The UN has warned that 1,700 Gazans shot by Israel Defense Forces at protests may need amputations in the next two years because of a lack of healthcare funding to help them recover.

Jamie McGoldrick, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters that 7,000 Palestinians were shot by Israel at protests over the last year, with many hit in the lower legs.

“You’ve got 1,700 people who are in need of serious, complicated surgeries for them to be able to walk again,” McGoldrick said, explaining the wounded require rehabilitation and “very, very serious and complex bone reconstruction surgery over a two year period before they start to rehabilitate themselves.”

There have already been 120 amputations carried out this year, including on children. Over 29,000 people were wounded at the Great March of Return demonstrations at the fence separating Gaza and Israel, which started in March 2018. Israel says shooting demonstrators in the legs shows restraint.

The UN is looking for $20 million in funding for operations to avoid amputations.

Gaza’s health system is under strain due to a lack of funding and medical supplies. The only teaching hospital is focused on trauma medicine training now, and doctors do not have the ability to carry out the complicated treatment needed for those at risk of amputation.

Food supplies are also under threat because of a lack of funding to the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). The WFP has already had to cut aid to 193,000 people in the West Bank and Gaza this year.

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The EU is committed to preserving the nuclear deal with Iran and helping the nation dodge US economic sanctions, and will not bend to any ultimatums, top European diplomats say. Earlier, Tehran suspended some of its commitments.

On Wednesday, Tehran announced it will halt disposal of excessive heavy water and uranium, which is one of the key terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement (known as the JCPOA). Unless European signatories deliver on their promises to Iran, it may enact a further rollback in 60 days.

EU members pledged to create a special financial mechanism which would allow business to be done in Iran without being on the radar of the US, which threatens anyone dealing with the country with economic sanctions.

Top EU diplomats said on Thursday they remain committed to the deal but will not bend to any ultimatums.

“We strongly urge Iran to continue to implement its commitments under the JCPoA in full as it has done until now and to refrain from any escalatory steps,” the officials said in a statement.

Iran for its part stressed that it wants to fix the JCPOA and not abandon it.

“Our goal is to strengthen the JCPOA and bring it back on track,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization, said the same day.

Earlier, Tehran clarified that its decision to partially suspend compliance with the JCPOA was in response to the US’ withdrawal and the failure by European signatories to alleviate the damage done by American sanctions.

The deal offered Iran the lifting of sanctions in exchange for placing restrictions on its nuclear industry. Lucrative business deals with European and American companies were expected to follow, boosting Iran’s economy and building trust with the West.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has said that Iran will continue to abide by the 2015 nuclear deal – but will no longer implement some optional commitments, due to the lack of EU pushback against the US.

Zarif, who arrived in Russia on Tuesday, sought to debunk speculation that Iran is considering abandoning part of its binding commitments under the internationally acclaimed accord, struck back in 2015.

“Iran’s future actions will be fully within the [nuclear deal], from which the Islamic Republic will not withdraw,” Zarif told reporters in Moscow.

He chastised the US for being hell-bent on tearing up the deal, and the EU for being too weak to resist American pressure and preserve the accord.

“Washington’s efforts to suspend the work of the international treaty are clear,” he said. “The European Union and others… did not have the power to resist US pressure, therefore Iran… will not carry out some voluntary commitments.”

Letters specifying the changes in Iran’s implementation of the deal will be sent to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the leaders of Russia, China, Germany, the UK, and France. Ambassadors of the countries will be briefed on the revised terms by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Tehran, IRNA reported earlier.

The deal has been hanging in the balance since May last year, when US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of it, reintroducing sanctions that had been lifted in return for Iran scaling back its nuclear program. Since its withdrawal, the US has been ramping up belligerent rhetoric towards Iran, imposing additional sets of sanctions, and has declared Tehran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “terrorists.”

In a bid to reduce Iran’s oil exports to “zero,” the US last week decided not to extend six-month waivers on Iranian crude that it had given to eight countries following their expiration on May 1, despite an outcry from the EU. In the most recent show of force, Washington deployed four B-52 heavy bombers and a carrier strike group to the Middle East, citing a “credible” threat from Iran. 

Zarif and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov are scheduled to meet on Wednesday, exactly one year after Trump withdrew the US from the accord.

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United States sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Venezuela are illegal under international law, lead to a “denial of basic human rights” and amount to “economic starvation,” a UN rights expert has warned.

Idriss Jazairy, UN special rapporteur on sanctions and human rights, said in a scathing statement on Monday that US efforts at “regime change through economic measures” in countries like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela are “contrary to international law” and have “never been an accepted practice of international relations.”

Serious political differences between governments “must never be resolved by precipitating economic and humanitarian disasters” and “making ordinary people pawns and hostages” to them, the statement said.

Jazairy also challenged the notion that Washington’s current sanctions on Venezuela were “helping” people.

