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“A Catastrophe That Cannot Be Described”: Palestinian Poet in Rafah on Daily Hardships Amid Israel’s War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/18/ ... transcript

We get an update from Rafah as the World Food Programme warns of worsening catastrophic hunger in the Gaza Strip and Israel continues to block most aid from entering the territory. Despite growing international criticism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he plans for a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, where over 1.4 million Palestinians are penned in after repeated forced evacuations from elsewhere in Gaza since October 7. “I’m hoping from the U.S. government to put a serious pressure on the Israeli government in order to prevent such a catastrophe,” says Mohammed Abu Lebda, a poet and translator from Rafah, who says an Israeli ground invasion could kill up to 100,000 more Palestinians. Abu Lebda describes the daily hardships in Rafah, including the severe mental toll, Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza has unleashed. “I’m not sure that I’m going to be the person that I used to be before the war,” he says. “I’m 100% sure that I was changed, and I was changed forever.”

(Mohammed Abu Lebda is currently fundraising to leave Gaza with his family. Find details on his GoFundMe page.)

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 begin today’s show in Gaza, where humanitarian agencies say a small amount of flour has been delivered in northern Gaza for the first time in months, as the U.N. food agency warns famine is imminent and 70% of Palestinians in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger. This comes as UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is reporting one in three children under the age of 2 in northern Gaza is now acutely malnourished as Israel continues to block most aid from entering Gaza. On Friday, a ship carrying 200 tons of aid arrived in Gaza from Cyprus, but aid groups say far more aid is desperately needed inside Gaza.

Despite growing international criticism, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to move ahead with a full-scale ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah, where over 1.4 million Palestinians are now seeking refuge.

For more, we go to Rafah, where we’re joined by Mohammed Abu Lebda. He’s a poet and a translator. He used to translate Edgar Allan Poe but now translates for the International Medical Corps.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Mohammed. Thank you for joining us today on Democracy Now! Can you describe the situation on the ground in Rafah and tell us about your city?

MOHAMMED ABU LEBDA: OK. Hi. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Actually, as you may see in the background, I’m talking about the tents that are here, and I want to say that every single street in Rafah city is full of tents, because after people were forced to be displaced from the rest areas of the Gaza Strip, from north until Khan Younis in the south, and they didn’t find any shelter but Rafah city, which — actually, let me say that the border towns — Rafah is a border town, and the border towns usually are neglected. And it’s not known — it’s not even known, only for geographers or even border guards.

So, Rafah was suffering in the normal days from bad infrastructure, lack of many basic life needs. So, actually, let me say, in the war of 2014, the people of Rafah were demanding to have a hospital, because we here, until now — we are in 2024 — we don’t have a suitable hospital that can provide good medical services to the people of Rafah. To just describe the horrible situation that Rafah is living, Rafah used to have a population of 250,000 people only. Now we have more than, over than 1.4 million people, without any suitable infrastructure or without providing them with the necessary basic life needs.

OK, the situation in the north of Gaza is really horrible. But let me say, in Rafah, there is no big difference, actually. People here are suffering from several things. Actually, you need to wait in lines, and maybe you can — you may spend the whole day in lines just to have some bread or even to have clean water, because most of the water here is polluted, and it’s not suitable for the human use. And it’s important to mention that, above all of this, the shooting and the bombing is still continuing here in Rafah, actually, even if Rafah was declared as a safe place.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed Abu Lebda, the Biden administration has said they have a red line, that would be the prime minister having the Israeli troops engaging in a full ground invasion in Rafah, if he doesn’t present a plan for how Palestinians would be dealt with on the ground, civilians. Israel announced it wants to transfer most of the more than million Palestinians in Rafah to what it calls humanitarian islands in other parts of Gaza. Can you explain what that means and what people are saying, how they are preparing?

MOHAMMED ABU LEBDA: OK, actually, to be honest, I don’t know what does it mean even, because I never heard about something called safe islands or something like that in Gaza Strip. So it is the first time I heard it, after reading the news. Actually, there is no effective plan that can easily transfer or move over than 1.4 million people here from Gaza Strip — from Rafah city, I mean, even to another areas, where the IDF is still working there. So, to be clear, it’s not an effective plan. Actually, to be honest, me and the rest of the Rafah people don’t know even what they are talking about, because it is the first time to hear about this.

But I can ask that the American government is to put real pressure and serious pressure on the Israeli government so they can prevent them seriously and honestly to invade Rafah, because invading Rafah means that there is a true catastrophe that is coming, even if we are still living in a catastrophe, actually, because the situation here cannot be described. So, invading Rafah means that you will end the little, the tiny hope that is still — we still have. So, what does this mean to me, actually? I am actually a little bit worried about the safety of the entire people here, because invading Rafah, which means that hundreds of thousands will be killed if something like that happened. So, I’m expecting and I’m hoping from the U.S. government to put serious pressure on the Israeli government in order to prevent such a catastrophe to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: What would it mean for your family, Mohammed, if the Israeli military does launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah? And can you describe what the process is for people to leave, to make their way into Egypt, the thousands of dollars that must be spent? I think, on average, it’s something like $5,000 per adult and $2,000 or $2,500 per child?

MOHAMMED ABU LEBDA: Let me say, first, leaving Gaza Strip toward Egypt, I mean, the entire people here, if there is an invade or march or there is any march into Rafah, actually, most of the world, including the U.S. government itself, actually they refuse that entirely. The Palestinians will not be moved. They refuse that entirely, to be moved to the Sinai or the Egyptian side. But let me say that I’m already displaced, because I lost my house by bombing some near houses near my house at the same square, so I forced to move to another place in the same area, Rafah city, because I’m from Rafah. And the same thing for the people who were displaced from the rest of Gaza Strip cities.

For me, or for my experience, for me and my family, we suffered a lot first when we were at our house in order to provide the basic life needs, as I mentioned, the basic food even. If there is any food here, you will find very, very high prices that the normal citizen or the normal civilians cannot really afford. So, it’s impossible to the people in such a situation to afford any kind of food. And let me say that anything that is entering from Rafah cross-bording, anything, literally, it’s not even enough for maybe half a million. We are talking about a number that — over than that with a big thing. So, from my experience, I face several things. First of all, we face, actually, very, very real threats — and it’s not once, it’s not even twice; we are even facing that daily. This is according to the physical thing.

And also I want to mention that we are facing severe symptoms related to our mental health. Actually, I’m not sure that I’m going to be the person that I used to be before the war when the war ends. I’m 100% sure that I was changed, and I was changed forever. It’s not me only. I’m talking about my family and the rest of the people here of Gaza Strip. We are facing severe symptoms when we are talking about the mental health. We are talking about children that are raising in such situations. Of course, they are going to have severe symptoms and many, many horrible things for their mental health, and they will carry that to all entire life, their entire life. So, from all sides, people here are really suffering, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed, you are a poet. You translate Edgar Allan Poe. Now you are a medical translator. Can you describe your work?

MOHAMMED ABU LEBDA: OK, yeah, I used to work to translate novels as a literary translator. But this war, or this catastrophe, let me say — I don’t prefer to use the word “war” because what we are witnessing is a catastrophe that cannot be described. Anyway, yeah, I used to translate literature, which means that I’m a sensitive person with many emotions. So, you need that in order to translate poetry or translate novels or something like that.

So, then, this catastrophe changed us forever, all of us, even our jobs. So, yeah, I moved to be a medical translator and a medical interpreter at a field hospital here between Rafah city and Khan Younis city in the south of Gaza Strip. Actually, my work as a medical translator, it was the first time to be in the field, actually, in such situations. And I can say that I’m witnessing very, very, very horrible situations. I’m witnessing daily many casualties that are arriving to the field hospital, because we don’t have any — we lost every governmental medical services because of the destruction of many, many hospitals, even the only hospital here in Rafah, which is al-Najjar Hospital. It cannot provide the necessary medical help, services. And the field hospital, which was established by the IMC, the International Medical Corps, they are actually — in only two months, they performed about 1,000 major surgeries, which is really, really a great thing to have. And even related to the outpatient departments, we are talking about consultations of maybe 30,000.

So, yeah, we are trying hard to provide our people with the necessary medical services, as well as the mental health and the CP, which is the child protection. We are doing our ultimate efforts in order to try hard in order to provide the people or the civilians and the innocent people here, to provide them with the medical services and other services. And let me use what Michel Foucault once said: Because we are no prophets, our job is to make windows where were once walls. So, we are trying hard is to create windows on the walls that this catastrophe is trying to build.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Mohammed Abu Lebda, we’re going to be joined by Rachel Corrie’s parents and the activist who held her hand as she lay dying. This is 21 years ago in Rafah. She was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer as she tried to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. You shared with us a picture from Rafah in 2003 — you were a little boy at the time — with the caption “my grandmother with her neighbor and my sister Rozan after their home was destroyed by an Israeli bulldozer,” right around the time Rachel was trying to protect homes as a U.S. activist. Your thoughts on her significance? And how is she remembered in Rafah?

MOHAMMED ABU LEBDA: OK, let me say that Rachel Corrie is being remembered. Every single person here in Rafah, and in Gaza in general, in Gaza Strip in general, and especially of Rafah, every single person knows Rachel Corrie, even the late generations, all of them. Allow me to tell you the main reason. Actually, Rachel Corrie became an icon, not only here in Gaza Strip and not only for the Palestinians, the Palestinian people, but for the rest of the world, because she was — she passed away or she was killed because of her — because she was trying to deliver a very important message. It’s the most important message in the world, which is peace.

And, actually, for me, this is the main thing that we need to focus on, in order to achieve what Rachel Corrie was dreaming to achieve, which is a peace for the Palestinians. So, what matters for me in Rachel Corrie’s story is that she left her home, she left her parents and her family, and she came to a very — to a country that she never visited before. And, actually, she came into a conflict zone, which is considered as a dangerous zone. So, even her ideas to come to here, actually, it’s a bravery.

She’s really — actually, I want to say that she is being remembered here because of the story and the message she tried to deliver. And this, actually, this and Rachel Corrie’s story, should strengthen us here while we are living these horrible situations. We need to remember Rachel Corrie and her courage to come to a dangerous area, not only that, trying to defend the people, the voiceless people, to be the voice of the voiceless people here and to stand in front the ultimate power. She stand in front tanks and bulldozers, trying to defend the people here in Gaza Strip, which, actually, I don’t know what is a greater — what act will be greater than Rachel Corrie dead. So, I’m really grateful for Rachel Corrie. And I want to say that people like Rachel Corrie will never die, ever.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mohammed Abu Lebda, poet and translator from Rafah, thank you so much. Your words are being heard around the world and by her parents, who are going to be joining us next. I’m looking at your GoFundMe page, Mohammed, which quotes another poet. You say, “All what we seek for is to live, like any human being in this earth. Helping us means that you are taking action, supporting humanity because the famous poet [Dante] said: 'The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.'” Thank you for talking to us today on Democracy Now!, Mohammed Abu Lebda.

MOHAMMED ABU LEBDA: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Next up, we continue to remember the U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie, killed 21 years ago, March 16th, 2003, when she was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer as she tried to prevent the demolition of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist. It was three days before the U.S. invaded Iraq. Back in 20 seconds.

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Rachel Corrie: Parents & Friend Remember U.S. Activist Crushed by Israeli Bulldozer in Rafah in 2003
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 18, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/18/ ... transcript

We mark the 21st anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old U.S. peace activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli soldier driving a military bulldozer on March 16, 2003. Corrie was in Rafah with the International Solidarity Movement to monitor human rights abuses and protect Palestinian homes from destruction when she was killed. To this day, nobody has been held accountable for her death, with the Israeli military ruling it an “accident” and the Supreme Court of Israel rejecting an appeal from her parents in 2015. Rachel Corrie has since become a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian people, and her legacy must be used “to direct attention back to Rafah” and prevent an escalation in the war, says her friend and fellow activist Tom Dale, who witnessed her final moments. We also speak with Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig, who say they have met many Palestinians over the years who continue to honor their daughter’s memory. “For Palestinians everywhere, Rachel’s story has been very important,” says Cindy Corrie. “They tell us over and over again how much it meant.” After Corrie was killed, they devoted their lives to her cause and founded the nonprofit Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.

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.

Saturday marked the 21st anniversary of the death of U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie. She was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah on March 16th, 2003, three few days before the U.S. attacked Iraq. Rachel was 23 years old. She was an Evergreen College student from Olympia, Washington. She went to Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement, which formed after Israel and the United States rejected a proposal by then-U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to place international human rights monitors in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a U.S. Caterpillar bulldozer that was run by the Israeli military. She had been trying to prevent the demolition of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist in Rafah near the border with Egypt. Eyewitnesses say she was wearing a fluorescent orange vest. She was in full view of the bulldozer’s driver, as photographs show.

In June 2003, the Israeli military concluded her death was, quote, “an accident.” Human rights groups condemned the Israeli’s army investigation as a sham. A year later, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, told Rachel’s parents he did not consider the Israeli investigation credible, thorough or transparent.

Rachel’s parents initiated lawsuits against Israel, the Israeli military and the Caterpillar corporation, but a U.S. federal appeals court ruled they could not sue the company because that would force the judiciary to rule on a foreign policy issue decided by the White House. In its ruling, the three-judge panel said the case could not go to court without implicitly questioning, and even condemning, U.S. foreign policy towards Israel. In 2015, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Rachel Corrie’s parents after they had sued the Israeli Ministry of Defense for a symbolic $1 in damages, and upheld a lower court’s ruling that cleared the military of responsibility, saying Rachel’s death had taken place in a, quote, “war zone.”

In a minute, we’ll be joined by Rachel’s parents and one of her colleagues with the International Solidarity Movement. But first, this is Rachel Corrie in her own words, from a documentary about her by Concord Media called Death of an Idealist.

RACHEL CORRIE: I’ve been here for about a month and a half now, and this is definitely the most difficult situation that I have ever seen. In the time that I’ve been here, children have been shot and killed. On the 30th of January, the Israeli military bulldozed the two largest water wells, destroying over half of Rafah’s water supply. Every few days, if not every day, houses are demolished here.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in Olympia, Washington, by Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie. After she was killed, they devoted their lives to what Rachel Corrie lived and died for, and founded the nonprofit Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice. Cindy is the foundation’s president; Craig, the treasurer. They’ve also gone on interfaith peace missions to Israel, Gaza, the West Bank. Also with us in London is Tom Dale, a writer who’s worked in civilian protection, conflict analysis and journalism in the Middle East. His new piece for Jacobin is headlined “Rachel Corrie Gave Her Life for Palestine.” In 2002 and ’03, he, too, volunteered in Rafah with the International Solidarity Movement, alongside Rachel. On March 16th, 2003, a little after 5 p.m. in Rafah, he witnessed this U.S.-made bulldozer run over Rachel. He held her hand as she lay dying on a gurney in the ambulance taking her to the hospital.

Welcome to all of you. I want to begin with Tom. Describe that day. What motivated you both? And what motivated Rachel to stand there in front of this bulldozer with that fluorescent vest on as it came forward and crushed her?

TOM DALE: So, to give some context and background, the International Solidarity Movement group in Rafah at that time were mostly concerned to protest against the and oppose the demolition of homes that were being carried out on the border with Rafah and Egypt. And there was no allegation, in the overwhelming majority of cases, that these homes were being demolished due to anything that the people who lived in them had done. They were being demolished simply because Israel had decided that its soldiers based along that border strip wanted a tactical advantage, and that involved clearing a 300-meter strip full of family homes, the overwhelming majority of which were refugees.

Now, at the particular time Rachel was killed, a bulldozer turned toward one of those homes, the home of Dr. Samir Nasrallah. And Dr. Samir and his young family were friends of Rachel. She had stayed with them. She had lived with them. She knew them intimately. And she placed herself in between the bulldozer and the home, as we had done so many times before and, indeed, as we had done earlier in that day. And what we had learned, over the course of several months, is that the bulldozer drivers were able to see us, were able to recognize what would be too far, and they were able to stop or withdraw at an appropriate moment.

