‘Global silence and abandonment’ as Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital destroyed
The sound of tanks rumbling through the streets outside of Kamal Adwan Hospital woke everyone up, they were already on edge after enduring months of direct Israeli attacks. Then came the loudspeakers ordering everyone to evacuate – the sick, the wounded, medical staff, and displaced people seeking shelter – early on Friday morning. It was clear that the medical complex in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya was about to face an Israeli raid, like so many had before it as Israel seemed to systematically destroy all healthcare in Gaza. It didn’t matter that, according to the World Health Organization, the hospital was the last major health facility operational in northern Gaza, an area that has been suffocatingly besieged and decimated by Israel in its ongoing war. Nor that it was a refuge for hundreds of Palestinians whose homes had been destroyed by Israel and had nowhere else to go. Numbers written on their chests At about 6am, patient Izzat al-Aswad heard Israeli forces summoning Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the hospital director, over their loudspeakers. Advertisement Dr Abu Safia came back and told people in the hospital they had been ordered to evacuate. Abu Safia himself, who was a rare voice exposing what Israel was doing to the hospital, was taken by Israel, which has refused to release him despite calls to do so from the UN, humanitarian NGOs and international health organisations. A little later, al-Aswad said Israeli soldiers demanded that all the men strip down to their underwear to be allowed to leave. Shivering, frightened, many of them injured, the men were ordered to walk to a checkpoint the Israelis had set up about two hours away, al-Aswad recounted by phone. At the checkpoint, they gave their full names and had their photographs taken. Then a number was scrawled on their chest and neck by a soldier, indicating they had been searched. Some of the men were taken for interrogation. “They beat me and the men around me,” al-Aswad said. “They hit the injured people like me directly on our injuries.” Izzat al-Aswad was beaten badly by Israeli soldiers who had made him strip down to his underwear [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] Shorouq al-Rantisi, 30, a nurse in Kamal Adwan’s laboratory department, was among the women taken from the hospital. The women were told to walk to the same checkpoint, which was in a school, and then waited for hours in the cold. “We could hear the men being beaten and tortured. It was unbearable.” Then the searches started. “The soldiers were dragging the women by the head towards the search area,” al-Rantisi said. “[They] shouted at us, demanding we remove our headscarves. Those who refused were beaten badly.” Advertisement “The first girl called for searching was told to strip. When she refused, a soldier beat her and forced her to lift her clothes. “A soldier dragged me by the head and then another soldier ordered me to lift the top of my clothes, then the bottom, and checked my ID,” she said. Shrouq al-Rantisi, a laboratory nurse at the hospital, was dragged by the head to be interrogated by Israeli soldiers [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] Abandoned patients Al-Rantisi said the women were eventually taken, left at a roundabout, and told they could not go back to Beit Lahiya. “How could we leave and abandon the patients? None of us ever thought of leaving until we were forced to,” she said on the phone. Israel assaulted the hospital for many weeks before the raid. “The hospital and its courtyard were bombed relentlessly, day and night, as if it was normal,” al-Aswad said. “Quadcopters fired at anyone moving in the courtyard … they targeted generators and water tanks, while medical staff were struggling to care for patients.” The night before the raid was “terrifying”, al-Aswad added, with Israeli attacks all around, including on the “al-Safeer” building. “Witnesses say about 50 people were in there, including nurses from the hospital. No one could rescue them or retrieve their bodies, they’re still there,” he recounted. Al-Aswad and the men who were not taken for interrogation were released after a full day of abuse and humiliation. “The soldiers ordered us to go west of Gaza City and never come back,” he said. “We walked through destruction and rubble, freezing, until people came to meet us near Gaza City, offering help and blankets.” Fadi al-Atawneh was injured, so he stayed behind in the hospital hoping for help that never came [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] ‘Betrayed’ and ‘abandoned’ Israel’s raid merely compounded “the global silence and abandonment” Palestinians in Gaza have been faced with throughout more than a year of relentless Israeli attacks that killed more than 45,000 people, al-Rantisi said. Advertisement “Over 60 days of relentless shelling – quadcopters, artillery, and targeted strikes on generators,” she said. “Dr Hussam’s pleas went unanswered until the hospital was stormed and emptied. How does the world allow this to happen?” “I feel we were all betrayed,” Fadi al-Atawneh, 32, said bitterly on the phone. “I was wounded, so I stayed in the hospital, hoping that the World Health Organization would evacuate or protect us, but it never happened,” al-Atawneh said. “I am deeply saddened by what happened to us and the fate of Dr Abu Safia. We’re left alone in the face of this aggression.” Adblock test (Why?)
