The leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem warned this week the world must stop the “ethnic cleansing” of northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has imposed a brutal siege since October 5, demanding that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee south or face death.
Israel is blocking almost all food, water and medicine from reaching northern Gaza while its forces carry out deadly raids and bombardment of the area, overwhelming the remaining hospitals.
B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli says it’s impossible to watch events unfold and “not conclude that what is going on there is the deliberate pressuring by the Israeli army of the civilian population of the area to move out of this area in order to empty it of Palestinians.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Health workers in northern Gaza have been forced to postpone the latest phase of the polio vaccination program as Israel continues to carry out a deadly campaign of forced expulsion and starvation in northern Gaza. Earlier today, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israel’s actions, saying, quote, “People suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in North Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.” Doctors in northern Gaza have described horrific conditions as hospitals are overwhelmed and remaining medical staff are unable to treat the injured. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: [translated] We are talking on the 18th day of an imposed complete siege on the medical establishment in the north Gaza Strip. We appealed yesterday, the day before yesterday, and today we call on the world. The Kamal Adwan medical supply storage is at zero. We have no blood bags that we can offer to the wounded, no medical supplies or urgently needed medicine. …
Some members of our medical staff are either martyred, killed or injured. A little while ago, we received one of our colleagues who was martyred, Dr. Mohammed Ghanim. He was offering humanitarian services at one of the medical checkpoints in a shelter. The situation is catastrophic. …
We will be facing a humanitarian catastrophe if there’s no solution to this situation in the next few coming hours. The hospital will turn into a mass grave. There is a huge number of wounded people, and approximately every hour we lose one of them as a martyr. The wounded turn into martyrs due to the absence of needed medical supplies, tools and medical staff, who are either detained, wounded or martyred. …
Our medical staff and ambulances cannot get the wounded out of the street of Beit Lahia. We are talking about the wounded who manage to come to the hospital. They arrive, and we give them our services. Those who cannot come to us stay in the streets and are martyred. This is what is happening in the north of Gaza.
