Freezing to Death: The Killing Continues in Winter Despite "Ceasefire"

As I escape the cold on a frosty Maryland evening in February, I'm reminded of others who are not able to take shelter in a warm home. Shelter from the weather–or from snipers and killer quadcopters.

"On the morning of 27 December, we received the body of Ahmed al-Zaharna, 35, a fellow medical worker. Ahmed, a nurse devoted to saving lives, who was found frozen to death in his tent in the Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis. He had been working tirelessly between the Gaza European Hospital and a Red Cross field hospital, offering solace and aid to those ravaged by war.
I knew Ahmed not just as a colleague but through my close friend, Hadil Nasman, his fiancée. Less than a month ago, they had celebrated their engagement – a glimmer of love amidst the ruins.
Ahmed had chosen Hadil, a 27-year-old nurse, as his partner to weather life’s storms together. Their love story was one of quiet beauty, with dreams of building a warm home and raising children in peace after the war’s end." ... Read more here.

On Day 25 of the so-called ceasefire, "Two Palestinian teenage boys, were killed on Thursday [Jan 13] in Gaza: one, age 15, was shot dead by Israeli snipers; the other, age 14, was killed when an unexploded ordnance detonated." And "Palestinian medics and rescue teams retrieved 14 more bodies from the rubble in the Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry reported on Thursday. In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in Tulkarem. ... " Read more here.

Taxpayers in the United States (that's me) pay for this slaughter and ethnic cleansing with our tax dollars. It does not seem to matter who is president (Obama / Biden / Trump / or Andrew Jackson in 1837), the U.S. chooses bombing and ethnic cleansing as its tools of choice to change the world.

Let's recall that the best book about the 9-11 terror attacks was written before Sept. 11, 2001 by diplomat and professor Chalmers Johnson, BLOWBACK: The costs and Consequences of American Empire. Hey folks, it's true: War is Making You Poor. Destroyed hospitals and universities. People hungry and displaced from their homes. Is Iran the next target? We are no different from the rest of humanity. What the U.S. government has done to Iraqis and Palestinians it will now do to us. (Note 1) Will you stand up and object? If not now, when?

Steven Sellers Lapham
Gaithersburg, Maryland

Note 1
“[L]awmakers who support a free speech exception for Israel — whether for reasons of ideology or political expediency — run the risk of shoving the country down a very slippery slope that ends in a broad assault on the First Amendment. The dangers inherent in such an assault cannot be overstated.” --Laura Friedman, “U.S. Politicians Are Backing a Free Speech Exception for Israel — & Creating a Template for Broader Assault on the First Amendment” (March 19, 2018) @LFriedman_FMEP. Friedman is President, Foundation for Middle East Peace (www.fmep.org). https://medium.com/@LFriedman_...