Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 06, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/6/headlines
Leader of Syrian Opposition Says HTS in Control of Hama as Groups Seeks to Overthrow Assad
Dec 06, 2024
In Syria, the leader of the powerful armed opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — a former al-Qaeda affiliate — has declared that opposition forces have taken complete control of the central city of Hama. In an interview with CNN published today, Abu Mohammad al-Julani said his group’s ultimate goal is to overthrow Syria’s authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad. Armed groups now control Hama’s military airport and were seen freeing prisoners from the city’s jails. They’ve since pushed further south, claiming “complete and rapid control” of the northern suburbs of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city. Overnight, thousands of Homs residents fled toward Syria’s western coast. On Thursday, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement pledged its support to the embattled Syrian government, which faces one of the largest challenges to Bashar al-Assad’s authority in 13 years of bloody civil war.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Syrians displaced by violence are struggling to survive amid freezing temperatures. This is Shafiqa Saeeda, a Yazidi Syrian whose family fled to a camp in northern Syria.
Shafiqa Saeeda: “We were staying in al-Shahba. They said the Free Syrian Army would enter the area. We were afraid because there were women with us. We were afraid that they would kidnap them from us. … Our baby grandson was born on the third day here. We were sleeping outside. There was no tent or anything. We didn’t find anything to eat when we got hungry, and there were no ovens to cook. The baby was born here, and we named him Afrin, after our city.”
Israeli Forces Continue Deadly Attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, Killing 4 Staff
Dec 06, 2024
The Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has again come under intense attack by Israeli forces, who stormed the beleaguered facility, making arrests and ordering others to evacuate. Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, also reports many deaths and injuries from Israeli strikes, including four medical workers who were killed. Abu Safiya, who himself was severely wounded in an Israeli attack last month, called the situation “catastrophic.”
“The Ghost of Famine Is Here”: Al-Mawasi Soup Kitchen Strives to Feed Thousands in Southern Gaza
Dec 06, 2024
In southern Gaza, a director of a soup kitchen in al-Mawasi, in Khan Younis, says many families rely solely on one meal per day from his operation, after the World Central Kitchen paused its Gaza distributions following an Israeli airstrike that killed three of its workers last weekend.
Hani Abou al-Qassem: “Now the ghost of famine is beginning to appear here in the southern Gaza Strip. These families can’t afford even the low-priced materials and have no source of food except from this charity. Families are relying on this soup kitchen as their only means, as they found their haven in it. Currently, we are serving more than 800 families, equivalent to approximately 4,000 people.”
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Amnesty International: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza with Full U.S. Support
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 06, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/6/ ... transcript
Amnesty International has released a landmark report that concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, making it the first major human rights group to do so. The nearly 300-page report examines the first nine months of the Israeli war on Gaza and finds that Israel’s actions have caused death, injury and mental harm on a vast scale, as well as conditions intended to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the United States have rejected Amnesty’s conclusion. Amnesty researcher Budour Hassan, who covers Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, dismisses the criticism and says, if anything, Amnesty’s intervention took too long because of how carefully the group gathered and verified its information. “We tried to be absolutely true to the definition of 'genocide' under the Genocide Convention,” says Hassan, who urges U.S. officials in particular to do more to stop the bloodshed. “If there is any country that has the capacity, the power and the tools to stop this genocide, it’s the United States. Not only has the United States failed to do so, it has consistently awarded Israel. It has consistently continued to flout the United States’ own laws in order to continue giving Israel the weapons — the very same weapons that are used by Israel to commit the genocide in Gaza.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In a landmark report released Thursday, Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. It’s the first time a major human rights organization has labeled Israel’s actions in Gaza following the October 7th attacks of 2023 as genocide.
This is a video released by Amnesty International to accompany its new report. “'You Feel Like You Are Subhuman': Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza” is the name of this video. It features Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard and their Israel-Palestine researcher, Budour Hassan. It begins with a clip of former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
YOAV GALLANT: [translated] We are laying a complete siege on Gaza — no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.
