Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/21/headlines
Israel Kills 87 Palestinians in Strike on Beit Lahia as Siege on Northern Gaza Intensifies
Oct 21, 2024
“The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying.” Those are the words of a top U.N. official as Israel escalates its attacks amid a devastating siege on northern Gaza. Health officials in Gaza say at least 87 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahia on Saturday. Survivors said the dead include many women and children.
Ahmed Al Hajeen: “We were asleep around 12 a.m. when it suddenly felt like an earthquake hit the area. Debris was falling on us. We rushed outside after hearing screams of women and children and found that our neighbors had been targeted by massive bombs. Tons of explosives had fallen on a residential neighborhood full of civilians and displaced families. All those who were martyred here are children, women and displaced people who fled from other areas due to heavy strikes, seeking shelter in what they believed to be a safer place.”
Al Jazeera reports another 33 Palestinians have been killed so far today, including 18 in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Israel is also targeting the last three hospitals in northern Gaza: the Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals. Doctors Without Borders reports more than 350 patients are believed to be trapped inside the hospitals.
Meanwhile, Israel has blocked six medical NGOs from entering Gaza. The groups include Glia and the Palestinian American Medical Association. Israel also killed four water engineers who were traveling to make repairs to the water infrastructure near Khan Younis. According to Oxfam, the engineers were traveling in a clearly marked vehicle when they were attacked.
On Sunday, the Palestinian Authority denounced Israel’s escalating attacks, saying in a statement, “Genocide is unfolding in northern Gaza in its clearest form — in full view of the world — marked by siege, starvation, forced displacement, destruction of buildings, aerial bombardment, targeting of health centres, and mass killings.”
Farah al-Dalou Dies in Hospital Days After Her Brother Sha’ban al-Dalou Burned to Death
Oct 21, 2024
Earlier today, the Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed reported Farah al-Dalou had died in a hospital. She was the sister of 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou, who burned to death last week in an Israeli strike on Al-Aqsa Hospital. Click here to see our interview with Abubaker Abed on Friday.
U.S. Envoy in Beirut as Israel Attacks Banks, More U.N. Peacekeeping Forces in Lebanon
Oct 21, 2024
Israel has also escalated its assault on Lebanon by attacking nearly a dozen bank branches of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a financial institution with ties to Hezbollah. Many of the banks were located in residential buildings and played a critical role in Lebanon’s financial sector.
On Sunday, the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon accused Israel of deliberately demolishing another U.N. observation tower in what UNIFIL described as a “flagrant violation of international law.”
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein is now in Beirut for talks with Lebanese officials over a possible diplomatic deal to end Israel’s attacks. As part of any deal, Axios reports, Israel is insisting it maintain the right to fly its warplanes over Lebanon and that Israeli troops be allowed to keep conducting operations in southern Lebanon. Hochstein’s visit comes two days after a drone from Lebanon hit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vacation home in northern Israel. Netanyahu was not home at the time of the incident, which caused only superficial damage to his home.
In a separate attack, Palestinian fighters in Gaza on Sunday killed the commander of the Israeli military’s 401st Brigade, Colonel Ehsan Daqsa. He has been described as the highest-ranking Israeli army officer killed in Gaza over the past year.
U.S. Intel Leak Reveals Details of Israel’s Planned Attack on Iran
Oct 21, 2024
The Biden administration has launched a probe after highly classified U.S. intelligence documents were posted online showing that Israel is taking steps to launch a retaliatory attack against Iran. One document came from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the other from the National Security Agency. The documents reference recent drills involving air-launched ballistic missiles, as well as covert drone activity. On Friday, President Biden was asked if he knew how and when Israel would attack Iran. Biden responded by saying “yes and yes.” The leaked documents also confirm Israel has nuclear weapons — a fact that has long been known but has never been acknowledged by Israel.
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“Collateral Damage”: Hundreds of Patients Trapped in North Gaza as Israel Intensifies Siege
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/21 ... transcript
Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza — where Israel is currently laying a major siege — by Israeli attacks since the start of the weekend. More than 350 patients are believed to be trapped inside the three remaining partially operational hospitals in northern Gaza: the Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals. Dr. Ayaz Pathan, an emergency medicine physician who recently worked at the Indonesian and Nasser hospitals, describes the conditions he witnessed and responds to Israel’s latest attack on aid workers and four water engineers who were killed. “It was tragic to watch people be in pain, die in pain, die of infections which are completely preventable,” says Pathan.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: “The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying.” Those are the words of a top U.N. official as Israel escalates its war amidst a devastating siege and forced expulsion of Palestinians in northern Gaza. Health officials there say at least 87 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahia on Saturday. Survivors said the dead include many women and children.
AHMED AL HAJEEN: [translated] We were asleep around 12 a.m. when it suddenly felt like an earthquake hit the area. Debris was falling on us. We rushed outside after hearing screams of women and children and found that our neighbors had been targeted by massive bombs. Tons of explosives had fallen on a residential neighborhood full of civilians and displaced families. All those who were martyred here are children, women and displaced people who fled from other areas due to heavy strikes, seeking shelter in what they believed to be a safer place.
AMY GOODMAN: Today, Al Jazeera reports at least 33 more Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli attacks, including 18 in the Jabaliya refugee camp alone. Palestinians have shared footage on social media that appears to show people in Jabaliya being hit by a strike as they try to rescue an injured person in the street.
Israel is also targeting the last three functioning hospitals in northern Gaza: the Indonesian, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals. Doctors Without Borders reports more than 350 patients are believed to be trapped inside the hospitals. This is an urgent video call for help made Sunday by Dr. Marwan Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza.
DR. MARWAN SULTAN: As-salamu alaykum. I’m Dr. Marwan Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital. Since middle of the night, the Indonesia Hospital exposed to attack by the Israeli forces, and they attack the second and third floor. Now we have 40 patients. Thirty of them, they are injured patients. There’s some of the patients, they are very serious, and they need oxygen, and they need critical care. So, the light, electricity is off since midnight. And the medical staff, they cannot make the generator on because of the — a lot of attack and a lot of danger. So, we are calling you to make the medical staff and the hospital safe. Please, our brother and sister, all the humanitarian societies, urgent call just to, please, help our medical staff and the injured people.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Marwan Sultan is the director of Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza, speaking to us from there.
Meanwhile, Israel has blocked six medical NGOs from entering Gaza. The groups include Glia and the Palestinian American Medical Association. Israel also killed four water engineers who were traveling to make repairs to the water infrastructure near Khan Younis. According to Oxfam, the engineers were traveling in a clearly marked vehicle when they were attacked. The destruction of the water system in Gaza has led to many diseases.
On Sunday, the Palestinian Authority denounced Israel’s escalating attacks, saying in a statement, quote, “Genocide is unfolding in northern Gaza in its clearest form — in full view of the world — marked by siege, starvation, forced displacement, destruction of buildings, aerial bombardment, targeting of health centres, and mass killings,” unquote.
Earlier today, the Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed reported Farah al-Dalou had died of severe burns at a hospital, just days after her 19-year-old brother Sha’ban al-Dalou burned to death last week in an Israeli strike on Al-Aqsa Hospital that led to a major fire that burned the displaced people encampment near the hospital.
For more, we’re joined by Dr. Ayaz Pathan, an emergency medicine doctor who returned from Gaza in August, spent time at the Indonesian and Nasser hospitals.
Doctor, welcome to Democracy Now! Thank you so much for joining us. We just heard Dr. Sultan describing what’s happening there at Indonesian Hospital. Can you tell us more, having spent time there and having direct contact with people continuing through to today?
DR. AYAZ PATHAN: Yeah. Thank you for having me, Amy.
You know, Dr. Sultan does an amazing job at this hospital. As a matter of fact, he was very clear about the fact that after the hospital was besieged — and from that besiegement, we could see all sorts of damage. I have spent weeks in that hospital. I have seen, essentially, every inch of that hospital, including the damaged floors from what happened late in 2023, the burned medical equipment, the drone fire attacks that we’ve seen. And one thing that he said is that he would invite the Israelis into that hospital anytime, anyplace, to see what is going on, because there was no operations other than medical operations that were going on in that facility.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the conditions and the number of women and children in this hospital, what the siege over the last weeks of northern Gaza means, and particularly in these three hospitals? You’ve spent time in one.
DR. AYAZ PATHAN: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, what I found during my time there — and this is identical to the stories that you will hear from every healthcare worker that is both there or has traveled there — is that the types of patients you see essentially represent the population. And so, when we talk about the strip, we talk about a population which is about 50% children that are high school age or younger. And so, everyone’s experience is that you find a lot of children, you find a lot of women. And absolutely, are there men there? Completely. But in that age group that you would consider potentially enemy combatants, I would say that represented about 25%, maybe 30%, of the total injured population that I would see. And even that percentage I’m giving you is assuming that 100% of those males in that category are enemy combatants. So, I think we’re seeing a lot of collateral damage, far more than is acceptable by any stretch of the imagination.
AMY GOODMAN: And the effects, Dr. Pathan, of the whole area not being able to get humanitarian aid?
DR. AYAZ PATHAN: Yeah. So, even when I was there, it was quite a challenge. Food insecurity was a huge issue. I was able to go to Kamal Adwan Hospital, which you had mentioned, and see their malnutrition clinic. I, myself, who had privileged rights to food, lost about 13 pounds in about two weeks there. And now you can only imagine what people over months and months have had to deal with over there. And that’s only the food issue.
Now, talk about medications, there were times that I knew the exact medication I needed to use, whether it was pain medication or an antibiotic, and unable to find that or use that and realizing that in any other situation or country in the world — and quite honestly, even in the south, we had a little bit more access to some of these medications — it was tragic to watch people be in pain, die in pain, die of infections which are completely preventable. And all in all, you’re talking about Gaza, which has had about three dozen functional hospitals prior to all of this, that number has been taken down to essentially a third. And even the hospitals that we talk about, such as Indonesia Hospital, where I was in, half of that capacity was shut down due to damage from prior besiegement.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Pathan, we just have reports that Israel has killed four water engineers who were traveling to make repairs to the water infrastructure near Khan Younis. According to Oxfam, they were traveling in a clearly marked vehicle when they were attacked. If you can talk — I mean, the horror of them being killed is horrifying enough, but the fact that they were trying to fix the water infrastructure, what that means, how devastated the infrastructure is, leading to disease, including polio?
DR. AYAZ PATHAN: Yeah. So, absolutely. I think water and the safety of the water is something that UNICEF has looked at, and I think on the order of 98% of the water that is available is not considered good for human consumption. So, now you take an injured population, a sick population — even in the cases that are medical, for example, say, pneumonia or something along those lines — the ability to be able to take care of these patients without something as simple as water, to be able to clean wounds, to be able to hydrate people, is a huge issue.
I think the other point that you made is about just traveling. And so, this is something we’ve seen time and time again, including my own experience, including experiences from other healthcare workers that have been there, and then other NGOs, World Central Kitchen. We’ve seen the United Nations World Food Programme being targeted despite being in vehicles that had been given permission to travel and are clearly marked.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dr. Ayaz Pathan, I want to thank you for being with us from North Carolina, emergency medicine doctor who returned from Gaza in August, spending time at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and Nasser Hospital.
When we come back, Israel has also escalated its attacks on Lebanon, including hitting bank branches all over the country. Stay with us.
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Report from Beirut: Israel Bombs Banks, Attacks UNIFIL in Expanding War of Aggression
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/21 ... transcript
We get an update on Israel’s latest attacks on Lebanese banks, which it accused of holding money for Hezbollah, and the Israeli military’s attacks on UNIFIL forces in contravention of both Lebanese sovereignty and the rules of war. “There is nothing that shows they really want to impose a ceasefire,” says Jamil Mouawad, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, of Israel’s flouting of international norms and the United States’ complicity in its human rights violations.
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.
We turn now to Israel’s escalating attacks on Lebanon. The Israeli military says it’s hit buildings housing nearly a dozen bank branches of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a financial institution with ties to Hezbollah. Many of the banks were located in residential buildings and held the savings for many Lebanese residents.
On Sunday, UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, accused Israel of deliberately demolishing another U.N. observation tower in what UNIFIL described as a “flagrant violation of international law.”
U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut today, and in his first remarks, he said Lebanon and Israel just committing to U.N. Resolution 1701 is not enough.
AMOS HOCHSTEIN: President Biden said our goal is a comprehensive agreement that implements U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and ensures this conflict is the last for many generations. 1701 was successful at ending the war in 2006, but we must be honest that no one did anything to implement it. The lack of implementation over those years contributed to the conflict that we are in today.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Hezbollah continues to fire missiles at Israel in response. On Saturday, a drone hit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s seaside home in the northern Israeli town of Caesarea. Netanyahu and his family were not there.
We’ll talk more about Iran, but we begin in Beirut, where we’re joined by Jamil Mouawad, assistant professor of politics and policy at the American University of Beirut.
Thank you for joining us from Beirut. If you can first talk about how besieged, how under siege you feel and people in Beirut feel, in Lebanon, and then talk about Israel targeting the bank branches that they say support Hezbollah?
JAMIL MOUAWAD: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Actually, the situation in Lebanon is incredibly difficult. We currently live in a limbo. Life has come to a halt, basically, with people concerned about when do they go about their normal life, when students will go back to schools, to universities, people will go back to their jobs, but also to their normal life. So, there is a lot of anxiety going on.
And this is due primarily to the fact that, apparently, there are no serious diplomatic efforts to end the war as soon as possible. Today, as you just mentioned, the U.S. envoy was in Beirut. This morning, we read that Netanyahu and the Israeli government have submitted a proposal for a potential ceasefire. Israel is adopting a maximalist position in this direction. They want to — they are demanding the right to engage in active enforcement in the south of Lebanon. That is, intervening whenever they deem necessary. And also they are requiring freedom in operating in the Lebanese airspace. And this is a clear violation of not only the 1701, but this is a clear violation of the Lebanese sovereignty. So, either this proposal is a proposal to basically end the negotiations before they even start, or this is a proposal for Lebanon to surrender.
I just remind you and everyone that the battle in the south is still ongoing. Hezbollah is still able to fight back and resist. The Israelis are not able yet to invade Lebanon, as they probably would like to. Hezbollah is still able to fire its rockets and drones to Israel. We’ve seen, a week ago, a drone has hit the Golani military base in Israel. Two days ago, we saw that a drone, another drone, hit directly the home of — the sea home of Benjamin Netanyahu. And if this tells us anything, it tells us that Hezbollah is still able to operate in the south. And the battleground will definitely shape the negotiations, as well.
Yesterday, as you mentioned, Israel attacked directly and bombed financial institutions related directly to Hezbollah. Of course, we all know that Israel has identified any institution, civilian or not, directly affiliated with Hezbollah as a threat, and they are bombing it. Of course, this is only a way to demolish buildings in Lebanon and to further terrorize the Lebanese civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: And if you can talk about who uses this bank? Do you agree that it’s used to — it’s used for banking by Hezbollah? But also, who else? And where are these banking branches located around Lebanon?
JAMIL MOUAWAD: Yeah, I mean, these branches are located almost everywhere in Lebanon, in Beirut mostly. These are banks that offer microcredits for the Lebanese. Of course, the majority of the constituency of Hezbollah benefit from these credits. Some people claim — and this is true — that there is no oversight over these financial institutions by the central Lebanese bank, but this is also, unfortunately, to remind everyone that private and commercial banks have escaped this accountability for years, and we have a collapsed banking sector now in Lebanon.
AMY GOODMAN: Um —
JAMIL MOUAWAD: So, this is not — these —
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask you another question, and it has to do right now with UNIFIL and what’s happening with the U.N. forces in southern Lebanon, and also how that relates to the U.N. Resolution 1701. But they say another watchtower has been blown up by Israel. Israel wants them out. The significance of this, Professor Mouawad?
JAMIL MOUAWAD: Yeah, it’s very shocking, actually, that Israel wants the blue helmets, the UNIFIL group, to withdraw from Lebanon, because they want to basically invade Lebanon. And UNIFIL has been very defiant so far, and they said, “We’re not withdrawing from the south.” They even went far and said that there is no way that only one member of the United Nations would dictate on us what to do. UNIFIL is in the south based on a U.N. resolution.
And this shows how aggressive and immune — it shows how Netanyahu benefits from impunity. We saw him directly attacking the UNIFIL. We saw him, as well, directly attacking the U.N. Secretary-General Guterres and declaring him as a persona non grata in Israel. We saw him also attacking and directly shaming President Macron when President Macron mentioned the possibility of imposing an arms embargo on the Israelis in order not to go on with their genocide in Gaza. The day after, he shamed him and told him, “Shame on you for even thinking about this.” So, this shows how aggressive and dramatic Netanyahu is and is willing to do everything in order for him to move on and implement his expansionist project.
AMY GOODMAN: Jamil, you have the U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein now in Beirut. You have Blinken headed to Israel. It’s not clear where he’ll be on his tour. It is his 11th trip in the last year to the area. And you have the Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz warning, “We will keep striking the Iranian proxy until it collapses.” Also, if you can talk about what Israel is demanding for a ceasefire? Axios reports Israel demands its Air Force has freedom of operation in Lebanese airspace, also demands — Israel demands that the IDF be allowed to engage in active enforcement to attack Hezbollah. This will be part of the ceasefire that they say they would accept.
JAMIL MOUAWAD: Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, in fact, this is a maximalist position by the Israelis. They don’t want — clearly, they don’t want a ceasefire. Clearly, they don’t want to respect the U.N. Resolution 1701. I remind everyone that U.N. Resolution 1701 is very clear. As per this resolution, the Lebanese Army should be deployed in the south, but it also should be equipped in order for it to be able to defend Lebanon from potential aggressions. The Lebanese government also demands the demarcation of the borders with Israel. ’Til now, Israel does not recognize any borders with Lebanon, except for the Blue Line, which is a withdrawal line and not the borders. So, this shows that Israel is not serious about a potential ceasefire.
But not only that, this poses questions as to what the United States of America wants. Are they impartial when it comes to these negotiations? I remind everyone that Amos Hochstein was serving at the Israeli army. So, is he impartial? Is he not? This is a question. This is a serious question. But so far, as we saw in Gaza on many occasions, the Americans are complicit in this genocide, and they’re complicit in the war against Lebanon. And there is nothing that shows that they really want to impose a ceasefire on Lebanon. Not only that, they probably would like to — and this is what Amos Hochstein said — to protect the interests of the Israelis by him referring to the fact that the Lebanese government or the UNIFIL did not even enforce 1701 in the past, and he did not refer at all to the many violations of the Israelis when it comes to the 1701, specifically when it comes to the airspace violation of Lebanon during these 20 years.
AMY GOODMAN: Jamil Mouawad is assistant professor of politics and policy at Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut, speaking to us from Beirut.
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Will Netanyahu Incite a War with Iran? Leaked U.S. Docs Detail Israel’s Attack Plans
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/21 ... transcript
The Biden administration has launched a probe after highly classified U.S. intelligence documents were posted online showing that Israel is taking steps to launch a retaliatory attack against Iran. Meanwhile, a drone hit Benjamin Netanyahu’s seaside home Saturday in what the Israeli prime minister has called an assassination attempt by “Iran’s proxy Hezbollah.” As tensions between Iran and Israel heat up, we go to Tehran to speak with Hassan Ahmadian, a professor at the University of Tehran, who says Netanyahu and Israel have continually instigated violence in the region while “trying to tell the world that it’s Iran that is the problem.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Biden administration has launched a probe after highly classified U.S. intelligence documents were posted online showing Israel is taking steps to launch a retaliatory attack on Iran. One document came from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the other from the NSA, the National Security Agency. The documents reference recent Israeli drills involving air-launched ballistic missiles, as well as covert drone activity. On Friday, President Biden was asked if he knew how and when Israel would attack Iran. Biden responded by saying “yes and yes,” unquote.
Iran has issued a complaint with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog over Israeli threats to strike Iran's atomic energy sites in retaliation for a series of Iranian missiles that were fired into Israel earlier this month. Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement today saying, quote, “Threats to attack nuclear sites are against U.N. resolutions … and are condemned,” unquote.
This comes as a drone hit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s seaside home Saturday in the northern Israeli town of Caesarea. Netanyahu and his family were not home at the time of the incident, which caused superficial damage to his home. He shared this video on social media after the attack.
AIDE: Prime Minister, how is it going?
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Well, two days ago, we took out Yahya Sinwar, the terrorist mastermind whose goons beheaded our men, raped our women, burned babies alive. We took him out. And we’re continuing our battle with Iran’s other terrorist proxies. We’re going to win this war.
AIDE: So, will something deter you?
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: No.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to his aide. The prime minister also wrote on social media, quote, “The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake. … I say to Iran and its proxies in its axis of evil: Anyone who tries to harm Israel’s citizens will pay a heavy price,” Netanyahu said.
For more, we go to Tehran, to Iran, where we’re joined by Hassan Ahmadian, assistant professor of West Asian and North African studies at the University of Tehran.
Professor, we welcome you to Democracy Now! If you can start off by responding to what Netanyahu said, blaming agents of Iran for the attack, though Iran disavowed responsibility for the attack on his seaside home? We may have lost professor Ahmadian. I think he’s coming back right now. Why don’t we break, and we’ll see if we can get back in touch with professor Ahmadian, who is in Tehran, Iran. I think we have him. Professor Ahmadian, thank you for joining us. Can you respond to what Netanyahu said, that agents of Iran were responsible for the attack on his seaside home? If you can respond?
HASSAN AHMADIAN: Yes. Well, I think Bibi Netanyahu has been trying to portray everything that’s happening in Gaza, in Lebanon, around the region as part of Iran’s act, whereas we all know it’s a fact now that Iran didn’t know about the 7th of October attack. And then, its allies fighting Israel for their various national reasons, they are supported by Iran, but it doesn’t mean that they act on behalf of Iran.
But obviously, Bibi is eying another game. He wants to see a confrontation bigger than his surrounding. He wants the U.S., Iran to be dragged into a conflict, I think. That’s why he’s pointing always to Iran. In the beginning of his campaign on Gaza, he was focused on Gaza. And then, when he wanted to widen the war, he started to point at Iran, and he started hitting Iranian targets. First came the Iranian Consulate. Then Iran retaliated. Then came the assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh in the inauguration day of a new president in Iran.
Then Iran waited for a diplomatic settlement that Amos Hochstein and the Americans channeled to Iran that they are after, and they were using this assassination for a ceasefire there. The Iranians waited for two months, only to be surprised by Netanyahu moving to Lebanon, assassinating and — the pager attack, the walkie-talkie attack, then the assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. All of this came after Iran waited for a diplomatic settlement in Gaza. And then Iran decided that “That’s enough. We need to retaliate; otherwise, our deterrence will be at stake.”
Obviously, to my understanding, Netanyahu is inching closer to, you know, a confrontation with Iran. The Iranians have said time and time again that they would retaliate. They have been retaliating. Now he’s talking about retaliating against Iran’s retaliation, which is basically escalation ladder he’s on, and he’s trying to tell the world that it’s Iran that is the provocateur, whereas in Iran, everyone feels the way that Bibi Netanyahu is trying to frame Iran internationally, and, as such, they are focusing on telling the world that we will not go for a war, we will not go for a confrontation, but if it’s enforced upon us, we will have to retaliate; otherwise, our deterrence will not work, and then it will be an open season in Tehran maybe.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Professor, can you comment on these leaked U.S. documents, intelligence documents, describing satellite images of Israeli military preparations for a potential strike in Iran? You also have the Foreign Ministry coming out today in Tehran, speaking out and saying it would be illegal to attack nuclear plants in Iran, according to the United Nations. If you can comment on all of this? The intelligence documents, not clear how they were leaked, coming from, among other places, the NSA, the National Security Agency, the intelligence agency in the United States that’s many times larger than the CIA.
HASSAN AHMADIAN: You know, we still don’t know the intricacies of these leaks. But, obviously, if they are intentional or not intentional, the leaking, it makes a different — I mean, the messaging or the message of them being linked will be different. But in any case, I think the Iranians are saying that these leaks show that the Israelis are trying to attack places of strategic importance that are legally — you know, should not to be attacked, but Israel is obviously trying or inching closer to attack them. It’s within the Iranian, you know, international or diplomatic reach, which the foreign minister and the president have been on the past few weeks telling the world that we don’t want escalation, but, obviously, the Israelis are coming to force it upon us, and we will have to retaliate.
The legality of the issue is obvious. I mean, it’s illegal, as per international law, to attack the atomic energy agency structure. It’s very obvious that it’s not legal to attack such places. But, I mean, the Israeli policy in assassinating scientists, killing a guest in an inauguration day in Iran, all the policies that have been pulled off previously were illegal, as well. So, the Iranians know that this is not going to affect the situation, but they are telling the world, “These are the evidence. We are not after this escalation, but you should look at Israel and what it’s doing to provoke Iran and its allies to retaliate.”
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ahmadian, can you talk very briefly about Iran-Saudi relations and how that plays into this? Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Riyadh earlier this month. And the fact that the 180 ballistic missiles that were shot into Israel killed one person, a Palestinian in Jericho, but these were 180 ballistic missiles — is Iran actually coordinating this, sharing information with the United States?
HASSAN AHMADIAN: I’m not sure that is the case, especially the second attack that Iran — rather, retaliation that Iran did in October 1st. The first one was coordinated. Iran told the world and the United States, and indirectly Israel, as well, that we are not — we will attack in this timing. It was basically a political messaging that we can reach you, we can hit you, but we don’t want escalation, so don’t push us. The second attack, October 1st, was of a military nature. The Iranians showed their muscles, telling the Israelis, “You are playing with fire. We can do this.” Today, the message was that we can fire 7,000 missiles a day to deter Israel. But, basically, the narrative is that we don’t want escalation, but we are capable of fighting.
When it comes to Saudi Arabia and the GCC in general, the Iranians are trying hard to keep them away from, you know, basically assisting Israel and also keep the warming of the relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia ongoing. The Iranians and the Saudis both have been pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Saudis embarked on a diplomatic campaign with the Europeans, with the Americans for months now to stop the conflict in Gaza. The Iranians are trying to push, saying that we don’t want — that the Israelis are widening the war and this that will be catastrophe to the — I mean, it was a political messaging campaign and also pushing back against Israeli provocation, as the Iranians see them. Both have been, basically, met in the aim of stopping the Gaza war. And I think the relationship has been advancing unexpectedly. Basically, the war in Gaza have brought Iran and Saudi Arabia, at least publicly and in the narrative, much closer than where we were — when they were before the October 7th. And both, as I said, they are aiming for the same target — that is, the stop of the onslaught on Gaza and elsewhere in the region.
AMY GOODMAN: Hassan Ahmadian, I want to thank you for being with us, assistant professor of West Asian and North African studies at the University of Tehran, speaking to us from Tehran, Iran, previously associate with the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/22/headlines
Israeli Troops Separate Men from Women and Children, March Displaced Palestinians at Gunpoint
Oct 22, 2024
Israeli forces have barred rescue teams from reaching Palestinians trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings as Israel’s siege on the northern Gaza Strip continues into its 18th day. On Monday, Israeli drones equipped with loudspeakers hovered over shelters for displaced Palestinians in Beit Lahia, blaring messages ordering them to flee through military checkpoints. Witnesses say Israeli soldiers entered the shelters, separated men from their families at gunpoint and instructed women and children to move southward. The mass expulsion came amid continued unrelenting Israeli attacks, including a strike on Beit Lahia that killed 15 Palestinians, including children.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reports at least 115 Palestinians have been killed over the past 48 hours; 500 more were wounded, bringing the reported number of people wounded in Israel’s yearlong war to more than 100,000, with nearly 43,000 killed — though both figures are likely to be a vast undercount.
Northern Gaza’s last three operational hospitals remain besieged, with more than 350 patients trapped inside Al-Awda, Indonesian and Kamal Adwan hospitals. Dr. Marwan al-Hams is the director of Gaza’s field hospitals.
Dr. Marwan al-Hams: “Israel has not allowed the entry of any medicine, treatment and medical supplies to the north of Gaza. In addition, the Israeli occupation is preventing the entry of food and nutrition for the medical teams and patients inside the hospitals, and it is directly targeting the hospitals.”
Meanwhile, Gaza officials say Israeli forces have blocked the entry of more than a quarter of a million trucks carrying food and other vital aid into Gaza in the last year, as Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
13 Killed, 57 Injured Near Lebanon’s Largest Hospital as Israeli Bombs Rain Down on Beirut
Oct 22, 2024
In Lebanon, rescue workers are searching for civilians trapped under the rubble of their homes after Israel’s military carried out more than a dozen strikes overnight on Beirut and its southern suburbs. At least 13 people, including a child, were killed and 57 others injured in an Israeli airstrike near the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Lebanon’s largest public medical center. Separately, 50 medical workers and 15 patients were forced to evacuate the Al-Sahel Hospital in southern Beirut Monday after Israel’s military claimed — without evidence — it’s home to a secret, underground Hezbollah bunker containing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold. Doctors insisted there’s nothing hidden beneath the hospital and took reporters on a tour of its lower floors to disprove the claims.
In Israel, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv earlier today as Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets from Lebanon. Hezbollah said the attacks targeted a military base south of Tel Aviv, as well as a naval base northwest of Haifa.
Meanwhile, Syrian media is reporting at least two people were killed and three others injured Monday when an Israeli guided missile slammed into a car in Damascus. Israel’s military claimed responsibility, saying the strike killed the head of Hezbollah’s money transfers unit.
Israeli Officials Join Settler Groups to Call for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
Oct 22, 2024
Israeli Cabinet members and officials with the ruling Likud party called Monday for the reestablishment of illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza and for the ethnic cleansing of the territory’s Palestinian inhabitants. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir spoke from a conference of settler groups and ultranationalists near Israel’s border with Gaza, where he declared, “We will encourage voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens. We will offer them the opportunity to move to other countries because that land belongs to us.” The conference was organized by the Nachala Settlement Movement, whose leader, Daniella Weiss, said thousands of settlers are set to move to Gaza.
Daniella Weiss: “We came here with one clear purpose. The purpose is to settle the entire Gaza Strip — not just part of it, not just a few settlements, the entire Gaza Strip, from north to south. Thousands of people are ready to move to Gaza now. As a result of the brutal massacre of the 7th of October, the Gaza Arabs lost the right to be here ever, so they will go to the different countries of the world. They will not stay here.”
Blinken Heads to Israel for 11th Visit Since Israel Launched Full-Scale Assault on Gaza
Oct 22, 2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders. The State Department claims Blinken’s trip is aimed at reviving failed Gaza ceasefire negotiations, yet the Biden administration continues to refuse calls for an arms embargo against Netanyahu’s government amid record U.S. military assistance to Israel. This is Blinken’s 11th visit to the region since Israel launched its latest war on Gaza last October.
Meanwhile, calls are growing for U.S. officials to investigate reports of the Israeli army using abducted Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, often forcing them to walk ahead of Israeli soldiers to inspect underground tunnels and buildings. The use of human shields is a war crime.
In related news, a group of over 60 House Democrats are demanding the Biden administration “take immediate action to advocate for unrestricted, independent media access” to Gaza, as Israel has blocked foreign journalists from entering over the course of its yearlong war.
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“The Gaza I Know Is Gone”: Israel’s Rampage Continues as Survivors Struggle for Food, Water, Safety
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/22 ... transcript
Israeli forces have killed at least 115 Palestinians and injured nearly 500 over the past two days, according to Palestinian health officials. This comes as Israel continues to carry out a brutal siege on northern Gaza, which has been described as a “surrender or starve” policy of ethnic cleansing. As the military demands that tens of thousands of Palestinians leave the north, senior government ministers are pushing for new Jewish settlements in Gaza. Meanwhile, images and video have emerged from northern Gaza showing Israeli forces separating Palestinian men from their families and taking them away. Almost all aid has been cut off to the region, with hospitals under siege and barely able to function. “It’s a deliberate strategy of humiliating, terrorizing and punishing the civilian population,” says Palestinian writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada, who is originally from Gaza and is following developments closely as chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: “The smell of death is everywhere.” Those are the words of the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, who is urging Israel to end its siege of northern Gaza. Lazzarini said, quote, “Our staff report they cannot find [food, water] or medical care. The smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble. Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied. In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die.” The words of UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini.
According to Palestinian health officials, Israeli forces have killed at least 115 Palestinians and injured nearly 500 just over the past two days. Israel has ordered all Palestinians to flee their homes in Beit Lahia or face a new round of attacks. One drone strike in Beit Lahia killed 15 people, including women and children.
AMY GOODMAN: Images and video have emerged from northern Gaza showing Israeli forces separating Palestinian men from their families and taking them away. Almost all aid has been cut off to the area as Israel implements what’s been described as a “surrender or starve” policy. Hospitals in northern Gaza are under siege and barely able to function. This is Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.
DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: [translated] This situation means we are under what can be called a real genocide taking place against our people in the northern Gaza Strip. The health situation has completely collapsed. The world must act immediately to secure a safe humanitarian corridor to provide blood, supplies, medicines, equipment and medical staff, or the wounded will die in the coming few hours. Therefore, the world must understand what is happening now in the northern Gaza Strip: genocide, deliberate killing. Anyone who moves in the street is shot at. It’s clear that we are witnessing a real massacre against those present. …
Of course, the medical staff numbers are very low, and the volume of injuries is not at all proportional to the space available. Therefore, we had to implement the difficult triage system for cases. We had to leave some to die and some to live. Therefore, our capabilities are very limited. And so, the situation is catastrophic, my dear friend. The world must come now with pictures and words and images to see what is happening in the northern Gaza Strip: a real genocide against everyone who moves in the northern Gaza Strip.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
We’re joined now by Muhammad Shehada, writer and analyst from Gaza City. He’s chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. He’s joining us from Copenhagen.
Muhammad, welcome back to Democracy Now! It is so critical to have you with us. As you speak with people who are in northern Gaza, the devastating, horrific images that are coming out of there, under siege for more than two weeks, you’ve been in touch with a colleague of yours who is the mother of a 1-year-old. Can you describe what you’re hearing on the ground?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, it’s a very close colleague of mine. She wrote me, basically this morning, that last night was the most violent since the war started. There was constant bombardment and shelling arbitrarily in the northern part of Gaza from 8:00 in the evening until 7:00 in the morning nonstop. It was an airstrike or a shelling literally every other second. The amount of it, the sheer intensity of it, was insane. And it’s been driving her very, very sort of — very worried about the survival of her family, but also suicidal by the mere thought that their turn is next at any moment. So, she’s saying, “I’m having these thoughts about how do I keep my son and husband alive, how do I stay alive myself. Give me advice where to go. What should I do? How should I get food?” And I cannot find any answer to any of these questions. There’s literally, literally, literally nothing is safe, and no access to food or water anymore.
Israel is implementing now a strategy that is in northern Gaza premised on four different pillars, one of which is mass starvation, quite literally mass starvation. The other one is mass killing and producing mass casualties, wounded people on mass scale. And then, the third one is shutting down all hospitals simultaneously, so that people with these wounds are destined to die if they don’t move south. And the last pillar is the mass expulsion, where you literally see Israel ordering people every day, “Move south. Move south.” And then they literally round them up from schools and hospitals and force them to line up on a death march and move to the south. I have friends who lost family members on some of these death marches, where you have to walk for dozens of kilometers under scorching heat or in the cold without any assistance, on foot, under constant fire, fully starved, with an empty stomach. And some people collapse and die on the way. I have never seen anything like this.
But on the other hand, I’m seeing Israeli politicians and media celebrating the footage of these death marches with utmost glee and utmost joy, that they see that this is the ultimate picture of victory. They are very open and honest that what they are doing now in northern Gaza has nothing — nothing — to do with Hamas. It has everything to do with the Palestinians in there. And they say that the reason why they want to depopulate it is because Palestinians believe that displacement is a thousand times worse than the war. It’s a deliberate strategy of humiliating, terrorizing and punishing the civilian population.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Muhammad, can you explain? Why is that? Why do Gazans think that displacement is a thousand times worse than the war? And if you could elaborate on how the Israeli press, in particular — you said a little about that now — how the Israeli press is covering the devastating conditions that you’ve just described in northern Gaza?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, basically, the reason why they find it a thousand times worse is that as soon as you cross the line dividing Gaza, the Netzarim Corridor — it’s a four-kilometers-wide area that Israel has turned into a military zone dissecting Gaza in two halves — as soon as you cross it, you will never return north again. You have to kiss your home and your loved ones goodbye. You will never see your family members that are literally just a few minutes on the other side. It’s something like the Berlin Wall, but way more atrocious.
And once you cross to the southern side, what you will find there is an insanely overcrowded tent city, just tents upon tents upon tents, surrounded by mountains of garbage and pools of sewage water, heavily infested with diseases, no protection against the weather, no protection against the rain, and just left doomed to your own fate, basically surviving of handouts, humanitarian aid that is barely coming in. So, people find this as an absolute nightmare. And once you cross to the south, Israel is playing with people in the south like a ping-pong, moving them around like chess pieces all the time, moving them from Deir al-Balah to Khan Younis, and then from Khan Younis to Mawasi, and then from Mawasi to Khan Younis again, and back to Nuseirat. It’s a nonstop nightmare. And this constant instability, this constant uncertainty, is one of the worst things you can do to someone that is heavily shell-shocked and traumatized and in pure survival mode.
Israeli media has been very honest since at least August. So, Israel’s Channel 12, the most-watched Israeli television, they said in August that, quote, “The central victory in Gaza, the central victory, is the psychological warfare that is waged upon the Gazan population in northern Gaza.” Depopulating northern Gaza, for them, is the ultimate victory image. And they are very honest that amongst the people that will move out of northern Gaza are the Hamas members. They are not concerned with fighting Hamas in the north. They just want everybody to move out. Now Israel’s main liberal newspaper, Haaretz, has been warning since — for many weeks, but yesterday they came and officially said, the editorial board, they said Netanyahu’s government is now, quote, “paving the way to building settlements in Gaza,” building the path or facilitating the path to building Jewish-only settlements in northern Gaza after emptying it completely.
So, for Gaza’s population to be moved into an overcrowded, unlivable tent city, pure sand and rubble and the desert, and be shell-shocked all the time and squeezed more and more and more into tinier and tinier places, it is an absolute nightmare. And that’s the Israeli strategy. The reason why they adopt these strategies, what they themselves brag about, is that the images of these death marches count as a victory image for Israeli political parties and for the Israeli public to show that, look, the Palestinian public are being humiliated, are being terrorized, are being collectively punished, and with the sort of excuse that this pressure might at the end lead Gaza to either surrender or face complete demise.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Muhammad, you know, today, Antony Blinken, U.S. secretary of state, arrived in Israel, his 11th trip to the region since October 7th, 2023. If you could say whether you think anything might come out of this trip of his? There was talk earlier, which seems obviously to be false, that once Yahya Sinwar was killed, Israel would be more open to ceasefire negotiations.
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, I’ve been told that exact same thing repeatedly by American officials, by European officials and people from Israel, and even Arab officials, who kept saying that if Israel manages to get Sinwar, the war would stop, or we would double or significantly increase the momentum to end the war. But as soon as Sinwar was killed, you see every single one of those people playing dumb and deaf, just abandoning Gaza to its fate.
These performative visits and performative declarations, that there is a breakthrough, that the negotiations are happening, are just there as a pretense to buy time. There has been a deal on the table since at least July 2nd, the deal that President Biden put himself, that Hamas accepted fully on July 2nd with slight amendments in the updated formula, and Israel, as well. The message that the Qataris got from the Israelis is that Israel, as well, accepted that formula. And nonetheless, right after that ceasefire proposal was put on the table, Netanyahu went forth and killed the top negotiator in Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, and has been unleashing one massacre after another in Gaza and putting ludicrous terms that even his own security military establishment disagreed with completely, maintaining the occupation of Gaza in the Netzarim Corridor and Philadelphi, and merely having a six-week pause after which the war goes on again. So, these pretenses, Blinken’s visit, etc., it’s there just to buy time. It’s there to soothe people and pacify them and numb their outrage at what’s happening and unfolding in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, I want to ask you about the Israeli Cabinet members and officials with the ruling Likud party calling Monday for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza and for the ethnic cleansing of the territory’s Palestinian inhabitants. The far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir spoke at a conference of settler groups and ultranationalists near Israel’s border with Gaza. This is what he said.
ITAMAR BEN-GVIR: [translated] We can return home to Gaza, and we can do another thing: to encourage Palestinian emigration out of Gaza, encourage emigration, encourage emigration. It’s the best and most moral solution, not by force, but by telling them, “We’re giving you the option: Leave to other countries.” The land of Israel is ours.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the significance of this, Muhammad Shehada? He was then cheered after he said this. And also talk about whether you think that Netanyahu right now is pushing for a war with Iran that would serve the U.S. election to get Trump elected, his true ally.
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yes, absolutely. So, in terms of Iran and Netanyahu’s ambition, yesterday, Israel’s top right-wing journalist, Amit Segal, he said it openly and publicly, that we want Trump to be back, because if he is back in office, Israel will get away with annexing major parts of the Gaza Strip and will get away with as much, for instance, in Lebanon or vis-à-vis the Iranians. He is actively trying to sabotage Kamala Harris’s campaign. It’s no secret.
But in terms of the Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the U.S. — every time that point is raised to them, they try to dismiss it or downplay it by saying this is a fringe minority in Netanyahu’s government. No, it’s not. Now you have at least half of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition that are officially, openly in favor of such plan of depopulating Gaza’s half and building settlements there and taking over and annexing parts of it. But the other half, the sort of silent half in Netanyahu’s Cabinet, many of them are also in that direction, even people in the Israeli opposition.
Now you have the Israeli political map vis-à-vis Gaza is fragmented between three different preferences. Number one is the one you mentioned, Amy, about resettling the Gaza Strip, building Jewish-only settlements in Gaza. Number two is the Netanyahu preference, building an Israeli military government, a military dictatorship, to rule the Gaza Strip for the foreseeable future, and if the world is not happy with that, then a joint Arab or joint international mission to do Israel’s dirty work in Gaza, to pay for Gaza’s — sustaining life in Gaza on a humanitarian scale and do the sort of dismantling, disarmament of Hamas. And number three, the defense establishment, the moderate position and the opposition position is that Israel will rule Gaza militarily for the foreseeable future, a military occupation will stay in Gaza, but they don’t want to do anything with Gaza’s civilian aspect of governance. They want to outsource it to anybody else, so that they don’t have to pay anything for running Gaza. And you heard, for example, Israel’s former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who’s supposed to be the opposition to Netanyahu, a moderate, relatively speaking. As soon as Sinwar was killed, he said, “We will stay in Gaza for the foreseeable future.”
So, this is a very scary spectrum that you have on hand, that is setting forth the agenda for an indefinite war. And the only reason you can sort of change that, influence a change in there, is by basically pressuring Israel and cutting off the weapons supply. Without conditioning the weapons supply or cutting it off, there’s no hope of any positive alternative coming out of this.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Muhammad, before we end — we just have a minute — we would like to ask about your family. You recently saw in Egypt both your grandmother and your cousin. You say people who have even managed to get out look like ghosts of their former selves. If you could tell us what it was like, how your grandmother and your cousin appeared to you?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, it’s a thought that I have to wrestle with all the time, is that the Gaza that I know is gone. And it’s not just the loved ones that were killed. I stopped counting how many I lost. And it’s not just the homes that were bombed. But it’s the physical debilitation, the physical weakening of the people in Gaza, even the ones that came out of it.
I got a message from my mom when my grandmother came out, and she said, “By the look of it, your grandma’s not going to be here for long. You have to come immediately and see her.” I went to see her. She was — before the war, she was this healthy, beautiful woman with a lot of jewelry on her hands, and she was very proud, traditional Palestinian clothing all the time. Now she was just mere skin and bone, with her feet swollen up in a very frightening way and complications with the digestive system nonstop. And she was bedridden completely, completely incapacitated.
I saw my cousin on the street, who was also a healthy, tall, beautiful woman in Gaza with smooth skin. That was her reputation, how she’s seen in the family. I saw her in the street. I didn’t recognize her. She did. And basically, she had shrunken. Her back is arched. She was skin and bone, a shorter person than the one I’m used to, with curled-up skin, very darkened skin, very rough skin. And I couldn’t recognize her anymore.
And I fear for the same fate of everyone I know in Gaza, that they have been changed and turned into ghosts physically, but also the mental debilitation. Before this war started, you had about 90% of Gaza’s population with PTSDs and 70% with persistent depressive disorder symptoms. Now it’s way, way, way uglier than that. Now I hear suicidal thoughts from everyone I know. And Gaza is culturally religious. There is the belief that suicide is the gateway to eternity in hell. But what Israel has done in Gaza is that it’s now pushing people to believe that God’s hell, no matter what, is going to be way better than the nightmare that is inflicted on Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, we want to thank you for being with us, writer and analyst, originally from Gaza City, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, speaking to us today from Copenhagen.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by the acclaimed writer and activist Naomi Klein. She’ll discuss her new essay, “How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war,” as well as how conspiracy theories are impacting everything from the U.S. presidential election to hurricane relief. She writes about conspiracies in her book, now out in paperback, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. Back in 20 seconds.