The high-level condemnation follows a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which found that the sanctions have increased hunger and disease, exacerbated the economic crisis and led to the premature deaths of 40,000 Venezuelans between 2017 and 2018.

He also called out Washington’s decision to terminate sanctions waivers for buyers of crude oil from Iran, which harms not only Tehran but its major trading partners.

Jazairy said he was “deeply concerned” that one state, the US, can “use its dominant position in international finance” to directly harm not only the Iranian people but “everyone in the world who trades with them.” Along with ending the waivers, the Trump administration threatened any country continuing to trade with Iran with being slapped with sanctions themselves.

The sanctions on Iran had previously been lifted under the terms of the nuclear deal reached with the US, Russia and other European countries in 2015, but Trump tore up the deal in 2018 and has repeatedly urged European countries to do the same, so far without success.

The UN rights expert also slammed a US law which gives US citizens the right to file lawsuits against foreign companies profiting from properties that Cuba confiscated or nationalized after the 1959 revolution. This ignored protests by the EU and Canada and was “a direct attack” on European and Canadian companies in Cuba, the statement said.

Jazairy called on the international community to challenge the US “blockades” which he said constitute a “threat to world peace and security.” The international community must find peaceful and diplomatic resolutions to their political differences without letting the “arbitrary use of economic starvation become the new ‘normal’,” he added

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US State Secretary Mike Pompeo has unexpectedly arrived in Baghdad for an unannounced visit, AFP reported citing Iraqi government sources. Pompeo had scrapped his visit to Germany, citing unspecified “pressing issues.”

Pompeo has reportedly met with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. So far, no details of the surprise visit have emerged.

The development, if confirmed, explains the mysterious travel path of Pompeo’s plane, that was spotted flying towards the Middle East region earlier on Tuesday. The plane was tracked up to the airspace above eastern Turkey, where it apparently turned off its transponder while approaching Iraq.

Earlier in the day the US Secretary of State abruptly cancelled his visit to Germany, where he was scheduled to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. The “rescheduling” was vaguely explained by emergence of unspecified “pressing issues.” Before scrapping the Berlin visit, Pompeo attended a meeting of the Arctic Council in Rovaniemi, Finland, where he called the region “an arena of global power & competition.”

Pompeo’s visit to Iraq comes as the US has ramped up its military activities in the region, citing a threat of Iranian “attack.” On Monday, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group set sail to the Persian Gulf, while at least four B-52 strategic bombers were said to be redeployed to the region. 

Flexing the military muscle is needed “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” according to US National Security Advisor John Bolton. While the “threat” is apparently imminent, Bolton gave no details on it. 

Iran mocked the US over presenting the carrier group deployment as rapid and spontaneous, while it was actually announced weeks ago.

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Most reactions to the plane crash at a Moscow airport on Sunday were of simple sadness and shock – but for Financial Times Moscow correspondent Max Seddon, the tragedy was a chance to gratuitously bash Russian authorities.

Seddon took to Twitter on Monday to chastise Sheremetyevo Airport authorities for the most nonsensical of reasons – because they did not instantly remove the destroyed aircraft from the tarmac after the crash landing which killed 41 people, including two children.

“A day after an Aeroflot flight burnt up at Sheremetevo, the airport has just left it there for everyone to stare at,” he wrote, in an apparent attempt to provoke some kind of outrage.

However, Seddon’s mentions were immediately filled with people reminding him that the plane had not been removed because the crash site would need to be thoroughly investigated. It obviously hadn’t occurred to the FT correspondent that immediately removing the aircraft from view would interfere with those efforts.

“In fairness, a proper technical assessment requires as little post-accident movement as possible…” writer Mark Galeotti wrote.

“I can’t believe they haven’t removed a possible crime scene involving the deaths of 40 people. It’s been a whole 12 hours,” another sarcastic comment read.

One tweeter surmised that Seddon’s rush to judgement stemmed from his general hostility toward Russia, coupled with a lack of basic knowledge about air crash investigations.

Another tweeter suspected that if the plane had been moved, Seddon would likely be accusing Russian authorities of an “attempted cover up,” and suggested that he should simply have opted for some “respectful silence” under the circumstances.

READ MORE: ‘Plane was burning like PLASTIC CUP’: Russian jet crash survivor recalls harrowing escape from fire

Perhaps Seddon’s attempt to spark some uncalled for condemnation of Russia isn’t all that surprising, though, since his Twitter bio states he is working in “soviet Russia.”

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Venezuela will prosecute six lawmakers who backed opposition leader Juan Guaido’s failed coup last week, the Supreme Court has ruled, hinting that more prosecutions were in the works for “high treason” and “conspiracy.”

