Since the dawn of COVID and the widespread rollout of the injections, chronic fatigue has surged in parallel. Millions have reported persistent exhaustion, exercise intolerance, and physical depletion long after recovery or vaccination
Yet despite the consistency of these reported symptoms, the condition remains under-researched and neglected.
This new article, co-authored by Independent Medical Alliance Director of Research Matthew Halma and IMA Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Varon, adds critical weight to the evidence.
Alongside recent studies published in Advances in Virology, Heliyon, and Frontiers in Medicine, it contributes to a growing body of research linking patient-reported fatigue to measurable biological dysfunction.
Together, these studies mark a pivotal year for research into Post-Acute COVID-19 Vaccination Syndrome (PACVS), a condition increasingly defined by both symptoms and science.
Fatigue is one of the most common (and most misunderstood) symptoms
reported by patients with PACVS. But this isn’t just about feeling
tired. It’s about a cellular-level energy collapse that leaves patients
unable to perform basic activities without profound exhaustion.
This new review by Halma and Varon sheds light on why. Published in the Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy
the article highlights research that used 31P-magnetic resonance
spectroscopy (MRS) to peer inside muscle cells and found what many
patients already knew: the energy just isn’t there.
About the Study
Fatigue has been one of the most common and frustrating symptoms
reported by people with PACVS. But until now, it has been hard to
explain exactly why it happens. This study offers new clarity.
It shows that patients reach their lactate threshold earlier and burn
fat less efficiently during physical activity, both signs that their
energy systems are under stress. These changes were directly linked to
symptom severity and reduced exercise tolerance.
The takeaway? Fatigue in PACVS is not subjective. It’s measurable, biologically grounded, and increasingly understood.
Muscle Memory: What Mitochondrial Dysfunction Means
Mitochondria are the body’s energy producers. When they falter, muscles struggle to sustain activity and recover properly.
In this study, PACVS patients showed a lower lactate threshold,
reduced fat oxidation, and diminished ATP production: clear signs of
impaired energy metabolism. These disruptions align closely with patient
reports of post-exertional crashes, cognitive fog, and a body that
doesn’t bounce back.
One long COVID study offers a helpful visual model for how these
mechanisms may function. The figure below illustrates contributing
factors such as oxygen shortages, metabolic deconditioning, altered
nervous system signaling, immune activation, and central fatigue.
Together, they help make sense of what PACVS patients are experiencing.
Why This Changes the Game
By compiling evidence of mitochondrial dysfunction, this review
points to a physiological target linked to the symptoms patients have
long described.
That opens the door to focused therapeutics:
Mitochondrial support (e.g. CoQ10, L-carnitine, creatine, D-ribose,
nicotinamide riboside, alpha-lipoic acid, and B-complex vitamins)
Targeted rehabilitation focused on restoring energy pathways
Biomarker tracking to monitor response
It also helps shift the conversation—from asking if the condition is real to understanding what drives it.
“The persistence of impaired muscle energetics suggests a
need for targeted rehabilitation strategies aimed at restoring
mitochondrial function.” — Study authors
IMA’s Mission: From Science to Care
This paper aligns with IMA’s commitment to accelerating recognition,
diagnosis, and treatment for Post-Acute COVID-19 Vaccination Syndrome
(PACVS). It complements recent research on:
Whether it is signed or not, the agreement between the United States and Iran will not be fulfilled under any circumstances, leading to a permanent state of “low-intensity warfare.” The United States has not only lost the war but also its hegemony in a strategic region like the Middle East, a situation to which it will not resign itself.
Historical experience is conclusive on this point: after the Iran hostage crisis, the United States signed the Algiers Accords in 1981, which it never honored.
In that agreement, the United States committed to not interfering politically or militarily in Iran's internal affairs and to lifting the embargo on Iranian assets, as well as the sanctions.
Given this non-compliance, Iran has copied those agreements in the new ones, almost verbatim.
It is also doubtful that the sanctions will be lifted, although it is possible that some of them will be eased.