Trump accuses former Speaker Kevin McCarthy of ‘one of the dumbest political decisions made in years’
President-elect Donald Trump took aim at former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, describing the debt ceiling suspension approved in 2023 as “one of the dumbest political decisions made in years.” But while targeting the former top House GOP lawmaker, Trump tempered the criticism by describing McCarthy as a friend and a good person. “The extension of the Debt Ceiling by a previous Speaker of the House, a good man and a friend of mine, from this past September of the Biden Administration, to June of the Trump Administration, will go down as one of the dumbest political decisions made in years. There was no reason to do it – NOTHING WAS GAINED, and we got nothing for it – A major reason why that Speakership was lost. It was Biden’s problem, not ours. Now it becomes ours,” Trump declared in the post. DEBT CEILING IS ‘LAST TOOL’ IN DEMOCRATS’ TOOLBOX TO OBSTRUCT TRUMP AGENDA: KAROLINE LEAVITT “I call it ‘1929’ because the Democrats don’t care what our Country may be forced into. In fact, they would prefer ‘Depression’ as long as it hurt the Republican Party. The Democrats must be forced to take a vote on this treacherous issue NOW, during the Biden Administration, and not in June. They should be blamed for this potential disaster, not the Republicans!” he added. A deal passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden last year suspended the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025, but Trump has been calling for the ceiling to be increased before he takes office. “In June 2023, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 was enacted, suspending the debt limit through January 1, 2025. On January 2, 2025, the new debt limit will be established at the amount of outstanding debt subject to the statutory limit at the end of the previous day,” Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen wrote in a recent letter to congressional leaders. “Treasury currently expects to reach the new limit between January 14 and January 23, at which time it will be necessary for Treasury to start taking extraordinary measures. I respectfully urge Congress to act to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.” PRESIDENT BIDEN SIGNS STOPGAP FUNDING BILL INTO LAW, NARROWLY AVERTING SHUTDOWN Earlier this month, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance pressed for the limit to be raised as part of a stopgap government spending proposal. “The most foolish and inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025. It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed,” the two men said in a statement. “Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch. If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration?” But the measure that eventually passed did not raise the ceiling. Responding to Trump’s post about McCarthy, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote in a post on X, “Sadly, this bad debt ceiling extension was opposed by only 71 House Republicans 18 months ago (notably opposed by virtually the entire @freedomcaucus).” TRUMP-BACKED SPENDING BILL TO AVERT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN FAILS HOUSE VOTE “Democrats did vote on the recent debt ceiling increase proposal on 12/19: 197-2 against it (their price to support is very high – more spending/taxes),” Roy added. “Yes, we can & should address the debt ceiling – thru reconciliation in January with mostly GOP votes – but with real, meaningful spending cuts.”
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Kentucky to consider bill that would hold parents accountable for children’s gun crimes
Kentucky’s legislature is primed to consider a bill in the new year that would make parents responsible for their juvenile child committing a crime involving the discharge of a firearm. State Rep. Kim Banta, R-Erlanger, modeled her legislation after similar laws that hold parents accountable for property crimes and motor vehicle accidents. In the Bluegrass State, parents are liable for up to $2,500 in cases where their kids deface property and the guardian who signed a minor’s driver’s license application is “jointly and severally liable” for any findings of negligence or damage behind the wheel. “The most important thing is that I am absolutely not trying to stop gun sales or enact gun control,” Banta told Fox News Digital in a Friday interview. BIDEN TO SIGN EXECUTIVE ORDER AIMED AT REDUCING GUN VIOLENCE “I’m simply trying to make parents aware that whether it is driving a car or doing anything else their child does, they need to know what they’re doing, and they need to exercise caution.” Similar to the language in the car-crash law, Banta’s bill imputes “negligence or willful misconduct” of a minor on their parents/guardians for civil damages stemming from injuries to another person that are caused by a person with a gun. Factors in determining parental liability include whether the elder allowed the child to have the gun, was aware of previous gun law violations or believes the minor to have the propensity to be violent, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. On Friday, Banta said there had been a recent case in Kentucky where several 15-year-olds got into a disagreement, purportedly over drugs, and one boy went home, retrieved a gun, and came back and shot the two other youths. WATCHDOG SEEKS TO HALT 11TH-HOUR BIDEN DOJ EFFORT TO HANDCUFF KY POLICE OVER BREONNA TAYLOR INCIDENT “A 15-year-old does not have the mental ability to make snap decisions that adults do; not in anger, not in routine life, so a gun in their possession unsupervised is a little different than an adult with a gun,” she said. Foster parents, however, would be exempt from the law, according to Murray State University’s NPR affiliate. The bill will be presented in January and Banta said if it makes it to a committee vote, there is a high likelihood it will make it to a full floor vote and be sent to Gov. Andrew Beshear’s desk. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Fox News Digital reached out Beshear for comment but did not receive a response by press time. Both legislative chambers in Frankfort are held by Republican majorities, while Beshear is a Democrat.
