> An Ohio-based humanitarian group, HEAL Palestine, is the main American organization helping evacuate people — primarily injured children and family members — and bringing them to several cities in the U.S. for medical treatment. According to the organization's website, it has evacuated 148 people from Gaza, including 63 children.
Are there similar organizations operating in other countries?
williamscales · 8h ago
The WHO is organizing some evacuations internationally
> the World Health Organization supported the transfer of 32 children and six adults to Italy, Belgium and Turkey, but more than 14,800 patients are still waiting.
Are there legitimate organizations to donate to that are effectively evacuating people?
skybrian · 7h ago
Thanks, that’s a good link! Shared.
laurent_du · 9h ago
I didn't expect the article to conclude with a pg quote from twitter. Why did they think pg was a notable authority on the matter of human rights? I am not asking in snark, just curious.
seadan83 · 8h ago
It's an example of notable criticism. The campaign was on twitter, so the PG quote is context and as an example of what detractors are saying.
BallsInIt · 8h ago
To prevent the story from getting flagged on HN.
nojs · 8h ago
Writing a summary of twitter hot takes is easier than doing actual research.
AbuAssar · 8h ago
This is confusing to say the least, the US are providing Israel with heavy hardware and ammunition to kill the Palestinian civilians, and then they want to take the children victims for medical care?!
Why the US plays on both sides?
dathinab · 8h ago
because
- it's about civilians and at least the official stance is that the US helps Israel to fight terrorist, not civilians.
- a government isn't a single person
- this doesn't just involves the US government but also humanitarian help groups
duxup · 2h ago
It's not weird for an organization to choose to help children, any children. Even the military conducting some action in an area will do so. Plenty of photos of solders sharing rations with local kids.
That seems like a reasonable goal all by itself.
foogazi · 3h ago
Because the US is an entity made up of millions of people
The “US” doesn’t do anything- it’s people in the country that ultimately act
wat10000 · 8h ago
“The US” is not providing medical care for the victims. A private charity is. The role of the US government is in allowing, or now denying, the recipients to enter the country to receive care.
s5300 · 8h ago
>> This is confusing to say the least, the US are providing Israel with heavy hardware and ammunition to kill the Palestinian civilians, and then they want to take the children victims for medical care?!
Why the US plays on both sides?
The US taxpayer has always paid for Israel’s citizens healthcare, while US citizens go without healthcare and ration their necessary medicine. Makes you wonder how such leverage can exist.
apical_dendrite · 8h ago
> The US taxpayer has always paid for Israel’s citizens healthcare
What is your source for this claim?
Most US military aid to Israel goes to US defense contractors. The US hasn't provided any significant economic aid to Israel in decades.
Cyph0n · 8h ago
Because the $1 saved on a missile can be spent elsewhere?
siliconc0w · 8h ago
Dollars are fungible
dlubarov · 8h ago
By this logic, the US is funding X at 173 countries, where X is anything governments spend money on (healthcare, soup kitchens, cocktail parties?)
MentatOnMelange · 7h ago
Since the US has shuttered USAID which distrubutes food for humanitarian reasons, and made massive cuts to domestic healthcare program, this is indeed the logic of the current administration
jkaplowitz · 7h ago
Your rhetorical question is more true than you may realize: The high levels of US military spending is indeed a major reason why so many countries in (for example) Europe have been able to afford their robust social welfare systems instead of having to spend more of their budget on defense than they traditionally have.
A lot of articles discussing the consequences of the Trump administration’s pressure on other NATO countries to spend more of their GDP on defense and its public hesitation to protect Europe militarily have discussed how some of European governments’ nonmilitary expenses may have to be reduced as a result.
impossiblefork · 3h ago
No, robust healthcare is cheaper than the US system.
Here in Sweden we had this even back in the day when we spent 5% of GDP on defence, mostly materiel, and upon that had mandatory military service.
The US healthcare system is more expensive than a Swedish-style healthcare system. Another fun fact: our university education is cheaper per head than our high school education.
I think the education of physicians is maybe 1.5x as expensive as high school education, but that's an unusually expensive program.
apical_dendrite · 7h ago
They aren't really dollars, so much as in-kind aid. The US pays Raytheon to manufacture interceptors in the US and then send them to Israel. So it's fungible in the sense that without US military aid, Israel would have to figure out how to pay for missile defense and other military needs. And maybe that involves less domestic spending on healthcare and maybe it involves making deals with other countries or making foreign or military policy changes. Maybe it leads to positive changes like peace deals, but maybe it leads to negative changes, like Israel switching its allegiance to countries that aren't as friendly to US interests.
