman** Former Attorney General of Indonesia Mohamed ElBaradei** Former Vice President of Egypt Gareth Evans** Former Foreign Minister of Australia Lawrence Gonzi** Former Prime Minister of Malta Lord George Robertson** Former Secretary General of NATO Gordon Brown Former Prime Minister of the UK 2007-2010 Vaira Vike-Freiberga*** Co-Chair, NGIC; President of Latvia 1999-2007 Ismail Serageldin*** Co-Chair, NGIC; Vice President of the World Bank 1992-2000 Kerry Kennedy*** President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Rosen Plevneliev*** President of Bulgaria 2012-2017 Petar Stoyanov*** President of Bulgaria 1997-2002 Chiril Gaburici*** Prime Minister of Moldova 2015 Mladen Ivanic*** Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2014-2018 Zlatko Lagumdzija*** Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the UN; Prime Minister 2001-2002; Deputy Prime Minister 1993-1996, 2012-2015 Rashid Alimov*** Secretary-General Shanghai Cooperation Organization 2016-2018 Jan Fisher*** Prime Minister of the Czech Republic 2009-2010 Sir Tony Blair Prime Minister of the UK 1997-2007 Csaba Korossi*** 77th President of the UN General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa*** 73rd President of the UN General Assembly Volkan Bozkir*** 75th President of the UN General Assembly Ameenah Gurib Fakim*** President of Mauritius 2015-2018 Filip Vujanovic*** President of Montenegro 2003-2018 Borut Pahor*** President of Slovenia 2012-2022; Prime Minister 2008-2012 Ivo Josipovic*** President of Croatia 2010-2015 Petru Lucinschi*** President of Moldova 1997-2001 Boris Tadic*** President of Serbia 2004-2012 Mirko Cvetkovic*** Prime Minister of Serbia 2008-2012 Dumitru Bragish*** Prime Minister of Moldova 1999-2001 Emil Constantinescu*** President of Romania 1996-2000 Nambaryn Enkhbayar*** President of Mongolia 2005-2009 Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic*** President of Croatia 2015-2020 Gjorge Ivanov*** President of North Macedonia 2009-2019 Valdis Zatlers*** President of Latvia 2007-2011 Ana Birchall*** Deputy Prime Minister of Romania 2018-2019 Hikmet Cetin*** Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey 1991-1994 Jewel Howard Taylor*** Vice President of Liberia 2018-2024 Djoomart Otorbayev*** Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan 2014-2015 Julio Cobos*** Vice President of Argentina 2007-2011 Ouided Bouchmani*** Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2015 Abdul Rauf AlRawabdeh*** Prime Minister of Jordan 1999-2000 Jadranka Kosor*** Prime Minister of Montenegro 2009-2011 Milica Pejanovic*** Minister of Defense of Montenegro 2012-2016 Mats Karlsson*** Former Vice-President of the World Bank Laimdota Straujuma*** Prime Minister of Latvia 2014-2016 Eka Tkeshelashvili*** Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia 2010-2012, Minister of Foreign Affairs 2010 Moushira Khattab*** Former Minister of State for Family and Population of Egypt Raimonds Vejonis*** President of Latvia 2015-2019 Ilir Meta*** President of Albania 2017-2022 Edmond Panariti*** Former Minister of Foreign affairs, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Albania Andris Piebalgs*** European Commissioner for Development 2010-2014, European Commissioner for Energy 2004-2010 Manuel Pulgar Vidal*** Climate and Energy Global Leader at the World Wide Fund for Nature, Minister of Environment of Peru 2011-2016, President of COP20 Yves Leterme*** Yves Leterme, Prime Minister of Belgium 2008, 2009-201 Rovshan Muradov*** Secretary-General of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center Professor Erik Berglof London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Justin Lin Beijing University Professor Bai Chong-En Tsinghua School of Economics and Management Studies Professor Robin Burgess London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Shang-jin Wei Columbia University Professor Harold James Princeton University Ahmed Galal Former Minister of Finance, Egypt Professor Jong-Wha Lee Korea University Professor Leonhard Wantchekon African School of Economics, Benin Professor Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden Mannheim University Professor Kaushik Basu Cornell University Professor Bengt Holmstrom Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Mathias Dewatripont Université Libre de Bruxelles Professor Dalia Marin University of Munich Professor Richard Portes London Business School Professor Chris Pissarides London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Diane Coyle University of Cambridge Mustapha Nabli Former Governor, Central Bank of Tunisia Professor Wendy Carlin University College London Professor Gerard Roland University of California, Berkeley Professor Nora Lustig Tulane University Piroska Nagy-Mohacsi London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Philippe Aghion College de France Professor Devi Sridhar University of Edinburgh Yu Yongding Former President of China Society in the World Economy Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2006 Kailash Satyarthe, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2014 Sir Ivor Roberts Former UK Ambassador Sir Suma Chakrabarti Former EBRD President Sir Tim Hitchens Former UK Ambassador Alistair Burt Former Minister for Health/International Development Tom Fletcher Former UK Ambassador Julian Braithwaite Former UK Perm Rep to WHO John Casson Former UK Ambassador *indicates membership of Club de Madrid ** Indicates membership of Global Leadership Forum *** Indicates membership of NGIC (Visited 37 times, 3 visits today) FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmailLinkedInTelegramCondividi 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The WHO Wants to Rule the World Ramesh Thakur The World Health Organisation (WHO) will present two new texts for adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly comprising delegates from 194 member states, in Geneva on 27 May–1 June. The new pandemic treaty needs a two-thirds majority for approval and, if and once adopted, will come into effect after 40 ratifications. The amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) can be adopted by a simple majority and will be binding on all states unless they recorded reservations by the end of last year. Because they will be changes to an existing agreement that states have already signed, the amendments do not require any follow-up ratification. The WHO describes the IHR as ‘an instrument of international law that is legally-binding’ on its 196 states parties, including the 194 WHO member states, even if they voted against it. Therein lies its promise and its threat. The new regime will change the WHO from a technical advisory organisation into a supra-national public health authority exercising quasi-legislative and executive powers over states; change the nature of the relationship between citizens, business enterprises, and governments domestically, and also between governments and other governments and the WHO internationally; and shift the locus of medical practice from the doctor-patient consultation in the clinic to public health bureaucrats in capital cities and WHO headquarters in Geneva and its six regional offices. From net zero to mass immigration and identity politics, the ‘expertocracy’ elite is in alliance with the global technocratic elite against majority national sentiment. The Covid years gave the elites a valuable lesson in how to exercise effective social control and they mean to apply it across all contentious issues. The changes to global health governance architecture must be understood in this light. It represents the transformation of the national security, administrative, and surveillance state into a globalised biosecurity state. But they are encountering pushback in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and most recently Ireland. We can but hope that the resistance will spread to rejecting the WHO power grab. Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai on 12 February, WHO Director-General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attacked ‘the litany of lies and conspiracy theories’ about the agreement that ‘are utterly, completely, categorically false. The pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power over any state or any individual, for that matter.’ He insisted that critics are ‘either uninformed or lying.’ Could it be instead that, relying on aides, he himself has either not read or not understood the draft? The alternative explanation for his spray at the critics is that he is gaslighting us all. The Gostin, Klock, and Finch Paper In the Hastings Center Report “Making the World Safer and Fairer in Pandemics,” published on 23 December, Lawrence Gostin, Kevin Klock, and Alexandra Finch attempt to provide the justification to underpin the proposed new IHR and treaty instruments as ‘transformative normative and financial reforms that could reimagine pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.’ The three authors decry the voluntary compliance under the existing ‘amorphous and unenforceable’ IHR regulations as ‘a critical shortcoming.’ And they concede that ‘While advocates have pressed for health-related human rights to be included in the pandemic agreement, the current draft does not do so.’ Directly contradicting the DG’s denial as quoted above, they describe the new treaty as ‘legally binding’. This is repeated several pages later: …the best way to contain transnational outbreaks is through international cooperation, led multilaterally through the WHO. That may require all states to forgo some level of sovereignty in exchange for enhanced safety and fairness. What gives their analysis significance is that, as explained in the paper itself, Gostin is ‘actively involved in WHO processes for a pandemic agreement and IHR reform’ as the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law and a member of the WHO Review Committee on IHR amendments. The WHO as the World’s Guidance and Coordinating Authority The IHR amendments will expand the situations that constitute a public health emergency, grant the WHO additional emergency powers, and extend state duties to build ‘core capacities’ of surveillance to detect, assess, notify, and report events that could constitute an emergency. Under the new accords, the WHO would function as the guidance and coordinating authority for the world. The DG will become more powerful than the UN Secretary-General. The existing language of ‘should’ is replaced in many places by the imperative ‘shall,’ of non-binding recommendations with countries will ‘undertake to follow’ the guidance. And ‘full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons’ will be changed to principles of ‘equity’ and ‘inclusivity’ with different requirements for rich and poor countries, bleeding financial resources and pharmaceutical products from industrialised to developing countries. The WHO is first of all an international bureaucracy and only secondly a collective body of medical and health experts. Its Covid performance was not among its finest. Its credibility was badly damaged by tardiness in raising the alarm; by its acceptance and then rejection of China’s claim that there was no risk of human-human transmission; by the failure to hold China accountable for destroying evidence of the pandemic’s origins; by the initial investigation that whitewashed the origins of the virus; by flip-flops on masks and lockdowns; by ignoring the counterexample of Sweden that rejected lockdowns with no worse health outcomes and far better economic, social, and educational outcomes; and by the failure to stand up for children’s developmental, educational, social, and mental health rights and welfare. With a funding model where 87 percent of the budget comes from voluntary contributions from the rich countries and private donors like the Gates Foundation, and 77 percent is for activities specified by them, the WHO has effectively ‘become a system of global public health patronage’, write Ben and Molly Kingsley of the UK children’s rights campaign group UsForThem. Human Rights Watch says the process has been ‘disproportionately guided by corporate demands and the policy positions of high-income governments seeking to protect the power of private actors in health including the pharmaceutical industry.’ The victims of this Catch-22 lack of accountability will be the peoples of the world. Much of the new surveillance network in a model divided into pre-, in, and post-pandemic periods will be provided by private and corporate interests that will profit from the mass testing and pharmaceutical interventions. According to Forbes, the net worth of Bill Gates jumped by one-third from $96.5 billion in 2019 to $129 billion in 2022: philanthropy can be profitable. Article 15.2 of the draft pandemic treaty requires states to set up ‘no fault vaccine-injury compensation schemes,’ conferring immunity on Big Pharma against liability, thereby codifying the privatisation of profits and the socialisation of risks. The changes would confer extraordinary new powers on the WHO’s DG and regional directors and mandate governments to implement their recommendations. This will result in a major expansion of the international health bureaucracy under the WHO, for example new implementation and compliance committees; shift the centre of gravity from the common deadliest diseases (discussed below) to relatively rare pandemic outbreaks (five including Covid in the last 120 years); and give the WHO authority to direct resources (money, pharmaceutical products, intellectual property rights) to itself and to other governments in breach of sovereign and copyright rights. Considering the impact of the amendments on national decision-making and mortgaging future generations to internationally determined spending obligations, this calls for an indefinite pause in the process until parliaments have done due diligence and debated the potentially far-reaching obligations. Yet disappointingly, relatively few countries have expressed reservations and few parliamentarians seem at all interested. We may pay a high price for the rise of careerist politicians whose primary interest is self-advancement, ministers who ask bureaucrats to draft replies to constituents expressing concern that they often sign without reading either the original letter or the reply in their name, and officials who disdain the constraints of democratic decision-making and accountability. Ministers relying on technical advice from staffers when officials are engaged in a silent coup against elected representatives give power without responsibility to bureaucrats while relegating ministers to being in office but not in power, with political accountability sans authority. US President Donald Trump and Australian and UK Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson were representative of national leaders who had lacked the science literacy, intellectual heft, moral clarity, and courage of conviction to stand up to their technocrats. It was a period of Yes, Prime Minister on steroids, with Sir Humphrey Appleby winning most of the guerrilla campaign waged by the permanent civil service against the transient and clueless Prime Minister Jim Hacker. At least some Australian, American, British, and European politicians have recently expressed concern at the WHO-centred ‘command and control’ model of a public health system, and the public spending and redistributive implications of the two proposed international instruments. US Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) warned on 5 February that ‘far too little scrutiny has been given, far too few questions asked as to what this legally binding agreement or treaty means to health policy in the United States and elsewhere.’ Like Smith and Wenstrup, the most common criticism levelled has been that this represents a power grab at the cost of national sovereignty. Speaking in parliament in November, Australia’s Liberal Senator Alex Antic dubbed the effort a ‘WHO d’etat’. A more accurate reading may be that it represents collusion between the WHO and the richest countries, home to the biggest pharmaceutical companies, to dilute accountability for decisions, taken in the name of public health, that profit a narrow elite. The changes will lock in the seamless rule of the technocratic-managerial elite at both the national and the international levels. Yet the WHO edicts, although legally binding in theory, will be unenforceable against the most powerful countries in practice. Moreover, the new regime aims to eliminate transparency and critical scrutiny by criminalising any opinion that questions the official narrative from the WHO and governments, thereby elevating them to the status of dogma. The pandemic treaty calls for governments to tackle the ‘infodemics’ of false information, misinformation, disinformation, and even ‘too much information’ (Article 1c). This is censorship. Authorities have no right to be shielded from critical questioning of official information. Freedom of information is a cornerstone of an open and resilient society and a key means to hold authorities to public scrutiny and accountability. The changes are an effort to entrench and institutionalise the model of political, social, and messaging control trialled with great success during Covid. The foundational document of the international human rights regime is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pandemic management during Covid and in future emergencies threaten some of its core provisions regarding privacy, freedom of opinion and expression, and rights to work, education, peaceful assembly, and association. Worst of all, they will create a perverse incentive: the rise of an international bureaucracy whose defining purpose, existence, powers, and budgets will depend on more frequent declarations of actual or anticipated pandemic outbreaks. It is a basic axiom of politics that power that can be abused, will be abused – some day, somewhere, by someone. The corollary holds that power once seized is seldom surrendered back voluntarily to the people. Lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, travel restrictions, and all the other shenanigans and theatre of the Covid era will likely be repeated on whim. Professor Angus Dalgliesh of London’s St George’s Medical School warns that the WHO ‘wants to inflict this incompetence on us all over again but this time be in total control.’ Covid in the Context of Africa’s Disease Burden In the Hastings Center report referred to earlier, Gostin, Klock, and Finch claim that ‘lower-income countries experienced larger losses and longer-lasting economic setbacks.’ This is a casual elision that shifts the blame for harmful downstream effects away from lockdowns in the futile quest to eradicate the virus, to the virus itself. The chief damage to developing countries was caused by the worldwide shutdown of social life and economic activities and the drastic reduction in international trade. The discreet elision aroused my curiosity on the authors’ affiliations. It came as no surprise to read that they lead the O’Neill Institute–Foundation for the National Institutes of Health project on an international instrument for pandemic prevention and preparedness. Gostin et al. grounded the urgency for the new accords in the claim that ‘Zoonotic pathogens…are occurring with increasing frequency, enhancing the risk of new pandemics’ and cite research to suggest a threefold increase in ‘extreme pandemics’ over the next decade. In a report entitled “Rational Policy Over Panic,” published by Leeds University in February, a team that included our own David Bell subjected claims of increasing pandemic frequency and disease burden behind the drive to adopt the new treaty and amend the existing IHR to critical scrutiny. Specifically, they examined and found wanting a number of assumptions and several references in eight G20, World Bank, and WHO policy documents. On the one hand, the reported increase in natural outbreaks is best explained by technologically more sophisticated diagnostic testing equipment, while the disease burden has been effectively reduced with improved surveillance, response mechanisms, and other public health interventions. Consequently there is no real urgency to rush into the new accords. Instead, governments should take all the time they need to situate pandemic risk in the wider healthcare context and formulate policy tailored to the more accurate risk and interventions matrix. The lockdowns were responsible for reversals of decades worth of gains in critical childhood immunisations. UNICEF and WHO estimate that 7.6 million African children under 5 missed out on vaccination in 2021 and another 11 million were under-immunised, ‘making up over 40 percent of the under-immunised and missed children globally.’ How many quality adjusted life years does that add up to, I wonder? But don’t hold your breath that anyone will be held accountable for crimes against African children. Earlier this month the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group argued that lockdowns were a ‘class-based and unscientific instrument.’ It accused the WHO of trying to reintroduce ‘classical Western colonialism through the backdoor’ in the form of the new pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments. Medical knowledge and innovations do not come solely from Western capitals and Geneva, but from people and groups who have captured the WHO agenda. Lockdowns had caused significant harm to low-income countries, the group said, yet the WHO wanted legal authority to compel member states to comply with its advice in future pandemics, including with respect to vaccine passports and border closures. Instead of bowing to ‘health imperialism,’ it would be preferable for African countries to set their own priorities in alleviating the disease burden of their major killer diseases like cholera, malaria, and yellow fever. Europe and the US, comprising a little under ten and over four percent of world population, account for nearly 18 and 17 percent, respectively, of all Covid-related deaths in the world. By contrast Asia, with nearly 60 percent of the world’s people, accounts for 23 percent of all Covid-related deaths. Meantime Africa, with more than 17 percent of global population, has recorded less than four percent of global Covid deaths (Table 1). According to a report on the continent’s disease burden published last year by the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Africa’s leading causes of death in 2021 were malaria (593,000 deaths), tuberculosis (501,000), and HIV/AIDS (420,000). The report does not provide the numbers for diarrhoeal deaths for Africa. There are 1.6 million such deaths globally per year, including 440,000 children under 5. And we know that most diarrhoeal deaths occur in Africa and South Asia. If we perform a linear extrapolation of 2021 deaths to estimate ballpark figures for the three years 2020–22 inclusive for numbers of Africans killed by these big three, approximately 1.78 million died from malaria, 1.5 million from TB, and 1.26 million from HIV/AIDS. (I exclude 2023 as Covid had faded by then, as can be seen in Table 1). By comparison, the total number of Covid-related deaths across Africa in the three years was 259,000. Whether or not the WHO is pursuing a policy of health colonialism, therefore, the Pan-African Epidemic and Pandemic Working Group has a point regarding the grossly exaggerated threat of Covid in the total picture of Africa’s disease burden. A shorter version of this was published in The Australian on 11 March Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author. Author Ramesh Thakur, a Brownstone Institute Senior Scholar, is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and emeritus professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. View all posts Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-wants-to-rule-the-world/

Australia challenged on ‘moral failure’ of weapons trade with Israel Regular protests have been taking place outside Australian firms making crucial components for the F-35 fighter jet. Ali MC Protesters sitting outside the HTA factory in the Melbourne suburbs,. There is a large placard reading 'Stop arming Israel" Weekly protests have been taking place for months [Ali MC/Al Jazeera] Melbourne, Australia – Israel’s continued assault on Gaza has highlighted a hidden yet crucial component of the world’s weapons manufacturing industry – suburban Australia. Tucked away in Melbourne’s industrial north, Heat Treatment Australia (HTA) is an Australian company that plays a vital role in the production of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters; the same model that Israel is using to bomb Gaza. Weekly protests of about 200 people have been taking place for months outside the nondescript factory, where heat treatment is applied to strengthen components for the fighter jet a product of US military giant Lockheed Martin. While protesters have sometimes brought production to a halt with their pickets, they remain concerned about what’s going on inside factories like HTA. “We decided to hold the community picket to disrupt workers, and we were successful in stopping work for the day,” Nathalie Farah, protest organiser with local group Hume for Palestine, told Al Jazeera. “We consider this to be a win.” “Australia is absolutely complicit in the genocide that is happening,” said 26-year-old Farah, who is of Syrian and Palestinian origin. “Which is contrary to what the government might have us believe.” More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza six months ago after Hamas killed more than 1,000 people in a surprise attack on Israel. The war, being investigated as a genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has left hundreds of thousands on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations. HTA – which did not respond to Al Jazeera for comment – is just one of an increasing number of companies in Australia engaged in the weapons manufacturing industry. Community organiser Nathalie Farah. She's wearing a Palestinian scarf and a black T-shirt saying Australia. Nathalie Farah has been organising regular protests outside HTA’s factory [Ali MC/Al Jazeera] According to Lockheed Martin, “Every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components,” with more than 70 Australian companies having export contracts valued at a total 4.13 billion Australian dollars ($2.69bn). Protesters have also picketed Rosebank Engineering, in Melbourne’s southeast, the world’s only producer of the F-35’s “uplock actuator system”, a crucial component of the aircraft’s bomb bay doors. Sign up for Al Jazeera Weekly Newsletter protected by reCAPTCHA Defence industry push In recent years, the Australian government has sought to increase defence exports to boost the country’s flagging manufacturing industry. In 2018, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Australia aimed to become one of the world’s top 10 defence exporters within a decade. It is currently 30th in global arms production, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute. It is an aspiration that appears set to continue under the government of Anthony Albanese after it concluded a more than one-billion-Australian-dollar deal with Germany to supply more than 100 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles in 2023 – Australia’s single biggest defence industry deal. Since the Gaza war began, the industry and its business relationship with Israel have come increasingly under the spotlight. Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles insisted that there were “no exports of weapons from Australia to Israel and there haven’t been for many, many years”. However, between 2016 and 2023 the Australian government approved some 322 export permits for military and dual-use equipment to Israel. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s own data – available to the public online – shows that Australian exports of “arms and ammunition” to Israel totalled $15.5 million Australian dollars ($10.1m) over the same period of time. Officials now appear to be slowing the export of military equipment to Israel. In a recent interview with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy insisted the country was “not exporting military equipment to Israel” and clarified this meant “military weapons, things like bombs”. However, defence exports from Australia fall into two categories, items specifically for military use – such as Boxer Heavy Weapons vehicles for Germany – and so-called ‘dual use’ products, such as radar or communications systems, that can have both civilian and military uses. Australia’s Department of Defence did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests about whether the halt to defence exports to Israel also included dual-use items. What is certain is that companies such as HTA and Rosebank Engineering are continuing to manufacture components for the F-35, despite the risk of deployment in what South Africa told the International Court of Justice in December amounted to “genocidal acts“. In the Netherlands – where parts for the jet are also manufactured – an appeal court last month ordered the Dutch government to block such exports to Israel citing the risk of breaching international law. The Australian government has also come under scrutiny for its lax “end-use controls” on the weapons and components it exports. As such, while the F-35 components are exported to US parent company Lockheed Martin, their ultimate use is largely outside Australia’s legal purview. Lauren Sanders, senior research fellow on law and the future of war at the University of Queensland, told Al Jazeera that the “on-selling of components and military equipment through third party states is a challenge to global export controls. “Once something is out of a state’s control, it becomes more difficult to trace, and to prevent it being passed on to another country,” she said. Sanders said Australia’s “end use controls” were deficient in comparison with other exporters such as the United States. “The US has hundreds of dedicated staff – with appropriate legal authority to investigate – to chase down potential end-use breaches,” she said. “Australia does not have the same kind of end-use controls in place in its legislation, nor does it have the same enforcement resources that the US does.” A protester carrying a Palestinian flag at a picket outside an Australian arms company. They have wrapped a Palesinian scarf around their face so only their eyes are visible, Other protesters are behind them. They have placards. Some are sitting on the ground. The protesters say they will continue their action until manufacturing of F-35 components is stopped [Ali MC/Al Jazeera] In fact, under legislation passed in November 2023, permits for defence goods are no longer required for exports to the United Kingdom and the US under the AUKUS security agreement. In a statement, the government argued the exemption would “deliver 614 million [Australian dollars; $401m] in value to the Australian economy over 10 years, by reducing costs to local businesses and unlocking investment opportunities with our AUKUS partners”. International law This new legislation may provide more opportunities for Australian weapons manufacturers, such as NIOA, a privately owned munitions company that makes bullets at a factory in Benalla, a small rural town in Australia’s southeast. The largest supplier of munitions to the Australian Defence Force, NIOA – which did not respond to Al Jazeera for comment – also has aspirations to break into the US weapons market. At a recent business conference, CEO Robert Nioa said that “the goal is to establish greater production capabilities in both countries so that Australia can be an alternative source of supply of weapons in times of conflict for the Australian and US militaries”. Greens Senator David Shoebridge told Al Jazeera that the government needed to “publicly and immediately refute the plan to become a top 10 global arms dealer and then to provide full transparency on all Australian arms exports including end users. “While governments in the Netherlands and the UK are facing legal challenges because of their role in the global supply chain, the Australian Labor government just keeps handing over weapons parts as though no genocide was happening,” he said. “It’s an appalling moral failure, and it is almost certainly a gross breach of international law.” The Australian government also recently announced a 917 million Australian dollar ($598m) deal with controversial Israeli company Elbit Systems. A court in the Netherlands hearing a case brought in relation to military exports. The room is wood panelled and there is a portrait on the wall. The Dutch government has faced legal action over the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel [File: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters] Elbit has come under fire for its sale of defence equipment to the Myanmar military regime, continuing sales even after the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, was accused of gross human rights violations – including attacks on civilians – by the United Nations and others. Despite a recent joint announcement between the Australian and UK governments for an “immediate cessation of fighting” in Gaza, some say Australia needs to go further and cut defence ties with Israel altogether. “The Australian government must listen to the growing public calls for peace and end Australia’s two-way arms trade with Israel,” Shoebridge said. “The Albanese government is rewarding and financing the Israeli arms industry just at the moment they are arming a genocide.” Protests have continued both at the HTA factory in Melbourne and their premises in Brisbane, with organisers pledging to continue until the company stops manufacturing components for the F-35. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/28/australia-challenged-on-moral-failure-of-weapons-trade-with-israel