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Naomi Klein: Israel Has Weaponized October 7 Trauma to Justify Its Genocide in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/22 ... transcript
More than a year since Israel launched its war on Gaza in response to the October 7 attack, we speak with the award-winning author, journalist and activist Naomi Klein, who says a “trauma industry” has emerged to keep Israeli society permanently in crisis in order to justify the country’s expansionist wars and human rights abuses. “Though the Israeli government likes to frame everything that is happening now as a response to October 7, this is a preexisting agenda,” says Klein, whose latest essay for The Guardian explores how Israel “has made trauma a weapon of war.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, we turn now to look at “How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war.” That’s a headline to a recent essay in The Guardian by our next guest, the award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein, who examines how memorials to the October 7th attacks have stirred support for Israel’s limitless violence.
She writes, quote, “It’s a simple fable of good and evil, in which Israel is unblemished in its innocence, deserving unquestioning support, while its enemies are all monsters, deserving of violence unbounded by laws or borders, whether in Gaza, Jenin, Beirut, Damascus or Tehran.”
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein is professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia, the founding co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice. Her latest book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, is now available in paperback. She’s the author of many other books, including The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Naomi, it’s great to have you back in our New York studio, but horrifying during these times. If you can respond first to what’s happening on the ground in Gaza, in Lebanon, and then if you can relate it to this piece that you just wrote for The Guardian?
NAOMI KLEIN: Sure. Well, I think the first thing that we — what we need to understand, and I think we have seen this in the clips and in your previous interview, is that though the Israeli government likes to frame everything that is happening now as a response to October 7th, this is a preexisting agenda. I mean, this is the settler movement, Ben-Gvir. I mean, all of these figures have always wanted Gaza depopulated. They’ve always wanted to settle Gaza. They’ve always believed it is part of so-called Greater Israel. So does Netanyahu. It’s part of their coalition agreement dating back to 2022 — right? — that they want the whole thing, and also the West Bank, by the way.
So, you know, I’ve written before about how states of shock are often exploited very cynically to ram through a preexisting agenda. And I think that’s absolutely what we’re seeing. But in order for that to work, the state of shock needs to be continued, heightened. There can never be a recovery. So the Israeli society needs to be reshocked and kept in this kind of trauma loop. And that’s what this piece about the kind of trauma industry is about.
And I want to be very clear: People have a right to grieve their loved ones. This is not about families gathering in grief. This is not about the right to remember and honor. It’s about state-orchestrated and -manipulated trauma. It’s a memorialization from above — right? — not from below, for a very specific end. And people in the Netanyahu government have been very clear that really what they’re doing with the way they are telling the story of October 7th is creating what they call a new national identity. And it’s a national identity that uses the trauma of that day to create a story that fuses October 7th with the Holocaust, and then uses that as the excuse for the genocide that we’re seeing right now.
So, you know, when we think about the horrors, that you’ve already outlined today on the show and, frankly, every show — right? — the deliberate starvation, the torment of an entire population, the torture of an entire population, the deliberate humiliation — how do you — and I think we all ask ourselves this question: How are people able to rationalize it? Right? And they’re able to rationalize it because within their information bubbles, they are being fed this constant story of “this is what they did to you,” a whole industry of reexperiencing it.
I mean, what I write about in this piece is all of these immersive, so-called memorialization kind of technologies, so it’s not only people in Israel, but in the diaspora, who are encouraged to put on VR goggles and reexperience October 7th as if it happened to them, immersive tunnels where you can go into the Gaza tunnels. It’s really an attempt to transfer trauma far and wide.
And in a state of trauma, you don’t really think. It’s pure emotion. It’s pure reaction. You can’t be analytical. You’re not going to be empathetic towards others. It’s about monsterizing the other and fusing your identity with the people in those houses, at the Nova music festival, in the tunnels. It’s very deliberate. It’s extremely manipulative. And it’s how you turn off any compassion or empathy or sense of ethics or morals.
AMY GOODMAN: And just to be clear, you point out that a number of hostage family members, in response to the state memorializations, as you put it, on October 7th, said, “Do not use our family members’ names. We don’t want to be a part of this,” as they fight for —
NAOMI KLEIN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: — their family members to be released and a ceasefire, an end to Palestinian anguish.
NAOMI KLEIN: Oh yeah. I mean, this is — the way in which the government is weaponizing, instrumentalizing the deaths on October 7th and the hostages, the people who are most opposed to it are the families themselves, right? So, I begin the piece with the fact that, originally, the government’s plans for October 7th was to have this huge public event in the south. There were going to be thousands of people, I think 7,000 people. And they wanted to have, you know, members of the families there to testify. And kibbutz after kibbutz that was really, you know, on the frontline, like kibbutzim like Be’eri, said, “We’re not participating in this.” Then family members said, “Not only are we not participating, you can’t use our child’s name. You can’t use their image,” which is to not say that they’re not grieving. They had their own private, dignified ceremonies, vigils, you know, for people who are still alive. They just didn’t want any part of the pageantry and the weaponization of the government. They didn’t — and that was withheld.
You know, of course, the way my piece has been responded to through the sort hasbara channels is, you know, “Naomi Klein says we don’t have a right to grieve,” ignoring the fact that it’s the families themselves who have the most to grieve who are actually objecting the loudest within Israeli society.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if you could say, Naomi — you know, you just mentioned, which your piece talks about at length, the conflation of October 7th with the Holocaust. First of all, what that makes possible?
NAOMI KLEIN: Right.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Some of the examples of the ways in which that’s happened through these different memorialization practices that you outline? And then, whether an argument can be made for whether this is not precisely a kind of a trivialization of the Holocaust, a kind of banalization of it, which is precisely what survivors and scholars of the Holocaust warned against?
NAOMI KLEIN: Right. Yeah, I think it’s extraordinary, because one of the things that is happening from the same people who are trivializing the Holocaust in this way, they’re also — if you say what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, you know, they’ll throw their arms up in horror and say, you know, “That is impossible,” despite the immense scale and the deliberate plans and all of the markers, the announcements of intent — now, I’m not going to go into that. But they think nothing of saying that October 7th was — as if 80 years had not passed, as if it was not another continent, as if it was not another group of people, as if the power dynamics were not flipped on their head, that this day just grafts onto the Holocaust, as if it was 1945.
And so, this goes from everything from the Shoah Foundation adding another chapter — so, the Shoah Foundation, which is, you know, an incredibly important archive of testimonies of Holocaust survivors, now has added testimonies from survivors of October 7th. March of the Living tours of Auschwitz, now you hear from survivors of October 7th. So it’s a total conflation of these events. You know, in the piece, I tell a kind of extreme story of — they call it an art project. I wouldn’t call it an art project, but it’s some — it was a bizarre kind of stunt of taking — creating a juxtaposition of the iconic memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin and hanging a pair of mocked-up bloodied pants that were to symbolize sexual violence on October 7th and suspending them over that memorial with drones and then saying “Never again?” — question mark — as if this is all the same event.
Now, Nermeen, you asked about: Well, what are the implications of this? The implications are that if you do conflate these events, of course, it justifies any response, right? And more than that, if you cast Palestinians as Nazis, if you create this continuum, this absolutely false continuum, then it actually, post facto, does a lot more work than that, because then, if Palestinians are Nazis, then the original crime in the creation of the state of Israel, which is the Nakba, which is the mass, forced ethnic cleansing, displacement of hundreds of thousands, more than 700,000, Palestinians, who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, is, like, after the fact, justified, right? So, if they’re Nazis, then the original crime that Israel can’t look at in its founding is sort of, after the fact, justified. This is the psychology of it. Of course, it makes no sense. But this is why it’s very dangerous, and it’s why we’re seeing this acceleration of kind of finish-the-job Nakba from Israeli politicians.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to ask, Naomi — one of the people that you cite in your piece, I mean, on the question of grief and grieving, is historian Gabriel Winant, whose piece in Dissent, which you take from, is headlined “On Mourning and Statehood.” It was a response to Joshua Leifer, a journalist, in the same journal, in Dissent. But I’d like to read a short excerpt. This is not what you quote, but it’s from his original piece. He writes, “The genuine humane sentiment that it is possible to grieve equally for those on both sides is, tragically, not true. One side has an enormous grief machine, the best in the world, up and running, feeding on bodies and tears and turning them into bombs. The other is starved for grief.” Now, Gabriel wrote that piece less than one week after October 7th. Now it’s over a year, over 42,000 Gazans killed. If you could elaborate on this? Because this is something that people have struggled with, you know, because, as you said earlier, people have a right to grieve what happened on October 7th, and yet there is this massive discrepancy.
NAOMI KLEIN: Massive asymmetry in who’s grievable, right? I mean, this is Butler’s term, Judith Butler’s term, that within a vastly unequal, white supremacist society, you have lives that are treated as more grievable than others. And so many justice struggles are about asserting that every life is grievable. And so, I mean, the Black Lives Matter movement is about asymmetrical grief in so many ways.
I mean, personally, I don’t think — I think there’s sometimes this idea that you can tell people not to grieve, because — you know, to sort of balance the scales. I don’t think grief is a very obedient emotion, from my experience. It’s highly disobedient and unruly. And I think it is dangerous, actually, to tell people that they can’t have the emotions that they’re having. I think it’s more constructive to try to redirect those emotions into a project that is liberatory, that is in solidarity, you know, create containers for grief that are not the weaponized containers or instrumentalized containers that are using that grief and turning it into a justification for genocide. So, you know, I have respect, but disagreement, with that position. But we need to wrestle with it.
You know, in the piece, I also quote a scholar, a Lebanese Australian scholar, Ghassan Hage, who talks about how he felt this pressure to grieve those deaths in a certain way after October 7th, in a way that he described as “supremacist mourning,” which had encoded in it the idea that these lives were more important, more precious than Palestinian lives, Lebanese lives. And that’s what we must reject on all counts.
The other thing that’s been pointed out many times is that you can’t really mourn when the bodies are still piling up, when there are bodies still under the rubble, when cities are being turned to dust. Mourning is something, actually, that you do once it’s over. And it’s not over.
AMY GOODMAN: You also quote Marianne Hirsch, a professor emerita at Columbia University, and you end your piece by applauding the group, Israeli Palestinian group, Zochrot, which means “remembering.” Talk about both.
NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah. I mean, Marianne Hirsch is a wonderful scholar of different forms of memorialization and the way in which these sort of top-down — this top-down pageantry memorial creates a false experience, a sort of — she doesn’t use this term, but a prosthetic trauma.
The remembering, you know, if you break down the parts of the word “remembering,” it’s really putting the pieces of the self back together again. And the work of Zochrot, which is — you know, they’ve been doing work for many years, which is really about putting the pieces — like, Israel is based on erasure — right? — erasing the presence of — it’s every settler-colonial state — the United States, Canada, Australia. They’re all about erasing the original Indigenous presence there, renaming towns, denying that there are burial grounds. So, it’s actually the opposite of memorialization that happens. And so, what would real remembering mean in violent settler-colonial states? And it would be actually putting the pieces of the self back together again, which is this deeper form of remembering.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/22/headlines
Israeli Troops Separate Men from Women and Children, March Displaced Palestinians at Gunpoint
Oct 22, 2024
Israeli forces have barred rescue teams from reaching Palestinians trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings as Israel’s siege on the northern Gaza Strip continues into its 18th day. On Monday, Israeli drones equipped with loudspeakers hovered over shelters for displaced Palestinians in Beit Lahia, blaring messages ordering them to flee through military checkpoints. Witnesses say Israeli soldiers entered the shelters, separated men from their families at gunpoint and instructed women and children to move southward. The mass expulsion came amid continued unrelenting Israeli attacks, including a strike on Beit Lahia that killed 15 Palestinians, including children.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reports at least 115 Palestinians have been killed over the past 48 hours; 500 more were wounded, bringing the reported number of people wounded in Israel’s yearlong war to more than 100,000, with nearly 43,000 killed — though both figures are likely to be a vast undercount.
Northern Gaza’s last three operational hospitals remain besieged, with more than 350 patients trapped inside Al-Awda, Indonesian and Kamal Adwan hospitals. Dr. Marwan al-Hams is the director of Gaza’s field hospitals.
Dr. Marwan al-Hams: “Israel has not allowed the entry of any medicine, treatment and medical supplies to the north of Gaza. In addition, the Israeli occupation is preventing the entry of food and nutrition for the medical teams and patients inside the hospitals, and it is directly targeting the hospitals.”
Meanwhile, Gaza officials say Israeli forces have blocked the entry of more than a quarter of a million trucks carrying food and other vital aid into Gaza in the last year, as Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
13 Killed, 57 Injured Near Lebanon’s Largest Hospital as Israeli Bombs Rain Down on Beirut
Oct 22, 2024
In Lebanon, rescue workers are searching for civilians trapped under the rubble of their homes after Israel’s military carried out more than a dozen strikes overnight on Beirut and its southern suburbs. At least 13 people, including a child, were killed and 57 others injured in an Israeli airstrike near the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Lebanon’s largest public medical center. Separately, 50 medical workers and 15 patients were forced to evacuate the Al-Sahel Hospital in southern Beirut Monday after Israel’s military claimed — without evidence — it’s home to a secret, underground Hezbollah bunker containing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold. Doctors insisted there’s nothing hidden beneath the hospital and took reporters on a tour of its lower floors to disprove the claims.
In Israel, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv earlier today as Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets from Lebanon. Hezbollah said the attacks targeted a military base south of Tel Aviv, as well as a naval base northwest of Haifa.
Meanwhile, Syrian media is reporting at least two people were killed and three others injured Monday when an Israeli guided missile slammed into a car in Damascus. Israel’s military claimed responsibility, saying the strike killed the head of Hezbollah’s money transfers unit.
Israeli Officials Join Settler Groups to Call for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
Oct 22, 2024
Israeli Cabinet members and officials with the ruling Likud party called Monday for the reestablishment of illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza and for the ethnic cleansing of the territory’s Palestinian inhabitants. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir spoke from a conference of settler groups and ultranationalists near Israel’s border with Gaza, where he declared, “We will encourage voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens. We will offer them the opportunity to move to other countries because that land belongs to us.” The conference was organized by the Nachala Settlement Movement, whose leader, Daniella Weiss, said thousands of settlers are set to move to Gaza.
Daniella Weiss: “We came here with one clear purpose. The purpose is to settle the entire Gaza Strip — not just part of it, not just a few settlements, the entire Gaza Strip, from north to south. Thousands of people are ready to move to Gaza now. As a result of the brutal massacre of the 7th of October, the Gaza Arabs lost the right to be here ever, so they will go to the different countries of the world. They will not stay here.”
Blinken Heads to Israel for 11th Visit Since Israel Launched Full-Scale Assault on Gaza
Oct 22, 2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders. The State Department claims Blinken’s trip is aimed at reviving failed Gaza ceasefire negotiations, yet the Biden administration continues to refuse calls for an arms embargo against Netanyahu’s government amid record U.S. military assistance to Israel. This is Blinken’s 11th visit to the region since Israel launched its latest war on Gaza last October.
Meanwhile, calls are growing for U.S. officials to investigate reports of the Israeli army using abducted Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, often forcing them to walk ahead of Israeli soldiers to inspect underground tunnels and buildings. The use of human shields is a war crime.
In related news, a group of over 60 House Democrats are demanding the Biden administration “take immediate action to advocate for unrestricted, independent media access” to Gaza, as Israel has blocked foreign journalists from entering over the course of its yearlong war.
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“The Gaza I Know Is Gone”: Israel’s Rampage Continues as Survivors Struggle for Food, Water, Safety
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/22 ... transcript
Israeli forces have killed at least 115 Palestinians and injured nearly 500 over the past two days, according to Palestinian health officials. This comes as Israel continues to carry out a brutal siege on northern Gaza, which has been described as a “surrender or starve” policy of ethnic cleansing. As the military demands that tens of thousands of Palestinians leave the north, senior government ministers are pushing for new Jewish settlements in Gaza. Meanwhile, images and video have emerged from northern Gaza showing Israeli forces separating Palestinian men from their families and taking them away. Almost all aid has been cut off to the region, with hospitals under siege and barely able to function. “It’s a deliberate strategy of humiliating, terrorizing and punishing the civilian population,” says Palestinian writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada, who is originally from Gaza and is following developments closely as chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: “The smell of death is everywhere.” Those are the words of the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, who is urging Israel to end its siege of northern Gaza. Lazzarini said, quote, “Our staff report they cannot find [food, water] or medical care. The smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble. Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied. In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die.” The words of UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini.
According to Palestinian health officials, Israeli forces have killed at least 115 Palestinians and injured nearly 500 just over the past two days. Israel has ordered all Palestinians to flee their homes in Beit Lahia or face a new round of attacks. One drone strike in Beit Lahia killed 15 people, including women and children.
AMY GOODMAN: Images and video have emerged from northern Gaza showing Israeli forces separating Palestinian men from their families and taking them away. Almost all aid has been cut off to the area as Israel implements what’s been described as a “surrender or starve” policy. Hospitals in northern Gaza are under siege and barely able to function. This is Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.
DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: [translated] This situation means we are under what can be called a real genocide taking place against our people in the northern Gaza Strip. The health situation has completely collapsed. The world must act immediately to secure a safe humanitarian corridor to provide blood, supplies, medicines, equipment and medical staff, or the wounded will die in the coming few hours. Therefore, the world must understand what is happening now in the northern Gaza Strip: genocide, deliberate killing. Anyone who moves in the street is shot at. It’s clear that we are witnessing a real massacre against those present. …
Of course, the medical staff numbers are very low, and the volume of injuries is not at all proportional to the space available. Therefore, we had to implement the difficult triage system for cases. We had to leave some to die and some to live. Therefore, our capabilities are very limited. And so, the situation is catastrophic, my dear friend. The world must come now with pictures and words and images to see what is happening in the northern Gaza Strip: a real genocide against everyone who moves in the northern Gaza Strip.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
We’re joined now by Muhammad Shehada, writer and analyst from Gaza City. He’s chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. He’s joining us from Copenhagen.
Muhammad, welcome back to Democracy Now! It is so critical to have you with us. As you speak with people who are in northern Gaza, the devastating, horrific images that are coming out of there, under siege for more than two weeks, you’ve been in touch with a colleague of yours who is the mother of a 1-year-old. Can you describe what you’re hearing on the ground?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, it’s a very close colleague of mine. She wrote me, basically this morning, that last night was the most violent since the war started. There was constant bombardment and shelling arbitrarily in the northern part of Gaza from 8:00 in the evening until 7:00 in the morning nonstop. It was an airstrike or a shelling literally every other second. The amount of it, the sheer intensity of it, was insane. And it’s been driving her very, very sort of — very worried about the survival of her family, but also suicidal by the mere thought that their turn is next at any moment. So, she’s saying, “I’m having these thoughts about how do I keep my son and husband alive, how do I stay alive myself. Give me advice where to go. What should I do? How should I get food?” And I cannot find any answer to any of these questions. There’s literally, literally, literally nothing is safe, and no access to food or water anymore.
Israel is implementing now a strategy that is in northern Gaza premised on four different pillars, one of which is mass starvation, quite literally mass starvation. The other one is mass killing and producing mass casualties, wounded people on mass scale. And then, the third one is shutting down all hospitals simultaneously, so that people with these wounds are destined to die if they don’t move south. And the last pillar is the mass expulsion, where you literally see Israel ordering people every day, “Move south. Move south.” And then they literally round them up from schools and hospitals and force them to line up on a death march and move to the south. I have friends who lost family members on some of these death marches, where you have to walk for dozens of kilometers under scorching heat or in the cold without any assistance, on foot, under constant fire, fully starved, with an empty stomach. And some people collapse and die on the way. I have never seen anything like this.
But on the other hand, I’m seeing Israeli politicians and media celebrating the footage of these death marches with utmost glee and utmost joy, that they see that this is the ultimate picture of victory. They are very open and honest that what they are doing now in northern Gaza has nothing — nothing — to do with Hamas. It has everything to do with the Palestinians in there. And they say that the reason why they want to depopulate it is because Palestinians believe that displacement is a thousand times worse than the war. It’s a deliberate strategy of humiliating, terrorizing and punishing the civilian population.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Muhammad, can you explain? Why is that? Why do Gazans think that displacement is a thousand times worse than the war? And if you could elaborate on how the Israeli press, in particular — you said a little about that now — how the Israeli press is covering the devastating conditions that you’ve just described in northern Gaza?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, basically, the reason why they find it a thousand times worse is that as soon as you cross the line dividing Gaza, the Netzarim Corridor — it’s a four-kilometers-wide area that Israel has turned into a military zone dissecting Gaza in two halves — as soon as you cross it, you will never return north again. You have to kiss your home and your loved ones goodbye. You will never see your family members that are literally just a few minutes on the other side. It’s something like the Berlin Wall, but way more atrocious.
And once you cross to the southern side, what you will find there is an insanely overcrowded tent city, just tents upon tents upon tents, surrounded by mountains of garbage and pools of sewage water, heavily infested with diseases, no protection against the weather, no protection against the rain, and just left doomed to your own fate, basically surviving of handouts, humanitarian aid that is barely coming in. So, people find this as an absolute nightmare. And once you cross to the south, Israel is playing with people in the south like a ping-pong, moving them around like chess pieces all the time, moving them from Deir al-Balah to Khan Younis, and then from Khan Younis to Mawasi, and then from Mawasi to Khan Younis again, and back to Nuseirat. It’s a nonstop nightmare. And this constant instability, this constant uncertainty, is one of the worst things you can do to someone that is heavily shell-shocked and traumatized and in pure survival mode.
Israeli media has been very honest since at least August. So, Israel’s Channel 12, the most-watched Israeli television, they said in August that, quote, “The central victory in Gaza, the central victory, is the psychological warfare that is waged upon the Gazan population in northern Gaza.” Depopulating northern Gaza, for them, is the ultimate victory image. And they are very honest that amongst the people that will move out of northern Gaza are the Hamas members. They are not concerned with fighting Hamas in the north. They just want everybody to move out. Now Israel’s main liberal newspaper, Haaretz, has been warning since — for many weeks, but yesterday they came and officially said, the editorial board, they said Netanyahu’s government is now, quote, “paving the way to building settlements in Gaza,” building the path or facilitating the path to building Jewish-only settlements in northern Gaza after emptying it completely.
So, for Gaza’s population to be moved into an overcrowded, unlivable tent city, pure sand and rubble and the desert, and be shell-shocked all the time and squeezed more and more and more into tinier and tinier places, it is an absolute nightmare. And that’s the Israeli strategy. The reason why they adopt these strategies, what they themselves brag about, is that the images of these death marches count as a victory image for Israeli political parties and for the Israeli public to show that, look, the Palestinian public are being humiliated, are being terrorized, are being collectively punished, and with the sort of excuse that this pressure might at the end lead Gaza to either surrender or face complete demise.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Muhammad, you know, today, Antony Blinken, U.S. secretary of state, arrived in Israel, his 11th trip to the region since October 7th, 2023. If you could say whether you think anything might come out of this trip of his? There was talk earlier, which seems obviously to be false, that once Yahya Sinwar was killed, Israel would be more open to ceasefire negotiations.
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yeah, I’ve been told that exact same thing repeatedly by American officials, by European officials and people from Israel, and even Arab officials, who kept saying that if Israel manages to get Sinwar, the war would stop, or we would double or significantly increase the momentum to end the war. But as soon as Sinwar was killed, you see every single one of those people playing dumb and deaf, just abandoning Gaza to its fate.
These performative visits and performative declarations, that there is a breakthrough, that the negotiations are happening, are just there as a pretense to buy time. There has been a deal on the table since at least July 2nd, the deal that President Biden put himself, that Hamas accepted fully on July 2nd with slight amendments in the updated formula, and Israel, as well. The message that the Qataris got from the Israelis is that Israel, as well, accepted that formula. And nonetheless, right after that ceasefire proposal was put on the table, Netanyahu went forth and killed the top negotiator in Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, and has been unleashing one massacre after another in Gaza and putting ludicrous terms that even his own security military establishment disagreed with completely, maintaining the occupation of Gaza in the Netzarim Corridor and Philadelphi, and merely having a six-week pause after which the war goes on again. So, these pretenses, Blinken’s visit, etc., it’s there just to buy time. It’s there to soothe people and pacify them and numb their outrage at what’s happening and unfolding in Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, I want to ask you about the Israeli Cabinet members and officials with the ruling Likud party calling Monday for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza and for the ethnic cleansing of the territory’s Palestinian inhabitants. The far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir spoke at a conference of settler groups and ultranationalists near Israel’s border with Gaza. This is what he said.
ITAMAR BEN-GVIR: [translated] We can return home to Gaza, and we can do another thing: to encourage Palestinian emigration out of Gaza, encourage emigration, encourage emigration. It’s the best and most moral solution, not by force, but by telling them, “We’re giving you the option: Leave to other countries.” The land of Israel is ours.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about the significance of this, Muhammad Shehada? He was then cheered after he said this. And also talk about whether you think that Netanyahu right now is pushing for a war with Iran that would serve the U.S. election to get Trump elected, his true ally.
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yes, absolutely. So, in terms of Iran and Netanyahu’s ambition, yesterday, Israel’s top right-wing journalist, Amit Segal, he said it openly and publicly, that we want Trump to be back, because if he is back in office, Israel will get away with annexing major parts of the Gaza Strip and will get away with as much, for instance, in Lebanon or vis-à-vis the Iranians. He is actively trying to sabotage Kamala Harris’s campaign. It’s no secret.
But in terms of the Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the U.S. — every time that point is raised to them, they try to dismiss it or downplay it by saying this is a fringe minority in Netanyahu’s government. No, it’s not. Now you have at least half of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition that are officially, openly in favor of such plan of depopulating Gaza’s half and building settlements there and taking over and annexing parts of it. But the other half, the sort of silent half in Netanyahu’s Cabinet, many of them are also in that direction, even people in the Israeli opposition.
Now you have the Israeli political map vis-à-vis Gaza is fragmented between three different preferences. Number one is the one you mentioned, Amy, about resettling the Gaza Strip, building Jewish-only settlements in Gaza. Number two is the Netanyahu preference, building an Israeli military government, a military dictatorship, to rule the Gaza Strip for the foreseeable future, and if the world is not happy with that, then a joint Arab or joint international mission to do Israel’s dirty work in Gaza, to pay for Gaza’s — sustaining life in Gaza on a humanitarian scale and do the sort of dismantling, disarmament of Hamas. And number three, the defense establishment, the moderate position and the opposition position is that Israel will rule Gaza militarily for the foreseeable future, a military occupation will stay in Gaza, but they don’t want to do anything with Gaza’s civilian aspect of governance. They want to outsource it to anybody else, so that they don’t have to pay anything for running Gaza. And you heard, for example, Israel’s former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who’s supposed to be the opposition to Netanyahu, a moderate, relatively speaking. As soon as Sinwar was killed, he said, “We will stay in Gaza for the foreseeable future.”
So, this is a very scary spectrum that you have on hand, that is setting forth the agenda for an indefinite war. And the only reason you can sort of change that, influence a change in there, is by basically pressuring Israel and cutting off the weapons supply. Without conditioning the weapons supply or cutting it off, there’s no hope of any positive alternative coming out of this.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Muhammad, before we end — we just have a minute — we would like to ask about your family. You recently saw in Egypt both your grandmother and your cousin. You say people who have even managed to get out look like ghosts of their former selves. If you could tell us what it was like, how your grandmother and your cousin appeared to you?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, it’s a thought that I have to wrestle with all the time, is that the Gaza that I know is gone. And it’s not just the loved ones that were killed. I stopped counting how many I lost. And it’s not just the homes that were bombed. But it’s the physical debilitation, the physical weakening of the people in Gaza, even the ones that came out of it.
I got a message from my mom when my grandmother came out, and she said, “By the look of it, your grandma’s not going to be here for long. You have to come immediately and see her.” I went to see her. She was — before the war, she was this healthy, beautiful woman with a lot of jewelry on her hands, and she was very proud, traditional Palestinian clothing all the time. Now she was just mere skin and bone, with her feet swollen up in a very frightening way and complications with the digestive system nonstop. And she was bedridden completely, completely incapacitated.
I saw my cousin on the street, who was also a healthy, tall, beautiful woman in Gaza with smooth skin. That was her reputation, how she’s seen in the family. I saw her in the street. I didn’t recognize her. She did. And basically, she had shrunken. Her back is arched. She was skin and bone, a shorter person than the one I’m used to, with curled-up skin, very darkened skin, very rough skin. And I couldn’t recognize her anymore.
And I fear for the same fate of everyone I know in Gaza, that they have been changed and turned into ghosts physically, but also the mental debilitation. Before this war started, you had about 90% of Gaza’s population with PTSDs and 70% with persistent depressive disorder symptoms. Now it’s way, way, way uglier than that. Now I hear suicidal thoughts from everyone I know. And Gaza is culturally religious. There is the belief that suicide is the gateway to eternity in hell. But what Israel has done in Gaza is that it’s now pushing people to believe that God’s hell, no matter what, is going to be way better than the nightmare that is inflicted on Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, we want to thank you for being with us, writer and analyst, originally from Gaza City, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, speaking to us today from Copenhagen.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by the acclaimed writer and activist Naomi Klein. She’ll discuss her new essay, “How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war,” as well as how conspiracy theories are impacting everything from the U.S. presidential election to hurricane relief. She writes about conspiracies in her book, now out in paperback, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. Back in 20 seconds.
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Naomi Klein: Israel Has Weaponized October 7 Trauma to Justify Its Genocide in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/22 ... transcript
More than a year since Israel launched its war on Gaza in response to the October 7 attack, we speak with the award-winning author, journalist and activist Naomi Klein, who says a “trauma industry” has emerged to keep Israeli society permanently in crisis in order to justify the country’s expansionist wars and human rights abuses. “Though the Israeli government likes to frame everything that is happening now as a response to October 7, this is a preexisting agenda,” says Klein, whose latest essay for The Guardian explores how Israel “has made trauma a weapon of war.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, we turn now to look at “How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war.” That’s a headline to a recent essay in The Guardian by our next guest, the award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein, who examines how memorials to the October 7th attacks have stirred support for Israel’s limitless violence.
She writes, quote, “It’s a simple fable of good and evil, in which Israel is unblemished in its innocence, deserving unquestioning support, while its enemies are all monsters, deserving of violence unbounded by laws or borders, whether in Gaza, Jenin, Beirut, Damascus or Tehran.”
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein is professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia, the founding co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice. Her latest book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, is now available in paperback. She’s the author of many other books, including The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Naomi, it’s great to have you back in our New York studio, but horrifying during these times. If you can respond first to what’s happening on the ground in Gaza, in Lebanon, and then if you can relate it to this piece that you just wrote for The Guardian?
NAOMI KLEIN: Sure. Well, I think the first thing that we — what we need to understand, and I think we have seen this in the clips and in your previous interview, is that though the Israeli government likes to frame everything that is happening now as a response to October 7th, this is a preexisting agenda. I mean, this is the settler movement, Ben-Gvir. I mean, all of these figures have always wanted Gaza depopulated. They’ve always wanted to settle Gaza. They’ve always believed it is part of so-called Greater Israel. So does Netanyahu. It’s part of their coalition agreement dating back to 2022 — right? — that they want the whole thing, and also the West Bank, by the way.
So, you know, I’ve written before about how states of shock are often exploited very cynically to ram through a preexisting agenda. And I think that’s absolutely what we’re seeing. But in order for that to work, the state of shock needs to be continued, heightened. There can never be a recovery. So the Israeli society needs to be reshocked and kept in this kind of trauma loop. And that’s what this piece about the kind of trauma industry is about.
And I want to be very clear: People have a right to grieve their loved ones. This is not about families gathering in grief. This is not about the right to remember and honor. It’s about state-orchestrated and -manipulated trauma. It’s a memorialization from above — right? — not from below, for a very specific end. And people in the Netanyahu government have been very clear that really what they’re doing with the way they are telling the story of October 7th is creating what they call a new national identity. And it’s a national identity that uses the trauma of that day to create a story that fuses October 7th with the Holocaust, and then uses that as the excuse for the genocide that we’re seeing right now.
So, you know, when we think about the horrors, that you’ve already outlined today on the show and, frankly, every show — right? — the deliberate starvation, the torment of an entire population, the torture of an entire population, the deliberate humiliation — how do you — and I think we all ask ourselves this question: How are people able to rationalize it? Right? And they’re able to rationalize it because within their information bubbles, they are being fed this constant story of “this is what they did to you,” a whole industry of reexperiencing it.
I mean, what I write about in this piece is all of these immersive, so-called memorialization kind of technologies, so it’s not only people in Israel, but in the diaspora, who are encouraged to put on VR goggles and reexperience October 7th as if it happened to them, immersive tunnels where you can go into the Gaza tunnels. It’s really an attempt to transfer trauma far and wide.
And in a state of trauma, you don’t really think. It’s pure emotion. It’s pure reaction. You can’t be analytical. You’re not going to be empathetic towards others. It’s about monsterizing the other and fusing your identity with the people in those houses, at the Nova music festival, in the tunnels. It’s very deliberate. It’s extremely manipulative. And it’s how you turn off any compassion or empathy or sense of ethics or morals.
AMY GOODMAN: And just to be clear, you point out that a number of hostage family members, in response to the state memorializations, as you put it, on October 7th, said, “Do not use our family members’ names. We don’t want to be a part of this,” as they fight for —
NAOMI KLEIN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: — their family members to be released and a ceasefire, an end to Palestinian anguish.
NAOMI KLEIN: Oh yeah. I mean, this is — the way in which the government is weaponizing, instrumentalizing the deaths on October 7th and the hostages, the people who are most opposed to it are the families themselves, right? So, I begin the piece with the fact that, originally, the government’s plans for October 7th was to have this huge public event in the south. There were going to be thousands of people, I think 7,000 people. And they wanted to have, you know, members of the families there to testify. And kibbutz after kibbutz that was really, you know, on the frontline, like kibbutzim like Be’eri, said, “We’re not participating in this.” Then family members said, “Not only are we not participating, you can’t use our child’s name. You can’t use their image,” which is to not say that they’re not grieving. They had their own private, dignified ceremonies, vigils, you know, for people who are still alive. They just didn’t want any part of the pageantry and the weaponization of the government. They didn’t — and that was withheld.
You know, of course, the way my piece has been responded to through the sort hasbara channels is, you know, “Naomi Klein says we don’t have a right to grieve,” ignoring the fact that it’s the families themselves who have the most to grieve who are actually objecting the loudest within Israeli society.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if you could say, Naomi — you know, you just mentioned, which your piece talks about at length, the conflation of October 7th with the Holocaust. First of all, what that makes possible?
NAOMI KLEIN: Right.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Some of the examples of the ways in which that’s happened through these different memorialization practices that you outline? And then, whether an argument can be made for whether this is not precisely a kind of a trivialization of the Holocaust, a kind of banalization of it, which is precisely what survivors and scholars of the Holocaust warned against?
NAOMI KLEIN: Right. Yeah, I think it’s extraordinary, because one of the things that is happening from the same people who are trivializing the Holocaust in this way, they’re also — if you say what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, you know, they’ll throw their arms up in horror and say, you know, “That is impossible,” despite the immense scale and the deliberate plans and all of the markers, the announcements of intent — now, I’m not going to go into that. But they think nothing of saying that October 7th was — as if 80 years had not passed, as if it was not another continent, as if it was not another group of people, as if the power dynamics were not flipped on their head, that this day just grafts onto the Holocaust, as if it was 1945.
And so, this goes from everything from the Shoah Foundation adding another chapter — so, the Shoah Foundation, which is, you know, an incredibly important archive of testimonies of Holocaust survivors, now has added testimonies from survivors of October 7th. March of the Living tours of Auschwitz, now you hear from survivors of October 7th. So it’s a total conflation of these events. You know, in the piece, I tell a kind of extreme story of — they call it an art project. I wouldn’t call it an art project, but it’s some — it was a bizarre kind of stunt of taking — creating a juxtaposition of the iconic memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin and hanging a pair of mocked-up bloodied pants that were to symbolize sexual violence on October 7th and suspending them over that memorial with drones and then saying “Never again?” — question mark — as if this is all the same event.
Now, Nermeen, you asked about: Well, what are the implications of this? The implications are that if you do conflate these events, of course, it justifies any response, right? And more than that, if you cast Palestinians as Nazis, if you create this continuum, this absolutely false continuum, then it actually, post facto, does a lot more work than that, because then, if Palestinians are Nazis, then the original crime in the creation of the state of Israel, which is the Nakba, which is the mass, forced ethnic cleansing, displacement of hundreds of thousands, more than 700,000, Palestinians, who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, is, like, after the fact, justified, right? So, if they’re Nazis, then the original crime that Israel can’t look at in its founding is sort of, after the fact, justified. This is the psychology of it. Of course, it makes no sense. But this is why it’s very dangerous, and it’s why we’re seeing this acceleration of kind of finish-the-job Nakba from Israeli politicians.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to ask, Naomi — one of the people that you cite in your piece, I mean, on the question of grief and grieving, is historian Gabriel Winant, whose piece in Dissent, which you take from, is headlined “On Mourning and Statehood.” It was a response to Joshua Leifer, a journalist, in the same journal, in Dissent. But I’d like to read a short excerpt. This is not what you quote, but it’s from his original piece. He writes, “The genuine humane sentiment that it is possible to grieve equally for those on both sides is, tragically, not true. One side has an enormous grief machine, the best in the world, up and running, feeding on bodies and tears and turning them into bombs. The other is starved for grief.” Now, Gabriel wrote that piece less than one week after October 7th. Now it’s over a year, over 42,000 Gazans killed. If you could elaborate on this? Because this is something that people have struggled with, you know, because, as you said earlier, people have a right to grieve what happened on October 7th, and yet there is this massive discrepancy.
NAOMI KLEIN: Massive asymmetry in who’s grievable, right? I mean, this is Butler’s term, Judith Butler’s term, that within a vastly unequal, white supremacist society, you have lives that are treated as more grievable than others. And so many justice struggles are about asserting that every life is grievable. And so, I mean, the Black Lives Matter movement is about asymmetrical grief in so many ways.
I mean, personally, I don’t think — I think there’s sometimes this idea that you can tell people not to grieve, because — you know, to sort of balance the scales. I don’t think grief is a very obedient emotion, from my experience. It’s highly disobedient and unruly. And I think it is dangerous, actually, to tell people that they can’t have the emotions that they’re having. I think it’s more constructive to try to redirect those emotions into a project that is liberatory, that is in solidarity, you know, create containers for grief that are not the weaponized containers or instrumentalized containers that are using that grief and turning it into a justification for genocide. So, you know, I have respect, but disagreement, with that position. But we need to wrestle with it.
You know, in the piece, I also quote a scholar, a Lebanese Australian scholar, Ghassan Hage, who talks about how he felt this pressure to grieve those deaths in a certain way after October 7th, in a way that he described as “supremacist mourning,” which had encoded in it the idea that these lives were more important, more precious than Palestinian lives, Lebanese lives. And that’s what we must reject on all counts.
The other thing that’s been pointed out many times is that you can’t really mourn when the bodies are still piling up, when there are bodies still under the rubble, when cities are being turned to dust. Mourning is something, actually, that you do once it’s over. And it’s not over.
AMY GOODMAN: You also quote Marianne Hirsch, a professor emerita at Columbia University, and you end your piece by applauding the group, Israeli Palestinian group, Zochrot, which means “remembering.” Talk about both.
NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah. I mean, Marianne Hirsch is a wonderful scholar of different forms of memorialization and the way in which these sort of top-down — this top-down pageantry memorial creates a false experience, a sort of — she doesn’t use this term, but a prosthetic trauma.
The remembering, you know, if you break down the parts of the word “remembering,” it’s really putting the pieces of the self back together again. And the work of Zochrot, which is — you know, they’ve been doing work for many years, which is really about putting the pieces — like, Israel is based on erasure — right? — erasing the presence of — it’s every settler-colonial state — the United States, Canada, Australia. They’re all about erasing the original Indigenous presence there, renaming towns, denying that there are burial grounds. So, it’s actually the opposite of memorialization that happens. And so, what would real remembering mean in violent settler-colonial states? And it would be actually putting the pieces of the self back together again, which is this deeper form of remembering.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Oct 30, 2024 2:49 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/23/headlines
U.N. Says Israeli Assaults on Gaza Have Set Back Development by Seven Decades
Oct 23, 2024
Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem has accused the Israeli military of committing “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza as its devastating siege continues for a 19th day. In the Jabaliya refugee camp, Israeli forces stormed at least three schools sheltering Palestinians, forcing those inside to leave at gunpoint, before setting fire to the buildings. Palestinians fleeing the shattered remains of Beit Lahia report seeing bodies in the streets and Israeli soldiers detaining and beating men. The stench of death is everywhere. This comes as a United Nations report published Tuesday found one year of Israeli attacks on Gaza has set back the territory’s economic development nearly seven decades, plunging three of every four surviving Palestinians into poverty, with Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure leaving behind a “vast wasteland of rubble and twisted steel.” The U.N. warns Palestinians under Israeli siege in northern Gaza “are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.”
“Similar to an Earthquake”: Lebanon Seeks $250 Million a Month for 1.3M People Displaced by Israel
Oct 23, 2024
Israel is intensifying its attacks on Lebanon. Earlier today, Israel bombed the historic Lebanese port city of Tyre — one of the oldest cities in the world — after ordering residents to leave their homes and businesses. More Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight. Israel’s army announced it had killed Hashem Safieddine, presumed to be the next head of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated its former leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in September. On Tuesday, Lebanese Cabinet member Nasser Yassin said Lebanon will need $250 million a month to help over a million people who’ve been displaced by Israel’s assault. He spoke ahead of an international summit on Lebanon taking place in Paris later this week.
Nasser Yassin: “You know, overnight we’ve seen more than 1 million people being displaced by the attacks, hostilities, by the aggression. And this is similar to an earthquake. You don’t see this number in scale and the speed of it, except in major natural disasters. And this is what happened in 48 hours.”
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports Israel’s military forcibly entered a clearly marked United Nations base and is suspected of using the incendiary chemical white phosphorus close enough to injure 15 peacekeepers. The use of white phosphorus as a weapon is a war crime under international law.
Israeli Forces Shoot and Kill 11-Year-Old Palestinian Boy in Occupied West Bank
Oct 23, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers fatally shot an 11-year-old Palestinian child during a raid Tuesday in the city of Nablus. Abdullah Hawash was critically injured and later died of his wounds. Over the past year, Israeli forces have killed at least 760 Palestinians in the West Bank, while more than 11,400 have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Blinken Wraps 11th Israel Visit as Hostages’ Families Protest to Demand a Ceasefire
Oct 23, 2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Saudi Arabia after wrapping up talks with senior Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. The State Department says Blinken urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to revive Gaza ceasefire negotiations and pushed Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. On Tuesday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Tel Aviv hotel where Blinken was meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. They were demanding the U.S. pressure Israel into making a ceasefire deal that would see the release of hostages held by Hamas. Protesters, many of them family members of hostages, held signs reading “No more war; no more bloodshed; free our state; free our hostages.”
Blinken’s 11th trip to the Middle East in just over a year comes as Axios reported the State Department is reviewing U.S. aid to Israeli units accused of killing, torturing and sexually assaulting Palestinians. ProPublica reported in April that a State Department panel had recommended as long ago as last December that multiple Israeli military and police units should be disqualified from receiving U.S. aid under the Leahy Amendment, the 1997 law that requires the United States to cut off financial aid to those credibly accused of human rights violations. Secretary Blinken still has not taken any action.
Al Jazeera Demands Medical Evacuation of Journalists Injured by Israeli Forces in Gaza
Oct 23, 2024
Al Jazeera is continuing to demand the immediate medical evacuation of two of its journalists in Gaza injured in Israeli attacks. Al Jazeera camera operator Fadi al-Wahidi was paralyzed after he was shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper while reporting in Jabaliya earlier this month. Israeli authorities have blocked the evacuation of al-Wahidi from Gaza, as well as that of fellow Al Jazeera cameraperson Ali al-Attar, to receive urgently needed medical treatment. Al-Attar suffered serious injuries due to shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah causing a cerebral hemorrhage. In related news, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is leading a group of U.S. lawmakers urging the Biden administration to open an investigation into the October 2023 Israeli attack that killed Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon. Six others were injured, including reporters for Agence France-Presse and Al Jazeera.
Harris Campaign Ejects Muslim American Democrat from Detroit-Area Rally
Oct 23, 2024
Kamala Harris’s campaign has said it “regrets” a decision to eject a Muslim American Democrat from a Monday evening rally in metro Detroit, where Harris was joined on stage by Republican former Wyoming Congressmember Liz Cheney. Ahmed Ghanim, a Democratic Party activist and former House candidate for Michigan’s 11th District, says he RSVP’d to the event, cleared security and was seated at the Royal Oak Musical Theater when a staffer ordered him to leave or be put into the back of a police car. Ghanim told The Detroit News he felt targeted because he is Muslim, adding, “I didn’t even have anything like a Palestinian keffiyeh, any signs or a banner, nothing. None of that is allowed inside. I guess that’s how the Democratic Party deals with Muslims.” This comes as a new poll from Arab News finds Arab Americans are slightly more likely to vote for Donald Trump than Kamala Harris.