Trump’s convincing 2024 victory sets House GOP up for homefield advantage in 2026 midterm elections
The returning head of the House Republican campaign committee says that “the battlefield is really playing out to our advantage” as he works to defend the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the chamber in the 2026 midterm elections. While House Republicans held on to control of the House in November’s elections, the Democrats made gains, and the GOP will hold a fragile 220-215 majority when at full strength. The party in power traditionally loses House seats in the ensuing midterm elections. But thanks to President-elect Trump’s popular vote victory and sweep of all seven key battleground states as he won back the White House, National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Richard Hudson looks forward to some home-field advantage on the campaign trail. VANCE TO LIKELY BE 2028 GOP PRESIDENTIAL FRONT-RUNNER, BUT RNC CHAIR ALSO LIKES PARTY’S ‘BENCH’ “There are 14 Democrats who won seats also carried by Donald Trump. There are only three Republicans in seats that were carried by Kamala Harris. So that tells me we’re going to be on offense,” Hudson emphasized in a recent Fox News Digital interview. Eight years ago, when Trump first won the White House, and the GOP held onto their House majority, Democrats targeted roughly two-dozen Republicans in the 2018 midterms in districts that Trump lost in the 2016 election. The Democrats, in a blue-wave election, were successful in flipping the House majority. SENATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE CHAIR SPELLS OUT HIS 2026 MISSION Fast-forward eight years, and it’s a different story, as this time Republicans will be defending seats on friendly turf in districts that the president-elect carried. And Hudson argues that home-field advantage will help the GOP cut through the traditional midterm headwinds. “There’s a whole lot more opportunity for us to go on offense,” Hudson, who’s represented a congressional district in central North Carolina for a dozen years, touted. Hudson also made the case that House Republicans who will once again be targeted by the Democrats in the upcoming election cycle are “really battle-tested. I mean, they’re folks who’ve been through the fire before. They’ve gone through several cycles now with millions of dollars spent against them.” “They’ve been able to succeed because they work very hard in their districts. They’ve established very strong brands, as you know, people who know how to get things done and how to deliver for their community,” he emphasized. “The Republicans who are in tough seats are our best candidates.” The three House Republicans who are in districts that Harris carried last month are Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler of New York. But there will be a big difference in 2026: Trump, who helped drive low-propensity voters to the polls this year, won’t be on the ballot in the 2026 midterms. “I certainly would rather have him on the ballot, because he turns out voters that don’t come out for other candidates,” Hudson acknowledged. But he argued, “If you look at the way this race is shaping up, we campaigned on a key set of issues of things that we promised we would deliver. If we deliver those things and have Donald Trump there with us campaigning with our candidates, I believe we can drive out a higher percentage of those voters than we have in midterms in the past.” Hudson said that Trump “was a great partner” with House Republicans this year and will be again in the upcoming election cycle. “[Trump] cares deeply about having a House majority, because he understands that a Democrat House majority means his agenda comes to a grinding halt. And so he’s been very engaged, was a very good partner for us this last election, and I anticipate that continuing.” Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington State, chair of the rival Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says she wants “to build on” the “things we did right” as she aims to win back the House majority Democrats lost in the 2022 midterms. “We won in tough districts, outperformed across the country,” DelBene emphasized in a recent Fox News Digital interview. DelBene, who is also sticking around for a second straight tour of duty steering her party’s House campaign committee, said that the 2024 successes are “a good example of what we need to continue to follow, heading into 2026.” “Number one, have great candidates who are independent-minded, focused on the needs of their communities,” DelBene said as she listed her to-do list. “Those candidates and their voices were critically important in this election.” DelBene said that “making sure that they [the candidates] have the resources they need to get information out to voters and to continue to address, head-on, the issues that are most important to their communities, lowering costs, making sure there’s economic opportunity” are also top priorities. With Trump returning to the White House and the GOP in control of both chambers of Congress, DelBene said Republicans are “going to be accountable for what they do in this country and the impact that has on working families.” “We’re going to hold them accountable for their votes and the actions they take, especially if they aren’t supporting working families,” she emphasized. “I think people want to see governance work. So, if Republicans aren’t willing to work in a bipartisan way to get things done, that’s going to be a key part of the 2026 election as well.” Looking to the 2026 map, DelBene touted that Democrats will have “opportunities across the country.” And she said it’s the DCCC’s job to “reach voters where they are and make sure they’re getting accurate information about where our candidates stand.” Fox News’ Emma Woodhead contributed to this report.
