 The Ukraine war has seen some major developments with the fall of the city of Avdivka to Russian forces. What are the implications of this battle? The death toll from Israel's brutal and genocidal war on Gaza has crossed 29,000. Israel insists that it will attack Rafa. There are increasing reports of the toll on health workers in the besieged territory. What are the health risks faced by Gazans? This is the daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. Russian forces have captured the town of Avdivka after Ukrainian forces withdrew. This is a major development as the battle for the town was the center of a huge conflict for many months. As the war is set to complete two years, the defeat means further complications for Ukraine and President Zelensky who are struggling to mobilize support from their allies. We go to Abdul for the latest on the war. Abdul, the fall of a very important town in Ukraine after a very long, very bloody battle and this comes as the second anniversary of the war is approaching. What is the significance of this development? Also the past few days, past few weeks, there's a new commander in chief for Ukraine. So how do you see all these developments? Well, present the fall of Avdivka, which is a major town near Donetsk, basically signifies a kind of new phase of war, which basically breaks the stagnant phase which was there since the fall of Bakhmut and the so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive which was launched at the time, which largely failed. And the fall of this particular city of Avdivka also shows that the Ukrainian forces at this moment are struggling to kind of get enough munitions, get enough forces and sorry weapons and support to basically continue their war against the Russians. And that brings us to the larger picture primarily, which is that the support which Ukraine was getting all these months. In fact, the first year of the war is basically has gradually declined in the last few months. And in fact, the US, which was the most important donor for Ukrainians for a very long time is struggling at this moment, both because there is an election coming and because the Republicans have basically taken a very strong stand that any support to Ukraine is a waste of US taxpayers' money and they basically are talking a different language altogether. So at this moment, because there is not enough support coming from the US and also the European countries, which are already struggling to basically continue their support because of the economic reasons, there are some countries who have now signed bilateral agreements with Ukrainians to provide weapons and other ammunition, for example, France and Germany, even they are not able to keep up their promises because of their own economic problems. And that has basically that is basically reflected in what is happening and now on the war front. And it seems that if the status quo continues in terms of support of the external from the European and from the US, Ukrainians will lose more territory. And that basically is the moment at this stage of the war, which is basically nearing its second anniversary. And it seems that it will continue further because there are no concrete steps taken as of now to basically resolve the conflict in any way. Yeah, that is my question that early on in the first months of the war, there was a proposal for talks, which was famously seems to have been shot down after the intervention of Boris Johnson and other Western leaders. But two years into the conflict, do we see the possibility of negotiations kind of picking up? Is there an opening over here? We know that elections are happening, so that might be a bar for many of these conversations to take place, elections in the US and Russia for that matter. But maybe after that, do we see the possibility of say some kind of negotiations taking place? See, if you read the statements given by both Zelensky in Ukraine and the Western backers of Zelensky's government in Ukraine or Zelensky's war in Ukraine, both of them have their statements do not give any confidence that they are even now ready to start any concrete steps towards peace, the kind of proposals which have come so far. For example, on Sunday, while speaking during the Munich Conference, Security Conference, Zelensky has reiterated its position, which basically has, he has continued to say repeat in different ways since, you can say December 2022, primarily saying that Russia has to withdraw completely from all the territories. And in fact, not only withdraw, basically agree, should agree to kind of pay war enumerations and should face the trial for humanitarian violations and so on and so forth. The conditions which Russians have rejected again repeatedly and said that this kind of conditions do not bring any confidence that Ukrainians are ready for peace. So if you see, since there is no change in this public stance taken by the Ukrainians or its Western backers, they continue to talk about how Russians are NAs, for example, Europeans during the conference, many conference have a large set of leaders said that Russians do not want any peace, they see Europeans as enemy. So this kind of statements coming and their refusal to acknowledge the situation on the ground, acknowledge that what happened as you rightly pointed out during the first few months of the war, when there was positive discussions, basically a kind of political bargain, which would have ended the war sooner, if such steps are not reconsidered, of course, there is no possibility of any peace in the near future because Russians are not going to accept that they are at fault completely. And hence, they have to unilaterally withdraw and face the trial and so on and so forth. That is unrealistic to assume at the first place. So that is exactly the point