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“We Have Lost All Credibility”: Hala Rharrit on Quitting State Dept. & Ending U.S. Complicity in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/23 ... transcript
As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel. We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza. Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza as Israel’s devastating siege on the area continues. In a statement, the group said, quote, “The magnitude of the crimes Israel is currently committing in the northern Gaza Strip in its campaign to empty it of however many residents are left is impossible to describe, not just because hundreds of thousands of people enduring starvation, disease without access to medical care and incessant bombardments and gunfire defies comprehension, but because Israel has cut them off from the world.” These are the words of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp, Israeli forces stormed at least three schools, forcing Palestinians sheltering inside to leave at gunpoint, before setting fire to the buildings. Palestinians in the refugee camp say they fear they’ll be killed if they stay put or if they try to flee south.
UMM AWAD AL-MADHOUN: [translated] A lot of rockets fell on us, and the quadcopters started shouting and telling us to get out, get out of the area. We evacuated and found lots of tanks and Israeli soldiers, and we were taken to a very large area, and they started shooting at us. They then started evacuating us from the area 10 by 10. When we reached here, I didn’t know where to come or go. I’m sitting in the street with my children.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, has issued a report stating it could take Gaza 350 years to rebuild if it remains under an Israeli blockade.
Meanwhile, Israel is also intensifying its attack on Lebanon. Earlier today, Israel bombed the historic Lebanese town of Tyre, one of the oldest cities in the world.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken has arrived in Saudi Arabia after leaving Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. Blinken spoke to reporters before leaving Israel.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Israel has achieved most of its strategic objectives when it comes to Gaza, all with the idea of making sure that October 7th could never happen again. In the space of a year, it’s managed to dismantle Hamas’s military capacity. It’s destroyed much of its arsenal. It’s eliminated its senior leadership, including, most recently, Yahya Sinwar. This has come at the cost, great cost, to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Now is the time to turn those successes into an enduring strategic success. And there are really two things left to do: get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow.
AMY GOODMAN: That was U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
We’re joined now by Hala Rharrit. She served 18 years as a career diplomat before resigning in April from the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. She’s the first and only State Department diplomat to publicly resign over Gaza. At the time she left, she was the Arabic-language spokesperson for the State Department and the deputy director of the State Department’s Dubai regional media hub.
Hala Rharrit, thank you so much for being in our New York studio. We were just playing a clip of your former boss, of U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Your thoughts as we just passed this first anniversary of the Hamas attack on southern Israel and the ensuing Israeli attack on Gaza that has killed — this is by far considered an underestimate by most — at least 42,000 Palestinians, over 17,000 of them children?
HALA RHARRIT: First of all, Amy, thank you so much for having me. It really is an honor. And I have to tell you on behalf of so many diplomats, huge fan of yours. American diplomats have been watching your show for years, and we thank you for everything that you do.
In response to the onslaught of Gaza, I want to state the failures of this policy, that even for those that are thinking of it as this side versus another, we have to be realistic about the fact that it has absolutely failed. Secretary Blinken said Israel has achieved the strategic objectives in Gaza. No, it hasn’t. That is quite a lie. Its objectives was the release of the hostages. That has not been achieved. Its objective was also the destruction of Hamas. That has not been achieved.
The reality is that we, as the United States government, are in violation of U.S. law, of multiple of laws that your viewers can Google for themselves: the Leahy Law, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act. We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel.
To what end? We are only empowering Benjamin Netanyahu to expand the conflict in Gaza, to expand the conflict within the West Bank, and now we’re seeing the devastation in Lebanon. Again, to what end? We saw the Lebanese foreign minister insist that Nasrallah and Hezbollah had actually agreed to the U.S. and France proposal for a ceasefire before he was assassinated. There are other ceasefires in Gaza that we have been pushing that Netanyahu is the obstacle. Yet this administration refuses to shift its policy, refuses to enforce U.S. law and continues to surge U.S. military assistance.
And the result has been devastating, absolutely devastating. These are human beings in Gaza that are being absolutely massacred, children. And this is going to have generational impacts and ultimately will not keep Israel any safer. And the entire region is destabilized, as we’re seeing now with the threat of Iran, as well. The policy has to change, and it has to change now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hala, I wanted to ask you — it wasn’t until earlier this month that Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a letter threatening to cut off U.S. military assistance if Israel does not boost humanitarian aid to Gaza in the next 30 days. What’s your response?
HALA RHARRIT: Thank you, Juan, for highlighting that. I can tell you, as someone that worked within the State Department PR machine, that this, unfortunately, is a public relations ploy. I am sad to say it, but it’s the truth. It is conveniently 30 days, marking the time after the election. Also, it was conveniently leaked. It’s not typical for a statement like this to be leaked to the press, but it was.
The reality is that the State Department and the administration at this point is trying to give voters, especially those that are so concerned about the conflict in Gaza, some level of hope: “As long as you vote for us, after this 30 days, we’ll enforce the law, and we will make a change.” This is absolutely a deception for the voters and for the American people.
We don’t need another 30 days. We have had ample evidence from within the United States government, not just the State Department, but a multitude of U.S. agencies, with proof that Israel is violating so many of our laws, is systematically withholding humanitarian assistance from going in. As was mentioned in the report, as well, Leahy vetting is being violated, with army units determined to have committed gross human rights violations. We need to take action, and we should have taken action months ago. This 30 days is only a PR ploy, and that is the only thing it really is.
And that’s the devastation of all of it, because we have to ask ourselves: What is going to happen in these 30 days? Right after this letter was sent, the Israeli government announced that medical groups were no longer allowed to go into Gaza. They informed the WHO. These are medical groups, including from the United States, that are providing lifesaving assistance to people in need, to civilians in need. This was a slap in the face of the administration. If they had actually taken this letter seriously, they wouldn’t have taken that step. Additionally, the onslaught of northern Gaza is clear. They’re continuing the onslaught, specifically of northern Gaza, a complete blackout, no food, no water, no internet — all this in this 30-day period supposedly. Unfortunately, we need to stop with the words, with the PR, and we need to take serious action.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you — even as the war, this horrific war, continues, the United States’ policy, and that of most European countries, is still in favor of a two-state solution long term in the area. But the Israeli Knesset itself, overwhelmingly, not just Netanyahu’s portion of the government, but overwhelmingly voted earlier this year to reject any possibility of a Palestinian state. I’m wondering your thoughts about the long-term future of the area.
HALA RHARRIT: You’re absolutely right. And the fact that the Knesset voted on that shows the fact that we, as the United States, have been enabling and empowering a right extremist government in Israel. And it’s time that we stop doing so. There are so many Israeli peace activists. We heard of B’Tselem, but there is a growing movement from within Israel, including members that — family members that actually lost relatives on October 7, that are demanding an end to the nonstop violence. These are the groups that we need to support; same on the Palestinian side, Palestinian activists that are calling for coexistence. The U.S. government needs to shift its policy. Again, I’m just going to repeat this over and over again. We continue to empower a right-wing extremist prime minister, when we should be doing is supporting civil society on both sides that are actually seeking to promote humanity for both peoples.
AMY GOODMAN: Hala, tributes have poured in from across the globe for 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou. He was a software engineering student who burned to death after Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah last week. He didn’t actually die then, but the bombing set fire to the displaced persons camp around the hospital. He had built his little tent area for his family. This is a clip of Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker questioning recently State Department spokesperson Matt Miller about Sha’ban’s death.
PREM THAKKER: One of the people the world saw burned alive by the bombing of the Gaza hospital was Sha’ban al-Dalou, a 19-year-old engineering student who was still attached to an IV drip recovering from a previous bombing. And his story kind of speaks to how this isn’t just about one attack, a 19-year-old having to provide for his family, repeatedly displaced, brought to hunger, bombed twice in a matter of days. This is a year, and this isn’t out of nowhere. So, how many more patients burned alive by U.S. bombs —
MATTHEW MILLER: We don’t want to see any.
PREM THAKKER: — until this is enough?
MATTHEW MILLER: None. We don’t want to see any.
PREM THAKKER: Well, I guess the U.S. has said, you know, again and again, that no civilian loss is acceptable, 10,000 deaths ago, 20,000 deaths ago, and yet it’s continued. So, how does this answer mean anything without a policy shift?
MATTHEW MILLER: So, it is an incredibly difficult environment that Israel operates in. And I’ll just make clear, the thing that that question leaves out, as often happens — and I understand why — is the burden that Hamas bears, and not just the burden that Hamas bears by hiding behind humans and using humans as civilian shields, but the burden that Hamas bears in not coming back to the table to try to get to a ceasefire. So, Israel needs to do more to minimize civilian harm. Hamas needs to stop hiding behind human shields.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker. Hala, if you can respond to this report? And, you know, since Sha’ban has died, his brother has died, his mother has died, his sister has died. And people are saying that the family members who are burnt but not yet dead, because they can’t get out and because the hospital is in such disrepair, they are dying from their burns.
HALA RHARRIT: Such immense human suffering, the scale of which we just can’t really grapple with. And I have to just thank you, Amy, for humanizing the victims. And we all have to do that as Americans, because, ultimately, it is our bombs, it is our tax dollars that is creating this catastrophe.
As to Matthew Miller, I’m going to be unequivocal: He’s lying. And I know, I realize it’s quite a forceful thing for me to say, but as a former diplomat, I can assure that. There have been ceasefire deals that Hamas has agreed to. I am not one to advocate for the terrorist organization whatsoever, and I want to be clear about that. But facts are facts. Hamas has repeatedly agreed to ceasefire deals. It is Benjamin Netanyahu who has reneged on those deals.
Additionally, you had another guest on this show a while back, Gershon Baskin, who’s an Israeli negotiator, who has been negotiating on behalf of families of hostages. I have been in close touch with Gershon over the last month. He had, and continues to have, a deal that, again, is an Israeli deal that Hamas has agreed to. I pushed this to the State Department. I pushed this to the White House, at very senior levels. They have it. And it guaranteed the release of all of the hostages, and it guaranteed security for Israel, as well. I’m sorry, go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: We have a clip of —
HALA RHARRIT: OK, great.
AMY GOODMAN: — Gershon Baskin.
GERSHON BASKIN: I’ve pleaded with the Hamas to say yes not only to me, but to tell the Egyptians and the Qataris that they agree to the deal that I proposed to them, which is a three-week, end-of-war, full-term ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, release of all the Israeli hostages and a release of an agreed number and list of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. This is a deal that can be made. It is a million times better than the deal that the United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to negotiate, unsuccessfully, for the last three months, which would just keep the war going and only release 32 hostages in 42 days. That’s a bad deal. We need to have a good deal put on the table. I’ve communicated this to the White House, to the Qataris, to the Egyptians and, of course, to the Israeli government. Now the officials need to push this through.
AMY GOODMAN: Why is Netanyahu refusing?
GERSHON BASKIN: Well, it’s very clear that Netanyahu doesn’t want to end the war, as one of his top negotiators told me on Saturday. The problem with any agreement that we can put forward is that the bottom line is that Hamas won’t make an agreement that doesn’t end the war, and Netanyahu won’t agree to any agreement that ends the war. He wants to keep this going.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Gershon Baskin speaking last month. It was before Yahya Sinwar was assassinated. Gershon Baskin, the Israeli researcher and peace activist who’s negotiated agreements with Hamas. The significance of what he is just saying? And also, I mean, Tony Blinken was your boss. You would brief him. You translated his words to the Arab world and the messages. And talk about the moment that you decided you cannot do this anymore.
HALA RHARRIT: Honestly, there were many moments, Amy, many, many moments. And after an 18-year career, you don’t take the decision to resign lightly. But it was despite all of my efforts, despite everyone’s efforts in terms of us career diplomats, highlighting the inhumanity, the illegality of this policy, the fact that it’s a counterproductive policy that is actually emboldening extremism on all sides, it is only ensuring generational cycle of violence.
I was initially told, “Good. Thank you for your feedback.” I was actually sending daily reports to the department. That was part of my job as a spokesperson. And I was highlighting what was happening in Gaza from the pan-Arab media. So I thought that my work was helping and feeding into Washington’s formulation of what to do next. But it became abundantly clear eventually that the policy was the policy. It was not shifting. I was actually asked in January to stop sending in those reports. Those reports also included the images that were going viral all over the Arab world of children being massacred, oftentimes showing U.S. complicity with fragments of U.S. bomb. Any other circumstance, this would have at least prompted a type of review of our, again, Leahy Law, everything else. It didn’t. Instead, I was silenced. I was sidelined. And that is something that has been unprecedented for me as an 18-year diplomat.
There is always disagreements within the U.S. Foreign Service in terms of policy, but it’s always been a spirit of collaboration, a spirit of “We want to hear from you. Let’s talk.” This has been different. It has been silence. And let me tell you, it has sent a chilling effect across the entire — I can speak about the Foreign Service. People have become to self-censor themselves. They are worried. And that hurts us as Americans, because when you have your experts — your experts, your U.S. government experts — silencing themselves because they’re worried about retribution, or they’re worried about what it will do to their career, we all lose. We lose as American citizens. It doesn’t keep us secure, doesn’t keep us safe.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering if you could talk about the impact of all of this and the U.S. position of unequivocal support for Israel has done to the standing of the United States in the Arab world and in the Global South.
HALA RHARRIT: Yeah, that’s a very good question, Juan. That’s actually one of the things that I used to highlight in my daily reports. And I used to show clips and images that were going viral of, basically, America being determined to be child killers, the country of child killers.
After 9/11 and after the “war on terror,” the U.S. government worked so hard to rehabilitate ties in the Arab world, to improve people-to-people relations. All of that has been devastated. And we are not going to see the repercussions of that — I mean, we are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generation, because we have lost all credibility. We are seen as a country of double standards. We only care about human rights when it’s the human rights of a certain people. We only care about freedom of press when the journalists are not Arab, right? And this is abundantly clear to people across the Arab world and, at this point, beyond.
So, unfortunately, we’ve lost credibility not in terms of just our U.S. policy with regard to the Middle East, but also on Russia-Ukraine. We don’t have a leg to stand on. As a spokesperson before the conflict, I did well over a hundred interviews, including on Russia-Ukraine, for example. We can no longer talk about that with any credibility, because the answer is: Why do you care about a Ukrainian child, but you don’t care about a child in Gaza? What is the difference? And the racism, the blunt, absolutely blunt, racism of this administration has been laid bare.
And it’s going to be very, very hard to recover from this in the Arab world, because we’ve lost even — as I’ve discussed publicly before, we’ve lost, quote-unquote, the “liberals” across the Arab world, the ones who, despite it all, respected us for our values. But those values, even here at home, with the student protests being violently beaten down, it’s all seen through. They’re seeing through all of these double standards. And it’s hurting us, again, hurting us as American citizens.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the reality of this administration that you resigned from and that several other career government officials have resigned from, how do you see this election coming in two weeks and the impact of the “uncommitted” movement, and what you see, as an American who’s going to have to cast a ballot in this election?
HALA RHARRIT: Absolutely. Well, I think the Democratic Party is underestimating the power of this issue. I think they are assuming that people will turn up for Harris because, obviously, Trump is a threat to our democracy. But I think they’re underestimating the trauma — and I don’t use that word lightly — the trauma that this conflict has caused, because so many of us that have been focused on the Middle East have been consuming these incessant images of massacres, absolute massacres, of children getting killed, of the suffering now in Lebanon, and it’s unacceptable. And I think for a lot of people of conscience, they are not going to be able to bring themselves to vote for Harris, even though they understand that Trump is a threat to our democracy, as he surely is. And I think many are taking serious consideration in a third-party option, whether it’s the Green or another, because they’re tired of the institutionalized corruption that has become our government, and they’re tired of politicians who are not working on behalf of the United States, but are, rather, working on behalf of special interests.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know Philip Gordon, who the national security adviser to Kamala Harris? We’re going to have to wrap up in one minute, but to ask: If you see any distance between Kamala Harris and President Biden?
HALA RHARRIT: I don’t now, because those are their own words. They’ve made it abundantly clear that they’re going to continue unconditional support to Israel. And they need to —
AMY GOODMAN: And Philip Gordon?
HALA RHARRIT: I think we’ve seen too many words, and at this point action. And Philip Gordon has made it clear that there’s going to be no arms embargo. And for me, that is him agreeing to a continuation of violation of U.S. law. And as someone that served my country and swore an oath to the Constitution, that’s something I cannot accept.
AMY GOODMAN: Hala Rharrit, we want to thank you so much for being with us, 18-year career diplomat, the first and only career diplomat to resign the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/23/headlines
U.N. Says Israeli Assaults on Gaza Have Set Back Development by Seven Decades
Oct 23, 2024
Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem has accused the Israeli military of committing “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza as its devastating siege continues for a 19th day. In the Jabaliya refugee camp, Israeli forces stormed at least three schools sheltering Palestinians, forcing those inside to leave at gunpoint, before setting fire to the buildings. Palestinians fleeing the shattered remains of Beit Lahia report seeing bodies in the streets and Israeli soldiers detaining and beating men. The stench of death is everywhere. This comes as a United Nations report published Tuesday found one year of Israeli attacks on Gaza has set back the territory’s economic development nearly seven decades, plunging three of every four surviving Palestinians into poverty, with Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure leaving behind a “vast wasteland of rubble and twisted steel.” The U.N. warns Palestinians under Israeli siege in northern Gaza “are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.”
“Similar to an Earthquake”: Lebanon Seeks $250 Million a Month for 1.3M People Displaced by Israel
Oct 23, 2024
Israel is intensifying its attacks on Lebanon. Earlier today, Israel bombed the historic Lebanese port city of Tyre — one of the oldest cities in the world — after ordering residents to leave their homes and businesses. More Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight. Israel’s army announced it had killed Hashem Safieddine, presumed to be the next head of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated its former leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in September. On Tuesday, Lebanese Cabinet member Nasser Yassin said Lebanon will need $250 million a month to help over a million people who’ve been displaced by Israel’s assault. He spoke ahead of an international summit on Lebanon taking place in Paris later this week.
Nasser Yassin: “You know, overnight we’ve seen more than 1 million people being displaced by the attacks, hostilities, by the aggression. And this is similar to an earthquake. You don’t see this number in scale and the speed of it, except in major natural disasters. And this is what happened in 48 hours.”
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports Israel’s military forcibly entered a clearly marked United Nations base and is suspected of using the incendiary chemical white phosphorus close enough to injure 15 peacekeepers. The use of white phosphorus as a weapon is a war crime under international law.
Israeli Forces Shoot and Kill 11-Year-Old Palestinian Boy in Occupied West Bank
Oct 23, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers fatally shot an 11-year-old Palestinian child during a raid Tuesday in the city of Nablus. Abdullah Hawash was critically injured and later died of his wounds. Over the past year, Israeli forces have killed at least 760 Palestinians in the West Bank, while more than 11,400 have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Blinken Wraps 11th Israel Visit as Hostages’ Families Protest to Demand a Ceasefire
Oct 23, 2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Saudi Arabia after wrapping up talks with senior Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. The State Department says Blinken urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to revive Gaza ceasefire negotiations and pushed Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. On Tuesday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Tel Aviv hotel where Blinken was meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. They were demanding the U.S. pressure Israel into making a ceasefire deal that would see the release of hostages held by Hamas. Protesters, many of them family members of hostages, held signs reading “No more war; no more bloodshed; free our state; free our hostages.”
Blinken’s 11th trip to the Middle East in just over a year comes as Axios reported the State Department is reviewing U.S. aid to Israeli units accused of killing, torturing and sexually assaulting Palestinians. ProPublica reported in April that a State Department panel had recommended as long ago as last December that multiple Israeli military and police units should be disqualified from receiving U.S. aid under the Leahy Amendment, the 1997 law that requires the United States to cut off financial aid to those credibly accused of human rights violations. Secretary Blinken still has not taken any action.
Al Jazeera Demands Medical Evacuation of Journalists Injured by Israeli Forces in Gaza
Oct 23, 2024
Al Jazeera is continuing to demand the immediate medical evacuation of two of its journalists in Gaza injured in Israeli attacks. Al Jazeera camera operator Fadi al-Wahidi was paralyzed after he was shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper while reporting in Jabaliya earlier this month. Israeli authorities have blocked the evacuation of al-Wahidi from Gaza, as well as that of fellow Al Jazeera cameraperson Ali al-Attar, to receive urgently needed medical treatment. Al-Attar suffered serious injuries due to shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah causing a cerebral hemorrhage. In related news, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is leading a group of U.S. lawmakers urging the Biden administration to open an investigation into the October 2023 Israeli attack that killed Reuters video journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon. Six others were injured, including reporters for Agence France-Presse and Al Jazeera.
Harris Campaign Ejects Muslim American Democrat from Detroit-Area Rally
Oct 23, 2024
Kamala Harris’s campaign has said it “regrets” a decision to eject a Muslim American Democrat from a Monday evening rally in metro Detroit, where Harris was joined on stage by Republican former Wyoming Congressmember Liz Cheney. Ahmed Ghanim, a Democratic Party activist and former House candidate for Michigan’s 11th District, says he RSVP’d to the event, cleared security and was seated at the Royal Oak Musical Theater when a staffer ordered him to leave or be put into the back of a police car. Ghanim told The Detroit News he felt targeted because he is Muslim, adding, “I didn’t even have anything like a Palestinian keffiyeh, any signs or a banner, nothing. None of that is allowed inside. I guess that’s how the Democratic Party deals with Muslims.” This comes as a new poll from Arab News finds Arab Americans are slightly more likely to vote for Donald Trump than Kamala Harris.
***********
“We Have Lost All Credibility”: Hala Rharrit on Quitting State Dept. & Ending U.S. Complicity in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 23, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/23 ... transcript
As human rights groups continue to call out war crimes committed by the Israeli military, we speak to the only U.S. diplomat to publicly resign from the Biden administration over its policy on Israel. We first spoke to Hala Rharrit when she resigned from the State Department in April, citing the illegal and deceptive nature of U.S. policy in the Middle East. “We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel,” she says after more than a year of Israel’s war on Gaza. Rharrit says she found the Biden administration unmovable in its “counterproductive policy,” which she believes has gravely harmed U.S. interests in the Middle East. “We are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generations.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza as Israel’s devastating siege on the area continues. In a statement, the group said, quote, “The magnitude of the crimes Israel is currently committing in the northern Gaza Strip in its campaign to empty it of however many residents are left is impossible to describe, not just because hundreds of thousands of people enduring starvation, disease without access to medical care and incessant bombardments and gunfire defies comprehension, but because Israel has cut them off from the world.” These are the words of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp, Israeli forces stormed at least three schools, forcing Palestinians sheltering inside to leave at gunpoint, before setting fire to the buildings. Palestinians in the refugee camp say they fear they’ll be killed if they stay put or if they try to flee south.
UMM AWAD AL-MADHOUN: [translated] A lot of rockets fell on us, and the quadcopters started shouting and telling us to get out, get out of the area. We evacuated and found lots of tanks and Israeli soldiers, and we were taken to a very large area, and they started shooting at us. They then started evacuating us from the area 10 by 10. When we reached here, I didn’t know where to come or go. I’m sitting in the street with my children.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, has issued a report stating it could take Gaza 350 years to rebuild if it remains under an Israeli blockade.
Meanwhile, Israel is also intensifying its attack on Lebanon. Earlier today, Israel bombed the historic Lebanese town of Tyre, one of the oldest cities in the world.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken has arrived in Saudi Arabia after leaving Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. Blinken spoke to reporters before leaving Israel.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Israel has achieved most of its strategic objectives when it comes to Gaza, all with the idea of making sure that October 7th could never happen again. In the space of a year, it’s managed to dismantle Hamas’s military capacity. It’s destroyed much of its arsenal. It’s eliminated its senior leadership, including, most recently, Yahya Sinwar. This has come at the cost, great cost, to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Now is the time to turn those successes into an enduring strategic success. And there are really two things left to do: get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow.
AMY GOODMAN: That was U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
We’re joined now by Hala Rharrit. She served 18 years as a career diplomat before resigning in April from the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. She’s the first and only State Department diplomat to publicly resign over Gaza. At the time she left, she was the Arabic-language spokesperson for the State Department and the deputy director of the State Department’s Dubai regional media hub.
Hala Rharrit, thank you so much for being in our New York studio. We were just playing a clip of your former boss, of U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Your thoughts as we just passed this first anniversary of the Hamas attack on southern Israel and the ensuing Israeli attack on Gaza that has killed — this is by far considered an underestimate by most — at least 42,000 Palestinians, over 17,000 of them children?
HALA RHARRIT: First of all, Amy, thank you so much for having me. It really is an honor. And I have to tell you on behalf of so many diplomats, huge fan of yours. American diplomats have been watching your show for years, and we thank you for everything that you do.
In response to the onslaught of Gaza, I want to state the failures of this policy, that even for those that are thinking of it as this side versus another, we have to be realistic about the fact that it has absolutely failed. Secretary Blinken said Israel has achieved the strategic objectives in Gaza. No, it hasn’t. That is quite a lie. Its objectives was the release of the hostages. That has not been achieved. Its objective was also the destruction of Hamas. That has not been achieved.
The reality is that we, as the United States government, are in violation of U.S. law, of multiple of laws that your viewers can Google for themselves: the Leahy Law, the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act. We continue to willfully violate laws so that we surge U.S. military assistance to Israel.
To what end? We are only empowering Benjamin Netanyahu to expand the conflict in Gaza, to expand the conflict within the West Bank, and now we’re seeing the devastation in Lebanon. Again, to what end? We saw the Lebanese foreign minister insist that Nasrallah and Hezbollah had actually agreed to the U.S. and France proposal for a ceasefire before he was assassinated. There are other ceasefires in Gaza that we have been pushing that Netanyahu is the obstacle. Yet this administration refuses to shift its policy, refuses to enforce U.S. law and continues to surge U.S. military assistance.
And the result has been devastating, absolutely devastating. These are human beings in Gaza that are being absolutely massacred, children. And this is going to have generational impacts and ultimately will not keep Israel any safer. And the entire region is destabilized, as we’re seeing now with the threat of Iran, as well. The policy has to change, and it has to change now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hala, I wanted to ask you — it wasn’t until earlier this month that Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a letter threatening to cut off U.S. military assistance if Israel does not boost humanitarian aid to Gaza in the next 30 days. What’s your response?
HALA RHARRIT: Thank you, Juan, for highlighting that. I can tell you, as someone that worked within the State Department PR machine, that this, unfortunately, is a public relations ploy. I am sad to say it, but it’s the truth. It is conveniently 30 days, marking the time after the election. Also, it was conveniently leaked. It’s not typical for a statement like this to be leaked to the press, but it was.
The reality is that the State Department and the administration at this point is trying to give voters, especially those that are so concerned about the conflict in Gaza, some level of hope: “As long as you vote for us, after this 30 days, we’ll enforce the law, and we will make a change.” This is absolutely a deception for the voters and for the American people.
We don’t need another 30 days. We have had ample evidence from within the United States government, not just the State Department, but a multitude of U.S. agencies, with proof that Israel is violating so many of our laws, is systematically withholding humanitarian assistance from going in. As was mentioned in the report, as well, Leahy vetting is being violated, with army units determined to have committed gross human rights violations. We need to take action, and we should have taken action months ago. This 30 days is only a PR ploy, and that is the only thing it really is.
And that’s the devastation of all of it, because we have to ask ourselves: What is going to happen in these 30 days? Right after this letter was sent, the Israeli government announced that medical groups were no longer allowed to go into Gaza. They informed the WHO. These are medical groups, including from the United States, that are providing lifesaving assistance to people in need, to civilians in need. This was a slap in the face of the administration. If they had actually taken this letter seriously, they wouldn’t have taken that step. Additionally, the onslaught of northern Gaza is clear. They’re continuing the onslaught, specifically of northern Gaza, a complete blackout, no food, no water, no internet — all this in this 30-day period supposedly. Unfortunately, we need to stop with the words, with the PR, and we need to take serious action.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you — even as the war, this horrific war, continues, the United States’ policy, and that of most European countries, is still in favor of a two-state solution long term in the area. But the Israeli Knesset itself, overwhelmingly, not just Netanyahu’s portion of the government, but overwhelmingly voted earlier this year to reject any possibility of a Palestinian state. I’m wondering your thoughts about the long-term future of the area.
HALA RHARRIT: You’re absolutely right. And the fact that the Knesset voted on that shows the fact that we, as the United States, have been enabling and empowering a right extremist government in Israel. And it’s time that we stop doing so. There are so many Israeli peace activists. We heard of B’Tselem, but there is a growing movement from within Israel, including members that — family members that actually lost relatives on October 7, that are demanding an end to the nonstop violence. These are the groups that we need to support; same on the Palestinian side, Palestinian activists that are calling for coexistence. The U.S. government needs to shift its policy. Again, I’m just going to repeat this over and over again. We continue to empower a right-wing extremist prime minister, when we should be doing is supporting civil society on both sides that are actually seeking to promote humanity for both peoples.
AMY GOODMAN: Hala, tributes have poured in from across the globe for 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou. He was a software engineering student who burned to death after Israel bombed Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah last week. He didn’t actually die then, but the bombing set fire to the displaced persons camp around the hospital. He had built his little tent area for his family. This is a clip of Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker questioning recently State Department spokesperson Matt Miller about Sha’ban’s death.
PREM THAKKER: One of the people the world saw burned alive by the bombing of the Gaza hospital was Sha’ban al-Dalou, a 19-year-old engineering student who was still attached to an IV drip recovering from a previous bombing. And his story kind of speaks to how this isn’t just about one attack, a 19-year-old having to provide for his family, repeatedly displaced, brought to hunger, bombed twice in a matter of days. This is a year, and this isn’t out of nowhere. So, how many more patients burned alive by U.S. bombs —
MATTHEW MILLER: We don’t want to see any.
PREM THAKKER: — until this is enough?
MATTHEW MILLER: None. We don’t want to see any.
PREM THAKKER: Well, I guess the U.S. has said, you know, again and again, that no civilian loss is acceptable, 10,000 deaths ago, 20,000 deaths ago, and yet it’s continued. So, how does this answer mean anything without a policy shift?
MATTHEW MILLER: So, it is an incredibly difficult environment that Israel operates in. And I’ll just make clear, the thing that that question leaves out, as often happens — and I understand why — is the burden that Hamas bears, and not just the burden that Hamas bears by hiding behind humans and using humans as civilian shields, but the burden that Hamas bears in not coming back to the table to try to get to a ceasefire. So, Israel needs to do more to minimize civilian harm. Hamas needs to stop hiding behind human shields.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker. Hala, if you can respond to this report? And, you know, since Sha’ban has died, his brother has died, his mother has died, his sister has died. And people are saying that the family members who are burnt but not yet dead, because they can’t get out and because the hospital is in such disrepair, they are dying from their burns.
HALA RHARRIT: Such immense human suffering, the scale of which we just can’t really grapple with. And I have to just thank you, Amy, for humanizing the victims. And we all have to do that as Americans, because, ultimately, it is our bombs, it is our tax dollars that is creating this catastrophe.
As to Matthew Miller, I’m going to be unequivocal: He’s lying. And I know, I realize it’s quite a forceful thing for me to say, but as a former diplomat, I can assure that. There have been ceasefire deals that Hamas has agreed to. I am not one to advocate for the terrorist organization whatsoever, and I want to be clear about that. But facts are facts. Hamas has repeatedly agreed to ceasefire deals. It is Benjamin Netanyahu who has reneged on those deals.
Additionally, you had another guest on this show a while back, Gershon Baskin, who’s an Israeli negotiator, who has been negotiating on behalf of families of hostages. I have been in close touch with Gershon over the last month. He had, and continues to have, a deal that, again, is an Israeli deal that Hamas has agreed to. I pushed this to the State Department. I pushed this to the White House, at very senior levels. They have it. And it guaranteed the release of all of the hostages, and it guaranteed security for Israel, as well. I’m sorry, go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: We have a clip of —
HALA RHARRIT: OK, great.
AMY GOODMAN: — Gershon Baskin.
GERSHON BASKIN: I’ve pleaded with the Hamas to say yes not only to me, but to tell the Egyptians and the Qataris that they agree to the deal that I proposed to them, which is a three-week, end-of-war, full-term ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, release of all the Israeli hostages and a release of an agreed number and list of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. This is a deal that can be made. It is a million times better than the deal that the United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to negotiate, unsuccessfully, for the last three months, which would just keep the war going and only release 32 hostages in 42 days. That’s a bad deal. We need to have a good deal put on the table. I’ve communicated this to the White House, to the Qataris, to the Egyptians and, of course, to the Israeli government. Now the officials need to push this through.
AMY GOODMAN: Why is Netanyahu refusing?
GERSHON BASKIN: Well, it’s very clear that Netanyahu doesn’t want to end the war, as one of his top negotiators told me on Saturday. The problem with any agreement that we can put forward is that the bottom line is that Hamas won’t make an agreement that doesn’t end the war, and Netanyahu won’t agree to any agreement that ends the war. He wants to keep this going.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Gershon Baskin speaking last month. It was before Yahya Sinwar was assassinated. Gershon Baskin, the Israeli researcher and peace activist who’s negotiated agreements with Hamas. The significance of what he is just saying? And also, I mean, Tony Blinken was your boss. You would brief him. You translated his words to the Arab world and the messages. And talk about the moment that you decided you cannot do this anymore.
HALA RHARRIT: Honestly, there were many moments, Amy, many, many moments. And after an 18-year career, you don’t take the decision to resign lightly. But it was despite all of my efforts, despite everyone’s efforts in terms of us career diplomats, highlighting the inhumanity, the illegality of this policy, the fact that it’s a counterproductive policy that is actually emboldening extremism on all sides, it is only ensuring generational cycle of violence.
I was initially told, “Good. Thank you for your feedback.” I was actually sending daily reports to the department. That was part of my job as a spokesperson. And I was highlighting what was happening in Gaza from the pan-Arab media. So I thought that my work was helping and feeding into Washington’s formulation of what to do next. But it became abundantly clear eventually that the policy was the policy. It was not shifting. I was actually asked in January to stop sending in those reports. Those reports also included the images that were going viral all over the Arab world of children being massacred, oftentimes showing U.S. complicity with fragments of U.S. bomb. Any other circumstance, this would have at least prompted a type of review of our, again, Leahy Law, everything else. It didn’t. Instead, I was silenced. I was sidelined. And that is something that has been unprecedented for me as an 18-year diplomat.
There is always disagreements within the U.S. Foreign Service in terms of policy, but it’s always been a spirit of collaboration, a spirit of “We want to hear from you. Let’s talk.” This has been different. It has been silence. And let me tell you, it has sent a chilling effect across the entire — I can speak about the Foreign Service. People have become to self-censor themselves. They are worried. And that hurts us as Americans, because when you have your experts — your experts, your U.S. government experts — silencing themselves because they’re worried about retribution, or they’re worried about what it will do to their career, we all lose. We lose as American citizens. It doesn’t keep us secure, doesn’t keep us safe.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering if you could talk about the impact of all of this and the U.S. position of unequivocal support for Israel has done to the standing of the United States in the Arab world and in the Global South.
HALA RHARRIT: Yeah, that’s a very good question, Juan. That’s actually one of the things that I used to highlight in my daily reports. And I used to show clips and images that were going viral of, basically, America being determined to be child killers, the country of child killers.
After 9/11 and after the “war on terror,” the U.S. government worked so hard to rehabilitate ties in the Arab world, to improve people-to-people relations. All of that has been devastated. And we are not going to see the repercussions of that — I mean, we are going to feel the repercussions of that for years, decades, generation, because we have lost all credibility. We are seen as a country of double standards. We only care about human rights when it’s the human rights of a certain people. We only care about freedom of press when the journalists are not Arab, right? And this is abundantly clear to people across the Arab world and, at this point, beyond.
So, unfortunately, we’ve lost credibility not in terms of just our U.S. policy with regard to the Middle East, but also on Russia-Ukraine. We don’t have a leg to stand on. As a spokesperson before the conflict, I did well over a hundred interviews, including on Russia-Ukraine, for example. We can no longer talk about that with any credibility, because the answer is: Why do you care about a Ukrainian child, but you don’t care about a child in Gaza? What is the difference? And the racism, the blunt, absolutely blunt, racism of this administration has been laid bare.
And it’s going to be very, very hard to recover from this in the Arab world, because we’ve lost even — as I’ve discussed publicly before, we’ve lost, quote-unquote, the “liberals” across the Arab world, the ones who, despite it all, respected us for our values. But those values, even here at home, with the student protests being violently beaten down, it’s all seen through. They’re seeing through all of these double standards. And it’s hurting us, again, hurting us as American citizens.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the reality of this administration that you resigned from and that several other career government officials have resigned from, how do you see this election coming in two weeks and the impact of the “uncommitted” movement, and what you see, as an American who’s going to have to cast a ballot in this election?
HALA RHARRIT: Absolutely. Well, I think the Democratic Party is underestimating the power of this issue. I think they are assuming that people will turn up for Harris because, obviously, Trump is a threat to our democracy. But I think they’re underestimating the trauma — and I don’t use that word lightly — the trauma that this conflict has caused, because so many of us that have been focused on the Middle East have been consuming these incessant images of massacres, absolute massacres, of children getting killed, of the suffering now in Lebanon, and it’s unacceptable. And I think for a lot of people of conscience, they are not going to be able to bring themselves to vote for Harris, even though they understand that Trump is a threat to our democracy, as he surely is. And I think many are taking serious consideration in a third-party option, whether it’s the Green or another, because they’re tired of the institutionalized corruption that has become our government, and they’re tired of politicians who are not working on behalf of the United States, but are, rather, working on behalf of special interests.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know Philip Gordon, who the national security adviser to Kamala Harris? We’re going to have to wrap up in one minute, but to ask: If you see any distance between Kamala Harris and President Biden?
HALA RHARRIT: I don’t now, because those are their own words. They’ve made it abundantly clear that they’re going to continue unconditional support to Israel. And they need to —
AMY GOODMAN: And Philip Gordon?
HALA RHARRIT: I think we’ve seen too many words, and at this point action. And Philip Gordon has made it clear that there’s going to be no arms embargo. And for me, that is him agreeing to a continuation of violation of U.S. law. And as someone that served my country and swore an oath to the Constitution, that’s something I cannot accept.
AMY GOODMAN: Hala Rharrit, we want to thank you so much for being with us, 18-year career diplomat, the first and only career diplomat to resign the State Department over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Oct 30, 2024 2:51 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24/headlines
Israeli Attack on Nuseirat Kills 17; Israeli Extermination Campaign in Northern Gaza Enters 20th Day
Oct 24, 2024
At least 17 Palestinians, including an 11-month-old baby, were killed today in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp, as Israel once again attacked a school turned shelter in central Deir al-Balah.
In northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports many Civil Defense rescue workers are refusing Israeli orders to evacuate, facing arrest and attacks as they continue their rescue missions, even as their capacity has been nearly wiped out by Israel’s assault. Israel’s siege on northern Gaza, now in its 20th day, has killed over 770 Palestinians. This is a displaced Palestinian woman who fled Beit Lahia.
Lina Issam Abu Nada: “I fled the intense bombardment in Beit Lahia. Martyrs and remains were all scattered on the ground. We do not know where to go. Truly, we don’t know what state we have reached. … We cannot take it anymore. We are being exterminated in Gaza. We are dying, and no one is standing beside us, nor is anyone able to solve our issue. We are innocent. We have nothing to do with everything that has happened. We are lost between a war and an extermination.”
“A Dangerous Escalation”: Al Jazeera Blasts Israel’s Accusations Against Journalists
Oct 24, 2024
Al Jazeera has blasted Israel’s “dangerous escalation” of its attack against the news network, after the Israeli military claimed six of its journalists are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al Jazeera responded, “These fabricated accusations [are] a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
Israel Carries Out 17 Overnight Strikes in Lebanon, Destroys Offices of Al Mayadeen News Station
Oct 24, 2024
Israel is continuing its assault on Lebanon, carrying out 17 attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, leveling at least six buildings. One strike destroyed the offices of the Lebanese news station Al Mayadeen. Israel also killed three Lebanese soldiers in a separate strike.
Meanwhile, health authorities are warning of a possible cholera outbreak among Lebanese children amid mass displacement, attacks on the health system and lack of clean water and food. The 400,000 displaced children in Lebanon are also at risk of other highly transmissible diseases like hepatitis A and measles.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron pledged a 100 million euro aid package for Lebanon as he opened a conference in Paris to rally support for Lebanon and reiterate calls for a ceasefire.
Jewish Students Show Solidarity with Gaza During Sukkot Despite Crackdown from Universities
Oct 24, 2024
Here in the U.S., Jewish students across the country say college administrators have cracked down on their Gaza solidarity sukkahs, which have been set up over the past week to mark the holiday of Sukkot. In some cases, schools have destroyed the sukkah huts. Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement, “These universities desecrate these students’ Jewish practice because their faith is intertwined with their solidarity with the Palestinian people. A university has no right to dictate what types of Jewish practice are legitimate.”
Faith Leaders Demand NYC Council Take Up Gaza Ceasefire Resolution
Oct 24, 2024
Here in New York City, faith leaders and other activists disrupted a city council meeting Wednesday to demand councilmembers take up a vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. Protesters cried out “City Council, you can’t hide! No more bombs for genocide!” as they held up their hands, covered in red paint, while being forcibly removed by security. Over 100 city councils across the country have passed ceasefire resolutions.
Hundreds of Spanish Artists, Academics Call for Total Arms Embargo on Israel
Oct 24, 2024
In Spain, over 300 academics, entertainers and artists, including the directors Pedro Almodóvar and Isabel Coixet, have signed on to a letter calling on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to enact a full arms embargo on Israel, writing, “As long as Spain maintains military relations with Israel, it will continue to be complicit in this massacre.” Sánchez has said Spain halted its weapons trade with Israel since October of last year, but investigations have revealed some military exports have still gone ahead.
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“This Is Just Terrorism”: Israel Bombs World Heritage Site in Lebanon, Threatens Major Hospital
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
Israel is escalating its bombardment of Lebanon, leveling numerous buildings, including the offices of Lebanese news station Al Mayadeen. The Israeli military has also attacked the ancient city of Tyre, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site, and killed three Lebanese soldiers in a strike in southern Lebanon, all while continuing to defy international calls for a ceasefire. “What we’re seeing is a complete degeneration into a war that has no rules, that respects no international conventions. There’s one side in this war that has complete impunity,” says Lebanese sociologist Rima Majed in Beirut. “Israel is targeting civilians in most cases. … This is just terrorism.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel continues to bombard the southern suburbs of Beirut. Health officials report Israel carried out at least 17 strikes overnight, leveling numerous buildings, including the offices of Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese news station. Lebanon’s National News Agency described last night’s attacks as the “most violent” in the area in recent weeks. Israel also killed three Lebanese soldiers in a strike in the southern part of the country. Israel continues to defy international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon.
This comes as French President Emmanuel Macron hosted an aid conference for Lebanon in Paris. Macron reiterated his call for a ceasefire and vowed to send over $100 million in humanitarian aid to Lebanon.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by Rima Majed. She’s an assistant professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut.
Thanks so much for being with us. If you can start off by talking about what’s happening in one of the oldest cities in the world, in Tyre in southern Lebanon?
RIMA MAJED: Yes. Thank you so much, Amy, for having me on the show again.
What was happening yesterday was very, very disheartening, but it’s really a crime of — you know, of a global scale. Tyre is a very central city in terms of archaeology, of history. And, you know, this has been the second city. So, Tyre is a city that is in the south and that is inhabited by a large population. This is the second city in the south, large city in the south, that is being destructed in a systematic way.
Yesterday, what we’ve — reports say that the old ruins of Tyre have been hit by strikes. We have seen similar reports from other archaeological and historical sites, such as Baalbek, before. These are ruins that have survived thousands of years and that are being now destroyed by Israel. Unfortunately, we are not seeing the same alarm that we saw when other ruins, whether in Syria or Iraq, were targeted. And I think this is a very important issue to flag and to talk about.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Rima Majed, can you say why you think these attacks on these ruins have not received the kind of attention they should? Has UNESCO, for example, at least made a comment?