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‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 142: UN experts call for immediate arms embargo on Israel Israel bombs near Egypt’s fortified wall with Rafah as talks resume to reach a captive exchange with Hamas. UN experts call for arms embargo against Israel and say states supplying weapons, ammunition or intelligence risk violating international law. Mustafa Abu SneinehFebruary 25, 2024 Palestinian women grieve over the bodies of their loved ones killed in Israeli airstrikes in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Relatives of the Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks mourn as they receive the bodies of their loved ones at the the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, on February 24, 2024. (Bashar Taleb/apaimages) Casualties 29,606+ killed* and at least 69,737 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147. 579 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel on February 24. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 38,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Key Developments CNN satellite imagery shows Egypt built more than two-mile-wide buffer zone along wall with Rafah, in southern Gaza, to keep displaced Palestinians at bay. Egyptian buffer zone is planned to stretch east-to-west from Kerem Abu Salem Crossing to the Mediterranean Sea. Several Palestinians in Gaza sound call of prayer through loudspeakers from windows in city where mosques have not held a Friday prior since October. UN experts call states to immediately cease transferring arms, and ammunition to Israel or share it with intelligence that could be used in Gaza Strip and violate international law. UN experts says that “military intelligence must also not be shared [with Israel] where there is a clear risk that it would be used to violate international humanitarian law.” So far, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Netherlands halted arms transfers to Israel, while Japan trade giant, Itochu Corporation, suspended agreement to supply Israel with military technology. Senior Hamas figure tells Al-Jazeera Arabic that “atmosphere of optimism” regarding prisoners’ exchange deal with Israel and ceasefire “does not reflect the truth.” EU chief of foreign policy Josep Borrell says Israel’s government plan to expand settlements in occupied West Bank is “inflammatory and dangerous”. In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers seized 43 agricultural tractors, 293 vehicles, and 296 sheep from Palestinian Bedouin communities in Jordan valley, inflicting heavy losses and disturbing their lives. Israeli forces bomb areas near Egypt’s border with Rafah In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces bombed several Palestinian neighborhoods in Deir Al-Balah, Rafah and north Gaza, killing and injuring tens of people. Israel’s warplanes launched bombs on a vast open area near the Egyptian border with Rafah, in southern Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering. A video shows Palestinians fleeing from the bombs close to Egypt’s fortified wall to keep displaced people at bay from entering the Sinai Peninsula. All of the 1.4 million Palestinians who sought refuge in Rafah cannot enter Sinai except those who obtained a travel permit. Recent satellite imagery obtained by CNN reveals that Egypt had built more than a two-mile-wide buffer zone along the wall with Rafah. In early February, Egyptian bulldozers and cranes started working on the buffer zone as Israeli politicians threatened to invade Rafah. The Egyptian buffer zone is planned to stretch east-to-west from Kerem Abu Salem Crossing to the Mediterranean Sea. Overnight, Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces bombed Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City, and launched an air raid on Al-Shaaf area in Gaza. Armed clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and Israeli forces were reported in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood. Several Palestinians in Gaza sounded the call of prayer through loudspeakers from windows in a city where mosques have not held a Friday prior since October as most of it has been either damaged or destroyed by Israel, including the ancient Al-Omari Mosque. In the Al-Shati refugee camp, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians and injured four in an airstrike overnight. It also bombed Beit Lahia, Rafah, and Deir Al-Balah. On Sunday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health did not update the casualty’s number for the past 24 hours. Yesterday, it said that Israeli forces committed eight “massacres” in various areas of the Gaza Strip, killing at least 92 Palestinian martyrs and injuring 123 people. UN experts call for immediate arms embargo on Israel Supplying arms to Israel to bomb, destroy, kill, and maim Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and also in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem has taken center stage in the past weeks. A UN report concluded that states should cease immediately from transferring arms and ammunition to Israel or supplying it with intelligence that could be used in the Gaza Strip, risking the violation of international law. So far, the U.S., Germany, the U.K., France, Canada and Australia have been at the helm of supplying weapons to Israel since October, with Washington and Berlin as the largest exporters of munitions. “States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected, given the facts or past patterns of behavior, that they would be used to violate international law,” the UN experts said. They added that “as long there is a clear risk” of violating the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty and that arms will be used to commit crimes, exports of weapons and munitions to Israel should not go ahead. This also extends to sharing military intelligence. The U.S. and the U.K. have reportedly fed Israel with intelligence, dispatching military personnel to advise Israel early in October and operated reconnaissance flights over the Gaza Strip, eavesdropping on Palestinians in a bid to locate Israeli captives and help Tel Aviv destroy Hamas movement. “Military intelligence must also not be shared where there is a clear risk that it would be used to violate international humanitarian law,” the UN experts wrote. They added that there is a need for an arms embargo on Israel following the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on January 26 ordering Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza. However, Israel has killed nearly four thousand Palestinians since then. “This necessitates halting arms exports in the present circumstances,” the experts said. Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands are the only EU countries to halt arms transfers to Israel, while Japan trade giant, Itochu Corporation, has suspended an agreement to supply Israel with military technology. Early in February, the Netherlands halted a deal to export F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel following a court decision that found that Israeli forces would use these parts “to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law.” “There are many indications that Israel has violated the humanitarian law of war in a not insignificant number of cases,” the UN report added. Deal between Hamas and Israel swings between optimism and despair On Sunday morning, hopes were dashed again of reaching a deal between Israel and Hamas, despite high expectations over the weekend as Qatari and Egyptian mediators traveled back to Paris to hold talks with CIA and Israeli officials. A senior Hamas figure told Al-Jazeera Arabic that “the atmosphere of optimism”, regarding a possible prisoners exchange deal with Israel and ceasefire, “does not reflect the truth.” He accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “evading” to engage with Hamas counter-proposal for four and half months of ceasefire, the exchange of hostages and prisoners, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. He added that Israel’s starvation policy in the Gaza Strip, blocking aid trucks from reaching north Gaza, could hinder any efforts to reach a deal. Israel’s Kan news reported on Sunday that they were “optimistic” about reaching a deal before the month of Ramadan, on March 10, but that would not discourage Israel from invading Rafah. An Israeli delegation is expected to fly to Qatar, Al-Jazeera reported. Scores of arrests in Tel Aviv as Netanyahu’s options narrow down On Saturday, the police arrested 18 Israelis as thousands protested in Tel Aviv, calling Netanyahu’s resignation and for a deal to be made on the release of Israeli captives in Gaza. The Israeli analyst at Haaretz, Amos Harel, wrote that Netanyahu’s government is facing three options at the current stage, either to strike a deal with Hamas, invade Rafah or “more empty promises” for Israelis and the US administration. A deal with Hamas, would mean a political headache for Netanyahu from his coalition government and threats of resignation from Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Invading Rafah would be a gamble as it risks deteriorating ties with Egypt, igniting the region, and massacring tens of thousands of Palestinians. “According to the third scenario,” Harel wrote, “things will continue as they have until now: Netanyahu will continue to provoke the Biden administration, will continue to promise ‘total victory,’ will evade promoting a hostage release deal, and will possibly antagonize Benny Gantz,” to push him to resign from war cabinet. Settlement expansion in West Banks is ‘dangerous’, officials warn Josep Borrell, the EU chief of foreign policy, said on Saturday that Israel’s government plan to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank is “inflammatory and dangerous”. “Settlements make Israelis and Palestinians less safe, fuel tensions, obstruct peace efforts, and constitute a grave breach of international law,” he added. Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich announced on Thursday a plan of constructing 3,300 housing units as a “response” to a shooting attack carried out by three Palestinians near Ma’ale Adumim settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, killing at least one Israeli and wounding five others. “The serious attack on Ma’ale Adumim must have a decisive security response but also an answer from the settlements… Our enemies know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our control across the entire country,” Smotrich said. Following the attack, Israeli military prevented Palestinian vehicles from travelling on a main road leading to the Al-Eizariya neighborhood, close to Ma’ale Adumim’s main entrance, between 9pm and 6am the next morning. Over the past 24 hours, Israeli forces arrested 15 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank towns of Hebron, Nablus, Jericho, Jenin, and Ramallah. Sami Al-Shami, a journalist and former political prisoner, was arrested from his home in Asira Al-Qibliya, south of Nablus. North of the West Bank, Israeli forces stormed the towns of Qalqilya and Nabi Saleh, raiding several Palestinian houses. The Prisoners’ Club said around 7,225 Palestinians were arrested by Israel in the West Bank since October. Some of them were released. On Sunday morning, Israeli settlers stole sheep from the Palestinian community of Arab Malihat, northwest of the city of Jericho, Wafa reported. Hassan Malihat, an activist in the community, said 30 sheep belonged to Suleiman Atallah Malihat were stolen by settlers. Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley rely on raising livestock and agricultural farm to make a living. Wafa reported that Israeli forces and settlers seized 43 agricultural tractors, 293 vehicles, and 296 sheep in 2023, inflicting heavy losses on these communities and disturbing their lives. As Ramadan is approaching in a couple of weeks, Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday and performed silent Jewish prayers. These storming have become an almost daily act for over two decades and threaten to escalate tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-142-un-experts-call-for-immediate-arms-embargo-on-israel/

“Let Them Eat Dirt”. Israel has Given Palestinians in Gaza Two Choices. Leave or Die. Chris Hedges The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it. All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign *** There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed. Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza. UNRWA’s reports on conditions in Gaza, which I covered as a reporter for seven years, and its documentation of indiscriminate Israeli attacks illustrate that, as UNRWA said, “unilaterally declared ‘safe zones’ are not safe at all. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.” UNRWA’s role in documenting the genocide, as well as providing food and aid to the Palestinians, infuriates the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused UNRWA after the ruling of providing false information to the ICJ. Already an Israeli target for decades, Israel decided that UNRWA, which supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East with clinics, schools and food, had to be eliminated. Israel’s destruction of UNRWA serves a political as well as material objective. The evidence-free Israeli accusations against UNRWA that a dozen of the 13,000 employees had links to those who carried out the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which saw some 1,200 Israelis killed, did the trick. It led 16 major donors, including the United States, the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Estonia and Japan, to suspend financial support for the relief agency on which nearly every Palestinian in Gaza depends for food. Israel has killed152 UNRWA workers and damaged 147 UNRWA installations since Oct. 7. Israel has also bombed UNRWA relief trucks. More than 27,708 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, some 67,000 have been wounded and at least 7,000 are missing, most likely dead and buried under the rubble. More than half a million Palestinians – one in four – are starving in Gaza, according to the U.N. Starvation will soon be ubiquitous. Palestinians in Gaza, at least 1.9 million of whom have been internally displaced, lack not only sufficient food, but clean water, shelter and medicine. There are few fruits or vegetables. There is little flour to make bread. Pasta, along with meat, cheese and eggs, have disappeared. Black market prices for dry goods such as lentils and beans have increased 25 times from pre-war prices. A bag of flour on the black market has risen from $8.00 to $200 dollars. The healthcare system in Gaza, with only three of Gaza’s 36 hospitals left partially functioning, has largely collapsed. Some 1.3 million displaced Palestinians live on the streets of the southern city of Rafah, which Israel designated a “safe zone,” but has begun to bomb. Families shiver in the winter rains under flimsy tarps amid pools of raw sewage. An estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes. “There is no instance since the Second World War in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed,” writes Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine,” in the Guardian. “And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.” The United States, formerly UNRWA’s largest contributor, provided $422 million to the agency in 2023. The severance of funds ensures that UNRWA food deliveries, already in very short supply because of blockages by Israel, will largely come to a halt by the end of February or the beginning of March. Israel has given the Palestinians in Gaza two choices. Leave or die. I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs, scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not. The international community, as in Gaza, did little to intervene. The precursor to starvation – undernourishment – already affects most Palestinians in Gaza. Those who starve lack enough calories to sustain themselves. In desperation people begin to eat animal fodder, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from diarrhea and respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it. Soon, lacking enough iron to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, they become anemic. The body feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs – brain, heart, lungs, ovaries and testes — atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands. It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates. I saw hundreds of skeletal figures, specters of human beings, moving forlornly at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never gotten up. Many were the remains of entire families. In the abandoned town of Mayen Abun bats dangled from the rafters of the gutted Italian mission church. The streets were overgrown with tussocks of grass. The dirt airstrip was flanked by hundreds of human bones, skulls and the remnants of iron bracelets, colored beads, baskets and tattered strips of clothing. The palm trees had been cut in half. People had eaten the leaves and the pulp inside. There had been a rumor that food would be delivered by plane. People had walked for days to the airstrip. They waited and waited and waited. No plane arrived. No one buried the dead. Now, from a distance, I watch this happen in another land in another time. I know the indifference that doomed the Sudanese, mostly Dinkas, and today dooms the Palestinians. The poor, especially when they are of color, do not count. They can be killed like flies. The starvation in Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is Israel’s masterplan. There will be scholars and historians who will write of this genocide, falsely believing that we can learn from the past, that we are different, that history can prevent us from being, once again, barbarians. They will hold academic conferences. They will say “Never again!” They will praise themselves for being more humane and civilized. But when it comes time to speak out with each new genocide, fearful of losing their status or academic positions, they will scurry like rats into their holes. Human history is one long atrocity for the world’s poor and vulnerable. Gaza is another chapter. * Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Featured image: Let Them Eat Dirt – by Mr. Fish https://www.globalresearch.ca/let-them-eat-dirt-chris-hedges/5849245 https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/let-them-eat-dirt.html

Singaporeans stand firm in support for Palestine amidst police scrutiny Singapore for Palestine organizers assert their right to advocate for Palestine, amid police scrutiny. They emphasize their peaceful acts of solidarity and commitment to speaking up against injustices, despite facing investigations. Staff writer14 February 2024 In the wake of investigations by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) into two events held on February 2nd, the organizers of “Singapore for Palestine” issued a powerful statement on Wednesday (14 Feb), emphasizing their commitment to advocating for Palestinian rights. The SPF’s probe is centred on potential violations of the Public Order Act amid heightened tensions due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has resulted in allegations of genocide committed by the Israel administration against the Palestinians. During one event, approximately 70 individuals marched to the Istana, carrying umbrellas adorned with watermelon motifs—a symbol of Palestinian resistance—to deliver letters to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. 70 people peacefully walked to the Istana in an orderly fashion to deliver their letters to the Prime Minister. (Photo:Amrita Chandradas) This peaceful act of solidarity, which allegedly had police reports filed against it, has been scrutinized by the police for its potential to incite public disorder, especially given the sensitive location. Another event, a private gathering, saw expressions of support for Palestine, including calls to end Singapore’s military and diplomatic ties with Israel. The use of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during this event has particularly drawn the SPF’s attention due to its contentious implications. The participants in the private event advocated for stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, ending partnerships with Israeli institutions, halting all diplomatic relations with Israel, ceasing participation in the US-led attacks in the Red Sea, and calling for an end to police investigations into peaceful expressions of support for Palestine. 