US House awards Israel $26 Billion so it can go on Killing or Wounding a
Palestinian Child every 10 Minutes
"Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US House of Representatives voted
$26 billion for Israel on Saturday to reward it for its ongoing war crimes
against Palestinians. Some 58 members voted against the measure,
including 37 Democrats. It was the House of Representatives’ most decisive
vote of confidence in genocide since the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The US national debt is $34.5 trillion, up $2 trillion since last summer, against
a gross domestic product of $27 trillion. For the debt to run so far ahead of
GDP could cause the US economy to crash. That is, the US Congress does
not have $26 billion to give to Israel in the first place.
The enormous windfall will allow the government of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to continue to kill or wound a Palestinian child in Gaza
every 10 minutes (see below).
Israel’s bombing raids, including against designated safe areas in Gaza,
continued daily this week. On Saturday, the Israeli Air Force bombed a house
in the center of Rafah, where 1.5 million refugees have been pushed from the
north, killing six persons and wounding others. Rafah had been designated a
safe zone by the Israelis when they were trying to force people down there.
Emma Graham-Harrison writes at The Guardian, “Ahmed Barhoum lost his
wife, Rawan Radwan, and their five-year-old daughter Alaa. ‘They bombed a
house full of displaced people, women and children,’ he told Associated
Press on Saturday, crying as he cradled Alaa’s body, wrapped in a white
shroud, and gently rocked her. ‘This is a world devoid of all human values and
morals.'”
Saturday’s strikes brought the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli
military in Gaza since October 8 to over 34,000, Graham-Harrison reports.
These numbers exclude more thousands buried under rubble when Israeli
fighter-jets destroyed civilian apartment buildings. Some 77,000 Palestinians
have been wounded, 12,000 of them children (see below).
On Wednesday through Friday of this week, Israeli bombing raids killed 113
Palestinians and injured 169 Palestinians.
UNICEF said this week that 12,000 children, at the very least, have been
wounded by Israeli bombardment or other fire since last October.
That comes to 70 children injured every day, or nearly 3 every hour, one
every 20 minutes or so. Since some 13,000 children have been killed, that
means that a child has been either killed or wounded every 10 minutes.
Spokesperson Tess Ingram Ingram said,
“”I left Gaza yesterday after spending two weeks there. It was my second
mission into Gaza this year. By far, what struck me most about this mission
was the number of wounded children. Not just in the hospitals, but on the
streets. In their makeshift shelters . . . their lives forever changed by the
horrors of war.”
Half of the inhabitants of Gaza are children.
Most of the hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed by the Israeli military. Of
36, only 11 are still partially functioning, mainly as warehouses for the sick
and wounded since they lack “needles, stitches, anaesthetic.” Children lie on
mattresses or floors “languishing in pain.”
Despite the desperate need for medavac transportation of these children,
many amputees, from Gaza, only 3,500 such requests have been granted in
over six months.
Guardian News Video: “‘I can’t find food’: despair in Gaza as children face
malnutrition”
WHO says that in northern Gaza, between 12% and 16.5% of children (6-59
months) have been stricken with with acute malnutrition, and 3% of children
have severe acute malnutrition. In southern Gaza, 2-6% of children have
acute malnutrition.
Severe acute malnutrition presents with substantial muscle wasting in the
arms, unnatural thinness, and build-up of fluid and swelling in the feet. Acute
malnutrition has the same symptoms but they are less exaggerated. Even a
short bout of malnutrition leaves children with permanent cognitive deficits
and learning disabilities.
In April, 15% of the aid missions to northern Gaza and to parts of southern
Gaza that require coordination with Israel have been denied by Israeli
authorities, often on arbitrary grounds.
Because Israel cut off potable water or destroyed its delivery systems with
bombing, and because 270,000 tons of solid waste has accumulated in the
absence of hygiene services, WHO recorded 345,768 cases of diarrhea, with
105,635 cases in children under 5. In toddlers and infants such
gastrointestinal diseases can eaily lead to fatal dehydration. Without an
immediate ceasefire, a team at Johns Hopkins has predicted that 11% of the
deaths in Gaza over the next four months will be from epidemic diseases.
Israel is using facial recognition programs and drones to locate and kill the
37,000 members of the Hamas paramilitary, but at least 10% of their
identifications are wrong, and they often strike at these individuals when they
are surrounded by their wives, children, other relatives, and neighbors. Israeli
rules of engagement, the loosest in the world aside from the gangs of the
blood diamond cartels, allow up to 20 civilians to be killed with each strike at
a member of the Qassam Brigades paramilitary. Most of these members had
no knowledge of the October 7 attack, which was planned and carried out by
a small clique. The Israeli destruction of civilian infrastructure and the
imposition of starvation on the population are forms of illegal collective
punishment."
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according to CNN:
excerpt:
More than $26 billion for Israel
"The House package would provide $26.4 billion to aid Israel, specifying that
the funds are to support “its effort to defend itself against Iran and its
proxies, and to reimburse US military operations in response to recent
attacks,” according to a summary of the legislation.
The funding includes $4 billion for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile
defense systems and $1.2 billion for the Iron Beam defense system, which
counters short-range rockets and mortar threats.
It would also provide $4.4 billion to replenish defense items and services
provided to Israel and $3.5 billion for the procurement of advanced weapons
systems and other items through the Foreign Military Financing Program.
Plus, it would provide additional flexibility for transfers of defense items to
Israel from US stockpiles held in other countries and would prohibit sending
funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which
supports Palestinian refugees and has come under fire after Israel alleged
some of its staff were involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack.
Also included is $9.2 billion in humanitarian assistance – including
emergency food, shelter and basic services – to populations suffering
crises."
... wait, the US military was involved in Israel's operations against Iran?
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