But on this case, the bulldozer driver just kept on going. Rachel was sort of forced to climb up a kind of roiling mound of earth in front of the bulldozer. I think you heard earlier Cindy quoted saying that her head was above the top of the bulldozer blade. That’s absolutely accurate. It’s almost as if the driver would have been able to look her in the eye. But as he kept going, ultimately, she lost her footing, and she was sucked down into the earth and terribly, horrifically died. At that point, I ran to call for an ambulance. I learned then that Dr. Samir himself had seen the incident, too, and had called the ambulance.

And we had been living with these families. As I say, Rachel had been living with the Nasrallahs. I had been living with other families along the border. And that was an expression of a really deep commitment to the principle of shared humanity. And Rachel took on the cause of those families as if that cause was her own, and she made that cause her own. And that’s what motivated us to take that stand.

AMY GOODMAN: You quote Rachel’s diary. It’s absolutely amazing. She wrote this, of course, before her death, and she said she had a dream. Do you have it in front of you? Or I’ll read it.

TOM DALE: Please do read it. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Rachel wrote she dreamed that she was falling — quote, “falling to my death off of something dusty and smooth and crumbling like the cliffs in Utah, but I kept holding on, and when each new foothold or handle of rock broke, I reached out as I fell and grabbed a new one. I didn’t have time to think about anything — just react … And I heard, 'I can't die, I can’t die,’ again and again in my head.” If you can talk about what it means to hear Mohammed right now talking about how Rachel is remembered, Tom, and what happened to you as — you went in the ambulance with her to the hospital?

TOM DALE: Yeah, that’s correct. So, I mean, regrettably, by the time we got to the hospital, Rachel was dead. As I say, like, on the way, I had been sort of just steadying her hands on her abdomen. You know, of course, it was, like, a terrible moment. We were all distraught. We knew Rachel. We cared for her greatly. She was one of us. And then, immediately, of course, we were pushed into the cycle of responding to the series of bizarre lies that were being told by the Israeli Defense Forces.

And in terms of what it means to hear Mohammed say that right now, well, of course, you know, I’m very grateful. It means a lot, given that, of course, the situation that Mohammed and his family and all of Rafah are in now is so terrible, that he even has a thought for someone who was standing there 20 years ago is really remarkable and speaks to sort of the power of Rachel’s message. And I really hope we can sort of repay that in the international community and use this just as an opportunity, as another spur to direct attention back to Rafah, direct our energies back toward putting the pressure on politically to protect Rafah, and Gaza, in general, from a future onslaught.

AMY GOODMAN: Tom, I want to bring in Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, speaking from Olympia, Washington. That’s where Rachel went to college. In fact, I think I met both of you for the first time back in 2003. I just happened to be giving the graduation address at Evergreen College that year. It was the largest graduation class ever. But it was missing one student who was supposed to be graduating, and it was your daughter Rachel. And so, Cindy, you gave an address to the graduating class, as well. Twenty-one years later, I offer my condolences again to you. And I’m wondering your thoughts as you listen to Mohammed, on the ground in Rafah, talking about your daughter and what she has meant for the people of Rafah, Gaza and beyond?

CINDY CORRIE: Thank you, Amy.

I had a bit of difficulty hearing Mohammed, but what I know from our experience this past 21 years is that for Palestinians everywhere, Rachel’s story has been very important. They tell us over and over again how much it meant that someone from Olympia, Washington, that had no reason to be in Gaza, except that she had learned about the situation and knew that they were greatly in need, that she came to them, and that she stood to try to prevent the demolition of the — the many demolitions of Palestinian homes that were happening at the time.

And Rachel connected with the community. That was important to her. She worked with women’s groups, with children’s groups. Not only were homes threatened, but wells were threatened. She slept at the wells with other activists. Rachel was there with Tom and with others from the U.K., from the U.S., and people from other countries during the early time that she spent in Gaza.

We’re also often approached by younger people who have heard the story, some when they were children that remember it, and tell us that it changed their lives, changed the course of the direction of their lives, that they then felt that there were meaningful things that they needed to look for, meaningful ways to contribute in this world.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Craig, your thoughts, as well, 21 years later, with Rafah once again in the news, with President Biden saying that an Israeli invasion of Rafah is a red line, but not saying there would be consequences if the Israeli military went over that line?

CRAIG CORRIE: Yes, when I was listening today, I was thinking that, for me — and it’s different for other members of the family, but we were using Rachel’s memory and what she was doing as a portal for people to understand — from the United States, to understand what was going on in Gaza, what was happening to her friends, and, partially, the horror that’s going on now. And I think at this point we have to be looking directly at the Palestinians and hearing their voices, as you allowed today.

There’s never been a red line that any American president has — well, that’s not quite true — but, recently, enforced against Israel. And to me, as long as Israel is coveting the lands and the homes of Palestinian people, there will not be peace in Israel and Palestine, and neither the Israeli people nor the Palestinian people will be safe.

So, I think, really, the difference between Rachel, Tom, the rest of the ISM, the difference between them and the rest of us, is that they refused to look away when all of this was going on, and the rest of the world did look away.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, one of the ways Rachel’s words have been preserved was because of Alan Rickman. And, Craig, I just read a piece you wrote after the actor and director Alan Rickman died. You wrote it in The Guardian. And you talked about what a difference he made in making those words into that play, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, based on her diaries and her emails. I’m looking at a piece — six weeks before opening night, the theater announced it was indefinitely postponing the production, the move that was widely criticized as an act of censorship, finally opened in October 2006. And if either of you could comment on the canceling of people in this country and around the world now who express concern about what’s happening in Gaza, and also talk about your trip to meet with the Nasrallahs, the Palestinian pharmacist’s family, whose home Rachel was protecting?

CRAIG CORRIE: That’s a lot to talk about.

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah.

CRAIG CORRIE: I’ll start with Alan and the play. And I guess in that article, what I thought of is that that play, what people won’t understand about it is that it’s actually funny. He managed to get Rachel’s sense of humor. And he edited those words along with Katharine Viner, and we’re grateful to both of them. But he managed to get Rachel’s humor into the play, and I think that brought her personality. It made her human. And I’m grateful forever for that.

The play has been seen on every continent in the world, except Antarctica. And we, Cindy and I, have seen that, I think, in maybe six countries, in seven different languages. So, it was delayed in opening in the United States, but it had two runs in Great Britain, in London, before that. And it did eventually open in New York City. And since then, it’s been also all over the United States. And actually, there’s going to be a reading in a few days in Seattle again. So, I’ll let Cindy talk, I think, more about the other.

CINDY CORRIE: We visited the Nasrallah family in September of 2003. It was our first trip to the region. It was very important for Craig and me to see the place where Rachel had stayed and where her life ended. We traveled to Rafah with the help of our Palestinian friends, who met us at Erez Crossing. And we were taken — the very first day that we were there, we were taken to the area where the Nasrallah home still stood. And it was the only home left in that entire area. What I remember saying and feeling at the time was that house was sitting in a sea of rubble, because the Israeli military was destroying homes wholesale. Later, Human Rights Watch said that happened in the absence of military necessity. And over 16,000 people, I think, from 2000 to 2004, lost their homes at the time.

That day, we sat on the floor in the Nasrallah family’s home and ate a wonderful lunch meal with Umm Kareem, with Abu Kareem and with their very young children at the time. We were taken to the spot by Abu Kareem, showing us exactly where Rachel had been when she was killed. It was a very emotional day. We hugged. We saw the rooms in the house where Rachel had spent time with the children and the family. They pulled off their Arabic-English dictionary from the shelf and had me read, try to pronounce the words in Arabic, and they told me how Rachel was so much better at it than I was. And we saw also the space at the foot of the Nasrallah parents’ bed, which was at the backside of the house, where Rachel would sleep, she said, in a puddle of blankets with the children, because military people and machines would drive through that border area at night, and they would shoot into the houses. And there were bullet holes marking the entire home.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, and I just wanted to get your final comment, either Cindy or Craig, on what is happening today.

CRAIG CORRIE: Amy, that family did everything they could to hold onto that house. They were eventually forced out of that house, and some of them went through seven other houses. Now we hear that they want out of Gaza. After 21 years of trying to hold onto their homes and their lives and their futures and their pasts in Gaza, like so many people, they want to survive, and they want out. I can’t imagine what drives them to do that, but that’s the situation in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, again, Craig and Cindy Corrie, speaking to us from Olympia, Washington, and Tom Dale — we’ll link to your piece in Jacobin, “Rachel Corrie Gave Her Life for Palestine” — joining us from London. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now! Check out our website at democracynow.org.

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Israel’s Ultimate Goal Is Ethnic Cleansing: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on Growing Famine, Al-Shifa Attack
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 19, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/19/ ... transcript

A new U.N.-backed report has found that famine is imminent in northern Gaza with nearly a third of Gaza’s population experiencing the highest levels of catastrophic hunger. This comes as Israel launches another major raid at Al-Shifa Hospital, where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have taken shelter since the start of the conflict. In the south, daily bombing continues while the Israeli government threatens a full-scale ground invasion on the border city of Rafah. “The world should impose sanctions on Israel,” says the Palestinian National Initiative’s Mustafa Barghouti, who joins us from the occupied West Bank. Barghouti responds to Israel’s latest military actions and claims, gives an update on the status of ceasefire negotiations, addresses conditions in Israeli prisons and more. “It’s a massacre. It’s a huge genocide,” he says. “The ultimate goal of Israel is ethnic cleansing.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Famine is imminent in northern Gaza. That’s according to a U.N.-backed report published Monday. The latest findings say virtually everyone in Gaza is struggling to get enough food and that nearly a third of the population of 2.3 million people are experiencing the highest levels of catastrophic hunger. At least 27 people, mostly children, have died from malnutrition and dehydration in the north. According to the new report, the death rate is expected to accelerate and reach famine levels soon.

The World Health Organization said in a statement, quote, “The IPC report confirms what we, our UN partners and NGOs have been witnessing and reporting for months. When our missions reach hospitals, we meet exhausted and hungry health workers who ask us for food and water. We see patients trying to recover from life-saving surgeries and losses of limbs, or sick with cancer or diabetes, mothers who have just given birth, or newborn babies, all suffering from hunger and the diseases that stalk it,” end-quote.

This comes as the Israeli military launched another major raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Monday with Israeli forces backed by tanks and artillery surrounding the complex and troops storming into a number of buildings. The Health Ministry said about 3,000 people had been sheltering at the hospital, which is the largest hospital in Gaza, and that everyone who tries to move is targeted by sniper bullets and quadcopters, they said. Among those killed in the raid was Faiq Mabhouh, a senior office in the Gaza police who was in charge of coordinating aid distribution in the north.

Meanwhile, President Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone call Monday that an invasion of Rafah would be a mistake, and called on Netanyahu to send a team of officials to Washington to discuss “an alternative approach” to targeting Hamas in Rafah without a major ground invasion. Israel has continued to bomb Rafah almost daily, prompting the Palestinian Foreign Ministry to say Israel has already begun its large-scale attack on the area.

The death toll in Gaza is close to 32,000, over a third of them children, while nearly 74,000 people have been injured.

For more, we’re joined by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian physician, activist, politician. He serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative. He’s joining us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Dr. Barghouti, welcome back to Democracy Now! Let’s talk about this issue of famine, doctors describing the wasting that you see, for example, at the temples of people who are dying of starvation, particularly children. Can you talk about what this means and when these officials in the U.N. and other bodies talk about this “man-made” disaster?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Well, the reality is that the whole of Gaza population, 2.3 million people, are suffering from malnutrition already. That includes children, men, women, pregnant women, breastfeeding women, everybody. And that is because of the Israeli-imposed siege on Gaza, which is combined with continuous bombardment that is taking away the lives of people. But it is also combined with the fact that Israel has destroyed more than 70% of people’s homes. They don’t have normal place to be in. They don’t have normal clothes. They don’t have clean water to drink. And they don’t have food supplies.

And this is all happening in front of the world. We’re talking about famine. We’re talking about hunger. And we are talking about actually 700,000 people starving now in the north of Gaza, that includes also Gaza City, of whom 350,000 are children. And that’s why I think almost 30 people — 30 children children have died because of starvation already. This is all happening because of the Israeli siege, because nobody in the world — not the United States, not Europe, not the international community as a whole — is capable of forcing Israel to stop this terrible crime of collective punishment against a whole population. And Israel will not change its policy and its approach without sanctions. The world should impose sanctions on Israel to force it to open the routes of supplies of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza and to accept a ceasefire, because even if supplies are there and the bombardment continues, people will survive to die. That is the reality of the situation.

Today, 5% of the total population of Gaza have been killed or injured. We’re talking about almost 120,000 people. If that had happened in the United States of America, you would be talking about almost 12 million people killed or injured in five months of this terrible war. So that is the reality of the situation. But add to that, malnutrition causes low immunity. Lack of water causes diseases. There is an outbreak of certain diseases like infectious hepatitis, which has already affected 10,000 people. We have 32 medical teams from our organization, Palestinian Medical Relief Society, working in Gaza, and they report horrible reports. About 1 million people at this very moment in Gaza are sick with respiratory diseases, with gastrointestinal infections, with diarrhea, with hepatitis. And our biggest worry is the outbreak of certain infections among children because these children in Gaza have not had vaccination for more than 165 days.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about — I think it’s the fourth raid now on Al-Shifa? And they say tens of thousands of people have taken refuge there, the Israeli military and spokespeople saying they’re very careful, they have highly trained forces, that they separate the civilians from the militants, and them talking about a high-level Hamas official, Faiq Mabhouh, killing him, along with other fighters — Mabhouh apparently a top food — the person in charge of food distribution in the north.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: First of all, the Israeli army is lying when they say that they differentiate between civilians and noncivilians. How can this explain the fact that more than 80% of the people who were killed are civilians, women and children mainly? How can they explain that 70% of everybody killed are children and women? They lie. And they lie around the clock. And each time, they are caught with a crime that is obvious, like shooting the people who are starving in the north, trying to get some food from humanitarian aid, and they shot them. We’re talking about 400 people shot while they were trying to get some flour. These people are totally civilians. They are not armed. They’re not threat to anybody, but they killed them, in addition to injuring more than 3,000 other people. So, they keep lying, and I don’t believe their lies.

Now, Mr. Mabhouh, who was killed, is a policeman. He is not a fighter. He’s not from Qassam Brigade. He’s not carrying arms to fight. He was simply organizing some supplies to get to the north. And for the first time, two days ago, 13 trucks with some flour got to the north of Gaza, clearly. And this was well organized. People received their portions. There were no gangs to steal this supply. And obviously, this is something that Israelis didn’t like. They didn’t like that people were organized and getting some supplies after so many days of hunger. And that’s why they killed Mr. Mabhouh. They want chaos in Gaza. And their goal from attacking Shifa Hospital is actually to push people from Shifa Hospital and from Gaza City to the south, again, because the ultimate goal of Israel is ethnic cleansing.

And the reality is that the whole operation, military operation, to attack Rafah is already ready to be implemented, and maybe parts of it has already started to be implemented, as you mentioned. And there, why are they attacking Rafah, with 1.4 million people there, in an area that is very small, that does not exceed 25 square miles? They will cause a terrible massacre. But their real goal is to push people through the borders to Egypt, because Netanyahu did not change his original plan of ethnic cleansing. And the United States government, Mr. Biden and his administration, instead of saying to Netanyahu, “You cannot have an operation in Rafah, and you have to stop this fight, and you have to accept ceasefire,” instead of that, they are deciding to become part of his war cabinet, discussing the plans of how to attack Rafah rather than saying that this attack should not take place.

AMY GOODMAN: National security adviser Jake Sullivan briefed reporters on this last call between Biden and Netanyahu. He laid out the concerns Biden expressed about that possible ground invasion of Rafah.