160 people of various racial and religious backgrounds squeezed together for the private event ‘Steadfast for Palestine’. (Photo: zack dilaroca) The organizing team of “Singapore for Palestine” has responded with fervor, underscoring their activities as expressions of “humanity and love” rather than threats to public order. “As citizens of Singapore, it is both our right and our moral responsibility to call on the Singapore state to stop fuelling Israel’s genocide in Palestine,” the organizers declared, challenging the SPF’s portrayal of their actions. They criticized the police for not acknowledging the widespread support for Palestine, including actions by students across major universities and the public wearing armbands in solidarity. “In their press release, the SPF failed to mention that on the same day, hundreds also wore armbands in the colors of the Palestinian flag, to show their solidarity. What’s more, apart from the actions we organized, around a hundred students across NTU, NUS, and SMU also organized events on their respective campuses to mourn the loss of Palestinian lives and express their commitment to a free Palestine.” In NTU, more than 40 students did a teach-in on Palestine. Highlighting the irony in the state’s actions, the organizers noted, “It is really difficult to accept that while the police required the cancellation of the public event we had planned on 2nd Feb – Show Up for Palestine – to promote peace in Palestine, they are allowing Israel to promote their weapons of mass murder at the Airshow next week.” “We are not intimidated by the SPF’s allegations. But it appears that the government is threatened by our umbrellas decorated beautifully with hand-drawn watermelons!” said the organizers in their statement. The team’s resolve remains unshaken, committed to continuing their advocacy: “We will not be silenced. As long as Palestine remains unfree, we will continue to act, speak, and show up for Palestine.” They draw attention to the grave situation in Gaza, particularly in Rafah, where over a million civilians face the threat of Israeli aggression. “We must not let Palestinians become extinct,” they implore, calling for global and local support for the Palestinian cause. In response to these developments, the SPF, supported by Minister Josephine Teo, has reiterated the importance of maintaining respectful discourse, stressing that Singapore’s laws against unauthorized public gatherings aim to preserve public order and inter-community harmony. The government maintains its stance on contributing to humanitarian efforts and seeking peaceful resolutions through international dialogue. The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on 7 October last year. On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit deaths and damage but stopped short of demanding a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide and requested the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to impose interim measures as the case proceeds, including ordering Israel to halt its offensive, allowing Gaza residents access to aid, and taking “reasonable measures” to prevent genocide. Israel has denied committing genocide and asked the court to dismiss the case, which the panel of 17 judges refused to do. And despite the ruling, Israel has since stepped up its offensive on Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians are crammed into the city. Casualties in Gaza are expected to increase as Palestinians crammed into the city are trapped between Israel’s offensive in the north and Egypt’s border, which has been said not to allow passage. Singapore for Palestine organizers assert their right to advocate for Palestine, amid police scrutiny. They emphasize their peaceful acts of solidarity and commitment to speaking up against injustices, despite facing investigations. https://gutzy.asia/2024/02/14/singaporeans-stand-firm-in-support-for-palestine-amidst-police-scrutiny/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/singaporeans-stand-firm-in-support-for.html

Singapore Police investigate two events amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded. Staff writer13 February 2024 SINGAPORE: The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is currently investigating two events held on 2 February that may have breached the Public Order Act amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and genocide in Gaza. In their statement on Tuesday (13 Feb), the SPF also emphasized the importance of maintaining respectful and responsible discussions concerning the conflict, highlighting the illegal nature of participating in public protests without the requisite permit. The first event under investigation saw approximately 70 individuals congregating along Orchard Road, proceeding towards the Istana with umbrellas adorned with watermelon imagery—a recognized symbol of Palestinian resistance. This march, potentially advocating for the political causes of other countries, has raised concerns over stirring tensions and leading to public disorder, particularly given the security sensitivity of the Istana area. A second incident involved a private gathering which was captured and shared online where a subject was seen live streaming publicly and chanting, “From the river to the sea”, and others chanting “, Palestine will be free”, in response. The participants in the private event called for stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, ending Singaporean partnerships with Israeli institutions, halting all diplomatic relations with Israel, ceasing participation in the US-led attacks in the Red Sea, and stopping police investigations into peaceful expressions of support for Palestine. SPF states, “The phrase “From the river to the sea” is associated with calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. The use of such phrases can lead to racial tensions in our society, and may be an offence under Section 298A(a) of the Penal Code 1871. We must also not condone calls for violence.” The participants in the private event, made calls for the Singapore government Reflecting on these incidents, the SPF reiterated its stance from October 2023, alongside the National Parks Board, that applications for public events related to the Israel-Hamas conflict would be systematically rejected due to public safety and security concerns. The SPF’s statement further stressed the importance of not allowing international events to disrupt Singapore’s internal harmony, pointing out the “real risk” assemblies related to the Gaza situation pose to public order and inter-community relations. In line with this, the SPF has made it clear that no permits will be granted for gatherings that risk inciting disorder or advocate for foreign political causes. Additionally, SPF noted that unauthorized posting of materials such as stickers on properties remains a punishable offence under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act. In a supportive stance, Josephine Teo, Minister for Communications and Information and Second Minister for the Ministry of Home Affairs, echoed the police’s sentiments in a Facebook post. She reassured that the advisory is not aimed at stifling expression but rather at ensuring that public discourse does not infringe upon the law or threaten societal cohesion. Minister Teo also highlighted Singapore’s proactive stance on the conflict, noting the country’s contribution to humanitarian efforts and its call for an immediate ceasefire through international platforms. The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on 7 October last year. On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit deaths and damage but stopped short of demanding a cease-fire in the Palestinian territory. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide and requested the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to impose interim measures as the case proceeds. These requested measures include ordering Israel to halt its offensive, allowing Gaza residents access to aid, and taking “reasonable measures” to prevent genocide. Israel has denied committing genocide and asked the court to dismiss the case, which the panel of 17 judges refused to do. Casualties in Gaza are expected to increase as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians are crammed into the city, trapped between Isreal’s offensive in the north and Egypt’s border where it has been said that it would not allow passage. Gutzy has checked with the organisers of the events and understands that they have yet to be contacted by the police and that the President has yet respond to the letters that were sent on 2 February. Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded. https://gutzy.asia/2024/02/13/singapore-police-investigate-two-events-amid-israels-genocide-in-gaza/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/singapore-police-investigate-two-events.html

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 129: Israel bombards Rafah, killing more than 60 in a night 67 Palestinians, including babies and children, were killed Sunday night as Israel intensified bombing in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, in preparation for a ground invasion that experts warn would amount to genocide. Leila WarahFebruary 12, 2024 A Palestinian man inspects the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip Palestinians inpect the damage in the rubble of a building where two Israeli captives were reportedly held before being extracted in an operation by Israeli forcess in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on February 12, 2024. Israeli bombardments on Rafah on the 12th killed more than 60 Palestinians. (Bashar Taleb/ APA Images) Casualties: 28,340+ killed* and at least 67,984 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147. 566 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Key Developments: Hamas’ military wing says Israeli bombing kills two Israeli captives and wounds of eight others, it is unclear where the attacks took place. CENTCOM: US carries out “self-defense strikes” in Yemen. UNICEF: Civilians in Rafah must be protected as they have nowhere to go. UN: At least 395 displaced people killed in UNRWA shelters since October 7 100 Palestinian bodies recovered from Gaza City after Israeli troops withdrew, most killed by sniper bullets. Israel says two captives rescued from Rafah in southern Gaza, claims they are in good medical condition. In the last 24 hours, Israeli forces killed 164 people and injured 200 in Gaza, a ministry statement on Telegram said. At least 67 Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in occupied West Bank In four months, 17 settlement plans for over 8,400 housing units were advanced in occupied East Jerusalem. Israel spends at least 7 million dollars on zionist Super Bowl advertisement. Dutch court orders Netherlands to halt delivery of F-35 jet parts to Israel. US Senator Bernie Sanders: “No one in Congress” should support the Biden administration sending military aid to Israel, Netanyahu’s “war machine” is responsible for an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster.” Military expert: Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers, reported Al Jazeera Dutch court orders government to halt delivery of F-35 fighter jet parts used by Israel in its attacks on Gaza, saying there is a “clear risk” that the parts being exported by the Netherlands are being used in “serious violations of international humanitarian law”. Israel ‘deports’ 51-year-old Palestinian journalist from occupied West Bank to Gaza Strip. Israel bombards Rafah ahead of planned ground invasion The Israeli military has ramped up its attacks