In any case, the memorandum of understanding confirms that the United States has not achieved any of the objectives it had in mind when it launched the war. Iran’s sovereign rights to continue uranium enrichment have been recognized, albeit with ambiguous wording: 30 days after the signing, 60 days of discussions on uranium will begin in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal will remain unrestricted. Its relations with Hezbollah and other forces of the “axis of resistance” have been strengthened and will continue. The Gulf Arab states are distancing themselves from their former protector and seeking to improve their relations with Iran.
Vice President J.D. Vance has confirmed that Iran will receive $300 billion for reconstruction. “It’s the kind of resources they could have access to, provided they fulfill their part of the obligation,” he commented.
More importantly, Iran has secured the right to jointly control the Strait of Hormuz with Oman through an addition to Article 5 of the memorandum.
In an attempt to sabotage the agreement, Israel launched an attack on Beirut, and Iran immediately withdrew from the memorandum of understanding and announced retaliatory attacks against Israeli territory.
In turn, Trump publicly condemned Netanyahu for the attack on Lebanon, and Iran called off its retaliatory strikes. Trump, who was extremely keen on the memorandum of understanding being signed, had to make additional concessions. One of these guaranteed “the sovereignty and respect for the territorial integrity of Lebanon,” which Trump had not accepted in previous versions.
The United Arab Emirates pays Iran $3 billion
In the final skirmishes of the Ramadan War, the United Arab Emirates, Israel’s most loyal pawn in the Gulf, had not suffered Iranian attacks, unlike Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain.
This was in exchange for a payment of $3 billion. The Gulf state had taken the most forceful stance against Iran, pressuring the United States to continue the war against Iran, but was simultaneously negotiating a price.
The payment could reach $10 billion, and some sources told Reuters that it will eventually pay $20 billion.
The disbursement illustrates the significant shift the Middle East war has brought about. The United Arab Emirates joined the United States and Israel in carrying out dozens of attacks against Iran. They also tried to prevent Pakistan from acting as a mediator to broker a ceasefire.
Saudi Arabia had to grant Islamabad a new loan after the UAE demanded repayment of its debt as a sanction for hosting the meetings.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is Welcomed
Last week, the United Arab Emirates welcomed members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for a meeting with Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security advisor and deputy governor of Abu Dhabi.
This week, the UAE also sent diplomats to participate in face-to-face talks with senior Iranian officials to reduce tensions, according to Bloomberg. The meeting appears to have been held in Tehran to avert an attack on the UAE.
It is unclear whether the compensation paid to Iran came from accounts linked to Tehran, which Abu Dhabi had frozen, or from Emirati sovereign wealth funds.
A Financial Hub for Iran
For decades, the UAE has been a financial hub for Iran, illustrating that business between the two countries transcended political rivalry. Iranians are major players in the UAE's real estate market.
After the start of the war against Iran, the United Arab Emirates threatened to freeze billions of dollars linked to Iran, but there was never any public confirmation that they carried out their threat.
The agreement between the two countries would allow Iran to secure the compensation it demanded in exchange for a ceasefire, while allowing Trump to pretend that he has not paid Iran a single cent.
A former
Iranian diplomat says the finalized memorandum of understanding (MoU)
reached between Iran and the United States is a “great victory” for
Tehran as Washington failed to achieve its war aims.
Speaking to the Press TV
website on Monday, hours after the MoU was finalized, Seyyed Jalal
Sadatian, a veteran Iranian diplomat, reflected on the agreement that
brought an end to months of war following the unprovoked US-Israeli
aggression on Iran.
"This is, in my view, a great
victory, achieved through the unity of the people, their serious
support, battlefield strength, and the alignment of diplomacy and media
with that effort," said Sadatian.
The MoU, finalised in the early
hours of Monday and set to be officially signed in Geneva on
Friday, followed intensive negotiations in Islamabad mediated by
Pakistan and Qatar.
It mandates an immediate and permanent halt to
war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and also ends the illegal US
naval blockade against Iran.
Iran's top security body says MoU to end war on all fronts, lift US naval blockadehttps://t.co/Wx8F0eLaw3
Sadatian noted that the document
serves as a ledger of American failure in the face of indomitable
Iranian resistance and resilience.
He outlined several dimensions
of Iran's decisive win. Chief among them, Washington's core objective of
using coordinated military aggression to engineer “regime change” and
install a “puppet government” in Tehran, which failed to materialize.