The Venezuelan Supreme Court has announced the prosecution of six lawmakers on charges including treason against the fatherland, conspiracy, insurrection, civil rebellion, usurpation of functions, and public instigation, the body said in a statement issued on Tuesday. The document named Henry Ramos Allsup, a former National Assembly speaker, Luis Florida, Marianela Magallanes, Simon Calzadilla, Americo de Grazia, and Richard Blanco.

The Constituent Assembly subsequently stripped all six of their parliamentary immunity, plus Edgar Zambrano, who joined Guaido at the military base where he kicked off the botched uprising with a call for the military to abandon President Nicolas Maduro’s government last Tuesday. Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello added that three more lawmakers complicit in the coup had been identified and would also be prosecuted. The Assembly has promised to suspend the immunity of any other lawmakers found to be involved in the short-lived attempt to overthrow Maduro, which triggered two days of rioting and resulted in five deaths.

The criminal probe will be led by Attorney General Tarek William Saab. In addition to the prosecutions, Saab said, authorities have issued 18 arrest warrants against “civilians and military plotters” involved in the coup. 

US Vice President Mike Pence has threatened the Venezuelan Supreme Court with sanctions for doing their job, accusing the judges of acting as “a political tool for a regime that usurps democracy, indicts political prisoners and promotes authoritarianism.”

Pence also rewarded President Nicolas Maduro’s former spy chief, General Manuel Ricardo Figueroa, for becoming the highest-ranking member of the government to defect last week, holding him up as an example to the rest of the military, who have thus far proved profoundly uninterested in joining the US-backed opposition.

Guaido, who declared himself president in January, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity last month for violating a ban on leaving the country, but Maduro’s government has neither charged nor arrested him.

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a surprise visit to Iraq to remind the country who its friends are, assuring Iraqi leaders the US is concerned about their “sovereignty” while warning them to steer clear of Iran – or else.

The US wants “to assure [the Iraqis] that we stood ready to continue to ensure that Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation,” Pompeo said, according to Reuters. Unless that independence involves Iraq making nice with Iran, that is, since his visit was prompted by “escalating activity” there, invisible to the naked eye but enough to provoke the deployment of a US carrier strike group and bomber task force to the region.

“There’s a long history in Iraq,” Pompeo told reporters, “and we want them to be successful, independent and have sovereignty and not be beholden to any country.” That history includes the US invading and devastating Iraq twice within the past three decades: during the 1990 Gulf War and during the Saddam Hussein government overthrow in the early 2000s. Washington still maintains a 5,000-strong military force in Iraq.

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Pompeo met with Iraqi President Barham Saleh, PM Adel Abdel Mahdi, and a handful of senior government officials in two separate meetings on Tuesday. “We talked to them about the importance of Iraq ensuring that it’s able to adequately protect Americans in their country,” Pompeo told AFP. “They both provided assurances that they understood that was their responsibility.” Pompeo’s warning that “any attack by Iran or its proxies on American forces in Iraq would affect the Iraqi government too” – a message he told reporters he planned to deliver – might have helped put the Iraqis in the cooperative spirit. 

Iraq’s relationship with Iran, once a sworn enemy, has improved dramatically since the second US invasion, with Iran helping to rebuild the shattered country economically and militarily while taking advantage of the power vacuum to influence the fledgling Iraqi government. Trade between the two countries increased ten-fold in the seven years following the fall of Saddam Hussein, and Iran is a major supplier of energy to Iraq.

“The Jordanians, the Saudis, the Emirates, all of the Gulf states want to see a free, independent, sovereign Iraq. So that’s the primary mission set,” Pompeo told his captive audience, who were instructed not to reveal their location until the plane had left Iraq, adding that “unfinished business deals” meant to “wean” Iraq off Iranian energy were also on the agenda. The US ended the last sanctions waivers allowing countries to continue purchasing Iranian oil in an effort to squeeze the nation economically, echoing similarly harsh sanctions placed on Iraq in the 1990s as a prelude to the second Iraq war.

Washington’s ambassador to Ukraine has been dismissed from service two months ahead of schedule. The development comes less than a month after the top Ukrainian prosecutor claimed she gave him a ‘do-not-prosecute list.’

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch will leave her position on May 20, some two months ahead of the end of her tenure, the Ukrainian media and the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported earlier this week, citing sources within the American embassy in Kiev.

Although no announcement about the ambassador’s dismissal was made public yet, the news has already drawn attention of some prominent Democrats in the Congress, who rushed to declare the development to be part of President Donald Trump’s political games.

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“The White House’s outrageous decision to recall her is a political hit job and the latest in this Administration’s campaign against career State Department personnel,”said Eliot Engel (D-New York), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it is “clear that this decision was politically motivated.”

Both Democrats also claimed that the ambassador’s premature dismissal would amount to “harming American interests and undermining American diplomacy” at a particularly important period of transition of power in Ukraine.

