Rep. Jeff Hurd was among a group of Republican lawmakers who recently met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. The trip was organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United States.
Notably, the International Criminal Court contends that there is reasonable evidence to conclude that Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “intentionally and knowingly” deprived the civilian population of Gaza of food, water and medical supplies, including anesthesia.
Furthermore, according to the ICC, this lack of anesthesia forced doctors to perform amputations on adults and children with no safe ways to sedate them.
Dr. Mike M. Mallah is a trauma surgeon from Charleston, South Carolina, who volunteered in Gaza. In an interview, Mallah’s voice shook as he described “anesthesiologists who don’t have anesthesia who are holding people down and singing to them so that they can comfort them and do their surgery.”
And according to a doctor from Gaza, “Because of the shortage of painkillers, we leave patients to scream for hours and hours.”
The ICC, which also issued an arrest warrant for an Hamas leader, is not equating Israel with this terror group. Rather, it is evaluating Israel’s actions against the standards of International Humanitarian Law.
Terry Hansen
Milwaukee
