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(First column, 8th story, link)
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Dr. Nick Maynard, a surgeon who has just returned from volunteering in Gaza for the past month, describes a pattern reminiscent of "target practice" visible in the injuries medical staff are treating in Gaza. As evidence grows of deliberate massacres of Palestinians seeking aid at the U.S.- and Israeli-backed aid sites, Maynard says the pattern of injuries suggests that Israeli military forces and other security contractors staffing the sites are "playing some sort of game" in their targeting of civilians, shooting at the head one day, "the abdomen tomorrow, the testicles the day after that." Because of Israel's blockade on food and medicine outside of the sparse supplies available at these dangerous aid sites, Maynard continues, normally survivable injuries have become fatal. "Because they're so malnourished, their tissues don't heal. Their immune systems are suppressed. … They often end up breaking down, causing terrible infections inside the body, and frequently these patients die."
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A second group of international activists with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition are en route to Gaza to challenge Israel's blockade. Their ship, named the Handala, launched from Italy five days ago carrying humanitarian aid desperately needed by Gaza's starving population. The Freedom Flotilla's most recent attempt to deliver aid was prevented by the Israeli military when their ship was raided and seized in international waters. Seven out of the 21 volunteers aboard the Handala are U.S. citizens, including our guest, the Palestinian American human rights attorney Huwaida Arraf. Arraf has participated in Freedom Flotilla missions for over a decade, and was a member of the 2010 sailing in which 10 activists were killed during a raid on their boat by Israeli forces. Ahead of the current mission, crew members reported two instances of suspected sabotage. "But that did not stop us," she says. "The blockade was illegal at 2008; it is illegal and deadly and part of a genocide now. … The entire world is allowing Israel — has allowed Israel to turn Gaza into an extermination camp."
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