Ultimately, the person I'm replying to is giving a false impression of what the US is doing.
Gibbon1 · 4h ago
You're confused because you favor a simplistic view of the world where you have evil people and good people.
The US is not an enemy of Palestinians in general. Policies historically reflect conflicting goals and problematic facts on the ground. And problematic facts on the ground are often not the US's fault.
The biggest problematic thing is outsiders that support Palestinians armed conflict with Israel. And then get butthurt and double down due to the predictable results.
cwmoore · 8h ago
Does Egypt have a border with Gaza?
Cyph0n · 8h ago
Yes. That is how these patients were being evacuated in the first place before traveling to the US for treatment.
next_xibalba · 7h ago
Why not treat them in Egypt?
UncleMeat · 7h ago
Because there is a charitable organization offering to treat them for free in the US. Is there something wrong with doing good?
RandomBacon · 3h ago
Isn't medical care less expensive in other countrues than the U.S.?
Wouldn't they be able to treat more children if they didn't have to spend money on transportation, and paid cheaper healthcare costs in Egypt?
Cyph0n · 2h ago
1. If a US based charity finds a hospital and doctors that are willing to treat these children for free, why would you look for alternatives?
2. Some of these are likely complex cases in children that cannot easily be handled elsewhere. The US has some of the best hospitals and doctors in the world.
UncleMeat · 2h ago
Maybe. That'd require significant additional international coordination.
Is running an inefficient charity so bad that the government needs to step in and stop it?
There could be an entirely different conversation about whether this particular group is effective. I really don't care about that. What I care about is that an organization is trying to do something nice to suffering people and then decision makers within the Trump administration decided that this was unacceptable and used an extreme legal hammer to put a stop to it where their only possible motivation is simply rage at Gazans.
simonsarris · 4h ago
There's something wrong with that if you wanted to do the most good per unit of pretty much any kind of resource, yes.
UncleMeat · 2h ago
I give at lot of money annually to a local food bank. This is less efficient in terms of fighting hunger than giving to an international organization by virtue of the higher cost of food here.
Should the government stop me? Am I a bad person for doing this?
Frankly, it is absolutely fucking insane to me that people somehow think that this decision is somehow based in the Trump administration's desire for maximally efficient charitable giving.
moi2388 · 6h ago
Because Egypt doesn’t want Palestinians in their country. Look what happened to all the other countries who took in Palestinians. Plot twist; they started civil wars.
No comments yet
next_xibalba · 7h ago
Are Jordan, Saudi Arabia, all of Europe, etc closer to Gaza than the U.S.?
tzs · 2h ago
The most important thing is why they stopped:
> The US state department announced on Saturday that it would stop issuing visas to children from Gaza in desperate need of medical care after an online pressure campaign from Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer close to Donald Trump who has described herself as “a proud Islamophobe”.
> In a pair of posts on the social network on Friday, Loomer had shared video of badly injured Palestinian children and their family members arriving in Houston and San Francisco this month, along with false claims that their shouts of joy were “jihadi chants” and that they were “doing the HAMAS terror whistle”.
...
> After misrepresenting the children, including amputees arriving to get prosthetic legs, as “Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone”, Loomer demanded to know “who at the US State Department under @marcorubio signed off on the visas for Palestinians from a HAMAS hot zone”.
> “Is Rubio even aware of this?” Loomer wrote, in reference to the secretary of state who was at the time in Alaska meeting Vladimir Putin.
> “Why would anyone at the State Department give visas to individuals who live in Gaza, which is run by HAMAS?” Loomer wrote, before falsely stating that “95% of GAZANS voted for HAMAS.”
(The articles notes that in fact Hamas got 44% of the votes, not 95%, and only won 2 of the 5 districts, and that the last election in Gaza was in 2006).
NomDePlum · 9h ago
Full title: US state department stops issuing visas for Gaza’s children to get medical care after far-right campaign
artninja1988 · 8h ago
They have a point in that Israel should be forced to take care of those children, also to stop the genocide. Taking in displaced only serves Israels interests
nemomarx · 8h ago
Since Israel is not going to do either, and the US is not going to try and make them, I think we should at least save the lives we can. Imagine asking Germany in the 40s to take better care of Jewish children to turn away refugees, right?
