Hundreds dead in bombed Gaza hospital

HOSPITAL HELL

At least 500 people sheltering inside a Gaza City hospital have been killed, the BBC reports, after an Israeli missile hit the building — the single deadliest attack yet. That’s according to Palestinian officials. Israel says the cause of the fire at the hospital isn’t yet clear. The BBC spoke to a doctor who said 4,000 people were sheltering there, and about 80% of the hospital was not functioning — food, fuel, electricity and medicine are all blockaded. It comes as a senior Hamas official told NBC News that Hamas will release all civilian hostages — thought to be 199 — in one hour if Israel stops bombing Gaza. Back home, and the family of Melburnian Hanaa Elmobayed, 53, say she is stuck in Gaza with 45 other Australians because the Rafah border crossing to Egypt remains closed. Elmobayed went there to help her elderly mother recover from a leg injury days before the October 7 Hamas attack; her son told 7News her family cannot describe the stress they feel of being unable to help her.

At least 1,000 kids in Gaza are dead, according to the Defense for Children Palestine, but politicians back home are fretting about trans kids again for some reason. Liberal Senator Alex Antic has proposed a bill that bans forms of gender reassignment treatment and surgery for those aged under 18, The Australian ($) reports, though he put it forward in a “private capacity”, not as a Liberal. It’s just a “headline-grabber”, one SA Liberal told the paper, and a dead end politically — look at Victoria. It comes as that state’s opposition will back an upper house bid from expelled Liberal MP Moira Deeming to set up an inquiry into gender-affirming care for children, The Age ($) reports, though it’s more headline fluff because Labor, the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and the Animal Justice Party would never agree to it. Give it up already, Victorian Greens health spokeswoman Sarah Mansfield said — gender-affirming care is “supported by all major medical bodies in Australia and the World Health Organization” as something that helps, not hurts, kids.

YOU BETCHA!

There were an average of 1,381 gambling ads on TV in the capital cities every single day in the year to April, a new study found, Guardian Australia reports. The Australian Communications and Media Authority got Nielsen to take a look — when you combine TV and radio ads, it more than 1 million in 12 months, and half were from five online wagering companies, though the watchdog didn’t reveal which ones. The advertising probably cost them $238 million, ACMA added. Meanwhile, Caesarstone launched an advertising campaign that claims banning the product could increase the risk of lung disease silicosis, something one expert told the SMH ($) “doesn’t make sense”. The ban would apply to manufactured stone with a 40% or more crystalline silica concentration, but Caesarstone’s boss wrote to Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke saying tradies would handle other stone with higher levels of silica as a result. There is no higher risk product than engineered stone, Royal College of Physicians fellow Graeme Edwards said.

Speaking of Burke, his new IR bill that’ll see the Fair Work Commission set minimum gig worker pay and conditions could triple the cost of food delivery to 260%, the AFR ($) reports. That’s according to DoorDash, a rather dramatic jump higher than Uber Eats’ prediction of an 85% hike, the paper notes. DoorDash reckons it may have to take into account the award’s minimum pay, super and penalty rates, plus allowances such as fuel and a per-kilometre vehicle cost, sending the cost of a burger soaring. But the union was like, stop with the doomsday predictions — Fair Work will decide what the standards are, and it’s perfectly capable of a “balancing act” for everyone involved. To a man known for his IR sins now, and The Courier-Mail ($) reports the Senate will vote today on a motion to summon former Qantas chief Alan Joyce back to Australia. He was spotted overnight leaving the Ireland home of his 82-year-old mother, Collette.

CHENG LEI GOES TO TOWN

Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who has just returned from China after an incarceration shrouded in mystery, has revealed on Sky News Australia that she was imprisoned for breaking a media embargo by just a few minutes. An embargo — usually applying to a document or report — instructs journalists to not publish their story on it until a certain time and date. Sky says, “In Australia, most embargos are enforced informally if at all,” an eyebrow-raising claim that might be more revealing about the org’s own practices than it realises. Anyway, Cheng was under 24-hour surveillance for the first six months, and the lights were never turned off — a practice tantamount to torture. Then she was transferred to a facility where she had cellmates as she waited for her sentence. “Colour. I just missed colour,” she said, adding she didn’t use a sit-down toilet or a mirror in three years. The day after she returned to Melbourne, “[I] gorged myself at the Queen Vic Market” on “Moreton Bay bugs, Sydney rock oysters”. Good for her.

But former prime minister Scott Morrison rejected China’s claim that Cheng was released because she served her sentence, as SBS reports. “She should never have been detained, and nor should we be appreciative to the Chinese government that she’s home,” he said. Peter Greste, who was detained by Egypt in 2015, said Australian press freedom has had a few big wins lately (the federal watchdog protections for journalists, amendments to whistleblowing laws, and dropping the charges against Bernard Collaery), as the ABC reports. But we desperately need a media freedom act, he says — look at ATO whistleblower Richard Boyle, and alleged “Afghan Files” whistleblower David McBride, who are both nearing trial. Overseas, and the SMH ($) adds that Australian democracy advocate Yang Hengjun remains in jail in Beijing on unnamed national security charges.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Cheese. Is there anything it can’t do?! Eat cheddar cheese if you want to have babies later in life, a new study suggests. It found that “the longevity elixir” — spermidine — that’s found in wheatgerm, soy beans, cheddar cheese, mangoes and mushrooms made middle-aged mice fertile again. Spermidine is mostly taken as an anti-ageing supplement because it boosts our autophagy — that’s a term for our cell regeneration process, or “cell housekeeping”, as The Age puts it. Not only that — at least two studies found it was linked to lower mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

So Bo Xiong and his team at Nanjing Agricultural University decided to do a little test. They’d observed that their female middle-aged mice had lower spermidine levels compared with the young whippersnappers — so they gave the old gals a little jab of it (as well as spiking their drinking water). They were astounded by the result: the mice suddenly had better quality oocytes (the cells that develop into mature eggs) and they developed faster too. Melbourne IVF’s Alex Polyakov said it looked like the team had discovered a “holy grail” that reversed ageing in the mice’s ovaries, a finding that could one day help humans undertaking IVF later in life too. And it’s all thanks to that strong and bitey.