on Rafah in southern Gaza as it prepares for a possible ground offensive on the Palestinian city, which has become one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Advertisement Watch now: NOURA ERAKAT on Witnessing Palestine with Frank Barat Rafah, which borders Egypt, is the last key city that Israeli troops have yet to enter. The area was once designated a “safe zone,” although it has been subjected to constant air attacks since Israel’s offensive began. Overnight on Sunday, the military intensified their air raid on the city, killing at least 67 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including babies and children. The strikes have resulted in significant destruction in Rafah, damaging homes, businesses, and mosques, which, according to Al Jazeera, are hosting 1.4 million Palestinians. Hamas has condemned the latest Israeli air strikes on Rafah in southern Gaza, saying they represent an “expansion of the scope of the massacres it is committing against our people,” in a press release, reported Al Jazeera. “The Nazi occupation army’s attack on the city of Rafah tonight” the group said, “is considered a continuation of the genocidal war and the attempts at forced displacement it is waging against our Palestinian people,” the group continued. Similarly, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry has “condemned in the strongest terms the mass massacres” the Israeli forces continue to commit against Palestinians, especially displaced people. “Israel is officially continuing to target civilians and transfer the war to Rafah to push the population to get displaced under bombardment,” it said in a statement released on X. “The recent massacres of the occupation are evidence of the validity of international warnings and fears of catastrophic results of the expansion of the war to Rafah,” the ministry added. The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned of “dire consequences” of an Israeli military assault on the southern city. “Egypt reiterates its complete rejection of statements by top Israeli officials about launching a military operation on Rafah, warning of its dire consequences, in light of the humanitarian catastrophe it threatens to deepen,” the ministry said in a statement. “Egypt called for the necessity of uniting all international and regional efforts to prevent the targeting of the Palestinian city of Rafah,” it added. Military expert Wassef Erekat has told Al Jazeera that an Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers. “It would be another tragedy befalling the Palestinian people, a catastrophe of epic proportions,” he said. Erekat added that in the eyes of Netanyahu, a war without an invasion of Rafah would mean an admission of defeat. “An invasion has dangerous and disastrous repercussions. Any number of scenarios can unfold: allowing the displaced back into the central and northern Gaza Strip, pushing them into [Egypt’s] Sinai, or merely bombing them further,” Erekat added. The evacuation of Rafah would be ‘unlawful’, human rights experts warn The majority of those in Rafah have been forcibly displaced several times since October due to Israel’s offensive, which has gradually expanded its invasion across the besieged enclave. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) “estimates that in total at least 395 IDPs [internally displaced persons] sheltering in UNRWA shelters have been killed and at least a further 1,379 injured” since October 7, it said in a statement. Nadia Hardman, researcher at Human Rights Watch, has said that people are already struggling to survive in the small area where they have been pushed and displaced. Hardman told Al Jazeera that people she spoke with, some of whom have been displaced up to 10 times, say they are fearful of a ground invasion of the area. “The one question they continue to ask is ‘Where do we go?’ They have fled from areas that were once considered safe. Israel’s promise to provide safe passage must be analyzed in light of the fact that it has consistently failed to do this,” Hardman said. “This evacuation would be unlawful if it is ordered,” she added. The Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, has said that the civilians in Rafah must be protected no matter what. “Civilians are pushed into a corner, living on streets or in shelters. They must be protected. They have nowhere safe to go,” Russell posted on X, adding that the area is teaming with children and families. “Rafah already has nearly half of Gaza’s population. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, people have been fleeing to Rafah following Israeli evacuation orders.” Nebal Farsakh, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) spokesperson, told Al Jazeera. “There is no safe place at all, and there is no way to evacuate. On top of that, there is a complete destruction of the infrastructure, and the lack of transportation as well makes it impossible for people to make their way anywhere,” Farsakh added. “We are asking to stop war because it has continued for so long,” he concluded. Healthcare system in Gaza continues to suffer Medical care all across the besieged enclave has been severely affected by Israel’s deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities. With the looming ground invasion of Rafah, Medical professionals are apprehensive about how the ground operation would further debilitate the already collapsed health system in the area. Jamal al-Hams, a doctor at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, told Al Jazeera that an Israeli attack on the southern city would cause endless suffering for Palestinians. “We are suffering a lot during these days because of the huge number of people who have been displaced from the northern and middle areas of the Gaza Strip towards Rafah,” al-Hams said. “Secondly, we [already] have a huge number of injured people and patients with chronic diseases and acute illnesses who have been collected from all over the Gaza Strip [to Rafah]. We are suffering from the shortage of medical disposables and drugs. Most of the antibiotics and analgesics are not available.” “We have changed the admission beds to emergency beds. The Najjar Hospital has a bed capacity of 70, and they changed it to 200 but that is still not enough,” al-Hams continued. “I don’t know what is coming but I am sure that we will suffer very much,” al-Hams concluded. “There would be no place for more injured people. There will be no bed capacity, not even for one, because all hospitals [in the south] – the European, Najjar, and Kuwaiti – are all at full capacity.” World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has described the reports of Israel’s looming offensive as “extremely worrying”. “Proceeding with the plans could have gravely devastating consequences for the 1.4 million people who have nowhere else left to go, and who have almost no place left to seek health care,” he posted on X. Moreover, the WHO chief said hospitals in Rafah in the Gaza Strip were “overwhelmed and overflowing.” “In the rest of the Strip, a majority of hospitals are either minimally or non-functional,” he added. Meanwhile, in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, sewage water has flooded the emergency department of the medical complex, hindering medical staff from providing life-saving medical care. The Palestinian Ministry of Health is calling for the protection of the hospital’s technical staff to repair the sewage network in the medical courtyard, where seven people have been shot dead by Israeli snipers and 14 others injured. Both al Nasser and Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis have been under military siege for over two weeks and subjected to constant Israeli attacks. PCRS has once again called on the international community to protect healthcare professionals after Israeli forces killed two PRCS paramedics in an airstrike on their way to rescue six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was also killed by Israel a few meters away. “According to international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, the direct targeting and deliberate killing of PRCS crews and volunteers is considered a war crime,” the group said in a statement on X. “[T]he contracting parties that signed the Geneva Conventions and are obligated to enforce respect for international humanitarian law must take the necessary measures to suppress, rebuke and punish the perpetrators.” Francesca Albanese, the United Nations rapporteur on Palestine, has also said that Israel’s escalation in Gaza has led to hundreds of casualties, more devastation, and forced displacement, defying the terms the International Court of Justice imposed on Israel, including ending incitement to genocide and improving the supply of humanitarian aid. “Israel is obligated to adhere to the court’s order and states must act decisively to prevent further atrocities,” she said. Despite growing international calls, U.S. won’t tell Israel not to invade Rafah Despite the growing international concern regarding the plans to invade Rafah, Israel is determined to go forward with the attack. Meanwhile, the US has put little to no pressure on Israel to halt their plans, aside from a verbal request, with no material pressure, to protect civilian lives. The White House released a readout after Biden’s call with Netanyahu, where the US president said: “a military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for more than one million people sheltering there.” The readout added that Biden stressed “the need to capitalize on progress made in the negotiations to secure the release of all hostages as soon as possible.” Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative told Al Jazeera that the fact that the United States president did not call for an immediate ceasefire represents a regression in US policy vis-a-vis the war on Gaza. “What I expected to hear from Biden [is something] we will never hear. His comments about the imminent Israeli attack on Rafah should have been accompanied by the United States supporting a ceasefire,” he said. “Rafah is the only area that is not destroyed completely in Gaza. Israel never gave up on its plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population into Egypt. That’s what the US president should have opposed. But he doesn’t. The US is a participant in this attack,” Barghouti continued. “For days, United States officials have been suggesting that this potential Rafah military operation would be disastrous and that it can’t go ahead, but now we have the conditions for the Rafah operation to go ahead, despite the 1.5 million people there,” Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi pointed out. As the US funded Israel’s increasing attacks, the American public tuned into the Super Bowl, where Israel spent at least 7 million dollars on zionist propaganda to be shown during the football game advertisements. Australian Senator David Shoebridge has decried the bombardment on Rafah and questioned the timing while viewers in the United States watch the Super Bowl. “The attack on Rafah happening at 2am Gaza time while the US is watching the Superbowl is utterly horrific and devastating,” said Shoebridge. “Our hearts are with the Palestinian people now more than ever,” he added. BEFORE YOU GO – At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever. Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses. Support our journalists with a donation today. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-129-israel-bombards-rafah-killing-more-than-60-in-a-night/ ☝️https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-129-israel.html