Yovanovitch, who took the post of the ambassador back in 2016 under the Obama administration, does not have a particularly flawless service record, as just over a month ago she found herself at the center of a scandal after Ukraine’s prosecutor general Yury Lutsenko told The Hill that the ambassador actually gave him “a list of people whom we should not prosecute” during their first meeting.

At that time, the US State Department branded his claim “an outright fabrication.” However, several weeks before the prosecutor’s claim, Yovanovitch, bluntly called on Ukraine to sack its special anticorruption prosecutor in one of her speeches, in which she described the results of Kiev’s anti-corruption reforms in scathing terms.

Lutsenko backtracked on the claim of an actual “do-not-prosecute list” but told the Ukrainian UNIAN news agency that Yovanovitch was extremely vocal in her defense of several Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, who themselves were under investigation.

“I listed some so-called anti-corruption activists under investigation. She said it was unacceptable, as it would undermine the credibility of anti-corruption activists,” Lutsenko told UNIAN. “I took a piece of paper, put down the listed names and said: ‘Give me a do not prosecute list.’ She said: “No, you got me wrong.’ I said: “No, I didn’t get you wrong.”

It is unclear if this scandal contributed to the White House’s decision to sack the ambassador. The State Department said on Monday that Yovanovitch was “concluding her 3-year diplomatic assignment in Kyiv in 2019 as planned.”

The decision to rerun a local mayoral election in Istanbul has sparked scathing criticism in Brussels — ironically, from none other than the EU’s Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt.

Tweeting about the move, which was branded a “coup” by a Turkish opposition newspaper, Verhofstadt said it highlighted that Turkey was “drifting towards a dictatorship” and offered “full support to the Turkish people protesting for their democratic rights.” Along with the verbal slap on the wrist, he said that under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership, talks on Turkey joining the EU are “impossible.”

The irony in Verhofstadt’s outrage, is that the EU itself has a long history of either totally ignoring referendum votes — or just making people vote again until the ‘correct’ result is achieved. But that, of course, does not make the EU a dictatorship. It’s still a “bastion of hope, freedom, prosperity & stability” (as per another recent Verhofstadt tweet). Twitter users wasted no time in pointing out the “irony” and “hypocrisy.”

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“How dare [Erdogan] use EU tactics,” one irritated Verhofstadt follower responded, with another saying that the UK itself was currently “battling for its democracy” — a reference to EU officials (including Verhofstadt) who have frequently voiced their personal opposition to Brexit and the ‘Remain’ factions in Britain who have been calling for a re-run of the 2016 referendum.

While there may be at least some merit to the idea of Brexit referendum re-run after two years of failed negotiations and with more accurate information now available to British voters, the idea of simply re-doing EU-related votes is hardly a one-off.

Maybe Verhofstadt should take a trip down memory lane.

France voted ‘no’ to accepting a proposed ‘EU Constitution’ by 54.9 percent in 2005, but the outcome was ignored. The same thing happened in the Netherlands, which rejected it by 61.5 percent. The ‘EU Constitution’ was later repackaged into the Lisbon Treaty and presented to the French parliament where it was adopted, without being put to the people this time (much easier!).

This new Lisbon Treaty was then rejected by Irish voters in 2008, once again sending Brussels into meltdown mode, as the pact needed to be ratified by all member states before taking effect. So, of course, they made some tweaks and asked people to vote again — and got the ‘right’ result the next time. It wasn’t the first time Ireland was asked to re-vote after giving the wrong answer, either. The country also rejected the Nice Treaty in 2001 and accepted it in a second vote a year later.

Greece voted overwhelmingly to reject severe austerity measures desired by the EU in 2015 in exchange for a multi-billion euro bailout. Not long after, under pressure from Brussels, the country’s government agreed to implement even harsher methods — totally ignoring the will of the Greek people.

But way before all that in 1992, Danes, displeased with plans for a single currency, common European defense policies and for joint rules on crime and immigration, rejected the Maastricht Treaty — and were asked to vote again.

Ironically, many European voters voted ‘no’ to these treaties because they were worried that the EU would be turned into some kind of undemocratic superstate where the wills of individual countries and people would be ignored. Being forced to vote until you give the ‘right’ answer doesn’t exactly put those worries to bed. It’s part of the reason why the British voted for Brexit in the first place.

READ MORE: After Catalan crackdown, EU will look hypocritical preaching about democracy – Irish MEP

Then there’s Catalonia, where pro-independence leaders were thrown in jail for their role in holding an independence referendum in 2017. One tweeter scolded Verhofstadt and other EU leaders for believing that they have some “moral authority” over Turkey while abuse of pro-independence forces in Catalonia is ignored. “Our leaders are still in prison because they let citizens vote,” they wrote.

With a history like that, maybe it’s a bit rich for Verhofstadt to be going around lamenting the lack of democracy in other countries.

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