Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 03, 2024
Israeli Airstrike Kills 9 Near Lebanon’s Parliament as Hezbollah Battles Israeli Invasion
Oct 03, 2024
At least nine people, including health and rescue workers, have died in central Beirut after Israel bombed an apartment building housing a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah. At least 14 people were wounded in the airstrike on the Bashoura district of Beirut near Lebanon’s Parliament. There are reports Israel fired white phosphorus munitions during the attack. Israel also carried out numerous strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced since Israel began its massive aerial assault last week. Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah claims it has destroyed three Israeli tanks.
Lebanese FM Claims Israel Killed Nasrallah Shortly After He Agreed to Ceasefire
Oct 03, 2024
Israel launched the ground invasion days after assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday. Lebanon’s top diplomat has revealed that Israel targeted Nasrallah after he had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire. Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib made the comment during an interview with Christiane Amanpour on PBS.
Christiane Amanpour: “Are you saying Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire just moments before he was assassinated?”
Abdallah Bou Habib: “He agreed. He agreed, yes, yes. We agreed completely. Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, but consulting with the Hezbollah. The speaker, Mr. Berri, consulted with Hezbollah. And we informed the Americans and the French that that’s what happened.”
Christiane Amanpour: “So” —
Abdallah Bou Habib: “And they told us that Mr. Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents.”
Hezbollah has not confirmed a ceasefire deal was reached, but Lebanon’s Ambassador to the U.K. Rami Mortada told the BBC, “We were on track trying to discuss a diplomatic alternative to the current abyss, but the hotheads in Israel chose a different path.”
Meanwhile, the emir of Qatar has accused Israel of committing a “collective genocide” as he condemned Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.
U.S. Remains “Fully, Fully, Fully Supportive of Israel” as Netanyahu Mulls Attacks on Iran
Oct 03, 2024
Israel continues to threaten to launch a major attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli military bases and other security sites. On Wednesday, President Biden said he supports Israel’s right to retaliate but that he opposes strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stressed U.S. support for Israel.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield: “As President Biden emphasized following yesterday’s attack, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel.”
On Wednesday, Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, visited Qatar, where he said Iran wants peace, not war.
President Masoud Pezeshkian: “The security of the region is the security of all Muslims, and we do not want any war or bloodshed. Since I assumed the presidency, every speech I’ve made has emphasized our quest for peace and security. No nation or region can prosper in the midst of war. … We were left with no choice but to respond. If Israel decides to retaliate, then it will face harsher reactions.”
Israel’s Attacks on Gaza Have Wiped Out 902 Entire Palestinian Families
Oct 03, 2024
In Gaza, Israeli ground and air attacks have killed nearly 100 people over the past day, including at least 51 in Khan Younis. The dead in Khan Younis included seven women and 12 children. Residents described the Israeli attack.
Mohamed: “We were at home when we heard explosions and planes. We could not leave our homes. We wanted to go out to a safe place like the city by the sea or Mawasi, but we could not get there because of the planes. Whoever left their home was killed because of the quadcopters. There was heavy fire all night. It started from 7 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. nonstop.”
Gaza authorities say Israel’s yearlong war has wiped 902 entire families off the civil registry. There are another 1,364 families where only one family member has survived. The official death toll in Gaza has reached nearly 41,800, but that is believed to be a vast undercount.
*******************
“Don’t Do It”: Lebanese Lawyer Warns Israel Against Using War to Create a “New Middle East”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 03, 2024
Israeli strikes continue to rain down on Lebanon, including a strike that killed rescue and health workers in Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced by the Israeli attacks. Israel announced eight of its soldiers were killed while invading southern Lebanon this week. Israel launched the ground invasion after assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, despite Nasrallah reportedly agreeing to a 21-day ceasefire. “This overwhelming use of force cannot change people’s agency,” says Nadim Houry, Lebanese researcher and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. “The region does not want to be a satellite of Israel or a satellite of the U.S. And by the way, the region does not want to be a satellite of Iran either. The problem is the region is not really being given much of a choice.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: At least nine people, including health and rescue workers, have died in central Beirut after Israel bombed an apartment building housing a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah. At least 14 people were wounded. The attack occurred without warning in the Bashoura district of Beirut near Lebanon’s Parliament and the United Nations headquarters in the city. There are reports Israel fired white phosphorus munitions during the attack. Israel also carried out numerous strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced by the Israeli attacks.