Vaccines Could Affect Mortality and Risks of Other Diseases: Study A recent review found non-live vaccines tend to increase a person’s risks of all-cause mortality, as well. Vaccines Could Affect Mortality and Risks of Other Diseases: Study (OSORIOartist/Shutterstock) Apart from potentially preventing a particular disease, vaccines may cause persistent nonspecific effects that can affect a person’s lifetime survival. In a review published on Dec. 26, 2023, in Vaccine, researchers found that non-live vaccines such as influenza, COVID-19, hepatitis B, and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) tend to cause adverse nonspecific effects (NSE), increasing a person’s risks of all-cause mortality and infections from other diseases. A live vaccine contains a weakened form of the pathogen, which is less virulent but capable of replicating in the body, thus mimicking the actual disease progression. Non-live vaccines use inactivated viruses, fragments, or genes of the pathogen to trigger an immune response without pathogen replication. Live vaccines elicit a much stronger immune defense, typically requiring only one shot, while non-live vaccines result in a weaker response, often necessitating multiple shots. So far, research has identified several non-live vaccines that cause adverse NSEs, namely DTaP and Tdap, influenza H1N1, malaria, hepatitis B, inactivated polio, and COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. The Vaccine study singled out DTaP, influenza, malaria, hepatitis B, and COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. On the other hand, live vaccines such as the oral live polio vaccine, the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine for tuberculosis, and the smallpox vaccines all have beneficial NSEs, according to the study. “Live vaccines ... elicit epigenetic alterations that train the innate immune system and increase immunity to unrelated infections. In opposition, non‐live vaccines may promote ‘tolerance’ that increases susceptibility to unrelated illnesses,” the authors suggested. The study was primarily based on decades of work from Danish researchers Dr. Christine Stabell Benn and Peter Aaby. “Our work is a tribute to their great scientific work that has not been recognized,” biologist Alberto Rubio-Casillas, one of the study’s authors, told The Epoch Times. Non-Live Vaccines Are Like ‘Ill-Prepared’ Army “Historically, we’ve thought about the innate immune system as the first line of defense,” Dr. Benn told The Epoch Times. It was thought that innate immunity couldn’t store memory. To use war as an analogy, the innate immune system’s “army” couldn’t learn from previous battles with pathogens. Adaptive immunity, on the other hand, could learn and be trained, forming antibodies to fight against the infection. Therefore, for a long time, vaccines were evaluated based on their effects on the adaptive immune system, and antibodies were measured following vaccination. However, researchers in the Netherlands have since shown that the innate immune system can be trained. After vaccinating people with the BCG vaccines and harvesting some of the patients’ innate immune cells, researchers found that after vaccination, the innate cells exhibited a more robust immune response and demonstrated improved clearance of tuberculosis, as well as other bacteria and fungi, when compared to patients’ prevaccination status. However, the opposite was shown for non-live vaccines. Thus, the innate immune system actually does learn something from its previous battles. This is called trained innate immunity. Live vaccines, which mimic an actual disease, enhance the effectiveness of the innate immune system in defending against infections. Non-live vaccines, on the other hand, weaken the immune system’s ability to fend off infections. In a TED talk, Dr. Benn compared infections to a competitive tennis match and live vaccines to a tennis coach. The tennis coach may change tactics and strategies, training the body to have “a wide variety of tricks” against the pathogen. Non-live vaccines, however, are like tennis ball machines that shoot out balls at a specific speed and spot. If a person only trains with a tennis ball machine, he or she will be less prepared for an actual match. “So you may be ill-prepared and even worse off when a real opponent enters the court, and the balls start coming and hitting elsewhere than what you trained for,” Dr. Benn said. Nonspecific Effects Some vaccines result in positive NSEs, but others may result in overall adverse NSEs. The order in which vaccines are administered also factors in. While non-live vaccines cause negative NSEs, administering a live vaccine after a non-live one neutralizes negative NSEs, Dr. Benn said. This has been shown in studies evaluating the safety of measles vaccines, which are often given at about the same time as DTP, a non-live vaccine. Studies have found that if the measles vaccine is given after the DTP vaccine, there is an overall positive effect, whereas if this order is reversed, then there is a negative effect. “It seems that effects are strongest as long as the vaccine is the most recent vaccine,” Dr. Benn said. Dr. Benn added that the BCG vaccine has long-term beneficial NSEs “in spite of other vaccines being given afterward.” The DTaP vaccine has arguably the most evidence of adverse NSEs. Girls who took the DTaP vaccine had a 50 percent higher risk of dying than boys who took it. Compared to girls who were DTaP-unvaccinated, vaccinated girls’ risk of dying was more than 2.5 times higher. Dr. Benn’s studies have generally shown that girls are at a greater risk of developing adverse NSEs after being administered non-live vaccines. Live Vaccines Replaced With Non-Live Vaccines Non-live vaccines are increasingly replacing live vaccines. For example, live oral polio vaccines are no longer available on the U.S. market, and a non-live version is administered instead. This substitution of live vaccines with non-live can pose potential health risks to the general immunity of the population, as the immune systems become less trained and potentially “lazy,” Dr. Benn said. However, the main reason non-live vaccines are preferred over live vaccines is that they’re believed to be safer for people with depleted immune systems. Since a live vaccine causes mild disease in the body, people with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome can develop a disease from the injection and may die since their bodies are unable to clear infections. Conversely, non-live vaccines comprise only disease components, so they can’t induce disease. In this aspect, the “risk of getting the real disease with the live vaccines has been seen as a bigger threat than I think it deserves,” Dr. Benn said. Research suggests that people with weaker immune constitutions because of age or chronic disease may sometimes benefit from having their immune systems trained using live vaccines. In one study involving hospitalized older patients randomized to get the BCG vaccine or a placebo, the incidence of disease among those who took the BCG vaccine was about half the incidence of disease in the placebo group. Health Authorities Still Skeptical Despite the evidence suggesting the potential superiority of live vaccines, Dr. Benn’s research has been largely unacknowledged by the mainstays of academia. “In my interpretation, whereas most researchers now acknowledge nonspecific effects, the major health organizations are reluctant to accept our findings because [the findings] imply the possibility that some vaccines may sometimes be harmful. So it is easier just to dismiss the whole thing,” she said. “The vaccine skeptics, on the other side, may find that our observations on non-live vaccines confirm their worst fears—vaccines can be harmful—but they may be more reluctant to accept the beneficial effects. And their focus on the negative effects may make the vaccine supporters take an even more rigid stance.” Immunologists now largely agree that some vaccines cause NSEs, but how these effects should be quantified remains controversial. This is because the NSEs of vaccines are dependent on context, whereas a vaccine’s specific effects are generally considered context-independent. For example, females may make more antibodies than males, and younger people more than older, but most people still get some form of immunity. “In contrast, because the nonspecific effects act on the broader innate and general immune system, they are dependent on other factors going on in the immune system ... like other health interventions that can alter and modify the nonspecific effects,” Dr. Benn said, noting that not everybody will have the same benefit. Additionally, pharmaceutical companies may be more reluctant to produce live vaccines because they’re harder to culture and manufacture. “If you have ever tried to bake with sourdough, it’s a little bit like live vaccines; they are very dependent on the temperature of the room, the water used to culture it, and so on,” Dr. Benn said. “But basically, all the live vaccines I’m talking about—they have no patents anymore, they’re super cheap to produce, and it’s some of the cheapest vaccines we have to make.” Vaccine Safety: NSEs Versus Adverse Events Though live vaccines tend to cause positive NSEs, that isn’t to say they can’t potentially cause adverse events. NSEs are considered a separate entity from adverse events, Dr. Benn said. According to her, in rare cases, live vaccines may induce the actual disease in some recipients, such as people born with gross defects in their immune systems or who have severe immunodeficiencies, such as fulminant AIDS. In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, live vaccines were likely not considered due to concerns about the formation of recombinant viruses when a vaccinated person comes into contact with the circulating viral strain. However, despite their potential beneficial NSEs, the COVID-19 vaccines may still be associated with adverse events because of the presence of highly toxic spike proteins, which studies now link to long COVID and vaccine injuries. In the medical textbook “The Immune Response,” the authors wrote that in isolated cases, live viral strains administered to individuals can regain virulence, causing disease in recipients. There’s also a risk of contamination with other viral strains during manufacturing. https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/vaccines-can-impact-long-term-survival-from-other-diseases-study-5559895