Eye wide shut
US Senate rejects resolution requesting information on Israel’s human rights practices
The US Senate has voted not to proceed with a resolution proposed by US Senator Bernie Sanders that would have required the US State Department to report on Israel’s human rights record.
72 senators voted for a motion to set the resolution aside, meaning the resolution won’t proceed to a vote.
Only 11 senators voted in support of Sanders’ proposed resolution proceeding. They were:
Laphonza Butler, Democrat, California
Martin Heinrich, Democrat, New Mexico
Mazie Hirono, Democrat, Hawaii
Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat, New Mexico
Ed Markey, Democrat, Massachusetts
Jeff Merkley, Democrat, Oregon
Rand Paul, Republican, Kentucky
Bernie Sanders, Independent, Vermont
Chris Van Hollen, Democrat, Maryland
Elizabeth Warren, Democrat, Massachusetts
Peter Welch, Democrat, Vermont.
Israeli PM tells US aid envoy ‘no humanitarian disaster’ in Gaza
Another meeting that happened was between the Biden administration’s envoy for the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the Israeli prime minister. For weeks and weeks, the Americans have been pushing the Israelis for more humanitarian aid to go into Gaza given the catastrophic humanitarian situation that has unfolded as a result of Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory.
In this meeting, as reported by Israeli media, the Israeli prime minister told this Biden administration official that, quote, “there is no humanitarian disaster in Gaza”. This is something we’ve been hearing repeatedly from Israeli officials.
It is a sentiment that is completely disconnected from the reality on the ground when you speak to aid agencies, when you look at the pictures that are coming out of Gaza, when you see the UN statistics that famine is just around the corner. More than a million people are hungry, 2 million people displaced, and the Israelis still not acknowledging the catastrophic and dire humanitarian situation that has unfolded in Gaza as a result of this war.
Destruction at the Maghazi refugee camp after Israeli forces withdrew from the area in Deir el-Balah, Gaza on January 16, 2024
As another major hospital gets disabled by the IDF
People flee largest hospital in Khan Younis as Israeli forces approach, doctors and journalists say
Israeli forces are moving toward the largest hospital in Khan Younis, prompting patients and people taking shelter there to flee, according to international doctors working there and local journalists capturing events on camera.
Multiple videos show dozens of people carrying blankets, mattresses and other personal belongings leaving the Al Nasser Hospital compound in the southern Gaza Strip. Women can be seen carrying children in their arms, while one man carries a boy on his shoulders. The sounds of bombardment and small arms fire can be heard in the background. Several videos show nearly explosions from likely air strikes.
An American doctor, Thaer Ahmad, one of a team of US and British doctors from the medical humanitarian non-governmental organization MedGlobal working at the hospital, told CNN the Israeli military was getting closer. "The hospital is shaking and there is panic," said Ahmad, an emergency medicine physician based in Chicago, in a voice note sent to CNN on which the sound of gunfire could be heard in the background. "So many of the (internally displaced people) around the hospital have begun walking on foot away from the hospital," he added.
Displaced Palestinians flee vicinity of Nasser Hospital after Israeli shelling
Videos verified by Al Jazeera show Palestinians in a state of panic as they attempt to find safe areas to escape to, with Israeli forces approaching the hospital in Khan Younis. The sound of shelling and gunfire can be heard in the videos, with people rushing to leave.
A man living in Khan Younis’s al-Nimsawi neighbourhood described an Israeli attack on his home, saying his house was hit while he was at home with his family. While he was able to escape, he said his home had been destroyed. “We escaped safely and we checked on everyone,” the man tells local journalist Rami Saleim. “I asked my son, ‘Go look at the house and see what condition it’s in’. He said it wasn’t there any more.”