Meanwhile, Israel has announced eight of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, which Israel invaded earlier this week.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Israel continues to threaten to launch a major attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli military bases and other security sites. Israel has also killed nearly 100 people in Gaza over the past day.
Meanwhile, the emir of Qatar has accused Israel of committing a, quote, “collective genocide,” unquote, as he condemned Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani made the comment during the Asia Cooperation Dialogue Summit in Doha.
SHEIKH TAMIM BIN HAMAD AL-THANI: [translated] It has become clear that what is happening is collective genocide, in addition to turning the Gaza Strip into an area unfit for human habitation in preparation for displacement. … We call for serious efforts for a ceasefire and stop of the attacks carried out by the Israeli occupation on Lebanese territory. Security will not be achieved without achieving a just peace. And this will not be achieved in our region except by establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of June 4th, 1967.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on all of this, we’re joined by Nadim Houry, Lebanese researcher, international lawyer, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. He worked at Human Rights Watch for over a decade, where he established the group’s Lebanon office and covered the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. He’s joining us now from Paris.
Nadim, welcome to Democracy Now! Though you are in France right now, you have close connections to people on the ground in Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes hit an apartment building in central Beirut overnight in an area considered a safe zone, given its Christian majority population. Can you talk about what you’re hearing from people on the ground, what the situation is right now with, what, 1.2 [million] Lebanese displaced, as well?
NADIM HOURY: Sure. Thank you for having me.
The offices of the research center I run is actually less than a hundred meters away from where the strike happened last night, so I’m very familiar with the area.
The overwhelming feeling today in Lebanon is fear, anxiety and anger, for a number of reasons. Fear because the Lebanese have seen what Israel can do to the country since 1978, repeated invasions, repeated attacks, the destruction of the 2006 war, and they’ve also seen recently what happened to Gaza. There’s also high level of anger because they feel this is a war that they don’t understand. This is a war that many of them feel was imposed on them. They feel that there could have been a ceasefire in Gaza, which would have prevented all of this. But also anger at a totally absent Lebanese state. Many people are actually still sleeping on the streets, many of the displaced, because the Lebanese government was unable to really put together a proper evacuation plan. And people who are being hosted are being hosted either through family or friends or through really a wonderful solidarity movement across the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Nadim, could you explain where exactly these displaced people are going? They’re sleeping in cars, as you had said earlier, as well as being taken in by, you know, friends or family in houses. But where in Beirut? Are there places in Beirut that are still considered safe? Or are they all leaving the city?
NADIM HOURY: Sure. So, people started moving initially from the border villages in the south months ago. But really the movement accelerated in the last 10 days, notably on September 23rd, where Israel in one day killed more than 500 Lebanese, which was the highest death toll in Lebanon since the civil war which ended in 1990. Since then, more — you know, we talked about more than a million people have moved. They’ve moved — they’re being housed by friends, but also the Lebanese government has opened now all public schools. All public schools are being turned into temporary shelter in Beirut, but also all across the country, in Mount Lebanon, in southern cities like Sidon and Tyre. The only problem right now is Israel is increasingly threatening villages and towns further north from its border. Some of the warnings of the last two, three days go way north of the Litani River, which Israel often talks about, and includes some of the major towns around Tyre, the biggest city in the south.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nadim, you mentioned earlier that the Lebanese government has not been able to come up with a proper evacuation plan, that the state is really not functional. If you could describe what the situation was in Lebanon prior to the Israeli attacks and its invasion, both in terms of the economy but also the government?
NADIM HOURY: Sure. I mean, Lebanon has been in a state of protracted political crisis for years — some would say for decades. But it really accelerated since 2018. And in 2019, we had, basically, a major breakdown of the banking system. It turns out that our corrupt elites were basically running a Ponzi scheme. And since 2019, Lebanese don’t have access to their savings in the bank accounts. They are allowed $200, $300 a month, depending on how much money they have in these bank accounts. We haven’t had a president now for, I think, over a year and a half, so it’s only a caretaker government. It’s really a state that has, in a way, not only become failed, but has almost given up. They almost act as a postal box for messages between different regional, international parties.
