As of today, the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza is empty and burned out. Yesterday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital, threw patients and staff outside, smashed equipment, and set fire to the surgery room, the laboratory and other departments. Hospital Director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was taken into custody; his whereabouts are unknown. Other staff were arrested. Those expelled were stripped bare outdoors; any who objected were beaten.
Today the World Health Organization issued a statement from Geneva against this atrocity. The WHO intends to conduct “an urgent WHO mission” on Sunday, Dec. 29, to move some patients to the Indonesian Hospital. “The systematic dismantling of the health system and a siege for over 80 days on North Gaza puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk.”
Yesterday, the International Peace Coalition, at its weekly meeting, got a report from Dr. Nidal Jboor in Michigan, of the Doctors Against Genocide organization, on what was underway in Gaza. Dr. Adwan Safiya, before he was taken by the IDF, put out the alarm on social media, that his hospital was under siege. The IDF made its usual declaration that the doctor and others were in league with Hamas.
On Sunday Dec. 29, at noon (ET), all worldwide are invited to attend a livestream webinar sponsored by Doctors Against Genocide. Preregister for the Zoom event titled, “Global Medical Outcry: Livestream to Stop the Genocide in Gaza.”
This IDF crime against humanity at Kamal Adwan Hospital is the latest incident in a rampage by Israeli forces regionally, in Lebanon, in Syria, and in Yemen. In the U.S., it is supported by both the outgoing and the incoming government administrations, as well as others in the Collective West.
All the while, the threat intensifies for Israel to “go the whole way” and attack Iran directly, including with the prospect of U.S. tacit or outright involvement, as proposed recently by former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (2022-2024). He has personally visited the United States on regional policy this Fall. The latest talk in this direction is from Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon. On Monday, Dec. 30, there will be a UN Security Council session, at the request of Israel, which Danon says will be a platform for threats. “We intend to point out to Iran and the Houthis what happened to Hamas,” he told the Los Angeles Times, whose article yesterday is headlined, “Israel’s Next Target in Its Battle with Iran: the Houthi Rebels of Yemen.”
These threats against Iran are actually the Collective West squaring off against Russia, China and the entire configuration of nations of the Global Majority, with the prospect of escalation to nuclear obliteration. Yesterday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Beijing, meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. They issued a statement saying that, “The future and destiny of Middle Eastern countries should be determined by the people of the region themselves. The international community must respect their sovereignty, security, stability, unity, and territorial integrity.”
There is neither place nor time for anyone to “wait and see” how things work out. The genocide continues in Gaza; the destruction continues in the region. The nationhood of Syria is in shambles. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a Dec. 26 interview, that Russia is focusing on “preventing Syria from repeating the path of the Libyan state after NATO destroyed it—that country still needs to be put back together piece by piece.”
As the New Year approaches, we can best celebrate by going all out for a new world paradigm of peace and development, spreading the word through the Schiller Institute report “Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No War, No Refugees.”
Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke of the development process, in an exclusive interview with China’s Global Times, which was covered in its article posted Dec. 27, headlined, “BRI Offers Opportunities for All Nations in the Second Decade of Growth.” She terms the China BRI initiative, “one of the global cooperation platforms on the table to overcome the geopolitical divide in the world. It is also a natural and essential way to bring infrastructure development into all corners of the world as a precondition for industrialization.”
A new year poem from 80 years ago this month, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, conveys the optimism acting in mission, with good forces, for love of humanity, despite all evil. Referred to sometimes as the “New Year 1945” poem, or by its opening words, Von guten Mächten ("By Gracious Powers,") the [work](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Von_guten_M%C3%A4chten#/media/File:Von_guten_M%C3%A4chten_Autograph.jpg] was written in prison in Berlin in late December 1944, where Bonhoeffer, pastor and theologian, was being held for his resistance to Nazism. The poem, along with its Christmas greetings from prison, was smuggled out. He was put to death in April 1945, in Flossenbürg concentration camp, just two weeks before it was liberated by the Soviets.
Bonhoeffer’s poem is well known in Germany, in which the last stanza is often said as a common prayer: “And so, protected by the gracious powers, we faithfully await it [the coming year], come what may. God is with us, in the eve and morning hours, and certainly in each new dawning day.”
