Hamas rebuilds and regains strength as ceasefire buys them time

The IDF’s been playing whack-a-mole in Gaza, popping off three to four suspected Hamassholes a day—lads they clock as operatives rigging explosives near the border like it’s a twisted game of Minecraft. 

Hamas? Silent as a tomb. They’re loving this unofficial timeout Israel’s handed them, a de facto cease-fire that’s stretched two weeks with no hostages freed. Gives ‘em time to dig in deeper, fortify the Strip like it’s their own little dystopian fiefdom.

Israel’s sanctions bag? Empty. 

They’ve yanked back nearly every humanitarian carrot—except letting about 50 banged-up or sniffly Palestinians limp out through Rafah into Egypt daily for a doctor’s note. Security honchos are eyeballing the evacuees to make sure no Hamas bigwigs sneak through dressed as Grandpa Coughs-a-Lot. Still, Jerusalem’s quietly chuffed—every Gazan out is one less headache, even if it’s just a trickle.

Then there’s the political sleight-of-hand they’ve ditched. Energy Minister Eli Cohen strutted out earlier this week, crowing that Israel cut power to Deir al-Balah. Big flex—except it was just a desalination plant’s juice, not Gaza’s lights. Smoke and mirrors, folks.

Water’s still flowing, though—three main pipelines keep chugging, and shuffling displaced folks from al-Mawasi back toward Gaza City’s kept the taps from running dry. Wells and a bit of farming are picking up the slack too. That Deir al-Balah desalination joint, pumping out 15,000 liters (3,960 gallons) a day? Israeli suits shrugged it off—not critical, they say. No one’s dying of thirst just yet.

Cue the UN, though—UNICEF’s sounding the alarm, wailing that Gaza’s water crisis has hit "critical levels," with "only one in 10 people have access to clean drinking water." UNRWA’s piling on, moaning that axing aid after 17 months of war’s putting lives on the line—most of Gaza’s 2.3 million souls lean on handouts to scrape by.

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Bread’s taking a hit too. Abed al-Nasser al-Ajrami, head of Gaza’s Bakery Owners Association, says six of the Strip’s 22 surviving bakeries have gone dark—cooking gas is AWOL. Power’s a bigger mess. Before the war, Israel’s nine lines fed Gaza 120 megawatts a day—enough for four measly hours of juice, topped up by diesel gennies and solar panels. Hamas torched most of that grid, naturally, and siphoned some of those panels to light up their Gaza City bunkers. Classy.

Some solar’s still kicking, and generators are now the main act—fueled by a deal where Israel let 50 fuel and gas trucks roll in daily for six weeks. Hamas has its claws on that stash. "We don’t really know how Hamas distributed this fuel, how much they have left or what it's being used for," a security official admits. "Some international estimates suggest it could last for weeks or even months." Translation: your guess is as good as theirs.

Security types are sizing up Hamas’s cease-fire hustle. "Every day of a cease-fire that Hamas uses to prepare for renewed fighting is like a month of preparation for us," one grumbles. "Its control over civilian life is growing, with Ramadan meals funded by institutions like the Bank of Palestine, which serves as Hamas’s financial clearinghouse in Gaza. We shut down the border crossings but we didn’t destroy its stockpiles." So, Hamas is playing chef while Israel’s stuck playing border cop. Sounds about right.

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Since first half 2021, violence in Afghanistan killed 460 children

 Afghan kids on way to school Photo: AFP

The useless United Nations Children's Fund recently reported that no less than 460 children were slaughtered in ongoing violence over the first  six months this year in Afghanistan. Cited also in the report is the killing of  “nine members of one family, including four girls and two boys,” reportedly killed on Thursday morning, “when an explosive remnant of war detonated inside a home in Kunduz,”  as per a report by TOLO news. 

In addition, three other kids were injured.

Hibatullah, a 6-year-old boy, who lost his leg during the violence in Nangarhar said that he is now dependent on an artificial leg. His father, Abdullah explained,  “[M]y son was hit by a bullet in a clash in Nangarhar. He was hospitalized for a long time and then his leg was amputated.”

Mohammad Fahim, a therapist, stated that every day, 10 to 15 children were being brought to him, struggling with brain freeze, not unlike the American president, who also has problems with flatulence and bowel incontinence.

