Israeli Strike Kills Prominent Gaza Doctor and 8 Relatives
HAVANA TIMES – Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed at least 28 Palestinians and wounded 125 others in the past 24 hours, after Israel’s military put a quarter-million Palestinians in the city of Khan Younis under evacuation orders. Among the dead is Dr. Hassan Hamdan, head of the burns and plastic surgery department at Nasser Hospital. He was killed along with eight members of his family after Israel struck their house in Deir al-Balah. Just hours earlier, the family had followed Israel’s evacuation order and fled north.
Meanwhile, hundreds of sick and injured patients fled the European Hospital on foot ahead of another ground invasion of Khan Younis by Israeli soldiers. This is Khan Younis resident Mahdi Abu Siraj.
Mahdi Abu Siraj: “There are no other hospitals. All the hospitals were destroyed. Half of them collapsed and went out of service, except the European Hospital. And now it seems that it will go out of service and there will no longer be hospitals. Whoever gets wounded will die.”
Meanwhile:
12 US Government Officials Who Quit over Gaza Assault Urge Ex-Colleagues to Speak Out
HAVANA TIMES – A dozen former Biden administration officials who resigned their posts to protest U.S. policy toward Gaza, Palestine and Israel have written an open letter calling on their former colleagues to amplify calls for peace. The 12 former U.S. government officials write, “This failed policy has not achieved its stated objectives — it has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness.”
This week, Maryam Hassanein, special assistant at the U.S. Interior Department, became the 12th person to quit over Biden’s support for the Gaza assault. At 24 years old, she’s the youngest such resignee. In 2020, Hassanein cast her first-ever vote for president of the United States — for Joe Biden. She spoke to Democracy Now! on Tuesday.
Maryam Hassanein: “I resigned, ultimately, because I felt it necessary to advocate for Palestinians, who are, at the hands of Israel, undergoing a genocide. And with the U.S.’s kind of funding and backing and support of Israel, I felt that being in the executive branch, especially being a Biden-Harris appointee, made me complicit, made me associated with something that I most definitely don’t want to be associated with.”