RIMA MAJED: Yeah, I think — I mean, I think the whole war on Lebanon is not receiving the attention that it needs to receive. I mean, there is a full-blown war that is taking very little space in the global media, for several reasons. One of them is, unfortunately, wars in this part of the world have become material for consumption, and there’s maybe media fatigue. But also, there’s an impunity that Israel has been enjoying since a long time, but that has become very flagrant since last year, where at this point what we cover is survival and bare life. I mean, there’s so much to cover in terms of people — you know, forced expulsions, people dying, that talking about ruins and history and archaeology is maybe seen not as a priority. But, I mean, it’s a devastating conflict, or it’s a devastating war, that is destroying all sorts of life on this land, whether social life or even when we think about history.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Rima Majed, if you could respond to what we said earlier, which is that France has pledged over — has pledged 100 million euros in support, humanitarian aid support, to Lebanon, and, in particular, also comment on what the defense minister, the French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said earlier this week, on Monday, that, quote — and this is a quote from him — “Our position” — that is to say, France’s position — “right now is primarily driven by the fear of an imminent civil war in Lebanon”?
RIMA MAJED: Sure. So, on the question of humanitarian aid, I mean, France has just pledged today. In the same conference in Paris, the UAE has also pledged, and I’m sure other countries will pledge money. Unfortunately, I mean, this is the hypocrisy of this global system. What we’re getting — I mean, we’ve gotten to this point where humanitarianism has become really dehumanizing. The same countries that are sending — I mean, many of those countries that are sending us humanitarian aid are at the same time selling arms and sending arms to Israel to kill us. And the profit they make out of the arms industry is way bigger than what we get in terms of humanitarian aid. So, in that sense, it’s become really dehumanizing that we’re turned into objects of humanitarian support that targets, again, just bare life. I mean, the aim now is for people to survive, to have shelter, even if it’s not decent shelter, and, you know, just the basics of survival. We don’t talk about social lives that have been disrupted, about dreams that are gone, about plans that are now up in the air, about families that have been — you know, that have lost loved ones or been displaced. So, I think this is way bigger than anything humanitarian aid can solve. And we saw last week, when President Macron tried to insinuate that France should consider an arms embargo on Israel, I mean, we saw the backlash from Netanyahu and others. So, I think, you know, at this point, to me, this is really hypocritical.
On the second point of the comment on a possible civil war in Lebanon, there’s a lot of talk inside the country and outside, of course, about the possibility of sliding into a war, social tensions that are increasing because of the effects of displacement and tension in different neighborhoods. Lebanon is already a sectarianized country where these boundaries can shift quickly and can become very tense. But the point we don’t talk about is that civil wars are not the result of social tension. I mean, we never slip into a civil war. Wars, whether civil or not, are political decisions. And therefore, the question today is: Who is going to fund — I mean, yes, I’m not saying the war is impossible. Actually, it is very possible, a civil War. But the question is: Who’s going to fund it? Who’s going to back it politically at the regional level and at the international level? Who’s going to send arms? These are the questions that we need to answer, rather than thinking that wars are social explosions. They’re not. Revolutions are social explosions.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this week, at least 13 people, including a child, were killed, and about 60 others injured, in an Israeli airstrike near the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Lebanon’s largest public medical center. At least 32 others were wounded in the attack, which caused major damage to the hospital. Separately, 50 medical workers and 15 patients were forced to evacuate from the Al-Sahel Hospital in southern Beirut Monday, after Israel’s military claimed without evidence it’s home to a secret underground Hezbollah bunker containing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold. Doctors insisted there’s nothing hidden beneath the hospital and took reporters on a tour of its lower floors to disprove the claims. This is Alex Rossi, international correspondent for Sky News.
ALEX ROSSI: This is the Al-Sahel Hospital on the outskirts of Dahiyeh. Dahiyeh, of course, is a stronghold of Hezbollah. Now, we’re in the basement. This is — it’s alleged by the Israelis that this hospital is being used by Hezbollah as a way of storing gold and cash. And we’ve been invited in here. This tour has been in no way exhaustive. You can see there are lots of other press here, as well. But we haven’t been controlled in terms of what we can film or where we can point our camera. We’ve been allowed to open doors, move around. Now, there may be other areas of the hospital that we’ve not been taken to, but for all, you know, this looks like a hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Alex Rossi, again, international correspondent for Sky News. If you could respond, Rima Majed, to what happened there and also talk about the U.S. State Department once again shoring up Israel in what it’s doing, the spokesperson Matt Miller saying, “We’ve seen footage that’s emerged over the course of the past two weeks of rockets and other military weapons held in civilian homes, so Israel does have a right to go after those legitimate targets”?
RIMA MAJED: Yes. I mean, the targeting of the Hariri Hospital was also very personal to me, because this is exactly where I grew up, actually. This is the neighborhood where I lived for several years. And it targeted civilians, mainly. All the other attacks are also targeting civilians. And this logic of — I mean, whether the German foreign minister’s logic of Israel having the right to target civilians, and now there’s a new logic of the right to target gold and money as a terrorist threat, is completely absurd. I mean, we’ve never seen — would this apply to Israel? Does Lebanon have the right to defend itself the way — using the same techniques and tactics that Israel uses? Of course not. I mean, this goes against every logic of protection of human rights, but also, I mean, just protection of civilians is basic here.
So, I think, I mean, what we’re seeing is a complete degeneration into a war that has no rules, that respects no international conventions, and that, you know, there’s one side in this war that has complete impunity. We’ve seen this over the past year, and it’s continuing. Israel is targeting civilians in most cases. I mean, what is the logic of targeting gold and money? If — I mean, let’s assume this is really what there is there: Why target it with a bomb? What is the logic of this? This is just terrorism. And this is what it should be called.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Rima Majed, if you could talk about the attacks, in fact, on financial associations Israel — sorry, the branches of a financial association reportedly linked to Hezbollah earlier this week, in fact, on Sunday? What is the Al-Qard al-Hassan Association, and why was it hit?
RIMA MAJED: I mean, it’s one of the financial institutions that are believed to be controlled by Hezbollah. It follows the same logic of, you know, the neoliberal turn of giving microfinance. So, this is not an aid institution. This is a bank that gives microfinance facilities.
What we have been seeing is that Israel is moving from the decapitation, which is continuing, of leaders, but there’s also very clear targeting of Hezbollah’s social institutions, whether hospitals, schools, banks, etc. So, the aim is probably to dismantle, and the target is not just Hezbollah as an organization, but it’s also, you know, its constituency, its people. And when I say its people or its constituencies, it doesn’t mean that these are Hezbollah fighters or members. These are just Lebanese civilians who have a political opinion that happens to be in support of that party. I mean, again, if we apply the logic on any other party, it would sound horrendous.
The fact that we are justifying — and, I mean, hearing the German foreign minister, who then, after saying what she said about justifying the right of Israel to kill civilians, then visiting Beirut, is really — I mean, the world today feels like the turn of the 20th century, I mean, the dark years of fascism. And it’s very alarming that this is how we are dealing with these wars and this is the logic with which we’re justifying the killing of some, but, of course, not others.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Rima Majed, finally, we just have a minute left. If you could talk about Security Council Resolution 1701? Amos Hochstein, who was just in the region, has said its implementation is the only way to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
RIMA MAJED: Yeah, I mean, Hochstein is — it’s interesting that the negotiator, you know, served in the Israeli offense — I mean, the IOF, I would call it — so has a clear side in this war. But, I mean, personally, I think this is a resolution that ended the 2006 war. At this point, I don’t think any of the parties, whether it’s Israel or Hezbollah — I mean, at this point, doesn’t matter what Hezbollah says, I mean, even if Hezbollah today says that they want to stop this war and they agree on everything, including 1701, which they have agreed on several times. I mean, just days before Nasrallah was killed, he had agreed on the implementation of 1701. I think at this point there is a plan that Israel will move on to implement, and that goes beyond what we’re hearing from these diplomats. That is a plan that is in line with the Abraham Accords, with changing the face of the Middle East. And unfortunately, it’s people like us who are paying the price.
AMY GOODMAN: Rima Majed, we want to thank you so much for being with us, assistant professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon.
Coming up, Israel’s deadly campaign of starvation and forced expulsion in northern Gaza has entered its 20th day. We’ll go to Tel Aviv to speak with B’Tselem, the prominent Israeli human rights group, which described Israel’s siege as “ethnic cleansing.” Stay with us
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“Ethnic Cleansing”: Israeli Group B’Tselem Calls for World to Stop Israel’s Siege of Northern Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
The leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem warned this week the world must stop the “ethnic cleansing” of northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has imposed a brutal siege since October 5, demanding that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee south or face death. Israel is blocking almost all food, water and medicine from reaching northern Gaza while its forces carry out deadly raids and bombardment of the area, overwhelming the remaining hospitals. B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli says it’s impossible to watch events unfold and “not conclude that what is going on there is the deliberate pressuring by the Israeli army of the civilian population of the area to move out of this area in order to empty it of Palestinians.”
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: Health workers in northern Gaza have been forced to postpone the latest phase of the polio vaccination program as Israel continues to carry out a deadly campaign of forced expulsion and starvation in northern Gaza. Earlier today, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israel’s actions, saying, quote, “People suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in North Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.” Doctors in northern Gaza have described horrific conditions as hospitals are overwhelmed and remaining medical staff are unable to treat the injured. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: [translated] We are talking on the 18th day of an imposed complete siege on the medical establishment in the north Gaza Strip. We appealed yesterday, the day before yesterday, and today we call on the world. The Kamal Adwan medical supply storage is at zero. We have no blood bags that we can offer to the wounded, no medical supplies or urgently needed medicine. …
Some members of our medical staff are either martyred, killed or injured. A little while ago, we received one of our colleagues who was martyred, Dr. Mohammed Ghanim. He was offering humanitarian services at one of the medical checkpoints in a shelter. The situation is catastrophic. …
We will be facing a humanitarian catastrophe if there’s no solution to this situation in the next few coming hours. The hospital will turn into a mass grave. There is a huge number of wounded people, and approximately every hour we lose one of them as a martyr. The wounded turn into martyrs due to the absence of needed medical supplies, tools and medical staff, who are either detained, wounded or martyred. …
Our medical staff and ambulances cannot get the wounded out of the street of Beit Lahia. We are talking about the wounded who manage to come to the hospital. They arrive, and we give them our services. Those who cannot come to us stay in the streets and are martyred. This is what is happening in the north of Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. And this is Lina Issam Abu Nada, a Palestinian who recently fled Beit Lahia.
LINA ISSAM ABU NADA: [translated] I fled the intense bombardment in Beit Lahia. Martyrs and remains were all scattered on the ground. We do not know where to go. Truly, we don’t know what state we have reached. I swear, by God, what we are going through is the hardest situation in days. Even the occupation, Israel, took my brother as they put all the men on one side and let us leave. The tank moved and covered us with dust.
On top of everything, no is standing for us. We ask you, with all the mercy you have, to stand beside us. What’s happening to us is unfair. We cannot take it anymore. We are being exterminated in Gaza. We are dying, and no one is standing beside us, nor is anyone able to solve our issue. We are innocent. We have nothing to do with everything that has happened. We are lost between a war and an extermination. We can’t take it anymore.
AMY GOODMAN: A Palestinian woman who recently fled Beit Lahia.
Earlier this week, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem accused Israel of committing ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza.
We go now to Tel Aviv, Israel, where we’re joined by B’Tselem’s international advocacy lead, Sarit Michaeli.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Sarit. Explain what you mean by ethnic cleansing and what exactly you understand is happening in northern Gaza, and how much Israelis understand what is happening right nearby.
SARIT MICHAELI: So, thank you, Amy, very much for the opportunity to be with you today.
I think B’Tselem decided to make this statement as really an act of desperation. It’s impossible for us to continue to watch, to observe the very little information we are getting from northern Gaza, the very fragmented information, and not conclude that what is going on there is the deliberate pressuring by the Israeli army of the civilian population of the area to move out of this area in order to empty it of Palestinians. This is ethnic cleansing. The definition that we would argue is the Israeli current actions on the ground.
And I think it’s important to remember that this is happening within a context. The context is not only increasing and ongoing reports that this is the Israeli policy, that this notion of the so-called island plan or the Generals’ Plan, that called on Israel to essentially starve the population of northern Gaza in order to get it to move out of the way, right? So, that’s one element of the picture. And then, the second element is that there is a growing debate, there is a growing kind of level of activism within the Israeli far right to demand the settling of northern Gaza. Now, this is the context of what we are seeing on the ground at the moment.
I think it’s important also to mention that the Israeli army itself has admitted, in a response to a high court petition submitted by several Israeli human rights organizations, that for the first two weeks of this month, no humanitarian aid was allowed into north Gaza. That was deliberate. That was knowingly. That wasn’t — isn’t something that the Israeli authorities deny. In addition, in the response submitted yesterday to the high court, Israel also states that this is continuing when it comes to Jabaliya. And we know that yesterday the Israeli army issued some drone footage showing throngs of civilians walking out from the Jabaliya refugee camp towards the south, and also saying that Israel managed to break the so-called Hamas siege on Jabaliya, and said that about 20,000 civilians have already left.
From our perspective, all this indicates one clear goal, which is to remove the people from northern Gaza, to empty that area. I also think — and we can maybe discuss it a bit in more length later on — there are also quite open admissions within the Israeli media that some of this is happening, certainly not in the framing of an international crime, but commentators have accepted, on some levels, that this is what Israel is doing now in north Gaza.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let me just read, Sarit Michaeli, what the media has said. This is on Israel’s Channel 12, the chief political analyst saying, quote, “We can keep denying that what’s happening is an implementation of the Generals’ Plan — emptying of the strip, starving the terrorists, eliminating them, capturing them. That’s in my opinion what’s happening here.” So, you know, in effect, would you say that the Generals’ Plan itself constitutes ethnic cleansing? And then, to what extent do people in Israel believe that that’s what’s occurring? If it’s being said in the media, is there some consensus around it? Although I will note that what he said was “starving the terrorists, eliminating them,” not the general population there.
SARIT MICHAELI: Well, first of all, I want to be clear that Israel, we suspect — and as we also announced, together with colleagues in other human rights organizations last week, we suspect that Israel is implementing the spirit, I would say, maybe not necessarily every single aspect of the so-called Generals’ Plan, but that it is quietly implementing this.
And this is why we also called last week on the international community to really take responsibility for what is going on in Gaza. And we stated openly that it’s not just Israeli policymakers who should be held accountable and face consequences for these crimes, but also that the international community cannot but be considered complicit if Israel goes ahead and empties north Gaza of its inhabitants.
I think that when we look at this plan, this absolutely horrific plan, it includes provisions that are absolutely and clearly war crimes and could probably also be viewed as crimes against humanity. The idea is actually to basically starve the population out in order to leave the area, and then, according to this plan — and certainly, I don’t agree with any aspect of the logic — the only people remaining will be terrorists, and then they can just be killed off. This is the — again, I don’t want to simplify too much, but this is the essential logic of this plan.
But it is absolutely in contradiction with many of the known facts we know about the situation in Gaza and in north Gaza, the fact that many of the civilians there cannot leave or don’t want to leave. Some of them cannot leave because it’s impossible for them to move around, because they just have no other place to go, or they don’t want to leave these areas, because they know that the same sort of fate of being bombarded and exposed to Israeli attacks can, you know, wait for them in the many internally displaced camps throughout Gaza, where people are not safe in any way. So, there are many reasons why Palestinians would not want to leave north Gaza. So, that’s the first issue. The second issue — and certainly, the idea that you can somehow force them out permanently — right? — not for their own security, is absolutely illegal.
The second issue that is very clearly part of the illegality and the shocking lack of morals, I would say also, moral failure of this plan, is that the idea that you can somehow decide that after a certain moment, where you say you told all civilians to leave a certain area, that means that everyone left in there is a combatant, a terrorist, and you can just kill them, that is also not true. That’s simply not the way international humanitarian law goes. Civilians don’t lose their protected status if you gave them an illegal and probably also impossible-to-implement evacuation order. The idea that somehow a person should be considered a legitimate military target, regardless of what they’re actually doing, because they happen to be in a certain place that the Israeli army decided is no longer acceptable, that is not legal. That is clearly a war crime.
And I have to also say that this isn’t just things we are saying here at B’Tselem. In recent days, there have been several much more mainstream Israelis, including the former deputy leader of the Israeli National Security Council, who also said that these kinds of orders would be, you know, orders that are black flags flying over. These would be orders to commit war crimes, and that soldiers have to refuse to obey these kinds of orders. This is — as I said, this is a former Israeli security official.
I think it’s really important to remember also, though, that the current situation on the ground, unfortunately, isn’t — and again, I say it with a great deal of pain — isn’t really influenced by statements by human rights organizations like B’Tselem, by actions by Israeli wonderful and just very courageous Israeli human rights organizations that are now petitioning the high court, because we just simply don’t have the capacity to influence the reality on the ground at the moment.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Sarit, we just —
SARIT MICHAELI: And therefore, that is why that is the essential source of our call —
AMY GOODMAN: So, Sarit Michaeli, we just have a minute.
SARIT MICHAELI: — call to the international community.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute. I want to go to that issue of the call of the international community, and particularly the U.S. Blinken has just left Israel, his 11th trip there, saying he’s pushing for a ceasefire, yet at the same time the Biden administration continuing to arm Netanyahu. In this last 30 seconds, your thoughts on that kind of approach, saying he should push for a ceasefire, but we’ll continue to arm you?
SARIT MICHAELI: It’s absolutely clear that we must have a ceasefire. We need a ceasefire, and we need a hostage deal now. But this isn’t going to happen unless Prime Minister Netanyahu is placed in a situation where he has to accept this. And we do not see this happening at the moment. I think the thought that somehow the U.S. administration can ask Netanyahu, can urge Netanyahu for a ceasefire, and this will actually happen, is simply unrealistic. There needs to be intense pressure to get Israel to currently accept a ceasefire, to stop what it’s doing in northern Gaza. And it has to come from action by the United States and the international community. Otherwise, they will also be complicit in what we’re seeing now.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarit Michaeli, we want to thank you for being with us, international advocacy lead for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which has accused the Israeli military of committing ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza.
Next up, we look at Israel’s intensifying war on journalists in Gaza, two critically wounded journalists not able to get out of Gaza, and Israel saying that six journalists are members of Hamas or Palestinian Jihad, what that means. We’ll speak with the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Stay with us.
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CPJ Head Condemns Israel’s Deadly War on Journalists in Gaza as IDF Threatens Al Jazeera Reporters
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
Al Jazeera is demanding the safety of its staff in the Gaza Strip after Israel claimed that six of the network’s journalists there have ties to militant groups. Press freedom advocates say the Israeli accusation amounts to a preemptive justification for murder. Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza last October, at least 128 journalists have been killed, including many from Al Jazeera. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Israel has a history of smearing Palestinian journalists with unproven claims, including in July, when Israel killed Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and later released documents claiming to prove al-Ghoul had received a Hamas military ranking when he was just 10 years old. “There is a pattern of Israel making these kinds of allegations, providing evidence that is, frankly, not credible or, in some cases, no evidence at all,” says Jodie Ginsberg, CPJ’s chief executive officer. “As we have fewer and fewer journalists reporting … we have less and less information coming out of Gaza. And it’s absolutely essential that we have that information, that we have those images, so that the international community can understand the scale of what’s happening.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Israel’s intensifying war on journalists. On Wednesday, the Israeli military publicly accused six Al Jazeera journalists of being members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Press freedom groups blasted the Israeli military for releasing what some have described as a kill list for the journalists.
In a statement, Al Jazeera said, quote, “Al Jazeera categorically rejects the Israeli occupation forces’ portrayal of our journalists as terrorists and denounces their use of fabricated evidence. The Network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
This comes as Israel continues to block the evacuation of two Al Jazeera camera operators who were severely injured after being shot by Israeli troops. One of the journalists, Fadi al-Wahidi, has been in a coma after being shot in the neck.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists here in New York.
Jodie, let’s start with the two journalists who are gravely wounded. One of them is paralyzed and in a coma. Israel is not letting them be evacuated. Can you talk about the significance of this?
JODIE GINSBERG: Well, yes. Fadi has been in a coma for over a week now, and not just in a coma, but with no access to painkillers. We’ve heard, obviously, about the ongoing bombardment in Gaza and what that has meant for hospitals. Al Jazeera has asked repeatedly, used all the formal channels to request their evacuation, and so far has had no reply. And this follows a pattern in which journalists appear to be being punished for doing their work, for exposing what’s happening inside Gaza.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Jodie Ginsberg, if you could — let’s go to these six Al Jazeera journalists who have been accused by Israel of being terrorists. You have pointed to — the CPJ has pointed to contradictory information that’s been released by the IDF in the past, at least one recent instance, Ismail al-Ghoul. Explain who he was and what the IDF said about him.
JODIE GINSBERG: So, Ismail al-Ghoul was an Al Jazeera correspondent. He was killed along with a freelance camera operator, Rami al-Rifi, near Gaza City in July. And the IDF alleged that al-Ghoul was an engineer in a Hamas brigade, and that justified his killing. They published a document which they said was a record of Hamas military activity as proof of these accusations. Some of the information indicated that al-Ghoul, who was born in 1997, had received a Hamas military ranking in 2007, so he would have been 10 years old. So, the document was not, in our view, credible.
And unfortunately, this is not a one-off incident. There is a pattern of Israel making these kinds of allegations, providing evidence that is, frankly, not credible or, in some cases, no evidence at all.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Jodie, especially talk about the significance of Israel doing this now. No one else, no other reporter is in Gaza. It’s only Al Jazeera reporters who are. Over 4,000 journalists have traveled to Israel to cover this war since October last year, but no other journalists have been permitted in.
JODIE GINSBERG: It’s hugely significant. This is the deadliest conflict for journalists that CPJ has ever documented. A hundred and twenty-eight journalists, at least, have been killed, 126 of them by Israel, and most of those are Palestinians. And in many cases, we believe those journalists to have been deliberately targeted for being journalists.
Now, you’re right, the major issue in all of this is that those journalists who remain are the only people who are able to provide us information about what’s happening inside Gaza. No journalist from outside Gaza has been allowed in since the start of that war, and that’s highly unusual. I speak to lots of war correspondents who’s covered many, many wars over decades, and all of them talk about how unprecedented this is to not have any access whatsoever. And that, of course, puts additional pressure on these journalists. And what you have when you have these kinds of accusations from Israel that the journalists are terrorists is a kind of justification for then killing them or attacking them.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have Democratic Congressmember James McGovern leading 64 other congressmembers in a letter to Biden and Blinken, urging them to push for Israel to allow in international journalists. At the same time, Jodie Ginsberg, if you can talk about the number of journalists who have been killed in Gaza? Isn’t this unprecedented?
JODIE GINSBERG: It’s totally unprecedented. This number is — more journalists were killed in the first 10 weeks of the war, just the first 10 weeks of the war, than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year. That gives you some sense of the scale of this. Those journalists who remain are trying desperately to cover the impact of the war while suffering the same effects of the war as everyone else, the deprivations of food, the lack of shelter, the continual displacement, the lack of equipment. And as we have fewer and fewer journalists reporting and the challenge becomes greater and greater, of course we have less and less information coming out of Gaza. And it’s absolutely essential that we have that information, that we have those images, so that the international community can understand the scale of what’s happening.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Jodie Ginsberg, finally, if you could put this in a broader context? Is there any other precedent for Europe, the U.S. or any of its allies restricting access to all international journalists to a war zone for over a year, as has happened here?
JODIE GINSBERG: There’s no precedent like this. In wars, inevitably, one side or other will restrict access to journalists. We see that frequently. But it is unheard of that not a single international journalist has been able to get into Gaza for an entire year.
And remember that it’s not just about the access. Of course, that’s a major issue. But we have Gazan journalists doing phenomenal work in Gaza and in the West Bank. It’s not just about the access. It’s also about the attacks that we’ve seen on media facilities, which is civilian infrastructure. We’ve seen repeated communications blackouts. We’ve seen the banning of Al Jazeera and the closure of the Al Jazeera Ramallah bureau. So, it’s not simply — we’ve seen arrests of journalists both in Gaza and the West Bank. So, it’s not simply the dangers, the killing of journalists, egregious as that is. It’s the whole pattern and systematic attempt — and quite successful attempt — to censor what is happening inside Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Jodie Ginsberg, we want to thank you for being with us, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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Prominent Muslim Democrat Demands Answers After Being Kicked Out of Harris Rally in Michigan
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
We speak with Dr. Ahmed Ghanim, a prominent Muslim leader and former Democratic candidate for Congress, after the Kamala Harris campaign apologized for kicking him out of a Detroit election event Monday to which he was invited. Harris’s staunch support for Israel as it continues its brutal war on Gaza has infuriated many Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan, and while Ghanim says it’s a very important issue to him, he was not there to protest. He was also not given a reason for his removal, even after the campaign called him to apologize. “Apology without accountability is not an apology,” he says, adding that the incident has left him questioning whether Democrats still believe in diversity and inclusion or if “Muslims and Arabs don’t have room anymore in this party.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end today’s show with a Muslim American Democrat who was ejected from a Kamala Harris rally in metro Detroit, where Harris was joined by Republican former Congressmember Liz Cheney. Ahmed Ghanim is a Democratic Party activist and former House candidate for Michigan’s 11th District.
AMY GOODMAN: He joins us now from Oak Park, Michigan, not far from the Harris campaign event which he was ejected from. The Kamala Harris campaign has since said it regrets his removal.
Thank you so much for being with us, Ahmed Ghanim. In this few minutes that we have left, take us to the event that you were invited to and explain what happened.
AHMED GHANIM: Thank you for having me.
So, basically, I went, like anyone else. I was dressed in a suit, going to this event. I stood in line. It was a small event by invite only, 200 people there, less than 200 people. I went through a security like the airport security, where they have to check everything. They take even the signs that you have from the campaign, so nobody had any signs. You’re only allowed to have your wallet, and that’s it.
And I was cleared by security. I was seated like anyone. I was sitting there for like 10 or 15 minutes, just trying to answer some emails. I did not engage with anybody in conversation, because they seat you randomly with people you don’t know around you. And after 10 minutes, a lady came and told me, “Can you follow me?” And I thought probably they are changing my seat. I said, “That’s fine.” I followed her.
And at the door, I found two police officers waiting for me and said, “They don’t want you here at the event. If you either leave now, or I’ll put you in a police car.” And that was shocking to me. So, just I was sitting there, and I did not — I did not do anything. I did nothing. And now I’m threatened to be arrested or have to leave. And I was just asking. I told him, “OK, I’m going to leave. I just want to know: Why are you kicking me out?” And he said, “It is not me. It’s the venue that’s kicking you out.” So I asked him, “Why would the venue kick me out? The venue, they don’t know anything about me. It’s just a venue.” He said, “I don’t know.” And the lady that escorted me out, she ended the conversation and said, “This is not a conversation anymore. You have to be escorted out.” So, I didn’t want to escalate the situation, and I just left.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Ahmed, can you say whether — since you’ve left, have you heard anything further about why you were removed?
AHMED GHANIM: No. The campaign issued a brief statement saying they regret what happened. They gave me a call. I thanked him for the call, but I said, “I want to know why was I removed, because apology without accountability is not an apology.” So, so far, they did not provide any information or any reason why they removed me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Ahmed Ghanim, you were a congressional candidate. You didn’t win the primary. You got 15,000 votes. After you were kicked out of the Kamala Harris event, the Trump campaign approached you to make an ad?
AHMED GHANIM: That’s correct. They approached me to make an ad against Vice President Harris. And they said, “This ad will be aired everywhere, on CNN, everywhere. But we want you to film it.” And I said, “No, I cannot do that.”
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you feel that? I mean, of course, President Trump, well known, one of his first acts in office as president was the Muslim ban. But if you can explain what you’re demanding now of the Kamala Harris campaign?
AHMED GHANIM: I’m demanding a reason why they ejected me from the campaign without anything. I didn’t have any Palestinian keffiyeh. I didn’t have any pins. I didn’t have any signs. I was not planning to protest. I just was sitting there. This is my city, where I ran. Everyone in this city, they know me, because I ran there. I was canvassing door to door there. My ads were there. My signs were there. I actually spoke at the Democratic Club in Royal Oak, Michigan. So, it’s not like I’m a random person. They know me very well. And there is a reason why they ejected me. So I want to know what is the reason.
And for me, when people talk about just one-issue voter, it’s not about Gaza. Gaza is far away from me. It’s a very important issue for me. But now it’s important — what’s more important: Do I have place in this party or not? Is this the party of diversity, of inclusion, or Muslims and Arabs don’t have room anymore in this party?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Ahmed Ghanim, a Muslim community leader, former Democratic congressional candidate, speaking to us from Oak Park, Michigan. On Monday, given no explanation when he was kicked out of an invitation-only Harris campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, to which he was invited.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24/headlines
Israeli Attack on Nuseirat Kills 17; Israeli Extermination Campaign in Northern Gaza Enters 20th Day
Oct 24, 2024
At least 17 Palestinians, including an 11-month-old baby, were killed today in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp, as Israel once again attacked a school turned shelter in central Deir al-Balah.
In northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reports many Civil Defense rescue workers are refusing Israeli orders to evacuate, facing arrest and attacks as they continue their rescue missions, even as their capacity has been nearly wiped out by Israel’s assault. Israel’s siege on northern Gaza, now in its 20th day, has killed over 770 Palestinians. This is a displaced Palestinian woman who fled Beit Lahia.
Lina Issam Abu Nada: “I fled the intense bombardment in Beit Lahia. Martyrs and remains were all scattered on the ground. We do not know where to go. Truly, we don’t know what state we have reached. … We cannot take it anymore. We are being exterminated in Gaza. We are dying, and no one is standing beside us, nor is anyone able to solve our issue. We are innocent. We have nothing to do with everything that has happened. We are lost between a war and an extermination.”
“A Dangerous Escalation”: Al Jazeera Blasts Israel’s Accusations Against Journalists
Oct 24, 2024
Al Jazeera has blasted Israel’s “dangerous escalation” of its attack against the news network, after the Israeli military claimed six of its journalists are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al Jazeera responded, “These fabricated accusations [are] a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
Israel Carries Out 17 Overnight Strikes in Lebanon, Destroys Offices of Al Mayadeen News Station
Oct 24, 2024
Israel is continuing its assault on Lebanon, carrying out 17 attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight, leveling at least six buildings. One strike destroyed the offices of the Lebanese news station Al Mayadeen. Israel also killed three Lebanese soldiers in a separate strike.
Meanwhile, health authorities are warning of a possible cholera outbreak among Lebanese children amid mass displacement, attacks on the health system and lack of clean water and food. The 400,000 displaced children in Lebanon are also at risk of other highly transmissible diseases like hepatitis A and measles.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron pledged a 100 million euro aid package for Lebanon as he opened a conference in Paris to rally support for Lebanon and reiterate calls for a ceasefire.
Jewish Students Show Solidarity with Gaza During Sukkot Despite Crackdown from Universities
Oct 24, 2024
Here in the U.S., Jewish students across the country say college administrators have cracked down on their Gaza solidarity sukkahs, which have been set up over the past week to mark the holiday of Sukkot. In some cases, schools have destroyed the sukkah huts. Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement, “These universities desecrate these students’ Jewish practice because their faith is intertwined with their solidarity with the Palestinian people. A university has no right to dictate what types of Jewish practice are legitimate.”
Faith Leaders Demand NYC Council Take Up Gaza Ceasefire Resolution
Oct 24, 2024
Here in New York City, faith leaders and other activists disrupted a city council meeting Wednesday to demand councilmembers take up a vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. Protesters cried out “City Council, you can’t hide! No more bombs for genocide!” as they held up their hands, covered in red paint, while being forcibly removed by security. Over 100 city councils across the country have passed ceasefire resolutions.
Hundreds of Spanish Artists, Academics Call for Total Arms Embargo on Israel
Oct 24, 2024
In Spain, over 300 academics, entertainers and artists, including the directors Pedro Almodóvar and Isabel Coixet, have signed on to a letter calling on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to enact a full arms embargo on Israel, writing, “As long as Spain maintains military relations with Israel, it will continue to be complicit in this massacre.” Sánchez has said Spain halted its weapons trade with Israel since October of last year, but investigations have revealed some military exports have still gone ahead.
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“This Is Just Terrorism”: Israel Bombs World Heritage Site in Lebanon, Threatens Major Hospital
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
Israel is escalating its bombardment of Lebanon, leveling numerous buildings, including the offices of Lebanese news station Al Mayadeen. The Israeli military has also attacked the ancient city of Tyre, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site, and killed three Lebanese soldiers in a strike in southern Lebanon, all while continuing to defy international calls for a ceasefire. “What we’re seeing is a complete degeneration into a war that has no rules, that respects no international conventions. There’s one side in this war that has complete impunity,” says Lebanese sociologist Rima Majed in Beirut. “Israel is targeting civilians in most cases. … This is just terrorism.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel continues to bombard the southern suburbs of Beirut. Health officials report Israel carried out at least 17 strikes overnight, leveling numerous buildings, including the offices of Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese news station. Lebanon’s National News Agency described last night’s attacks as the “most violent” in the area in recent weeks. Israel also killed three Lebanese soldiers in a strike in the southern part of the country. Israel continues to defy international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon.
This comes as French President Emmanuel Macron hosted an aid conference for Lebanon in Paris. Macron reiterated his call for a ceasefire and vowed to send over $100 million in humanitarian aid to Lebanon.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Beirut, Lebanon, where we’re joined by Rima Majed. She’s an assistant professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut.
Thanks so much for being with us. If you can start off by talking about what’s happening in one of the oldest cities in the world, in Tyre in southern Lebanon?
RIMA MAJED: Yes. Thank you so much, Amy, for having me on the show again.
What was happening yesterday was very, very disheartening, but it’s really a crime of — you know, of a global scale. Tyre is a very central city in terms of archaeology, of history. And, you know, this has been the second city. So, Tyre is a city that is in the south and that is inhabited by a large population. This is the second city in the south, large city in the south, that is being destructed in a systematic way.
Yesterday, what we’ve — reports say that the old ruins of Tyre have been hit by strikes. We have seen similar reports from other archaeological and historical sites, such as Baalbek, before. These are ruins that have survived thousands of years and that are being now destroyed by Israel. Unfortunately, we are not seeing the same alarm that we saw when other ruins, whether in Syria or Iraq, were targeted. And I think this is a very important issue to flag and to talk about.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Rima Majed, can you say why you think these attacks on these ruins have not received the kind of attention they should? Has UNESCO, for example, at least made a comment?
RIMA MAJED: Yeah, I think — I mean, I think the whole war on Lebanon is not receiving the attention that it needs to receive. I mean, there is a full-blown war that is taking very little space in the global media, for several reasons. One of them is, unfortunately, wars in this part of the world have become material for consumption, and there’s maybe media fatigue. But also, there’s an impunity that Israel has been enjoying since a long time, but that has become very flagrant since last year, where at this point what we cover is survival and bare life. I mean, there’s so much to cover in terms of people — you know, forced expulsions, people dying, that talking about ruins and history and archaeology is maybe seen not as a priority. But, I mean, it’s a devastating conflict, or it’s a devastating war, that is destroying all sorts of life on this land, whether social life or even when we think about history.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Rima Majed, if you could respond to what we said earlier, which is that France has pledged over — has pledged 100 million euros in support, humanitarian aid support, to Lebanon, and, in particular, also comment on what the defense minister, the French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said earlier this week, on Monday, that, quote — and this is a quote from him — “Our position” — that is to say, France’s position — “right now is primarily driven by the fear of an imminent civil war in Lebanon”?
RIMA MAJED: Sure. So, on the question of humanitarian aid, I mean, France has just pledged today. In the same conference in Paris, the UAE has also pledged, and I’m sure other countries will pledge money. Unfortunately, I mean, this is the hypocrisy of this global system. What we’re getting — I mean, we’ve gotten to this point where humanitarianism has become really dehumanizing. The same countries that are sending — I mean, many of those countries that are sending us humanitarian aid are at the same time selling arms and sending arms to Israel to kill us. And the profit they make out of the arms industry is way bigger than what we get in terms of humanitarian aid. So, in that sense, it’s become really dehumanizing that we’re turned into objects of humanitarian support that targets, again, just bare life. I mean, the aim now is for people to survive, to have shelter, even if it’s not decent shelter, and, you know, just the basics of survival. We don’t talk about social lives that have been disrupted, about dreams that are gone, about plans that are now up in the air, about families that have been — you know, that have lost loved ones or been displaced. So, I think this is way bigger than anything humanitarian aid can solve. And we saw last week, when President Macron tried to insinuate that France should consider an arms embargo on Israel, I mean, we saw the backlash from Netanyahu and others. So, I think, you know, at this point, to me, this is really hypocritical.
On the second point of the comment on a possible civil war in Lebanon, there’s a lot of talk inside the country and outside, of course, about the possibility of sliding into a war, social tensions that are increasing because of the effects of displacement and tension in different neighborhoods. Lebanon is already a sectarianized country where these boundaries can shift quickly and can become very tense. But the point we don’t talk about is that civil wars are not the result of social tension. I mean, we never slip into a civil war. Wars, whether civil or not, are political decisions. And therefore, the question today is: Who is going to fund — I mean, yes, I’m not saying the war is impossible. Actually, it is very possible, a civil War. But the question is: Who’s going to fund it? Who’s going to back it politically at the regional level and at the international level? Who’s going to send arms? These are the questions that we need to answer, rather than thinking that wars are social explosions. They’re not. Revolutions are social explosions.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this week, at least 13 people, including a child, were killed, and about 60 others injured, in an Israeli airstrike near the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Lebanon’s largest public medical center. At least 32 others were wounded in the attack, which caused major damage to the hospital. Separately, 50 medical workers and 15 patients were forced to evacuate from the Al-Sahel Hospital in southern Beirut Monday, after Israel’s military claimed without evidence it’s home to a secret underground Hezbollah bunker containing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold. Doctors insisted there’s nothing hidden beneath the hospital and took reporters on a tour of its lower floors to disprove the claims. This is Alex Rossi, international correspondent for Sky News.
ALEX ROSSI: This is the Al-Sahel Hospital on the outskirts of Dahiyeh. Dahiyeh, of course, is a stronghold of Hezbollah. Now, we’re in the basement. This is — it’s alleged by the Israelis that this hospital is being used by Hezbollah as a way of storing gold and cash. And we’ve been invited in here. This tour has been in no way exhaustive. You can see there are lots of other press here, as well. But we haven’t been controlled in terms of what we can film or where we can point our camera. We’ve been allowed to open doors, move around. Now, there may be other areas of the hospital that we’ve not been taken to, but for all, you know, this looks like a hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Alex Rossi, again, international correspondent for Sky News. If you could respond, Rima Majed, to what happened there and also talk about the U.S. State Department once again shoring up Israel in what it’s doing, the spokesperson Matt Miller saying, “We’ve seen footage that’s emerged over the course of the past two weeks of rockets and other military weapons held in civilian homes, so Israel does have a right to go after those legitimate targets”?
RIMA MAJED: Yes. I mean, the targeting of the Hariri Hospital was also very personal to me, because this is exactly where I grew up, actually. This is the neighborhood where I lived for several years. And it targeted civilians, mainly. All the other attacks are also targeting civilians. And this logic of — I mean, whether the German foreign minister’s logic of Israel having the right to target civilians, and now there’s a new logic of the right to target gold and money as a terrorist threat, is completely absurd. I mean, we’ve never seen — would this apply to Israel? Does Lebanon have the right to defend itself the way — using the same techniques and tactics that Israel uses? Of course not. I mean, this goes against every logic of protection of human rights, but also, I mean, just protection of civilians is basic here.
So, I think, I mean, what we’re seeing is a complete degeneration into a war that has no rules, that respects no international conventions, and that, you know, there’s one side in this war that has complete impunity. We’ve seen this over the past year, and it’s continuing. Israel is targeting civilians in most cases. I mean, what is the logic of targeting gold and money? If — I mean, let’s assume this is really what there is there: Why target it with a bomb? What is the logic of this? This is just terrorism. And this is what it should be called.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Rima Majed, if you could talk about the attacks, in fact, on financial associations Israel — sorry, the branches of a financial association reportedly linked to Hezbollah earlier this week, in fact, on Sunday? What is the Al-Qard al-Hassan Association, and why was it hit?
RIMA MAJED: I mean, it’s one of the financial institutions that are believed to be controlled by Hezbollah. It follows the same logic of, you know, the neoliberal turn of giving microfinance. So, this is not an aid institution. This is a bank that gives microfinance facilities.
What we have been seeing is that Israel is moving from the decapitation, which is continuing, of leaders, but there’s also very clear targeting of Hezbollah’s social institutions, whether hospitals, schools, banks, etc. So, the aim is probably to dismantle, and the target is not just Hezbollah as an organization, but it’s also, you know, its constituency, its people. And when I say its people or its constituencies, it doesn’t mean that these are Hezbollah fighters or members. These are just Lebanese civilians who have a political opinion that happens to be in support of that party. I mean, again, if we apply the logic on any other party, it would sound horrendous.
The fact that we are justifying — and, I mean, hearing the German foreign minister, who then, after saying what she said about justifying the right of Israel to kill civilians, then visiting Beirut, is really — I mean, the world today feels like the turn of the 20th century, I mean, the dark years of fascism. And it’s very alarming that this is how we are dealing with these wars and this is the logic with which we’re justifying the killing of some, but, of course, not others.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Rima Majed, finally, we just have a minute left. If you could talk about Security Council Resolution 1701? Amos Hochstein, who was just in the region, has said its implementation is the only way to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
RIMA MAJED: Yeah, I mean, Hochstein is — it’s interesting that the negotiator, you know, served in the Israeli offense — I mean, the IOF, I would call it — so has a clear side in this war. But, I mean, personally, I think this is a resolution that ended the 2006 war. At this point, I don’t think any of the parties, whether it’s Israel or Hezbollah — I mean, at this point, doesn’t matter what Hezbollah says, I mean, even if Hezbollah today says that they want to stop this war and they agree on everything, including 1701, which they have agreed on several times. I mean, just days before Nasrallah was killed, he had agreed on the implementation of 1701. I think at this point there is a plan that Israel will move on to implement, and that goes beyond what we’re hearing from these diplomats. That is a plan that is in line with the Abraham Accords, with changing the face of the Middle East. And unfortunately, it’s people like us who are paying the price.
AMY GOODMAN: Rima Majed, we want to thank you so much for being with us, assistant professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon.
Coming up, Israel’s deadly campaign of starvation and forced expulsion in northern Gaza has entered its 20th day. We’ll go to Tel Aviv to speak with B’Tselem, the prominent Israeli human rights group, which described Israel’s siege as “ethnic cleansing.” Stay with us
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“Ethnic Cleansing”: Israeli Group B’Tselem Calls for World to Stop Israel’s Siege of Northern Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
The leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem warned this week the world must stop the “ethnic cleansing” of northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has imposed a brutal siege since October 5, demanding that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee south or face death. Israel is blocking almost all food, water and medicine from reaching northern Gaza while its forces carry out deadly raids and bombardment of the area, overwhelming the remaining hospitals. B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli says it’s impossible to watch events unfold and “not conclude that what is going on there is the deliberate pressuring by the Israeli army of the civilian population of the area to move out of this area in order to empty it of Palestinians.”
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: Health workers in northern Gaza have been forced to postpone the latest phase of the polio vaccination program as Israel continues to carry out a deadly campaign of forced expulsion and starvation in northern Gaza. Earlier today, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israel’s actions, saying, quote, “People suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in North Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.” Doctors in northern Gaza have described horrific conditions as hospitals are overwhelmed and remaining medical staff are unable to treat the injured. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: [translated] We are talking on the 18th day of an imposed complete siege on the medical establishment in the north Gaza Strip. We appealed yesterday, the day before yesterday, and today we call on the world. The Kamal Adwan medical supply storage is at zero. We have no blood bags that we can offer to the wounded, no medical supplies or urgently needed medicine. …
Some members of our medical staff are either martyred, killed or injured. A little while ago, we received one of our colleagues who was martyred, Dr. Mohammed Ghanim. He was offering humanitarian services at one of the medical checkpoints in a shelter. The situation is catastrophic. …
We will be facing a humanitarian catastrophe if there’s no solution to this situation in the next few coming hours. The hospital will turn into a mass grave. There is a huge number of wounded people, and approximately every hour we lose one of them as a martyr. The wounded turn into martyrs due to the absence of needed medical supplies, tools and medical staff, who are either detained, wounded or martyred. …
Our medical staff and ambulances cannot get the wounded out of the street of Beit Lahia. We are talking about the wounded who manage to come to the hospital. They arrive, and we give them our services. Those who cannot come to us stay in the streets and are martyred. This is what is happening in the north of Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. And this is Lina Issam Abu Nada, a Palestinian who recently fled Beit Lahia.
LINA ISSAM ABU NADA: [translated] I fled the intense bombardment in Beit Lahia. Martyrs and remains were all scattered on the ground. We do not know where to go. Truly, we don’t know what state we have reached. I swear, by God, what we are going through is the hardest situation in days. Even the occupation, Israel, took my brother as they put all the men on one side and let us leave. The tank moved and covered us with dust.
On top of everything, no is standing for us. We ask you, with all the mercy you have, to stand beside us. What’s happening to us is unfair. We cannot take it anymore. We are being exterminated in Gaza. We are dying, and no one is standing beside us, nor is anyone able to solve our issue. We are innocent. We have nothing to do with everything that has happened. We are lost between a war and an extermination. We can’t take it anymore.