AGNÈS CALLAMARD: For over a year, we’ve witnessed utter carnage unfolding right before our eyes in the occupied Gaza Strip, with no end in sight. Many have described this carnage as the first live-streamed genocide, day after day. What has your government done to prevent this genocide? What have your political leaders done? What are they doing now?
ON-SCREEN TEXT: “'You Feel Like You Are Subhuman': Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.”
NARRATOR: Israel has been waging an ongoing and devastating offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip. More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands injured, nearly 2 million displaced, neighborhoods flattened, aid and lifesaving supplies restricted — all sparking an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.
The term “genocide” has increasingly been used to describe Israel’s conduct in Gaza. But how can we assess whether what is happening is actually genocide? The first treaty to explicitly define and criminalize genocide in international law was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 in response to the atrocities of World War II. To prove genocide has taken place, you need to show that one or more acts prohibited by the Genocide Convention was carried out and that it was “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” — in this case, Palestinians.
BUDOUR HASSAN: As part of Amnesty International’s research, we have documented Israel’s perpetration of three out of the five prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention since the 7th of October. These include killing members of the group, causing them serious mental or bodily harm and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. For example, this would include the destruction of essential infrastructure, including homes, agricultural land, water and sanitation infrastructure and infrastructure indispensable to the civilian population. They also include the mass repeated displacement under inhumane and unsanitary conditions. And they also include the deliberate obstruction of entry of lifesaving supplies and aid.
NARRATOR: It is clear the Israel authorities have deliberately inflicted these conditions and knew they would inevitably result in a deadly mix of hunger and disease, which brings us to the other important component of the crime: the intent to destroy.
ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Three, two, one.
PRESIDENT ISAAC HERZOG: It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not were — were not aware, not informed. It’s absolutely not true.
BUDOUR HASSAN: The racist, dehumanizing and genocidal statements call for the annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza and making Gaza unlivable. They provide evidence for Israel’s intent to physically destroy Palestinians. As part of Amnesty International’s research, we reviewed over 100 statements made by Israeli officials, and these statements clearly were echoed by Israeli soldiers on the ground.
BRIG. GEN. YOGEV BAR SHESHET: [translated] Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth — no houses, no agriculture, nothing. They have no future.
NARRATOR: Specific genocidal intent should be assessed through analyzing the most recent conflict, while taking into account a system of apartheid, a brutal occupation and the 17-year unlawful blockade of Gaza — a history of systematic human right violations built on the continuous dehumanization of Palestinians.
BUDOUR HASSAN: We have documented an unprecedented scale, speed and seriousness of inhumane acts in Gaza. Palestinians are facing overwhelming trauma and pain. We have interviewed parents digging up the remains of their children with their own hands. And we have documented the mixture of hunger and disease that has ravaged Gaza, all while the healthcare sector has collapsed completely.
AGNÈS CALLAMARD: This must stop. And for genocide to end, governments around the world must come together, and they must take action, resolute action. You must ask that they stop transferring weapons that are murdering children in their thousands and decimating entire Palestinian families. You must demand that justice be delivered, that all those responsible for the genocide be held to account. Perpetrators benefit from the inaction and the complicity of too many of our political leaders. No war criminals should ever be allowed to walk free, undisturbed, fearless. Let’s put all our instruments into action — national tribunals, universal jurisdiction, International Criminal Court. Governments must do everything in their power to end Israel’s genocide.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard, part of a video Amnesty released along with its 296-page report detailing Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the charge of genocide, describing the report as, quote, “fabricated” and “based on lies.” This is Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sharren Haskel.
SHARREN HASKEL: Amnesty International thinks that you’re stupid, because they think that in the 101 pages report that they actually produce, you will not read them. In this report, they actually altered and changed the legal terms and definition for what is a genocide, because Israel doesn’t meet those criterias. So Amnesty International had to alter it.
AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. State Department also said they, quote, “disagree” with Amnesty’s report and continue to find allegations of genocide “unfounded.”
For more on the report, we’re joined by Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Budour Hassan. She’s joining us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Budour, we saw you in this video report. If you can respond to what the Israeli government and the U.S. said, and tell us more about why Amnesty has taken this position, the first among international major human rights organizations, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Thank you for having me again, Amy.