And the Lebanese really feel that. They felt it particularly, we have to remember, after the Beirut port explosion on August 4th, 2020, where, there, again, the Lebanese woke up to see large parts of their capital destroyed and learning that many of their politicians knew that nitrate was actually being — ammonium nitrate was being stored in the port right by the city center and no one did anything.
I think there’s a strong effort of local organizing right now. And I would add maybe, perhaps, one of the challenges facing the displaced is, in 2006, Hezbollah’s logistics operation was, you know, a very well-oiled machine. They were very present. Since the beeper attacks that Israel had done against Hezbollah members — and many of those members, by the way, were not combatants, but were actually civilians somehow affiliated with Hezbollah — Hezbollah has not been able, through its various associations and services, to really fully support as well those displaced from the south.
AMY GOODMAN: Nadim, during Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon in 2006, you were at Human Rights Watch in Lebanon, looked into the reasons for civilian deaths there. You tweeted earlier this week you’re, quote, “very worried” they’re the “same patterns” developing now. I’m wondering if you can comment on this. And you also posted a series of comments on X Wednesday in response to what you call, quote, “murmurs amongst Israelis & their supporters (in the West & our region) about creating 'a new Middle East.'” You write, “Don’t do it. You have tried before & each time it has ended in disaster.” Elaborate on all of these points.
NADIM HOURY: Sure, yes. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, I spent 33 days in 2006, the entire war, documenting why Lebanese civilians were being killed. And there were really two main reasons, which we’re actually finding again today in Lebanon. The first one is that Israel deliberately treats anyone and anything remotely affiliated with Hezbollah, even if they’re clearly civilian, as a legitimate target, which is clearly something that international law rejects. And that’s why, for example, we saw the attack last night on a medical center. There is no allegation by Israel so far that they’ve hit any military object, other than to say, “Well, it was a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah.” That’s clearly illegal. We saw a lot of these attacks in 2006, and then we’re seeing many of these attacks today in 2024. That’s why we actually have now more than 20 medics in Lebanon who have been killed. A number of them have been affiliated with Hezbollah. I should note, there are some accounts that indicate that Hezbollah is — obviously, we know it’s not just an armed group. They have various civilian offices, services. It’s probably the second-biggest employer in Lebanon after the state, you know, probably with more than 100,000 employees. So, if you consider all of them legitimate, like Israel has been tempted to do, you can just imagine the carnage and the crimes that will be committed.
And the second main reason of such a high death toll is really what, actually, the Israeli leadership called in 2006 the Dahiyeh doctrine, Dahiyeh being the southern suburb of Beirut, where basically Israel decides to use massive and disproportionate force on civilian areas and civilian objects where Hezbollah could be supported as a way of kind of getting collective punishment and of deterring and, frankly, trying to push the population to say, “OK, we give up.” Now, we’re seeing these same patterns. We’re seeing these same patterns in the last 10 days with the intensification of attacks on Dahiyeh. And that explains why we’re seeing such high civilian death tolls — which brings me to my second point.
You know, with these attacks, we started hearing, particularly after the assassination of the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, but also after Iran’s strikes, we saw a number of Israeli politicians, including Naftali Bennett, who’s the former Israeli prime minister, saying, “This is our chance to remake the Middle East.” You know, but we’ve heard this before, for those of us who are from the region. We heard this in 1982, when Israel invaded Beirut to push out the PLO, and they tried to install a president and a regime in Lebanon that will be friendly to them. You know how this ended, other than the massacres and the crimes? It ended with the creation of Hezbollah. We heard that it in 2006 again, when they said, you know, “We’re going to go in, and we’re going to destroy Hezbollah, and this will be the end of it.” Hezbollah came out stronger than before. And in 2008, Hezbollah used that strength to actually control Lebanon even more by using some of its weapons against other Lebanese.
