"I had never seen a brain that was affected by such an extensive and severe thrombosis."The neurosurgeon on duty in San Martino that night was Alessandro d'Andrea, who also called the chief physician to his side at the operating table.
"We decided to have a decompression craniotomy, in which the skull is opened to relieve internal pressure."Zona recounted the experience:
"All venous sinuses were blocked with thrombi, a scenario I have never seen in my many years in this profession. Think of the venous sinus as the river in the middle of a valley where several streams converge. If a dam is built in the middle of the watercourse, the river swells and the tributaries can no longer drain at this point, so that the pressure rises upstream.
"I'm neither a virologist, nor an epidemiologist, nor a coroner, but given the image I saw in the girl's head, it is clear that we are dealing with something that is not normal."
"As students at one of the most privileged academic institutions in the world, we must call out injustice wherever it may occur," said the students. "We stand against the discriminatory application of the law that strips Palestinians of basic rights. We stand against the violent expulsions of those living under occupation in Sheikh Jarrah."The statement also connected legitimate Palestinian resistance to Israel's occupation with the civil rights movements in the US which saw Black Americans work to dismantle racial segregation during the 1950s and 60s. Many see a clear parallel in racialised segregation between Jews and non-Jews in Israel and the then legal racism in the American south. The recent release of reports by prominent human rights groups declaring Israel to be an apartheid state has reinforced this view.
Comment: See also: The US' haphazard withdrawal from Bagram Air Base shows it never had any clear plan in Afghanistan