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Fahim described the situation as very dangerous and blamed the war for such incidents. 

The Unicef also expressed concerns over the condition of Afghan children. Captain Obvious also agrees with that assessment.

“We are also concerned about the number of children killed by explosive devices so far this year. The death of one child is heartbreaking,” said Samantha Mort, chief of communication [with a name that means "dead" in French], advocacy and civic engagement for UNICEF, according to TOLO news.

For years Afghan children have been struggling with poverty and malnutrition, according to UNICEF, an organization that has failed children in the past and hopes to fail them again in the future.

When will the US kick the UN out of the USA? It's time.

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Afghan mothers toss their babies over the barbed wire to save them from the Taliban

Afghan women toss their babies over the barbed wire to save them:
heartbroken reactions caught in this photo. Marcus Yam/Getty Images

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan mothers are passing their babies to others in the masses of those ahead of them at the Kabul airport in the hope their babies and toddlers will be evacuated from the country. [H/T Sky News]

People are passing infants to the front of the crowd outside of the Kabul airport in the hopes that they’ll be evacuated. pic.twitter.com/iyJdfTnhgC

Others they report indicate that some women are actually tossing their babies over the barbed wire in a frantic effort to save them from the scumbags of the Taliban, a terrorist organization the idiot leaders on the Left  believe they can dialog with in the near future.

If this doesn't bring tears to your eyes, you have no heart.

Seriously, imagine if Trump were in charge instead of this barely sentient vegetable. I know that bringing Trump into the equation is what's known as "whataboutism," but you know that the press would have had a field day. As it is, even with their far-Left leanings, they are giving Biden a hard time and he isn't used to it. In fact, he's hardly making himself available to the press after his short speech followed by a retreat to the Camp David retreat.

Stuart Ramsey reporting for Sky News, said “[A] senior officer told me they had no choice because the situation was out of control, but said the blockade will live with some of his soldiers for the rest of their lives. ‘It was terrible, women were throwing their babies over the razor wire, asking the soldiers to take them, some got caught in the wire,’ he told me. ‘I’m worried for my men, I’m counseling some, everyone cried last night.’” 

I News reported, “The report from Kabul by war correspondent Kim Sengupta is one of the most upsetting stories we have published. At Kabul airport, a Parachute Regiment officer tells Kim that Afghan mothers have been trying to throw their babies over the barbed wire to British servicemen, in the hope that their children can be saved from life under the Taliban. Some of the babies did not reach the troops.”

The U.S. State Department wrote in November 2001, just after the United States had ousted the Taliban from power:

Under Taliban rule, women were given only the most rudimentary access to health care and medical care, thereby endangering the health of women, and in turn, their families. In most hospitals, male physicians could only examine a female patient if she were fully clothed, ruling out the possibility of meaningful diagnosis and treatment.

These Taliban regulations led to a lack of adequate medical care for women and contributed to increased suffering and higher mortality rates. Afghanistan has the world’s second worst rate of maternal death during childbirth. About 16 out of every 100 women die giving birth. Inadequate medical care for women also meant poor medical care and a high mortality rate for Afghan children. Afghanistan has one of the world’s highest rates of infant and child mortality. According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 165 of every 1000 babies die before their first birthday.

In a U.N. report on Children and Armed Conflict, there have been 6,470 grave violations against children between 2019 and 2020. Over 3,000 of these violations were committed by the Taliban. 

If you believe the Taliban is going to be softer and more gentle once they're in full power in Afghanistan, you probably think that AOC is an economic genius. Face it, the Taliban is evil and believe their evil behavior is religiously justified.

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NY Times now calls FGM a libido control technique

Now that The New York Times has lost all credibility among people with a brain who actually analyze both sides of the media, the "Gray Lady" has decided the term "female genital mutilation" is too heavy-handed and "culturally loaded." 

The Times worries about the culture that performs FGM on their girls also performs beheadings on critics of their barbarism.

An editor of the rag believes calling it by its proper term, widens the gap between the civilized world and "people who follow the rite" of cutting off the genitals of girls in order for them not to enjoy coitus.