"They
were forced, under various pressures, to accept Iran's existing
government and to agree not just to a ceasefire but to an end of war,"
the seasoned diplomat told the Press TV website.
Having
been drawn into the war under Israeli pressure, Trump is now "ordering
Israel not to make a wrong move," Sadatian noted, adding that this shift
alone carries significant weight.
The former diplomat highlighted
that the imposed war inflicted lasting damage on American “credibility,
its global image and its posture as a superpower.”
✍️ Analysis - How Iran turned battlefield gains and regional power into strategic postwar leverage against US
He noted that
Trump's domestic popularity had fallen sharply, and that US economic
pressure had spread across multiple continents, from American households
to South Korea, Japan, India, and European nations.
"Taken
together," Sadatian said, "despite his contradictory and agitated
statements, he has ultimately been compelled to submit and accept these
realities."
Leverage of the Strait of Hormuz
On
the question of the Strait of Hormuz, Sadatian dismissed American
claims of having secured its reopening as a diplomatic achievement,
pointing out that the Strait was open before the war began. The framing,
he argued, reveals more than it conceals.
"It shows how much
pressure the Strait's status exerted on the global economy and on Trump
personally," he said, referring to the closure of the waterway to US and
allied hostile vessels.
Trump had campaigned on economic recovery
and an "America First" agenda, but the war against Iran produced the
opposite: fuel and energy price spikes drove up the cost of food and
consumer goods for ordinary Americans, while allied governments in Asia
and Europe lodged formal protests over rising prices.
Sadatian
credited Iran with a calibrated strategy. Rather than closing the Strait
outright, Tehran “controlled” the waterway, releasing daily figures on
ship transits to signal controlled authority.
✍️ Analysis - The tide has turned: Iran’s strategic control of the Strait of Hormuz crushes American naval supremacy
He noted that Iran
has consistently maintained that the strategic waterway between the
Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman is not international waters but a
shared waterway with Oman, and that its management going forward must
follow defined rules.
"It appears the United States has implicitly accepted this," he said, describing the current understanding in plain terms.
Washington
has tacitly agreed that, while sanctions are being lifted and
negotiations come to a gradual end, Iran will allow increased vessel
traffic, but not a return to the pre-war status quo of unchecked
passage. Full Iranian control, Sadatian suggested, is now the implicit
baseline.
Israel may try to undermine MoU
The
question of whether Israel will attempt to derail the MoU drew a
measured but cautious response. Sadatian said Israeli regime
officials, both within Netanyahu's war cabinet and in the opposition,
are “furious” over the end to the war of aggression against
Iran, insisting no objectives were achieved and that resistance to any
Iran-US deal must continue.
He pointed to a recent Israeli strike
on the southern suburb of Beirut as evidence of this disruptive intent.
"The probability that they will try to undermine and upend the process
must always be accounted for," he noted.
Yet he assessed Israeli
room for manoeuvre as limited. "Israel knows that if it makes a wrong
move and it attacks Iran and does not have American backing in the face
of Iran's response, it will not have the capacity to withstand it."
US must cut military, intelligence assistance to Israel to protect Iran deal: Ex-Trump official https://t.co/HNLe8GykIE
"Netanyahu
tried to encourage all previous presidents to participate in an attack
on Iran," he said, "but it was Trump who fell for it."
Trump, he
added, has since grown visibly regretful, recognising the scale of the
diplomatic and political damage done, and the absence of any meaningful
gain.
The MoU brokered through Pakistani and Qatari mediation has been widely welcomed by world leaders, from the Arab world to Europe and beyond.
Shells that appear to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explode
over a road leading to Chamaa village, as it is seen from Tyre city,
south Lebanon, Friday, March 27, 2026 (AP)
Lebanon has formally referred two Israeli violations to the UN Security
Council: the spraying of glyphosate herbicide over southern border
villages and the targeting of a Lebanese Army vehicle on June 6.
Lebanon's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
has sent two separate letters to the UN Security Council and
Secretary-General António Guterres documenting recent Israeli
violations, one addressing the spraying of the herbicide
glyphosate over southern border villages and the other condemning the
targeting of a Lebanese Army vehicle that led to the martyrdom of three
servicemen.