The U.S. made the same mistake in 2003. They invaded Iraq, and they said, you know, “We’re going to refashion the Middle East into our own — you know, into what we would like to see, into these pro-Western governments.” And that has been an utter failure, and the U.S. is about to leave Iraq.
You know, the problem is, with all these strategies, all these campaigns, is we know that this overwhelming use of force cannot change people’s agency. The region does not want to be a satellite of Israel or a satellite of the U.S. And by the way, the region does not want to be a satellite of Iran either. The problem is, the region is not really being given much of a choice. And that’s what’s happening in Lebanon, in Palestine, in so many other places.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go, Nadim, to comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who said on Wednesday that Israel should take out Iran’s nuclear program. He was speaking on CNN.
NAFTALI BENNETT: Sometimes history knocks on your door, and you’ve got to seize the moment. If we don’t do it now, I don’t see it ever happening. And now is the moment. I also want to explain why, because Iran’s strategy, it had two arms that were sort of defending it, or they were its insurance policy against an Israeli strike, and that’s Hezbollah and Hamas. But those two arms are temporarily paralyzed. So it’s like a boxer out in the ring without arms for the next few minutes. Now is the time that we can attack, because Iran is fully vulnerable. The Islamic Republic of Iran, it’s time to hit, destroy the nuclear program.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaking to CNN. And now let’s go to another former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who asked him, asked Barak, whether he agreed with the comments Bennett had made earlier.
EHUD BARAK: In order to, one, a full-scale attempt to change the Middle East, we need all this alliance of blessing, led by the United States. … Israel is very strong. Israel cannot rearrange the Middle East on its own.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. So, your response, Nadim, to what they were saying?
NADIM HOURY: Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You will fail. You’ve failed in the past. I mean, we know that there is another pathway. Look, there are two central questions that as long as they’re not resolved, the Middle East is not going to know peace. The first one is the Palestine question. And the second one is a question that has been central to the region since 1979, which is: What is the legitimate place of Iran?
And by trying, since the 1980s with the Iran-Iraq War and since so many other conflicts since then of trying to box in Iran and trying to sort of attack it, reduce its size, the only outcome has been Iran sort of pops back out from another door and uses nonstate actors to establish its influence. It’s done this in Lebanon with Hezbollah. It’s done this in Iraq with the Shia militias. It’s helped with the Houthis in Yemen. It’s done this, the same, now in Syria.
So, I think we need to — in my view, if the region is to know proper peace, we need to answer these two questions. You know, either the Palestinians get a full independent state, a sovereign state, à la two-state solutions, which is what the Arab countries are pushing for, or they get full citizenship in one state, Jews and Arabs treated exactly the same. And you also — you know, that equation has to be resolved; otherwise — and this is what October 7th reminded us — there can be no peace. There will be forms of armed resistance. Some you may like, some you may call terrorism, but there will be armed resistance as long as the Palestine question is not resolved in this region.
And the second one, as well, which is Iran has shown us that it can actually be very good at using patience. This is what it did after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. And guess what: At the time, I remember a younger Netanyahu telling the Americans in Congress, “It’s all going to be fine. You know, Iran is going to lose. We’re going to have democracy. Everyone is going to welcome us.” Well, guess what: It didn’t turn out exactly the same way. Yes, the U.S. had overwhelming power. Yes, the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq. And the occupation was a disaster. And today, Iran is stronger than it ever was.
So I’m not sure what Naftali Bennett hopes to achieve. And even Ehud Barak, which is trying to play more of a role of an elder statesman: “I’ve seen it. We have to be more cautious.” But what he’s saying is, “We have to be more cautious, so we need to make sure that the U.S. underwrites this whole enterprise.” I think that would be foolish.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, let me ask you about that, just before we end, Nadim. What are the prospects of the U.S. underwriting that plan, the potential for Israel to attack Iran?