Actually, if anything, the question that should be asked: Why did it take Amnesty this long to produce this report? Not why we have adopted this approach in the first place. And one answer to that is, if anything, we tried to be absolutely true to the definition of “genocide” under the Genocide Convention, but also to follow suit with the jurisprudence on genocide, including the main decisions taken by the International Court of Justice on what is genocide. And because we are talking about strict and narrow definitions, our report, and those who can read the legal section — and apparently the Israeli spokesperson failed to read that — will see that we absolutely adopt the definitions and the jurisprudence taken by the International Court of Justice, especially on the interpretation of what is specific intent.
And, in fact, this is why also it took us so long to produce this report, because we wanted to produce something that can be used by those who want to charge Israel with genocide. We wanted to produce strong enough evidence both for the commission of the prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention — in this case, killing Palestinians deliberately, inflicting them life-changing injuries, and inflicting upon them also conditions, destructive conditions, of life that would cause their slow death.
And we found that when we analyzed this conduct — and we based our analysis both on evidence collected on the ground through our fieldworkers, who have been working tirelessly on the ground in Gaza since the 7th of October, and also on the analysis of satellite imagery, on the analysis of all publicly available evidence that we could reach — we found that these prohibited acts were indeed committed.
And the next question was whether these acts were committed intentionally and with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians as a protected group or as such. And then we again followed the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, which is how you infer specific intent. You do infer it through two types of evidence. You do look at the pattern of conduct that the Israeli military has been adopting, which include the scale, severity and seriousness of attacks, the repetition of the attacks, the cumulative effects of these attacks, the totality of evidence that you can find on the ground. And secondly, you also look at the direct evidence, which is the statements that we heard from Israeli officials.
At Amnesty, we looked at more than 100 statements issued by Israeli officials, including 22 statements issued by high-ranking Israeli officials and military officers responsible for the war and security cabinets and responsible what is happening on the ground. We then looked at how these dehumanizing, derogatory and racist statements that called specifically for the destruction and annihilation of Gaza, for equating Palestinians in Gaza, all of them, to Hamas, and for calling for the large-scale destruction of life in Gaza — we saw how these statements were echoed by Israeli soldiers. We verified 62 videos in which soldiers appear to be echoing these statements while celebrating the destruction of Palestinian universities, mosques and agricultural lands.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go directly to the U.S. State Department, who — they have said they disagree with the conclusions of Amnesty’s report. This is an exchange between reporters Prem Thakker and Said Arikat in the State Department press briefing with State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel.
VEDANT PATEL: What I can say, as a spokesperson of the U.S. government and as a spokesperson of this administration, is that the findings of — the accusations of genocide, we continue to believe those to be unfounded. … to provide as it relates to that.
SAID ARIKAT: So, if you’ll indulge me just a little bit.
VEDANT PATEL: Sure.
SAID ARIKAT: I mean, look, we have seen almost 2 million people being forcibly moved from one place to another. This morning — this morning — al-Mawasi was bombed, an area that Israel designated as safe haven for people to go to. They bombed it. They killed 20 people. What does it take? Does it have — do the whole population of Gaza have to be annihilated for you to term it genocide? What are we waiting for on this issue, Vedant?
VEDANT PATEL: Said, I’m just not going to get into —
SAID ARIKAT: Oh, sure. Fine.
VEDANT PATEL: — this rhetorical hypothetical.
PREM THAKKER: So, we’ve seen the targeting of thousands of journalists, medical staff, humanitarian workers, infrastructure workers; the total decimation of agriculture, religious sites, homes, residential blocks; the destruction of neighborhoods, memories, bloodlines. Northern Gaza is ethnically cleansed to a great extent. Doctors, including from America, say that they’ve seen kids deliberately sniped. How many acts of genocide does it take to make a genocide?