JAKE SULLIVAN: First, more than a million people have taken refuge in Rafah. They went from Gaza City to Khan Younis and then to Rafah. And they have nowhere else to go. Gaza’s other major cities have largely been destroyed. And Israel has not presented us or the world with a plan for how or where they would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation. … But a major ground operation there would be a mistake. It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza and further isolate Israel internationally.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about what this team from the Israeli government is that’s going to Washington, D.C., to come up with a so-called alternative plan — although Israel keeps insisting they don’t kill Palestinian civilians, they have very targeted troops that know exactly the difference between them — and what it means to say if they attack Rafah, which, of course, every day they are doing, but a full-scale ground invasion, they will establish humanitarian — what are they describing it as? Humanitarian islands for people to go to?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: That’s not true, because there is no safe place anymore in Gaza. And if there are places which will not be bombarded, as they claim, they are places without any infrastructure, without water, without electricity, without food, without medical services, without medicines, without anything. Where will people go?

To talk about the possibility of such an attack that it would cause more harm is not enough. It will cause a huge massacre, the largest massacre in human history probably, at least in the modern history. We will be talking about tens of thousands of people who would be slaughtered. That is the reality. And they have no place to escape to. Israel kept saying to people, “Move from this place to that place. It will be safe.” And then they would bombard the safe space. So the United States should not say — I repeat, should not say — there isn’t a good plan. They should say that the whole attack should not happen and that this war must stop.

And when the Israelis say they differentiate, they are lying. Are the 14,000 Palestinian children who were killed military activists or militants? These are children, for God’s sake. And they are not 19 or 18 years old. These are 10 years old, 2 years old, 1 years old, even months old. That is the reality of what’s happening in Gaza.

It’s a massacre. It’s a huge genocide that Israel is engaging in. And the United States of America does not have the guts to go to the United Nations Security Council resolution and allow the passage of a resolution demanding immediate ceasefire. That’s what we need: immediate ceasefire, no attack on Rafah, and supplies immediately to the civilian population of Gaza, which is starving.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk —

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Any other thing —

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk —

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Any other thing is just talk. Yeah, please.

AMY GOODMAN: — about the negotiations that are going on in Qatar right now? Talk about what Hamas has put forward.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Hamas tried, as we were — as the reports show that we have received, the reports show that Hamas tried to be flexible. They made some concessions to make it possible to reach an agreement, because they are really worried about the humanitarian situation of the people and the so many people who have been killed. But, unfortunately, Netanyahu restricted the team that went to Qatar. He restricted their authority and authorization. And in my frank opinion, I think Netanyahu is — he made all these restrictions with his team to prevent reaching an agreement and then used that failure to justify an attack on Rafah.

I do not think — because Netanyahu knows if he goes into a deal with Hamas about release of some prisoners and exchange of prisoners, his coalition partners, the fascists, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, will bring his government down. So, all he thinks about is how to save himself, how to save his position. He doesn’t care about Israeli prisoners. He knows. He knows very well that if he attacks Rafah, so many Israeli prisoners will be killed. He knows that, but he doesn’t care about them. And he is stuck with these fascists in his government, and he’s driving his whole government into the direction — and, actually, the Israeli society at large, he’s driving them into the direction of fascism, because what’s happening in Palestine cannot be made except by people who have no respect whatsoever, not only to international law, but to human lives, in general.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re in the occupied West Bank, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. You’re in Ramallah. Can you talk about the arrest of journalists? You have Ismail al-Ghoul — he’s with Al Jazeera Arabic — stripped naked there for hours, detained, interrogated with others when they raided Al-Shifa Hospital. Al Jazeera reported that satellite trucks were attacked outside — that’s TV satellite trucks — to restrict further images. You have in the occupied West Bank Rula Hassanein, who is a Palestinian journalist. It’s unclear if she was taken from her home in Ramallah, or was it Bethlehem, at like 2:00 in the morning, has a 9-month-old baby, is breastfeeding. This just happened. The attack on journalists, and what do you think is the message Israel is sending?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: The message is that they are reoccupying all of the West Bank and all of Gaza, subjecting all Palestinian people, without exception, to terrible oppression.

And as you know, Amy, since the beginning of this war, Israel did not allow any foreign journalists to enter Gaza, except for one from CNN who was allowed there only for three hours. They didn’t allow any foreign journalists in, and then they started executing the local journalists. Up to now, 146 Palestinian journalists in Gaza were killed by Israeli snipers or Israeli bombardment, including two from Al Jazeera network. And now they’ve arrested a third one, al-Ghoul, and practically tortured him before releasing him. And you remember the story of the family of Dahdouh, who lost his wife, his children, because he was reporting for Al Jazeera.

And in my opinion, the attacks on journalists are also taking place in the West Bank. More than 30 journalists were arrested so far. And it goes on. And in the West Bank, by the way, Israel has arrested more than 7,500 new people. The total number of people in Israeli jails in the West Bank has risen from 5,300 to almost 9,000.

And one thing that the world doesn’t talk about is the terrible torture that the people in Israeli prisons are subjected to. They are fighting them, torturing them with hunger. They brought down the rations for — their food rations by 70%. They beat them regularly. Most recently, they attacked even one of the political prisoners, Marwan Barghouti, and many of his colleagues, as well, beating them badly. And it goes on. We have lost already 13 people in Israeli jails because of torture and because of beating and because of starvation. The situation in Israeli prisons is horrifying. And in Gaza, we don’t know exactly the number of people who were imprisoned or kidnapped. We’re talking about thousands of people, maybe 3,000, maybe 4,000. But the people who were released told us horrible stories about how they were tortured in an Israeli concentration camp in the Negev with electrical shocks, with drowning them in the water, with terrible beating. The director of Shifa Hospital is still in prison. They broke both of his hands, as was reported. And they tried to force him to admit things that he never did. That is the reality and the situation on the ground. It’s horrifying.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian physician, activist, politician, serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, speaking to us from his office in the occupied West Bank in Ramallah.

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Sen. Van Hollen: Biden Must Halt Offensive Arms to Israel If Restrictions on Gaza Aid Are Not Lifted
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 20, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/20/ ... transcript

We speak with Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland about the U.S. response to Israel’s brutal offensive on Gaza, which has killed over 32,000 Palestinians. Van Hollen expresses “strong frustration with the Biden administration,” which “needs to do a lot more” to hold Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accountable. Defying Biden’s warnings against a full-scale ground operation in Rafah, Netanyahu continues to promise an invasion of the city, where 1.4 million forcibly displaced people from across Gaza are sheltering. “At the end of the day, Prime Minister Netanyahu simply ignores the president of the United States, and so we need to do more to make Netanyahu accountable for our requests,” says Van Hollen, who warns Biden against “getting dragged into the planning of a Rafah invasion” and becoming “complicit in Netanyahu’s actions.” The senator also discusses U.S. funding of UNRWA and Israeli leaders blocking aid for Gaza. “For goodness’ sakes, lift the restrictions that are in place that are creating this humanitarian disaster in 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.

In Gaza, the Israeli military’s brutal attack on Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza, is continuing for the third day. Dozens have been killed, others forced to evacuate amidst intense bombardment and shelling on the hospital and surrounding area. Tens of thousands of wounded and displaced Palestinians have been seeking shelter at Shifa. The Israeli army said in a statement it had, quote, “eliminated” 90 people at the hospital and detained 300. Among those arrested was Al Jazeera journalist Mahmoud Eliwa. His arrest comes two days after another Al Jazeera journalist, Ismail al-Ghoul, was beaten, stripped naked and detained in the cold for 12 hours before he was released.

Elsewhere in Gaza, 24 people were killed in an Israeli attack at the Kuwait Roundabout, where Palestinians had gathered for aid. Another 27 were killed in an Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Among those killed yesterday was Raed al-Banna, the director of police investigations in northern Gaza, responsible for securing and facilitating the entry of aid trucks into northern Gaza. His death comes one day after Israeli forces killed another senior police officer in Gaza, Faiq Mabhouh, who was in charge of coordinating aid distribution in the north. This comes as the World Health Organization warned Tuesday many infants in Gaza are on the “brink of death” due to the lack of food.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his determination to invade Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah, where some 1.4 million people from across Gaza have been forcibly displaced. On Monday, Netanyahu agreed in a phone call with President Biden to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to meet with Biden administration officials, after Biden urged him to find an “alternative approach” to a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah. But on Tuesday, Netanyahu told a parliamentary committee that while he would listen to U.S. proposals “out of respect” for Biden, he said, quote, “We are determined to complete the elimination of these Hamas battalions in Rafah. There’s no way to do this without a ground incursion,” he said.

The official death toll in Gaza is approaching 32,000, with over 74,000 people wounded.

For more, we’re joined by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. In January, he traveled to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing. He’s joining us from Kensington, Maryland.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, welcome back to Democracy Now! Thank you so much for joining us. Can you talk about Netanyahu’s threat to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, and what you want Biden to tell him?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, Amy, it’s good to be with you.

Since my visit to Rafah in January, things have gotten even worse. The situation — the humanitarian situation in Gaza is even more catastrophic. And now, as you said, Prime Minister Netanyahu has said he’s going to ignore President Biden’s requests and launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah.

You know, President Biden was right, in my view, to say that that would be a red line, that you can’t cross it. And so, now it’s going to be very important that the president and the Biden administration back that up and make it clear that they will hold the prime minister accountable.

As you know, the Netanyahu government is going to be sending some officials to Washington this week to discuss how they might go about this Rafah invasion. And I’m very worried, Amy, that the Biden administration will simply get dragged into the planning of this, something that is bound to go terribly wrong, based on what’s happened already in the months of war in Gaza, and then somehow become complicit in Netanyahu’s actions in Rafah. So, I would warn the administration not to get sucked into this, because we’ve seen time and again that at the end of the day, Prime Minister Netanyahu simply ignores the president of the United States. And so we need to do more to make Netanyahu accountable for our requests.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to play some of what you said on the Senate floor in February about the withholding of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. … And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals.

AMY GOODMAN: So, are you clearly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, Amy, I’m calling those who are responsible for these actions, having committed a war crime. And at that moment, it was the moment that we first learned — I learned from Cindy McCain and others — that kids had gone from being on the verge of starvation to having died of starvation. And Smotrich, who is the finance minister, was holding up thousands and thousands of pounds of flour at the Port of Ashdod, flour that could reach starving kids and others in Gaza. Ben-Gvir was calling on, you know, folks down at Kerem Shalom, protesters, to continue to protest, and saying that the police officials should not intervene, and allow the blockage to continue.

So, ultimately, my view is that we’re going to have to look into all of this, but for now we just need to do what President Biden has said needs to be done, which is, for goodness’ sakes, lift these restrictions that are in place that are creating this humanitarian disaster in Gaza. We just learned yesterday that the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger at any time, at least in recent history, are in Gaza today.

AMY GOODMAN: In February, the Senate passed a bill that includes $14 billion for Israel’s assault on Gaza, along with $60 billion for Ukraine, $8 billion for Indo-Pacific allies like Taiwan. The bill also strips U.S. funding for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. You have been very critical of that, yet you voted for the bill. Why?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, in my view, Amy, we desperately need to get the Ukrainian people the weapons that they need to rebuff Putin’s assault. And this was the only way forward to accomplishing that. That bill also included $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for people around the world, including $1.4 billion for humanitarian assistance to help those suffering in Gaza.

The UNRWA provision is incredibly problematical. But in that bill, which was a supplemental one-time bill, it would not have disrupted the annual U.S. appropriations for UNRWA, which are actually being discussed and debated as we speak with respect to the foreign operations bill for this month.

So, in my view, that bill, the supplemental bill, was necessary in order to make sure that we got weapons to help the folks in Ukraine repel Putin’s brutal assault, and we could revisit, as we are now, the UNRWA issue. Now, I am very worried, as we speak, that Republicans have insisted that in the current appropriations bill, that we no longer fund UNRWA. This would be a huge mistake.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to — well, you have independent Senator Bernie Sanders opposing the bill, joined by two other Democratic senators who broke ranks with the party: Jeff Merkley, who went with you to the Rafah border crossing, and also the other Vermont senator, Peter Welch. This is Welch on the floor of the Senate.

SEN. PETER WELCH: I voted against the supplemental for one key reason: I cannot, in good conscience, support sending billions of additional taxpayer dollars for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military campaign in Gaza. It’s a campaign that has killed and wounded a shocking number of civilians. It’s created a massive humanitarian crisis with no end in sight. It’s inflamed tensions in the Middle East, eroding support among Arab states that had been aligned with Israel. And, of course, it has severely compromised any remaining hope — almost all remaining hope — for the two-state solution, that we all know is ultimately essential for peace in the Middle East.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Chris Van Hollen, do you disagree with your fellow colleague? You have been so outspoken on this issue, as well, though took a different stance on voting for the bill.

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: I don’t agree — I don’t disagree with what Peter said about the situation. But, as I said, if the Senate had not passed this piece of legislation, Ukraine would fall to Putin. So, you know, these are difficult choices that we made. I think that allowing Ukraine to fall to Vladimir Putin would be a historic mistake.

So, what I’ve done, Amy, is focus on making sure that we try to hold up — excuse me — hold up the arms transfers at the time they are noticed by the Biden administration, until the Netanyahu government meets requirements with respect to allowing humanitarian assistance in and other criteria, which is why a group of us, including Peter and others, wrote to President Biden just a little while ago, saying, “Mr. President, please enforce current law, which is the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act, which says that if a country is essentially preventing or restricting humanitarian assistance from getting in, then you have to, Mr. President, not allow offensive weapons to be provided, as long as that situation continues.” So, there are other mechanisms we have that we should be using right now to address that situation.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering if you can respond to Donald Trump, the former president, who was speaking on Sebastian Gorka’s podcast and also put out a statement. He’s facing widespread criticism. This is part of what he said.

DONALD TRUMP: When you see those Palestinian marches, even I, I’m amazed at how many people are in those marches. And guys like Schumer see that, and, to him, it’s votes. I think it’s votes more than anything else, because he was always pro-Israel. He’s very anti-Israel now. Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion, they hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: He called Democrats antisemitic. Also, his son-in-law, former adviser Jared Kushner, I want to turn to what Jared Kushner just said. Jared Kushner is talking about weighing in on Israel’s war on Gaza, saying Israel should move Palestinians out of Rafah, which he said contains valuable waterfront property. Your responses to what many are saying is the front-runner in the presidential race right now, Donald Trump, and his son-in-law, who was one of his top advisers?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, Amy, this is — here we go — Donald Trump again. Donald Trump thinks you cannot be pro-American without being pro-Donald Trump. He equates the two. In his mind, it’s heresy if you don’t believe and say you want Donald Trump leading our country. In the same way, you know, he thinks if you don’t support all the policies of Netanyahu and Smotrich and Ben-Gvir sometime, you’re opposed to Israel.

The reality, as we all know, is you can be very pro-American without supporting Trump policies. In fact, I would argue that it’s a duty of ours as Americans to make sure that we defeat Trump’s heinous policies here at home. Similarly, you can be pro-Israel and the people of Israel and understand the trauma after the atrocious October 7th attacks, without supporting the policies of the Netanyahu government —

AMY GOODMAN: And yet —

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: — of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and this extreme right.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Senator, many people are extremely frustrated, Democrats and progressives, with President Biden. You have expressed criticism. I mean, the fact that the Biden administration has approved, really secretly, just keeping it right under the threshold, over a hundred U.S. weapons sales to Netanyahu, to Israel, to carry out these attacks on Gaza that have killed at this point near 32,000 people, and have engaged in food drops from the air and building a pier, because Israel is using those very bombs to attack the people of Gaza, and that gets in the way of food trucks. Are you equally critical of President Biden and what he’s doing, and what your final words would be for him, as, increasingly, young people, people of color, Arab American population and many Jews are utterly frustrated with and say they won’t vote for the Democratic candidate for president, President Biden?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, Amy, you’re right. I’ve expressed my strong frustration with the Biden administration for, essentially, not backing up the president’s demands and insistence that the Netanyahu government change course with actions — for example, implementing the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act or, right now, in the coming days, making sure they enforce the provisions of National Security Memorandum No. 20 with respect to the responsibilities of the Netanyahu government to allow aid into Gaza.

