Quelle surprise
Aid ship’s departure from Cyprus delayed
A ship carrying 200 tonnes of food aid for Gaza remained docked in Cyprus on Sunday night due to “technical difficulties”, according to Cypriot radio (RIK). The Open Arms ship, which was expected to leave the port of Larnaca on Sunday afternoon, may not leave until Monday morning, RIK said.
Once the ship sets off, its journey is expected to take some two days. The government of Cyprus has previously said a team that includes Israeli officials will inspect the ship’s cargo before its departure.
A rescue vessel of the Spanish NGO Open Arms at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, March 10, 2024
‘Patients in dire need for blood transfusion’ in Gaza
The Gaza Strip has 1,100 patients with chronic kidney disease who need three treatments a week. Patients suffering from chronic kidney disease are dependent on life-saving dialysis treatment and that’s under threat because of Israel’s siege on Gaza.
Israeli’s attacks on Gaza have left majority of hospitals out of service. The few that remain partly operational are facing severe shortages of medicine, supplies and medical staff.
“Three members of my family must have their blood cleansed,” a Palestinian told Al Jazeera. “The journey to the hospital is a challenge. A shortage of food and nutrition and a lack of clean water all adds to our suffering. We are losing weight and hit with fatigue and exhaustion. Many patients are now in a dire need for blood transfusion, which is not available.”
How far my country of birth has fallen.
Far-right Dutch leader Wilders meets Israel’s Herzog
Netherlands’s far-right election winner Geert Wilders says he met Israeli President Herzog and pledged his full support to Israel in its fight against “terror”. Wilders, who is aiming to lead a new government after his nationalist PVV party won elections in November, has long been a staunch supporter of Israel.
“I told him I am proud that he visits the Netherlands and that Israel has, and always will have, my full support in its fight against terror,” Wilders said in a post on X. The Israeli president was in the Netherlands to attend the opening of a Holocaust museum in Amsterdam on Sunday amid protests.
Resignations at Guernica magazine after ‘genocide apologia’ article
Several members of political and literary magazine Guernica’s all-volunteer staff have resigned over the decision to publish an essay deemed as a “hand-wringing apologia for Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Palestine”, as former co-publisher Madhuri Sastry put it.
The essay, written by Israeli translator Joanna Chen, was titled “From the Edges of a Broken World”. It was retracted by the magazine, which stated: “Guernica regrets having published this piece, and has retracted it. A more fulsome explanation will follow.”
April Zhu, who was senior editor, said the article treated something “deeply abnormal” – such as “occupation, apartheid, genocide” – as a “sad, even if complex, reality”, in effect normalising it. Other resignations include Ishita Marwah, formerly a fiction editor, who described Guernica as “a pillar of eugenicist white colonialism masquerading as goodness”.
I am resigning from my position as co-publisher at Guernica Magazine.
Free Palestine. pic.twitter.com/7mF21mbne9
— madhuri sastry 🍂🍜🫖 (@Chicks_Balances) March 10, 2024
Families of captives lose faith in Netanyahu government
The families of the Israeli captives have also lost their faith in the Israeli security establishment, and in the army’s ability to return their loved ones from Gaza, according to Walid Habas, a researcher at the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies – Madar.
“The families of the Israeli prisoners are not stupid. They know the Israeli army directly participated in operations that killed more than 10 captives. It also failed to free any of them, except for two who were not in the possession of resistance groups in exchange for money,” he told Al Jazeera.
Protests within Israeli society have escalated against the Netanyahu government due to its inability to return the captives; however, they are not enough to threaten the coalition government or overthrow it, Habas said. “However, if the protests are bolstered by the larger movement that was igniting the streets of Israel in the spring and summer of 2023, the equation may change,” he added.
