- Orthopedic surgeon Mark Perlmutter recounts amputating the leg of a five-year-old girl in Gaza without anaesthesia after supplies ran out during Israel’s genocidal war. He says doctors sang to her as she remained awake through the procedure. (Aljazeera Aug 2026)

Children in Gaza: Amputations Without Anesthesia

10 children a day lose one or both of their legs in Gaza. 1

Right: Hanan and Misk a-Daqi after their legs were amputated. Photo courtesy of the family

Since the outset of the war in Gaza, children have undergone amputations due to bombings and targeted shootings. As of August 2026, Gaza now has the most child amputees in the world. And many surgeons reported having to conduct amputations on children without anesthesia.
Aside from the obvious, why should this matter TO YOU?
Israel has been the highest recipient of US military and economic aid since 1946. Brown University’s “Cost of War” project has found the United States’ contribution to Israel’s war in Gaza since 2023 to be between $31.35 and $33.77 billion. This is including arms deals and commitments to Israel to be paid out over the following years.

Some of you might be thinking “Savannah, Bush spent hundreds of billions of dollars on Iraq during his administration.”
And you would be correct. The United States spent close to $700 billion on the Iraq War by the time Bush left office. A war that killed somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians in the first six years of the eleven year war. 2

The war in Iraq is the same problem on a different, if not similar, scale. The Iraq war spanned across nine years, killing roughly half a million people. And while that war is over, we seemed to have learned nothing.

Civilian casualties as a result of warfare can be deemed “par for the course” in international conflict. But at what point does the amount of casualties start to negatively influence foreign relations? In other words, if the US keeps killing thousands of children in Gaza, will other countries limit their foreign affairs with us? Are we seeing that already?

Hani Ziyarah in hospital after the amputation. Photo courtesy of the family

I don’t believe any of us like children dying. But many of us don’t see children dying day-to-day. And we are able to cognitively separate what is happening in Gaza from our daily scope of life. But I want to put it front and center, at least for a moment. Because while killing innocent children is bad in its own right, I also want to tie a string of relevance to our lives here in the United States. We care deeply about the things that affect us. So let’s look at how infant deaths in Gaza affect US citizens.

Most Arab countries have become increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and by default, critical of the US.

That’s a problem. The US depends on strong relationships with Arab countries for things like military bases, intelligence cooperation, counterterrorism, oil and energy security (touchy subject, I know), shipping routes, diplomatic negotiations, hostage negotiations, Iran policy, trade, migration and regional conflict prevention. In other words, a lot.

And on top of this, many Middle Eastern governments have decided to widen their security relationships instead of primarily relying on the United States. That’s a major financial loss for the US. For example, Suadi Arabia just announced it will be seeking alternative security relations, having lost confidence in the United States’ ability to provide strong security after witnessing the regional war in Gaza.3

And there’s another problem. Diplomatic Credibility.
The United States has historically abided by international law and held other countries to do the same.
The United States regularly asks other countries to

• respect international law

• protect civilians

• condemn terrorism

• impose sanctions

• accept American mediation

• cooperate with American security initiatives

• support American positions at the UN

Israel has broken international law, committed war crimes and refused to acknowledge their criminal behavior on an international scale. And because the United States is the primary financial support of Israel, the United States is, by default, a participant in those crimes.
This does not bode well for future foreign relations.
Why?
The US currently accepts and supports Israel’s illegal behavior. This means that the Unites State’s interpretation and communication surrounding international law will lose credibility. Therefore, other countries will be less willing to accept or listen to US leadership in foreign affairs. “Why would we listen to the US? They held Israel to a completely different standard than the rest of the world.”
And that is the biggest threat to US citizens.
The United States is losing not only respect but the ability to negotiate and gain a valid hearing with foreign governments. That means we will have limited allies in future conflicts and higher standards to meet in foreign negotiations. That means longer wars, higher prices, drawn out process for international law regarding the United States and an overall loss of respect for the “greatest country in the world.”

To recap: The United States’ support for the war in Gaza is having both a financial and repetitional impact on our country, that we will feel the affects of for years to come.

More Mothers are Dying in America

“In states with abortion bans, ProPublica has found, pregnant women have bled to death, succumbed to fatal infections and wound up in morgues with what medical examiners recorded were “products of conception” still in their bodies.” - ProPublica

Photo provided by family to ProPublica

This is Josseli Barnica. She died last month. Just days after Texas banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, she died after doctors in the state delayed treating her miscarriage for 40 hours. Her death was 100% preventable.