In the first letter, dated June 10,
2026, the Ministry lodged a formal complaint based on a report prepared
by the National Council for Scientific Research against the occupation army's spraying of glyphosate
over several southern Lebanese border villages on February 1, 2026,
noting that the Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of
herbicides as a method of warfare.
Laboratory tests and chemical analyses conducted on soil samples
from Ayta al-Shaab, Ras al-Naqoura, and al-Dhayrah confirmed the
presence of glyphosate at concentrations reaching up to 22,750
micrograms per gram, levels far exceeding those typically recorded in
agricultural soil following direct use by farmers.
Attacks on the Lebanese Army
A second letter, sent on June 11, detailed the IOF's deliberate targeting of a Lebanese Army military vehicle
on June 6, on the Kfar Tebnit–al-Khardali road. The attack led to the
martyrdom of two officers, a brigadier general and a captain, and one
soldier, while they were carrying out their national duty in southern
Lebanon.
The Ministry called on the United
Nations to condemn the attack and take immediate measures to halt
repeated Israeli violations, urging full compliance with the UN Charter
and relevant international resolutions, including Resolution 1701
(2006).
'Undermining the diplomatic track'
The Foreign Ministry noted that the attacks are occurring against the backdrop of ongoing talks
between Lebanese authorities and the Israeli regime in Washington under
US sponsorship, "aimed at consolidating a cessation of hostilities and
laying the groundwork for a peaceful and sustainable solution."
The fifth round of negotiations between Lebanese and Israeli officials will begin in Washington on June 22, a Lebanese official source told Al Mayadeen,
describing the upcoming discussions as "particularly significant" for
resolving outstanding issues related to Israeli withdrawal from southern
Lebanon.
I am a fan of Unbekoming Substack, and recommend that you subscribe and follow this author. I have provided a written interview for their publication
in the past. I would like to draw your attention to the recent book
published by the author - “The Genetic Deception”. The book is kindly
made available by the author to my subscribers as a free download:
Below
is the introduction to the book and the Map of Work post which you can
follow to learn about their other books and research articles.
Introduction to The Genetic Deception (2026)
The Genetic Deception
is a book about the fifth and most formidable wall of modern medical
extraction. The first four walls — vaccination, allopathic medicine,
bacteriology, and virology — have all been seen through by some readers,
some of the time. The genetics wall captures even those who have seen
through the rest, because the genetics wall is the wall that wears your
face. To question a genetic diagnosis can feel like questioning your own
existence.
The book documents what the genetic framework conceals.
It
examines what the Human Genome Project actually delivered after thirty
years and billions of dollars: more than seven hundred genome-wide
association studies across approximately eighty diseases, all converging
on the same finding — the genetic contribution to common disease is at
most five to ten percent of risk. The architects of the field have
themselves abandoned the predictive ambitions that justified the
original investment. Francis Collins, who led the Project, scanned his
own genome and found his risk estimates for almost every disease were
within population averages. The architect of the field looked at his own
results and found them clinically useless.
It examines the
foundations of the molecule itself. The iconic image of the double helix
has never been directly observed. The 2001 announcement that the human
genome had been “sequenced” was made on the basis of computer-assembled
composites with eight to ten percent gaps. The first truly complete
human genome was not published until 2023. Standard DNA extraction
protocols applied to protein powder produce the same precipitate the
protocols produce when applied to actual cells.
It examines
forensic DNA testing. When NIST was finally forced to conduct a blinded
study, only six percent of one hundred and eight accredited forensic
laboratories reached the correct conclusion on a three-person mixture.
Seventy percent incorrectly indicated that the test suspect “might be in
the mix.” The technology has been used in courtrooms claiming 99.8
percent accuracy for decades and has put people in prison.