Hoping something fills you with awe today too.

SAY WHAT?

Gaza is half the size of Canberra. Israel’s Air Force has boasted dropping 6,000 bombs in six days on one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Over 2 million people live there. Nearly half of them are children. No atrocity justifies another.

Adam Bandt

The Greens leader described Israel as “moving beyond self-defence into an invasion”. A multi-pronged motion — which included a condemnation of all types of hate speech in Australia — passed the House of Representatives with 134 votes in favour and just four against. The four Greens MPs voted against the motion because they had not succeeded in adding a line also condemning “war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel” and seeking “an end to the state of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories”. The motion’s 16 points included recognition of Israel’s “inherent right to defend itself” and that Hamas did not represent the Palestinian people, nor their “legitimate needs and aspirations”.

CRIKEY RECAP

The referendum’s result holds up a mirror to Australia, and the reflection is ugly

MAEVE MCGREGOR

“Beyond this, the combined views exhibited by Labor leadership too easily shrug off the sheer damage visited on the nation’s civic space by Dutton’s racist misinformation and Trumpian attacks on our basal institutions — the courts, the AEC, and, not least, government itself among them.

“It bears repeating again and again that Australia is not innately immune to demagoguery and a disavowal of democratic norms and convention. In such an environment, the immediate casualties extend beyond truth and decency in public life and to citizens themselves, many of whom fail to see through the thickets of lies and are accordingly denied an informed vote.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Brussels shooting: Police shoot dead attacker who killed Swedes (BBC)

‘Stunned and sickened.’ Wexner Foundation cuts ties with Harvard over ‘tiptoeing’ on Hamas (CNN)

Bolsonaro was engineer of ‘wilful coup attempt’, Brazil congress inquiry alleges (The Guardian)

Biden to cut China off from more Nvidia [AI] chips, expand curbs to dozens of countries (Reuters)

Russian Duma moves to revoke ratification of nuclear test ban treaty (euronews)

Canada’s inflation rate slows to 3.8% (CBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Joe Biden’s message to world — and Iran: we stand with Israel — Greg Sheridan (The Australian) ($): “US President Joe Biden will become the first American leader ever to visit Israel during a military conflict, sending the strongest possible signal of support to Jerusalem as it readies for a ground invasion of Gaza, while nervously fighting off threats on its other borders. Biden is also sending a message to Israel’s enemies, especially Iran. Strike Israel with conventional military and you’ll likely face an American military response. But Biden also expects something from Israel in return, namely the maximum restraint possible in its campaign, which the US and Australia both support, to crush the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza following its depraved and sadistic slaughter of more than 1,300 Israelis, mainly civilians.

“Israel’s dilemma is intense; how to destroy Hamas while inflicting the minimum possible civilian casualties and damage to innocent Palestinian life. Israel probably made a mistake in cutting off water and power to all of Gaza, as Hamas has prepared reserves of both for its own leadership, some of which has probably left Gaza, and much of which is hiding in the network of underground tunnels Hamas has built in the 15 years it has controlled Gaza. Biden and his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, are standing with Israel not just figuratively, but literally and physically. Well protected as he is, Biden faces real risk being in a war zone in a time of war. As ever, the US president is the world’s No. 1 terrorist target.”

If someone killed my child I’d want bloody revenge. But I’d be wrong — as is the Israeli government — Rob Delaney (The Guardian): “Imagine being in Sderot, Israel, and hearing Hamas rockets land near your home. You’re scared; you instantly take mental stock of your family members’ location. Then you hear gunfire. Screaming. You recognise a scream. A few minutes later you’re holding your daughter’s corpse. She’s still warm and will be for a while yet, but she is dead. A Hamas bullet severed her subclavian artery, and that was that. You pray out loud, essentially singing, to trade places with her. It doesn’t work. She is dead. You are alive. You want to die. You won’t.

“Can you kill anyone to fix this? Who? Where are they? Do you bring your other children with you to do it? Or do you get a babysitter for your other kids so you can go and try to kill them? Is your babysitter alive? If you can’t kill your child’s murderer specifically, is there someone else you could kill? Would it feel good then and there, like working out or taking a shit? If so, how long would it take for the feeling to dissipate? If someone killed my child in front of me, I suspect I’d do my best to kill them right back. I wouldn’t be in the right, but people would get it.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Flinders University’s Barbara Baird will talk about her new book, Abortion Care is Health Care, at Glee Books.

Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Grata Fund’s Isabelle Reinecke will talk about her new essay, Courting Power: Law, Democracy and the Public Interest in Australia, at Avid Reader bookshop.

• Author Holly Ringland will talk about her new book, The House that Joy Built, at The Loft.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Economist Professor Richard Holden will speak about economic exceptionalism at the National Press Club.