No comments yet
DSingularity · 8h ago
Hard agree. I am highly sympathetic to the numerous tragedies that have afflicted the modern Palestinians. They have only knowing suffering at the hands of overwhelming adversaries from the British colonial rule to the rule of western armed Eastern European terrorist gangs.
That being said if we take in Palestinians we are effectively advancing the self proclaimed objective of the Israeli government: ethnic cleansing. The west should not take them in and the west should instead sanction Israel to the point of crippling their economy. Only then will the Israelis stop the abuse.
apical_dendrite · 8h ago
In this case, we're talking about a small number of people who need specialized medical treatment. Denying medical care for people who need it based on some principle is inhumane.
DSingularity · 5h ago
I don’t think you realize how this works in practice.
In theory it will be for highest need. In practice various parties will find ways to make sure every applicant meets the bar.
In theory it’s temporary. In practice majority will find ways to stay.
It will a sudden exodus of 100.000 Gazans to the US. Israel wins as they will probably in the end kill 10-20% of the population (we know that they’ve killed 5% but many organizations estimate that at least as many are under the ruins and there are excess deaths to count too eg those starved because of Israel’s blockade), they will maim 10-20-%, and finally find ways to expel most of the remaining to various countries.
wat10000 · 8h ago
These are visitor visas. We’re not “taking in” the recipients.
DSingularity · 5h ago
Do you have any doubt that they will strive to go from visitor to permanent? It’s not as hard as you think.
Bottom line: why can’t we compel Israel to meet their medical needs? Or for example to stop bombing hospitals in Gaza so they don’t have to come here for need?
wat10000 · 2h ago
Do you have any evidence they’re staying?
Israel’s responsibility isn’t really relevant to visas being issued for medical care being paid for by private charity.
alephnerd · 8h ago
> western armed Eastern European terrorist gangs
The majority of Israelis (45%) are Mizrahi or Eastern Sephardi [0] - primarily Moroccan, Iraqi, Yemeni, Syrian, Algerian, Iranian, Kurdish, Azeri, Tajik, and Egyptian in origin. The rest are Arab (20%) or Ashkenazi (33%) but these are overwhelmingly Soviet-era Jews who faced antisemitism during the Soviet era. You also have 1% who are Ethiopian in origin and 1% who are Indian (primarily Marathi) in origin.
The most rightwing Israelis are themselves 1.5 generation Mizrahi, such as Ben Gvir (Kurdish) and Karhi (Tunisian).
The same way Palestinians made homeless due to the 1948 war continue to resent Israel, similarly Mizrahi families continue to resent and distrust the Muslim countries their parents and grandparents were forced to leave from their mohallas.
Assuming Israel is overwhelmingly Ashkenazi is itself white normative and neocolonialist in nature.
> colonial rule
Same for plenty of Jews in Eastern countries.
For example, the Farhud [1] in Iraq as Iraqi Sunnis viewed Iraqi Jews as collaborationists with the British (this was also caused by Nazi propaganda during WW2) and the 1945 Libyan Riots [2] instigated by British occupation forces to coopt Libyan Sunnis.
I wonder how upset those Mizrahi Jews should be with the Ashkenazi Jews that worked to promote their exodus by conspiring to create the conditions to push them out of Iraq and Egypt.
Plenty are annoyed with shenanigans like those in Egypt in the early 1950s, but denying the Farhud or the Shagabh Tarabulus is just as bad as denying the Nakbha.
Yemeni Jews didn't ask to be genocided out by Imam Yahya's Ghazis, just like an Arab families in Galilee didn't ask to get forcibly removed from the Levant during the same year.
Plenty of people did bad things - evil knows no border.
The kisas has been paid. Let them deal with it. This is a problem that can only be resolved by regional players acting in good faith.
Alternatively, the Enlightenment never happened in Baghdad, Aleppo, Oujda, etc. If Hamas and factions of the PA can argue for Shariat, then factions in Israel can argue for Halakha.
Of course, this is unrealistic, so the only answer is to nut up and negotiate. Reality is, the politicians and governments are in constant contact based on personal experience.
The moment Israel makes a sweetheart deal with Qatar instead of the current one with the UAE and the previously planned one with KSA, all of the Hamasniks would be in Ramla in hours.