So, I do believe that the Biden administration needs to do a lot more. I have said that when you insist on the Netanyahu government doing one thing and then don’t back it up, it does weaken our credibility, and it essentially sends a message to others around the world that you can do what Netanyahu is doing, which is, you know, ignore American requests without any consequence at all. So, I have expressed that frustration.

I’m continuing to push the Biden administration to do more. And I really hope that the Biden administration will change course. Again, I hope, in the sense that I hope they won’t get sucked into a major invasion in Rafah. And I think that they need to make sure that in the coming days — and Sunday is the real deadline — that they will enforce the provisions of National Security Memorandum 20, because, in my view, there’s no way to determine with a straight face that right now the Netanyahu government is facilitating, and not arbitrarily restricting, directly or indirectly, humanitarian aid into Gaza. And we can see it with our own eyes. We can hear it from the people who are on the ground. So, it’s really important that the Biden administration enforce those provisions, or, in my view, their credibility will be — will be even more undermined.

AMY GOODMAN: Senator Chris Van Hollen, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Democratic senator from Maryland. Thank you.

When we come back, investigative journalist Shane Bauer on his journey to the occupied West Bank, where he met with Israeli settlers who were recently sanctioned by the Biden administration for violence against Palestinians. Back in 20 seconds.

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Biden’s Sanctions Against Israeli Settlers Ignores State’s Role in West Bank Violence: Shane Bauer
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 20, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/20/ ... transcript

Building on an unprecedented wave of settler violence in 2023, Israeli attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have intensified since October 7, with over 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and settlers over the past five months. Last week, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on three Israeli settlers and two Israeli outposts in the occupied West Bank for assaulting, harassing and threatening Palestinians, and violently expelling many from their land. Investigative journalist Shane Bauer traveled to the territory to map out the violence against Palestinians that has escalated since October 7, and visited the illegal outposts of “two very dangerous men” targeted by the sanctions: Neria Ben-Pazi and Moshe Sharvit. “The elephant in the room here is that [Moshe Sharvit], along with Neria Ben-Pazi, is supported by the state of Israel directly,” says Bauer. “According to the language of the sanctions, that would mean that the State of Israel itself and all the various organizations that are supporting him should themselves be sanctioned, but of course they haven’t been.” Bauer describes how “the line between settlers and the army virtually disappeared after October 7,” as far-right Israeli cabinet members push for “a formalization of apartheid,” in the West Bank.

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.

The Biden administration imposed sanctions last week on three Israeli settlers and two Israeli outposts in the occupied West Bank over their involvement with assaulting, harassing and threatening Palestinians, violently expelling many from their land. The U.S. State Department’s sanctions target Moshe Sharvit, the owner of Moshe’s Farm outposts; Zvi Bar Yosef, founder of Zvi’s Farm; and Neria Ben-Pazi.

Over the past five months, Israeli settler violence has intensified across the West Bank, with human rights groups accusing the Israeli government of encouraging attacks against Palestinians. According to health officials, well over 400 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers since October 7th.

Investigative journalist Shane Bauer recently wrote a piece for The New Yorker magazine which features two of the Israeli settlers sanctioned by the Biden administration: Neria Ben-Pazi and Moshe Sharvit, whom Bauer described as “two very dangerous men.” Shane Bauer traveled to their illegal outposts in the West Bank and spoke to several other settlers, mapping out the violence against Palestinians that’s escalated since October 7th. His piece for The New Yorker was published in February. It’s titled “The Israeli Settlers Attacking Their Palestinian Neighbors.” The print edition calls it “The Dispossessed.”

I recently interviewed Shane Bauer and began by asking him about his journey to the West Bank and how he came to meet the settlers who were eventually sanctioned by the Biden administration.

SHANE BAUER: October 7th came sort of in the middle of an unprecedented wave of settler violence in the West Bank, starting around the beginning of 2023. This sort of uptick in violence came after the new government came to power in Israel, which included some very powerful settlers, like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Before October 7th, the U.N. was recording about three settler attacks a day. Of course, October 7th comes, and the violence increased exponentially.

I was seeing, just days after October 7th, reports from Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups about attacks and some villages that were being depopulated. So I traveled to the West Bank. While I was there, I met two of the settlers who were just sanctioned, Moshe Sharvit and Neria Ben-Pazi. These are guys who run farms. They’re shepherding farms. And this is a fairly new type of tactic used to seize land by settlers in the West Bank. Essentially, they’re settlers that are setting up outposts. These are, you know, illegal under Israeli law, not only international law, which considers all settlements illegal, but even Israel considers these outposts illegal. However, Israel has — as Moshe’s wife Moriah told me, Israel was supporting them in setting up the outposts. They consulted with many branches of government. They got support from the army.

This outpost that I went to was sort of a small farm where they have a bunch of sheep. And the idea of these kinds of shepherding outposts is that the settlers, with a relatively small number of people, can control a large area of land. What they do is they go out and graze their sheep and forcibly push out any Palestinians that are in that territory. So, they’re kind of part of a strategy which is to sort of clear the part of the West Bank known as Area C — this is the 60% of the West Bank that is essentially under Israeli control — to keep it clear of Palestinians in the hopes of an eventual annexation to Israel. These are —

AMY GOODMAN: I want to interrupt for a second, Shane, because when you talk about Area C, I don’t think most people —

SHANE BAUER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — understand the divisions, Area A —

SHANE BAUER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — Area B and Area C. If you can explain?

SHANE BAUER: Right. Sure. So, in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the West Bank was basically divided into three zones. Area A would be under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. That included the major cities, like Ramallah, Nablus. And Area B was mostly the Palestinian villages. And there, Israel would have security control, and the Palestinian Authority would have administrative control. The rest of the territory is Area C, where Israel would have full military security control and administrative control. So, what you have, if you look at the map of these areas, you essentially have hundreds of islands of Area A and B that are sort of in a sea of Area C.

And so, if you imagine the annexation of Area C, what it would look like is the creation of many small enclaves, Palestinian enclaves, sort of like creating numerous Gaza Strips within the West Bank, or Bantustans in the, you know, South African apartheid model. These areas would have, you know, Palestinians living in them, but, according to the plan of Bezalel Smotrich, who is in charge, essentially, of the West Bank, Palestinians living there would not have voting rights. So, there’s sort of been an ongoing campaign by settlers to sort of claim Area C for Israel. It’s over — since the '90s, it's been treated more and more by Israel as sort of a part of Israel. But there’s a push to make it, you know, more official. And Smotrich has come out with a plan, years ago, which essentially says that, you know, he wants to annex the West Bank. Palestinians who don’t like this can either leave or stay as nonvoting citizens, which, you know, essentially is a formalization of apartheid.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip that I’d like you to set up. This, you yourself filmed while you were reporting on the West Bank. If you can — it is an image of — that you’re talking to Israeli soldiers, who are speaking in English to you. Explain where you are, what the circumstances were, why you ended up talking to them.

SHANE BAUER: So, when I got to the West Bank, I first started to try to meet people who had been attacked previously, so I went to the village of Qusra, which had, just days after October 7th, been very violently attacked by settlers in a neighboring outpost. A number of people were killed. And then, the following day, there was a funeral. And in the funeral procession, when the bodies were being taken from the hospital to the village, the procession was interrupted by a blockade of settlers and soldiers, and the settlers shot and killed two more people.

So, I was interviewing the brother of a man who was killed, and he happened to be busy working in his — picking olives just outside the village. So I went there to interview him while he was working. And while we were speaking, we saw soldiers start to approach from the distant outpost.

AMY GOODMAN: So, this is the clip that Shane recorded.

SHANE BAUER: These guys are just literally just harvesting olives, and the army is coming in.

SOLDIER: There are terrorists in all these villages, OK? It’s not just in Gaza, OK? We arrest Hamas — OK? — Hamas in all these villages.

SHANE BAUER: But they’re just harvesting olives. They don’t have any weapons. There’s no weapons. It’s clear. Right?

SOLDIER: I don’t — I don’t fight with weapons, yes?

SHANE BAUER: No, no, but they don’t have weapons.

SOLDIER: I’m also with no weapons.

SHANE BAUER: Well, you have…

AMY GOODMAN: The soldier is putting up his hands, saying, “We don’t have weapons.” But, of course, he’s moving the automatic weapon on his — that is slung over his shoulder. And he’s saying there are terrorists in all of these villages, there’s Hamas in all of these villages. Shane?

SHANE BAUER: Right. So, one thing that was happening while I was there was it was the olive harvesting season. You know, many Palestinians in the West Bank supplement their income through harvesting olives from orchards that have generally been in their families for generations. And I was on various social media groups by settlers. I was talking to settlers. And they were sort of pushing a narrative that olive harvesters were undercover Hamas agents who were trying to attack their settlements. So they were using this as a precedent or as an excuse to sort of forcibly push people out of their groves and prevent the harvest. Of course, this is impacting their livelihood and is, you know, an attempt to sort of encourage people to leave.

And there was one village where they actually put flyers on the cars of people who were out at the harvest, threatening a new Nakba. You know, the Nakba is sort of the Palestinian word for the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. And people have been killed. I reported about a man, Bilal Saleh, who was killed by settlers in his olive grove. So, you know, I saw this over and over again, this sort of claim that regular civilian Palestinians were, in fact, Hamas agents, and that in order to protect the settlements, they had to sort of, you know, push them out.

AMY GOODMAN: And the effect of Smotrich — you know, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, Israeli settlers, as well as now powerful members of the Israeli government, Cabinet members — the effect of the National Security Minister Ben-Gvir announcing that his department was in the process of purchasing 10,000 rifles to equip civilian so-called security teams based around Israel’s borders and the illegal settlements in the West Bank, giving out these guns?

SHANE BAUER: Mm-hmm, yeah, and that’s in addition to 7,000 rifles that were handed to settlers by the army after October 7th. I mean, it’s very apparent. You know, Palestinians told me that settlers who had been harassing them before now had M16s. So, when I went to settlements, you know, I would go to a — just walk into a supermarket, and there’s people walking around with Uzis and M16s. It’s very, very prevalent.

And, you know, a part of this, too, is not just the handing out of weapons to civilians, but after October 7th, the army recruited thousands of settlers into the army, who then served locally. So, someone like Moshe Sharvit, who was just sanctioned by the Biden administration, he had had his outpost since — for several years and had been documented, you know, dispersing the flocks of local Palestinians, pressuring the Palestinians around his outpost to move away. Then, after October 7th, he becomes a soldier. And, you know, then he is showing up at houses of some of these people, threatening to kill them if they don’t leave. So 12 families left. And I heard this over and over again from Palestinians, that they — you know, especially people who had been directly under pressure from settlers before October 7th, they then, just days after October 7th, start seeing the same people in military uniform. So, you know, the line between settlers and the army virtually disappeared after October 7th.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a second clip that you recorded, Shane, in an interview with an older Palestinian man, who said he’d been beaten by Moshe Sharvit, one of the Israeli settlers that the Biden administration has now sanctioned, had been beaten by Moshe and his brother, who showed up to his house, he said, with M16s in the West Bank. Do you want to set it up a little more, who this man was?

SHANE BAUER: Yeah, this man, his name is Nabil Shtayyeh, and he was one of the people who I met who lived right next to Moshe Sharvit’s outpost, Moshe’s Farm, which is now under sanctions. And he and others kind of described to me what happened after October 7th. You know, again, these people had been harassed for years by Moshe before October 7th, but then he describes in this clip what happens.

NABIL SHTAYYEH: [translated] When they came, I was alone. They told me to leave. Then they started beating me. He had four men with him. I spent the night in a hospital in Tobas. I spent two days in the hospital. I was injured on my hand, my head and my back.

SHANE BAUER: [translated] They beat you with a staff?

NABIL SHTAYYEH: [translated] They beat me with a staff and kicked me.

SHANE BAUER: [translated] In your house?

NABIL SHTAYYEH: [translated] In the house. I was shouting. I thought they were going to kill me. I managed to get away. I thought they were going to kill me in my house. My neighbors called for an ambulance. They destroyed my water tank. Come this way.

SHANE BAUER: [translated] They did this the day they drove you out?

NABIL SHTAYYEH: [translated] Yes, that day they beat me.

SHANE BAUER: There’s the outpost, Moshe’s outpost.

AMY GOODMAN: So, we’re looking out into the horizon at Moshe’s outpost. Again, Moshe is one of those that have been sanctioned by the Biden administration. Tell us more about Nabil Shtayyeh, Shane Bauer.

SHANE BAUER: Well, one thing that was not in that clip is that what Nabil told me is that that day, soldiers arrived at his house first and said that Moshe had claimed that he was hiding terrorists in his house. So they searched his house, left, and as soon as they left, Moshe and some other guys showed up and beat him up.

And, you know, something I want to emphasize is that Moshe — you know, I spoke extensively to his wife Moriah, and she described to me the different types of support that they are getting from the government for their outpost, again, that is considered even by Israel to be illegal. When they set up the outpost, they were — she said they had “a gazillion meetings” with various branches of the government. The army gave them M16s. They set up — the army set up surveillance cameras in the area surrounding the outpost, which the army controls itself. You know, Moriah said that they were the eyes for the army. And, you know, again, Moshe himself is now a soldier.

So, when we talk about the sanctions that the Biden administration has implemented, you know, the sanctions target Moshe as an individual, they freeze any assets he might have in the United States, but the executive order that authorizes sanctions authorizes sanctions also against individuals or officials in government entities who financially or materially support these individuals. So, you know, the elephant in the room here is that this man, including along with Neria Ben-Pazi, is supported by the state of Israel directly. So, you know, according to the language of the sanctions, that would mean that the state of Israel itself and all the various organizations that are supporting him should themselves be sanctioned. But, of course, they haven’t been.

AMY GOODMAN: Shane, you wrote on X, “Israel allocated land to Ben-Pazi for an illegal outpost within the area targeted for annexation and paid for guards who violently expelled Palestinians from the surrounding land. Senior IDF officers, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, regularly visited his outpost.” Tell us more.

SHANE BAUER: Yeah, Ben-Pazi is interesting himself because he, back in 2015, was — you know, he established an outpost that was considered by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security branch, to be sort of a center of Jewish terrorism. People who lived there had later been convicted for hate crimes, arson-related hate crimes, including the burning to death of a child, a Palestinian child. Ben-Pazi had been arrested and released.

And then later, time passed, and Netanyahu, you might remember, had called for the annexation of a large part of the West Bank. This is during the Trump administration. And at that time, Ben-Pazi’s relationship with the government started to change. The Civil Administration, which is the Israeli occupation’s sort of bureaucratic arm in the West Bank, allocated land to Ben-Pazi for his illegal outpost. The Ministry of Agriculture gave him money for these volunteers from an organization called Hashomer Yosh, which is notorious for violently attacking Palestinians. This is an organization that essentially takes delinquent Israeli youth and puts them on these shepherd farms, where they, you know, range the sheep and attack Palestinians who enter their turf.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about who was willing to speak to you and who wasn’t? For example, Moriah, the wife of Moshe, though he wasn’t willing to speak to you. Explain who she was, born in New Jersey, now a settler in the occupied West Bank.

SHANE BAUER: Yeah. I mean, I will say that, you know, getting interviews with settlers is not easy. Many refuse to speak to me as a journalist. Moriah, I actually reached out to her, because their settlement was — I found it on Google Maps, and it was designated as a tourist site. And it had a website where they offer sort of a B&B experience on the website, where people can stay in air-conditioned Bedouin tents. You know, ironically, they’re displacing these Bedouin from around the area and, you know, having people sort of stay in these glorified versions of it. So I reached out, and I, you know, told her I was journalist, and she invited me to come. She herself is from New Jersey. She moved to Israel when she was young, and grew up in settlements, like Moshe did.