that there is no proposal concrete, proposal for peace at this moment. And that basically leads to the conclusion that the war may continue for a longer period, even after the elections in the US and in other parts of the world as well. Abdul, thank you so much for that update. Very disturbing and depressing situation it does seem at the end of two years. The death toll from Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has crossed 29,000, which concerns mounting over the proposed attack on Rafa. Meanwhile, more reports are trickling in of Israel's brutal treatment of health workers. These atrocities along with the relentless attack on health infrastructure in Gaza means that the health risks faced by Palestinians continue to rise. We go to Ana to find out more. Ana, thank you so much for joining us. Very disturbing accounts from the field as far as the condition of health workers, what they are going through. Activists have been chronicling them. Can you give us a sense of what some of these updates are, what some of these testimonies are? Well, of course, for the last couple of days, most of the news has been related to the attacks on Nasser hospital, which we have seen after a prolonged siege. So, and just a quick recap on that. What we have seen is that after three or more weeks of besieging the hospitals of Palomal, of Nasser, the Israeli occupying forces moved in. They hurt a lot of people in the process. They destroyed equipment. Health workers reported that everything from city scans to other radiology equipment was damaged in the process. In Nasser, what was, of course, most disturbing is that both the health workers and the patients staying inside were attacked directly. They were targeted over the course of the days. Of course, we have also seen something that's quite extraordinary when the Israeli occupying forces sent a patient who had previously been kidnapped from the hospital to ask people to move out and then shot him as he was walking back to them. Now, the news over the last couple of days have also reported that several dozens of health workers from Nasser, some reports say even 70 of them had been kidnapped by the Israelis during this process. Now, this is disturbing in many, many ways, mostly because we have seen that the Israeli army is now releasing the health workers whom they had taken before from the hospitals in the north, and they're all showing extreme signs of extreme torture. They are showing signs of going to extreme duress while they were in prison and while they were disappeared, essentially. Some of them were taken from Al-Shifa hospital, which is the biggest hospital and which we remember as one of the earlier rates and being a target of the IOF. These workers are reporting that they had been kidnapped while they were trying to move with their families down south. They had been singled out most likely because they were health workers, again, as we talked here, because they are particular targets of the IOF. Then afterwards, they had been taken to camps, stripped of their clothes, they had been kept in tent camps with hundreds of other people, and then, of course, forced to sit throughout the day on their knees for hours and hours on end. There was nothing, as they report, there was nothing essentially provided to them, which would consist of essential supplies, including hygiene, or even, you know, being allowed to go to the bathroom. So those are the things that people are now expecting to happen to those who had been taken from the central areas, and also to those, of course, who people are at this point, I think will be taken from the hospitals in the south as the Israeli army moves in on there. Right, Anna, of course, now another key question, of course, is the impact of all these kind of attacks, especially when it comes to communicable diseases, the health condition of Palestinians. So what do the reports say as of there? Well, those reports also remain, of course, worrying in many ways, again, because we do know that reporting specific numbers is very, very difficult from the ground right now because there are no supplies to essentially track them. What we are hearing from UN sources is that the communicable diseases are spreading UNRWA is very worried about the cases of diarrhea, about outbreaks of hepatitis A in Rafa. And these are, again, are, of course, you know, diseases that in normal circumstances, they can be addressed. In circumstances like the ones in Rafa, it's not possible to do that, and as a result of that, the UN has also warned that a lot of children are dying because of the diseases that can be stopped. And now, what's also adding to the worries that are being reported as the offensive move down south is that essentially one of the hospitals in Rafa is a maternity hospital. This hospital has been, again, singled out by several international organizations, including doctors without borders, including medical aid for Palestinians, because it's a key institution at moment like this. And so what the doctors from that hospital are reporting is that essentially they are sending children newborns into living conditions, which are almost certain to cause their death because it's very cold. There is no food. There is no food for the mothers, so the mothers are having extreme difficulties breastfeeding. So essentially, it's just creating a situation where not only will communicable diseases like respiratory diseases spread very easily, but the effects of the famine and the effects of the hunger will increase the effects of that and make it just more horrifying to live through. Anna, thank you so much for that update. We'll come back to you over the days as more information comes in. Thank you so much. That's all we have in today's daily debrief. 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