It
examines specific conditions. Familial hypercholesterolemia, presented
as a genetic death sentence requiring lifelong statin compliance, has
been tracked across two centuries of Dutch mortality data showing no
significant elevation in all-cause mortality compared with the general
population. BRCA1, the foundation of an entire industry of preventive
mastectomies, was launched on a 1994 paper that itself documented every
studied family containing at least one woman with the “cancer-causing
mutation” who lived to age 80 without cancer. Between thirty-five and
fifty-five percent of those who test positive for BRCA1 or BRCA2
sequence differences never develop the disease. Down syndrome was linked
in 1964 to parental radiation exposure — to excess X-rays given to
pregnant women and to fathers working near radar — research that the
establishment has chosen not to integrate into present screening
protocols.
It examines the institutional lineage. Francis Galton published Hereditary Genius
in 1869, the same year Friedrich Miescher scraped pus from surgical
bandages and called the precipitate “nuclein.” The Rockefeller
Foundation funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes through the 1920s and
1930s, the institutions whose researchers wrote the Nazi sterilisation
laws. After the Second World War, “eugenics” became a dirty word; the
institutions did not disappear but renamed themselves. The Eugenics
Quarterly became Social Biology. The British Eugenics Society became the
Galton Institute, then the Adelphi Genetics Forum. The American
Eugenics Society moved its headquarters into the New York offices of
John D. Rockefeller III’s Population Council. The personnel and the
project continued under the new names. What has reached your doctor’s
office is the descendant of this lineage.
The book follows
the evidence across all of this and arrives at the same picture from
every direction. The genetic framework, as currently constituted and
applied, does not deserve the authority it has claimed.
The Appendices | Reference Material the Reader Returns To
The book closes with six appendices that function as reference material for paid subscribers.
The Vocabulary of Genetic Deception decodes the eighteen terms that perform the framework’s argumentative work in every medical conversation. Variant, mutation, carrier, predisposition, heritability, penetrance, de novo, polygenic.
Each entry shows what the term sounds like, what conclusion it smuggles
in before the argument begins, and what plain-language equivalent
describes the same observation without preloading the verdict.
What to Say When the Doctor Says “It’s Genetic”
is a plain-language script for the consultations the framework is not
designed to accommodate. Eight common doctor statements — You have the BRCA mutation, Your child has a genetic disorder, This runs in families, There’s nothing we can do — it’s genetic
— each paired with the questions that move the conversation toward the
evidence the doctor’s framework rules out. Including, in each case, the
documented data the patient is entitled to and rarely receives.
The Four Real Causes
is a diagnostic checklist for any condition labelled genetic. The four
categories of insult — toxic exposure, nutritional deficiency,
electromagnetic radiation, chronic stress — broken into specific lines
of inquiry. Pharmaceutical history, dental amalgams, water source,
wireless density, sleep architecture, occupational exposures. What can
be removed, what can be restored. The investigation the diagnosis
forecloses.
The Conditions Currently Labelled “Genetic”
is a field guide to seventeen conditions — cystic fibrosis, sickle
cell, Huntington’s, BRCA, familial hypercholesterolemia, Down syndrome,
Dravet, Alzheimer’s, autism, schizophrenia, type 1 diabetes, MS, lupus,
type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alpha-1, hereditary cancers,
birth defects. For each: the genetic story, what the evidence shows,
what is ignored.
The Eugenics Continuity
traces the institutional lineage from Galton (1869) through Cold Spring
Harbor (1904), Buck v. Bell (1927), the Rockefeller funding of the
German programmes (1920s-1930s), Watson and Crick (1953), the post-war
rebranding, the Human Genome Project (1990), and the present-day
“personalised medicine” apparatus.
The Curated Resource Library
is an annotated guide to the primary sources — Jonathan Latham and
Allison Wilson, Dr. Marizelle, Jamie Andrews, Tom Cowan, Toby Rogers,
Malcolm Kendrick, Lester and Parker, the Baileys, and the wider terrain
medicine tradition. Where to begin with each, what to read first, and
what each source is best for.
Palestinian
infant Adam al-Ustaz receives treatment at Al-Rantisi Children’s
Hospital in Gaza City after being bitten by a rat inside a displacement
tent, 28 March 2026. (Moiz Salhi/APAimages)
Around two months ago, my family and I
returned home to our apartment on Tal al-Hawa street in Gaza City after a
day of visiting relatives. The apartment was lit only by a small
battery-powered lamp that cast a dim glow over the space.
