(NewsNation) — Israel’s struggle in Gaza is getting into its fourth month, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is within the Center East pushing for a cease-fire and the discharge of the remaining 130-plus Israeli hostages.
Inside Gaza, almost 28,000 Palestinians have died, together with greater than 11,000 youngsters. Injured children are getting assist in Egyptian hospitals, the place Arwa Damon not too long ago visited to fulfill with a few of these youngsters and their households.
Damon, founding father of the Worldwide Community for Help, Aid and Help, described the scenario there as “nothing that is superb.”
“What was fairly putting past the medical accidents that these youngsters have suffered is the psychological well being affect of all of it,” Damon mentioned Monday on “CUOMO.”
She met a boy who has misplaced the flexibility to talk and a lady who’s successfully paralyzed from the neck down, regardless of no obvious bodily damage displaying up on exams.
“It’s fairly probably that it’s psychosomatic, that means that she is trapped within the intestine trauma response that is called the freeze section,” Damon mentioned. “These sorts of traumatic psychological accidents are going to take years to get better from, plus all of the medical accidents and wounds that these children are having to deal with.”
Israeli troops have been inside Gaza for months for the reason that begin of the Israel-Hamas struggle that was sparked by an Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel that killed greater than 1,200 individuals. Greater than 200 had been taken hostage, and a few stay in captivity.
Blinken’s objective within the Center East goes past a possible cease-fire deal; he’s additionally there to debate postwar planning, whereas tamping down regional tensions.
Through the course of the struggle, humanitarian assist teams have known as on Israel to do extra to mitigate civilian casualties and permit extra assist into Gaza, whose displaced residents are going through extreme shortages of meals and water.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark believes extra might have been completed within the early phases to stop the present scenario.
“We must always have completed every thing attainable to have Gaza evacuated earlier than the primary combating started,” Clark mentioned Monday on “CUOMO.” “Couldn’t (america) foresee the tragedy that was going to happen? I actually might.”
In Gaza, in the meantime, Hamas has begun to re-emerge in among the most devastated areas after Israeli forces pulled again, a sign that Israel’s central objective of crushing the group stays elusive. Video footage from the identical areas exhibits huge destruction, with almost each constructing broken or destroyed.
Israeli Protection Minister Yoav Gallant mentioned the army would proceed to conduct operations in northern Gaza for a lot of months and press forward with its principal offensive within the south, the place it has been locked in heavy combating for weeks, till it has “full reign” over all the territory.
“Now you’ve received the case the place Israel sees Hamas as an existential menace, and the cease-fire on the unsuitable phrases if its everlasting (in making) Hamas the victor. That helps Iran,” Clark mentioned. “The survival of Hamas is a no-go, so how can we take care of this dilemma? That’s the political drawback, the army drawback that I’m positive Secretary Blinken’s wrestling with right here.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.
