[ad_1]
U.S. bases struck with drones in Iraq, Islamic Resistance says
Militants in the Islamic Resistance of Iraq attacked two U.S. bases in Syria today, the group said in a statement.
The group said it targeted Al-Tanf Base in western Syria and Al-Shaddadi in the northeast using drones in response to “American occupation forces in Iraq and the region,” as well as in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
The attacks come as Secretary of State Antony Blinken begins a fourth Middle East tour in Turkey.
Gaza’s child amputees face further risks without expert care
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza — Eleven-year-old Noor’s left leg was almost entirely torn off when her home in Jabalia, Gaza was hit by an explosion in October. Now her right leg, fitted with a heavy metal bar and four screws drilled into the bone, may have to be amputated.
“It hurts me a lot … I’m afraid that they’ll have to cut off my other leg,” she said from her hospital bed, staring at her clunky fixation device.
“I used to run and play, I was so happy with my life, but now when I lost my leg, my life became ugly and I got sad. I hope I can get an artificial limb.”
In bombed-out Gaza, a generation of child amputees is emerging as Israel’s retaliatory blitz after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attacks has led to blast and crush injuries as explosive weapons tear through densely-packed high-rise housing blocks.
Poor hygiene and medicine shortages spell more complications and amputations on existing injuries, some of which may not be survivable, doctors say.
“Many limbs that apparently had been saved, will go on to require amputation. And many (people with) amputations and limbs that we think have been saved may still go on to die of the longer term consequences,” said Dr. Chris Hook, a British emergency medicine doctor with medical charity MSF who returned from Gaza in late December.
Staff at the European Hospital in Gaza where Noor is being treated, which is running at triple capacity, cannot provide the new limb she dreams of. Even painkillers to help amputees with chronic pain are running low, staff say. Flies were buzzing around the ward when a Reuters journalist visited.
In some cases, as with 10-year-old Gaza orphan Ritash, her right leg had to be re-amputated higher up and just below the knee after it became infected, according to a U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA) aid worker Gemma Connell who met her.
“I think what I have seen would break anyone’s heart,” said Connell
Gaza has become ‘uninhabitable,’ U.N. humanitarian chief says
The United Nations humanitarian chief says Gaza has become “uninhabitable” three months after Hamas’ horrific attacks against Israel and “a public health disaster is unfolding.”
Martin Griffiths said in a statement Friday that “people are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded (and) famine is around the corner.”
And Gazans are “witnessing daily threats to their very existence — while the world watches on,” he said.
The U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet, and areas where Palestinians were told to relocate have been bombed.
The few partially functioning hospitals are overwhelmed and critically short of supplies, infectious diseases are spreading, and amidst the chaos some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth every day, he said.
Griffiths reiterated U.N. demands for an immediate end to the war and the release of all hostages, declaring, “It is time for the international community to use all its influence to make this happen.”
He said the humanitarian community is facing an “impossible mission” of supporting more than 2 million people in Gaza while aid workers are killed, communications blackouts continue, roads are damaged, truck convoys are shot at, and vital commercial supplies “are almost non-existent.”
Gaza has shown “the worst of humanity,” Griffiths said, and it’s long past time for the war to end.
[ad_2]
Source link