You know, some of these settlers were — they tended to be very hesitant. And I found that once I, you know, started speaking to them, I was surprised at how open they were, you know, once we sat down and talked. I mean, numerous settlers compared what is happening now to 1948. You know, the head of a regional council, David Elhayani, this is one of the more — these are the governing bodies, sort of, of settlers in the West Bank. He told me that today — the battle today is like the battle of 1948. It’s a fight over land. And he likened these shepherding outposts, Moshe’s, in particular, to the sort of early settlements, pre-'48 settlements, of Jewish settlers that were sort of setting up settlements in areas, you know, that were sort of largely Arab areas, to expand the borders for a future state. He was saying that, you know, what these shepherding outposts are doing is essentially the same thing: They're expanding the territory and taking land.

AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us more about Moriah and what she told you.

SHANE BAUER: Moriah, you know, was very frank about her views about Palestinians. She told me that Palestinians — she did not consider Palestinians to be regular people. She thought that they should leave, you know, to Jordan, to Syria. And, you know, she told me sort of about their — you know, the work of their outposts. And the way that she described it is the way a lot of settlers describe it, which is protecting Israel’s state land, protecting Area C. Again, you know, this is somebody who believes that the West Bank belongs to her. She believes that the West Bank was given to her by God, you know, which is important, because, again, we have these sort of religious fundamentalists allied with the secular state of Israel. So she would use these religious arguments, but also these kind of legalistic arguments that Area C was Israel’s and that they were defending it. You know, she described what they’re doing as preventing land theft, that Palestinians, by merely living in the West Bank, were stealing land from Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: You write on X, “The Sharvits had 'a gazillion meetings' with government bodies to set up the illegal outpost, Moriah said. The farm acted as 'eyes' for the army, she said. The army gave them M16s and set up surveillance cameras on the surrounding land, which it controlled from a command center. Through Sharvit and Ben-Pazi, Israel seizes land while avoiding the legal hurdles of starting official settlements. Avi Naim of the Settlement Ministry said 'You take people who believe in that goal as a pioneering mission, and let them spearhead the work to keep control of land.'” If you could further elaborate on this very close relationship between the Israeli government and these settlers?

SHANE BAUER: Yeah. I mean, something to note — like, you know, you read this quote by Avi Naim — is, you know, this is out in the open. You know, this is not a secret. You hear Israeli politicians talking about this type of land seizure that these settlers are doing.

And, you know, the connection is very direct. Neria Ben-Pazi, for example, who has been sanctioned, he — after October 7th, on October 12th, he coordinated the expulsion of the community of Wadi Siq. It was a small Palestinian community. And that expulsion happened with dozens of settlers and soldiers together. You know, they came in. They threatened that if people didn’t leave, they would be killed. And settlers and soldiers then tortured a number of Palestinians who were there. Soldiers attacked some Israeli activists who were there in a protective capacity, accusing them, you know, saying, “Why aren’t you in Gaza? Why are you protecting terrorists?” Neria Ben-Pazi’s lawyer had written in legal documents that he had extensive ties with the security establishment. You know, so this is well established.

And, you know, the sort of — I mean, even in the U.N., when I mentioned before the 600 or so attacks that have happened since October 7th, the U.N. said that in at least half of those attacks soldiers are present. You know, it’s not a coincidence. And it’s not merely just soldiers not stopping these settlers. There is an active and ongoing collaboration between many of them.

AMY GOODMAN: And you say these sanctions do not address this.

SHANE BAUER: Right, yeah. I mean, they’re targeting these individuals, you know, a handful of individuals, out of hundreds who are attacking Palestinians, and sort of, you know, targeting them as individuals, but not the sort of state that is supporting them and encouraging them to continue to take land.

AMY GOODMAN: Journalist Shane Bauer’s piece for The New Yorker is headlined “The Israeli Settlers Attacking Their Palestinian Neighbors.”

And this breaking news: The Irish prime minister has just resigned.

I’m Amy Goodman.

[admin]

British Surgeon Describes Children Suffering “Appalling Injuries” in Gaza, Demands Immediate Ceasefire
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/21/ ... transcript

We speak with British surgeon Dr. Nick Maynard, who recently led an emergency medical team at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, about Israel’s ongoing attacks on healthcare infrastructure and the worsening humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory, where Israel’s brutal assault has killed about 32,000 Palestinians since October 7. Maynard is part of a group of international doctors with experience in Gaza who met with officials at the United Nations and in Washington, D.C., this week to express alarm over civilian suffering. Medical workers in Gaza are “working under extremely challenging conditions with a huge lack of resources and working in a healthcare system that is being systematically dismantled by the attacks on it,” he tells Democracy Now! “It’s very, very clear to all of us who have been on the ground in Gaza that the only way to try and stop this humanitarian catastrophe is for an immediate ceasefire.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Israel’s assault on Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, has entered a fourth day. Al Jazeera is reporting Israel has blown up the entire specialist surgery center at the hospital, where thousands of Palestinians had sought refuge and medical care. Israel has now ordered everyone to evacuate as it threatens to blow up the entire medical complex. The World Health Organization says it has documented 410 attacks on healthcare facilities since Israel began its assault on October 7th.

We begin today’s show looking at the collapse of Gaza’s medical system. A group of international doctors who recently spent time in Gaza traveled to the United Nations and Washington this week to express alarm over the humanitarian crisis. This is Amber Alayyan with Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday.

DR. AMBER ALAYYAN: Two populations are particularly vulnerable. Pregnant and lactating women, who were already facing iron deficiency anemia before the war, which puts them at risk for hemorrhage during birth, with the war, it puts them in a state of undernourishment or malnutrition, potentially malnutrition, which means that they can’t breastfeed their children properly. The milk doesn’t necessarily come in, and it’s definitely not enough. And the other population is children under 2 years, which is the breastfeeding age.

There’s not enough space for us to work closely with the mothers to help them start lactating again. We can’t even access them. And to be able to do that, you have to have day-to-day activities with those women, and that is not something that’s possible for us right now. Those children need to be breastfed. If they can’t be breastfed, they need formula. To have formula, you need clean water. None of these things are possible. What we’re talking about is women who are squeezing fruits, dates into handkerchiefs, into tissues, and feeding — drip-feeding their children with some sort of sugary substance to nourish them.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Dr. Amber Alayyan of Médecins Sans Frontières. Dr. Zaher Sahloul, the president of MedGlobal, also spoke at the United Nations on Tuesday.

DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL: This is Hiyam Abu Khader. She’s 7 years old. She is one of the victims of the war in Gaza. A bomb hit her family home, so her father and brother were killed. And her mother also was injured, and she had burns. And she sustained third-degree burns on 40% of her body. She was treated by one of our volunteers, Dr. Vanita Gupta, who is a critical care specialist from New York, in the European Hospital in Deir al-Balah. And Dr. Gupta took some videos of her, and you can see her face in the videos, and also in this picture. And if you want to define post-traumatic stress disorder, this is what post-traumatic stress disorder looks like in the face of a child who’s 7 years old. She was supposed to be evacuated to Egypt, and she waited for weeks before she was eventually evacuated, and she died two days after evacuation, because it was too late.

AMY GOODMAN: And professor Nick Maynard also spoke, a surgeon who led an emergency medical team in central Gaza at Al-Aqsa Hospital in December and January, former director for cancer services at Oxford University.

DR. NICK MAYNARD: I saw things at Al-Aqsa Hospital which I still wake up at night thinking about — appalling injuries in particularly women and children, the most devastating burns in small children. One child that I’ll never forget had burns so bad, you could see her facial bones. We knew there was no chance of her surviving that, but there was no morphine to give her. So, not only was she inevitably going to die, but she would die in agony.

AMY GOODMAN: And professor Nick Maynard joins us now, a surgeon who led the emergency medical team in central Gaza at Al-Aqsa Hospital in December and January, again, former director for cancer services at Oxford University.

Dr. Maynard, thanks so much for joining us from Washington. You were here in New York yesterday addressing members of the United Nations. Talk further about what you found, and talk about how it compares. You’ve been going to Gaza for, oh, the last 15 years.

DR. NICK MAYNARD: Yeah. Thank you very much for asking me on this morning.

As you said, I’ve been going to Gaza since 2010 and have worked extensively in various hospitals in Gaza. And each trip, it’s always very challenging. But there are circumstances we get used to. It’s what I describe as “normal Gaza” for people who have been there. It’s, of course, not normal by anyone else’s standards, because there’s always a lack of resources. You’re always wondering whether things are going to be running out. When you’re operating in the operating theaters, you always have to work with the equipment you’re given. It’s never quite enough. But, of course, you manage that very well.

What we’ve seen since October the 7th in the visits we’ve had to Gaza have been inestimably worse than that, and working under extremely challenging conditions with a huge lack of resources and working in a healthcare system which is being systematically dismantled by the attacks on it.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Maynard, as you know, since you’ve returned, the situation has gotten immeasurably worse. If you could comment on the latest news about the sustained attacks on Al-Shifa Hospital? You said earlier, after your trip in January to Gaza, accusing Israeli forces of, quote, “appalling atrocities” as they systematically targeted hospitals and healthcare infrastructure in Gaza. So, if you could elaborate on that and what you hear of what’s been happening in the last few months since you left?

DR. NICK MAYNARD: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I’ve witnessed myself attacks on hospitals. When I was in Al-Aqsa Hospital, we were forced to withdraw two days early, because there was a missile attack on the intensive care unit.

What’s happening at Shifa Hospital now is really a replica of what happened in the earlier part of this war when Shifa Hospital was attacked and almost completely disabled. I have been in contact with a close friend who is a senior surgeon at Shifa to hear what’s happening in the last 48 to 72 hours. And the same thing is happening again. The hospital, which had been largely disabled, had been beginning to function again in recent weeks, and still at a much lower level than it had originally been capable of, but nevertheless the staff there heroically treating their patients with limited resources. But again, they’ve been forced to leave. I’ve heard horrific testimonies of the medical staff being stripped naked, some of them being abducted again. And we are seeing really the horrors that we witnessed several weeks ago. And Shifa Hospital, of course, being the largest hospital in Gaza, the major trauma center, now again will be almost completely disabled, and there will be no healthcare services for those patients in Gaza City and north Gaza.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, as you know, Dr. Maynard, the U.N. has said that none of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are at this point fully functional. You described your own time working in Al-Aqsa in January as perhaps the worst experience in your medical career. We heard you speak a little bit about this earlier, but if you could describe the conditions under which you worked there and what you saw, the patients that you were seeing, you know, their injuries? If you could just talk about that?

DR. NICK MAYNARD: Yes. We hear a lot about fully functioning and partly functioning hospitals in Gaza. I would argue there have been no fully functioning hospitals at all since October the 7th. The quality of care that I’ve witnessed in over the 15 years I’ve been going has been quite fantastic, some extremely talented doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers providing a remarkably high level of healthcare provision despite the really challenging lack of resources. But even though there is talk about fully functioning and partly functioning, I would argue that even Al-Aqsa Hospital, when I was working there, the Nasser Medical Complex, the European Hospital, before they were attacked by the Israeli forces, they weren’t fully functioning. They could barely cope — well, they couldn’t cope with the numbers of severe traumas coming in. And really, since October the 7th, no hospital facility has been managing to treat patients without trauma, all the communicable and noncommunicable diseases. So, I don’t think any hospital is functioning properly at all, and won’t do so until there is a cessation of the military activity.

When I was in al-Aqsa Hospital, we had very limited resources. I was operating most days — I’m a surgeon, so I was operating on major blast injuries to the abdomen and to the chest. I saw appalling injuries, mostly in women and children, but also in some men, as well. And we operated under very challenging circumstances. Some days there were no sterile drapes to use to cover patients, so we had to make our own out of gowns. Some days there was no running water, so we couldn’t scrub up properly. We had to try and sterilize our hands with alcoholic gel. The equipment we had to use in the operating theater was very limited, very limited numbers of sutures and needles to use, and very few instrument sometimes.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Maynard —

DR. NICK MAYNARD: So, really — yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us more about that little girl that you described at the news conference you held at the United Nations with the other doctors?

DR. NICK MAYNARD: Yes. This was a little girl who was managed by one of my close colleagues from Oxford, Dr. Debbie Harrington. It was a little girl with severe burns, whose burns were so severe that you could see her facial bones through the burns. There was no prospect of her surviving these burns, and we knew she was going to die. But there was no morphine available in the emergency room that day. And that was a frequent occurrence during our stay there. So, we knew she was going to die, but she had to die in agony. There was no way of relieving her pain.

And what made it even worse, if it could be worse than that, was the fact that there was nowhere for her to die in privacy. She was lying on the floor of the emergency room at Al-Aqsa Hospital. There was nowhere else for her to go. So she died in public and in agony.

And we witnessed many other examples like that, and I could spend a lot of time talking about the horrible things we saw, people dying without dignity, without pain relief. And I bore witness to things I would never, ever have expected to have seen in any healthcare setting.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Maynard, can you talk about the condition of the doctors? A few months ago, we interviewed Dr. Hammam Alloh, who was at Al-Shifa, and he would later die in a bombing. I had asked him why doesn’t he leave, and he said, “Do you think that’s why I went to medical school? To desert my patients?” But can you talk about right now the number of doctors who have been arrested, who have died, who are hungry as they try to work?

DR. NICK MAYNARD: Yes. I’ve been profoundly humbled by the healthcare workers that I’ve met in Gaza, some of whom I’ve known for many years, some of whom I met during my stay at Al-Aqsa Hospital. They’ve been working nonstop under the most appalling conditions since October the 7th. I go out to Gaza with Medical Aid for Palestinians. They have some heroic staff on the ground there who, again, are working under appalling circumstances. One of them who lives in northern Gaza couldn’t move south because of his elderly parents. They’ve been living on birdseed. They’ve run out of animal feed now, so they’re now eating birdseed. I’ve met doctors and nurses who have been physically and mentally broken by what they’re going through, but still carry on working, refusing to leave their patients, because that is what their job is. None of these people have been paid at all since October the 7th, and, indeed, many of them hadn’t been paid for many months up 'til then. But they stay with their patients, because that is their job, that is their duty. And they will not leave, despite the full knowledge that they may die as a result of that. So, I am truly humbled by the people I've met there, both doctors and nurses and some very close friends I’ve made in Medical Aid for Palestinians who work on the ground there.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Dr. Maynard, I want to ask about another — a related issue, which is, you said that most of the people you treated were women and children. Now, of course, Gaza is on the brink of famine, and at least 27 children have already died of malnutrition as Israel continues to block humanitarian aid supplies. If you could talk about whether you already saw signs in January of the effects of insufficient food on the children that you were treating?

DR. NICK MAYNARD: Yeah. You played earlier the very eloquent description by Amber about the problems with malnutrition in women and children. We saw this when we were there in December and January. We saw at Al-Aqsa Hospital the pediatricians who we knew there were seeing two or three cases a week in December of kwashiorkor. This is the most severe form of protein-deficient malnutrition. And you may remember pictures of the various famines over the years we’ve seen in Africa with potbellied children. And this is the most severe form of malnutrition. And the pediatricians were seeing this in Al-Aqsa back in December.

We saw evidence of — very clear evidence of malnutrition in some of our surgical patients in Al-Aqsa Hospital. Virtually all the patients get severe infective complications of their injuries in their surgery because of the conditions, the overcrowding, the lack of antiobiotics, the lack of sterile procedures. And, of course, when people get these infections, when they develop sepsis, that rapidly accelerates the malnutrition. And these people who were already on the brink of malnutrition then become rapidly malnourished. So, we saw that a lot.

And we called this out. When my colleagues and I returned from Gaza, we were very vocal about the worrying development of malnutrition. And, of course, all our fears have been realized. Now it’s reached the IPC, you know, Category 5 of malnutrition. There is a famine there. And these are people now, and patients and children, who don’t just need food, they need medical treatment for their malnutrition. And even if there were a ceasefire today, there would be many hundreds, if not thousands, of ongoing deaths from the severe malnutrition as a result of this man-made famine that we’re now seeing.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Nick Maynard, what is the prescription you are recommending right now, as you come to this country? You were at the U.N. Now you’re in Washington, speaking to lawmakers. What are you telling them? What do you say that President Biden should do?

DR. NICK MAYNARD: Yeah. We’ve had a terrific reception in New York and in Washington, and we really do believe people are listening to us. And we’re telling them as it is on the ground. We’re not politicians. We’re not lawmakers. We are humanitarians who are just describing the appalling things we have seen.