NADIM HOURY: Well, look, to be honest, so far what we have seen is basically Team Biden equal Team Israel. You know, rhetorically, they say, “Oh, we’ve asked Israel not to do this. We’ve told Israel this will be bad to do.” And, you know, a few minutes later, we hear about new sales of weapons, billions of dollars being transferred, intel being provided. Right now the U.S. is acting as a full enabler of Israel’s, what I would consider not only aggressive, but actually extremely dangerous policies, which actually lead to Israel acting as a spoiled child of the U.S. and of the West, which leads it to take positions like indicating and treating the secretary-general of the U.N. as persona non grata. Which, you know, rule-of-law country would do that?
AMY GOODMAN: And just to underscore what you’re saying, Israel has said that the U.N. Secretary-General Guterres cannot come to Israel, that he is persona non grata. Nadim Houry, we want to thank you for joining us, Lebanese researcher, international lawyer, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, speaking to us from Paris, France.
Coming up, we look at a new Fault Lines Al Jazeera documentary, Starving Gaza, in 20 seconds.
*******************
“Starving Gaza”: Al Jazeera Film Shows U.S. Keeps Arming Israel as It Uses Hunger as a Weapon of War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 03, 2024
A deliberate, man-made famine is underway in Gaza, according to many human rights experts. Starving Gaza is a new documentary by Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines investigating how Israel has killed civilians seeking aid and attacked humanitarian networks. The harrowing film is based on the work of Palestinian reporters in Gaza who are suffering the same conditions as their subjects. “They’ve been displaced, they’ve been injured, they’ve watched their own children die in front of them, and yet they somehow conjure the professionalism to pick up a camera and record and tell other people’s trauma,” says journalist Hind Hassan. “They really will be remembered in history as the titans of journalists.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Gaza, where human rights experts say a deliberate, man-made famine is underway. Last month, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a starvation campaign in Gaza.
A new documentary by Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines worked with Palestinian reporters to investigate how Israel has killed civilians seeking aid and attacked humanitarian networks in Gaza, and that the U.S. knows this is happening and has done nothing to stop it. In a minute, we’ll be joined by the filmmaker. We begin with a clip from Starving Gaza and a warning: This contains graphic images and descriptions. In this clip, we hear from a Palestinian doctor, Ahmed Nasser, who’s trying to save severely malnourished children in Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza.
DR. AHMED NASSER: [translated] I don’t think anyone in north Gaza has enough food to eat. We have a new malnutrition case. The number of cases is beyond the malnutrition clinic’s capacity.
HIND HASSAN: Every day, the cries of hungry children fill the halls of Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza. Some children here at the malnutrition clinic have never known a full meal in their life. After the Hamas attacks on October 7th, Israel cut off fuel, food and water from Gaza. Within weeks, starvation had spread in the north. Israel doesn’t allow foreign journalists into Gaza, so we worked with Palestinian reporters who filmed for us at Kamal Adwan Hospital in June.
DR. AHMED NASSER: [translated] How often does he have fever?
ABDULAZIZ’S MOTHER: [translated] He had a high fever and diarrhea all night.
HIND HASSAN: Abdulaziz is 5 months old and starving. Dr. Ahmed Nasser has been taking care of him with what little resources the hospital has on hand.
ABDULAZIZ’S MOTHER: [translated] Should I be concerned? He had a fever for 20 days before I brought him to the hospital.
DR. AHMED NASSER: [translated] The situation is very serious. The child cannot absorb anything in his body. Anything that enters his body is excreted without benefit to him. His mother brought him to the hospital because the child was suffering from chronic diarrhea, vomiting and a high body temperature. Many times we were shocked to see 30 to 40 cases in one day for the same reason.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s part of the opening to the new Fault Lines documentary, Starving Gaza. And this is another clip. We hear from the parents of 2-year-old Khaled, who died of malnutrition in February, an otherwise healthy toddler before Israel began its Gaza assault.
HANAN ASSAF: [translated] It’s very difficult to lose your child because he was hungry. It’s hard.
HIND HASSAN: When famine starts, it takes the youngest first. It’s been five months since Hanan Assaf and her husband Muhammad buried their 2-year-old son Khaled. This is Khaled in happier times, before the war on Gaza and the starvation that followed.
