The US House of Representatives approved on Thursday an amendment that prohibits State Department officials from citing casualty figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry amid Israel’s genocidal war on the Strip.
The bill, which now awaits consideration by the Senate, has been met with strong opposition from Palestinian-American Representative Rashida Tlaib.
Tlaib denounced the decision as “absolutely unconscionable” and indicative of a broader effort to dehumanize Palestinians within the legislative body.
“Since 1948… there has been a coordinated effort, especially in this chamber, to dehumanize Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence,” Tlaib stated during her House floor speech on Wednesday.
She argued that the Israeli apartheid regime is committing a “genocide in Gaza, in real-time, and this amendment is an attempt to hide it.”
“This is genocide denial,” she emphasized.
Israeli forces targeted civil defense crews while they were at their workplace in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip last night, killing three and wounding others.
New massacres were carried out in Nuseirat, Shejaya, Rafah, and Deir Al-Balah, killing at least 11… pic.twitter.com/Kj3YxmRu4Z
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 28, 2024
“My colleagues want to prohibit our own US officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll. So let me read it into the record. Here are the latest casualties of Palestinians killed: 37,718 Palestinians, including more than 15,000 Palestinian children, and more than 86,377 Palestinians have been injured,” she said, citing figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
The amendment was spearheaded by Representatives Jared Moskowitz, Josh Gottheimer, Joe Wilson, Mike Lawler, and Carol Miller.
Representative Barbara Lee also objected to the amendment on the House floor, noting that the Gaza Health Ministry’s data is “often the only information available about what is happening on the ground in Gaza.”
“Israel has sealed Gaza’s borders, barring foreign journalists and others who can offer this reporting,” Lee said.
“The journalists and medical professionals who are there are unable to account for all of the bodies trapped under rubble and discovered in mass graves,” she added.
Many international organizations, including the World Health Organization, have expressed confidence in the accuracy of the agency’s figures, stating last month that the overall data remains consistent.
AXIOS (citing US officials): The Biden administration will release 500-pound bombs that were part of a shipment to Israel. The Biden administration is reviewing another part of the shipment, which includes 1,800 and 2,000-pound bombs.
FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG… pic.twitter.com/Tu13JDBDXK
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 28, 2024
Ongoing Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 37,765 Palestinians have been killed, and 86,429 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(PC, PressTV)
In the same way a killer hides the evidence…