AMY GOODMAN: A Palestinian woman who recently fled Beit Lahia.
Earlier this week, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem accused Israel of committing ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza.
We go now to Tel Aviv, Israel, where we’re joined by B’Tselem’s international advocacy lead, Sarit Michaeli.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Sarit. Explain what you mean by ethnic cleansing and what exactly you understand is happening in northern Gaza, and how much Israelis understand what is happening right nearby.
SARIT MICHAELI: So, thank you, Amy, very much for the opportunity to be with you today.
I think B’Tselem decided to make this statement as really an act of desperation. It’s impossible for us to continue to watch, to observe the very little information we are getting from northern Gaza, the very fragmented information, and not conclude that what is going on there is the deliberate pressuring by the Israeli army of the civilian population of the area to move out of this area in order to empty it of Palestinians. This is ethnic cleansing. The definition that we would argue is the Israeli current actions on the ground.
And I think it’s important to remember that this is happening within a context. The context is not only increasing and ongoing reports that this is the Israeli policy, that this notion of the so-called island plan or the Generals’ Plan, that called on Israel to essentially starve the population of northern Gaza in order to get it to move out of the way, right? So, that’s one element of the picture. And then, the second element is that there is a growing debate, there is a growing kind of level of activism within the Israeli far right to demand the settling of northern Gaza. Now, this is the context of what we are seeing on the ground at the moment.
I think it’s important also to mention that the Israeli army itself has admitted, in a response to a high court petition submitted by several Israeli human rights organizations, that for the first two weeks of this month, no humanitarian aid was allowed into north Gaza. That was deliberate. That was knowingly. That wasn’t — isn’t something that the Israeli authorities deny. In addition, in the response submitted yesterday to the high court, Israel also states that this is continuing when it comes to Jabaliya. And we know that yesterday the Israeli army issued some drone footage showing throngs of civilians walking out from the Jabaliya refugee camp towards the south, and also saying that Israel managed to break the so-called Hamas siege on Jabaliya, and said that about 20,000 civilians have already left.
From our perspective, all this indicates one clear goal, which is to remove the people from northern Gaza, to empty that area. I also think — and we can maybe discuss it a bit in more length later on — there are also quite open admissions within the Israeli media that some of this is happening, certainly not in the framing of an international crime, but commentators have accepted, on some levels, that this is what Israel is doing now in north Gaza.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let me just read, Sarit Michaeli, what the media has said. This is on Israel’s Channel 12, the chief political analyst saying, quote, “We can keep denying that what’s happening is an implementation of the Generals’ Plan — emptying of the strip, starving the terrorists, eliminating them, capturing them. That’s in my opinion what’s happening here.” So, you know, in effect, would you say that the Generals’ Plan itself constitutes ethnic cleansing? And then, to what extent do people in Israel believe that that’s what’s occurring? If it’s being said in the media, is there some consensus around it? Although I will note that what he said was “starving the terrorists, eliminating them,” not the general population there.
SARIT MICHAELI: Well, first of all, I want to be clear that Israel, we suspect — and as we also announced, together with colleagues in other human rights organizations last week, we suspect that Israel is implementing the spirit, I would say, maybe not necessarily every single aspect of the so-called Generals’ Plan, but that it is quietly implementing this.
And this is why we also called last week on the international community to really take responsibility for what is going on in Gaza. And we stated openly that it’s not just Israeli policymakers who should be held accountable and face consequences for these crimes, but also that the international community cannot but be considered complicit if Israel goes ahead and empties north Gaza of its inhabitants.
I think that when we look at this plan, this absolutely horrific plan, it includes provisions that are absolutely and clearly war crimes and could probably also be viewed as crimes against humanity. The idea is actually to basically starve the population out in order to leave the area, and then, according to this plan — and certainly, I don’t agree with any aspect of the logic — the only people remaining will be terrorists, and then they can just be killed off. This is the — again, I don’t want to simplify too much, but this is the essential logic of this plan.
But it is absolutely in contradiction with many of the known facts we know about the situation in Gaza and in north Gaza, the fact that many of the civilians there cannot leave or don’t want to leave. Some of them cannot leave because it’s impossible for them to move around, because they just have no other place to go, or they don’t want to leave these areas, because they know that the same sort of fate of being bombarded and exposed to Israeli attacks can, you know, wait for them in the many internally displaced camps throughout Gaza, where people are not safe in any way. So, there are many reasons why Palestinians would not want to leave north Gaza. So, that’s the first issue. The second issue — and certainly, the idea that you can somehow force them out permanently — right? — not for their own security, is absolutely illegal.
The second issue that is very clearly part of the illegality and the shocking lack of morals, I would say also, moral failure of this plan, is that the idea that you can somehow decide that after a certain moment, where you say you told all civilians to leave a certain area, that means that everyone left in there is a combatant, a terrorist, and you can just kill them, that is also not true. That’s simply not the way international humanitarian law goes. Civilians don’t lose their protected status if you gave them an illegal and probably also impossible-to-implement evacuation order. The idea that somehow a person should be considered a legitimate military target, regardless of what they’re actually doing, because they happen to be in a certain place that the Israeli army decided is no longer acceptable, that is not legal. That is clearly a war crime.
And I have to also say that this isn’t just things we are saying here at B’Tselem. In recent days, there have been several much more mainstream Israelis, including the former deputy leader of the Israeli National Security Council, who also said that these kinds of orders would be, you know, orders that are black flags flying over. These would be orders to commit war crimes, and that soldiers have to refuse to obey these kinds of orders. This is — as I said, this is a former Israeli security official.
I think it’s really important to remember also, though, that the current situation on the ground, unfortunately, isn’t — and again, I say it with a great deal of pain — isn’t really influenced by statements by human rights organizations like B’Tselem, by actions by Israeli wonderful and just very courageous Israeli human rights organizations that are now petitioning the high court, because we just simply don’t have the capacity to influence the reality on the ground at the moment.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Sarit, we just —
SARIT MICHAELI: And therefore, that is why that is the essential source of our call —
AMY GOODMAN: So, Sarit Michaeli, we just have a minute.
SARIT MICHAELI: — call to the international community.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute. I want to go to that issue of the call of the international community, and particularly the U.S. Blinken has just left Israel, his 11th trip there, saying he’s pushing for a ceasefire, yet at the same time the Biden administration continuing to arm Netanyahu. In this last 30 seconds, your thoughts on that kind of approach, saying he should push for a ceasefire, but we’ll continue to arm you?
SARIT MICHAELI: It’s absolutely clear that we must have a ceasefire. We need a ceasefire, and we need a hostage deal now. But this isn’t going to happen unless Prime Minister Netanyahu is placed in a situation where he has to accept this. And we do not see this happening at the moment. I think the thought that somehow the U.S. administration can ask Netanyahu, can urge Netanyahu for a ceasefire, and this will actually happen, is simply unrealistic. There needs to be intense pressure to get Israel to currently accept a ceasefire, to stop what it’s doing in northern Gaza. And it has to come from action by the United States and the international community. Otherwise, they will also be complicit in what we’re seeing now.
AMY GOODMAN: Sarit Michaeli, we want to thank you for being with us, international advocacy lead for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which has accused the Israeli military of committing ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza.
Next up, we look at Israel’s intensifying war on journalists in Gaza, two critically wounded journalists not able to get out of Gaza, and Israel saying that six journalists are members of Hamas or Palestinian Jihad, what that means. We’ll speak with the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Stay with us.
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CPJ Head Condemns Israel’s Deadly War on Journalists in Gaza as IDF Threatens Al Jazeera Reporters
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
Al Jazeera is demanding the safety of its staff in the Gaza Strip after Israel claimed that six of the network’s journalists there have ties to militant groups. Press freedom advocates say the Israeli accusation amounts to a preemptive justification for murder. Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza last October, at least 128 journalists have been killed, including many from Al Jazeera. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Israel has a history of smearing Palestinian journalists with unproven claims, including in July, when Israel killed Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and later released documents claiming to prove al-Ghoul had received a Hamas military ranking when he was just 10 years old. “There is a pattern of Israel making these kinds of allegations, providing evidence that is, frankly, not credible or, in some cases, no evidence at all,” says Jodie Ginsberg, CPJ’s chief executive officer. “As we have fewer and fewer journalists reporting … we have less and less information coming out of Gaza. And it’s absolutely essential that we have that information, that we have those images, so that the international community can understand the scale of what’s happening.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Israel’s intensifying war on journalists. On Wednesday, the Israeli military publicly accused six Al Jazeera journalists of being members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Press freedom groups blasted the Israeli military for releasing what some have described as a kill list for the journalists.
In a statement, Al Jazeera said, quote, “Al Jazeera categorically rejects the Israeli occupation forces’ portrayal of our journalists as terrorists and denounces their use of fabricated evidence. The Network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
This comes as Israel continues to block the evacuation of two Al Jazeera camera operators who were severely injured after being shot by Israeli troops. One of the journalists, Fadi al-Wahidi, has been in a coma after being shot in the neck.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists here in New York.
Jodie, let’s start with the two journalists who are gravely wounded. One of them is paralyzed and in a coma. Israel is not letting them be evacuated. Can you talk about the significance of this?
JODIE GINSBERG: Well, yes. Fadi has been in a coma for over a week now, and not just in a coma, but with no access to painkillers. We’ve heard, obviously, about the ongoing bombardment in Gaza and what that has meant for hospitals. Al Jazeera has asked repeatedly, used all the formal channels to request their evacuation, and so far has had no reply. And this follows a pattern in which journalists appear to be being punished for doing their work, for exposing what’s happening inside Gaza.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Jodie Ginsberg, if you could — let’s go to these six Al Jazeera journalists who have been accused by Israel of being terrorists. You have pointed to — the CPJ has pointed to contradictory information that’s been released by the IDF in the past, at least one recent instance, Ismail al-Ghoul. Explain who he was and what the IDF said about him.
JODIE GINSBERG: So, Ismail al-Ghoul was an Al Jazeera correspondent. He was killed along with a freelance camera operator, Rami al-Rifi, near Gaza City in July. And the IDF alleged that al-Ghoul was an engineer in a Hamas brigade, and that justified his killing. They published a document which they said was a record of Hamas military activity as proof of these accusations. Some of the information indicated that al-Ghoul, who was born in 1997, had received a Hamas military ranking in 2007, so he would have been 10 years old. So, the document was not, in our view, credible.
And unfortunately, this is not a one-off incident. There is a pattern of Israel making these kinds of allegations, providing evidence that is, frankly, not credible or, in some cases, no evidence at all.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Jodie, especially talk about the significance of Israel doing this now. No one else, no other reporter is in Gaza. It’s only Al Jazeera reporters who are. Over 4,000 journalists have traveled to Israel to cover this war since October last year, but no other journalists have been permitted in.
JODIE GINSBERG: It’s hugely significant. This is the deadliest conflict for journalists that CPJ has ever documented. A hundred and twenty-eight journalists, at least, have been killed, 126 of them by Israel, and most of those are Palestinians. And in many cases, we believe those journalists to have been deliberately targeted for being journalists.
Now, you’re right, the major issue in all of this is that those journalists who remain are the only people who are able to provide us information about what’s happening inside Gaza. No journalist from outside Gaza has been allowed in since the start of that war, and that’s highly unusual. I speak to lots of war correspondents who’s covered many, many wars over decades, and all of them talk about how unprecedented this is to not have any access whatsoever. And that, of course, puts additional pressure on these journalists. And what you have when you have these kinds of accusations from Israel that the journalists are terrorists is a kind of justification for then killing them or attacking them.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have Democratic Congressmember James McGovern leading 64 other congressmembers in a letter to Biden and Blinken, urging them to push for Israel to allow in international journalists. At the same time, Jodie Ginsberg, if you can talk about the number of journalists who have been killed in Gaza? Isn’t this unprecedented?
JODIE GINSBERG: It’s totally unprecedented. This number is — more journalists were killed in the first 10 weeks of the war, just the first 10 weeks of the war, than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year. That gives you some sense of the scale of this. Those journalists who remain are trying desperately to cover the impact of the war while suffering the same effects of the war as everyone else, the deprivations of food, the lack of shelter, the continual displacement, the lack of equipment. And as we have fewer and fewer journalists reporting and the challenge becomes greater and greater, of course we have less and less information coming out of Gaza. And it’s absolutely essential that we have that information, that we have those images, so that the international community can understand the scale of what’s happening.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Jodie Ginsberg, finally, if you could put this in a broader context? Is there any other precedent for Europe, the U.S. or any of its allies restricting access to all international journalists to a war zone for over a year, as has happened here?
JODIE GINSBERG: There’s no precedent like this. In wars, inevitably, one side or other will restrict access to journalists. We see that frequently. But it is unheard of that not a single international journalist has been able to get into Gaza for an entire year.
And remember that it’s not just about the access. Of course, that’s a major issue. But we have Gazan journalists doing phenomenal work in Gaza and in the West Bank. It’s not just about the access. It’s also about the attacks that we’ve seen on media facilities, which is civilian infrastructure. We’ve seen repeated communications blackouts. We’ve seen the banning of Al Jazeera and the closure of the Al Jazeera Ramallah bureau. So, it’s not simply — we’ve seen arrests of journalists both in Gaza and the West Bank. So, it’s not simply the dangers, the killing of journalists, egregious as that is. It’s the whole pattern and systematic attempt — and quite successful attempt — to censor what is happening inside Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: Jodie Ginsberg, we want to thank you for being with us, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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Prominent Muslim Democrat Demands Answers After Being Kicked Out of Harris Rally in Michigan
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 24, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/24 ... transcript
We speak with Dr. Ahmed Ghanim, a prominent Muslim leader and former Democratic candidate for Congress, after the Kamala Harris campaign apologized for kicking him out of a Detroit election event Monday to which he was invited. Harris’s staunch support for Israel as it continues its brutal war on Gaza has infuriated many Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan, and while Ghanim says it’s a very important issue to him, he was not there to protest. He was also not given a reason for his removal, even after the campaign called him to apologize. “Apology without accountability is not an apology,” he says, adding that the incident has left him questioning whether Democrats still believe in diversity and inclusion or if “Muslims and Arabs don’t have room anymore in this party.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end today’s show with a Muslim American Democrat who was ejected from a Kamala Harris rally in metro Detroit, where Harris was joined by Republican former Congressmember Liz Cheney. Ahmed Ghanim is a Democratic Party activist and former House candidate for Michigan’s 11th District.
AMY GOODMAN: He joins us now from Oak Park, Michigan, not far from the Harris campaign event which he was ejected from. The Kamala Harris campaign has since said it regrets his removal.
Thank you so much for being with us, Ahmed Ghanim. In this few minutes that we have left, take us to the event that you were invited to and explain what happened.
AHMED GHANIM: Thank you for having me.
So, basically, I went, like anyone else. I was dressed in a suit, going to this event. I stood in line. It was a small event by invite only, 200 people there, less than 200 people. I went through a security like the airport security, where they have to check everything. They take even the signs that you have from the campaign, so nobody had any signs. You’re only allowed to have your wallet, and that’s it.
And I was cleared by security. I was seated like anyone. I was sitting there for like 10 or 15 minutes, just trying to answer some emails. I did not engage with anybody in conversation, because they seat you randomly with people you don’t know around you. And after 10 minutes, a lady came and told me, “Can you follow me?” And I thought probably they are changing my seat. I said, “That’s fine.” I followed her.
And at the door, I found two police officers waiting for me and said, “They don’t want you here at the event. If you either leave now, or I’ll put you in a police car.” And that was shocking to me. So, just I was sitting there, and I did not — I did not do anything. I did nothing. And now I’m threatened to be arrested or have to leave. And I was just asking. I told him, “OK, I’m going to leave. I just want to know: Why are you kicking me out?” And he said, “It is not me. It’s the venue that’s kicking you out.” So I asked him, “Why would the venue kick me out? The venue, they don’t know anything about me. It’s just a venue.” He said, “I don’t know.” And the lady that escorted me out, she ended the conversation and said, “This is not a conversation anymore. You have to be escorted out.” So, I didn’t want to escalate the situation, and I just left.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Ahmed, can you say whether — since you’ve left, have you heard anything further about why you were removed?
AHMED GHANIM: No. The campaign issued a brief statement saying they regret what happened. They gave me a call. I thanked him for the call, but I said, “I want to know why was I removed, because apology without accountability is not an apology.” So, so far, they did not provide any information or any reason why they removed me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Ahmed Ghanim, you were a congressional candidate. You didn’t win the primary. You got 15,000 votes. After you were kicked out of the Kamala Harris event, the Trump campaign approached you to make an ad?
AHMED GHANIM: That’s correct. They approached me to make an ad against Vice President Harris. And they said, “This ad will be aired everywhere, on CNN, everywhere. But we want you to film it.” And I said, “No, I cannot do that.”
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you feel that? I mean, of course, President Trump, well known, one of his first acts in office as president was the Muslim ban. But if you can explain what you’re demanding now of the Kamala Harris campaign?
AHMED GHANIM: I’m demanding a reason why they ejected me from the campaign without anything. I didn’t have any Palestinian keffiyeh. I didn’t have any pins. I didn’t have any signs. I was not planning to protest. I just was sitting there. This is my city, where I ran. Everyone in this city, they know me, because I ran there. I was canvassing door to door there. My ads were there. My signs were there. I actually spoke at the Democratic Club in Royal Oak, Michigan. So, it’s not like I’m a random person. They know me very well. And there is a reason why they ejected me. So I want to know what is the reason.
And for me, when people talk about just one-issue voter, it’s not about Gaza. Gaza is far away from me. It’s a very important issue for me. But now it’s important — what’s more important: Do I have place in this party or not? Is this the party of diversity, of inclusion, or Muslims and Arabs don’t have room anymore in this party?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Ahmed Ghanim, a Muslim community leader, former Democratic congressional candidate, speaking to us from Oak Park, Michigan. On Monday, given no explanation when he was kicked out of an invitation-only Harris campaign event in Royal Oak, Michigan, to which he was invited.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Oct 30, 2024 3:02 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/25/headlines
“A Major Massacre” in Jabaliya; Israeli Forces Raid Kamal Adwan Hospital in Northern Gaza, Killing Patients
Oct 25, 2024
In northern Gaza, Israeli soldiers have launched a full-scale attack on Jabaliya. Details are still emerging on what a Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson described as a “major massacre,” with more than 150 people killed or injured as Israeli forces took down a dozen residential buildings.
Late Thursday, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, expelling patients and staff, after earlier surrounding and shelling what was essentially the last hospital left standing in the area. Soldiers carried out mass arrests. Doctors say babies and children have died after being cut off from their oxygen supplies. Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, says the situation is catastrophic and there is nowhere patients in northern Gaza can go for treatment. After headlines, we’ll hear from the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, Mohammed Salha.
Israeli attacks in the southern Gaza Strip continue, as well. In Khan Younis, at least 38 people were killed by Israel, including 14 children from the same family.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he expects Gaza ceasefire talks to resume in the coming days in Doha.
Israeli Airstrike Kills 3 Journalists in Southern Lebanon
Oct 25, 2024
In Lebanon, an Israeli strike killed three journalists as they slept in a guesthouse in the southern town of Hasbaya. Israel did not issue any evacuation orders for the area before the strike. The victims were Al Mayadeen journalists Ghassan Najjar and Mohamed Reda, and Wissam Qassim of Al-Manar TV. Al Mayadeen reporter Abbas Sabbagh addressed his colleagues’ killing earlier today from Lebanon.
Abbas Sabbagh: “Israel targeted journalists in Hasbaya, knowing that the area is known for the gathering of journalists. This enemy that looks for civilian targets after it’s drained its military targets and lost in the field is now targeting journalists.”
Lebanon’s information minister called the attack a war crime. The official death toll from Israel’s assault on Lebanon is nearing 2,600.
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“Worse and Worse”: Hospital Director in North Gaza Says Israeli Assault on Jabaliya Is Bloodiest Yet
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/25 ... transcript
Israeli soldiers have just conducted what Gaza’s Civil Defense is calling a “major massacre” in Jabaliya, with more than 150 people killed or injured and dozens of buildings destroyed. It is the latest atrocity amid the military’s weekslong siege of northern Gaza. “It’s getting worse and worse,” says Dr. Mohammed Salha in a call from the Jabaliya refugee camp, where he is acting director of Al-Awda Hospital.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in northern Gaza, where Israeli soldiers launched a full-scale attack on Jabaliya earlier today, blowing up a dozen residential buildings. Gaza officials described the attack as a “major massacre” and warned of mass casualties, with more than 150 people reportedly killed or injured.
Late Thursday, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, expelling patients and staff, after earlier surrounding and shelling what was essentially the last hospital left standing in the area. Soldiers carried out mass arrests. Doctors say babies and children have died after being cut off from their oxygen supplies. Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, says the situation is catastrophic and there’s nowhere patients in northern Gaza can go for treatment.
This comes as displaced mothers in northern Gaza are calling on the world to demand the resumption of the polio vaccination campaign for children there, which the World Health Organization said Wednesday had been postponed due to Israeli attacks and lack of access.
HANAN HEMEDA: [translated] If the polio vaccination is not available in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the children will be paralyzed. They will collapse in front of our eyes. They won’t move. Is this fair? We demand the world to allow the entry of the polio vaccination into the northern part of the Gaza Strip to protect our children from the polio virus.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital in the Jabaliya refugee camp in north Gaza late Thursday night. He described what’s happening on the ground.
DR. MOHAMMED SALHA: Today is the 20th day of siege in the northern Gaza and the fifth day of siege at Al-Awda Hospital. They totally sieged Al-Awda Hospital with the tanks, so we can’t move outside the hospital. And from the beginning of this siege, they are bombing our two inpatient departments and bombing our water tanks. So now we have more than 70% of the hospital without water, because the tanks are destroyed, totally destroyed, the water tank. And also, this afternoon, they are bombing our central store related to medical supplies.
After today, we will not have the fuel to running the hospital, and we have a lot of patients inside the hospital. We have 43 of patients here. And we can’t deal with this, because every day we are doing to them operations and the treatment in the [inaudible] inside our [inaudible], and we need medication, medical supplies and fuel, and also food. We don’t have food, and we don’t have healthy water and filtered water.
Our message to the freedom people in the world, really, to stop the genocide in Gaza Strip and especially in the northern Gaza. You can’t imagine how the situation here. The people are dying in the streets. They are injured in the street, and nobody can move to bring them.
Now we hear the massacre of more than 150 [inaudible] in Jabaliya camp, but nobody can go there to save these people. Really, we need also, from WHO, U.N. agencies and our partners really to urgent appeal and urgent to come to Al-Awda Hospital to bring our needs, from medication and medical supplies, and especially from fuel, food and healthy water for patients here.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, speaking late Thursday night to Democracy Now! We attempted to reach him live right now, but we could not get any kind of connection.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha. He’s just published his new book of poetry, Forest of Noise.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “If I Should Fall” from the 1974 album Palestine Lives! released by Paredon Records. Musician and label co-founder Barbara Dane passed away this week at the age of 97.
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“Forest of Noise”: Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha on New Book, Relatives Killed in Gaza & More
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/25 ... transcript
In an extended interview, Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha discusses the situation in Gaza and his new book of poetry titled Forest of Noise. He fled Gaza in December after being detained by the Israeli military, but many of his extended family members were unable to escape. He reads a selection of poems from Forest of Noise, while sharing the stories of friends and family still struggling to survive in Gaza, as well as those he has lost, including the late poet Refaat Alareer. He also describes his experiences in Gaza in the first months of the war, including being displaced from his home and abducted by the Israeli military, noting that the neighborhood in Jabaliya refugee camp that his family first evacuated to last year was bombed by the Israeli military just days ago. “Sometimes I want to stop writing because I’m repeating the same words, even though the situation is worse. The language is helpless,” Abu Toha says. “Why does the world make us feel helpless?”
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.
As human rights activists plead with global leaders for immediate action, calling for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Jordan’s foreign minister met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in London today and condemned the humanitarian catastrophe in northern Gaza, telling Blinken, quote, “We do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop,” he said.
For more, we’re joined by Palestinian poet and author from Gaza, who writes in his new book of poems, “If you live in Gaza, you die several times.” Mosab Abu Toha’s second book of poetry is just out. It’s titled Forest of Noise. His previous award-winning book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. Mosab Abu Toha is a columnist, a teacher, founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza. His recent essay in The New York Times is headlined “Gaza’s Schools Are for Learning, Not for Dying.” And his latest piece for The New Yorker is headlined “The Gaza We Leave Behind.”
Mosab Abu Toha, it’s wonderful to have you in studio safely here in New York, but I know that your heart and mind are in Gaza right now. Before we talk about your poetry, you have just come with terrible news for you and your family about what is happening there. Can you describe what you’ve heard just today?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Thank you so much, Amy.
Yeah, I mean, just you mentioned the airstrikes that took down 10 residential buildings. I was staying in that place with my wife and kids just before we had to leave for an UNRWA school to stay in a shelter there and before I was abducted by the Israeli army. And this morning, I looked at the names of some of the people who were killed in that airstrike, and I see the, I mean, 19 names from the same family, including Um Fathi Abu Rashed [phon.], I mean, a temporary neighbor. I mean, we had Um Fathi as a neighbor for a few days before we had to leave the neighborhood. And now I read that this neighborhood, where I was staying with them, was bombed. So, she was killed along with some of her children. And this is the case of so many people. I’m not sure if you can see this. This is the list of the whole family. And, for example —
AMY GOODMAN: You’re holding up a list of what? Some 20 names?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, 20 names, including Um Fathi, the grandmother, her children and her grandchildren. And I look at — for example, I read this every day. So, there is Mohammed Salman, his brother Yousef, Islam, Sama, Aya, so five brothers. And then there is Mahmoud Fathi, the son Um Fathi Abu Rashed, and his wife and their children. So, I’ve been seeing this all the time.
And by the way, we are focusing right now on north Gaza. Yesterday, late at night, Israel bombed intensely Khan Younis. And I’m looking at some of the pictures here. These are the photos of the children who were killed yesterday. They just were able to withdraw the bodies of these children after the Israelis retreated from the area. So, and that was today. I learned about this just half an hour ago.
And then I went to the local news channel in my city, Beit Lahia, north Gaza, and I saw a picture of my neighbor, Ayman Abu Laila. This is his photo. He was killed — he was killed this morning while he was trying to get some water from a tap in the street. Ayman, to honor his memory, he was the principal of the only agricultural college in north Gaza. And he was trying — by the way, he lived just a few blocks away. And he wanted to move to stay with his brother, because there are some friends and some neighbors who are staying there, so he wanted to be close to the people who are there. He was killed. And his son — my wife just told me, because she was on the phone with her mother and father, who are trapped right now in Beit Lahia. They were told that the brother of my neighbor has been critically wounded, and he is in the house. There is no way that an ambulance can come. There is no way that anyone can come to their rescue. And the same thing happened yesterday in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the 10 residential buildings that were took down.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, yesterday, last night, I saw you at the Brooklyn Public Library, sold out, to hear you speak about your poetry. And you said at the beginning — I saw your wife and your three little children, but that hadn’t been the plan. You’re now in Syracuse, at Syracuse University.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about you almost canceling the day before, because your wife was too terrified for you to come to New York.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Indeed. I mean, taking my wife and three kids with me was a last-minute decision. I mean, the Israeli army has been horribly attacking north Gaza, displacing people and kidnapping, abducting doctors and nurses and journalists. And even the injured people, they had to evacuate. I mean, just imagine, I mean, people who have been injured, and they had some medical care, and they had to be on some medical equipment. They are taken away from the hospital. Some of them would die. And that’s why The Lancet journal said that more than 200,000 people have been — have died or were killed by the Israeli airstrike, the Israeli military campaign since October 7th.
So, my wife’s family, including her father, her mother, her siblings and some of the nephews and nieces, her grandparents, too, aged 75, they are now trapped in the family house, and they are unable to leave. And now Atta Abu Laila, my neighbor, was killed just a few meters away from them by shrapnel, by a piece of shrapnel from a tank shell. So, she worries that if I am away from her and she gets some terrible news, like today’s news, she would die from pain and grief. So she wanted me to be with her. And I told her I couldn’t cancel, you know, the event at the Brooklyn Public Library and also my event today at NYU. So, I said, “OK, you come with me.” And now she came with me, as if this would — I mean, I don’t claim — I don’t say that I would make her feelings better, because I, too, have family in Beit Lahia. I have a young sister with three children. The youngest is 2 years old. And I haven’t talked to her for about 10 days. It’s impossible to get in touch with my sister. I don’t know how she’s surviving or whether she’s alive at this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: You wrote on social media six days ago, “I write with a heavy heart that my cousin Sama, 7 years old, has been killed in the air strike on their house along with 18 members of her family, which is my extended family.”
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: For our TV audience, we are showing an image of Sama right now.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, please, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us who she is.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, Sama is one of the five children of my aunt Asma, who was also injured, the mother, I mean, in the house. Sama was staying with her parents, with her siblings, with her grandmother, who happens to be my grandmother’s sister. And I used to call her grandmother, because my grandmother passed away when I was very young. So, my grandmother’s sister, with two of her daughters and her grandchildren, and two of her daughter-in-laws and the grandchildren are still buried under the rubble until this moment.
So, Sama was killed in the airstrike. And the only reason why my aunt and her other children, or even though they were wounded — the only reason why they were not killed is that they were staying close to the door, because the bomb, when it falls, it usually hits the middle of the house. So, my aunt Asma survived the airstrike with some injuries, along with her husband and other four children. And they had — by the way, they were — my aunt had to walk to the Israeli soldiers who were standing just a few meters away from the bombed house. So, just imagine a criminal killing you and then waiting for you until you are either dead or come to them limping. And she told me that she kissed their hands, begging them to leave them alone and if she could take with her some wheat flour from the house that she was keeping next to her because there is no food in Gaza.
So, Sama was 7 years old. And I remember something very clearly, which is that every time I visited my aunt’s house, especially during the Eid, you know, after the Ramadan and after the pilgrimage season — so, we have two big Eids, or feasts. So, I used to visit my aunt, and her children are there. And this photo is from — I think you showed it. But this is from the Eid. This is her dress. And my aunt would bring a sheet of paper and ask her daughters, including Sama, ”Yalla” — because I’m an English language teacher, so she said, ”Yalla, show Mosab. Show Mosab the new words that you have learned — the colors, the animals.” But now Sama — I mean, I did not have a chance to bid her farewell. This is my cousin. And I lost 31 members of my extended family, including three first cousins, two of them with their husband and children. I didn’t get the chance even to see them before they were buried. And I don’t know whether some of them had any part of their bodies intact after the airstrikes.
So, just imagine the magnitude of loss that I’m facing as a — I’m just one person. Some other people lost all their families. And we know about the new term “wounded child, no surviving family.” About more than 2,000 children had the same case. They were the only — the sole survivors of their family. I mean, what future is awaiting them? No one is asking this question.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha is an award-winning poet and author. He has a new book of poetry out. It’s called Forest of Noise. Your descriptions now make me think of your little son. You came with your three children yesterday. Can you read the poem about your son and your daughter?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, sure. So, by the way, this poem was written after May 2021 attacks. So, my son Yazzan was about 5 years old. My daughter Yaffa was 4 years old. And this is about them.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is very important, because you just said this was written in May 2021.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Half your poems in Forest of Noise are before last October 7th —
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Exactly, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — and the other half after.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Well, I mean, this tells you — this tells you a lot of things. So, this poem could be written today. And if it was written today, there are so many things that would not be present here, because this current genocide is so different from any other wars that Israel launched against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
“My Son Throws a Blanket Over My Daughter,” Gaza, May 2021.
At night, at home, we sit on the floor,
close to each other
far from the windows and the red
lights of bombs. Our backs bang on the walls
whenever the house shakes.
We stare at each other’s faces,
scared, yet happy,
that so far our lives have been spared.
The walls wake up from their fitful sleep,
no arms to wipe at their blurry eyes.
Flies gather around the only lit ceiling lamp
for warmth in the bitter night,
cold except when missiles hit
and burn up houses and roads and the trees,
the neighborhood next to us,
where Yazzan learned to ride his bike, scorched.
Every time we hear a bomb
falling from an F-16 or an F-35,
our lives panic. Our lives freeze
somewhere in-between, confused
where to head next:
a graveyard, a hospital,
a nightmare.
I keep my shivering hand
on my wristwatch,
ready to remove the battery
if needed.
My four-year-old daughter, Yaffa,
wearing a pink dress given to her by a friend,
hears a bomb
explode. She gasps,
covers her mouth with her dress’s
ruffles.
Yazzan, her five-and-a-half-year old brother,
grabs a blanket warmed by his sleepy body.
He lays the blanket on his sister.
You can hide now, he assures her.
And I have a video of that. It’s on my phone. I took a video of my son throwing a blanket. That’s how I couldn’t forget this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, your kids know the hospitals in Gaza that we were just describing.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us, to humanize Kamal Adwan hospital, Al-Awda Hospital.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, by the way, Al-Awda Hospital — so, Kamal Adwan is run by the Gaza Health Ministry. The Al-Awda Hospital is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is an NGO. And the Al-Awda Hospital is dedicated mainly to the people who cannot afford to pay health insurance. And many of the pregnant mothers who go to UNRWA clinics are referred to Al-Awda Hospital to give birth there for free. So it’s a hospital not only for the patients, but also the pregnant women to give birth. My sister Aya, 30 — sorry, 35 years old, is pregnant, and she’s about to give birth. And there is no hospital close to her. So I don’t know what she’s going to do.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is the main hospital in Beit Lahia and also in Beit Lahia project. And in the past few years, it was turned into a children’s hospital. And I used to take Yaffa and Yazzan to that hospital when they feel sick, when they have fever, when they are injured. And I have many friends who used to work as nurses there. And I know Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who is the head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital right now, who we watched just a few minutes ago. I mean, he is very helpless.
I mean, I use this in my language. I say the situation in north Gaza — in Beit Lahia or north is catastrophic. I mean, how many times did I use the same word? I mean, sometimes I want to stop writing because I’m repeating the same word even though the situation is worse. So, I mean, language is helpless. I mean, I used the same vocabulary after October 7th to describe the situation in north Gaza, in Beit Lahia. I said we had no water, no food. That was October 12th. And now we are October 25th, 2024, so a year. I mean, does really language help us? Why does the world make us feel, I mean, helpless? I think — I mean, I don’t like this, as a human being. We have never stopped shouting and screaming and showing our pictures and videos.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you remind our viewers and listeners, who may not have seen you on Democracy Now!? First, soon after October 7th, we talked to you in Gaza. We then talked to you, or spoke to others about you, when you were taken by the Israeli military. Then, when you were released and made it with your family to Cairo, we spoke to you.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: We spoke to you in South Africa, and now you have come to the United States. But take us on that journey, how you got out. And remind us what happened when you were separated from your family and taken by the Israeli military.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, Amy, that interview that you did with me, it was October 12th. I can’t forget the date, because that was the last day I was in my house. I just finished my interview with you on October 12th. I think it was 3 p.m., which is eight hour, 8:00 morning here. I even didn’t pay attention to the time.
AMY GOODMAN: Right about now, New York time.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. I mean, by the time I finished my interview with you, I went down. My father and mother, my brother Hamza and his children and his pregnant wife, my brother Mohammed and his wife, my sister Aya with her children, who is now pregnant, my sister Saja and my sister Sondos. So, about 25 people were in the house with me. So, I went down, and I found my father and my mother packing their bags. And when I talk about bags, I talk about children’s school bags. We don’t have suitcases, by the way, which is something that many people don’t understand why. Because we don’t have airports, we don’t need suitcases. We travel with our backpacks, my children’s kindergarten backpack. I stuff it with some clothes and some — I put some water bottle there. So, I found my parents packing their bags, and I asked them, “Where are you going?” And they said, “You know the Israelis just dropped some leaflets ordering the residents of Beit Lahia, about 90,000 people, to evacuate.” And that was the first time I found my parents, you know, leaving. And then I went upstairs. I didn’t know what to take with me. I only took with me the copy, one copy, the only copy that I had of my first poetry book. And I took a bottle of water and some clothes for my children.
And then we went to the refugee camp. And do you know where we stayed? We stayed in the same neighborhood that was bombed yesterday, where 150 people were killed. And I just told you about the names of the people who were killed, including Um Fathi, who I now remember that we got one hour of water from the tap when we were in the camp. And Um Fathi would tell the neighbors, “The water is on. The water is on. Fill your buckets.” So, I remember here. And then, when the bombing got intense in the refugee camp, we thought of going to an UNRWA school which is just a few hundred meters away from the neighborhood in the camp. So, we stayed in a school shelter in Jabaliya, which was later raided by the Israeli army. And by the way, a few days ago, the Israelis again visited that school, took the men out. And they have abducted so many, including my wife’s sister’s husband. He’s a brother-in-law to me. So, they took him. And one reason he stayed in the school, he’s a nurse. He couldn’t leave the refugees in the school without any nursing person. So, he was abducted, and he is left with three children. The youngest was born after October 7. So, when the bombing got intense, I had to leave the school with my wife and kids, especially because we had the chance to leave Gaza for Egypt.
And on the Salah al-Din Street, which was described by the Israelis as a safe passage, I was abducted by the Israeli soldiers. I was handcuffed and blindfolded. And before that, I had to remove all my clothes. I was naked for the first time in my life. And under gunpoint, two Israeli soldiers were pointing their guns at me and the person next to me. And then we were taken to a place we didn’t know. I mean, for me, as a Palestinian who was born in Gaza, I had never been to Palestine, which is now Israel. So, that was the first time for me to sleep in my country, as a detainee, as someone who was blindfolded and handcuffed, as someone who didn’t know whether his wife and children, who he left behind, were still breathing.
Just imagine. Not only was I taken, blindfolded and handcuffed and beaten and harassed and insulted — they kept saying bad words in Arabic. These are the only words they know in Arabic, insulting words. But also, I did not know whether my wife and kids, from whom I was separated, were still breathing, whether they went to a place that is safe. Because there is no place that is safe. Why? Because when there is occupation, there is nothing that’s called a safe place. And I had also to worry about my mother and father, who I left behind in the refugee camp, and my siblings and their children. I mean, I was torn. I was torn into a hundred pieces, thinking about myself, why are they taking me, where are they taking me. And I heard some young men screaming, you know. Some of them had to be separated from their pregnant wives. So, after three days, I was released. I was dropped at the same checkpoint.
AMY GOODMAN: There was international outcry —
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: — over you having been taken.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: As Mosab Abu Toha, not as a Palestinian. So, I think many people cared about me because I am a friend and a writer, but they did not maybe consider maybe doing the same thing with other people. It’s easier to get someone out than getting a whole population from under the military fist of the Israeli army. I mean, I just imagine if I was not a writer, if I was not a poet, if I did not have a publisher, if I did not have, you know, some journalism magazine that I wrote for. Just imagine no one knew about me. I would still have been under the Israeli custody. Maybe I could have died, just like Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, who was taken from Al-Awda Hospital, by the way, in November last year. And he was announced dead last October. He was the best surgeon in the Gaza Strip, and he was — he died. He was killed.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about another man, another poet, but he didn’t make it, the Palestinian poet, the Islamic University professor, someone you knew, Refaat Alareer, last on Democracy Now! October 10th, 2023. Refaat was killed by an Israeli strike in December, along with his brother, sister and four of his nieces. This is Scottish actor Brian Cox reciting Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die.” And then I want you to share your poem, a sort of segue to Refaat’s, “If I Must Die,” a video that went viral.
BRIAN COX: If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.
AMY GOODMAN: Scottish actor Brian Cox, you know, who played in Succession, reciting Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die” in a video that went viral. And you can go to democracynow.org to see our interview with Refaat just before he was killed. In your book, Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise, talk about Refaat and then your kind of rejoinder to this poem.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, I knew Refaat as a professor at the Islamic University of Gaza. He did not teach me, but I would say that he taught me a lot, because when I was in my second year, he was in Malaysia doing — completing, finishing his Ph.D. And when he returned, I was already finishing my courses. But he was someone who led me to the We Are Not Numbers project that he co-founded, which is a project that offers some mentorship for young writers. I was in the beginning of my writing career. So, he introduced me to the group. And that is a picture that I took with the strawberries.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re showing an image of Refaat holding strawberries.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, yeah. We picked that strawberry, that same strawberry together in Beit Lahia, in my father-in-law’s farm, from my father-in-law’s farm. So, yeah, I knew Refaat as a father. He was a wonderful father for his kids. And he was a lovely son of his parents. His parents still survive, I hope, in Gaza City. And he’s also a professor of English literature. And when we were talking about literature, he would talk about Arabic literature and also English literature. His favorite poet, I think, was John Donne. And in the Arabic language, he loved the classical Arabic poems, like Al-A’sha, like Imru’ al-Qais, like Ibn Hilliza. And he would recite some Arabic poems to me, and I was amazed, you know?
So, before Refaat was killed, he published his poem “If I Must Die,” and he posted it on his Instagram. And I read that poem when I was still in north Gaza. It was before I was abducted. And it was very heartbreaking for me, I mean, someone writing about his death and what he wishes his death to be like. And I couldn’t but try and write my own “If I Must Die,” but I did not call it “If I Must Die.” I wrote “If I Am Going to Die.” But after he was killed, I retitled the poem, which is now called “A Request.” “A Request: After Refaat Alareer.”
If I am going to die,
let it be a clean death,
no rubble over my corpse
no broken dishes or glasses
and not many cuts in my head or chest.
Leave my ironed untouched jackets
and pants in the closet,
so I may wear some of them again
at my funeral.
Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha, reading from his new second second book of poetry, Forest of Noise. Just months after Refaat was killed, his eldest daughter, Shaima Refaat Alareer, was also killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, along with her husband and 2-month-old son, Refaat’s grandchild.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just imagine. I mean, Refaat became a grandfather after he was killed. He became a grandfather after he was killed. And, I mean, something that breaks my heart, just as it must break everyone’s heart, is that when someone is killed, they even don’t know who was killed with them. They don’t know — I mean, Refaat did not know that his daughter Shaima and her husband, Abd al-Rahman Siyam, I think his name, and his grandchild were killed after him. I mean, I don’t know whether he knows about this, whether, I mean, he’s now feeling a lot of pain knowing about this.
So, it is a campaign of killing the father, the mother, the sister. I would call this not only a genocide. It is not only a genocide against a people, but it’s also a genocide against families, because when you look at the names of the people who are killed, you see the name of the father, the mother, the children, the grandchildren. It’s not about killing five people from the street or five people in the mosque or the school. It’s killing a whole family. When I tell you that I lost 31 members of my extended family, I talk about two first cousins with their husbands and their children. I’m not talking about my cousin, no. Her husband, their children, the youngest 2 or 4.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, can you look into this camera and share your message with the world, what you want the world to take away right now about what’s happening in your home, in Gaza?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, if the world cannot really help us, I hope that they will not continue to support the oppressor. If you can’t really stop this, why don’t you just go away? I mean, I wish the world was ignoring us. No, they are not ignoring us. No, they are contributing to our suffering and the genocidal campaign that Israel has been launching, not since last year, since 76 years.
I mean, maybe you just mentioned that Blinken says that in a few days, you know, the negotiations would start again. I mean, why don’t you say the same things about sending the weapons to Israel? Why don’t you say, “Oh, in a few days, we will try and send the Israelis some new weapons”? Why don’t you take your time and think about what these weapons are going to do? Why does it take time to resume negotiations and force the Israelis to stop their killing of my people? Why does it take time? Why is it difficult to stop this, but it’s easy to send more and more weapons? Just leave us alone.
AMY GOODMAN: Your choice of the last poem to share with our audience around the world. Would you like to share “The Moon” or “Right or Left” or “Under the Rubble”?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: “Under the Rubble” is long, so I will go with “Right or Left,” which is a poem that I wrote for one of my friend’s sisters. My friend himself was killed with his parents, with four of his sisters, with his two children. So the only survivors were his wife and two other sisters. So, the body of my friend, Ismail Abu Ghabin, the body of his sister, 16 years old, and his father are still under the rubble. So I wrote this poem about the bodies that remain under the rubble, the body of his sister. “Right or Left.”
Under the rubble,
her body has remained
for days
and days.
When the war ends,
we try to remove
the rubble,
stone
after stone.
We only find one small bone
from her body.
It is a bone
from her arm.
Right or left,
it does not matter
as long as we cannot
find the henna
from the neighbors’ wedding
on her skin,
or the ink
from a school pen
on her little index finger.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet and author. His new second book of poetry, Forest of Noise, has just been published. His previous award-winning book is called Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. Mosab Abu Toha is a columnist, teacher, founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which we’ll talk about in Part 2 of our conversation and post online. And also, I hope Mosab will read “Under the Rubble,” and we’ll post it at democracynow.org. Mosab, thank you for joining us in our New York studio.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Thank you. I really appreciate it, Amy. Thank you
AMY GOODMAN: Next up, the BRICS summit has just wrapped up. We’ll be joined by two economists. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “I Hate the Capitalist System” by the late great Barbara Dane. She passed away this week at the age of 97. By the way, Mosab Abu Toha will be speaking and reading his poetry at New York University, NYU, today at 5:00 at the Lillian Vernon House.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/25/headlines
“A Major Massacre” in Jabaliya; Israeli Forces Raid Kamal Adwan Hospital in Northern Gaza, Killing Patients
Oct 25, 2024
In northern Gaza, Israeli soldiers have launched a full-scale attack on Jabaliya. Details are still emerging on what a Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson described as a “major massacre,” with more than 150 people killed or injured as Israeli forces took down a dozen residential buildings.