HANAN ASSAF: [translated] This war destroyed everything — houses, people, trees, stones. Everything was destroyed. This was my youngest son’s room. The occupation forces burned it. They didn’t leave us a single memory. Nothing. The boy was fine. All of a sudden he started to cry all the time. He began eating less because there was no food. He was used to drinking milk and eating rice and fruits. But since the beginning of the war, it decreased until it completely ran out. There was nothing available at all except for wild greens. And the prices are unbelievable for whatever is there. The boy looked like a skeleton. He was gone. He was completely gone. I would hold him like a newborn. He stopped being able to sit up, move or walk. His body became very weak. I took him to Kamal Adwan Hospital. There was no medicine or treatment. On the last two days, he was on a ventilator.
HIND HASSAN: Khaled died of severe dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital on February 2nd, 2024.
AMY GOODMAN: Starving Gaza. For more, we’re joined in London by Hind Hassan, journalist, filmmaker, long covered Palestine and directed Starving Gaza for Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English.
Welcome, Hind, to Democracy Now! This is a horrifying documentary. If you can start off by talking about these devastating effects of this last year on Gaza? And then we’ll talk about the exposé of the U.S. suppressing its own reports on preventing humanitarian aid from getting in, Israel doing that.
HIND HASSAN: Thank you. And before I start through that, first of all, thank you for having the on the show, but I just want to say that I am a documentary filmmaker, I’m a journalist, but this documentary was made by many people — the director, you know, who’s Mark, who works at Fault Lines Al Jazeera, and all the other filmmakers that we had in Gaza, and their role is so central. And I think that’s what makes this documentary so unique, is that collaboration that we had with the filmmakers who were inside Gaza, so that they can showcase to the world the realities of what is happening in Gaza at the moment and also show just how skilled they are and the conditions that they are working in, and yet they are still producing these incredibly powerful documentaries and films.
And to your question, since October the 7th, we have seen the siege that already existed on Gaza increase, and as part of that, there has been a significant decrease in the amount of aid that has been able to get into Gaza. And as a result of that, we have seen a lot of children and women who were pregnant and newborns, toddlers and people suffering from malnutrition because they haven’t been able to get access to the necessary food or the aid that is needed for them to be able to live a healthy life. And as a result of that, we have seen numerous cases of children who have died as a result of malnutrition. But the number of deaths just touches the reality on the ground and the number of people who are being impacted by what’s happening.
And this documentary, what it does is it speaks to the victims on the ground. It talks to those individuals who have lost their children, who have had to struggle with not being able to provide milk or formula or food or have not been able — pregnant women who have not been able to provide the sustenance that babies need, doctors who are in the wards and who are trying to deal with the high number of victims that are coming in, with the patients that are coming in, showing you that day-to-day of what happens, and then also the search for accountability that you mentioned outside of Gaza, in the United States and in the United Kingdom, because, of course, we, as international journalists, have not been able to get into Gaza since October the 7th.
We have had to rely completely on our colleagues who are inside Gaza, who are not only working every single day, who don’t have a break, who can’t take a moment to try and gather themselves, but who are also — who have also been displaced, have lost family members, who have been through incredible trauma of their own, but yet they are still documenting other people’s trauma in order for us to understand the realities of what’s happening on the ground. Because we haven’t been able to go in and support our colleagues, we did what we could outside in order to support and showcase their work inside of Gaza.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Hind, could you explain — I mean, you’ve said a little bit about this — how is it that you contacted people in Gaza, since, as you mentioned, Al Jazeera has not been there? Who were the filmmakers that you worked with?
HIND HASSAN: So, actually, I want to tell you a story about one of the filmmakers. We had many people who worked on the ground with us. We coordinated with people who were outside Gaza. It’s a full Palestinian team. So, there were people who were outside who helped us coordinate inside, and then we also worked alongside cameramen and cinematographers and directors of photography who were inside Gaza. It’s incredibly difficult. It’s not easy to do, because they are constantly dealing with a lack of data, lack of ability to be able to send footage over. And the internet is very patchy and is very difficult, so communication is tough for us to be able to get in — to communicate with them, let alone send that high-quality footage over to us. And on top of that, they’re dealing with daily bombardments, and they’re dealing with their own issues.