Later that night, when I went to the
bathroom to wash up, I opened the door and a large rat, about 5 inches
long, was staring back at me from behind the sink.
I shut the door immediately behind me and killed it with a small bucket.
There was blood on the floor. I put the
body in a plastic bag and cleaned the tiles with diluted bleach, the
only disinfectant we had. A few meters away, our two-month-old son,
Amjad, was sleeping. He came to us after nearly 16 years of waiting.
That night, the sounds began. Scratching
behind the walls, rustling movement in the ceiling. Something alive,
something in there. My wife and I did not sleep that night, and on
subsequent nights would take turns staying awake to keep an eye out
for rodents.
The next morning I went to al-Zawiya
market in central Gaza to find poison. The market is 5 kilometers from
our home, and I walked half the way because it is so difficult to find transportation.
The market I remember, though, is now gone.
Most of the original shops and narrow
covered alleys have been severely damaged or reduced to rubble. Sewage
runs through the streets, and flies hover over stagnant water.
Makeshift stalls of crates and plastic
sheets have replaced the shops; instead of organized rows, the market
now comprises scattered clusters of vendors. Some of the stalls are set
up beside or even inside tents where displaced families live.
A vendor, who asked to be identified by his initials only, M. H., sold me a 10-gram bag of poison for about $7.
He said that the most effective poisons are blocked from entry by Israel.
“What we’re selling now came from damaged warehouses,” he said.
Once that stock is gone, there will be no alternative.
“Families are buying what is available at four times the previous price,” he said.
I took the poison home, mixed it with a tin of sardines and placed it near the openings in our walls.
For two days, the rats disappeared.
Then they came back.
Purchasing some rubble
In Arabic, there is a saying: Many causes, one death.
In Gaza, we are witness to these many causes of death: airstrikes, hunger and contaminated water, to name a few.
And now, we see prospective death in the rats that move through the dark toward sleeping children.
They come out when the battery dies on the lamp and the apartment goes dark.
They come out when we are not around.
That is when they feel safe.
Our apartment building on Tal al-Hawa
street was bombed just one week before the so-called ceasefire, in
October 2025. Israel bombed the top three floors of the building, and
the remaining three lower floors sustained partial damage.
We are on the third floor, and our
apartment is missing some walls, the entire kitchen, all the windows and
doors and most of the furniture.
Giant piles of rubble surround us on every side, and this is where the rats live.
Protecting our apartment from rats would be a monumental task.
With the poison not doing the job, I
sought out construction materials myself, along with the help of
friends, to repair and seal any openings in our house.
Yet, given the Israeli blockade on materials needed to repair or insulate homes – cement, timber and other “dual-use” items – this would not be an easy task.
All supplies have to be found through
unofficial channels, so neighbors smuggle and sell cement and cinder
blocks to each other, ripping what they can from collapsed walls and
bombed-out homes.
My friend Islam Bakr, 55, helped me search for materials for days.
His own seven-story building, home to 30
apartments, in Gaza City’s al-Daraj neighborhood, had suffered damage
from Israeli strikes as well. The stairwell is cracked, and parts of the
upper floors remain exposed after nearby strikes.
As we searched for construction materials,
he told me how the rats had invaded his family’s food stockpiles:
flour, rice, cheese, yeast and dried legumes. This is food the family
had obtained from aid trucks and markets and then stored because Gaza’s
food supplies are scarce and unstable.
The rats nibbled away at their stockpile, contaminating the food. He found droppings in nearly every bag.
He recalled how a four-year-old child in a
nearby tent was bitten; the family got treatment and the child
recovered. But Islam said that it seems like most families do not seek
medical attention unless injuries are severe, because getting to a
hospital is its own ordeal.
Later that day, we found a group of people
selling cement blocks and bricks that had been salvaged from destroyed
homes. The blocks were displayed right in the middle of the street, amid
piles of rubble.
The sellers had cleaned the blocks of any
cement residue (typically, a clean brick fetches a higher price than a
damaged, unclean brick). The seller would not negotiate on price, and he
tacked on an extra fifty cents to cover transport costs.
I bought the used concrete blocks for about $2.50 each.