It is very, very clear to all of us who have been on the ground in Gaza that the only way to try and stop this humanitarian catastrophe is for an immediate ceasefire. There’s a lot of talk back in the U.K. and in the U.S. about how to get aid to Gaza. We can talk about the fact that, undoubtedly, the best way to get aid is over land rather than via airdrops or via sea corridors. But even if they open up the land borders, the crossings, to get the aid in, the distribution of aid within Gaza is virtually impossible with the ongoing military activity. And what is crucial is that aid gets not only to Gaza, but within Gaza easily, to get to all — particularly to northern Gaza, where we know there is now a famine. And so, my message is — our message is that there has to be pressure on the Israelis to stop — and Hamas — to have a ceasefire, so that that aid can be delivered throughout the whole of Gaza and humanitarian care and aid can start to work.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we know you have to get off to your first meeting today in Washington, D.C. Professor Nick Maynard, surgeon who led an emergency medical team in central Gaza at Al-Aqsa Hospital in December and January, former director for cancer services at Oxford University, thanks so much for being with us.

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“Humanitarian Violence” in Gaza: Architect Eyal Weizman on Mapping Israel’s “Genocidal Campaign”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/21/ ... transcript

A new report by the research group Forensic Architecture counters Israel’s argument at the International Court of Justice that it followed humanitarian policies to safeguard civilian life in Gaza. South Africa argued in January before the ICJ that Israel was guilty of genocide during its war on Gaza. The report argues that what Israel says are humanitarian evacuations in Gaza actually amount to the forced displacement of Palestinians, which is a war crime. It found that since October 7, Israel has issued imprecise and sometimes contradictory evacuation orders, attacked people even in so-called safe zones and evacuation routes, and failed to provide the necessities of life for those civilians, all while pushing the population further and further south into areas that are then also attacked or evacuated at a later time. “We cannot see it as anything else but part of the genocidal campaign,” says Forensic Architecture director Eyal Weizman, who accuses Israel of using humanitarian principles as yet another weapon against Palestinians in Gaza. He says Israel’s objective is to “exercise pain on the civilian population” in order to deter “ongoing resistance to the Israeli occupation.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We look now at a new report published by the research group Forensic Architecture, which counters Israel’s argument at the International Court of Justice that it followed humanitarian policies to safeguard civilian life in Gaza. South Africa argued in January before the ICJ that Israel was guilty of genocide during its war on Gaza. The report argues that what Israel says are humanitarian evacuations in Gaza actually amount to the forced displacement of Palestinians, which is a war crime.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in London by Eyal Weizman, a British Israeli architect born in Haifa. He’s founder and director of Forensic Architecture, a professor of spatial and visual cultures at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. He’s the author of several books, including Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation and The Least of All Possible Evils: A Short History of Humanitarian Violence. He’s also a member of the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court and of the Center for Investigative Journalism.

Eyal, welcome to Democracy Now! As we come to air right now, the United States has presented a resolution to the U.N. Security Council for a temporary ceasefire. I’m wondering if you could respond to that and Netanyahu only speaking with Republicans, behind closed doors — now he might be addressing a joint session of Congress, if the House speaker decides to invite him — saying that Rafah invasion will happen.

EYAL WEIZMAN: Yeah. If a Rafah invasion will happen, we will see the humanitarian disaster, the man-made humanitarian disaster imposed on Gaza, just aggravated to levels that we haven’t yet experienced. In Rafah, we have a huge part of the Palestinian people evacuated to living in inhumane conditions where there are famine and lack of basic humanitarian provisions, in something that is called a “safe zone.” And I think that it’s important to understand that there is no safe place in Gaza. Although Israel is designating part of the Strip as so-called safe areas and ordering the population to evacuate to them, it continuously imposes on these areas conditions that amount to unlivable conditions and in continuation of its genocidal policies.

So, what we need to — my comment to that is, rather than allowing any or entertaining any specific plans and provisions, you know, that the U.S. is discussing now with the Israelis about allowing them to attack Rafah under certain conditions, we need to see immediate ceasefire across the board in all places of Gaza, in order to allow for the rebuilding of the Strip, in order to allow for humanitarian provision to reach each and every Palestinian in the north and in the south.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Eyal Weizman, the proposal that the U.S. has put forth — this is before we turn to your report. The proposal that the U.S. has put forth for a temporary ceasefire is reportedly for the release of Israeli hostages and allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. You wrote in a piece — I want to ask you about a piece you wrote for the London Review of Books in November in which you document — the piece is headlined “Exchange Rate,” where you document the change in Israel policy with respect to its hostages. So, if you could talk about the way that that’s played out? You wrote the piece in November. If you could talk about the way that’s played out, and how you think that might affect what happens now, going forward, with respect to the hundred or so hostages who remain, who are reportedly still alive?

EYAL WEIZMAN: I think that what you see in all negotiations around the captives and the Palestinian prisoners sitting in Israeli prisons, some of them on administrative detentions without charge, thousands of them, is that Israel has been creating and enlarging its bank of prisoners in order to create — in order to allow it to change the exchange rate. The title of that piece in the LRB was “Exchange Rate,” and it was looking at the history of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation through the capture of captives, from — really, from the famous airplane hijacks of the '70s all the way to the present, the way in which Palestinians forced Israel into — the only way that Palestinians could actually affect and release their prisoners is through capturing Israeli captives. Over the years, the exchange rate has changed favorably to the Palestinians. And what you're seeing is that Israel is now arresting people in order — Palestinians, again, and holding them in administrative detention, in order to beef up its bank of captives.

More than that, you could see that in the reports on the negotiation, the fate of those people that have been purportedly evacuated into safe areas is being brought into the equation. One way of thinking about it is to say, of course, Hamas or Palestinian factions in Gaza are holding over 100 Israeli captives, and Israel is holding close to 2 million Palestinian captives and bargaining for their return home in exchange for its prisoners. And that is obviously patently illegal, according to international law. And the fact that even that is being brought into the negotiation testifies that that was the intent of holding them away from their home as a bargaining chip towards that. So, you have an exchange rate now that is 200 million Palestinians displaced — sorry, 2 million Palestinians displaced, 100 Israeli captives, and this is really where the negotiations are going.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Eyal Weizman, let’s turn to your report, the Forensic Architecture report, which is headlined “Humanitarian Violence in Gaza.” If you could begin just by explaining — the two words don’t normally come together, “humanitarian” and “violence.”

EYAL WEIZMAN: Right.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: If you could explain what you mean by that? Of course, you’ve also written a book on this. And then lay out the three phases of mass displacement that you document in the report.

EYAL WEIZMAN: Yeah. So, you know, we think about humanitarian principles — and part of them is international humanitarian law, so-called the laws of war — as being there to protect civilians. But a certain manipulation of international humanitarian law allows you to have operational advantage, or, in this case, advantage in negotiation over the captives in this particular way. So, there is a principle, an accepted principle, in international — in humanitarianism that if you want to evacuate a population into a safe zone, that safe zone needs to have several conditions. There needs to be proper medical care. There needs to be proper food and housing in these areas. Israel has evacuated — ordered the evacuation of Palestinians from within Gaza and from the north to the south into areas that were repeatedly under attack, into areas with no housing, no medical care, and now that we see no food is being provided in it, or very little, or not sufficient levels of aid within that. So, that is, firstly, you know, the kind of the principle of using a humanitarian principle that is purportedly used in order to save, in order to treat civilians and take them out of harm’s way, in order to achieve Israel’s operational objectives in this attack on Gaza, and that is to exercise pain on the civilian population to generate levels of destruction and harm that would deter Palestinians from ongoing resistance to the Israeli occupation.

And it’s becoming more and more clear that the harm, that the levels of destruction that we’re seeing, that the level of displacement that we’re seeing, are not the byproduct and not the collateral effects of this conflict, but really the only thing that Israel has achieved during that war. It hasn’t achieved any of its tactical aims. It hasn’t dismantled Hamas as an operative force. It hasn’t captured the Hamas leadership. It hasn’t freed hostages, except of in very rare situations. What it has done is create an equation in which the civilian population is being put in harm’s way in order to bargain against their return back to the north, to north of Gaza, in order to effectively achieve what tactically Israel has not achieved.

So, in relation to the stages, a week or so after the October 7th attack, Israel has given the entirety of the north of Gaza an evacuation order. They were ordered to leave the north of Gaza, home to over a million Palestinians, the center of Palestinian political, cultural life, was actually ordered to cross Wadi Gaza, which divides, according to them, Gaza into north and south. That was the first stage. And after the ceasefire, the temporary ceasefire in which some prisoner exchange was happening at the beginning of December, what Israel has done is releasing an interactive map online, dividing Gaza into kind of a gerrymandered 623 zones. It was very difficult, with people that we spoke to in Gaza, to understand whether they are in zone number 546 or 547. The map was extremely confusing. It was released online at a time of very frequent internet and power cuts, or it was communicated via leaflets that were unevenly distributed. It was an incredibly confusing system that led to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians from one zone to the other. So, when they were — after they were ordered to all move into southern Gaza, from different parts in the southern part of Gaza, they were ordered to go into different places.

And what the report is showing is the systematic and ongoing use of these evacuation orders were meant to achieve that population displacement and that people were continuously being put in harm’s way. The routes, the so-called safe routes, along which Palestinians were ordered to evacuate were attacked. Areas where they went to had no provisions and very often were attacked themselves. So, we cannot see that humanitarian policy, so-called humanitarian policy, of the Israeli forces — and the argument that the Israelis put forward in The Hague that, you know, they are not in violation of the Genocide Convention because they apply humanitarian principle, but we cannot see it as anything else but part of the genocidal campaign that is actually inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: And now, of course, if Netanyahu does succeed in a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, they will go back to all these places they were forced to flee. And they talk about, “No worries, Palestinian civilians will be protected in these humanitarian zones.” Eyal Weizman, if you could respond to that? And also, just for people to understand, your organization is so unusual, and it also operates in several different countries, you yourself born in Haifa. If you could explain how you do what you do? We are also showing a series of maps, where you show the stages, one, two, three. You’ve done so many different investigations, from who killed Shireen Abu Akleh, the great Al Jazeera Arabic reporter — when Israel was saying caught in crossfire, you proved the opposite: She was killed by an Israeli sniper — among other things. Can you talk about what Forensic Architecture does, and what you, as an Israeli British architect, are doing in this kind of analysis — an architect?

EYAL WEIZMAN: Yeah, thank you for asking that. Of course, the nature of the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, and throughout Palestine complete, makes use of architecture as part of the violence applied on Palestinians. So, starting from the location of settlements on hilltops in a way that divide the Occupied Territories, surveys it, bisect Palestinian-built fabric, the design of roads, the provisional infrastructure, you could say that settler colonialism is architecturally enacted.

In Gaza, obviously, we had settlements in Gaza up until 2005, when they were evacuated, but after that, the Gaza envelope is a system of civilian and military infrastructure that included a number of fences and earth berms and military facilities, as well as kibbutzim and moshavim. These are agrarian settlements that are part of what Israel always called its regional defense.

Of course, all that system was attacked on October 7th. So you could see how architecture is mobilized as part of the system of control and occupation of Palestinians. You could see why Palestinians would attack that system of infrastructure — and this is without commending and, of course, not supporting the killing and abduction of civilians.

But I think that architecture is a key part of that, of understanding the conflict, the long history of Israel’s settler colonization, and also understanding what is happening in Gaza now. It is happening in urban environment. And one has to understand what this urban environment, that has been created over the years of — you know, since, really, the Gaza Strip was created as a historical anomaly in 1948, when it was carved out as a kind of concentration area for refugees, becoming one of the densest parts of the world, most densely inhabited part of the world. How do you control population centers? And a lot of thinking was done from the Israeli side in terms of thinking about the control of Palestinians as an urban problem.

And what we see now happening in Gaza is the shaping of Gaza for, you know, the day after. Would it come now? Would it come in weeks, in months? We do not know. But what we see is Israel actually shaping the built fabric, destroying all homes and agricultural areas in a huge buffer zone along the border, creating east-west routes, not only the famous one that we know, around Deir al-Balah, but all throughout that very long and thin strip of territory, the Gaza Strip, we see it being truncated, almost cut like salami, with routes and military infrastructure that would be there in order to isolate and divide different parts of the Gaza Strip, if resistance continues, from the Palestinian parts.

And so, architecture — if architecture is really the means by which Israel exercises control, we, architects, and the organization that I run, Forensic Architecture, is — you know, has many architects working with us, but also open-source investigators, journalists, lawyers, etc. — we are monitoring things from a cartographic, spatial and architectural perspective. We work very closely, and we have a partner organization in Ramallah, the Al-Haq Forensic Architecture Unit, because we understand that working in Palestine, like working anywhere else in the world — Forensic Architecture has also got offices in Mexico, in Bogotá; now we’re starting one in Istanbul, in Athens, in many other places in the world. But understanding the lived reality, understanding the way that architecture is used as an oppressive mechanism requires also the lived experience — understanding the lived experience of people there. And therefore, when we’ve done that report that you mentioned, we’ve been in touch with — we’ve been in touch with Palestinians on the ground, we’ve been in touch with medical professionals, with doctors, in understanding the conditions in the so-called safe zones. And as I say, there are no safe areas in Gaza.

We’ve tried to understand the spatial logic of that campaign. And we could see that one of the main strategic tools for Israel to control and afflict that pain on Gaza is through the evacuation orders, and that they have been spatially designed — initially, again, dividing north Gaza from south Gaza, and then dividing it into 600 Tetris parts, if you like, in which, you know, you would get very a confusing order in which your number would come up, and you would be told to go from that number zone into another number zone. Do you get this message? Do you understand it? And also, on the way, you’d be attacked. And the zone in which you’re being evacuated to is itself unsafe and unlivable.

So, here what we see is the abuse of humanitarian principles to further Israeli genocidal campaign. And this is why we call that report “Humanitarian Violence.” We need to be very, very wary when we are speaking about humanitarian principles in war, because very often militaries — not only the Israeli militaries, but, you know, Western, Northern, global — militaries from the Global North, when they engage in urban warfare in parts of the Global South, they are applying humanitarian principles — they’re playing international law in a particular way that does not contain violence, that actually amplifies it.

I’ll give you another example for that: warnings. You know, you could think that to warn a population is actually something that could be very, very helpful. It could save lives. But, actually, the aims of these warnings, or what is implied in them — and sometimes explicitly mentioned — is that if you do not heed the warning, you would be considered potentially part of the armed resistance in a particular area. That means you get redesignated from a protected civilian to a nonprotected either voluntary human shield or part of a resistance, if you do not heed the warning. So, in a sense, with one legal tool, you created the redesignation of a big part of the population, and you basically let the blood in that way. So, humanitarianism, when it — those principles, when they’re using in such a brutal campaign, it could be actually part of the problem, rather than something that is moderating and defending civilians.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Eyal Weizman, if we could talk a little bit more about that? The scale, just to point out, just to give us a sense of the scale of the crisis of mass expulsions, at the moment, almost 70% of the total area of the Gaza Strip has been issued evacuation orders. If you could say, very quickly, in terms of the International Court of Justice ruling, what does your report suggest about the defense that Israel presented?

EYAL WEIZMAN: Yeah, that the defense is completely inapplicable. We will show how — and we have shown how — Israeli military, the occupation forces, when they maneuver through — if you look at things in relation to each other, if you look at military maneuver, you look at areas that have been bombed, as we have, through speaking to people, through analyzing videos, through looking at satellite imagery, we have a good understanding, we have a good map of what are the areas that have been bombed. Overlay that with the so-called safe zones, overlay them with Israeli military maneuver, and what you see is, A, civilians are being evacuated into areas that have been bombed, that have no facilities, and are continuously bombing — they are still being bombed as Israel has ordered civilians into them. And you see, in some cases, Israeli military maneuver, Israeli invasion into the area it itself designated as safe zones.

