 As Israel's brutal attack on Gaza enters its fourth month, the health infrastructure in the besieged territory is in complete shambles. What has been the impact on the people? South Africa's case against Israel in the International Court of Justice will be heard on Thursday. What has been the response from the international community? This is a daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button. Israel's brutal bombardment of Gaza has had a disastrous impact on the health system and health workers of the enclave. Israel has attacked hospitals and killed health workers. And the blockade it has imposed has led to a shortage of supplies and a drastic deterioration in health conditions. As this gelicidal war enters its fourth month, we go to Israel to understand the extent of the impact. Anna, thank you so much for joining us. So the impact on health care and health workers is something we have been regularly talking about on this show. It's a fourth month of Israel's brutal attack. So maybe could you first take us through what is the overall health situation, especially questions of the impact of outbreaks of diseases really on the minds of people now? Well, for the past weeks, of course, we've seen the announcements that had been coming from the WHO, from other UN agencies from very early on in the war. Now we are seeing them happen in practice. The WHO is still reporting that hundreds and thousands of people have contracted respiratory infections in the Gaza Strip. They are also struggling with diarrhea, with skin rashes, with health conditions that, you know, in standard conditions, they wouldn't be so dangerous. But in the conditions that people in Gaza are living right now, they could be deadly. This is something that has been reported and warned about not only by the WHO, but also by leading global health and public health experts from across the world. So the number of these cases has now reached so much that, of course, it's difficult to predict the extent to which it could even grow even further if there is not a ceasefire immediately. The thing that is making the situation even worse, of course, are the living conditions that people are now in. There's the increased level of hunger that's present among the people, especially among those displaced, who, of course, are the majority of the people right now. The lack of food and access to any kind of nutritious meals is ensuring that the consequences of what we are seeing right now could continue even further in the future. Some of the latest numbers that have come out of the UN agencies the last couple of days now say that all children under five in Gaza now do not have access to adequate amounts of food. So they're at risk of hunger. That would mean that in the medium term, we're talking about the generation of people who are stunted, who have experienced famine. So this, of course, it's something that's difficult even to imagine what it can mean in practice as we go on. Then, of course, if we stick to the public health situation, we're also talking about the amounts of people that are concentrating and that are finding shelter in the same space. Again, some of the latest UN data now says that UN, so UNRWA shelters are now offering shelter to so many people that over 400 share one toilet and just to scale that up in some of the worst scenarios that people have imagined, it would put one toilet to 20 people. So you can imagine the scale of which people are living right now. Right now in this context, the other important aspect has been attacks on health workers which have also continued. So could you maybe also take us through what have been the latest details from there? Of course, so since the beginning, together with journalists, health workers have been one of the favorite targets, if we can put it that way, of the Israeli occupying forces. And as hundreds of, so as over 100 of journalists have been killed, we have also seen several hundred health workers dying from the attacks. Even more have lost family members. Again, some of the latest figures show that and some of the latest reports show that MSF staff in the central part of Gaza, again, has suffered attacks from Israeli military. Some of the family members have died including a five-year-old child. So this is an ongoing attack and apparently Israel is not going to stop. Of course, we are not only talking about those who have, who were killed, we are also talking about those who have been arrested and whose situation still remains unknown. As we know, the director of one of the Al-Avda hospitals, Ahmed Mohana, has been disappeared essentially over 20 days ago. It is closing up to 25 days now. It is still unknown what his fate is and what the fate of his colleagues who were taken away with him is. This of course means that the health system in Gaza, which was already facing a shortage of health workers, of course, before the war, this latest war began. They're now dealing with an increasingly difficult situation. Some hospitals have been on an on-stop call for over 90 days now. They don't have anyone to replace them. They're being chased away from the hospital where they're trying to deliver care. And some hospitals indeed are now reporting that there are only a couple of medical workers remaining in those hospitals trying to provide care to hundreds of people. Some hospitals have said that this now means one surgeon and only two or three emergency health staff when the needs are incredibly more. This is also something that the WHO has warned that it's an immense, immense problem. And that without a ceasefire, we cannot really talk about the health system in Gaza keeping on. And then finally, also specifically important to maybe talk about persons with disability who are enduring, especially a double or triple blow at this point of time. Yes, so that's as different reports have also warned that there is now no safe place in Gaza, even so reports are now starting to come in, highlighting that the bombardments are not only killing people, they're also causing an unprecedented number of people being amputated. And this is a problem. So the amputations are not happening only because they're medically necessary. They're also happening because they are the only thing that health workers can do at this point with this amount of supplies that they have. So the starving of the health system in Gaza has meant that there is not enough medical