But there is our director of photography who is inside Gaza. His name is Hussien Jaber. When I learned about his story, I was completely shocked. And there’s not much that shocks us journalists that work on these stories, because we see so many horrors and we hear the stories of people and what they’ve been through. But when I heard about our own colleague and what had happened to him, I was really blown away. It’s a heartbreaking story.
So, on the 5th of December, Hussien Jaber had gone to Gaza City, where his family were. They had been ordered to evacuate by Israel, and so they were trying to head west, which is what they had been ordered to do. And he had been working. He had gone to Gaza City in order to help his children evacuate. They had been staying in a building for a number of days. And then he sees his daughter running towards him, his youngest daughter, who’s just 4 years old. Her name is Salma. And she’s running to him, he describes the Israeli military firing bullets. It sprayed everywhere. And he sees — as his daughter runs towards him, he sees his daughter shot in the neck. She’s then still running somehow, slowly. She’s writhing in pain. He runs towards her, and he embraces her, and she dies.
And this was our director of photography. This was not someone we featured in the documentary. This was the man who was filming that trauma. He watched his 4-year-old die and be killed in the neck just — shot in the neck and killed just in December. Somehow his 9-year-old daughter Sarah survived. She had a bullet that went through her jacket, but she managed to survive. And then, his son, Omar, his 3-year-old son, he says, is still asking, “Where is Salma? Where is my sister?”
And also, during that, as his daughter was shot, he was also hit. He doesn’t remember how it happened, when it happened, because it was all a blur, and he was focused on his daughter. But he was also shot. And Al Jazeera did an interview with him, and there’s a photograph of him on the Al Jazeera website where his arm is in a sling and he has external screws on his arm.
This is the story of the Palestinian journalists in Gaza. So many of them have gone through this. They’ve been displaced, they’ve been injured, they’ve watched their own children die in front of them, and yet they somehow conjure the professionalism to pick up a camera and record and tell other people’s trauma. And I think that’s what is so powerful about this documentary, what’s so unique about it, is the way that we try to collaborate. This is a platform for them to tell their story. This is a platform for them to show the world what is happening to the children of Gaza, the impact of the lack of aid and the lack of food being able to get in. And it really is them center stage. And our role is to support them, is to be able to do that chasing and to do the accountability chasing.
There is a moment in the film where I actually speak to Dr. Ahmed Nasser. And even during that, you don’t see it on the documentary, you just see the moments that we managed to speak to him. But just during that communication, the line cut off maybe five or six times, and we had to keep calling back, and we had to keep waiting. And the journalists who were filming on the other side — so, Hussien Jaber and his colleagues — they were so patient. They were so professional.
And I think as we look back, as we look back on these moments and these times and remember the journalists in Gaza, they really will be remembered in history as the titans of journalists. And it’s a complete honor for every single one of us that worked on this documentary to be able to say that we worked alongside them.
AMY GOODMAN: And let’s remember that so many have died, have been killed in the Israeli assault over — the estimates are 170 journalists. Now, I want to go to its — the film is sort of in two parts, and then it’s responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza. This is a clip from Starving Gaza that features Stacy Gilbert. She’s former senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, resigned after over 20 years, after disagreements with how the State Department put out the report that she worked on that concluded that Israel was not obstructing U.S. humanitarian assistance to Gaza — not her conclusion.
STACY GILBERT: It is widely known and documented in the humanitarian community and the U.S. government that Israel has been blocking humanitarian assistance since the start of the Gaza conflict.
HIND HASSAN: Stacy Gilbert was a senior officer in the U.S. State Department and specialized in humanitarian assistance. She resigned in May after the Biden administration concluded Israel isn’t blocking aid.
STACY GILBERT: They have made a policy decision to support Israel unconditionally.
HIND HASSAN: What are those specific ways of aid being blocked?
STACY GILBERT: It’s everything. There are administrative obstacles, not enough customs officials checking these items, the food that goes bad because it’s waiting on the trucks. So it’s like a spigot. They turn on, they turn off. They decide that some things can’t go in, other things can. Aid workers’ visas are denied or delayed. And when the pressure builds, they will allow more assistance in, but then the spigot gets turned off again. So, Israel and the United States government will say, “Look, some assistance is going in.” It’s never been enough. And they know that.