So, in a sense, you see those categories operating in relation to each other as part of an overall strategy, rather than you’re seeing humanitarian principle pushing against military violence and moderating it. You see it has become one of the tools in the Israeli campaign toolbox to generate that level of destruction in Gaza. So, you know, you’re speaking about 70% of the area is being displaced. And the proportion —

AMY GOODMAN: Eyal, we have 10 seconds.

EYAL WEIZMAN: The proportion of people displaced is much higher, and the proportion of civilian infrastructure destroyed is almost complete. So, look at those things together and understand the militarization of humanitarian principles.

AMY GOODMAN: Eyal Weizman, we clearly have so much to talk about. We’d like to ask you to stay, and we’ll post Part 2 online at democracynow.org. Eyal Weizman is a British Israeli architect, founder and director of Forensic Architecture. We’ll link to the new report, “Humanitarian Violence: Israel’s Abuse of Preventive Measures in Its 2023-2024 Genocidal Military Campaign in the Occupied Gaza Strip.”

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U.S. Said It Was Calling for a Gaza Ceasefire, But Its U.N. Resolution Didn’t Say That: Phyllis Bennis
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/22/ ... transcript

At the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia have vetoed a U.S. draft resolution on the war in Gaza. The U.S. resolution appeared to call for a ceasefire, but it was written in a way to make the resolution unenforceable. Our guest Phyllis Bennis says this was mere “wordplay” and a “convoluted” attempt by the Biden administration to play both sides, as it comes under increasing internal and external criticism over its close relationship with Israel. Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace. She has written several books on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. When it comes to dissent over U.S. support of Israel, “the pressure is mounting in ways that I’ve certainly never seen,” she says, adding that it’s imperative for the public to continue pushing for more action, as “it’s crucial that the weapons sales be cut” and a real ceasefire be reached immediately.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in Israel, where he just met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This comes as the United States has introduced a U.N. Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Despite mounting international pressure, Israel is continuing its war on the besieged territory. The Israeli military raid on Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, has entered a fifth day. Hundreds of Palestinians have been reported killed or detained by Israeli forces. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to go ahead with an invasion of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s entire population has sought refuge.

Blinken spoke Thursday from Cairo, Egypt.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: The need for an immediate, sustained ceasefire with release of hostages, that would create space to surge more humanitarian assistance, to relieve the suffering of many people and to build something more enduring.

AMY GOODMAN: A vote at the U.N. Security Council on the U.S. proposal could come as early as today, but the language of the resolution has been criticized for not going far enough. A group of nonpermanent members of the U.N. Security Council has drafted a separate resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Up until now, the U.S. has repeatedly blocked calls for a Gaza ceasefire.

On Thursday, Blinken also spoke about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Children should not be dying of malnutrition in Gaza, or anywhere else, for that matter. A hundred percent — 100% of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity. We cannot, we must not allow that to continue.

AMY GOODMAN: Joining us now from Washington, D.C., is Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She also serves as an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace. Her new article in The Hill is titled “Gaza shows food airdrops often take lives instead of saving them.” She also recently wrote a piece for Al Jazeera headlined “What lies behind the Biden administration’s changing 'ceasefire' language.”

Well, let’s start there. Phyllis, if you can talk about what the U.S. has introduced into the U.N. Security Council? It could be voted on today. And also what could be voted on are the — is the resolution that has been adopted by or sponsored by eight of the elected members of the Security Council.

PHYLLIS BENNIS: Thanks, Amy.

You know, what we’re looking at here is a lot of playing with words. What is different is the language of the Biden administration — we heard it yesterday from Secretary of State Blinken, we’re hearing it from President Biden, we’re hearing it from others — using the word “ceasefire,” saying “immediate ceasefire” in some cases. We’re seeing The New York Times is saying that the U.S. is introducing a resolution at the Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire.

That’s not the case. What the U.S. resolution calls for — and we should be clear: There has not been a formal distribution of what the U.S. is actually going to put on the table for the vote this morning. There’s at least three different versions circulating around. But they’re all about the same on the critical description. It’s in the first paragraph. The first operative paragraph of the resolution uses the language of an immediate ceasefire, but it doesn’t actually call for a ceasefire. What it does is recognize the importance of a ceasefire, and then says, “And therefore, we should support the negotiations that are underway in Doha, in Qatar.” These are the negotiations that have been underway for weeks. They are mainly focused on the release of hostages, as well as the parameters of a short-term ceasefire, probably six weeks. But the key thing is that the U.S. draft does not call for an actual Security Council call for a ceasefire.

The language of the eight of the 10 elected members of the Security Council is much simpler and much more direct. It says explicitly that the Security Council demands an immediate ceasefire, respected by all parties, leading to a sustainable ceasefire, period, full stop. The U.S. language is very convoluted. It’s various versions of “The Security Council determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides,” and then says something about “And therefore, we unequivocally support the negotiations that are underway.”

So it takes all of the authority out of the Security Council, makes the council into essentially a group of cheerleaders for the existing negotiations that are underway and takes away any additional pressure that an actual Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire would have, because Security Council resolutions, as you know, Amy, and I think most of our listeners know, is part of international law. It’s enforceable. It doesn’t mean that it would be enforced, but it’s a very powerful signal, something that an acknowledgment of the importance of a ceasefire is simply not that. It’s not that.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that the United States introduced this ceasefire resolution because the group of eight of the unelected [sic] members of the Security Council are introducing their resolution? And if that went forward, could the U.S. afford to veto it?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: I think that the U.S. resolution has been in preparation for quite some time. The resolution by the eight of the 10 elected members is a new development. This emerged only in the last several days. So I don’t think it’s directly in response to that.

It is clearly in response to the massive escalation of political pressure, both from governments and from civil society, certainly here in the United States, but also around the world, where there is demand, there is outrage at the United States’ position at the United Nations, which has been a consistent pattern, that’s gone on for months now, of vetoing in the Security Council any calls for a ceasefire and voting against it in the General Assembly, where it has no veto, and using pressure — economic pressure, political pressure — on other countries to encourage or, in some cases, really pressure them to vote against these resolutions. There is outrage growing. And the U.S. government and the Biden administration, in particular, is very, very isolated as a result.

Here in the United States, we’re seeing a huge escalation in the opposition to the Biden administration insistence on continuing to support Israel, sending military aid, despite the change in language, the recognition of famine that we just heard again from Secretary of State Blinken, the recognition of the humanitarian crisis that is killing people in the level of hundreds every day, and when we’re hearing from the humanitarian experts that the level of famine is at 55% of the entire population of northern Gaza right now, is at the highest possible level of absolute famine, which means, Amy, that even if food began to be delivered on a large scale today, probably hundreds, maybe even thousands, of the most vulnerable people, primarily babies and children and the elderly, would be at risk of dying because their bodies have been so undermined, so destroyed by the lack of food and water for so long. So we’re dealing with an absolute crisis, an absolute human catastrophic crisis. And what we’re hearing is wordplay at the United Nations: How can we use the language of “ceasefire” so that everybody says, “Oh, they’re calling for a ceasefire,” without calling for the ceasefire?

AMY GOODMAN: This is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to the Israeli parliament Tuesday about plans to invade Rafah, again, where more than half of Gaza’s entire population has sought refuge.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] We, of course, share this desire to allow an orderly exit of the population from Rafah and the provision of humanitarian aid to the civilian population. We have been doing this since the beginning of the war. But I made it clear to the president, Joe Biden, in our conversation that we are determined to complete the elimination of Hamas battalions in Rafah, and there is no other way to do it except by going in on the ground.

AMY GOODMAN: So, there, he’s speaking to the Israeli parliament. He also addressed Republicans in a closed-door session. And there’s a question whether the House speaker will be inviting him to address a joint session of Congress. Phyllis Bennis, if you can talk about what Netanyahu is doing, the significance of the calls for there to be new elections by none other than the majority leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, a real change from the way he has embraced the Israeli leadership?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: You know, Amy, this is something that has a long history in the United States. Over the last 15 years or so, there has been a significant shift in how support for — the long-standing U.S. support for Israeli military, its military support, its economic support, its political and diplomatic support — how all of that shakes out in Washington. It’s become a much more partisan issue, something that groups like AIPAC and other parts of the pro-Israel lobby have always wanted to avoid. They always wanted it to be a bipartisan consensus to support Israel. And it no longer is. The polls have been showing that for years now, that there’s a massive shift underway. It’s particularly generational, but it’s also between parties, where on the Democratic party side, support for Israel has diminished profoundly, and on the Republican side, it’s been a complete embrace of all things Israel.

What we’re seeing now is a continuation of that, certainly, with the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, following what happened in 2015, when the Republican leadership in the House at that time invited Netanyahu, who was the prime minister then, as well, to address a joint session of Congress in order to pressure President Obama and oppose the Iran nuclear deal that was then being discussed. And it was one of these things that was diplomatically outrageous. It had never happened before. There was no consultation with the White House. Usually, when a head of state comes, they’re invited by the president. Not this time. Netanyahu ignored the White House, came at the invitation of the Republican leadership of the House and gave what amounted to a campaign speech in the U.S. Capitol, as if it was his own capitol, calling on the members of Congress to vote against their own president in the interest of his country. And in response, over 60 members, mainly of the progressive and especially the Black Caucus of the Congress, protesting the racism of Netanyahu towards President Obama, boycotted the speech — something that had never happened before.

We’re seeing, essentially, a repeat of that now, where he is emerging as a partner of the Republican opposition that is demanding more support for Israel, more money for Israel, more arms for Israel, at a time when the Biden administration itself, despite its change of language, is continuing to send more weapons and more money, trying to get Congress to approve $14 billion more in military aid to Israel without any conditions — in violation of U.S. law.

And what we’re seeing is a real shift on the political parameters. You mentioned earlier the diplomats and former military leaders in the United States who are calling for reevaluation of the U.S. aid to Israel, saying that it must be conditional, it must not continue at this level. And we’re seeing that coming from all kinds of new places, from funders of the Biden campaign. The pressure is mounting in ways that I’ve certainly never seen in decades of doing work on this issue.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to quote from the over a hundred Democratic donors and activists who’ve written to President Biden’s campaign, warning the president’s support for Israel’s assault could cost him the election, saying, quote, “Because of the disillusionment of a critical portion of the Democratic coalition, the Gaza war is increasing the chances of a Trump victory.” You have former diplomats, people from the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, like Clinton’s national security adviser Anthony Lake — you know, deep establishment people — saying that this has to change. Yet President Biden seems to be, to say the least, dragging his feet on this. The whole issue —

PHYLLIS BENNIS: Absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: — of weapons, sending weapons to Israel, we just learned in that Washington Post exposé over a hundred shipments of weapons through this time just under the threshold where it would have to be approved by Congress. We’re wrapping up, Phyllis, and then we’re going to talk to a doctor who particularly deals with child nutrition and hunger in Gaza. She just got out of Gaza. But we want to have your final comment on what this would mean. Yet at the same time you have senators like Van Hollen, Merkley — both went to Rafah — and others who are saying, “Cut the weapons sales.”

PHYLLIS BENNIS: It’s crucial that the weapons sales be cut.

One of the things I just want to point out in the last moments, this issue of Chuck Schumer coming out against Netanyahu, there’s a move to isolate Prime Minister Netanyahu right now. And it’s certainly appropriate. Part of the reason he’s still in power is to stay out of jail. It’s a very personal crusade on his part. But we have to be very clear that the people who are likely to replace him, if he were to either resign or be recalled in an election, they all support this war. So we should not have the illusion, that I’m afraid people like Chuck Schumer and others might have, that anybody who’s not Netanyahu should be and would be welcomed with open arms in Washington with more weapons, more hundreds of smaller weapons shipments that wouldn’t necessarily have to be approved by Congress. This is a very dangerous reality. We have to be very clear that this is a systemic decision by the Israeli leadership. This is not a one-man show in this horrific genocidal war that is being waged in Gaza. And we have to be careful not to fall into that trap of putting it all on one person and thinking that if one person is replaced, somehow that’s an answer.

AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, serves as international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace. We’ll link to your articles in The Hill and Al Jazeera.

***

“Children Are Dying”: Doctor Just Back from Gaza Describes Severe Malnutrition, Preventable Infections
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/22/ ... transcript

As Israel continues its relentless assault on Gaza, causing mass famine, injury and death, we get an update on the malnutrition and mental health crises in Gaza from Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, a pulmonary and critical care doctor and the medical director of the humanitarian aid group MedGlobal. She is recently back from a two-week volunteer trip to Gaza, where she says these crises are growing so rapidly “that even if aid was increased tomorrow, we would still be in a severe situation where the amount of food would not be enough in the immediate term.” It is a “horrific experience for all involved,” she concludes.

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 we continue our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Thursday the future of an entire generation of Palestinians is in serious peril.

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS: On Tuesday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification partnership said that Gaza faces imminent famine, because so little food has been allowed in. Up to 16% of children under 5 in northern Gaza are now malnourished, compared with less than 1% before the conflict began. Virtually all households are already skipping meals every day, and adults are reducing their meals so children can eat. Children are dying from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease and lack of adequate water and sanitation. The future of an entire generation is in serious peril.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Dr. Nahreen Ahmed. She’s a pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia, the medical director of the medical humanitarian aid group MedGlobal. Her first medical mission to Gaza was January. Earlier this month, she returned to Gaza, where she volunteered for two weeks. She left on Wednesday and is joining us now from Gaziantep, Turkey.

Dr. Ahmed, thanks so much for being with us as you’ve just come out of Gaza. Talk about what you’ve seen in terms of child hunger.

DR. NAHREEN AHMED: Yeah. Thank you for having me and for this opportunity to speak about what’s going on.

This was, as you mentioned, my second trip back, and it was pretty clear how rapidly the malnutrition has risen in Gaza. I had the ability to actually go and see what was happening in the north, as well. I’ll start with what’s happening in the south.

MedGlobal has a stabilization center that’s in the south of Gaza that is purely to treat malnutrition. So, the situation is so bad that there needs to be specific centers that are primarily treating patients with malnutrition. As was mentioned before in the broadcast, the most vulnerable population here are children under 5. But we are also seeing that pregnant and lactating women are suffering from this, as well, and there’s a rapid increase in malnutrition across mothers, as well. You can imagine that these two things are connected, as children under 5 or newborn babies are receiving nutrition from their parents, from their mother. And with the fact that mothers are also experiencing malnutrition, we’re seeing that newborn babies are being born at an astoundingly low weight. Infections are happening very rapidly at these young ages as a consequence. And again, mothers are going through the mental health crisis of experiencing the inability to feed their children because of their own level of malnutrition.

The percentages of malnutrition from when I went in January to when I just returned now have doubled. That’s in practically a month’s time. And as was already mentioned, this situation is happening so rapidly that even if aid was increased tomorrow, we would still be in a severe situation where the amount of food would just not be enough in the immediate term. And so, this is what I, unfortunately, witnessed with my own eyes.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about what it means when children in incubators, when a little older children experience malnutrition, how they are able to cope, if they get some kind of aid, they go out of the hospital, being more vulnerable, and especially in the, to say the least, extremely harsh conditions now of Gaza?

DR. NAHREEN AHMED: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, thinking about this, first of all, this is not just a problem that’s solved by the nutrition therapeutic feedings that we’re giving. This is a cyclical problem that, first of all, one, it’s very painful. A child suffering from hunger, this is an extremely painful thing to experience.

Two, the access to food once somebody is released from an inpatient unit is still going to be a problem. We see children chasing after trucks where food distribution is happening. We see children chasing with water bottles to the water distribution trucks. I mean, this is a situation that is also degrading for them, to have to experience finding food and water in this way.

Lastly, you know, when we talk about vulnerability, we’re talking about vulnerability to infections. This is what we’re seeing the most in a hospital in the north of Gaza, where almost every single patient that I saw in the inpatient pediatrics unit was suffering from malnutrition. Each of these children had an infectious complication. Either they were suffering from liver disease from rampant hepatitis A from lack of access to clean water, or they had severe pneumonias that they were even more vulnerable to complications of because of the level of malnutrition, or, you know, diarrheal diseases that were happening for the same reasons. And so, children are dying from infectious processes, as well, the complications of having severe malnutrition. All of these issues are preventable. All of these issues are preventable.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Hala Ashraf Deeb, a Palestinian who has nothing to feed her children.

