The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said the Biden administration must demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to address the spread of diseases, including polio, resulting from Israel’s mass destruction of the civilian infrastructure.
According to a U.N. agency, 800 to 1,000 new hepatitis cases are reported weekly from health centers and shelters across Gaza. Lice, scabies, rashes are plaguing Palestinian children forced into overcrowded tent camps by Israel. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Development Program say that more than 1 million cases of acute respiratory infections have been recorded since the war began, along with more than half a million of diarrhea and more than 100,000 cases of jaundice.
Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid and its systematic destruction of the civilian infrastructure, and the resulting lack of clean water in Gaza, has caused the spread of these diseases, including polio. A polio epidemic was declared yesterday in Gaza. A WHO official said people had probably been infected with polio in Gaza but that detecting cases is difficult because most cases are asymptomatic.
Earlier this month, CAIR called on the Biden administration to take action to prevent the spread of polio in Gaza after the virus was detected in wastewater after the sewage system was devastated by Israel’s ongoing US-enabled genocide. Yesterday, CAIR called on the Biden administration to “break it silence” on the Israeli government’s daily war crimes after Israeli soldiers blew up a water reservoir in Gaza.
Israel has already slaughtered almost 40,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and displaced the vast majority of its population in a campaign of systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure. More than 1.8 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes by Israel.
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“The Biden administration must demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza to permit the delivery of the medical personnel and supplies needed to stop the spread of disease, particularly among children, resulting from Israel’s systematic and intentional destruction of the civilian infrastructure. Instead of sending bombs for Israel to drop on Palestinian civilians, the administration should demand the delivery of medical aid and vaccines.”
Yesterday, CAIR criticized the White House National Security Council’s weekend statement on the killing of 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights for failing to equally condemn the Saturday Israeli missile attack that killed at least 30 Palestinians, including 15 children and eight women, at a girls’ school in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, where 4,000 injured and displaced Palestinians were seeking refuge.
On Saturday, CAIR said the Biden administration is “normalizing war crimes” if it fails to react to the latest Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Last week, CAIR welcomed a letter to President Biden by U.S. medical personnel who volunteered to treat victims of the Israeli genocide in Gaza demanding an arms embargo over “unbearable cruelty” inflicted by Israel.
Also last week, CAIR demanded that the Biden administration address reports that American doctors who volunteered in Gaza experienced treating “incinerated” and “shredded” children, including children deliberately shot in the chest and head by Israeli snipers.
CAIR also called on the Biden administration to address reports that Israel is applying a racist policy to block American physicians with Palestinian heritage from entering Gaza.
On Thursday, CAIR condemned lawmakers who applauded Netanyahu’s “racist, delusional, genocidal” address to Congress.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com