supplies available for health workers to provide some other kind of care. Of course, we could also talk about how many orthopedic surgeons are there, how many can still work with people. But essentially what the bottom line is that doctors and nurses and other health workers are forced to amputate people, including incredible numbers of children, because there is no other thing to do. So this is something that's going to stay with the people for so long, and it's essentially something that will require even more effort in the future to rebuild the health system that can support them further on. Thank you so much, Anna, for giving us that update. Proceedings begin on Thursday on South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocidal acts. The case filed by South Africa is a comprehensive indictment of Israel's crimes, both before and after October 7th. South Africa sought emergency provisional measures to stop the killing of Palestinians. Now the global response to South Africa's case shows the kind of divisions that have emerged over the past three months, and the hypocrisy of countries to the global north. We go to Abdul to understand these responses. Abdul, as the hearings are about to begin, very important to not only look at of course the petition itself, which we talked about in previous episodes of the show, but also the kind of international support, solidarity, however you can call it that the petition has received as well as other responses. So let's maybe first take a look at some of the countries which have come out in support of South Africa's move. What has been the response to these countries? Well, ever since South Africa has filed the petition and there has been support pouring in from different parts of the world, mostly of course the countries from the West Asia and North Africa, members of the OIC, Organization of Islamic countries, which basically came in support of the petition, which also include most of the West Asian countries. One should not forget the point because there have been reports indicating that how a large number of countries from the reason have been silent on it. But that is not the case because they are already by default a member of the OIC. They have been supported the petition. Apart from that, individual countries like Turkey, these are again members of the OIC, but they have also pronounced their support individually as well, like Jordan, Turkey, and then other countries in the region, they have come in support of it. Apart from that, there are countries in Latin America like Bolivia, Venezuela, and other countries who have basically expressed their support to the petition. Apart from that, there are also countries in, say, East Asia like Malaysia, which has basically expressed support. So overall, you see countries from across the globe. Apart from, you can see the countries in Western Europe and Northern America, most of the other parts of the world have responded to the South Africa's petition in the ICJ about kind of trying Israel for its genocidal war in Gaza. Apart from this, there are different human rights organizations from across the world who have supported it. In fact, the cases which were filed in the ICC, the International Criminal Code, related to some individuals in Israel who have been, of course, in the ICC, you cannot prosecute a state. You can only go against certain individuals or the groups. So those cases have also, those people who are the countries which have filed cases in ICC have also basically tagged along South Africa's petition in the ICJ and they are supporting the petition. So it seems there is a widespread support, particularly among the global South for the South Africa's petition in the ICJ against Israel. But on the other side of the coin, we have those who have responded, either refused to respond or responded in very hostile but not necessarily very surprising ways. So maybe could you take us to some of those countries you were talking about, especially countries of the global North? Among all of them, of course, the U.S. is the primary. You can say actor, because what its stand is, most of the countries in Western Europe will basically imitate that stand. And if you see the press conferences held by the U.S. spokesperson, officials, basically, and even Antly Blinken, when he was visiting West Asia, apparently to basically find out solutions to the war in Gaza, he, what his response had been, is completely dismissing the claims, the merit of the case, saying that none of these is true. In fact, the 85 pages the South Africa has submitted, also include the fact that it includes the statements officially given by Israeli high officials about how Palestinians need to vacate Gaza, how Palestinians are compared with animals, how the blockade on food and other essential commodities has been repeated, and how the killing of children and innocent civilians have been justified, attacks on hospitals have been justified, and so on and so forth. All those statements, those are in public domain, despite, and they're also included in the petition. Despite these facts glaring in front of everyone, the U.S. has basically completely said that the South Africa case has no merit. That basically shows and reluctance to admit certain facts and basically to continue kind of campaigning for Israel's fictional right to self-defense and basically put all the blames on Palestinians which are occupied people. The similar, of course, most of the European countries have not responded to it. In fact, the UK foreign minister, David Cameron, basically said that though he hinted that there can be some violations of international law by the Israelis in Gaza, but he of course had not completely said that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide, and he can't do, of course, because UK being the closest U.S. ally. Other countries, France, Germany and others, they have not responded to the petition. They have kept a strategic silence, of course, but one can guess where their stand lies. They basically are not in favor of the petition, and they will most likely oppose it wherever possible. Thank you so much, Abdul for the update. And that's all we have in today's episode. We'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow. Do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org. Follow us on all the social media platforms. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button.