The ideal conditions for rats
The rodent infestation in Gaza is not a story of one statistic or figure, but of several of them combined: the 57.5 million tons of rubble that fill the streets; the approximate 3,000 cubic meters of solid waste that accumulate each day; and the inaccessible landfills and destroyed sewage treatment infrastructure.
In Gaza City, this collapse is visible
along every street, especially in the piles of waste that are heaped
along the street. At night, the smell intensifies, and it gets worse
when residents burn garbage.
Rubble, waste and standing water have created ideal conditions for rodents.
Then, at night, they move into homes and shelters.
My friend Alaa Abu Sharkh, 45, lives in
Beach Camp, a few kilometers from my home. His family had sought shelter
in a house with an asbestos roof. When Israel bombed a nearby mosque,
stones were blown outward and then fell through the roof, creating holes
large enough for rats to simply walk through, into the house.
They framed the holes with wood and laid plastic sheeting over top, taping and then double-taping until the plastic held.
So far, this has worked to keep the rats out. But the problem remains outside.
During the night, Alaa sees clusters of
rats moving through the rubble and waste piled along the road,
scattering and then regrouping in the dark.
“This is not something individuals can solve,” said Alaa. “It requires [municipal] bodies with real resources.”
When we discuss the rodent crisis, it can
at times feel absurd; we have survived the bombs of this war only to be
living in the disaster that the bombs created.
Rat bite in the night
Over 80 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged by Israel’s bombardment over two-and-a-half years.
Even if Israel did not ban so-called
dual-use items (like construction materials) that would enable us to
repair our homes and protect them from rodents, nearly all of
Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced, and many of them live
in tents with no walls to patch up or cracks to seal.
Inside the tents, rodents are a part of daily life. For rats, every shelter is accessible.
I spoke with Yousef al-Ustaz on the phone after seeing a video on social media of his newborn son Adam, who had been bitten by a rat.
The family lives in a tent in the
al-Maqousi area west of Gaza City, and at around 1 am, al-Ustaz woke to
his son crying – not unusual for a newborn.
“As I got closer, I saw blood covering my
baby’s face, and a rat running out of the tent,” al-Ustaz told The
Electronic Intifada. “At that moment, I was thinking of nothing but
saving his life.”
Adam was rushed to Al-Rantisi Children’s
Hospital, where doctors treated the wound and monitored him for
infection. He is now recovering from the bite.
I asked my nephew Omar al-Safadi, who is a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, whether he was seeing more rat-related admissions.
He said that medical centers in Gaza are
receiving about one or two cases of bites or scratches each day, mostly
involving children. Some develop infections requiring antibiotics.
“Around ten percent of cases develop
infections that need close monitoring,” Omar said. “Most of what we’ve
seen has been managed with disinfection and antibiotics. But the
irregular availability of medicines is a major obstacle.”
What next?
When I got home, I began to fill in the cracks and holes where the rats were entering the apartment.
Instead of using the expensive and
poor-quality cement available, I used a mixture of lime and sand,
working by hand to fill any gaps in the walls with the used blocks
I purchased.
It was crude, but it worked.
For now, the rats have stopped getting in.
Yet my wife and I sleep in the living room together with Amjad, surrounding him on all sides, in case they return.
Every night I go to sleep thinking about
how I cannot make sure my son is safe. We survived the bombs, the
displacement, the hunger, and now I am losing sleep over rats.
As if Gaza’s people had not already been asked to endure enough.
Four Palestine Action activists have been sentenced to a combined
total of more than 25 years in prison, after a judge ruled that they
could be treated as terrorists.
Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani
were convicted of criminal damage last month in relation to a raid
against an Israeli arms factory in Bristol in 2024.
At their sentencing hearing at Woolwich Crown Court today, Judge
Johnson agreed to apply a “terrorism connection” to the case under the
Sentencing Act.
Head and Kamio were given six years, Rajwani received five years and
eight months, and Corner was sentenced to eight years and eight months.
Gasps could be heard from the public gallery as the sentences were
delivered, as some family members cried. They pounded the windows of the
gallery as the defendants were led out.
Hundreds of protesters were also gathered outside, and could be heard chanting throughout the day from inside the courthouse.