Late Thursday, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, expelling patients and staff, after earlier surrounding and shelling what was essentially the last hospital left standing in the area. Soldiers carried out mass arrests. Doctors say babies and children have died after being cut off from their oxygen supplies. Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, says the situation is catastrophic and there is nowhere patients in northern Gaza can go for treatment. After headlines, we’ll hear from the acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, Mohammed Salha.
Israeli attacks in the southern Gaza Strip continue, as well. In Khan Younis, at least 38 people were killed by Israel, including 14 children from the same family.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he expects Gaza ceasefire talks to resume in the coming days in Doha.
Israeli Airstrike Kills 3 Journalists in Southern Lebanon
Oct 25, 2024
In Lebanon, an Israeli strike killed three journalists as they slept in a guesthouse in the southern town of Hasbaya. Israel did not issue any evacuation orders for the area before the strike. The victims were Al Mayadeen journalists Ghassan Najjar and Mohamed Reda, and Wissam Qassim of Al-Manar TV. Al Mayadeen reporter Abbas Sabbagh addressed his colleagues’ killing earlier today from Lebanon.
Abbas Sabbagh: “Israel targeted journalists in Hasbaya, knowing that the area is known for the gathering of journalists. This enemy that looks for civilian targets after it’s drained its military targets and lost in the field is now targeting journalists.”
Lebanon’s information minister called the attack a war crime. The official death toll from Israel’s assault on Lebanon is nearing 2,600.
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“Worse and Worse”: Hospital Director in North Gaza Says Israeli Assault on Jabaliya Is Bloodiest Yet
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/25 ... transcript
Israeli soldiers have just conducted what Gaza’s Civil Defense is calling a “major massacre” in Jabaliya, with more than 150 people killed or injured and dozens of buildings destroyed. It is the latest atrocity amid the military’s weekslong siege of northern Gaza. “It’s getting worse and worse,” says Dr. Mohammed Salha in a call from the Jabaliya refugee camp, where he is acting director of Al-Awda Hospital.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in northern Gaza, where Israeli soldiers launched a full-scale attack on Jabaliya earlier today, blowing up a dozen residential buildings. Gaza officials described the attack as a “major massacre” and warned of mass casualties, with more than 150 people reportedly killed or injured.
Late Thursday, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, expelling patients and staff, after earlier surrounding and shelling what was essentially the last hospital left standing in the area. Soldiers carried out mass arrests. Doctors say babies and children have died after being cut off from their oxygen supplies. Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, says the situation is catastrophic and there’s nowhere patients in northern Gaza can go for treatment.
This comes as displaced mothers in northern Gaza are calling on the world to demand the resumption of the polio vaccination campaign for children there, which the World Health Organization said Wednesday had been postponed due to Israeli attacks and lack of access.
HANAN HEMEDA: [translated] If the polio vaccination is not available in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the children will be paralyzed. They will collapse in front of our eyes. They won’t move. Is this fair? We demand the world to allow the entry of the polio vaccination into the northern part of the Gaza Strip to protect our children from the polio virus.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, Democracy Now! reached Dr. Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital in the Jabaliya refugee camp in north Gaza late Thursday night. He described what’s happening on the ground.
DR. MOHAMMED SALHA: Today is the 20th day of siege in the northern Gaza and the fifth day of siege at Al-Awda Hospital. They totally sieged Al-Awda Hospital with the tanks, so we can’t move outside the hospital. And from the beginning of this siege, they are bombing our two inpatient departments and bombing our water tanks. So now we have more than 70% of the hospital without water, because the tanks are destroyed, totally destroyed, the water tank. And also, this afternoon, they are bombing our central store related to medical supplies.
After today, we will not have the fuel to running the hospital, and we have a lot of patients inside the hospital. We have 43 of patients here. And we can’t deal with this, because every day we are doing to them operations and the treatment in the [inaudible] inside our [inaudible], and we need medication, medical supplies and fuel, and also food. We don’t have food, and we don’t have healthy water and filtered water.
Our message to the freedom people in the world, really, to stop the genocide in Gaza Strip and especially in the northern Gaza. You can’t imagine how the situation here. The people are dying in the streets. They are injured in the street, and nobody can move to bring them.
Now we hear the massacre of more than 150 [inaudible] in Jabaliya camp, but nobody can go there to save these people. Really, we need also, from WHO, U.N. agencies and our partners really to urgent appeal and urgent to come to Al-Awda Hospital to bring our needs, from medication and medical supplies, and especially from fuel, food and healthy water for patients here.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, speaking late Thursday night to Democracy Now! We attempted to reach him live right now, but we could not get any kind of connection.
When we come back, we’ll be joined by Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha. He’s just published his new book of poetry, Forest of Noise.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “If I Should Fall” from the 1974 album Palestine Lives! released by Paredon Records. Musician and label co-founder Barbara Dane passed away this week at the age of 97.
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“Forest of Noise”: Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha on New Book, Relatives Killed in Gaza & More
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/25 ... transcript
In an extended interview, Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha discusses the situation in Gaza and his new book of poetry titled Forest of Noise. He fled Gaza in December after being detained by the Israeli military, but many of his extended family members were unable to escape. He reads a selection of poems from Forest of Noise, while sharing the stories of friends and family still struggling to survive in Gaza, as well as those he has lost, including the late poet Refaat Alareer. He also describes his experiences in Gaza in the first months of the war, including being displaced from his home and abducted by the Israeli military, noting that the neighborhood in Jabaliya refugee camp that his family first evacuated to last year was bombed by the Israeli military just days ago. “Sometimes I want to stop writing because I’m repeating the same words, even though the situation is worse. The language is helpless,” Abu Toha says. “Why does the world make us feel helpless?”
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.
As human rights activists plead with global leaders for immediate action, calling for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Jordan’s foreign minister met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in London today and condemned the humanitarian catastrophe in northern Gaza, telling Blinken, quote, “We do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop,” he said.
For more, we’re joined by Palestinian poet and author from Gaza, who writes in his new book of poems, “If you live in Gaza, you die several times.” Mosab Abu Toha’s second book of poetry is just out. It’s titled Forest of Noise. His previous award-winning book of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. Mosab Abu Toha is a columnist, a teacher, founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza. His recent essay in The New York Times is headlined “Gaza’s Schools Are for Learning, Not for Dying.” And his latest piece for The New Yorker is headlined “The Gaza We Leave Behind.”
Mosab Abu Toha, it’s wonderful to have you in studio safely here in New York, but I know that your heart and mind are in Gaza right now. Before we talk about your poetry, you have just come with terrible news for you and your family about what is happening there. Can you describe what you’ve heard just today?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Thank you so much, Amy.
Yeah, I mean, just you mentioned the airstrikes that took down 10 residential buildings. I was staying in that place with my wife and kids just before we had to leave for an UNRWA school to stay in a shelter there and before I was abducted by the Israeli army. And this morning, I looked at the names of some of the people who were killed in that airstrike, and I see the, I mean, 19 names from the same family, including Um Fathi Abu Rashed [phon.], I mean, a temporary neighbor. I mean, we had Um Fathi as a neighbor for a few days before we had to leave the neighborhood. And now I read that this neighborhood, where I was staying with them, was bombed. So, she was killed along with some of her children. And this is the case of so many people. I’m not sure if you can see this. This is the list of the whole family. And, for example —
AMY GOODMAN: You’re holding up a list of what? Some 20 names?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, 20 names, including Um Fathi, the grandmother, her children and her grandchildren. And I look at — for example, I read this every day. So, there is Mohammed Salman, his brother Yousef, Islam, Sama, Aya, so five brothers. And then there is Mahmoud Fathi, the son Um Fathi Abu Rashed, and his wife and their children. So, I’ve been seeing this all the time.
And by the way, we are focusing right now on north Gaza. Yesterday, late at night, Israel bombed intensely Khan Younis. And I’m looking at some of the pictures here. These are the photos of the children who were killed yesterday. They just were able to withdraw the bodies of these children after the Israelis retreated from the area. So, and that was today. I learned about this just half an hour ago.
And then I went to the local news channel in my city, Beit Lahia, north Gaza, and I saw a picture of my neighbor, Ayman Abu Laila. This is his photo. He was killed — he was killed this morning while he was trying to get some water from a tap in the street. Ayman, to honor his memory, he was the principal of the only agricultural college in north Gaza. And he was trying — by the way, he lived just a few blocks away. And he wanted to move to stay with his brother, because there are some friends and some neighbors who are staying there, so he wanted to be close to the people who are there. He was killed. And his son — my wife just told me, because she was on the phone with her mother and father, who are trapped right now in Beit Lahia. They were told that the brother of my neighbor has been critically wounded, and he is in the house. There is no way that an ambulance can come. There is no way that anyone can come to their rescue. And the same thing happened yesterday in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the 10 residential buildings that were took down.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, yesterday, last night, I saw you at the Brooklyn Public Library, sold out, to hear you speak about your poetry. And you said at the beginning — I saw your wife and your three little children, but that hadn’t been the plan. You’re now in Syracuse, at Syracuse University.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about you almost canceling the day before, because your wife was too terrified for you to come to New York.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Indeed. I mean, taking my wife and three kids with me was a last-minute decision. I mean, the Israeli army has been horribly attacking north Gaza, displacing people and kidnapping, abducting doctors and nurses and journalists. And even the injured people, they had to evacuate. I mean, just imagine, I mean, people who have been injured, and they had some medical care, and they had to be on some medical equipment. They are taken away from the hospital. Some of them would die. And that’s why The Lancet journal said that more than 200,000 people have been — have died or were killed by the Israeli airstrike, the Israeli military campaign since October 7th.
So, my wife’s family, including her father, her mother, her siblings and some of the nephews and nieces, her grandparents, too, aged 75, they are now trapped in the family house, and they are unable to leave. And now Atta Abu Laila, my neighbor, was killed just a few meters away from them by shrapnel, by a piece of shrapnel from a tank shell. So, she worries that if I am away from her and she gets some terrible news, like today’s news, she would die from pain and grief. So she wanted me to be with her. And I told her I couldn’t cancel, you know, the event at the Brooklyn Public Library and also my event today at NYU. So, I said, “OK, you come with me.” And now she came with me, as if this would — I mean, I don’t claim — I don’t say that I would make her feelings better, because I, too, have family in Beit Lahia. I have a young sister with three children. The youngest is 2 years old. And I haven’t talked to her for about 10 days. It’s impossible to get in touch with my sister. I don’t know how she’s surviving or whether she’s alive at this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: You wrote on social media six days ago, “I write with a heavy heart that my cousin Sama, 7 years old, has been killed in the air strike on their house along with 18 members of her family, which is my extended family.”
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: For our TV audience, we are showing an image of Sama right now.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, please, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us who she is.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, Sama is one of the five children of my aunt Asma, who was also injured, the mother, I mean, in the house. Sama was staying with her parents, with her siblings, with her grandmother, who happens to be my grandmother’s sister. And I used to call her grandmother, because my grandmother passed away when I was very young. So, my grandmother’s sister, with two of her daughters and her grandchildren, and two of her daughter-in-laws and the grandchildren are still buried under the rubble until this moment.
So, Sama was killed in the airstrike. And the only reason why my aunt and her other children, or even though they were wounded — the only reason why they were not killed is that they were staying close to the door, because the bomb, when it falls, it usually hits the middle of the house. So, my aunt Asma survived the airstrike with some injuries, along with her husband and other four children. And they had — by the way, they were — my aunt had to walk to the Israeli soldiers who were standing just a few meters away from the bombed house. So, just imagine a criminal killing you and then waiting for you until you are either dead or come to them limping. And she told me that she kissed their hands, begging them to leave them alone and if she could take with her some wheat flour from the house that she was keeping next to her because there is no food in Gaza.
So, Sama was 7 years old. And I remember something very clearly, which is that every time I visited my aunt’s house, especially during the Eid, you know, after the Ramadan and after the pilgrimage season — so, we have two big Eids, or feasts. So, I used to visit my aunt, and her children are there. And this photo is from — I think you showed it. But this is from the Eid. This is her dress. And my aunt would bring a sheet of paper and ask her daughters, including Sama, ”Yalla” — because I’m an English language teacher, so she said, ”Yalla, show Mosab. Show Mosab the new words that you have learned — the colors, the animals.” But now Sama — I mean, I did not have a chance to bid her farewell. This is my cousin. And I lost 31 members of my extended family, including three first cousins, two of them with their husband and children. I didn’t get the chance even to see them before they were buried. And I don’t know whether some of them had any part of their bodies intact after the airstrikes.
So, just imagine the magnitude of loss that I’m facing as a — I’m just one person. Some other people lost all their families. And we know about the new term “wounded child, no surviving family.” About more than 2,000 children had the same case. They were the only — the sole survivors of their family. I mean, what future is awaiting them? No one is asking this question.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha is an award-winning poet and author. He has a new book of poetry out. It’s called Forest of Noise. Your descriptions now make me think of your little son. You came with your three children yesterday. Can you read the poem about your son and your daughter?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, sure. So, by the way, this poem was written after May 2021 attacks. So, my son Yazzan was about 5 years old. My daughter Yaffa was 4 years old. And this is about them.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is very important, because you just said this was written in May 2021.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Half your poems in Forest of Noise are before last October 7th —
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Exactly, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — and the other half after.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Well, I mean, this tells you — this tells you a lot of things. So, this poem could be written today. And if it was written today, there are so many things that would not be present here, because this current genocide is so different from any other wars that Israel launched against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
“My Son Throws a Blanket Over My Daughter,” Gaza, May 2021.
At night, at home, we sit on the floor,
close to each other
far from the windows and the red
lights of bombs. Our backs bang on the walls
whenever the house shakes.
We stare at each other’s faces,
scared, yet happy,
that so far our lives have been spared.
The walls wake up from their fitful sleep,
no arms to wipe at their blurry eyes.
Flies gather around the only lit ceiling lamp
for warmth in the bitter night,
cold except when missiles hit
and burn up houses and roads and the trees,
the neighborhood next to us,
where Yazzan learned to ride his bike, scorched.
Every time we hear a bomb
falling from an F-16 or an F-35,
our lives panic. Our lives freeze
somewhere in-between, confused
where to head next:
a graveyard, a hospital,
a nightmare.
I keep my shivering hand
on my wristwatch,
ready to remove the battery
if needed.
My four-year-old daughter, Yaffa,
wearing a pink dress given to her by a friend,
hears a bomb
explode. She gasps,
covers her mouth with her dress’s
ruffles.
Yazzan, her five-and-a-half-year old brother,
grabs a blanket warmed by his sleepy body.
He lays the blanket on his sister.
You can hide now, he assures her.
And I have a video of that. It’s on my phone. I took a video of my son throwing a blanket. That’s how I couldn’t forget this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, your kids know the hospitals in Gaza that we were just describing.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us, to humanize Kamal Adwan hospital, Al-Awda Hospital.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, by the way, Al-Awda Hospital — so, Kamal Adwan is run by the Gaza Health Ministry. The Al-Awda Hospital is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is an NGO. And the Al-Awda Hospital is dedicated mainly to the people who cannot afford to pay health insurance. And many of the pregnant mothers who go to UNRWA clinics are referred to Al-Awda Hospital to give birth there for free. So it’s a hospital not only for the patients, but also the pregnant women to give birth. My sister Aya, 30 — sorry, 35 years old, is pregnant, and she’s about to give birth. And there is no hospital close to her. So I don’t know what she’s going to do.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is the main hospital in Beit Lahia and also in Beit Lahia project. And in the past few years, it was turned into a children’s hospital. And I used to take Yaffa and Yazzan to that hospital when they feel sick, when they have fever, when they are injured. And I have many friends who used to work as nurses there. And I know Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who is the head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital right now, who we watched just a few minutes ago. I mean, he is very helpless.
I mean, I use this in my language. I say the situation in north Gaza — in Beit Lahia or north is catastrophic. I mean, how many times did I use the same word? I mean, sometimes I want to stop writing because I’m repeating the same word even though the situation is worse. So, I mean, language is helpless. I mean, I used the same vocabulary after October 7th to describe the situation in north Gaza, in Beit Lahia. I said we had no water, no food. That was October 12th. And now we are October 25th, 2024, so a year. I mean, does really language help us? Why does the world make us feel, I mean, helpless? I think — I mean, I don’t like this, as a human being. We have never stopped shouting and screaming and showing our pictures and videos.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you remind our viewers and listeners, who may not have seen you on Democracy Now!? First, soon after October 7th, we talked to you in Gaza. We then talked to you, or spoke to others about you, when you were taken by the Israeli military. Then, when you were released and made it with your family to Cairo, we spoke to you.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: We spoke to you in South Africa, and now you have come to the United States. But take us on that journey, how you got out. And remind us what happened when you were separated from your family and taken by the Israeli military.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: So, Amy, that interview that you did with me, it was October 12th. I can’t forget the date, because that was the last day I was in my house. I just finished my interview with you on October 12th. I think it was 3 p.m., which is eight hour, 8:00 morning here. I even didn’t pay attention to the time.
AMY GOODMAN: Right about now, New York time.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. I mean, by the time I finished my interview with you, I went down. My father and mother, my brother Hamza and his children and his pregnant wife, my brother Mohammed and his wife, my sister Aya with her children, who is now pregnant, my sister Saja and my sister Sondos. So, about 25 people were in the house with me. So, I went down, and I found my father and my mother packing their bags. And when I talk about bags, I talk about children’s school bags. We don’t have suitcases, by the way, which is something that many people don’t understand why. Because we don’t have airports, we don’t need suitcases. We travel with our backpacks, my children’s kindergarten backpack. I stuff it with some clothes and some — I put some water bottle there. So, I found my parents packing their bags, and I asked them, “Where are you going?” And they said, “You know the Israelis just dropped some leaflets ordering the residents of Beit Lahia, about 90,000 people, to evacuate.” And that was the first time I found my parents, you know, leaving. And then I went upstairs. I didn’t know what to take with me. I only took with me the copy, one copy, the only copy that I had of my first poetry book. And I took a bottle of water and some clothes for my children.
And then we went to the refugee camp. And do you know where we stayed? We stayed in the same neighborhood that was bombed yesterday, where 150 people were killed. And I just told you about the names of the people who were killed, including Um Fathi, who I now remember that we got one hour of water from the tap when we were in the camp. And Um Fathi would tell the neighbors, “The water is on. The water is on. Fill your buckets.” So, I remember here. And then, when the bombing got intense in the refugee camp, we thought of going to an UNRWA school which is just a few hundred meters away from the neighborhood in the camp. So, we stayed in a school shelter in Jabaliya, which was later raided by the Israeli army. And by the way, a few days ago, the Israelis again visited that school, took the men out. And they have abducted so many, including my wife’s sister’s husband. He’s a brother-in-law to me. So, they took him. And one reason he stayed in the school, he’s a nurse. He couldn’t leave the refugees in the school without any nursing person. So, he was abducted, and he is left with three children. The youngest was born after October 7. So, when the bombing got intense, I had to leave the school with my wife and kids, especially because we had the chance to leave Gaza for Egypt.
And on the Salah al-Din Street, which was described by the Israelis as a safe passage, I was abducted by the Israeli soldiers. I was handcuffed and blindfolded. And before that, I had to remove all my clothes. I was naked for the first time in my life. And under gunpoint, two Israeli soldiers were pointing their guns at me and the person next to me. And then we were taken to a place we didn’t know. I mean, for me, as a Palestinian who was born in Gaza, I had never been to Palestine, which is now Israel. So, that was the first time for me to sleep in my country, as a detainee, as someone who was blindfolded and handcuffed, as someone who didn’t know whether his wife and children, who he left behind, were still breathing.
Just imagine. Not only was I taken, blindfolded and handcuffed and beaten and harassed and insulted — they kept saying bad words in Arabic. These are the only words they know in Arabic, insulting words. But also, I did not know whether my wife and kids, from whom I was separated, were still breathing, whether they went to a place that is safe. Because there is no place that is safe. Why? Because when there is occupation, there is nothing that’s called a safe place. And I had also to worry about my mother and father, who I left behind in the refugee camp, and my siblings and their children. I mean, I was torn. I was torn into a hundred pieces, thinking about myself, why are they taking me, where are they taking me. And I heard some young men screaming, you know. Some of them had to be separated from their pregnant wives. So, after three days, I was released. I was dropped at the same checkpoint.
AMY GOODMAN: There was international outcry —
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: — over you having been taken.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: As Mosab Abu Toha, not as a Palestinian. So, I think many people cared about me because I am a friend and a writer, but they did not maybe consider maybe doing the same thing with other people. It’s easier to get someone out than getting a whole population from under the military fist of the Israeli army. I mean, I just imagine if I was not a writer, if I was not a poet, if I did not have a publisher, if I did not have, you know, some journalism magazine that I wrote for. Just imagine no one knew about me. I would still have been under the Israeli custody. Maybe I could have died, just like Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, who was taken from Al-Awda Hospital, by the way, in November last year. And he was announced dead last October. He was the best surgeon in the Gaza Strip, and he was — he died. He was killed.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about another man, another poet, but he didn’t make it, the Palestinian poet, the Islamic University professor, someone you knew, Refaat Alareer, last on Democracy Now! October 10th, 2023. Refaat was killed by an Israeli strike in December, along with his brother, sister and four of his nieces. This is Scottish actor Brian Cox reciting Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die.” And then I want you to share your poem, a sort of segue to Refaat’s, “If I Must Die,” a video that went viral.
BRIAN COX: If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.
AMY GOODMAN: Scottish actor Brian Cox, you know, who played in Succession, reciting Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die” in a video that went viral. And you can go to democracynow.org to see our interview with Refaat just before he was killed. In your book, Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise, talk about Refaat and then your kind of rejoinder to this poem.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, I knew Refaat as a professor at the Islamic University of Gaza. He did not teach me, but I would say that he taught me a lot, because when I was in my second year, he was in Malaysia doing — completing, finishing his Ph.D. And when he returned, I was already finishing my courses. But he was someone who led me to the We Are Not Numbers project that he co-founded, which is a project that offers some mentorship for young writers. I was in the beginning of my writing career. So, he introduced me to the group. And that is a picture that I took with the strawberries.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re showing an image of Refaat holding strawberries.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah, yeah. We picked that strawberry, that same strawberry together in Beit Lahia, in my father-in-law’s farm, from my father-in-law’s farm. So, yeah, I knew Refaat as a father. He was a wonderful father for his kids. And he was a lovely son of his parents. His parents still survive, I hope, in Gaza City. And he’s also a professor of English literature. And when we were talking about literature, he would talk about Arabic literature and also English literature. His favorite poet, I think, was John Donne. And in the Arabic language, he loved the classical Arabic poems, like Al-A’sha, like Imru’ al-Qais, like Ibn Hilliza. And he would recite some Arabic poems to me, and I was amazed, you know?
So, before Refaat was killed, he published his poem “If I Must Die,” and he posted it on his Instagram. And I read that poem when I was still in north Gaza. It was before I was abducted. And it was very heartbreaking for me, I mean, someone writing about his death and what he wishes his death to be like. And I couldn’t but try and write my own “If I Must Die,” but I did not call it “If I Must Die.” I wrote “If I Am Going to Die.” But after he was killed, I retitled the poem, which is now called “A Request.” “A Request: After Refaat Alareer.”
If I am going to die,
let it be a clean death,
no rubble over my corpse
no broken dishes or glasses
and not many cuts in my head or chest.
Leave my ironed untouched jackets
and pants in the closet,
so I may wear some of them again
at my funeral.
Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha, reading from his new second second book of poetry, Forest of Noise. Just months after Refaat was killed, his eldest daughter, Shaima Refaat Alareer, was also killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, along with her husband and 2-month-old son, Refaat’s grandchild.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just imagine. I mean, Refaat became a grandfather after he was killed. He became a grandfather after he was killed. And, I mean, something that breaks my heart, just as it must break everyone’s heart, is that when someone is killed, they even don’t know who was killed with them. They don’t know — I mean, Refaat did not know that his daughter Shaima and her husband, Abd al-Rahman Siyam, I think his name, and his grandchild were killed after him. I mean, I don’t know whether he knows about this, whether, I mean, he’s now feeling a lot of pain knowing about this.
So, it is a campaign of killing the father, the mother, the sister. I would call this not only a genocide. It is not only a genocide against a people, but it’s also a genocide against families, because when you look at the names of the people who are killed, you see the name of the father, the mother, the children, the grandchildren. It’s not about killing five people from the street or five people in the mosque or the school. It’s killing a whole family. When I tell you that I lost 31 members of my extended family, I talk about two first cousins with their husbands and their children. I’m not talking about my cousin, no. Her husband, their children, the youngest 2 or 4.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, can you look into this camera and share your message with the world, what you want the world to take away right now about what’s happening in your home, in Gaza?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, if the world cannot really help us, I hope that they will not continue to support the oppressor. If you can’t really stop this, why don’t you just go away? I mean, I wish the world was ignoring us. No, they are not ignoring us. No, they are contributing to our suffering and the genocidal campaign that Israel has been launching, not since last year, since 76 years.
I mean, maybe you just mentioned that Blinken says that in a few days, you know, the negotiations would start again. I mean, why don’t you say the same things about sending the weapons to Israel? Why don’t you say, “Oh, in a few days, we will try and send the Israelis some new weapons”? Why don’t you take your time and think about what these weapons are going to do? Why does it take time to resume negotiations and force the Israelis to stop their killing of my people? Why does it take time? Why is it difficult to stop this, but it’s easy to send more and more weapons? Just leave us alone.
AMY GOODMAN: Your choice of the last poem to share with our audience around the world. Would you like to share “The Moon” or “Right or Left” or “Under the Rubble”?
MOSAB ABU TOHA: “Under the Rubble” is long, so I will go with “Right or Left,” which is a poem that I wrote for one of my friend’s sisters. My friend himself was killed with his parents, with four of his sisters, with his two children. So the only survivors were his wife and two other sisters. So, the body of my friend, Ismail Abu Ghabin, the body of his sister, 16 years old, and his father are still under the rubble. So I wrote this poem about the bodies that remain under the rubble, the body of his sister. “Right or Left.”
Under the rubble,
her body has remained
for days
and days.
When the war ends,
we try to remove
the rubble,
stone
after stone.
We only find one small bone
from her body.
It is a bone
from her arm.
Right or left,
it does not matter
as long as we cannot
find the henna
from the neighbors’ wedding
on her skin,
or the ink
from a school pen
on her little index finger.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet and author. His new second book of poetry, Forest of Noise, has just been published. His previous award-winning book is called Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. Mosab Abu Toha is a columnist, teacher, founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which we’ll talk about in Part 2 of our conversation and post online. And also, I hope Mosab will read “Under the Rubble,” and we’ll post it at democracynow.org. Mosab, thank you for joining us in our New York studio.
MOSAB ABU TOHA: Thank you. I really appreciate it, Amy. Thank you
AMY GOODMAN: Next up, the BRICS summit has just wrapped up. We’ll be joined by two economists. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “I Hate the Capitalist System” by the late great Barbara Dane. She passed away this week at the age of 97. By the way, Mosab Abu Toha will be speaking and reading his poetry at New York University, NYU, today at 5:00 at the Lillian Vernon House.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Oct 30, 2024 3:12 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28/headlines
U.N. Chief Urges Restraint After Israel Bombs Iranian Targets Saturday
Oct 28, 2024
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has urged for a return to diplomacy and “maximum efforts to prevent an all-out regional war” after Israel bombed Iranian military facilities and air defense systems Saturday. The strikes included a site linked to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran said four soldiers were killed. Israel also struck air defense batteries and radars in Syria and Iraq. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would take “an appropriate response” to the attack, but he reiterated that Iran does not seek a wider war. Israel’s attack came about four weeks after Iran launched a missile attack on Israeli military sites in response to Israel’s mounting assault on Lebanon and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.
“North Gaza’s Entire Population at Risk of Dying”: Israel Decimates Northern Gaza, Incl. Hospitals
Oct 28, 2024
As the death toll from Israel’s 24-day siege on northern Gaza tops 1,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official is warning “the entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying.”
At Kamal Adwan Hospital, Israeli soldiers arrested and expelled nearly all male doctors and staff following its brutal raid. One of the victims of Israel’s assault on northern Gaza was the hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s young son Ibrahim. On Saturday, Dr. Abu Safiya led prayers for his murdered child as he laid him to rest. A nurse who survived the Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan described the siege.
Mayssoun Alian: “We were all surrounded from all sides. There was shooting from all directions with bombs and mortars, and they evacuated all those who were sheltering here, so that everyone leaves, both men and women. They separated men from women and made two queues. It was very, very humiliating for our men since they took them without clothes and nothing to cover with.”
Elsewhere in Gaza, an employee of Doctors Without Borders was killed in Khan Younis. And at least three more journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike. They were identified as Saed Radwan of Al-Aqsa TV, Hamza Abu Salmiya from Sanad News and Haneen Mahmoud Baroud from the Al-Quds Foundation.
DOJ Lawyers Call on Merrick Garland to Investigate Israeli Killings of U.S. Citizens
Oct 28, 2024
Lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch investigations into crimes against U.S. citizens committed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, including the killing of the activist Ayşenur Eygi. The letter to Garland highlighted the hypocrisy in the department’s refusal to acknowledge crimes by Israel while it has been outspoken against Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Israel Strikes Tyre, Killing at Least 7, as It Continues Its Assault on Lebanon
Oct 28, 2024
Israeli strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre have killed at least seven people today. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for large areas of Tyre as it continues its deadly attacks. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s health minister says Israeli strikes have targeted 55 hospitals in Lebanon as Israel seeks to impair the country’s health infrastructure.
Microsoft Fires Employees, Harvard Suspends Professors & Students over Gaza Solidarity Protests
Oct 28, 2024
Here in the U.S., Microsoft has fired two employees who organized a vigil for Gaza. The workers, who are both Arab, belonged to the protest group “No Azure for Apartheid,” which opposes Microsoft’s sale of its cloud technology to Israel.
Meanwhile, Harvard University has temporarily suspended dozens of students and professors from its libraries after they staged a series of silent “study-in” protests to bring attention to the genocide in Gaza, as well as the crackdown on free speech at Harvard.
***
“This Carnage Needs to Stop”: Israel Bans Aid Groups from Gaza, Kills Over 1,000 in North Gaza Siege
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28 ... transcript
Israel’s three-week siege of northern Gaza has killed at least 1,000 Palestinians. Most of the dead are women and children. On Saturday, Israeli forces withdrew from Kamal Adwan Hospital just one day after storming it, with health officials saying that soldiers detained dozens of male medical staffers and some of the patients. This comes as the Israeli government has banned six medical NGOs from entering Gaza despite the dire humanitarian crisis stemming from repeated displacements of the population, widespread disease, injuries from Israeli attacks, hunger and more. Some 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war on Gaza last October, according to local officials, although the true toll is likely far higher. “The healthcare infrastructure is destroyed. Many of the local doctors have been either killed or kidnapped. The patients are left stranded; no one is providing any help to them,” says Mosab Nasser, CEO of FAJR Scientific, one of the six medical aid groups banned by Israel.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s in northern Gaza, where Israel’s three-week siege has killed over 1,000 Palestinians, most women and children. Gaza health officials say almost 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7th, more than 100,000 wounded, though the toll is likely far higher. On Saturday, Israeli forces withdrew from north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, one day after raiding it. Health officials say soldiers detained dozens of male medical staffers and some of the patients. This is a nurse describing how Israeli forces detained the hospital’s director.
MAYSSOUN ALIAN: [translated] They called Dr. Hussam and asked him to let the male medics out. So he did, and they left. This was also very, very humiliating for them since they were also without clothes. There were around 70 male nurses that left here. They took them to the external clinic. They started to destroy things. And we were the only nurses in the hospital without the rest of the medical team.
AMY GOODMAN: The nurse mentioned Kamal Adwan Hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician. After Israeli forces retreated from the hospital Saturday, he buried his young son Ibrahim Hussam Abu Safiya, who was reportedly killed Friday in an Israeli strike on Jabaliya in northern Gaza.
DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. As-salamu alaykum. Allahu Akbar. As-salamu alaykum. Allahu Akbar.
AMY GOODMAN: The doctor praying and mourning his son in his white hospital coat.
This comes as the World Health Organization reports the Israeli government has barred six medical NGOs from entering Gaza. One of them, the Palestinian American Medical Association, released a statement, saying, quote, “We urgently demand that the Israeli authorities rescind this decision immediately and urge the U.S. State Department, along with international bodies, to advocate for the immediate reinstatement of these vital medical services, which constitute a fundamental human right protected by international law and the moral fabric of our global community,” unquote.
For more, we go to Houston, Texas, where we’re joined another head of another organization, one of six medical aid groups Israel has banned from entering Gaza. Mosab Nasser is the CEO of FAJR Scientific. He helped lead one of the largest medical missions to Gaza in August of 2023. He was last in Gaza in May during Israel’s invasion of Rafah. Nasser also helped renovate parts of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. He is himself originally from Gaza.
Thank you so much for being with us. As we watch the director of Kamal Adwan, a man you know well, mourn his son, praying at his grave in his white medical coat, can you talk about who he is and the significance of Kamal Adwan Hospital?
MOSAB NASSER: Good morning, Amy. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is a Palestinian hero. He is an amazing, amazing doctor that I have known now maybe for about four years. And I had several meetings with him when I was in Gaza in 2022 and helped, as said, renovate the Kamal Adwan Hospital’s emergency room and the external clinics, as well as the rehabilitation room for children. Dr. Hussam is the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who, by the way, has a foreign passport. He had the choice, like, you know, many Palestinians, to leave from there at the beginning of the war, but he refused. He stood his ground at the Kamal Adwan Hospital to save lives and save limbs and take care of those children who are left stranded in this carnage.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only children’s hospital in north Gaza. It actually serves about 400,000 or 500,000 people in north Gaza, and there is really no other children’s hospital. It has the ICU. It has a large room for premature babies with incubators. And it’s a central hospital. If that hospital is not functional, you’re talking about thousands of children, again, left without any medical support.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, we were just speaking with another Mosab, the poet Mosab Abu Toha, on Friday, who talked about bringing his young children to this hospital and talked about the director being a pediatrician, that it’s basically the children’s hospital there. Mosab Nasser, if you can describe what has happened there in northern Gaza and what happened to this particular hospital, the Israeli forces raiding it, and this description of the doctors and medical aides being stripped naked in front of the others?
MOSAB NASSER: Amy, FAJR Scientific is a humanitarian apolitical organization. We are actually specialized in surgical — in complex surgeries. We’ve been operating in Gaza even before the war. And we have a team in the north, a local team, that actually serves the different hospitals, including the Indonesian Hospital.
And the news that we get from the team on the ground, that Kamal Adwan Hospital was attacked by the Israeli army. I believe more than 30 medical staff members were actually kidnapped by the Israeli army, including Dr. Hussam briefly, and then he was turned back. So, he’s left maybe with a few — a couple of doctors and a few nurses to take care of over 150 patients at the hospital.
The news that we received also that the Israeli army stripped those doctors naked and literally took them into no one knows where, similar to what happened to our colleagues at Nasser Hospital and Shifa Hospital. I still have many Palestinian colleagues. I’d like to name a few: Dr. Ghassan Abu Zuhri from Nasser Hospital, who’s one of the top surgeons in Gaza, orthopedic surgeons, no one knows his whereabout until today; Dr. Hani Abu Taima, the head of the surgical department at Nasser Hospital; and many others, many others across Gaza. So, the disturbing news that also we have received is that the Israeli army destroyed the oxygen concentrators and tanks at Kamal Adwan Hospital, leaving children in the ICU and in the incubators without oxygen. Many of them actually have died.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you been meeting with U.S. government officials? And what have they said? Also, do you know how Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s son died? We heard died in an Israeli airstrike on Jabaliya.
MOSAB NASSER: Regarding your first question, yes. In fact, I just came back from D.C. this past Thursday, where I met with — visited the offices of a few congressmen and senators. And before, in fact, I’ve also visited the State Department in this past visit, trying to advocate for lifting the ban or the denial on the humanitarian medical organizations that were actually denied entry by Israel, especially at this time where we are actually needed on the ground the most.
And that decision to ban or deny entry to now six organizations — in fact, initially, the initial number that we’ve heard was eight organizations — it’s mind-boggling. Especially with what’s happening in north Gaza, why would you prevent such organizations from coming to provide their services? Especially the healthcare infrastructure is destroyed. Many of the doctors, the local doctors, have been either killed or kidnapped. The patients are left stranded; no one is providing any help to them. And especially we — in FAJR Scientific, we’re actually specialized in surgical interventions. And many of the injuries that come to the hospitals across Gaza are blast injuries — broken bones, broken skulls, you know, all kinds of multiple degrees of burns. So, those patients require an immediate attention. And if you don’t provide this attention to them, many of them actually will die a slow and painful death because of infections.
Regarding Dr. Hussam’s son, I really don’t know the details surrounding his death, but I was told that he was — you know, he was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Jabaliya, as you mentioned.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I wanted to ask you about a tweet of yours. You’re talking about a girl. “Mazyona is one of the children FAJR has been trying to evacuate out of #Gaza for months now. She sustained devastating injuries to her face—her face was nearly torn off. #Surgeons have held the remaining structure together, but she urgently requires a medevac for specialized care and bone surgery. [She] also still has shrapnel in her neck. She is of course in immense pain, [and] her condition is worsening. The platinum used surgically to rebuild her face is coming out, [and] doctors have stated [that] she needs surgeries outside [of] Gaza to save her life. Mazyona has been denied medical #evacuation four times. Authorities suggested that the medevac could proceed without Mazyona’s mother accompanying her. However, when her father attempted to take the next steps, Mazyona was again denied.” Explain her fate right now where she is.
MOSAB NASSER: That is another heartbreaking story, Amy, that I have been personally, as the CEO of the organization, following closely and advocating for Mazyona’s evacuation for almost three months now. I can’t tell you how many times I visited the State Department, how many times I talked to congressmen, how many times I’ve tried to reach to the Israeli authorities to try to evacuate her out of Gaza, with no results.
Mazyona was injured in the face — in her face, a serious injury. I mean, she has a viral video on Instagram and YouTube that you see how — when she was brought to the hospital, how she was bleeding. Initially, we submitted her mother as a companion. The mother was rejected by COGAT, the Israeli authority effectively. Then we submitted her father’s name. Then her father was rejected. Then we submitted the father’s aunt; then it was rejected. And then we submitted another aunt of the father; it was rejected. So, we are kind of left without any options. I don’t know — to the point, actually, I proposed my name to be a companion for Mazyona to get her out, and still we have not been able to get her out. In fact, the recent update we got from the local team on the ground, that she has potentially an infection, and if this girl is not evacuated as soon as possible, she could die.
Mazyona is one out of thousands, Amy. In fact, we have 12 children like Mazyona with serious injuries, some of them actually with a bullet settled in the head, that we wanted to take out, and we have not been able to take any of them. So far, since May, since the closure of the Rafah border, we were able — I mean, generally speaking, only 125 children were evacuated out of Gaza out of 2,500, if not more, needed an immediate evacuation. So, this carnage needs to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Nasser, I want to thank you for being with us, CEO of FAJR Scientific, one of six medical humanitarian organizations Israel has barred from entering Gaza. He’s based in Houston and originally from Gaza.
Next up, we turn to Israeli political scientist Neve Gordon. He’s in London. He’s one of more than 3,000 signatories to an open letter titled “We Israelis are calling for global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire.” Back in 20 seconds.
***
“Save Us from Ourselves”: 3,000+ Israelis Call for Int’l Help to Pressure Israel to Back Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28 ... transcript
More than 3,000 Israelis have signed an open letter urging “global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire.” The signatories say they are motivated by patriotic duty to stop the country’s war crimes in Gaza and beyond, but say the lack of sanctions from other countries has allowed Israel to continue to pursue war, abandon the hostages still held in Gaza, ignore domestic opposition and persecute Palestinian citizens of Israel without real cost. “Unfortunately, the majority of Israelis support the continuation of the war and massacres, and a change from within is not currently feasible. The state of Israel is on a suicidal path and sows destruction and devastation that increase day by day,” reads the letter. For more, we speak with Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London, one of the signatories of the open letter, who says international powers including allies like the United States need to “put their leg down and say enough is enough.” We also speak with him about Israel’s well-documented history of using Palestinians as human shields, including in its current war on Gaza.
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.
“We, Israelis, are calling for global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire.” That’s the headline of an open letter signed by more than 3,000 Israelis, along with our next guest, the Israeli political scientist Neve Gordon. The letter concludes by noting, “The leaders of many countries make repeated statements about the horror they feel and verbally denounce Israel’s operations, but these condemnations are not backed by practical actions. We are replete with empty words and declarations. Please, for our futures and the futures of all of the residents of Israel and the region, save us from ourselves and use real pressure on Israel for an immediate ceasefire,” the letter says.
For more, we go to London. We’re joined by Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. His recent Al Jazeera article is headlined “Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level.” He’s author of Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire and co-editor of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel.
Neve Gordon, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you start off actually by talking about what this letter says? And the number of people is — the last time we looked, it was 2,000 Israelis who have signed it. Now it’s over 3,000, Professor Gordon.
NEVE GORDON: There’s a feeling among Israelis that the change cannot come from within. We do not have enough power from within to change the course of actions that Netanyahu and his government have put in place. And the only way to stop the violence, to stop the genocidal violence in Gaza, to stop the violence in Lebanon, and to stop future attacks and geopolitical war in the region is that leaders in Europe and leaders in North America, particularly the United States, put their leg down and say enough is enough and threaten Israel that if there is no ceasefire, they will sanction Israel, they will stop arms trade with Israel, they’ll stop sending Israel money, and ultimately stop trading with Israel. So, our belief is, to save the populations that inhabit this region, we need such an action.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk directly about what’s happening in the United States, clearly the major arms supplier to Israel, and what you think of the role of the Biden administration, of President Biden himself?
NEVE GORDON: The United States has a memorandum for arms trade. And in that memorandum for arms trade, it says very clearly that countries or warring parties that violate international humanitarian law and the laws of war, the U.S. will not sell weapons to them, will not give them weapons or sell weapons to them. It is beyond doubt that Israel has been systematically violating the laws of war since October 7th, 8th, and yet the United States continues to send arms. And that has to do with many reasons. One is the power of the military corporations in the United States. The other is the lobbying groups in the United States. And all the United States really has to do — all Kamala Harris has to do today is say that “the minute I’m president, if there is violation of international law, I will stop sending arms.” And yet the United States is breaking its own laws in order to continue giving Israel arms so that it continues its violence in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the grassroots protests across the country of the Biden administration continuing to support Israel?
NEVE GORDON: There’s a major gap, both in the United States but all across Europe and North America, between civil society and the political and financial elites. Civil society has been saying now for over a year, “Enough. We want to ceasefire. We’re against this human catastrophe. We’re against what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people. We want the Palestinian people to enjoy self-determination, to enjoy statehood like everyone else.” And yet the political and financial elites are continuing as if nothing is happening, supporting Israel. Here and there, there’s a kind of criticism from Biden, and yet Netanyahu is doing exactly as he wants to do, and the Biden administration is not doing anything. And there is fear from donors here during an election campaign. It’s a very complex system. But what we see is this major gap between the two kind of poles, the civil society pole, on the one hand, and the ruling political and financial elites. And I think we just need to continue doing what we do until we get them to follow their own laws, as they appear, for example, in the memorandum of arms trade.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Gordon, does Netanyahu have a plan for Gaza? And what about these negotiations that are now taking place in Doha, in Qatar? Apparently, Egypt has proposed a two-day ceasefire, release of four hostages. What is happening there? And what do you think needs to happen?
NEVE GORDON: Well, I’d like to say a few words about the bigger picture. I think Netanyahu, pre-October 7, 2023, saw himself as a figure of history, one that has led Israel to economic success, one that will normalize relations with Arab countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, and one that is slowly managing to erase the Palestinians from history. Come October 7th and the failure of the Israeli intelligence and after 35 weeks of protest against the judicial overhaul and the death of 1,200 Israelis and 250 Israeli hostages, he understood that his position in history has changed. And he’s trying to rebuild that through, I think, three axes.
One is the Gaza Strip. And I don’t — I have very little belief in the current negotiations. I think large parts of his coalition want to resettle the northern Gaza Strip, and that’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing there and what your previous guest told us about the kind of displacement of the population there, the destruction of the whole infrastructure of existence of the population through the destruction of the hospitals, of the schools, of the mosques, etc. And ultimately, what Netanyahu’s coalition would like is to resettle that part of the Gaza Strip, enclose the rest of the Palestinians in the south, and probably maintain some kind of ethnic policing there for years to come.
