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Honestly, can you believe it? Only a couple of weeks after Israeli forces targeted and killed four Al Jazeera journalists in a tent outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, it happened again. This time, at least five journalists, including one who had reported for The Associated Press on children being treated for starvation at the same facility, died in a second Israeli air strike on Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, after rescuers (and journalists covering them) rushed to deal with the initial strike on the top floor of one of that hospitals buildings. All told, in fact, it seems that nearly 200 journalists and media workers of various sorts have been killed (or should the word be slaughtered?) since the war in Gaza began.
Even for wars, such figures are staggering and, of course, theyre only part of the almost unimaginable toll of dead and wounded in that remarkably small 25-mile strip of land thats been the focus of Israeli devastation since the nightmarish Hamas attack on Israel occurred almost two years ago.
And worse yet, as TomDispatch regular Joshua Frank reports today, whatever the casualty figures from that ongoing slaughter may prove to be when the fighting finally stops (assuming it does someday), it will be anything but the final count. At least it wont be if you include all of the human beings devastated by the conflict. Sadly, in some fashion, we really do need to add to that count a potential epidemic of casualties from cancer that are likely to be caused by that nightmarish war. Let Frank explain. Tom
Gazas Looming Cancer Epidemic
The Many Ways Bombs Can Kill
By Joshua Frank
A week after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, a large explosion incinerated a parking lot near the busy Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing more than 470 people. It was a horrifying, chaotic scene. Burnt clothing was strewn about, scorched vehicles piled atop one another, and charred buildings surrounded the impact zone. Israel claimed the blast was caused by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian extremists, but an investigation by Forensic Architecture later indicated that the missile was most likely launched from Israel, not from inside Gaza.
In those first days of the onslaught, it wasnt yet clear that wiping out Gazas entire healthcare system could conceivably be part of the Israeli plan. After all, its well known that purposely bombing or otherwise destroying hospitals violates the Geneva Conventions and is a war crime, so there was still some hope that the explosion at Al-Ahli was accidental. And that, of course, would be the narrative that Israeli authorities would continue to push over the nearly two years of death and misery that followed.
A month into Israels Gaza offensive, however, soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would raid the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, dismantling its dialysis center with no explanation as to why such life-saving medical equipment would be targeted. (Not even Israel was contending that Hamas was having kidney problems.) Then, in December 2023, Al-Awda Hospital, also in northern Gaza, was hit, while at least one doctor was shot by Israeli snipers stationed outside it. As unnerving as such news stories were, the most gruesome footage released at the time came from Al-Nasr childrens hospital, where infants were found dead and decomposing in an empty ICU ward. Evacuation orders had been given and the medical staff had fled, unable to take the babies with them.
For those monitoring such events, a deadly pattern was beginning to emerge, and Israels excuses for its malevolent behavior were already losing credibility.
Shortly after Israel issued warnings to evacuate the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City in mid-January 2024, its troops launched rockets at the building, destroying what remained of its functioning medical equipment. Following that attack, ever more clinics were also targeted by Israeli forces. A Jordan Field Hospital was shelled that January and again this past August. An air strike hit Yafa hospital early in December 2023. The Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in southern Gaza was also damaged last May and again this August, when the hospital and an ambulance were struck, killing 20, including five journalists.
While human-rights groups like the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, and the Red Cross have condemned Israel for such attacks, its forces have continued to decimate medical facilities and aid sites. At the same time, Israeli authorities claimed that they were only targeting Hamas command centers and weapons storage facilities.
The Death of Gazas Only Cancer Center
In early 2024, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, first hit in October 2023 and shuttered in November of that year, was in the early stages of being demolished by IDF battalions. A video released in February by Middle East Eye showed footage of an elated Israeli soldier sharing a TikTok video of himself driving a bulldozer into that hospital, chuckling as his digger crushed a cinderblock wall. The hospital accidentally broke, he said. Evidence of Israels crimes was by then accumulating, much of it provided by the IDF itself.
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