HIND HASSAN: The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in security funding each year. There’s a U.S. law that prohibits arms transfers to countries that are blocking humanitarian assistance.
STACY GILBERT: The administration deliberately denies the facts on the ground, because it would trigger consequences to cut off security funding. It allows the weapons sales to continue. The weapons are the engine that fuel this war. And we are not taking responsibility for our role in it.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Stacy Gilbert, former senior adviser in the State Department, who resigned. Hind Hassan, this is another clip from your report, Starving Gaza, when you come to Washington and question State Department spokesperson Matt Miller.
HIND HASSAN: We went to a press briefing at the U.S. State Department to ask about Washington’s support for Israel as famine has spread throughout Gaza.
We’ve had aid organizations and relief groups who have said over and over again that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war. How do you respond to the allegations of complicity of the U.S. government? And what more will it take for the U.S. to stop Israeli military funding?
MATTHEW MILLER: So, it is the United States that has secured all of the major agreements to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza, going back to the very early days, the first week after October 7th, when the secretary traveled to the region and the president traveled to Israel and together convinced Israel to open Rafah crossing to allow humanitarian assistance in. It has not been enough There are obstacles. Sometimes those are logistical obstacles coming from Israel. Sometimes those are the nature of moving humanitarian assistance around in an armed conflict.
HIND HASSAN: Under U.S. law, it is required that any country receiving military support must not obstruct the flow of humanitarian aid during war. And every major rights group, from the United Nations to Human Rights Watch, has said that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war. Do you disagree with them? And are you — just, sorry, one final question: Are you not afraid of completely losing legitimacy, of being seen as being hypocritical when it comes to supporting human rights in one country, but not when it comes to Palestinians?
MATTHEW MILLER: Let me just answer the first question. So, I would encourage you to read the report that we issued on this very question two months ago that looked into Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law and their work and whether they had done a good enough job to let humanitarian assistance in, where we said that there were some roadblocks that needed to be overcome. And we had worked to overcome those, and we had seen Israel take steps to allow humanitarian assistance in.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, Hind Hassan questioning him in Washington, D.C., coming out of the Stacy Gilbert clip from the film, who quit the State Department over the report that was issued. And ProPublica recently revealed that USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau, where she worked, both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Your final thoughts, Hind?
HIND HASSAN: So, as you saw there, two very contrasting statements. You have the former State Department official saying that Israel is deliberately blocking aid, and then you have Matthew Miller, Matt Miller, saying, “Oh, please check out our report. Israel could do more, but they’re not deliberately blocking aid.”
And to understand this, you really have to understand Stacy Gilbert and her role and who she is. She has worked for the State Department for many, many years. She’s been doing this job for decades. And this decision may have been an easy decision for her, but it’s not one that she took lightly. She has worked in so many other countries. So, for her, at this point to decide, “I cannot continue in my job, I must step down because of this,” shows you how huge that is, that opinion is to her, or what’s happened is to her. And so, I really don’t think that you can take lightly what she’s done or any of the other officials who have resigned. I was born in Iraq, and I remember watching all the resignations of the officials in the United States who did not support the War in Iraq or the invasion for legality reasons. And so, it’s full circle now to have been sat in front of Stacy Gilbert and to hear her say that she is haunted by that report and that the reason why she resigned was because she wants to be an asterisk in the history books, that she didn’t stay quiet and that she spoke up.
And so, I think viewers can watch this documentary, and they can make up their own minds, but there is a huge body of evidence which suggests that Israel has been purposefully blocking the flow of aid into Gaza and that the United States government knows about it.
AMY GOODMAN: Hind Hassan, we thank you so much for being with us, journalist, documentary filmmaker, has long covered Palestine, is the correspondent and narrator on the new Al Jazeera documentary film Starving Gaza, worked with many Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza.
Coming up, the death toll from Hurricane Helene nears 200 as we look at six plastic factory workers feared dead after floodwaters swelled around their Tennessee workplace. Their boss repeatedly threatened to fire anyone who left during the storm. Back in 20 seconds.