The Thanis (whose country funds and owns the MEM like AJ) still haven't forgiven the Nahyans and al-Sauds for considering invading them if Tillerson didn't intervene.
DSingularity · 3h ago
No disagreements there!
I guess in the end: people are predictability and the predictability of masses makes them vulnerable to manipulation. What we get out is endless cycles of rule by the zero-sum cynical.
I guess even the faithless will end up resigning to pray for peace.
lisbbb · 7h ago
Now do Christians in the Middle East--they have been practically exterminated out of existence everywhere.
alephnerd · 7h ago
The population has decreased significantly due to religious fanatics, but you should also give credit where credit is due.
Sisi has protected the Coptic community and Lebanon continues to have an active and prominent Christian community (which is split 50-50 between supporting Saudi and supporting Iran)
Morocco has also continued to protect the Jewish community there due to clan, tribal, and Berber ties trumping Arab or religious ties.
apical_dendrite · 8h ago
This is a huge aspect of the conflict that the left doesn't want to understand, because it doesn't fit the narrative of colonialism.
init2null · 7h ago
And it doesn't fit with the conservative Christian view of the nation consisting purely of those that fled Germany. The truth is simply more complicated than either extreme is comfortable with.
That being said, the ancestry and the history doesn't change the actions being committed today.
apical_dendrite · 7h ago
I don't think it changes the facts about what is happening, but I do think it changes how we think about the roots of the conflict, and about how (if) it gets resolved in the long term.
alephnerd · 7h ago
> That being said, the ancestry and the history doesn't change the actions being committed today
Yep. But it adds nuance, which has been lost in discourse.
This is fundamentally an Eastern conflict that can only be resolved by Mizrahis and Arabs.
Westerners converting Israel-Palestine into a culture war are doing more harm than good, because it breeds resentment from both sides, as both view the West as the lackey of the other.
alephnerd · 8h ago
This framing is an American culture war topic that has morphed into a global culture war.
In most Western countries (except France), the Jewish community is overwhelmingly Ashkenazi in origin, and that is what sets the tone for how these countries view the conflict.
Mizrahi Jews have significantly different practices, and Israel is fundamentally their state, as Mizrahi culture has become the default culture in Israel. Even pop Hebrew music is overwhelmingly Arab in musical style now (eg. Daniel Saadon) and Arabic, Farsi, and other Mizrahi languages terms have become a major part of colloquial Hebrew now (יאללה anyone).
IMO, I think Israel becoming culturally Mizrahi is what is causing Israel to lose it's clout. Israeli and (non-religious) American Jews are increasingly separated from each other as they consume different media, speak different languages, and don't even go to the same Synagogues (or Temples as Ashkenazim call them). Israel has become much more insular as it has also become a richer country (it's not like 30 years ago when Israelis had to immigrate to the US to get paid a real salary).
pvaldes · 7h ago
Just for context, because sometimes we need to remind basic facts.
The Geneva Conventions are international laws that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war since 1864. They extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians and military personnel.
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war. War crimes include shooting on disarmed civilians, denying medical treatment, food or water to captive wounded soldiers from the enemy, or deliberately starving people to death.
Israel MUST provide reasonable medical care to civilians wounded by its army, because this is required by the international laws and treaties signed previously by Israel.
CLPadvocate · 6h ago
FYI, taking hostages is prohibited by Geneva Conventions. Firing of thousands of rockets basically only at the civilian targets too.
And actually, Geneva Conventions don't really apply to a military action against a Gazan terrorist organisation that is committed to genocide.
pvaldes · 5h ago
Two wrongs don't make a right
The second claim is interesting because avoiding to declare formally a war has been a common trick for decades to bypass the Geneva Conventions. The legal category of Crimes against humanity still apply in those cases.
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/16/nx-s1-5504634/state-departmen...
Are there similar organizations operating in other countries?
> the World Health Organization supported the transfer of 32 children and six adults to Italy, Belgium and Turkey, but more than 14,800 patients are still waiting.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/16/malnourished-p...
Why the US plays on both sides?
- it's about civilians and at least the official stance is that the US helps Israel to fight terrorist, not civilians.
- a government isn't a single person
- this doesn't just involves the US government but also humanitarian help groups
That seems like a reasonable goal all by itself.
The “US” doesn’t do anything- it’s people in the country that ultimately act
The US taxpayer has always paid for Israel’s citizens healthcare, while US citizens go without healthcare and ration their necessary medicine. Makes you wonder how such leverage can exist.