VEDANT PATEL: So, look, I am just — I appreciate what you’re trying to do with the way that you phrased that question, but let me just say again unequivocally that the allegations of genocide, we find to be unfounded.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel responding to journalists Prem Thakker of Zeteo and Said Arikat of Al-Quds. If you can respond, Budour Hassan, as you sit there in the occupied West Bank, as you sit there in Ramallah, having just been a major part of producing this report of Amnesty International?
BUDOUR HASSAN: One question that was addressed was how long would it take for the United States to acknowledge the severity of what’s happening in Gaza. The United States administration is not only denying that a genocide is happening in Gaza, it’s denying that human rights violations are being committed by the Israeli authorities in Gaza.
And we know, Amy, probably in four or five years’ time, those very same people who are now denying that a genocide is happening, once they become retired officials, they will say, “It happened under our watch, and we did nothing to stop it.” And they will probably give speeches in which they are awarded money in order to come and say, “We knew that this was happening. We could not stop it.” And unfortunately, this has been happening so often.
And this is — if anything, it’s a damning indictment of the United States’ failure to stop Israel’s violation. If there is any country that has the capacity, the power and the tool to stop this genocide, it’s the United States. Not only has the United States failed to do so, it has consistently awarded Israel. It has consistently continued to flout the United States’ own laws in order to continue giving Israel the weapons — the very same weapons that are used by Israel to commit the genocide in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, this reminds me of 30 years ago almost exactly, when Madeleine Albright was secretary of state and Bill Clinton was president, and they were continually challenged about what was happening in Rwanda. And they refused to use that term “genocide,” because if they did — well, can you talk about what it would mean, what it would trigger, if they used the word “genocide”? And by the way, in that case, they would later apologize and say they were wrong.
BUDOUR HASSAN: But what would these apologies — how would these victims read the apologies?
AMY GOODMAN: Right. Forget the apology. Talk about —
BUDOUR HASSAN: And I think it’s not only the guilt of —
AMY GOODMAN: Forget the apology. Talk about what it would mean if they use the word “genocide.” What does that trigger internationally, in terms of the world bodies, at the U.N., and the response?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Obviously, considering that genocide is a crime under the ICC statute, and considering that we’re talking about something that is absolutely prohibited — genocide is never justifiable, not even in an armed conflict, which means that those who continue to arm Israel while it is committing genocide are guilty of being complicit. And complicity in genocide is also prohibited under the Genocide Convention. So, the States, part of why they are denying not only that genocide is being committed, but that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity are also being committed, is that they don’t want to risk being accused of complicity in these crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Budour, you are in Ramallah. You’re in the occupied West Bank. If you can talk about what’s happening in the West Bank right now, with members of the war cabinet talking about wanting to annex the whole area? What is actually happening on the ground?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Not to deflect the question, Amy, but just because this report that we worked on was not just addressed to the international community or the court, it was mainly addressed to the victims, I would just ask you to give me just a couple of seconds really just to talk about the victims.
We interviewed 212 people in Gaza, including victims of airstrikes. People who lost their entire families agreed to speak to us to share their experiences, their grief. We went back to interview some of those we interviewed way back in October and November. We went back to interview them in October this year to tell them about the report. And we saw how even a year — after a year had passed since they lost the entirety of their families, the scars of their loss never left them. One of the parents whom we interviewed again told us, “I don’t want people’s sympathy. I want my children back.” And we know that no one can really bring his children back, but he also added that “At least what we can do and what I want you to do is to fight as hell for me to get the justice that my children deserve.” This is a parent who lost his wife, all of his three children, his sister and his parents. And these stories happened all over again.
We also talked to people who face daily humiliation while they are waiting on queues for bread, for clean water for hours upon hours, people who were displaced repeatedly. Some were displaced for 12 times. And if anything, why these people would agree to talk to you is because they are waiting for justice, is because they believe that at least it is our duty to bear witness to the ongoing carnage and to name it for what it is: genocide.