During the hearing, defence lawyers accused the prosecution of submitting key evidence “at the 59th minute of the 11th hour”.
That evidence related to how the defendants allegedly smashed 40
military assets including over a dozen drones, causing over £1.2m worth
of damage.
Defence counsel said the submission allowed no time to review the
report and admitting it as evidence would amount to “a gross affront to
the integrity of the criminal justice system”.
What the court heard
That evidence – a witness statement from a consultant who assessed
what Elbit’s insurance company was required to pay after the raid – was
submitted to the court just eight days before the hearing.
It
marked the first time that an assessment of the damage at the factory
was submitted from a witness that was not anonymous and was, therefore,
potentially admissible.
Defence counsel Tom Wainwright explained that the report had been
submitted so late that he had not even had the opportunity to discuss it
with his client, Samuel Corner.
“It would be wholly wrong and unfair for my Lord to allow the
prosecution to rely on this highly contentious evidence for sentencing
purposes and admit it for the purposes of determining the value of the
damage caused”, said lead defence counsel Rajiv Menon.
Judge Johnson nonetheless accepted the evidence as admissible but
said he would only use it to form a narrow view of the damage incurred
at the factory.
The latter half of the hearing focussed on how the word “serious” is
properly defined with reference to the “serious damage to property”
clause of the Terrorism Act.
Defence lawyers argued that the term “serious” was intended by
parliament to imply something “sinister” such as causing “excessive
fear” or “harm” towards persons.
Menon also raised concerns that there is a pattern of courts finding
“terrorism connection” in cases involving minorities or those supporting
them, but not white supremacists.
Neither Thomas Mair, the neo-Nazi murderer of British MP Jo Cox, nor
Thomas McKenna, who was procuring firearms to provoke a “race war” were
given criminal convictions with a “terrorism connection”, he noted.
“So apparently, stockpiling weapons in preparation for a race war
against Muslims and immigrants does not amount to an act of terrorism”,
Menon declared to the court.
Verdict
Judge Johnson’s ruling was made with reference to the statutory definitions of terrorism in the Terrorism Act.
They include causing “serious damage to property” for political
reasons with the aim of influencing a government, international
organisation, or sector of the public.
He found that “serious damage to property” was caused to Elbit’s factory in Bristol.
This damage extended to “very many individual items of advanced
technological equipment as well as to the fabric of the building”,
Johnson said, adding that the evidence provided late to the court shows
“more than £1m paid out by insurers”.
It was unnecessary to determine “precise economic value of damage” as he was “sure it amounted to serious damage”, he continued.
Johnson further ruled that the protest action was not designed to influence the Israeli government.
However, he said it was intended to influence the UK government as
well as a sector of the public defined as employees of and companies
linked to Elbit Systems.
There was a “strategy of carrying out actions against Elbit and
businesses linked to it in order to intimidate it into ceasing
operations or cause the government to prevent it from operating”,
Johnson said.
He was also “sure” that the action was for the purpose of “advancing a
political or ideological cause” in line with the defendants’ beliefs
surrounding Israel and Palestine.
In concluding his verdict, Johnson said: “I am sure each of the
defendants’ offences involved serious damage to property, was designed
to influence the UK government and to intimidate a section of the
public, and was for the purpose of advancing a political cause”.
Major concerns
The ruling comes amid major concerns surrounding the weaponisation of terrorism laws against pro-Palestine activists.
One of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers, Michael Mansfield KC, said before the hearing that sentencing protesters as terrorists would be a “constitutional threat”.
Mansfield was among a group of 50 lawyers and legal experts to write
an open letter which stated: “It’s particularly insidious for the
obvious reason that they weren’t allowed to explain their motivation to a
jury – that was denied them.
“And yet the state says ‘we’re actually going to elevate what the
offences are’ when a jury might well not have convicted had they known
they were going to be treated as terrorists”.
The letter continued: “The fundamental principle is you should not be
convicted on any statutory offence for which you have not been
charged”.
Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell also signed a letter
condemning this “unjust” and “cruel” use of terrorism laws in advance of
the hearing.
Defence lawyers are expected to appeal this decision.
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