In Lebanon, I think Netanyahu would like to cleanse the area that’s south of the Litani River from any presence of Hezbollah. And I think that’s going to last for quite a while now. I hope I’m wrong. But I think that it’s not going to end soon.
But I think that the crown of the jewel for Netanyahu and the only way that he thinks of himself as returning to history as a hero is through the bombing of the nuclear plants in Iran. I think everything is leading in that direction. Again, I hope I’m wrong. But I think now Netanyahu will wait for the elections on November 5th, and then he’ll decide how to continue on that strategy. So, I think the talks now in Doha are more of a cosmetic to a large process that we see unfolding now in Israel and the Middle East.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Gordon, we just have a minute, but you begin your recent Al Jazeera piece headlined “Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level,” writing, quote, “The use of human shields in war is not a new phenomenon. Militaries have forced civilians to serve as human shields for centuries. Yet, despite this long and dubious history, Israel has managed to introduce a new form of shielding in Gaza, one that appears unprecedented in the history of warfare.” We have one minute. If you could explain?
NEVE GORDON: So, human shielding works through a politics of vulnerability, through the recognition that the civilian that is shielding a military target is not like a robust landmine or anti-missile defense system, but it’s the moral value that is ascribed to the civilian that supposedly deters the enemy from firing. So, if Hamas sees a co-patriarch dressed in civilian clothes, then, hopefully, that will dissuade them from firing and killing the human shield or try to deter it. When you dress the human shield in military garb, you’re not trying to deter Hamas from firing at the civilian, but you’re trying to actually lure Hamas so that they think it’s an Israeli soldier, that they fire at him, and then the Israeli soldiers can see where the fire is coming from and fire back. So it’s changing the whole logic of human shielding and using the vulnerability, instead of as a form of deterrence, in order to lure fire in, and basically relating to the Palestinian civilians not only as not quite human, as any kind of human shielding would relate to him, but actually as fodder, as a thing, as a shield, without the human in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Neve Gordon, we want to thank you being with us, Israeli political scientist, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London, is one of the main signatories of the letter that has now more than 3,000 signatories of Israelis calling on international pressure on Israel.
***
“We Are in an Escalatory Cycle”: Trita Parsi on Latest Israeli Attack on Iran, Risk of Wider War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28 ... transcript
We speak with Iranian American policy analyst Trita Parsi about Israel’s latest attack on Iran on Saturday, when it bombed military facilities and air defense systems in the country. Iran said four soldiers were killed in the attack. Israel also struck air defense batteries and radars in Syria and Iraq. Israel’s assault this weekend came about four weeks after Iran launched a missile attack on Israeli military sites in response to Israel’s war on Lebanon and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, part of a series of actions between the two countries since the outbreak of the war on Gaza last year. “The Israelis are just continuously escalating the situation,” says Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He warns that Iran’s relatively restrained responses to Israeli actions could encourage decision-makers in both Israel and the United States to “go all the way” and strike Iranian nuclear sites and other major targets. “This, unfortunately, is leading — much thanks to the approach of the Biden administration — towards a much larger escalation.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has urged for a return to diplomacy and, quote, “maximum efforts to prevent an all-out regional war” after Israel bombed Iranian military facilities and air defense systems Saturday. The strikes included a site linked to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran said four soldiers were killed. Israel also struck air defense batteries and radars in Syria and Iraq.
The Iranian president said Iran would take an appropriate response to the attack but reiterated that Iran does not seek a wider war. Israel’s attack came about four weeks after Iran launched a missile attack on Israeli military sites in response to Israel’s mounting assault on Lebanon and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, the Hamas leader in Tehran, Iran, on Inauguration Day, where the Israelis killed him.
For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of several books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
Trita, thanks so much for joining us for just these few minutes. If you can explain what took place this weekend and where you think where Iran and Israel will go next?
TRITA PARSI: Well, what happened over the weekend is the expected Israeli response to the Iranian response to Israel’s initial attack earlier on in April that started this whole exchange of fire between the two countries. What we don’t know, at least with confidence, is exactly how much damage the Israelis managed to cause in Iran. Clearly, there’s been some damage. There’s been at least five deaths. But the extent to which Iran’s air defenses have been taken out, etc., remains unclear. The Iranians initially played down the attack, signaled that they would not respond because it was not a significant attack, but the debate inside Iran seems to be shifting on that issue, precisely because of the deaths that has been caused by the Israelis.
The question the Iranians have is not only what options do they have that would avoid further escalation, but also how would it impact the American elections. Are they better off responding before or after the Iran elections? Is there a way for them to avoid responding at all, or would a lack of a response only further increase Israel’s appetite for striking Iran increasingly with impunity, if the Iranians are not striking back?
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s response to Israel’s attack on Iran. She said she’d like to see deescalation in the region, but added, quote, “I feel very strongly, we as the United States feel very strongly that Iran must stop what it is doing in terms of the threat that it presents to the region and we will always defend Israel against any attacks by Iran in that way.” Your response?
TRITA PARSI: Well, it is exactly this type of approach that has led us to this level of escalation — on the one hand, saying that we don’t want to see escalation; on the other hand, providing the Israelis with every equipment, every bomb, every piece of intelligence that allows them to escalate, then offering them protection against any Iranian retaliation, which then reduces the cost of escalation for the Israelis. And lo and behold, here we are. The Israelis are just continuously escalating the situation, striking more and more. They are now striking five or six countries in the Middle East. And all the United States says is that we would not like to see escalation, but we are providing every opportunity and every equipment and every logistical piece of material in order for the Israelis to have an easier time escalating the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to The Washington Post report that the Biden administration won assurances from Israel that Israel will not strike Iranian nuclear or oil sites in any retaliatory act? Do you agree with what our previous guest, the Israeli professor Neve Gordon, said, that he is concerned that that’s just where Israel is headed, perhaps waiting for Election Day next week, and then would do something like that after?
TRITA PARSI: Absolutely. The signals coming out of Israel, the signals coming out of those in Washington who want Israel to go further, is to essentially say, “See, it was relatively easy to strike Iran. What are we waiting for? Let’s go all the way.” And moreover, as I said on this show before, just because the first response at this time now was not going after the nuclear sites, because we are on an escalatory cycle, does not then mean that we will not end up with strike against nuclear sites and a full-scale war that that would prompt. So, the point is, it’s not where the first step is; it’s where this is leading to that is important. And this, unfortunately, is leading, much thanks to the approach of the Biden administration, towards a much larger escalation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, finally, Trita Parsi, you’re the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. What do you feel would be responsible statecraft right now?
TRITA PARSI: Right now the most responsible thing the United States could do, that would also lie in the U.S.’s own interests, is to actually pursue a strategy that truly deescalates the situation. Such a strategy would put pressure on all of the different parties, including of course the Iranians and the Houthis and Hezbollah, but it would also put pressure on Israel. And it would deprive Israel from all of the American bombs and all of the American material that the Biden administration has given them that allows them to just continue this war and to escalate this war. This is not terribly difficult to deescalate, if we actually pursue a strategy that is aimed at deescalation.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of several books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28/headlines
U.N. Chief Urges Restraint After Israel Bombs Iranian Targets Saturday
Oct 28, 2024
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has urged for a return to diplomacy and “maximum efforts to prevent an all-out regional war” after Israel bombed Iranian military facilities and air defense systems Saturday. The strikes included a site linked to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran said four soldiers were killed. Israel also struck air defense batteries and radars in Syria and Iraq. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would take “an appropriate response” to the attack, but he reiterated that Iran does not seek a wider war. Israel’s attack came about four weeks after Iran launched a missile attack on Israeli military sites in response to Israel’s mounting assault on Lebanon and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.
“North Gaza’s Entire Population at Risk of Dying”: Israel Decimates Northern Gaza, Incl. Hospitals
Oct 28, 2024
As the death toll from Israel’s 24-day siege on northern Gaza tops 1,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official is warning “the entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying.”
At Kamal Adwan Hospital, Israeli soldiers arrested and expelled nearly all male doctors and staff following its brutal raid. One of the victims of Israel’s assault on northern Gaza was the hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s young son Ibrahim. On Saturday, Dr. Abu Safiya led prayers for his murdered child as he laid him to rest. A nurse who survived the Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan described the siege.
Mayssoun Alian: “We were all surrounded from all sides. There was shooting from all directions with bombs and mortars, and they evacuated all those who were sheltering here, so that everyone leaves, both men and women. They separated men from women and made two queues. It was very, very humiliating for our men since they took them without clothes and nothing to cover with.”
Elsewhere in Gaza, an employee of Doctors Without Borders was killed in Khan Younis. And at least three more journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike. They were identified as Saed Radwan of Al-Aqsa TV, Hamza Abu Salmiya from Sanad News and Haneen Mahmoud Baroud from the Al-Quds Foundation.
DOJ Lawyers Call on Merrick Garland to Investigate Israeli Killings of U.S. Citizens
Oct 28, 2024
Lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch investigations into crimes against U.S. citizens committed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, including the killing of the activist Ayşenur Eygi. The letter to Garland highlighted the hypocrisy in the department’s refusal to acknowledge crimes by Israel while it has been outspoken against Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Israel Strikes Tyre, Killing at Least 7, as It Continues Its Assault on Lebanon
Oct 28, 2024
Israeli strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre have killed at least seven people today. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for large areas of Tyre as it continues its deadly attacks. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s health minister says Israeli strikes have targeted 55 hospitals in Lebanon as Israel seeks to impair the country’s health infrastructure.
Microsoft Fires Employees, Harvard Suspends Professors & Students over Gaza Solidarity Protests
Oct 28, 2024
Here in the U.S., Microsoft has fired two employees who organized a vigil for Gaza. The workers, who are both Arab, belonged to the protest group “No Azure for Apartheid,” which opposes Microsoft’s sale of its cloud technology to Israel.
Meanwhile, Harvard University has temporarily suspended dozens of students and professors from its libraries after they staged a series of silent “study-in” protests to bring attention to the genocide in Gaza, as well as the crackdown on free speech at Harvard.
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“This Carnage Needs to Stop”: Israel Bans Aid Groups from Gaza, Kills Over 1,000 in North Gaza Siege
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28 ... transcript
Israel’s three-week siege of northern Gaza has killed at least 1,000 Palestinians. Most of the dead are women and children. On Saturday, Israeli forces withdrew from Kamal Adwan Hospital just one day after storming it, with health officials saying that soldiers detained dozens of male medical staffers and some of the patients. This comes as the Israeli government has banned six medical NGOs from entering Gaza despite the dire humanitarian crisis stemming from repeated displacements of the population, widespread disease, injuries from Israeli attacks, hunger and more. Some 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war on Gaza last October, according to local officials, although the true toll is likely far higher. “The healthcare infrastructure is destroyed. Many of the local doctors have been either killed or kidnapped. The patients are left stranded; no one is providing any help to them,” says Mosab Nasser, CEO of FAJR Scientific, one of the six medical aid groups banned by Israel.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s in northern Gaza, where Israel’s three-week siege has killed over 1,000 Palestinians, most women and children. Gaza health officials say almost 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7th, more than 100,000 wounded, though the toll is likely far higher. On Saturday, Israeli forces withdrew from north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, one day after raiding it. Health officials say soldiers detained dozens of male medical staffers and some of the patients. This is a nurse describing how Israeli forces detained the hospital’s director.
MAYSSOUN ALIAN: [translated] They called Dr. Hussam and asked him to let the male medics out. So he did, and they left. This was also very, very humiliating for them since they were also without clothes. There were around 70 male nurses that left here. They took them to the external clinic. They started to destroy things. And we were the only nurses in the hospital without the rest of the medical team.
AMY GOODMAN: The nurse mentioned Kamal Adwan Hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician. After Israeli forces retreated from the hospital Saturday, he buried his young son Ibrahim Hussam Abu Safiya, who was reportedly killed Friday in an Israeli strike on Jabaliya in northern Gaza.
DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. As-salamu alaykum. Allahu Akbar. As-salamu alaykum. Allahu Akbar.
AMY GOODMAN: The doctor praying and mourning his son in his white hospital coat.
This comes as the World Health Organization reports the Israeli government has barred six medical NGOs from entering Gaza. One of them, the Palestinian American Medical Association, released a statement, saying, quote, “We urgently demand that the Israeli authorities rescind this decision immediately and urge the U.S. State Department, along with international bodies, to advocate for the immediate reinstatement of these vital medical services, which constitute a fundamental human right protected by international law and the moral fabric of our global community,” unquote.
For more, we go to Houston, Texas, where we’re joined another head of another organization, one of six medical aid groups Israel has banned from entering Gaza. Mosab Nasser is the CEO of FAJR Scientific. He helped lead one of the largest medical missions to Gaza in August of 2023. He was last in Gaza in May during Israel’s invasion of Rafah. Nasser also helped renovate parts of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. He is himself originally from Gaza.
Thank you so much for being with us. As we watch the director of Kamal Adwan, a man you know well, mourn his son, praying at his grave in his white medical coat, can you talk about who he is and the significance of Kamal Adwan Hospital?
MOSAB NASSER: Good morning, Amy. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is a Palestinian hero. He is an amazing, amazing doctor that I have known now maybe for about four years. And I had several meetings with him when I was in Gaza in 2022 and helped, as said, renovate the Kamal Adwan Hospital’s emergency room and the external clinics, as well as the rehabilitation room for children. Dr. Hussam is the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who, by the way, has a foreign passport. He had the choice, like, you know, many Palestinians, to leave from there at the beginning of the war, but he refused. He stood his ground at the Kamal Adwan Hospital to save lives and save limbs and take care of those children who are left stranded in this carnage.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only children’s hospital in north Gaza. It actually serves about 400,000 or 500,000 people in north Gaza, and there is really no other children’s hospital. It has the ICU. It has a large room for premature babies with incubators. And it’s a central hospital. If that hospital is not functional, you’re talking about thousands of children, again, left without any medical support.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, we were just speaking with another Mosab, the poet Mosab Abu Toha, on Friday, who talked about bringing his young children to this hospital and talked about the director being a pediatrician, that it’s basically the children’s hospital there. Mosab Nasser, if you can describe what has happened there in northern Gaza and what happened to this particular hospital, the Israeli forces raiding it, and this description of the doctors and medical aides being stripped naked in front of the others?
MOSAB NASSER: Amy, FAJR Scientific is a humanitarian apolitical organization. We are actually specialized in surgical — in complex surgeries. We’ve been operating in Gaza even before the war. And we have a team in the north, a local team, that actually serves the different hospitals, including the Indonesian Hospital.
And the news that we get from the team on the ground, that Kamal Adwan Hospital was attacked by the Israeli army. I believe more than 30 medical staff members were actually kidnapped by the Israeli army, including Dr. Hussam briefly, and then he was turned back. So, he’s left maybe with a few — a couple of doctors and a few nurses to take care of over 150 patients at the hospital.
The news that we received also that the Israeli army stripped those doctors naked and literally took them into no one knows where, similar to what happened to our colleagues at Nasser Hospital and Shifa Hospital. I still have many Palestinian colleagues. I’d like to name a few: Dr. Ghassan Abu Zuhri from Nasser Hospital, who’s one of the top surgeons in Gaza, orthopedic surgeons, no one knows his whereabout until today; Dr. Hani Abu Taima, the head of the surgical department at Nasser Hospital; and many others, many others across Gaza. So, the disturbing news that also we have received is that the Israeli army destroyed the oxygen concentrators and tanks at Kamal Adwan Hospital, leaving children in the ICU and in the incubators without oxygen. Many of them actually have died.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you been meeting with U.S. government officials? And what have they said? Also, do you know how Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s son died? We heard died in an Israeli airstrike on Jabaliya.
MOSAB NASSER: Regarding your first question, yes. In fact, I just came back from D.C. this past Thursday, where I met with — visited the offices of a few congressmen and senators. And before, in fact, I’ve also visited the State Department in this past visit, trying to advocate for lifting the ban or the denial on the humanitarian medical organizations that were actually denied entry by Israel, especially at this time where we are actually needed on the ground the most.
And that decision to ban or deny entry to now six organizations — in fact, initially, the initial number that we’ve heard was eight organizations — it’s mind-boggling. Especially with what’s happening in north Gaza, why would you prevent such organizations from coming to provide their services? Especially the healthcare infrastructure is destroyed. Many of the doctors, the local doctors, have been either killed or kidnapped. The patients are left stranded; no one is providing any help to them. And especially we — in FAJR Scientific, we’re actually specialized in surgical interventions. And many of the injuries that come to the hospitals across Gaza are blast injuries — broken bones, broken skulls, you know, all kinds of multiple degrees of burns. So, those patients require an immediate attention. And if you don’t provide this attention to them, many of them actually will die a slow and painful death because of infections.
Regarding Dr. Hussam’s son, I really don’t know the details surrounding his death, but I was told that he was — you know, he was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Jabaliya, as you mentioned.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I wanted to ask you about a tweet of yours. You’re talking about a girl. “Mazyona is one of the children FAJR has been trying to evacuate out of #Gaza for months now. She sustained devastating injuries to her face—her face was nearly torn off. #Surgeons have held the remaining structure together, but she urgently requires a medevac for specialized care and bone surgery. [She] also still has shrapnel in her neck. She is of course in immense pain, [and] her condition is worsening. The platinum used surgically to rebuild her face is coming out, [and] doctors have stated [that] she needs surgeries outside [of] Gaza to save her life. Mazyona has been denied medical #evacuation four times. Authorities suggested that the medevac could proceed without Mazyona’s mother accompanying her. However, when her father attempted to take the next steps, Mazyona was again denied.” Explain her fate right now where she is.
MOSAB NASSER: That is another heartbreaking story, Amy, that I have been personally, as the CEO of the organization, following closely and advocating for Mazyona’s evacuation for almost three months now. I can’t tell you how many times I visited the State Department, how many times I talked to congressmen, how many times I’ve tried to reach to the Israeli authorities to try to evacuate her out of Gaza, with no results.
Mazyona was injured in the face — in her face, a serious injury. I mean, she has a viral video on Instagram and YouTube that you see how — when she was brought to the hospital, how she was bleeding. Initially, we submitted her mother as a companion. The mother was rejected by COGAT, the Israeli authority effectively. Then we submitted her father’s name. Then her father was rejected. Then we submitted the father’s aunt; then it was rejected. And then we submitted another aunt of the father; it was rejected. So, we are kind of left without any options. I don’t know — to the point, actually, I proposed my name to be a companion for Mazyona to get her out, and still we have not been able to get her out. In fact, the recent update we got from the local team on the ground, that she has potentially an infection, and if this girl is not evacuated as soon as possible, she could die.
Mazyona is one out of thousands, Amy. In fact, we have 12 children like Mazyona with serious injuries, some of them actually with a bullet settled in the head, that we wanted to take out, and we have not been able to take any of them. So far, since May, since the closure of the Rafah border, we were able — I mean, generally speaking, only 125 children were evacuated out of Gaza out of 2,500, if not more, needed an immediate evacuation. So, this carnage needs to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: Mosab Nasser, I want to thank you for being with us, CEO of FAJR Scientific, one of six medical humanitarian organizations Israel has barred from entering Gaza. He’s based in Houston and originally from Gaza.
Next up, we turn to Israeli political scientist Neve Gordon. He’s in London. He’s one of more than 3,000 signatories to an open letter titled “We Israelis are calling for global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire.” Back in 20 seconds.
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“Save Us from Ourselves”: 3,000+ Israelis Call for Int’l Help to Pressure Israel to Back Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28 ... transcript
More than 3,000 Israelis have signed an open letter urging “global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire.” The signatories say they are motivated by patriotic duty to stop the country’s war crimes in Gaza and beyond, but say the lack of sanctions from other countries has allowed Israel to continue to pursue war, abandon the hostages still held in Gaza, ignore domestic opposition and persecute Palestinian citizens of Israel without real cost. “Unfortunately, the majority of Israelis support the continuation of the war and massacres, and a change from within is not currently feasible. The state of Israel is on a suicidal path and sows destruction and devastation that increase day by day,” reads the letter. For more, we speak with Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London, one of the signatories of the open letter, who says international powers including allies like the United States need to “put their leg down and say enough is enough.” We also speak with him about Israel’s well-documented history of using Palestinians as human shields, including in its current war on Gaza.
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.
“We, Israelis, are calling for global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire.” That’s the headline of an open letter signed by more than 3,000 Israelis, along with our next guest, the Israeli political scientist Neve Gordon. The letter concludes by noting, “The leaders of many countries make repeated statements about the horror they feel and verbally denounce Israel’s operations, but these condemnations are not backed by practical actions. We are replete with empty words and declarations. Please, for our futures and the futures of all of the residents of Israel and the region, save us from ourselves and use real pressure on Israel for an immediate ceasefire,” the letter says.
For more, we go to London. We’re joined by Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. His recent Al Jazeera article is headlined “Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level.” He’s author of Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire and co-editor of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel.
Neve Gordon, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you start off actually by talking about what this letter says? And the number of people is — the last time we looked, it was 2,000 Israelis who have signed it. Now it’s over 3,000, Professor Gordon.
NEVE GORDON: There’s a feeling among Israelis that the change cannot come from within. We do not have enough power from within to change the course of actions that Netanyahu and his government have put in place. And the only way to stop the violence, to stop the genocidal violence in Gaza, to stop the violence in Lebanon, and to stop future attacks and geopolitical war in the region is that leaders in Europe and leaders in North America, particularly the United States, put their leg down and say enough is enough and threaten Israel that if there is no ceasefire, they will sanction Israel, they will stop arms trade with Israel, they’ll stop sending Israel money, and ultimately stop trading with Israel. So, our belief is, to save the populations that inhabit this region, we need such an action.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk directly about what’s happening in the United States, clearly the major arms supplier to Israel, and what you think of the role of the Biden administration, of President Biden himself?
NEVE GORDON: The United States has a memorandum for arms trade. And in that memorandum for arms trade, it says very clearly that countries or warring parties that violate international humanitarian law and the laws of war, the U.S. will not sell weapons to them, will not give them weapons or sell weapons to them. It is beyond doubt that Israel has been systematically violating the laws of war since October 7th, 8th, and yet the United States continues to send arms. And that has to do with many reasons. One is the power of the military corporations in the United States. The other is the lobbying groups in the United States. And all the United States really has to do — all Kamala Harris has to do today is say that “the minute I’m president, if there is violation of international law, I will stop sending arms.” And yet the United States is breaking its own laws in order to continue giving Israel arms so that it continues its violence in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the grassroots protests across the country of the Biden administration continuing to support Israel?
NEVE GORDON: There’s a major gap, both in the United States but all across Europe and North America, between civil society and the political and financial elites. Civil society has been saying now for over a year, “Enough. We want to ceasefire. We’re against this human catastrophe. We’re against what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people. We want the Palestinian people to enjoy self-determination, to enjoy statehood like everyone else.” And yet the political and financial elites are continuing as if nothing is happening, supporting Israel. Here and there, there’s a kind of criticism from Biden, and yet Netanyahu is doing exactly as he wants to do, and the Biden administration is not doing anything. And there is fear from donors here during an election campaign. It’s a very complex system. But what we see is this major gap between the two kind of poles, the civil society pole, on the one hand, and the ruling political and financial elites. And I think we just need to continue doing what we do until we get them to follow their own laws, as they appear, for example, in the memorandum of arms trade.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Gordon, does Netanyahu have a plan for Gaza? And what about these negotiations that are now taking place in Doha, in Qatar? Apparently, Egypt has proposed a two-day ceasefire, release of four hostages. What is happening there? And what do you think needs to happen?
NEVE GORDON: Well, I’d like to say a few words about the bigger picture. I think Netanyahu, pre-October 7, 2023, saw himself as a figure of history, one that has led Israel to economic success, one that will normalize relations with Arab countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, and one that is slowly managing to erase the Palestinians from history. Come October 7th and the failure of the Israeli intelligence and after 35 weeks of protest against the judicial overhaul and the death of 1,200 Israelis and 250 Israeli hostages, he understood that his position in history has changed. And he’s trying to rebuild that through, I think, three axes.
One is the Gaza Strip. And I don’t — I have very little belief in the current negotiations. I think large parts of his coalition want to resettle the northern Gaza Strip, and that’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing there and what your previous guest told us about the kind of displacement of the population there, the destruction of the whole infrastructure of existence of the population through the destruction of the hospitals, of the schools, of the mosques, etc. And ultimately, what Netanyahu’s coalition would like is to resettle that part of the Gaza Strip, enclose the rest of the Palestinians in the south, and probably maintain some kind of ethnic policing there for years to come.
In Lebanon, I think Netanyahu would like to cleanse the area that’s south of the Litani River from any presence of Hezbollah. And I think that’s going to last for quite a while now. I hope I’m wrong. But I think that it’s not going to end soon.
But I think that the crown of the jewel for Netanyahu and the only way that he thinks of himself as returning to history as a hero is through the bombing of the nuclear plants in Iran. I think everything is leading in that direction. Again, I hope I’m wrong. But I think now Netanyahu will wait for the elections on November 5th, and then he’ll decide how to continue on that strategy. So, I think the talks now in Doha are more of a cosmetic to a large process that we see unfolding now in Israel and the Middle East.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Gordon, we just have a minute, but you begin your recent Al Jazeera piece headlined “Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level,” writing, quote, “The use of human shields in war is not a new phenomenon. Militaries have forced civilians to serve as human shields for centuries. Yet, despite this long and dubious history, Israel has managed to introduce a new form of shielding in Gaza, one that appears unprecedented in the history of warfare.” We have one minute. If you could explain?
NEVE GORDON: So, human shielding works through a politics of vulnerability, through the recognition that the civilian that is shielding a military target is not like a robust landmine or anti-missile defense system, but it’s the moral value that is ascribed to the civilian that supposedly deters the enemy from firing. So, if Hamas sees a co-patriarch dressed in civilian clothes, then, hopefully, that will dissuade them from firing and killing the human shield or try to deter it. When you dress the human shield in military garb, you’re not trying to deter Hamas from firing at the civilian, but you’re trying to actually lure Hamas so that they think it’s an Israeli soldier, that they fire at him, and then the Israeli soldiers can see where the fire is coming from and fire back. So it’s changing the whole logic of human shielding and using the vulnerability, instead of as a form of deterrence, in order to lure fire in, and basically relating to the Palestinian civilians not only as not quite human, as any kind of human shielding would relate to him, but actually as fodder, as a thing, as a shield, without the human in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Neve Gordon, we want to thank you being with us, Israeli political scientist, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London, is one of the main signatories of the letter that has now more than 3,000 signatories of Israelis calling on international pressure on Israel.
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“We Are in an Escalatory Cycle”: Trita Parsi on Latest Israeli Attack on Iran, Risk of Wider War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/28 ... transcript
We speak with Iranian American policy analyst Trita Parsi about Israel’s latest attack on Iran on Saturday, when it bombed military facilities and air defense systems in the country. Iran said four soldiers were killed in the attack. Israel also struck air defense batteries and radars in Syria and Iraq. Israel’s assault this weekend came about four weeks after Iran launched a missile attack on Israeli military sites in response to Israel’s war on Lebanon and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, part of a series of actions between the two countries since the outbreak of the war on Gaza last year. “The Israelis are just continuously escalating the situation,” says Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He warns that Iran’s relatively restrained responses to Israeli actions could encourage decision-makers in both Israel and the United States to “go all the way” and strike Iranian nuclear sites and other major targets. “This, unfortunately, is leading — much thanks to the approach of the Biden administration — towards a much larger escalation.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has urged for a return to diplomacy and, quote, “maximum efforts to prevent an all-out regional war” after Israel bombed Iranian military facilities and air defense systems Saturday. The strikes included a site linked to Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran said four soldiers were killed. Israel also struck air defense batteries and radars in Syria and Iraq.
The Iranian president said Iran would take an appropriate response to the attack but reiterated that Iran does not seek a wider war. Israel’s attack came about four weeks after Iran launched a missile attack on Israeli military sites in response to Israel’s mounting assault on Lebanon and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, the Hamas leader in Tehran, Iran, on Inauguration Day, where the Israelis killed him.
For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of several books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
Trita, thanks so much for joining us for just these few minutes. If you can explain what took place this weekend and where you think where Iran and Israel will go next?
TRITA PARSI: Well, what happened over the weekend is the expected Israeli response to the Iranian response to Israel’s initial attack earlier on in April that started this whole exchange of fire between the two countries. What we don’t know, at least with confidence, is exactly how much damage the Israelis managed to cause in Iran. Clearly, there’s been some damage. There’s been at least five deaths. But the extent to which Iran’s air defenses have been taken out, etc., remains unclear. The Iranians initially played down the attack, signaled that they would not respond because it was not a significant attack, but the debate inside Iran seems to be shifting on that issue, precisely because of the deaths that has been caused by the Israelis.
The question the Iranians have is not only what options do they have that would avoid further escalation, but also how would it impact the American elections. Are they better off responding before or after the Iran elections? Is there a way for them to avoid responding at all, or would a lack of a response only further increase Israel’s appetite for striking Iran increasingly with impunity, if the Iranians are not striking back?
AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to ask you about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s response to Israel’s attack on Iran. She said she’d like to see deescalation in the region, but added, quote, “I feel very strongly, we as the United States feel very strongly that Iran must stop what it is doing in terms of the threat that it presents to the region and we will always defend Israel against any attacks by Iran in that way.” Your response?
TRITA PARSI: Well, it is exactly this type of approach that has led us to this level of escalation — on the one hand, saying that we don’t want to see escalation; on the other hand, providing the Israelis with every equipment, every bomb, every piece of intelligence that allows them to escalate, then offering them protection against any Iranian retaliation, which then reduces the cost of escalation for the Israelis. And lo and behold, here we are. The Israelis are just continuously escalating the situation, striking more and more. They are now striking five or six countries in the Middle East. And all the United States says is that we would not like to see escalation, but we are providing every opportunity and every equipment and every logistical piece of material in order for the Israelis to have an easier time escalating the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: And your response to The Washington Post report that the Biden administration won assurances from Israel that Israel will not strike Iranian nuclear or oil sites in any retaliatory act? Do you agree with what our previous guest, the Israeli professor Neve Gordon, said, that he is concerned that that’s just where Israel is headed, perhaps waiting for Election Day next week, and then would do something like that after?
TRITA PARSI: Absolutely. The signals coming out of Israel, the signals coming out of those in Washington who want Israel to go further, is to essentially say, “See, it was relatively easy to strike Iran. What are we waiting for? Let’s go all the way.” And moreover, as I said on this show before, just because the first response at this time now was not going after the nuclear sites, because we are on an escalatory cycle, does not then mean that we will not end up with strike against nuclear sites and a full-scale war that that would prompt. So, the point is, it’s not where the first step is; it’s where this is leading to that is important. And this, unfortunately, is leading, much thanks to the approach of the Biden administration, towards a much larger escalation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, finally, Trita Parsi, you’re the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. What do you feel would be responsible statecraft right now?
TRITA PARSI: Right now the most responsible thing the United States could do, that would also lie in the U.S.’s own interests, is to actually pursue a strategy that truly deescalates the situation. Such a strategy would put pressure on all of the different parties, including of course the Iranians and the Houthis and Hezbollah, but it would also put pressure on Israel. And it would deprive Israel from all of the American bombs and all of the American material that the Biden administration has given them that allows them to just continue this war and to escalate this war. This is not terribly difficult to deescalate, if we actually pursue a strategy that is aimed at deescalation.
AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of several books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Wed Oct 30, 2024 3:49 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 29, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/29/headlines
Israeli Attack on Beit Lahia Kills at Least 93 Palestinians as Siege of Northern Gaza Continues
Oct 29, 2024
In northern Gaza, at least 93 Palestinians, including children, were killed today when an Israeli airstrike leveled a five-story apartment building sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahia. Dozens of wounded people were rushed to the Kamal Adwan Hospital only to be denied care. Just one doctor and a few exhausted medical workers remain at the hospital after Israeli forces in recent days raided the facility, separated men and women, and arrested much of the remaining staff and patients. U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has called Israel’s ongoing siege on northern Gaza the “darkest moment” of the conflict.
Volker Türk: “The Israeli government’s policies and practices risk emptying the area of all Palestinians. We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.”
Israeli Lawmakers Ban U.N. Aid Agency for Palestinian Refugees
Oct 29, 2024
Israel’s parliament has approved a law banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine from operating inside Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The U.N. agency, known as UNRWA, is tasked with providing food, healthcare and social services to Palestinians and is a critical lifeline to Gaza’s surviving 2.3 million residents who face widespread famine and malnutrition due to Israel’s unrelenting, yearlong assault. The ban on UNRWA was approved in a 92-10 vote with the full support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party. Israeli lawmaker Sharren Haskel co-authored the legislation.
Sharren Haskel: “If the United Nations is not willing to clean this organization from terrorism, from Hamas activists, then we have to take measures to make sure they cannot harm our people ever again.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, called the bill’s passage a “dangerous precedent,” “collective punishment” and a violation of the U.N. Charter and international law. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called it “unacceptable” and said the ban would have devastating consequences for Palestinian refugees. Its passage has increased support for a Palestinian Authority initiative to expel Israel from the United Nations General Assembly.
Israeli Attacks on Lebanon Flatten Homes in Tyre and Kill at Least 60 in Beqaa Valley
Oct 29, 2024
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least 60 people were killed as Israeli strikes pounded the eastern Beqaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek. At least two of the dead were children. The killings bring the death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon to over 2,700. Meanwhile, multiple Israeli airstrikes on Monday collapsed entire residential buildings and sparked fires in the southern port city of Tyre. A survivor said the attacks were aimed at civilians.
Survivor: “What do you expect us to do? They fired at random. They are not hitting military targets; they are only targeting civilians. Can you see people fighting? Why are they targeting us? Are we fighting them?”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has announced Naim Qassem will succeed Hassan Nasrallah as secretary-general of the group, following Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah in an airstrike last month. Qassem said Hezbollah fighters are continuing to repel Israeli attacks along the border and that the group’s military structure has remained intact.
South Africa Files Documents with ICJ Providing Evidence of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
Oct 29, 2024
South Africa on Monday filed over 750 pages of evidence in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. South Africa says the documents lay out how Israel is “promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with an assortment of destructive weapons, depriving them access to humanitarian assistance, causing conditions of life which are aimed at their physical destruction, … and using starvation as a weapon of war and to further Israel’s aims to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement of Palestinians.” Over 30 countries and regional blocs are supporting South Africa’s case at the ICJ.
Israelis Protest Outside Knesset to Call for Hostage Deal
Oct 29, 2024
In Jerusalem, hundreds of protesters rallied outside Israel’s Knesset on Monday to demand a Gaza ceasefire deal and an exchange of hostages. Israeli police arrested nine of the protesters as they nonviolently blocked a road near the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Shraga Tichover: “It’s solidarity with the hostages. We want our prime minister to make a deal, to cut a deal. We want the war to stop. We want the stop of killing and everything. We want, you know, a sane country. That’s it. We want to live. I’m 55 years old. I have four kids. I’m doing this for my kids.”
1,000+ Writers Sign On to Israeli Boycott Pledge over Gaza Genocide, Occupation of Palestine
Oct 29, 2024
More than a thousand writers and publishing industry figures have signed on to what they’re calling the largest-ever cultural boycott against Israeli institutions. In an open letter, the authors denounce the ongoing genocide in Gaza, writing, “Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have been crucial in obfuscating, disguising and artwashing the dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians for decades.”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 29, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/29/headlines
Israeli Attack on Beit Lahia Kills at Least 93 Palestinians as Siege of Northern Gaza Continues
Oct 29, 2024
In northern Gaza, at least 93 Palestinians, including children, were killed today when an Israeli airstrike leveled a five-story apartment building sheltering displaced families in Beit Lahia. Dozens of wounded people were rushed to the Kamal Adwan Hospital only to be denied care. Just one doctor and a few exhausted medical workers remain at the hospital after Israeli forces in recent days raided the facility, separated men and women, and arrested much of the remaining staff and patients. U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has called Israel’s ongoing siege on northern Gaza the “darkest moment” of the conflict.
Volker Türk: “The Israeli government’s policies and practices risk emptying the area of all Palestinians. We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.”
Israeli Lawmakers Ban U.N. Aid Agency for Palestinian Refugees
Oct 29, 2024
Israel’s parliament has approved a law banning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine from operating inside Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The U.N. agency, known as UNRWA, is tasked with providing food, healthcare and social services to Palestinians and is a critical lifeline to Gaza’s surviving 2.3 million residents who face widespread famine and malnutrition due to Israel’s unrelenting, yearlong assault. The ban on UNRWA was approved in a 92-10 vote with the full support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party. Israeli lawmaker Sharren Haskel co-authored the legislation.
Sharren Haskel: “If the United Nations is not willing to clean this organization from terrorism, from Hamas activists, then we have to take measures to make sure they cannot harm our people ever again.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, called the bill’s passage a “dangerous precedent,” “collective punishment” and a violation of the U.N. Charter and international law. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called it “unacceptable” and said the ban would have devastating consequences for Palestinian refugees. Its passage has increased support for a Palestinian Authority initiative to expel Israel from the United Nations General Assembly.
Israeli Attacks on Lebanon Flatten Homes in Tyre and Kill at Least 60 in Beqaa Valley
Oct 29, 2024
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says at least 60 people were killed as Israeli strikes pounded the eastern Beqaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek. At least two of the dead were children. The killings bring the death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon to over 2,700. Meanwhile, multiple Israeli airstrikes on Monday collapsed entire residential buildings and sparked fires in the southern port city of Tyre. A survivor said the attacks were aimed at civilians.
Survivor: “What do you expect us to do? They fired at random. They are not hitting military targets; they are only targeting civilians. Can you see people fighting? Why are they targeting us? Are we fighting them?”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has announced Naim Qassem will succeed Hassan Nasrallah as secretary-general of the group, following Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah in an airstrike last month. Qassem said Hezbollah fighters are continuing to repel Israeli attacks along the border and that the group’s military structure has remained intact.
South Africa Files Documents with ICJ Providing Evidence of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
Oct 29, 2024
South Africa on Monday filed over 750 pages of evidence in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. South Africa says the documents lay out how Israel is “promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with an assortment of destructive weapons, depriving them access to humanitarian assistance, causing conditions of life which are aimed at their physical destruction, … and using starvation as a weapon of war and to further Israel’s aims to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement of Palestinians.” Over 30 countries and regional blocs are supporting South Africa’s case at the ICJ.
Israelis Protest Outside Knesset to Call for Hostage Deal
Oct 29, 2024
In Jerusalem, hundreds of protesters rallied outside Israel’s Knesset on Monday to demand a Gaza ceasefire deal and an exchange of hostages. Israeli police arrested nine of the protesters as they nonviolently blocked a road near the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Shraga Tichover: “It’s solidarity with the hostages. We want our prime minister to make a deal, to cut a deal. We want the war to stop. We want the stop of killing and everything. We want, you know, a sane country. That’s it. We want to live. I’m 55 years old. I have four kids. I’m doing this for my kids.”
1,000+ Writers Sign On to Israeli Boycott Pledge over Gaza Genocide, Occupation of Palestine
Oct 29, 2024
More than a thousand writers and publishing industry figures have signed on to what they’re calling the largest-ever cultural boycott against Israeli institutions. In an open letter, the authors denounce the ongoing genocide in Gaza, writing, “Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have been crucial in obfuscating, disguising and artwashing the dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians for decades.”
- admin
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Tue Nov 19, 2024 11:30 pm
Israeli politician dragged out of Knesset for defying Netanyahu
by PoliticsJOE
Nov 19, 2024
Left coalition leader Ayman Odeh recounted a harrowing experience of a Palestinian father on the floor of the Knesset on Monday, and was dragged from the podium after levelling criticism against Benjamin Netanyahu's attacks on Gaza.
Transcript [Google translate Hebrew to English]
In Gaza there is
1738 and 5 babies your system killed Benjamin
Netanyahu what is your vision what is your vision
Tell me in 30 years you want a series of
Peace no no no stop by Binyamin Netanyahu I am
I want to tell you the story of Muhammad Abul Kosan
32 years old
From Gaza I got married two months before and after the war
Then Vino the journey
The chalk we moved from place to place starting from the north to
When we arrived at Der Balach on Shabbat Ha'er in August, I was born
Twins son and daughter of R. Yesel and this after surgery
My wife, a postman, was called to Arapi Simcha
Filled our hearts with the arrival of our first child
The excitement was indescribable that morning
Tuesday, August 1, I happily left for the hospital
I took out the birth certificate for my babies from
Glad I sent my wife photos from the birth
on WhatsApp but she didn't answer at the time I received it
A call from one of the neighbors who asked if I was okay, I answered
I'm fine and he told me the apartment you know
I was bombarded, my heart was pounding with fear and worry for fate
My family until I arrived at the reception desk of a house
The patients and some of the neighbors told me with trepidation that they were inside
jelly
The dead have not been 10 minutes since the certificate was set on fire
The birth and suddenly I issue them the death certificates
The
When in Gaza there is
1738 Ha babies your system killed
Babies under one year old in Gaza today
3555 Orphan babies, everyone's blood will be chased
You and you are fiercely frowning when you are away in Beit HaDan
Behg Beniman
Netanyahu, what is your vision, tell me
For 30 years you have been running for the no no no no no
Stop Stop Stop Red Red from the stand immediately red
From the stand immediately get off the stand
[music]
Immediately
by PoliticsJOE
Nov 19, 2024
Left coalition leader Ayman Odeh recounted a harrowing experience of a Palestinian father on the floor of the Knesset on Monday, and was dragged from the podium after levelling criticism against Benjamin Netanyahu's attacks on Gaza.
Transcript [Google translate Hebrew to English]
In Gaza there is
1738 and 5 babies your system killed Benjamin
Netanyahu what is your vision what is your vision
Tell me in 30 years you want a series of
Peace no no no stop by Binyamin Netanyahu I am
I want to tell you the story of Muhammad Abul Kosan
32 years old
From Gaza I got married two months before and after the war
Then Vino the journey
The chalk we moved from place to place starting from the north to
When we arrived at Der Balach on Shabbat Ha'er in August, I was born
Twins son and daughter of R. Yesel and this after surgery
My wife, a postman, was called to Arapi Simcha
Filled our hearts with the arrival of our first child
The excitement was indescribable that morning
Tuesday, August 1, I happily left for the hospital
I took out the birth certificate for my babies from
Glad I sent my wife photos from the birth
on WhatsApp but she didn't answer at the time I received it
A call from one of the neighbors who asked if I was okay, I answered
I'm fine and he told me the apartment you know
I was bombarded, my heart was pounding with fear and worry for fate
My family until I arrived at the reception desk of a house
The patients and some of the neighbors told me with trepidation that they were inside
jelly
The dead have not been 10 minutes since the certificate was set on fire
The birth and suddenly I issue them the death certificates
The
When in Gaza there is
1738 Ha babies your system killed
Babies under one year old in Gaza today
3555 Orphan babies, everyone's blood will be chased
You and you are fiercely frowning when you are away in Beit HaDan
Behg Beniman
Netanyahu, what is your vision, tell me
For 30 years you have been running for the no no no no no
Stop Stop Stop Red Red from the stand immediately red
From the stand immediately get off the stand
[music]
Immediately
- admin
- Site Admin
- Posts: 37523
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Sat Nov 23, 2024 12:41 am
An historical step towards ending Israel's impunity ! FRANCESCA ALBANESE reacts to ICC decision.
by Frank Barat
Nov 22, 2024
In this conversation, Frank Barat and Francesca Albanese discuss the recent arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu. They explore the implications of these warrants for international law, the reactions from various states, and the broader context of accountability for war crimes and genocide in Palestine. Albanese emphasises the historical significance of the ICC's decision and the ongoing challenges faced by Palestinians, while also addressing the responsibilities of member states in enforcing these warrants.
Audio podcast here: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show...