What is your source for this claim?
Most US military aid to Israel goes to US defense contractors. The US hasn't provided any significant economic aid to Israel in decades.
A lot of articles discussing the consequences of the Trump administration’s pressure on other NATO countries to spend more of their GDP on defense and its public hesitation to protect Europe militarily have discussed how some of European governments’ nonmilitary expenses may have to be reduced as a result.
Here in Sweden we had this even back in the day when we spent 5% of GDP on defence, mostly materiel, and upon that had mandatory military service.
The US healthcare system is more expensive than a Swedish-style healthcare system. Another fun fact: our university education is cheaper per head than our high school education.
I think the education of physicians is maybe 1.5x as expensive as high school education, but that's an unusually expensive program.
Ultimately, the person I'm replying to is giving a false impression of what the US is doing.
The US is not an enemy of Palestinians in general. Policies historically reflect conflicting goals and problematic facts on the ground. And problematic facts on the ground are often not the US's fault.
The biggest problematic thing is outsiders that support Palestinians armed conflict with Israel. And then get butthurt and double down due to the predictable results.
Wouldn't they be able to treat more children if they didn't have to spend money on transportation, and paid cheaper healthcare costs in Egypt?
2. Some of these are likely complex cases in children that cannot easily be handled elsewhere. The US has some of the best hospitals and doctors in the world.
Is running an inefficient charity so bad that the government needs to step in and stop it?
There could be an entirely different conversation about whether this particular group is effective. I really don't care about that. What I care about is that an organization is trying to do something nice to suffering people and then decision makers within the Trump administration decided that this was unacceptable and used an extreme legal hammer to put a stop to it where their only possible motivation is simply rage at Gazans.
Should the government stop me? Am I a bad person for doing this?
Frankly, it is absolutely fucking insane to me that people somehow think that this decision is somehow based in the Trump administration's desire for maximally efficient charitable giving.
No comments yet
> The US state department announced on Saturday that it would stop issuing visas to children from Gaza in desperate need of medical care after an online pressure campaign from Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer close to Donald Trump who has described herself as “a proud Islamophobe”.
> In a pair of posts on the social network on Friday, Loomer had shared video of badly injured Palestinian children and their family members arriving in Houston and San Francisco this month, along with false claims that their shouts of joy were “jihadi chants” and that they were “doing the HAMAS terror whistle”.
...
> After misrepresenting the children, including amputees arriving to get prosthetic legs, as “Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone”, Loomer demanded to know “who at the US State Department under @marcorubio signed off on the visas for Palestinians from a HAMAS hot zone”.
> “Is Rubio even aware of this?” Loomer wrote, in reference to the secretary of state who was at the time in Alaska meeting Vladimir Putin.
> “Why would anyone at the State Department give visas to individuals who live in Gaza, which is run by HAMAS?” Loomer wrote, before falsely stating that “95% of GAZANS voted for HAMAS.”
(The articles notes that in fact Hamas got 44% of the votes, not 95%, and only won 2 of the 5 districts, and that the last election in Gaza was in 2006).
No comments yet
That being said if we take in Palestinians we are effectively advancing the self proclaimed objective of the Israeli government: ethnic cleansing. The west should not take them in and the west should instead sanction Israel to the point of crippling their economy. Only then will the Israelis stop the abuse.
In theory it will be for highest need. In practice various parties will find ways to make sure every applicant meets the bar.
In theory it’s temporary. In practice majority will find ways to stay.
It will a sudden exodus of 100.000 Gazans to the US. Israel wins as they will probably in the end kill 10-20% of the population (we know that they’ve killed 5% but many organizations estimate that at least as many are under the ruins and there are excess deaths to count too eg those starved because of Israel’s blockade), they will maim 10-20-%, and finally find ways to expel most of the remaining to various countries.
Bottom line: why can’t we compel Israel to meet their medical needs? Or for example to stop bombing hospitals in Gaza so they don’t have to come here for need?
Israel’s responsibility isn’t really relevant to visas being issued for medical care being paid for by private charity.
The majority of Israelis (45%) are Mizrahi or Eastern Sephardi [0] - primarily Moroccan, Iraqi, Yemeni, Syrian, Algerian, Iranian, Kurdish, Azeri, Tajik, and Egyptian in origin. The rest are Arab (20%) or Ashkenazi (33%) but these are overwhelmingly Soviet-era Jews who faced antisemitism during the Soviet era. You also have 1% who are Ethiopian in origin and 1% who are Indian (primarily Marathi) in origin.
