Under Israel’s Oct. 13 evacuation order, 1.1 million residents are forced to flee Northern Gaza, including 19,000 pregnant women. The International Planned Parenthood Federation says that stress and shock is causing many women to miscarry, and medical supplies are quickly running out.
Gaza is home to 2 million people, 40% of whom are under the age of 15. And this is ‘only the beginning,’ as Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a televised statement. President Biden prepares to visit the country on Wednesday and 2,000 U.S. troops have been told to prepare to deploy to the surrounding region. Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. According to the Congressional Research Service, by March 2023 the U.S. had provided $158 billion to Israel, mostly for military assistance.
The Gaza strip has been labeled an open-air prison by the United Nations, apartheid by Amnesty International and a violation of International Humanitarian Law. On Oct. 7 Hamas, the Arabic acronym for what translates to the Islamic Resistance Movement, launched a surprise attack in Israel, killing 250. But the attacks on Oct. 7 were not the beginning of this crisis, as the Palestinian people have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967.
“When we look at it today, we have to look at what it was two weeks ago as well,” said Ammal Awadallah, executive director of the Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association (PFPPA). “Because what it was two weeks before today is what’s making it [even more so] devastating today.
Videos of the aftermath of the bombings have spread across social media: footage of crying infants, covered in dust and blood; a mother holding their dead baby, begging him to wake up and nurse; people banding together to feed water through a tube to a man trapped under rubble.
Restricted travel, restricted access to medical services
The Gaza Strip and West Bank are the two parts of Palestine under military occupation kept…
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