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Context of the ICC Arrest Warrants
02:05 Significance of the ICC's Decision
04:45 Legal Obligations of Member States
06:57 Potential for Broader Accountability
10:59 Implications of Ongoing Violence
17:42 Understanding Genocide as Colonial Erasure
Transcript
Introduction and Context of the ICC Arrest Warrants
0:01
hi Franchesca hi
0:04
Frank um it's it's really great to to
0:06
have you on today I know how busy you
0:08
are so it's much much
0:11
appreciated thank you thank you very
0:13
much it's always a pleasure to be with
0:15
you I I wanted to talk to you obviously
0:18
about the international criminal court
0:21
coming back after months and months with
0:24
ARs warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu
0:29
yav galand
0:30
and Muhammad de um Hamas leader Israel
0:35
said you they killed Muhammad de in
0:38
August so we're not sure if he's alive
0:40
or not but obviously I'm going to focus
0:42
more about what it means in regards to
0:44
Netanyahu and Gallant I'll give a brief
0:47
background so on May 21st Karim K the
0:51
pro prosecutor of the international
0:53
criminal court asked the court to issue
0:56
arrest warrants against Netanyahu Galant
0:58
Han Di and sinir Han was assassinated in
1:02
Iran sinir died in Gaza recently and
1:06
again we're not sure if Dave is is alive
1:09
or not following Karim can um you know
1:14
demand in may we know the court and some
1:18
judges were put under huge pressure by
1:20
various actors actually one of the judge
1:24
the Romanian judge had to leave the
1:25
court this is very unusual then in
1:28
August Kim Khan asked the court for an
1:30
Urgent Response to his request because
1:33
between May and August we didn't hear
1:34
anything from the court and then finally
1:37
yesterday and to be honest I didn't
1:40
expect this anymore I was like this is
1:41
over I'm not sure what's going to happen
1:43
with the IC you know international law
1:45
is dead International Justice is dead
1:47
but yesterday for me out of the blue we
1:50
get the news the IC comes back with the
1:53
RS warrants against Natan gallant and
1:56
Dave how did you react to the news and
2:01
why is it important in your opinion yeah
Significance of the ICC's Decision
2:05
I have to say that I I share your
2:08
feelings I mean like many I've been
2:11
disheartened by the delay uh because
2:16
uh Israel has consistently evaded
2:20
accountability for decades and the
2:23
pressure that has been excerted on the
2:26
international justice system and
2:28
particularly the uh ICC has led many
2:32
including myself to think that this
2:36
yesterday decision would never see the
2:40
uh the light of the day so I reacted
2:43
yeah with a moment of I I felt elated
2:47
there was a moment
2:49
of yeah Joy satisfaction thinking of
2:52
what accountability means although the
2:55
problems on the ground are many and I
2:58
don't think that this step in particular
3:02
in particular although necessary is
3:04
going to make the life of the
3:06
Palestinians in Gaza any better in the
3:08
in the in the immediate short term I
3:11
mean in the last 24 hours the the
3:14
attacks on the population of
3:16
Gaza have intensified but the this
3:20
decision represents an historical and
3:23
overdue step toward dismantling the
3:25
decades long impunity enjoyed by by
3:29
Israel and it's a I mean it's a moment
3:32
that signals a pivotal turning point in
3:35
the global pursuit of Justice holding
3:37
Israel leaders accountable and also the
3:41
state apparatus that has allowed Decades
3:44
of impunity and including what I for me
3:47
it's without the without any doubt a
3:50
genocide so it is the opportunity to H
3:53
to hold that status apparatus
3:55
accountable for orchestrating and perpet
3:58
perpetuating
4:00
the gravest international
4:04
crimes so so what happens what happens
4:07
now you know as you know following a
4:09
year of genocide with very little um you
4:12
know um action you know to con to
4:15
actually condemn Israel uh I mean
4:18
condemning Israel has happened but very
4:19
little concrete action to stop the
4:21
genocide a lot of people including
4:23
myself I've lost trust in international
4:26
Justice and international law
4:28
international Humanity militarian law
4:31
but um it's different with the IC right
4:34
it's it's a binding decision what does
4:36
it mean now for the
4:38
124 states that are signatory to the ICC
4:42
and the Rome statute do they have a
4:44
binding obligation to act yes well let
Legal Obligations of Member States
4:47
me say that when we talk
4:49
about uh the right of self-determination
4:52
of the Palestinians that has been
4:53
crucially reaffirmed by the
4:55
international court of justice this year
4:57
ordering the immediate I mean as rapidly
5:00
as possible uh the dismantlement of the
5:02
occupation the dismantlement of the
5:05
military apparatus in the West Bank the
5:07
Gaza Strip and Jerusalem the
5:09
dismantlement of the settlements the end
5:11
of the uh control of Israel Over
5:14
Palestinian national sorry natural
5:18
resources um this is all binding because
5:20
it's premised upon uh erga omness
5:23
obligations of member states so there is
5:25
a critical element of law of State
5:28
responsibility uh that has been violated
5:30
but also the provisional measures
5:32
ordered by the international court of
5:34
justice this year in the genocide case
5:37
initiated by South Africa they are
5:39
binding so but you're right these adds
5:42
something more because it uh imposes an
5:47
obligation on all member states party to
5:51
the Rome statute to
5:54
arrest uh the the the the IND indicted
5:58
uh the the identified
6:00
um responsible so the two Israeli
6:04
leaders and one Hamas leader this is a
6:07
crucial step toward ending Decades of
6:09
suffering and ensuring the
6:10
accountability particularly this is a
6:13
test for the Western world because I I
6:16
would disagree with you it's not that
6:18
all member states have done very little
6:21
member states in the global South have
6:23
done more than any anyone else including
6:27
incl I mean particularly South Africa
6:29
but this is a test for the Western World
6:32
particularly the the states parties to
6:35
the Rome status state to demonstrate
6:37
their commitment to International
6:40
Justice uh to international law and here
6:43
as I've often said the system is at a
6:46
Breaking Point either it is strengthened
6:49
by accountability and respect for
6:51
fundamental principles of international
6:53
law or it will
Potential for Broader Accountability
6:57
break so in concrete terms let's say um
7:01
if Netanyahu or Galant or Mohammed Dave
7:05
um travels tomorrow to
7:07
Spain what are the Spanish
7:10
authorities obligated to do yes uh to
7:16
arrest to arrest them to arrest them and
7:19
make sure they are transferred to the he
7:22
so for the trial to start so look the
7:26
laws the international laws that have
7:28
been uh uh breached are very clear and
7:32
the evidence of crimes and violations is
7:36
overwhelming beyond what has been used
7:40
relied upon within the realm and the
7:43
confines of the current investigation
7:45
initiated by the the office of the
7:48
prosecutor but we know that the IC has
7:51
no power power to enforce the arrest
7:54
warrants on its own so the power rests
7:57
with the governments of the world so yes
8:00
there is an obligation to arrest and
8:03
it's very interesting the reaction that
8:05
has been registered by member states
8:08
it's a clear black and white there are
8:10
member states who have who have uh said
8:14
that they would they would comply with
8:16
the ICC uh with the ICC arrest warrants
8:21
which is totally obvious to me there are
8:23
member states who have uh who
8:28
have like
8:30
really asserted unable
8:33
unable um that who have made untenable
8:37
arguments um accusing the court of being
8:40
anti-semitic accusing the court of
8:42
having made a comparison between Israeli
8:46
leaders and terrorists so again these
8:48
denotes the immense bias that rests with
8:52
this with this countries but again I
8:54
want to stress that governments are
8:56
morally and legally obliged to to ensure
9:00
that um war criminals do not go
9:02
unpunished and let me say there is
9:04
another there is a flip side of it what
9:07
the international criminal court does is
9:10
operating delivering Justice over
9:12
International crimes on the basis of
9:14
complimentarity this doesn't absolve
9:17
member states from their uh
9:19
responsibility to investigate and
9:22
prosecute International crimes uh
9:25
including the crime of genocide there
9:28
therefore I do expect that member states
9:31
initiate their own investigations over
9:34
war crimes crimes against humanity and
9:36
the crime of including the crime of
9:38
apartheid and the crime of genocide that
9:41
has been committed that have been
9:42
committed in the occupied Palestinian
9:45
territory and there is an even more
9:47
stringent responsibility because a
9:50
number of um people allegedly
9:54
responsible apparently involved in these
9:57
crimes have double nationalities a
9:59
number of them have nationality from the
10:02
UK France Belgium Italy even Arab
10:06
countries I discovered Australia Canada
10:09
the US so it's an even greater
10:12
responsibility that these states have
10:15
toward Justice ensuring that their
10:18
citizens have are are brought to Justice
10:21
if they have committed uh or they are
10:23
suspected of having committed
10:26
crimes I I wanted to ask you about this
10:28
actually um is it the beginning of the
10:31
inway investigation or or the end what I
10:35
mean by that is could the IC now come
10:39
with more arrest warrants for example I
10:41
mean your recent report um genocide as
10:45
Colonial eraser focused a lot as well
10:48
about on what's happening in the West
10:49
Bank so could the IC come back with
10:52
arrest warrants for settlers and for
10:55
others or for other sort of senior
10:58
officials yeah I I think that there is
Implications of Ongoing Violence
11:00
no doubt that this is the beginning of
11:03
uh a potentially much broader uh
11:07
accountability process for a number of
11:09
reasons first of all because this is
11:11
what the office of the prosecutor and
11:13
through the prosecutor himself uh
11:17
declared months ago when the arrest
11:20
warrants were
11:21
demanded um and um and this leaves a
11:25
room to further arrest warrants but also
11:29
further crimes I was um initially not
11:33
disappointed but surprised by the narrow
11:36
scope of the investigation initiated by
11:40
the office of the prosecutor because he
11:43
has only looked at what has happened in
11:46
the occupied Palestinian territory Gaza
11:48
in particular um after October 7 but
11:52
what about what has happened before
11:54
which amounts
11:56
to war crimes and crimes against
11:58
humanity so these for sure it should be
12:01
broaden but also I think there there are
12:03
questions about the the crimes that um
12:07
the current arrest warrants have been
12:10
issued for because there is the uh the
12:13
crime of starvation of civilians as a
12:17
method of warfare um and as a war crime
12:21
the crime of extermination has not been
12:25
uh has not been identified doesn't
12:28
appear in the arrest warrants so does it
12:32
mean that the court is not looking into
12:35
a into extermination as someone has uh
12:38
has claimed I don't think so because my
12:41
understanding is that the office of the
12:44
prosecutor linked extermination
12:46
primarily to starvation and the lack of
12:48
humanitarian aid but in fact in my view
12:51
and there the evidence of the
12:54
extermination is still limited because
12:56
back then within the cutting date of the
12:59
investigation uh which is May this year
13:02
uh only 40 only 46 people had been
13:06
reported uh having died because of
13:08
starvation but there is extermination
13:11
and the numbers are shocking we are
13:14
talking of almost
13:16
45,000 people are certained uh killed
13:20
primarily by bombing a sniper fire
13:23
including 177,000 children so the the
13:26
crime of Investigation is still uh to be
13:29
investigated and prosecuted Again by
13:32
connect connected to another sort of
13:35
evidence not linked to starvation per
13:38
se and I've read the the press release
13:41
that the court issued um yesterday Court
13:44
said that um they have really strong you
13:48
know they strongly believe that these
13:49
crimes are continuing right now and also
13:53
I think they've mentioned something very
13:54
important they've mentioned the
13:56
intentional targeting of the civilian
13:59
population because we've heard over and
14:01
over and over again from the Israeli
14:03
press office from the Israeli Prime
14:05
Minister from the US from the lot of
14:08
people in the mainstream media yes a lot
14:11
of civilians have died but poor them
14:13
it's collateral damage but now the court
14:15
is saying it's
14:17
intentional this is something very
14:19
serious right absolutely there are so
14:22
many elements that I was surprised to
14:25
see in the arrest warrants and I would
14:28
like to return part particularly to uh
14:31
to a couple of them uh but definitely
14:34
the there is a without saying that there
14:38
is a the the the acknowledgment of what
14:44
I have denounced like um as humanitarian
14:47
camouflage the fact that Israel uh has
14:50
used concept of international
14:53
humanitarian law which if observed would
14:57
have prevented the
14:59
these numbers of people killed for
15:02
example Israel has has not denied the
15:06
the the the numbers of people killed
15:08
yeah we might have complained at times
15:11
that they were inflated but because now
15:14
they have beened and verified with
15:17
identity um name family name identity
15:20
numbers associated with them it's it's
15:23
it cannot be denied however Israel has
15:25
Justified this killings as saying
15:28
blaming Hamas saying that Hamas was
15:31
hiding uh and using the
15:34
population of Gaza as human Shields this
15:37
has not been proved I'm not saying that
15:39
this didn't happen but then not only
15:41
there is no evidence that Hamas has not
15:43
used Palestinians as human Shields as a
15:46
method of War there is evidence that
15:48
Israel has used Palestinians as human
15:51
Shields also um we cannot interpret
15:55
international law does not allowed to
15:58
interpret Shield as a blanket argument
16:01
to obscure the fact the fact that Urban
16:04
Gua
16:06
um
16:07
Warfare implies the moving of um
16:11
combatants in uh in a he in a heavily
16:14
populated areas which implies more
16:16
precautions to be taken by the
16:19
belligerant parties another element is
16:21
collateral damage this is a an affront
16:25
to the meaning the pure meaning of
16:27
principles of distinct iction precaution
16:30
proportionality in the military conduct
16:33
and also the way Israel has used the
16:35
concept of evacuation zones sorry
16:38
evacuation orders and safe zones we know
16:41
that evacuation orders are that have
16:43
been issued are not in compliance with
16:46
international law because it they have
16:48
failed the principle of Distinction and
16:50
the principle of military necessity but
16:52
also what were the precautions taken how
16:54
the safety of the forcibly displaced
16:57
Palestinians not evacuated from possibly
16:59
displac Palestinians were met where were
17:01
the the shelters where was the
17:04
humanitarian Aid the food the Medical
17:06
Aid afforded to these people and Al also
17:10
the the safe zones have been bombed
17:13
there are people who have been burned
17:14
alive intense so look it's it's
17:17
untenable and I'm so glad the court
17:19
picked on this the first question is are
17:22
you worried that Israel will actually
17:23
react even more feroc you know
17:26
ferociously in in Gaza and the second
17:29
part is why did you think it was
17:31
important to write this report genocide
17:33
as Colonial eraser so first of all this
17:36
is the second report I write on the
17:38
topic of genocide h a report that I it
Understanding Genocide as Colonial Erasure
17:42
was clearly not in my mind as I started
17:47
and as I travel through the first year
17:49
and a half of my mandate as a special
17:52
report so when I uh wrote anatomy of a
17:57
genocide uh highlighting that there were
18:00
uh reasonable grounds to believe that
18:02
Israel had committed acts of genocide
18:04
and had used international humanitarian
18:06
law in fact as a camouflage uh for its
18:09
crimes and its its conduct um I thought
18:14
that this would contribute on the one
18:16
hand to the work of the of the Court
18:18
which somewhat it did somewhat it did
18:21
because the the South African legal team
18:23
has used some of the argument I made but
18:25
also I would have expected a greater
18:27
response uh uh from member states
18:30
greater pressure particularly because
18:31
there is an obligation that the court
18:33
has mentioned for member states not to
18:37
transfer weapons to a state that might
18:39
be committing atrocities and this was uh
18:42
uh established in the Nicaragua versus
18:46
Germany case
Francesca Albanese: so after the release of my
18:50
report in fact anatomy of genocide I've
18:52
noticed and this is an this links to the
18:55
first question you were asking I've
18:57
noticed that at
18:59
legal development at the international
19:01
Justice level there has been a sort
19:05
of apparent
19:07
Vengeance uh against the Gaza Strip
19:11
certain massacres have occurred in the
19:13
immediate after math of the of the icj
19:18
provisional measures or uh the ICC
19:21
arrest warrants and same yesterday as I
19:24
said I I still need to go through the
19:26
entire evidence that comes out out of
19:29
that but in the past 24 hours I have
19:31
received notice of nine massacres that
19:34
have been carried out so I'm really
19:36
scared of the impact that this important
19:39
development might have on the people of
19:41
Gaza but going to my my report why did I
19:44
write a second report because genocide
19:47
was continuing and genocide was
19:49
continuing as a as as part of a of a
19:53
long trajectory over Erasure of the
19:55
Palestinian people especially in the
19:57
past six months the elements of
20:00
Vengeance and the rasure have
20:02
intensified for example the discourse of
20:05
pal the discourse of Israeli leaders
20:08
wanting to resettle Gaza starting from
20:12
the northern uh Gaza uh which is matched
20:16
by the evidence on the ground and the
20:18
recent statements of the military that
20:20
they will not allow the population uh
20:23
forcibly displaced from northern Gaza to
20:25
return the fact that the settlers have
20:28
visited several times Northern Gaza and
20:30
even made plans to how to rebuild the
20:33
settlements The Continuous call for
20:36
forceable transfer and ethnic cleansing
20:39
of the entire occupied Palestinian
20:41
territory The Continuous land grab in
20:44
the West Bank so I took a step back from
20:47
all these and I said what is the plan
20:50
here because the genocidal intent is
20:53
pretty clear but it needs to be
20:55
understood Beyond any reasonable ground
20:58
and this is why I refer to Greater
21:00
Israel greater Israel has been pursued
21:04
since the very foundation of the state
21:06
of Israel and since the very beginning
21:08
of the occupation of what remained of
21:11
historical Palestine I understand that
21:14
there was opposition to this within
21:15
Israel among many including many in the
21:18
military system nonetheless the facts on
21:21
the ground reveal that this plan has
21:24
continued today 60% of the Gaza Strip is
21:28
completely under Israel's control the
21:30
this Jerusalem is completely annexed
21:33
which is a crime and Gaza is happening
21:36
so I think that in line with what has
21:39
happened in other uh cases um genocide
21:44
is a especially settler Colonial
21:47
genocides this genocide has happened as
21:49
a as a means to an end as a means to
21:53
advance Israel's settler Colonial plan
21:56
and so the intent is clear and shouldn't
21:59
be confused with the motives Frank I
22:01
mean I know that Israeli leaders have
22:03
said we are here to eradicate AAS
22:06
whatever it means we are here to um
22:09
Liberate the hostages and simply defeat
22:11
a mass this is not matched by the
22:13
reality on the ground and this might be
22:15
motives but it it doesn't nothing of
22:17
this um disprove the main intent meaning
22:22
the determination of Erasure and
22:24
Destructor which has been said
22:26
predicated and enacted upon so it's a
22:30
it's a long it's the it's a escalation
22:32
of a steady violence against the
22:35
Palestinians which has been over
22:38
especially 57 years of occupation Fast
22:40
Pace low Pace at different times of
22:43
history but again we cannot miss the
22:46
forest for the
22:50
trees thank you
22:52
Francesca um you know gra for for you
22:56
know it's it's was very important to um
22:59
to highlight you know the you know way
23:02
what's happening at the IC but I think
23:04
it's crucial as You' just said you know
23:07
and did to put it in you know to put it
23:10
Israel's action in the broader context
23:13
um of the anyway of the great Israel
23:15
project so um so again thank you uh
23:19
thank you Franchesca thank you very much
23:21
Frank
by Frank Barat
Nov 22, 2024
In this conversation, Frank Barat and Francesca Albanese discuss the recent arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu. They explore the implications of these warrants for international law, the reactions from various states, and the broader context of accountability for war crimes and genocide in Palestine. Albanese emphasises the historical significance of the ICC's decision and the ongoing challenges faced by Palestinians, while also addressing the responsibilities of member states in enforcing these warrants.
Audio podcast here: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show...
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Context of the ICC Arrest Warrants
02:05 Significance of the ICC's Decision
04:45 Legal Obligations of Member States
06:57 Potential for Broader Accountability
10:59 Implications of Ongoing Violence
17:42 Understanding Genocide as Colonial Erasure
Transcript
Introduction and Context of the ICC Arrest Warrants
0:01
hi Franchesca hi
0:04
Frank um it's it's really great to to
0:06
have you on today I know how busy you
0:08
are so it's much much
0:11
appreciated thank you thank you very
0:13
much it's always a pleasure to be with
0:15
you I I wanted to talk to you obviously
0:18
about the international criminal court
0:21
coming back after months and months with
0:24
ARs warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu
0:29
yav galand
0:30
and Muhammad de um Hamas leader Israel
0:35
said you they killed Muhammad de in
0:38
August so we're not sure if he's alive
0:40
or not but obviously I'm going to focus
0:42
more about what it means in regards to
0:44
Netanyahu and Gallant I'll give a brief
0:47
background so on May 21st Karim K the
0:51
pro prosecutor of the international
0:53
criminal court asked the court to issue
0:56
arrest warrants against Netanyahu Galant
0:58
Han Di and sinir Han was assassinated in
1:02
Iran sinir died in Gaza recently and
1:06
again we're not sure if Dave is is alive
1:09
or not following Karim can um you know
1:14
demand in may we know the court and some
1:18
judges were put under huge pressure by
1:20
various actors actually one of the judge
1:24
the Romanian judge had to leave the
1:25
court this is very unusual then in
1:28
August Kim Khan asked the court for an
1:30
Urgent Response to his request because
1:33
between May and August we didn't hear
1:34
anything from the court and then finally
1:37
yesterday and to be honest I didn't
1:40
expect this anymore I was like this is
1:41
over I'm not sure what's going to happen
1:43
with the IC you know international law
1:45
is dead International Justice is dead
1:47
but yesterday for me out of the blue we
1:50
get the news the IC comes back with the
1:53
RS warrants against Natan gallant and
1:56
Dave how did you react to the news and
2:01
why is it important in your opinion yeah
Significance of the ICC's Decision
2:05
I have to say that I I share your
2:08
feelings I mean like many I've been
2:11
disheartened by the delay uh because
2:16
uh Israel has consistently evaded
2:20
accountability for decades and the
2:23
pressure that has been excerted on the
2:26
international justice system and
2:28
particularly the uh ICC has led many
2:32
including myself to think that this
2:36
yesterday decision would never see the
2:40
uh the light of the day so I reacted
2:43
yeah with a moment of I I felt elated
2:47
there was a moment
2:49
of yeah Joy satisfaction thinking of
2:52
what accountability means although the
2:55
problems on the ground are many and I
2:58
don't think that this step in particular
3:02
in particular although necessary is
3:04
going to make the life of the
3:06
Palestinians in Gaza any better in the
3:08
in the in the immediate short term I
3:11
mean in the last 24 hours the the
3:14
attacks on the population of
3:16
Gaza have intensified but the this
3:20
decision represents an historical and
3:23
overdue step toward dismantling the
3:25
decades long impunity enjoyed by by
3:29
Israel and it's a I mean it's a moment
3:32
that signals a pivotal turning point in
3:35
the global pursuit of Justice holding
3:37
Israel leaders accountable and also the
3:41
state apparatus that has allowed Decades
3:44
of impunity and including what I for me
3:47
it's without the without any doubt a
3:50
genocide so it is the opportunity to H
3:53
to hold that status apparatus
3:55
accountable for orchestrating and perpet
3:58
perpetuating
4:00
the gravest international
4:04
crimes so so what happens what happens
4:07
now you know as you know following a
4:09
year of genocide with very little um you
4:12
know um action you know to con to
4:15
actually condemn Israel uh I mean
4:18
condemning Israel has happened but very
4:19
little concrete action to stop the
4:21
genocide a lot of people including
4:23
myself I've lost trust in international
4:26
Justice and international law
4:28
international Humanity militarian law
4:31
but um it's different with the IC right
4:34
it's it's a binding decision what does
4:36
it mean now for the
4:38
124 states that are signatory to the ICC
4:42
and the Rome statute do they have a
4:44
binding obligation to act yes well let
Legal Obligations of Member States
4:47
me say that when we talk
4:49
about uh the right of self-determination
4:52
of the Palestinians that has been
4:53
crucially reaffirmed by the
4:55
international court of justice this year
4:57
ordering the immediate I mean as rapidly
5:00
as possible uh the dismantlement of the
5:02
occupation the dismantlement of the
5:05
military apparatus in the West Bank the
5:07
Gaza Strip and Jerusalem the
5:09
dismantlement of the settlements the end
5:11
of the uh control of Israel Over
5:14
Palestinian national sorry natural
5:18
resources um this is all binding because
5:20
it's premised upon uh erga omness
5:23
obligations of member states so there is
5:25
a critical element of law of State
5:28
responsibility uh that has been violated
5:30
but also the provisional measures
5:32
ordered by the international court of
5:34
justice this year in the genocide case
5:37
initiated by South Africa they are
5:39
binding so but you're right these adds
5:42
something more because it uh imposes an
5:47
obligation on all member states party to
5:51
the Rome statute to
5:54
arrest uh the the the the IND indicted
5:58
uh the the identified
6:00
um responsible so the two Israeli
6:04
leaders and one Hamas leader this is a
6:07
crucial step toward ending Decades of
6:09
suffering and ensuring the
6:10
accountability particularly this is a
6:13
test for the Western world because I I
6:16
would disagree with you it's not that
6:18
all member states have done very little
6:21
member states in the global South have
6:23
done more than any anyone else including
6:27
incl I mean particularly South Africa
6:29
but this is a test for the Western World
6:32
particularly the the states parties to
6:35
the Rome status state to demonstrate
6:37
their commitment to International
6:40
Justice uh to international law and here
6:43
as I've often said the system is at a
6:46
Breaking Point either it is strengthened
6:49
by accountability and respect for
6:51
fundamental principles of international
6:53
law or it will
Potential for Broader Accountability
6:57
break so in concrete terms let's say um
7:01
if Netanyahu or Galant or Mohammed Dave
7:05
um travels tomorrow to
7:07
Spain what are the Spanish
7:10
authorities obligated to do yes uh to
7:16
arrest to arrest them to arrest them and
7:19
make sure they are transferred to the he
7:22
so for the trial to start so look the
7:26
laws the international laws that have
7:28
been uh uh breached are very clear and
7:32
the evidence of crimes and violations is
7:36
overwhelming beyond what has been used
7:40
relied upon within the realm and the
7:43
confines of the current investigation
7:45
initiated by the the office of the
7:48
prosecutor but we know that the IC has
7:51
no power power to enforce the arrest
7:54
warrants on its own so the power rests
7:57
with the governments of the world so yes
8:00
there is an obligation to arrest and
8:03
it's very interesting the reaction that
8:05
has been registered by member states
8:08
it's a clear black and white there are
8:10
member states who have who have uh said
8:14
that they would they would comply with
8:16
the ICC uh with the ICC arrest warrants
8:21
which is totally obvious to me there are
8:23
member states who have uh who
8:28
have like
8:30
really asserted unable
8:33
unable um that who have made untenable
8:37
arguments um accusing the court of being
8:40
anti-semitic accusing the court of
8:42
having made a comparison between Israeli
8:46
leaders and terrorists so again these
8:48
denotes the immense bias that rests with
8:52
this with this countries but again I
8:54
want to stress that governments are
8:56
morally and legally obliged to to ensure
9:00
that um war criminals do not go
9:02
unpunished and let me say there is
9:04
another there is a flip side of it what
9:07
the international criminal court does is
9:10
operating delivering Justice over
9:12
International crimes on the basis of
9:14
complimentarity this doesn't absolve
9:17
member states from their uh
9:19
responsibility to investigate and
9:22
prosecute International crimes uh
9:25
including the crime of genocide there
9:28
therefore I do expect that member states
9:31
initiate their own investigations over
9:34
war crimes crimes against humanity and
9:36
the crime of including the crime of
9:38
apartheid and the crime of genocide that
9:41
has been committed that have been
9:42
committed in the occupied Palestinian
9:45
territory and there is an even more
9:47
stringent responsibility because a
9:50
number of um people allegedly
9:54
responsible apparently involved in these
9:57
crimes have double nationalities a
9:59
number of them have nationality from the
10:02
UK France Belgium Italy even Arab
10:06
countries I discovered Australia Canada
10:09
the US so it's an even greater
10:12
responsibility that these states have
10:15
toward Justice ensuring that their
10:18
citizens have are are brought to Justice
10:21
if they have committed uh or they are
10:23
suspected of having committed
10:26
crimes I I wanted to ask you about this
10:28
actually um is it the beginning of the
10:31
inway investigation or or the end what I
10:35
mean by that is could the IC now come
10:39
with more arrest warrants for example I
10:41
mean your recent report um genocide as
10:45
Colonial eraser focused a lot as well
10:48
about on what's happening in the West
10:49
Bank so could the IC come back with
10:52
arrest warrants for settlers and for
10:55
others or for other sort of senior
10:58
officials yeah I I think that there is
Implications of Ongoing Violence
11:00
no doubt that this is the beginning of
11:03
uh a potentially much broader uh
11:07
accountability process for a number of
11:09
reasons first of all because this is
11:11
what the office of the prosecutor and
11:13
through the prosecutor himself uh
11:17
declared months ago when the arrest
11:20
warrants were
11:21
demanded um and um and this leaves a
11:25
room to further arrest warrants but also
11:29
further crimes I was um initially not
11:33
disappointed but surprised by the narrow
11:36
scope of the investigation initiated by
11:40
the office of the prosecutor because he
11:43
has only looked at what has happened in
11:46
the occupied Palestinian territory Gaza
11:48
in particular um after October 7 but
11:52
what about what has happened before
11:54
which amounts
11:56
to war crimes and crimes against
11:58
humanity so these for sure it should be
12:01
broaden but also I think there there are
12:03
questions about the the crimes that um
12:07
the current arrest warrants have been
12:10
issued for because there is the uh the
12:13
crime of starvation of civilians as a
12:17
method of warfare um and as a war crime
12:21
the crime of extermination has not been
12:25
uh has not been identified doesn't
12:28
appear in the arrest warrants so does it
12:32
mean that the court is not looking into
12:35
a into extermination as someone has uh
12:38
has claimed I don't think so because my
12:41
understanding is that the office of the
12:44
prosecutor linked extermination
12:46
primarily to starvation and the lack of
12:48
humanitarian aid but in fact in my view
12:51
and there the evidence of the
12:54
extermination is still limited because
12:56
back then within the cutting date of the
12:59
investigation uh which is May this year
13:02
uh only 40 only 46 people had been
13:06
reported uh having died because of
13:08
starvation but there is extermination
13:11
and the numbers are shocking we are
13:14
talking of almost
13:16
45,000 people are certained uh killed
13:20
primarily by bombing a sniper fire
13:23
including 177,000 children so the the
13:26
crime of Investigation is still uh to be
13:29
investigated and prosecuted Again by
13:32
connect connected to another sort of
13:35
evidence not linked to starvation per
13:38
se and I've read the the press release
13:41
that the court issued um yesterday Court
13:44
said that um they have really strong you
13:48
know they strongly believe that these
13:49
crimes are continuing right now and also
13:53
I think they've mentioned something very
13:54
important they've mentioned the
13:56
intentional targeting of the civilian
13:59
population because we've heard over and
14:01
over and over again from the Israeli
14:03
press office from the Israeli Prime
14:05
Minister from the US from the lot of
14:08
people in the mainstream media yes a lot
14:11
of civilians have died but poor them
14:13
it's collateral damage but now the court
14:15
is saying it's
14:17
intentional this is something very
14:19
serious right absolutely there are so
14:22
many elements that I was surprised to
14:25
see in the arrest warrants and I would
14:28
like to return part particularly to uh
14:31
to a couple of them uh but definitely
14:34
the there is a without saying that there
14:38
is a the the the acknowledgment of what
14:44
I have denounced like um as humanitarian
14:47
camouflage the fact that Israel uh has
14:50
used concept of international
14:53
humanitarian law which if observed would
14:57
have prevented the
14:59
these numbers of people killed for
15:02
example Israel has has not denied the
15:06
the the the numbers of people killed
15:08
yeah we might have complained at times
15:11
that they were inflated but because now
15:14
they have beened and verified with
15:17
identity um name family name identity
15:20
numbers associated with them it's it's
15:23
it cannot be denied however Israel has
15:25
Justified this killings as saying
15:28
blaming Hamas saying that Hamas was
15:31
hiding uh and using the
15:34
population of Gaza as human Shields this
15:37
has not been proved I'm not saying that
15:39
this didn't happen but then not only
15:41
there is no evidence that Hamas has not
15:43
used Palestinians as human Shields as a
15:46
method of War there is evidence that
15:48
Israel has used Palestinians as human
15:51
Shields also um we cannot interpret
15:55
international law does not allowed to
15:58
interpret Shield as a blanket argument
16:01
to obscure the fact the fact that Urban
16:04
Gua
16:06
um
16:07
Warfare implies the moving of um
16:11
combatants in uh in a he in a heavily
16:14
populated areas which implies more
16:16
precautions to be taken by the
16:19
belligerant parties another element is
16:21
collateral damage this is a an affront
16:25
to the meaning the pure meaning of
16:27
principles of distinct iction precaution
16:30
proportionality in the military conduct
16:33
and also the way Israel has used the
16:35
concept of evacuation zones sorry
16:38
evacuation orders and safe zones we know
16:41
that evacuation orders are that have
16:43
been issued are not in compliance with
16:46
international law because it they have
16:48
failed the principle of Distinction and
16:50
the principle of military necessity but
16:52
also what were the precautions taken how
16:54
the safety of the forcibly displaced
16:57
Palestinians not evacuated from possibly
16:59
displac Palestinians were met where were
17:01
the the shelters where was the
17:04
humanitarian Aid the food the Medical
17:06
Aid afforded to these people and Al also
17:10
the the safe zones have been bombed
17:13
there are people who have been burned
17:14
alive intense so look it's it's
17:17
untenable and I'm so glad the court
17:19
picked on this the first question is are
17:22
you worried that Israel will actually
17:23
react even more feroc you know
17:26
ferociously in in Gaza and the second
17:29
part is why did you think it was
17:31
important to write this report genocide
17:33
as Colonial eraser so first of all this
17:36
is the second report I write on the
17:38
topic of genocide h a report that I it
Understanding Genocide as Colonial Erasure
17:42
was clearly not in my mind as I started
17:47
and as I travel through the first year
17:49
and a half of my mandate as a special
17:52
report so when I uh wrote anatomy of a
17:57
genocide uh highlighting that there were
18:00
uh reasonable grounds to believe that
18:02
Israel had committed acts of genocide
18:04
and had used international humanitarian
18:06
law in fact as a camouflage uh for its
18:09
crimes and its its conduct um I thought
18:14
that this would contribute on the one
18:16
hand to the work of the of the Court
18:18
which somewhat it did somewhat it did
18:21
because the the South African legal team
18:23
has used some of the argument I made but
18:25
also I would have expected a greater
18:27
response uh uh from member states
18:30
greater pressure particularly because
18:31
there is an obligation that the court
18:33
has mentioned for member states not to
18:37
transfer weapons to a state that might
18:39
be committing atrocities and this was uh
18:42
uh established in the Nicaragua versus
18:46
Germany case
Francesca Albanese: so after the release of my
18:50
report in fact anatomy of genocide I've
18:52
noticed and this is an this links to the
18:55
first question you were asking I've
18:57
noticed that at
18:59
legal development at the international
19:01
Justice level there has been a sort
19:05
of apparent
19:07
Vengeance uh against the Gaza Strip
19:11
certain massacres have occurred in the
19:13
immediate after math of the of the icj
19:18
provisional measures or uh the ICC
19:21
arrest warrants and same yesterday as I
19:24
said I I still need to go through the
19:26
entire evidence that comes out out of
19:29
that but in the past 24 hours I have
19:31
received notice of nine massacres that
19:34
have been carried out so I'm really
19:36
scared of the impact that this important
19:39
development might have on the people of
19:41
Gaza but going to my my report why did I
19:44
write a second report because genocide
19:47
was continuing and genocide was
19:49
continuing as a as as part of a of a
19:53
long trajectory over Erasure of the
19:55
Palestinian people especially in the
19:57
past six months the elements of
20:00
Vengeance and the rasure have
20:02
intensified for example the discourse of
20:05
pal the discourse of Israeli leaders
20:08
wanting to resettle Gaza starting from
20:12
the northern uh Gaza uh which is matched
20:16
by the evidence on the ground and the
20:18
recent statements of the military that
20:20
they will not allow the population uh
20:23
forcibly displaced from northern Gaza to
20:25
return the fact that the settlers have
20:28
visited several times Northern Gaza and
20:30
even made plans to how to rebuild the
20:33
settlements The Continuous call for
20:36
forceable transfer and ethnic cleansing
20:39
of the entire occupied Palestinian
20:41
territory The Continuous land grab in
20:44
the West Bank so I took a step back from
20:47
all these and I said what is the plan
20:50
here because the genocidal intent is
20:53
pretty clear but it needs to be
20:55
understood Beyond any reasonable ground
20:58
and this is why I refer to Greater
21:00
Israel greater Israel has been pursued
21:04
since the very foundation of the state
21:06
of Israel and since the very beginning
21:08
of the occupation of what remained of
21:11
historical Palestine I understand that
21:14
there was opposition to this within
21:15
Israel among many including many in the
21:18
military system nonetheless the facts on
21:21
the ground reveal that this plan has
21:24
continued today 60% of the Gaza Strip is
21:28
completely under Israel's control the
21:30
this Jerusalem is completely annexed
21:33
which is a crime and Gaza is happening
21:36
so I think that in line with what has
21:39
happened in other uh cases um genocide
21:44
is a especially settler Colonial
21:47
genocides this genocide has happened as
21:49
a as a means to an end as a means to
21:53
advance Israel's settler Colonial plan
21:56
and so the intent is clear and shouldn't
21:59
be confused with the motives Frank I
22:01
mean I know that Israeli leaders have
22:03
said we are here to eradicate AAS
22:06
whatever it means we are here to um
22:09
Liberate the hostages and simply defeat
22:11
a mass this is not matched by the
22:13
reality on the ground and this might be
22:15
motives but it it doesn't nothing of
22:17
this um disprove the main intent meaning
22:22
the determination of Erasure and
22:24
Destructor which has been said
22:26
predicated and enacted upon so it's a
22:30
it's a long it's the it's a escalation
22:32
of a steady violence against the
22:35
Palestinians which has been over
22:38
especially 57 years of occupation Fast
22:40
Pace low Pace at different times of
22:43
history but again we cannot miss the
22:46
forest for the
22:50
trees thank you
22:52
Francesca um you know gra for for you
22:56
know it's it's was very important to um
22:59
to highlight you know the you know way
23:02
what's happening at the IC but I think
23:04
it's crucial as You' just said you know
23:07
and did to put it in you know to put it
23:10
Israel's action in the broader context
23:13
um of the anyway of the great Israel
23:15
project so um so again thank you uh
23:19
thank you Franchesca thank you very much
23:21
Frank
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Re: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim
by admin » Thu Nov 28, 2024 1:24 am
Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 30, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/30/headlines
WFP Calls for Urgent Action to Prevent Famine as Israeli Siege on Gaza Continues
Oct 30, 2024
The World Food Programme is calling for immediate action to prevent famine in the Gaza Strip, warning Palestinians across the besieged territory are losing hope of finding any food for their starving children. The aid agency said Tuesday it has nearly 100,000 tons of food ready for shipment from Egypt and Jordan — enough to feed a million Palestinians for four months — but that Israel has largely denied access to convoys. The situation is most dire in northern Gaza, where the Israeli army has blocked all aid access for a 25th consecutive day. This comes amid dire warnings from aid organizations over Israel’s decision to ban the U.N. relief agency UNRWA. On Tuesday, the U.N. humanitarian office called the policy “collective punishment” — a war crime — while UNICEF spokesperson James Elder warned of a complete collapse of Gaza’s humanitarian system.
James Elder: “You take away the healthcare workers, you take away the nutritional support, you take away the people who will provide the lifesaving supplies for a population that is physically, physically, absolutely on death’s door — and psychologically, of course, in uncharted territory — you take away these healthcare workers, you take away the nutritionists, then we will see many more children die.”
On Tuesday, Israel’s military once again bombed residential buildings in Beit Lahia, killing at least 19 Palestinians just hours after a separate attack killed at least 93 people, including 25 children. Beit Lahia has been declared a “disaster area” amid weeks of relentless Israeli bombings and military siege.
Meanwhile, a new report by the research group Forensic Architecture finds Israel is systematically committing crimes of persecution and destruction in Gaza, amounting to genocide. The group found Israel has destroyed over 83% of all plant life in Gaza, over 70% of agricultural land, nearly half of all groundwater wells and two-thirds of water tanks. Of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, Israel has forced 35 to stop service at least once, targeted 31 in bombings and attacks, and violently invaded 10 hospitals.
Israeli Military Orders Entire Population of Baalbek to Flee or Face Bombs
Oct 30, 2024
In Lebanon, residents of the city of Baalbek in the Beqaa Valley rushed to flee their homes and businesses today after Israel’s military ordered them to leave the city and surrounding villages. The panicked forced displacement came after two days of stepped-up attacks by Israel killed at least 60 people in Baalbek. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed at least 77 people across Lebanon. Among the dead are 10 people, mostly women and children, killed when Israel bombed a residential block in the town of Sarafand.
Palestinian Political Prisoner Marwan Barghouti Says He Was Assaulted by Israeli Guards
Oct 30, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, lawyers for Marwan Barghouti say the longtime Palestinian political prisoner was assaulted by Israeli guards as he was held in solitary confinement. The beating in early September reportedly left Barghouti with numerous injuries to his upper body and a bloody ear that later became infected due to medical neglect. Barghouthi’s lawyers say he was previously subjected to at least two other attacks by Israeli prison guards. Barghouti is the most high-profile Palestinian in Israeli detention, who many have described as the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela.”
Norway Seeks ICJ Opinion on Whether Israel’s UNRWA Ban Violates International Law
Oct 30, 2024
Diplomats from Norway said Tuesday they’re preparing a U.N. General Assembly resolution asking the International Court of Justice to rule on whether Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip violates international law. On Tuesday, U.S. envoy to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.N. Security Council that Israel must allow food, medicine and other supplies into all of Gaza.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield: “The United States has made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that one year into this conflict, Israel must address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that the United States rejects any Israeli efforts to starve Palestinians in Jabaliya or anywhere else, and that Israel’s words must be matched by action on the ground.”
Palestinian Ambassador to the U.N. Riyad Mansour called on Security Council members to match their words with action, saying, “Stop this genocide, or forever remain silent.”
Riyad Mansour: “The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of imminent death, faced with the death penalty for refusing to leave their land.”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
October 30, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/30/headlines
WFP Calls for Urgent Action to Prevent Famine as Israeli Siege on Gaza Continues
Oct 30, 2024
The World Food Programme is calling for immediate action to prevent famine in the Gaza Strip, warning Palestinians across the besieged territory are losing hope of finding any food for their starving children. The aid agency said Tuesday it has nearly 100,000 tons of food ready for shipment from Egypt and Jordan — enough to feed a million Palestinians for four months — but that Israel has largely denied access to convoys. The situation is most dire in northern Gaza, where the Israeli army has blocked all aid access for a 25th consecutive day. This comes amid dire warnings from aid organizations over Israel’s decision to ban the U.N. relief agency UNRWA. On Tuesday, the U.N. humanitarian office called the policy “collective punishment” — a war crime — while UNICEF spokesperson James Elder warned of a complete collapse of Gaza’s humanitarian system.
James Elder: “You take away the healthcare workers, you take away the nutritional support, you take away the people who will provide the lifesaving supplies for a population that is physically, physically, absolutely on death’s door — and psychologically, of course, in uncharted territory — you take away these healthcare workers, you take away the nutritionists, then we will see many more children die.”
On Tuesday, Israel’s military once again bombed residential buildings in Beit Lahia, killing at least 19 Palestinians just hours after a separate attack killed at least 93 people, including 25 children. Beit Lahia has been declared a “disaster area” amid weeks of relentless Israeli bombings and military siege.
Meanwhile, a new report by the research group Forensic Architecture finds Israel is systematically committing crimes of persecution and destruction in Gaza, amounting to genocide. The group found Israel has destroyed over 83% of all plant life in Gaza, over 70% of agricultural land, nearly half of all groundwater wells and two-thirds of water tanks. Of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, Israel has forced 35 to stop service at least once, targeted 31 in bombings and attacks, and violently invaded 10 hospitals.
Israeli Military Orders Entire Population of Baalbek to Flee or Face Bombs
Oct 30, 2024
In Lebanon, residents of the city of Baalbek in the Beqaa Valley rushed to flee their homes and businesses today after Israel’s military ordered them to leave the city and surrounding villages. The panicked forced displacement came after two days of stepped-up attacks by Israel killed at least 60 people in Baalbek. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed at least 77 people across Lebanon. Among the dead are 10 people, mostly women and children, killed when Israel bombed a residential block in the town of Sarafand.
Palestinian Political Prisoner Marwan Barghouti Says He Was Assaulted by Israeli Guards
Oct 30, 2024
In the occupied West Bank, lawyers for Marwan Barghouti say the longtime Palestinian political prisoner was assaulted by Israeli guards as he was held in solitary confinement. The beating in early September reportedly left Barghouti with numerous injuries to his upper body and a bloody ear that later became infected due to medical neglect. Barghouthi’s lawyers say he was previously subjected to at least two other attacks by Israeli prison guards. Barghouti is the most high-profile Palestinian in Israeli detention, who many have described as the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela.”
Norway Seeks ICJ Opinion on Whether Israel’s UNRWA Ban Violates International Law
Oct 30, 2024
Diplomats from Norway said Tuesday they’re preparing a U.N. General Assembly resolution asking the International Court of Justice to rule on whether Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip violates international law. On Tuesday, U.S. envoy to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the U.N. Security Council that Israel must allow food, medicine and other supplies into all of Gaza.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield: “The United States has made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that one year into this conflict, Israel must address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that the United States rejects any Israeli efforts to starve Palestinians in Jabaliya or anywhere else, and that Israel’s words must be matched by action on the ground.”
Palestinian Ambassador to the U.N. Riyad Mansour called on Security Council members to match their words with action, saying, “Stop this genocide, or forever remain silent.”
Riyad Mansour: “The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of imminent death, faced with the death penalty for refusing to leave their land.”
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