The most rightwing Israelis are themselves 1.5 generation Mizrahi, such as Ben Gvir (Kurdish) and Karhi (Tunisian).
The same way Palestinians made homeless due to the 1948 war continue to resent Israel, similarly Mizrahi families continue to resent and distrust the Muslim countries their parents and grandparents were forced to leave from their mohallas.
Assuming Israel is overwhelmingly Ashkenazi is itself white normative and neocolonialist in nature.
> colonial rule
Same for plenty of Jews in Eastern countries.
For example, the Farhud [1] in Iraq as Iraqi Sunnis viewed Iraqi Jews as collaborationists with the British (this was also caused by Nazi propaganda during WW2) and the 1945 Libyan Riots [2] instigated by British occupation forces to coopt Libyan Sunnis.
[0] - https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic...
[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud
[2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Tr...
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230619-undeniable-proof-...
Yemeni Jews didn't ask to be genocided out by Imam Yahya's Ghazis, just like an Arab families in Galilee didn't ask to get forcibly removed from the Levant during the same year.
Plenty of people did bad things - evil knows no border.
The kisas has been paid. Let them deal with it. This is a problem that can only be resolved by regional players acting in good faith.
Alternatively, the Enlightenment never happened in Baghdad, Aleppo, Oujda, etc. If Hamas and factions of the PA can argue for Shariat, then factions in Israel can argue for Halakha.
Of course, this is unrealistic, so the only answer is to nut up and negotiate. Reality is, the politicians and governments are in constant contact based on personal experience.
The moment Israel makes a sweetheart deal with Qatar instead of the current one with the UAE and the previously planned one with KSA, all of the Hamasniks would be in Ramla in hours.
The Thanis (whose country funds and owns the MEM like AJ) still haven't forgiven the Nahyans and al-Sauds for considering invading them if Tillerson didn't intervene.
I guess in the end: people are predictability and the predictability of masses makes them vulnerable to manipulation. What we get out is endless cycles of rule by the zero-sum cynical.
I guess even the faithless will end up resigning to pray for peace.
Sisi has protected the Coptic community and Lebanon continues to have an active and prominent Christian community (which is split 50-50 between supporting Saudi and supporting Iran)
Morocco has also continued to protect the Jewish community there due to clan, tribal, and Berber ties trumping Arab or religious ties.
That being said, the ancestry and the history doesn't change the actions being committed today.
Yep. But it adds nuance, which has been lost in discourse.
This is fundamentally an Eastern conflict that can only be resolved by Mizrahis and Arabs.
Westerners converting Israel-Palestine into a culture war are doing more harm than good, because it breeds resentment from both sides, as both view the West as the lackey of the other.
In most Western countries (except France), the Jewish community is overwhelmingly Ashkenazi in origin, and that is what sets the tone for how these countries view the conflict.
Mizrahi Jews have significantly different practices, and Israel is fundamentally their state, as Mizrahi culture has become the default culture in Israel. Even pop Hebrew music is overwhelmingly Arab in musical style now (eg. Daniel Saadon) and Arabic, Farsi, and other Mizrahi languages terms have become a major part of colloquial Hebrew now (יאללה anyone).
IMO, I think Israel becoming culturally Mizrahi is what is causing Israel to lose it's clout. Israeli and (non-religious) American Jews are increasingly separated from each other as they consume different media, speak different languages, and don't even go to the same Synagogues (or Temples as Ashkenazim call them). Israel has become much more insular as it has also become a richer country (it's not like 30 years ago when Israelis had to immigrate to the US to get paid a real salary).
The Geneva Conventions are international laws that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war since 1864. They extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians and military personnel.
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war. War crimes include shooting on disarmed civilians, denying medical treatment, food or water to captive wounded soldiers from the enemy, or deliberately starving people to death.
Israel MUST provide reasonable medical care to civilians wounded by its army, because this is required by the international laws and treaties signed previously by Israel.
And actually, Geneva Conventions don't really apply to a military action against a Gazan terrorist organisation that is committed to genocide.
The second claim is interesting because avoiding to declare formally a war has been a common trick for decades to bypass the Geneva Conventions. The legal category of Crimes against humanity still apply in those cases.