In the first place there is no prison sentence longer than ten years, and few offenders serve that long. The authorities figure that a maximum ten-year constructive program will fit anybody for proper living unless he is irredeemable. There will be some cases, of course, where there is failure, but the idea is to fit the régime to the majority. Right here there will be the question always forthcoming as to what they would do with our own gangster type. Give them a ten-year sentence? Not at all. They have few of them and for armed robbery one may be sentenced to death. No arguments are listed here for or against punishment by death, but in order to understand the absence of a long prison sentence it is necessary to be informed as to what happens to those who would ordinarily be the recipients of such a term. The fellow who murders in a jealous rage or great anger may find himself in for a long treatment in a place for mental abnormals, or he may, if judged sane, be given a sentence of ten years or less. They do not consider this type of murderer to be, usually, a further social menace.
   With those disposed of the formulators of the policy believe that a longer sentence for others is not needed. They see no aid anywhere in having one languish in prison beyond that point where a sentence ceases to have the possibility of being constructive and begins to dull the senses and perspective of the prisoner so that he is worthless anywhere. Some of our penologists have said that it is better to keep a man either a brief period or for his life because after a certain time it is practically impossible for him to fit into a society of which he has no knowledge.

the city of Rafah, the last refuge of about 1.5 million forcibly displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip

an estimated 600,000 children [live in Rafah]

One in three people in Rafah is a child.

As of 16 February, the Israeli forces’ operation in the the Nasser Hospital complex in Khan Younis continues. The Israeli military alleged that Hamas was holding hostages or withholding the bodies of Israelis within the compound, and subsequently reported that its forces arrested twenty of the suspects from the 7 October attacks in Israel. On 15 February, the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that hundreds of patients and staff had been relocated to a building within the hospital compound, where they lacked food, water, and baby formula, and that the hospital generators had stopped functioning, putting the lives of six patients on ventilators in the intensive care unit (ICU), and three premature babies, at risk. On the morning of 16 February, the Ministry of Health reported that five ICU patients had died due to the depletion of oxygen. On 15 February, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported that the hospital had been shelled, killing and wounding an undetermined number of people, and that one of its staff was unaccounted for. On 15 February, Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, expressing his concern about developments at the hospital, stated the “wounded and sick, as well as medical personnel and facilities must be protected. All feasible precautions must be taken to spare patients, staff and civilians sheltering in the hospital. Hospitals must be places of greater safety, not of war.”