Now, concerning what’s happening in the West Bank, I think all the attempts of Israel is to annex more and more land from the West Bank, including through military orders, including through designating land in the West Bank as state land. It’s part of Israel’s onslaught, and full-throttled onslaught, on Palestinian existence, on this land, on Palestinian memory, on Palestinian presence. This fight, this onslaught, takes many shapes, many forms. In Gaza, we see it in the form of genocide. In the West Bank, we see it in the form of slow but really clear dispossession and mass displacement. More than 300 households have been displaced in the West Bank since the 7th of October, 2023. But what is common between these — among this architecture of dispossession, displacement, dehumanization, be it in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, or the Gaza Strip, is Israel’s ongoing attempt, with the support of the United States, to erase Palestinians from this land.
AMY GOODMAN: Budour Hassan, I want to thank you so much for being with us and also comment that today is the anniversary of the death of Refaat Alareer. He was killed one year ago today in an Israeli strike. His last tweet, “The Democratic Party and Biden are responsible for the Gaza genocide perpetrated by Israel.” Refaat Alareer is known around the world. He was a professor at Islamic University and an award-winning poet. Budour Hassan, thank you so much for being with us, Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We will link to Amnesty’s report, which has just concluded Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. The report is called “'You Feel Like You Are Subhuman': Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.”
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“All That Remains”: As Gaza Faces Child Amputee Crisis, New Film Tells Story of 13-Year-Old Leyan
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
December 06, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/12/6/ ... transcript
Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory since October of last year has killed tens of thousands of people and wounded over 100,000 more, leaving many with life-altering injuries. The United Nations said this week that Gaza now has the highest per-capita rate of child amputees in the world, with many children forced to endure surgery without anesthesia. For more, we look at All That Remains, a new film from Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines that follows the story of 13-year-old Leyan Abu al-Atta as she recovers from having her leg amputated due to an Israeli airstrike. “It changed the trajectory of her life forever … but it didn’t even register on international media’s reporting because of all the massacres that were going on,” says Rhana Natour, director and producer of All That Remains. While Leyan’s family was able to raise awareness about her case and secure a medical evacuation out of Gaza to the United States, it did not happen soon enough, and doctors were forced to amputate her leg in order to save her life. Natour says this still represents a better outcome than what is available for most victims in Gaza. “For every Leyan that is able to leave Gaza, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who are not able to leave,” she says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We turn now to a grim statistic from Gaza. On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees per capita anywhere in the world, with many children forced to endure surgery without anesthesia. In September, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, said each day in Gaza 10 children are losing one or both of their legs.
Last weekend, after months of waiting for approval from Israel, eight injured Palestinian children from Gaza arrived in Chicago for medical treatment. It was the largest medical evacuation of injured Palestinian children to the United States.
We turn now to a new film from Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines that brings this story to life. It’s called All That Remains. It follows the story of Leyan, Leyan Abu al-Atta, 13-year-old girl whose leg was amputated after she was severely injured in an Israeli strike on Deir al-Balah, in Gaza, last December.
RAGHDA ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] Leyan was like a butterfly. She flew here and there. She was very active and didn’t like to stay put.
AYOUB ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] Leyan loves fashion. She loves to dress up.
LEYAN ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] Today I have for you a poem by Tamim Al-Barghouti.
AYOUB ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] She likes to write and recite poetry.
LEYAN ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] “In Jerusalem graves are arranged, as if they are lines of the city’s history.”
Hi, guys. I’m getting ready for school because we have a test: math.
AYOUB ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] Leyan was injured on a Saturday, December 2nd.
LEYAN ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] Check this out, people. This is after I got myself ready.
AYOUB ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] The doctor told us we had to choose between the girl or her leg.
ALI ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] What happened to Leyan weighs very heavily on me.
RAGHDA ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] To make her feel better, I tell her, “It isn’t just you. It’s this kid, that kid, that kid. And that’s just who we know.”
AYOUB ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] I took her cellphone to see what she used to film. I wanted to see how she used to be, because I was so sad for her. What touched me when I saw her videos was that she was so ambitious. She was excited about the future and loved to document everything. This made me feel I wanted to see her like she was before, not confined to a bed.
LEYAN ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] I was awake, but I felt like I was in a dream. It didn’t feel real.
