Sunday, February 10, 2019
Israel kills two children in Gaza protests
9 February 2019
Israeli occupation forces
killed two protesters in Gaza on Friday, both of them children, according to Al Mezan, a human
rights group in the territory.
The deaths bring to three the
number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during the week. Abdallah
Faisal Tawalbeh, 21, was shot dead by
soldiers in the northern West Bank on Monday.
Also on Friday, Yasir Hamid
Ishtayeh, from the West Bank city of Nablus, was reported to
have died in Israeli prison, two days after the death
of Faris Baroud in his 28th year of imprisonment.
On Friday, Hasan Iyad Abd
al-Fattah Shalabi, 14, died after he was shot in the chest while 60 meters from
the boundary fence with Israel in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
Hamza Muhammad Rushdi
Ishtaiwi, 17, was fatally shot in the neck when he was 50 meters from the fence
east of Gaza City. A photo of the slain teen circulated on social media after
his death:
The boys killed in Gaza on
Friday are the fourth and fifth Palestinian child fatalities at the hands of
Israeli forces so far this year.
Thirty-eight children are
among the 188 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during the Great March of
Return protests that were launched on 30 March last year.
Ahmad Ghazi Abbas Abu Jabal,
30, died on
Sunday from injuries sustained during protests along Gaza’s northern
boundary the previous week.
During Friday’s protests
Israeli forces injured more than 100 Palestinians, including 43 children, five
women and a paramedic, according to Al Mezan.
Nearly two dozen were injured
by live fire during the protests, while nearly 50 people were hit directly with
tear gas projectiles, critically wounding one.
More than 7,600 Palestinians
have been injured by live fire during the protests since their launch.
Healthcare system in crisis
While Gaza’s healthcare system
has been in chronic
crisis for years, it has become acute as hospitals struggle to cope with
the staggering number of protest casualties.
Israeli military officials
have warned lawmakers that Gaza’s healthcare system is on the verge of
collapse, making it “difficult for the Israeli army to fight in the Strip for
long” in any future military confrontation before “intense international
intervention,” the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz reported this
week.
Israel’s top leadership have
been informed by an international medical organization that “around 6,000
people with bullet wounds are still awaiting urgent operations,” according
to Haaretz.
“Most of the wounded are not
receiving proper medical care and a quarter have developed bone infections that
if untreated will lead to amputations. At this point there is no agency that
could treat those thousands of people,” the paper added.
There are not enough doctors
in Gaza as physicians who can leave the territory have emigrated, the report
states, while hospitals lack basic medicines.
Overburdened facilities have
prioritized treating mass casualties from protests and “patients with cancer,
diabetes or dialysis needs … are simply being sent home.”
Gaza patients denied
permission to travel
Meanwhile, Israel continues to
deny or delay permission to medical patients to travel outside Gaza for
treatment.
Israeli authorities have
allowed themselves “exceedingly long processing times” when evaluating
applications from Palestinians in Gaza seeking to enter Israel or the West
Bank, according to rights
groups.
The directive under
which COGAT, the
bureaucratic arm of Israel’s military occupation, operates allows 23 business
days to process applications from medical patients; 50 business days for
applications from Palestinians who wish to visit a seriously ill relative or
attend a first degree relative’s wedding; and 70 business days for applications
from those in Gaza who wish to study abroad.
Despite these lengthy
processing timeframes, COGAT “frequently fails to answer permit applications
within the times stipulated in the directive, and often doesn’t respond to
applications at all,” according to
Gisha, a group that monitors Israel’s closure of Gaza.
One of those affected by
Israel’s “draconian” policy is Atia Darwish, a photojournalist who was hit in
the left eye with a tear gas canister while covering protests in Gaza last
December.
The injury caused “multiple
facial fractures and severe bleeding at the back of his eye, putting his sight
at risk,” according to
the World Health Organization.
“He had surgery to remove
shrapnel from the wound, fix his lower jaw and replace fragmented bones in his
face with metal plates.”
“Not an exception”
But Darwish requires further
specialized care and his vision remains impaired.
He received a referral for
treatment at St. John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem but his travel application was
still under Israeli review by the time his appointment date arrived.
“His case is not an
exception,” the World Health Organization stated.
“Of 435 permit applications to
Israeli authorities by those injured during the Great March of Return
demonstrations, only 19 percent have been approved. Those unable to access the
health care they need face a higher risk of complications and poorer health
outcomes.”
St. John Eye Hospital is one
of six health facilities in occupied East Jerusalem affected by $25
million in aid cuts from the Trump administration in Washington.
The White House cut half a
billion dollars in aid to Palestinians last year, further raising fears over
the fate of the Palestinian healthcare system.
Zoo Is Offering to Turn Your Ex Into The Cockroach They Are, And Kill Them, Too
MICHELLE STARR
8 FEB 2019
Valentine's Day. It's for
suckers, right? A Hallmark holiday designed just to part you with your money.
But El Paso Zoo in Texas can help you celebrate in a way that will warm the
cockles of your cold, black heart - and it won't cost you a thing.
In a livestreamed event called
"Quit Bugging Me", zoo staff will feed their adorable meerkats a
cockroach named after your villainous ex. All you have to do is send
them a Facebook message with your ex's first name and last initial.
Then you can load up the
February 14 livestream
on the zoo's website and cackle with vindicated glee as that miscreant
is shredded by tiny sharp meerkat teeth.
(El Paso Zoo)
"This is a fun way to get
the community involved in our daily enrichment activities," Sarah Borrego
of El Paso Zoo told
CBS News.
"The meerkats love to get
cockroaches as a snack and what better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than by
feeding them a cockroach named after your ex!"
Meerkats are a type of
mongoose, native to the deserts of South Africa, where conditions are arid and
food resources are scarce. They primarily live on
scorpions and insects - they have a natural immunity to snake and
scorpion venom - but will also eat reptiles, birds, small rodents, plants, eggs
and frogs.
They're well known for
their sentry
behaviour, taking turns to climb to a high vantage point to keep an eye out
for threats while the rest of the meerkat mob forage for food. When the sentry
barks the alarm, the mob scatters to the safety of their underground burrows.
Because of their specific
dietary requirements, the meerkats will only be fed one roach each - the bugs
are very calorie-rich, a special treat - and remaining roaches will be fed to
the zoo's monkeys.
According to the BBC, over
1,500 names have been sent in so far, so there's a chance your ex will never
see the inside of a meerkat's gullet specifically.
That's OK - the zoo is also
going ahead with a name-and-shame, posting the names to social media from
February 11. But if you want a surer bet, a few other zoos are offering
name-a-cockroach promotions too.
Hemsley Conservation Centre in
the UK will let you name a
roach for a donation of £1.50 (US$2), Bronx Zoo will let you name
a Madagascan hissing cockroach for
US$15 (and is also selling roach merch), and Zoo Boise has the service for US$10 -
although you can get a discount if you pair it with a zoo tour.
None of these zoos will be
feeding their roaches to other animals, so perhaps it's not fair to the poor
insects to have to live with the name of a miserable lowlife. That's your call,
really.
But one thing is for certain:
Valentine's Day has never been this much fun.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez Unveils Green New Deal, Nancy Pelosi Takes a Dump On It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3SciPD1Lgk
Asia's greatest threat?: Melting glaciers in the Himalaya mountains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBtQqX-fAyo
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