The republican party just told women to start “having more babies than you think you can afford.” at the 2026 TPUSA conference and during a CPAC discussion.
But the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate than any other developed country. A rate 50% higher than any other peer nation.
Maternal mortality rate (MMR) is the number of women who die while giving birth/per 100,000 births. In the United States 17-22 women per 100,000 die during childbirth. And you might be saying “Well, that’s not so bad.”

In every other developed country that number sits somewhere between 3-6. We have the ability to cut the number of deaths in half. We simply are not doing it. Why? It would require a form of universal healthcare, which we do not have. It would require an increase in funding for OB/GYN and maternity wards. Which we are not doing. In fact, the United States has decreased funding for women’s health by 23% percent since Trump’s 2019 policy restrictions.4 It requires addressing the socioeconomic impacts on maternal deaths. Black and non-hispanic women have an MMR of 50.3. While white women have an MMR of 14.5.5 See image below.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/hestat113.pdf

And lastly, it would require easier access to abortions and miscarriage care.

And it gets worse.

More than 80% of maternal deaths in the United States are preventable. 6
As mentioned earlier, we have the ability to prevent mothers from dying. We simply are not exercising it.

And a new problem has entered the villa; decreased abortion care
States with strict abortion bans are seeing an increase in preventable maternal deaths.

Why?
Doctors are afraid of being prosecuted. States with heavy limitations surrounding gestational care threaten long prison sentences, large fines and criminal penalties for performing procedures that are considered abortion care. This means women experiencing miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies (both of which can be fatal when left untreated) have to seek medical care outside their state to receive life saving procedures.7
Unclear and inconsistent legal protocols. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, every state has different laws surrounding abortion. And many states prohibit abortion unless the mother is on the “brink of death”, which is an unclear and subjective term with very real impacts on doctors providing the procedure. Many doctors wait until it’s too late in order to make sure the mother is indeed, on the brink of death. This is where we are seeing an uptick in preventable deaths. Doctors CAN provide the procedure earlier, but are afraid to. 8 Leading to more women dying from preventable causes in front of the doctors who could have saved them.
Limited Access to Care - Many OB-GYNs and maternal care organizations have left states where abortion is limited or prohibited, making those same states a maternity care desert for the women who reside in them.

Questions we need to ask:

As we close this month’s WCR, there are questions we should consider.

Why are children facing the brunt of US and foreign policy decisions? ICE currently detains 179-220 children at a time and has detained over 500 babies and infants in the last year. Over 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza since 2023. Is it because children have virtually no agency against the parties that govern them? And therefore, are targets who carry very little consequence? Is it because we, as a nation or world, have changed how we view children? We see them more as items or livestock to be handled rather than humans to be protected? Do you view your own children differently than you view other children. (Note, I did not ask do you prioritize your children over other children.)

Why are women still left out of medical research and funding? What does it say about our nation that 80% of our maternal deaths are preventable? Why has funding for women’s health decreased? Why is the US holding steady with the highest Maternal Mortality Rate and making no move to address it. The republican party just told women to start “having more babies than you think you can afford.” at the 2026 TPUSA conference and during a CPAC discussion. A statement that echoes too loud in hospital rooms these days.

Who said it? Answer at the bottom of this newsletter.

Welcome to July’s Women Can’t Read newsletter, where we recap the past month’s news affecting women.

We’ve got a lot to cover, and I refuse to write a 300 word intro paragraph neither you nor I appreciate.

So let’s get to the meat and potatoes.

First up

1 - The Tate brothers have been arrested.

Who are the Tate brothers?

Andrew and Tristan Tate first became famous as successful kickboxers. They then built fame and wealth through YouTube and reality tv. Their social media empire attracted millions of male followers by promoting a lifestyle of extreme wealth and luxury. By claiming that any man could have private jets and luxury cars if he enrolled in “Hustlers University”, the Tate brother’s online course teaching men how to achieve maximum wealth.

Sounds harmless right? A bit MLM coded, but harmless.

The only problem is, the Tate brothers didn’t make their fortune from kickboxing or online hustling through day trading or traditional business ventures, despite advertising this as the origin for their fortune.

How were the Tate brothers actually gaining extreme wealth?

Webcam pornography.

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After realizing there wasn’t much money in online business ventures, the Tate brothers began making and selling pornography with their girlfriends. The brothers then kept all the profits from the pornographic material, leaving the women stuck in a dependent system.

From there, the brothers began hiring women, and sometimes, underage girls, for their webcam videos. Creating a pornography empire run by two brothers but starring and exploiting children.

