Doctors Without Borders CEO Stunned By ABC's Bizarre Question On Gaza Starvation
Speaking to host George Stephanopoulos on ABC's 'This Week,' Doctors Without Borders USA's CEO, Avril Benoit, explained the deadly consequences of the shadowy Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – stressing that the effects of the manmade famine and weaponization of aid are negatively impacting every individual inside the Palestinian territory.
'We're also seeing people coming in with all the catastrophic injuries that you would expect in an open zone of airstrikes and continuing hostilities. They're coming in with those trauma injuries, third-degree burns to their entire bodies, children with their faces blown off – all the major orthopedic cases, the trauma,' she said.
Benoit added that the aid group's clinics situated near the three GHF distribution sites in the south receive many casualties as a consequence of each chaotic aid delivery. In addition to gunshots by Israeli soldiers and American mercenaries, unarmed civilians of all ages are crushed and trampled on from the dense crowds desperate to get what limited food Israel allows into the territory.
Despite an increasing number of voices in the international community accusing Israel of committing war crimes by weaponizing aid to displace and destroy the Palestinian people – something Israeli officials deny despite documented evidence – Stephanopoulos chose to respond to Benoit's testimony by instead bringing up a video Hamas recently released of an Israeli hostage appearing visibly malnourished.
'Airing videos like that is something of a war crime, isn't it?' Stephanopoulos asked, leading Benoit to pause for several seconds. She then answers, 'Airing the videos?' to which the host responds in the affirmative.
Benoit then acknowledges that the surviving hostages remaining in Hamas captivity are also in an 'absolutely horrific' situation, while reminding Stephanopoulos that Israel's decision to weaponize food in Gaza has starved everyone inside, including the hostages.
'If no food aid is coming in, everyone is at risk. So when you talk about my own colleagues who are eating every second day and scrounging around for food, you can imagine that everyone is,' she said.
Stephanopoulos was referring to a video Hamas released over the weekend of captive Evyatar David looking emaciated in what appears to be a tunnel, sparking outrage among Israeli and U.S. officials. David's severely malnourished appearance matches that of Gaza's own Palestinians – many of them children – who are starving to death. Some families of the hostages blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has claimed there is no starvation in Gaza.
'This is part of the problem, that the aid coming in is controlled by Israel. And that is why in this genocide, we look to Israel to have an approach that is humanitarian,' Benoit said. 'And of course for the U.S. to back what Israel is doing makes the U.S. complicit as well, it's just an obvious connecting of the dots.'
Doctors, aid workers and even former security contractors who worked for GHF have been sounding the alarmover the worsening crisis. Dr. Salgawy, an orthopedic surgeon in Khan Younis, said on Sunday that Nasser Hospital is receiving the brunt of GHF-related casualties at 400 to 500 a day, with the mortality rate in the emergency room estimated at 50%.
'It is a kind of entertainment for the soldiers,' he said of the massacres at aid sites. 'It's like a game for them … because there is no justification to shoot at hungry civilians who went there to collect food.'
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Boston Globe
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Dozens killed as Palestinians in Gaza scramble for aid from air and land
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Yahoo
5 hours ago
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Washington Post
6 hours ago
- Washington Post
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