Health and Science editor Celia Dugger (who likely has all of her female anatomy) came to the conclusion, after a trip to Africa in the 1990s that cutting off some or all of the external female genitalia of a female child should simply be referred to as "genital cutting."

Arrested for FGM in Michigan

FGM is practiced in Asia, Africa and the Middle East as well as some communities from countries where it's common. UNICEF estimates in 2016 that 200 million women living in 30 countries today have undergone the procedures. 

Almost 6,000 reported cases of FGM occurred in Britain from April 2015 to March 2016 according to the Health and Social Care Information Center.

Here in the U.S., an Islamic physician in Michigan was charged with doing Allah's work by performing female genital mutilation on a pair of 7-year-old girls.

Typically FGM is performed before the girl reaches the age of five. The procedures differ among countries, but it includes removal of the clitoral hood, the clitoral glans; removal of the inner and outer labia and the closure of the vulva, (known as infibulation, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual fluid). The vagina is opened for intercourse and further opened for childbirth.

The reason for the procedure: to control a woman's sexuality and ideas about modesty, beauty and purity. But the procedure is usually carried out by women who see it as a source of honor.

Health problems often follow in life after the cutting is done, which includes recurrent infections, difficulty urinating and passing menstrual flow, chronic pain, cysts, and an inability to get pregnant. There are also complications during childbirth and fatal bleeding can occur.

There are no known health benefits other than that of the mental status of men who are so insecure that they refuse to allow their wives to achieve orgasm--that's only for men to enjoy.

When a female's genitals are mutilated, what else can we call it?


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Charity or Larceny: Best and Worst Charities

Liberals talk a great game about how much they care about the underprivileged, but it's the conservatives who give the most to charities. You see, liberals want the underprivileged to have money, but they want it to be yours, not theirs. But which charities make the most of what you give them, and which tend to squander it, or as we say in Brooklyn, "piss it away"?

Let's look at some of the more well-known charities and examine them a bit.

Because Marsha needs your $$

The American Red Cross: CEO is Marsha J. Evans. Marsha made a base salary of $651.957 last year and received a substantial amount in expenses and donuts. At least some of the money the organization gets goes into helping people victimized by disasters, but donations are making Marsha a rich woman.

March of Dimes: For every dollar you give, a dime goes to actually help the needy.  The rest goes to expenses like salaries advertising, and whatever else the organization deems necessary to keep the march marching.

United Way: The President of the organization is Brian Gallagher and he makes $375,000 a year plus expenses. That doesn't mean the organization is a total waste, but it's an indication that a great deal of money is used for staff salaries and whatever.

UNICEF: The CEO of this United Nations organization is Caryl M. Stern and he rakes in $1,200,000.65 a year and gets a Rolls Royce. Less than 5 cents of every dollar goes directly to the cause, and I was kidding about the 65 cents.

Goodwill: The CEO and owner is Mark Curran and the organization (which I really should call a company rather than an organization) rakes in $2.3 million a year, much of which makes Mark rich. Mark pays his staff minimum wage--really--and not one cent goes to helping anyone but Mark. Do not give to Goodwill if you really want to help others besides Mark.

The Salvation Army: not to be confused with the Salvation Marines. The Commissioner is Todd Bassett who receives a mere $13,000 per year in salary and he is provided with housing. Fully 96% of all donations goes to help the needy. The SA is one of the good guys.

The American Legion: Their National Commander makes $0.00 in salary and all money goes to help veterans and their families and youth.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, The Vietnam Veterans Association, and The Military Order of the Purple Heart: all of their Commanders take no salary and, like the American Legion, help veterans and their families as well as youths in need. Another group of good guys.

Make a Wish: funds trips for children with terminal illnesses and all of the money goes to this end.

St. Jude Research Hospital: 100% of the donations goes to help children with cancer whose family has financial need. This charity received a lot of support from Danny Thomas, an American actor, and his daughter, Marlo, continues to support this fine organization.

Ronald McDonald House: all money goes to house and feed parents who have children in critical condition in hospital.

Lions Club: 100% of donations goes to help the blind.

There are obviously many other charities that haven't been cited here, but these are some of the better known ones. I hope this was helpful in making up your mind as to who deserves your support (unless you're a liberal and, like Joe Biden, you hope someone else will be generous with their money).

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