My name is Leyan Ali Musa Abu al-Atta. I’m in Egypt, and we’re getting ready to go to America tomorrow.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s 13-year-old Leyan al-Atta. In this next clip from the Fault Lines documentary All That Remains, Leyan’s parents and her older brother describe what happened after she was injured in this Israeli strike on Deir al-Balah.
ALI ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] It was like Leyan was fading away before our eyes, and we were watching our hopes and dreams being destroyed.
ICU! ICU!
AYOUB ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] Her leg looked almost amputated. The doctor told us that the majority of her leg’s tendons were cut. Ten to 15 centimeters of her bones were missing.
RAGHDA ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] There wasn’t any equipment for the doctors to perform proper surgery. The doctor came out and said that the girl was in very bad condition. It was clear on his face.
LEYAN ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] I had a high fever that never went away. And my leg suddenly turned black and blue.
I can’t breathe! Enough already!
RAGHDA ABU AL-ATTA: [translated] We didn’t know what to do. The girl was dying.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s a clip from All That Remains, a new Al Jazeera Fault Lines documentary. Leyan is now in Philadelphia. She’s being treated at Shriners Hospital.
For more, we’re joined from Washington, D.C., by Rhana Natour. She’s the director and producer of All That Remains.
Rhana, this is a devastating film. Yes, it’s the story of one little girl and her unbelievable courage, but take us on that journey from the day last December when she was injured in this airstrike and then how she and her mom got out of Gaza to Egypt and ended up in Philly.
RHANA NATOUR: You know, Leyan was injured in an airstrike, in an artillery strike on a mosque that happened to be by the school where she was sheltering. And it changed the trajectory of her life forever, and her loved ones’ and her family’s life, but it didn’t even register on international media’s reporting because of all the massacres that were going on.
And after that strike, her family saw that her leg was at risk of being amputated. And they couldn’t get the care they needed, to get the medical care to prevent that amputation from happening. So, her brother, her older brother Ayoub, launched a social media campaign. He reached out to every journalist in Gaza in an effort to make a public plea to get his sister out of Gaza. And they were successful. But it was too late. Her leg was amputated because gangrene had reached up to her leg and was going to kill her if she didn’t amputate that leg.
And Leyan — for every Leyan that is able to leave Gaza, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who are not able to leave. A medical evacuation out of Gaza and her eventual medical evacuation to the U.S. for medical treatment, it’s what I call a lucky ticket for the profoundly unlucky. But it was the best shot that Leyan had at a future. It was the best shot that Leyan had for the chance, even just the chance to be able to walk again on prosthetics.
AMY GOODMAN: So, her leg was amputated in Cairo because —
RHANA NATOUR: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — gangrene threatened her life, when she got out —
RHANA NATOUR: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — of Gaza, her mother making this devastating decision to leave her other children and her husband, who remain under, to say the least, enormous danger in Gaza, but to be with Leyan?
RHANA NATOUR: Yes, exactly. These evacuations are essential, because the medical system in Gaza is collapsing. But what this does is it means that these families are ripped away from their support system at the exact moment they need it most, when they have a very sick child that needs medical treatment.
At the beginning of this journey of making the film, we thought we were following a medical journey. We wanted to know all about her treatments. And we realized soon after that this was about more than that, that this was not just about a girl who wanted to walk again, but that this was about a girl who wanted to make sure that her life didn’t go unlived, that she didn’t just languish in a hospital bed, and that this was a journey and something that changed the entire trajectory of this family.
Every single member of this family’s life changed as a result of this injury. Her mother had to make the decision. She did not want to leave Gaza, but she had to, to give — to try to save her daughter’s life, essentially. She left behind an 8-year-old boy, who suddenly didn’t have a mom. She left behind her husband, who remains in Gaza today. And we were able to document, with the help of Media Town Productions, who documented the family that Leyan left behind, this 360-degree perspective of what this injury did, because it’s not just an injury that’s physical to one girl, but it’s a traumatic injury of separation for an entire family.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another clip from your documentary, Rhana, All That Remains, where we hear from the renowned surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who spent more than a month in Gaza working with Doctors Without Borders in the early days of Israel’s assault there.
DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: So, this is a photo that I took of our operating room after I finished. And the anesthetist is waking the child up, and one of the nurses is writing the child’s name on the box that has their amputated limb. And you can see the box where the limb is in it. This is a limb that’s unsalvageable and needed amputation. This is a surgery that I did on the hand to try to salvage the limb. This is a 14-year-old boy called Amadan [phon.]. So, there are lots of reasons why I take these photographs. Sometimes the memories are so horrendous that you need to see it to believe that it did happen.
It was really the scale, so the scale of children’s amputations. Half of my cases were always children. The delay that was happening in taking patients to the operating room meant that these wounds became infected and gangrenous, and you had to do amputations to save the children’s lives. And as the war progressed and children knew of other children who had lost their limbs, they would come to the operating room screaming, “Don’t take my leg away! Don’t take my leg away!”
Children are not small adults. There’s a difference in the way you treat them. The child’s body is programmed to grow. Even the injured child’s body is programmed to grow. A child that has a war-related amputation needs between nine and 12 surgeries by the time they reach adult age. This growing child needs a new prosthetic every six months, as their body outgrows the length of the prosthesis.
This problem is so complex. So you need to create a system that ensures that these children have the most productive life possible. It is of paramount importance that we continue to plan for tomorrow, because genocide is about there not being a tomorrow. There is a tomorrow for these children. And our job is to make sure that they do not spend the rest of their lives in pain and misery as a result of this injury.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s renowned surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who spent more than a month in Gaza working with Doctors Without Borders. You can see our interviews with him at democracynow.org. But that’s from the film All That Remains, that’s produced and directed by Rhana Natour.
So, let’s talk about the number of Palestinian children who have lost their limbs. In fact, you document in a piece that you write, Rhana — you tell the story of another teenager, little young girl, named Layan also, who lost both her limbs. The Leyan who is in this documentary is at Shriners in Philadelphia right now, and Layan Albaz is at Shriners in Chicago, Rana.
RHANA NATOUR: That’s correct. And I think what — when I first started reporting on this issue, I thought that the mountain that these kids were climbing medically was getting them access to a prosthetic limb and making sure that they had specialized care from specialized doctors who would be able to make that all happen.
What I soon learned, with the story of Layan Albaz, which I document in the Atavist magazine, is that these injuries are incredibly complicated and difficult to treat in the best of circumstances, even before these specialists that are renowned throughout the entire world. And why? The reason is because, A, children, historically, didn’t typically survive these injuries, and they are surviving multiple very severe and complicated injuries.
To give you an idea of Layan Albaz, she has an above-the-knee amputation on one knee and a below-the-knee amputation in another knee. She had limbs that — she’s a victim of a blast injury. So, these limbs have been eviscerated. The limbs, the bones, the muscles, the tissue, the tendons, the skin, there’s a specialist for each of those things, because they all have to work together in order to accommodate a prosthetic.
And when she finally was able to walk on a prosthetic, I was able to witness what that therapy looks like. She’s operating basically two different instruments at the same time. She has to learn how to master two different instruments, because she has a mechanical knee on one side and she has a prosthetic that looks completely different on the other side, because the injuries look completely different. It is very, very, very difficult.
AMY GOODMAN: So, we have to wrap up right now. We have 30 seconds. The documentary All That Remains, just utterly heartbroken with the divided family. And the most — the strongest figure in this film is this little girl, is Leyan, who is comforting her mother, who came with her, her dad who’s still in Gaza, her brothers. Her spirit is astounding.
RHANA NATOUR: It absolutely is. I mean, these kids survived bombs being dropped on them, buildings falling on them, shrapnel ripping through their body. And they survived all of this, and they still have the fight to fight for their future and demand they have one. It sounds like it’s a depressing story, but I promise you it’s a hopeful one.
AMY GOODMAN: Rhana Natour, I want to thank you for being with us, director and producer —
RHANA NATOUR: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — of the Fault Lines documentary film All That Remains. And all should see it. We’ll also link to your article in Atavist called “Coming to America.”