While this pornography empire was flourishing behind the scenes, Andrew and Tristan continued to build a separate online community where they fronted as savvy businessmen, building wealth through “earnest avenues”.

The Tate brother’s online platform has grown to over 12 million followers. Their entire platform runs on the ideology that men should have authority over women, and women are to listen and obey men, much like a child or a dog.

Millions of men, many of them young and impressionable and seeking community in a post-Covid, social media centered world, are watching and listening to the Tate brothers say things like

“Women shouldn’t vote because they don’t care about issues outside of how they feel.”

Or

“There is no such thing as an independent female.”

Or speaking to women in their webcam footage, saying

“bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck”.

Or

“any man... will always be able to whoop your ass, rape you, strangle you, kill you, anything he wants to do.”

There are hundreds of far more violent words from the Tate brothers.

And they are some of the LEADING voices of the next generation. Gen Z and Gen Alpha make up a large proportion of the brothers following. And they worship Andrew and Tristan Tate.

But Andrew and Tristan are not the only males in the manosphere promoting violence towards women.

There are countless other male creators promoting the idea that women are second class humans who belong to men. Sneako (Nickolas Lima), Myron Gaines, Walter Weekes, Iman Gadzhi, and many more.

These are the voices shaping the next generation.

But the ideology that women are expendable is not new. It’s a new iteration of a longstanding idea; that women are not partners, but items to possess and hold authority over.

Which brings us to our next piece of news

Grace Kelly Snorkeling

2- England hits record number of 911 calls for domestic violence - in a single night.

The data is in. On the night of the World Cup, England received the most calls for domestic violence it has ever received. England’s soccer savvy population is so notorious for assaulting their partners and children on game days, that banners can be seen around the city saying “he’s coming home,” warning wives and mothers to find safety or have access to a working phone when their husbands come home from watching a match.

Women’s Aid, 2026

If you’re reading this in America, you might be thinking. “What does this have to do with me?” Imagine being a woman in the United States, reading about women in another country experiencing record breaking levels of violence simply because of a soccer game? And this trend can be seen in America as well. Police stations in the US receive increased 911 calls for domestic assault on NFL game nights.
What does this tell us? That men see women as justified targets for their rage. That men do not know how to cope with disappointment in a reasonable way, especially when alcohol and large groups of fellow angry men are present. The claim that “women are too emotional to lead” falls flat against the concrete data.

3 - 69% of criminal cases against ICE involve children.

If you’re familiar with my writing and research, you know that I don’t dabble in antidotes. I follow the data and what majority numbers tell us. And I want to lead with the most important statistic of all. 70.6% of people currently detained in ICE detention centers have zero criminal record. And I want to remind readers that being an illegal immigrant in the United States is not a federal crime, it is a civil violation. Everyone who is found to be here illegally is, by law, required to have a trial to plead their case. And only if the immigrant is denied entry after trial or found dangerous with a severe criminal history should they be placed in detention centers. It makes you wonder why ICE has detained over 6,000 kids in the Trump administration, a 10X increase since the Biden administration. Those must be some very bad kids.

Now let’s look at some ICE agent data.

Criminal cases against ice agents have been tracked since 2006. Everything from unjustified violence, abuse, using weapons without cause, etc. The data shows 42% of the criminal cases over the last 20 years were filed during the Trump administration.

tracreports.org

Why is that? Testimonies from former DHS lawyers state that background checks are frequently being waived in order to get more ICE agents on the street faster.

The Ohio Immigrant Alliance released a list of 59 cases against ICE and CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) agents, involving sex and violent crimes. 69% of these cases involve sexual or violent crimes against children. The men who committed these crimes are now walking the streets as paid ICE and CBP agents.

While upsetting, these statistics are not surprising. Data consistently shows that 20-40% of law-enforcement officers in the United States commit domestic abuse. So it’s no surprise that men who did not make it through the Police Academy, find themselves seeking a similar career path with a lower barrier to entry with ICE or CBP.

You’re a legal citizen in the United States, why should this matter to you? If in just eight months, we’ve seen 6,000 kids detained without fair trial, and we’ve seen an increase in sexual and violent crimes against women and children by ICE agents (whose salary is paid by your taxes), what will the next eight months look like? What will the next three years look like?

Thank you for reading Women Can’t Read!

If you have questions or thoughts regarding the news you read today, call your daughters, wives and female friends. They want to know the men in their life give a shit.

Answer to above quote: President Donald Trump speaking to Jeffery Epstein.

Elsa Peretti

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