2028 Watch: Here are the Democrats who may eventually jump into the next White House race
As Democrats aim to rebound following stunning setbacks in the 2024 elections, the race for Democratic National Committee chair is very publicly heating up. Getting less attention, but also starting to quietly commence, are moves by Democratic politicians who may have national ambitions in the next White House race. And while 2028 may seem like a long way away, recent history shows that the early moves in the next White House race start, well, very early. The unofficial starting gun for the 2024 race was fired by then-former President Donald Trump less than two months after leaving the White House, with a CPAC speech that teased his eventual 2024 presidential campaign. BUTTIGIEG FUELS 2028 SPECULATION BY DOING THIS A few weeks later, the first visits to the key early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire by potential GOP presidential contenders were also underway. Fast-forward four years, and expect similar actions by Democratic politicians who may harbor national ambitions. With the soon-to-be 82-year-old President Biden exiting the national stage, and Vice President Kamala Harris, in the wake of her defeat by Trump, in no immediate rush to decide her political future, the road to the 2028 nomination may be wide open. VANCE IN ‘CATBIRD SEAT,’ BUT HERE ARE THE OTHER REPUBLICANS WHO MAY ALSO RUN IN 2028 “The jockeying for 2028 took a brief pause when Harris became the nominee and looked to be in a strong position, which would have meant shutting out potential candidates for the next four to eight years. Now, though, it’s wide open, and it won’t be long before we see clear maneuvering from a litany of candidates,” seasoned Democratic political strategist Chris Moyer told Fox News. Moyer, a veteran of a handful of presidential campaigns, noted that “this will include travel to states like New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada, presumably under the auspices of helping candidates in the midterms. Democratic voters in the early states will soon want to find someone they can get excited about and a future to look forward to in the midst of the misery of another four years of Trump in the White House. These potential candidates will be more than happy to oblige.” The results of the 2026 midterm elections will have a major impact on the shape of the next White House race. For now, however, here is an initial look at Democratic Party politicians considered to be potential 2028 presidential contenders. Vice President Kamala Harris As the 60-year-old Harris finishes up her final weeks as the nation’s vice president, early polling in the 2028 Democratic nomination race indicates that she would be a front-runner, thanks in part to her name recognition within her party. While any decisions on her next political steps are months away, sources in the vice president’s orbit confirm to Fox News that top aides are divided on whether Harris should run again for the White House in 2028, or instead launch a 2026 gubernatorial campaign in her home state of California, which would likely prevent her from seeking the presidency two years later. While there are plenty of voices within the party who would like to move on from the Biden/Harris era following Trump’s sweeping victory, and there is little history of Democrats yearning for past defeated presidential nominees, Trump has re-written the rules when it comes to defeated White House contenders making another run. And potential buyers’ remorse of a second Trump administration could boost Harris in the years to come. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California California Gov. Gavin Newsom was a top surrogate for President Biden during the president’s re-election bid. With the blessing of the White House, the two-term California governor debated then-Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year on Fox News. Newsom’s travels on behalf of Biden brought him to New Hampshire and South Carolina, two crucial early voting states on the Democratic Party’s nominating calendar. After the vice president, his friend and fellow Californian, replaced Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket, the governor continued — after a pause — his efforts to keep Trump from returning to the White House. With Trump’s election victory last week, Newsom became one of the Democratic Party leaders getting ready to lead the opposition. The governor announced that California state lawmakers would meet to quickly take legislative action to counter Trump’s likely upcoming agenda. The 57-year-old Newsom’s second term in Sacramento will finish at the end of next year, right around the time the 2028 presidential election will start to heat up. Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois Illinois Gov JB Pritzker, similar to Newsom, is already taking steps to Trump-proof his state. “You come for my people, you come through me,” Pritzker told reporters of his efforts to protect Illinois. Pritzker was also a high-profile surrogate on behalf of Biden and then Harris during the 2024 cycle. Those efforts brought Pritzker to Nevada, a general election battleground state and an early-voting Democratic presidential primary state, and New Hampshire. However, before he makes any decision about 2028, the 59-year-old governor must decide whether he will run in 2026 for a third term steering Illinois. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan Two-term Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer grabbed plenty of attention and became a Democratic Party rising star in 2020 when she feuded with then-President Trump over COVID pandemic federal assistance and survived a foiled kidnapping attempt. Trump, at the time, called her “that woman from Michigan.” Along with Newsom and Pritzker, Whitmer’s name was floated as a possible replacement for Biden following his disastrous debate performance against Trump in late June, before the president endorsed Harris and the party instantly coalesced around the vice president. Whitmer was a leading surrogate for Biden and then for Harris and made a big impression on Democratic activists during a stop this summer in New Hampshire on behalf of Harris. The governor is term-limited and will leave office after the end of next year. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro,
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