WHO: Bodies in and around Al-Shifa Hospital decompose and should not be buried

Biden warns Israel: hospitals must be protected

US President Joe Biden said on Monday that hospitals in Gaza must be protected. The president did this in conversation with journalists, reports The New York Times. “My hope and expectation is that there will be less action around hospitals,” said Biden, who said he was in contact with Israel to convince them to implement a pause in fighting in Gaza.

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, later echoed Biden’s statements. “Hospitals must be protected, hospitals must be able to function effectively, and evacuation routes must be safe,” Sullivan said. According to the US and Israel, there is a Hamas command center under Al-Shifa hospital, something hospital officials deny.

WHO: Bodies in and around Al-Shifa Hospital decompose and should not be buried

Bodies that are decomposed and cannot be buried are lying in and around the besieged Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman said to the BBC. “The hospital no longer works as it should. It’s almost like a cemetery,” he said.

Mohamed Abu Selmia, a doctor at the hospital, told the BBC that the bodies cannot be buried because Israeli authorities do not give permission. The doctor says there are dogs on the hospital grounds that have started eating corpses. According to Selmia, seven premature babies have now died due to a lack of oxygen because the incubators in which they were no longer working due to the shortage of fuel.

A nurse at the hospital emergency room says in return for The New York Times the same. According to Jihan Miqdad, several patients in intensive care died because they were on ventilators and there was no oxygen left. “The situation here is catastrophic, in every sense of the word,” Miqdad said.

US government sued by human rights group for role in war

US President Joe Biden and his secretaries of State and Defense were sued on Monday by the civil rights movement Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The CCR says it is filing the federal complaint on behalf of several Palestinian groups and individuals.

In a statement on the website the CCR accuses Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin of “failure to prevent and complicity in the genocide” by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza. The three are said to have violated both American and international laws.

According to the group, Biden and his two top ministers have also “contributed to furthering the most serious crimes by continuing to provide the Israeli government with unconditional military and diplomatic support.” In 2004, the CCR won a landmark case before the US Supreme Court, concerning the rights of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

Canadian-Israeli peace activist killed in Hamas attack on October 7

Canadian-born Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver was killed in the attacks by Hamas fighters on October 7. That reports the Canadian CBC. Until Monday, her family had assumed that Silver had been taken hostage by Hamas. However, authorities have identified her remains.

Silver lived in Be’eri, one of the hardest-hit Israeli villages. At least 120 residents of the kibbutz were killed in the attacks on Hamas. The 74-year-old Silver was actively committed to a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For example, as a volunteer she drove Palestinians from Gaza to Israeli hospitals, her son told CBC.

She also founded Women Wage Peace, an organization that advocates for a greater role for women in the peace process in Israel and Gaza. She was also active in Israeli human rights organizations that campaigned for a peaceful society with a place for Jews and Arabs.

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