HALA ASHRAF DEEB: [translated] What has this child done to suffer from hunger? I cannot find milk for five shekels or a packet of milk from the agency. There, the normal milk is for 150. There is no work. There is no food, no drinks. We are eating plants. We started eating pigeon food, donkey food. We are like animals.

AMY GOODMAN: That is a Palestinian mother in Gaza. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is calling the situation in northern Gaza beyond desperate. Maybe that’s why the Israeli government wants them to be — to lose all their funding, the most comprehensive agency for Palestinians there in Gaza. In a post on X, UNRWA said its staff visited Kamal Adwan Hospital, and “fuel and medical supplies were delivered, but aid is just a trickle. Food needs to reach the north now to avert famine,” UNRWA said. You went to that hospital. Can you describe also the difference between January and now? And what about the doctors and the medical staff? How are they dealing with all of this?

I think we just lost Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, so we’re going to go to a break and see if we can get her back. Dr. Nahreen Ahmed is a pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia, medical director of the medical humanitarian aid group MedGlobal. She just got out of Gaza and is speaking to us from Gaziantep, Turkey. Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Nina Simone singing “Mississippi Goddam.” In a moment, we’re going to go to Mississippi, where a so-called Goon Squad, self-described, of police officers and sheriff’s deputies have just been sentenced to years in prison for torturing their victims. But we’re going to see if we can now resume our contact with the doctor just out of Gaza. But first, we’re going to keep looking at the looming famine there. This is Amber Alayyan with Médecins Sans Frontières — that’s Doctors Without Borders — speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday.

DR. AMBER ALAYYAN: The hospitals rely on quota systems for how many drugs they keep in their pharmacies, in their stocks in each department. And they have to choose between whether do I fully stock my operating theater, my ICU or my emergency room. And this is where you have doctors faced with horrific decisions of having to intubate and amputate children and adults without anesthetics in emergency rooms.

Part of the reason for this is the lack of medications or the lack of medications accessible at that time. Part of the reason is that we have internally displaced people living in hospitals, sheltering in hospitals, because they have nowhere safe to go. And what that means is they are staying in hospital beds. So, what does that mean for injured people? They arrive, they get a quick and dirty surgery in an emergency room or in an operating theater, and they have nowhere to be hospitalized afterward, or when they are, they are lost all throughout the hospital, and our teams spend all day searching for the patient that they just operated on 12 hours before.

What does this mean over the long run? The longer this war goes on, the longer these wounds have to rot. And I mean really rot. The infections are getting worse and worse, and it’s horrific. It’s horrific for our providers, and it’s absolutely horrific for these patients.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Amber Alayyan is with Doctors Without Borders. She went on to describe how the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is impacting women and children.

DR. AMBER ALAYYAN: Two populations are particularly vulnerable. Pregnant and lactating women, who were already facing iron deficiency anemia before the war, which puts them at risk for hemorrhage during birth, with the war, it puts them in a state of undernourishment or malnutrition, potentially malnutrition, which means that they can’t breastfeed their children properly. The milk doesn’t necessarily come in, and it’s definitely not enough. And the other population is children under 2 years, which is the breastfeeding age.

There’s not enough space for us to work closely with the mothers to help them start lactating again. We can’t even access them. And to be able to do that, you have to have day-to-day activities with those women, and that is not something that’s possible for us right now. Those children need to be breastfed. If they can’t be breastfed, they need formula. To have formula, you need clean water. None of these things are possible. What we’re talking about is women who are squeezing fruits, dates into handkerchiefs, into tissues, and feeding — drip-feeding their children with some sort of sugary substance to nourish them.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Amber Alayyan of Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday. We’re rejoined with Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia, just out of Gaza on Wednesday. She’s speaking to us from Gaziantep, Turkey. If you could go on to talk about, Dr. Ahmed, the mental health situation of the people in Gaza, particularly children?

DR. NAHREEN AHMED: Yeah. The mental health situation is devastating. Prewar, 50% of Gazan children were experiencing some PTSD from prior conflicts. It’s important for us to remember that this is not the first time that they’ve experienced this kind of trauma. Given that 50% of children were experiencing that, we’re up to probably 100%, presumably, of children who are experiencing trauma based on the day-to-day proximity to missile strikes and experiencing what they’re experiencing.

Our team that went with me this last week, in a collaboration with an organization called MeWe International, we actually went to several of our medical access points in shelters across Rafah, and we spoke to women and children about what they’re experiencing, and initiated a community-based approach towards providing mental health support. And this was using things like music, activity, very low cost because it’s so hard to get supplies or — you know, when it comes to mental health, we’re not just talking about medications. We’re talking about the ability to give agency and a voice and empowerment back to people.

And what we heard was the amount of children just unable to dream. That’s what’s the first thing they tell us, that “We have no dreams. We used to have dreams. We have no dreams. We cannot imagine that our lives will ever go back to normal.” We’ve heard children say, “I just want to go home. I want to be back in the safety of my home.” In an exercise that we did with a group of women and children — and this was mothers and their children, caregivers and their children — the number one thing, when asked for people to think — for them to think about a positive — something positive that they could hold onto, they would draw a picture of them returning to their home. This was overwhelmingly the number one thing. And most of these children have been displaced more than one time. And they just talk about how much they miss their home, how much they miss playtime activities, playing with children, going to school. We met so many children and adolescents who just wanted to be back in school. They’re missing that opportunity to have any kind of intellectual stimulation, and it’s causing a great deal of depression, anxiety, and just absolute a horrific experience for all involved.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ahmed, we thank you so much for being with us. Dr. Nahreen Ahmed is a pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia with the group MedGlobal. She’s medical director of the medical humanitarian aid group. Her first medical mission to Gaza was January. She just left Gaza on Wednesday, speaking to us from Gaziantep, Turkey.

[admin]

As Israel Blocks More U.N. Aid, Gaza Is on the Brink of “Most Intense Famine” Since WW2
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 25, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/25/gaza#transcript

In Gaza, millions of Palestinians are starving after five months of U.S.-backed attacks by Israel, while Israel continues to prevent the delivery of essential provisions. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on social media, “This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity.” The head of the World Health Organization says children in Gaza are already dying of malnutrition. “This is fundamentally a political crisis,” says Alex de Waal, the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, who explains that even with a ceasefire and humanitarian aid, “a crisis like this cannot be stopped overnight,” and that “This will be a calamity that will be felt for generations.”

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 Gaza, where aid groups say famine is imminent after five months of U.S.-backed attacks by Israel. The head of the U.N. Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, says Israel is now denying access to all UNRWA food convoys to northern Gaza, even though the region is on the brink of famine. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, quote, “This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity.” On Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres traveled to the Rafah border crossing.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. … It’s time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: either surge or starvation. Let’s choose the side of help, the side of hope and the right side of history.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Alex de Waal, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. His new piece for The Guardian, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war.”

Alex, welcome back to Democracy Now! Describe what’s happening, at a time when Israel is now preventing the largest aid umbrella in Gaza, UNRWA, from delivering aid to northern Gaza, where famine is the most intense.

ALEX DE WAAL: Let’s make no mistake: We talk about imminent famine or being at the brink of famine. When a population is in this extreme cataclysmic food emergency, already children are dying in significant numbers of hunger and needless disease, the two interacting in a vicious spiral that is killing them, likely in thousands already. It’s very arbitrary to say we’re at the brink of famine. It is a particular measure of the utter extremity of threat to human survival. And we have never actually — since the metrics for measuring acute food crisis were developed some 20 years ago, we have never seen a situation either in which an entire population, the entire population of Gaza, is in food crisis, food emergency or famine, or such simple large numbers of people descending into starvation simply hasn’t happened before in our lifetimes.

AMY GOODMAN: How can it be prevented?

ALEX DE WAAL: Well, it’s been very clear. Back in December, the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system — and that is the sort of the ultimate arbiter, the high court, if you like, of humanitarian assessments — made it absolutely clear — and I can quote — “The cessation of hostilities in conjunction with the sustained restoration of humanitarian access to the entire Gaza Strip remain the essential prerequisites for preventing famine.” It said that in December. It reiterated it again last week. There is no way that this disaster can be prevented without a ceasefire and without a full spectrum of humanitarian relief and restoring essential services.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the IPC is? And also talk about the effects of famine for the rest of the lives of those who survive, of children.

ALEX DE WAAL: So, the IPC, which is short for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system, is the system that the international humanitarian agencies adopted some 20 years ago to try and come to a standardized metric. And it uses a fivefold classification of food insecurity. And it comes out in very clearly color-coded maps, which are very easy to understand. So, green is phase one, which is normal. Yellow is phase two, which is stressed. Orangey brown is phase three, that is crisis. Red is four, that is emergency. And in the very first prototype, actually, of the IPC, this was called famine, but they reclassified it as emergency. And dark blood red is catastrophe or famine. And this measures the intensity. There’s also the question of the magnitude, the sheer numbers involved, which in the case of Gaza means, essentially, the entire population of over 2 million.

Now, starvation is not just something that is experienced and from which people can recover. We have long-standing evidence — and the best evidence, actually, is from Holland, where the Dutch population suffered what they called the Hunger Winter back in 1944 at the end of World War II. And the Dutch have been able to track the lifelong effects of starvation of young children and children who were not yet born, in utero. And they find that those children, when they grow up, are shorter. They are stunted. And they have lower cognitive capacities than their elder or younger siblings. And this actually even goes on to the next generation, so that when little girls who are exposed to this grow and become mothers, their own children also suffer those effects, albeit at a lesser scale. So, this will be a calamity that will be felt for generations.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling for, Alex de Waal? I mean, in a moment we’re going to talk about what’s happening in Sudan. It’s horrifying to go from one famine to another. But the idea that we’re talking about a completely man-made situation here.

ALEX DE WAAL: Indeed. It is not only man-made, and therefore, it is men who will stop it. And sadly, of course, even if there is a ceasefire and humanitarian assistance, it will be too late to save the lives of hundreds, probably thousands, of children who are at the brink now and are living in these terrible, overcrowded situations without basic water, sanitation and services. A crisis like this cannot be stopped overnight. And it is a crisis that is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is fundamentally a political crisis, a crisis of an abrogation of essentially agreed international humanitarian law, and indeed international criminal law. There is overwhelming evidence that this is the war crime of starvation being perpetrated at scale.

AMY GOODMAN: Alex de Waal, we’re going to turn now from what’s happening in Gaza. We’ll link to your piece, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war.”

[admin]

Jeremy Corbyn Applauds U.N. Ceasefire Resolution, Says World Must Prevent “Another Nakba”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 26, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/26/ ... transcript

Former U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to the United Nations Security Council’s resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which passed 14-0 on Monday after the United States declined to use its veto by abstaining from the vote. Corbyn calls the war and suffering in Gaza “a global disgrace” and says the ceasefire must be enforced. “It’s time to stand with the Palestinian people.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Corbyn, I know you just have a minute to go, and I wanted to switch gears for a moment, though. I would assume if Julian Assange were out of prison and he were fully able to operate WikiLeaks, we’d be finding out a little more about Gaza. But I did want to ask you about Gaza and the U.N. Security Council resolution, that Britain voted for, the U.S. abstained, calling for a temporary ceasefire during Ramadan. Your thoughts on the overall situation there, what Britain, what the U.S. should be doing right now, and what you feel Israel should be doing?

JEREMY CORBYN: The situation in Gaza is obviously a global disgrace, 32,000 people dead, on top of the thousand people that were killed on October the 7th.

And eventually, the U.N. Security Council not being vetoed by the U.S.A. is a testament to the strength of all those that have demonstrated all over the world in support of the Palestinian people to demand a permanent, full ceasefire. That happened yesterday. The British government eventually voted for the Ramadan ceasefire, which is good, which is a step forward. And that’s only because of the sense of political pressure in Britain. We’ve had now 10 national demonstrations, and we’ve got another one on Saturday. We are an enormous growing force of people that want to see peace and want to see the withdrawal of Israeli troops, an end to the occupation, and justice for the Palestinian refugees.

And Netanyahu is now in a difficult position, because, in effect, he’s been disowned by the rest of the world, and even the U.S.A. didn’t veto the U.N. resolution yesterday. And so, I do appeal to those good people in Israel, that have always opposed the occupation and continue to oppose the war, to keep up whatever pressure they can there.

We need a ceasefire to save life. Listen, 32,000 dead, half of whom are children; famine, starvation, and as the weather warms up in Rafah — and I’ve been in Rafah, it’s not a big place — it’s going to be cholera, because of the lack of sanitation; children dying on the streets for lack of food, lack of water, lack of medicine, when a few kilometers away there’s food, there’s water, there’s medicine in unlimited supplies.

The agenda, I believe, of the Netanyahu administration is to force the Palestinian people of Gaza through the Rafah crossing into the Sinai and create another — another Gaza, and, with that, another Nakba. It’s time to stand with the Palestinian people. And at least we made some progress at the U.N. yesterday, but we’ve got to go a lot further and a lot faster to stop the bombardment, stop the killing, stop the bombing, and get the food and medicine in urgently to support the Palestinian people.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Corbyn, we want to thank you so much for being with us again, member of the British Parliament, served as Labour Party leader from 2015 to 2020. He’s standing outside of the London High Court, which has put the extradition of Julian Assange on hold for a few weeks until the U.S. provides more assurances about how the WikiLeaks founder would be treated in a trial and to guarantee that he would not face the death penalty, though he does face up to 175 years in prison.

[admin]

Jeremy Corbyn Applauds U.N. Ceasefire Resolution, Says World Must Prevent “Another Nakba”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 26, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/26/ ... transcript

Former U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to the United Nations Security Council’s resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which passed 14-0 on Monday after the United States declined to use its veto by abstaining from the vote. Corbyn calls the war and suffering in Gaza “a global disgrace” and says the ceasefire must be enforced. “It’s time to stand with the Palestinian people.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Corbyn, I know you just have a minute to go, and I wanted to switch gears for a moment, though. I would assume if Julian Assange were out of prison and he were fully able to operate WikiLeaks, we’d be finding out a little more about Gaza. But I did want to ask you about Gaza and the U.N. Security Council resolution, that Britain voted for, the U.S. abstained, calling for a temporary ceasefire during Ramadan. Your thoughts on the overall situation there, what Britain, what the U.S. should be doing right now, and what you feel Israel should be doing?

JEREMY CORBYN: The situation in Gaza is obviously a global disgrace, 32,000 people dead, on top of the thousand people that were killed on October the 7th.

And eventually, the U.N. Security Council not being vetoed by the U.S.A. is a testament to the strength of all those that have demonstrated all over the world in support of the Palestinian people to demand a permanent, full ceasefire. That happened yesterday. The British government eventually voted for the Ramadan ceasefire, which is good, which is a step forward. And that’s only because of the sense of political pressure in Britain. We’ve had now 10 national demonstrations, and we’ve got another one on Saturday. We are an enormous growing force of people that want to see peace and want to see the withdrawal of Israeli troops, an end to the occupation, and justice for the Palestinian refugees.

And Netanyahu is now in a difficult position, because, in effect, he’s been disowned by the rest of the world, and even the U.S.A. didn’t veto the U.N. resolution yesterday. And so, I do appeal to those good people in Israel, that have always opposed the occupation and continue to oppose the war, to keep up whatever pressure they can there.

We need a ceasefire to save life. Listen, 32,000 dead, half of whom are children; famine, starvation, and as the weather warms up in Rafah — and I’ve been in Rafah, it’s not a big place — it’s going to be cholera, because of the lack of sanitation; children dying on the streets for lack of food, lack of water, lack of medicine, when a few kilometers away there’s food, there’s water, there’s medicine in unlimited supplies.

The agenda, I believe, of the Netanyahu administration is to force the Palestinian people of Gaza through the Rafah crossing into the Sinai and create another — another Gaza, and, with that, another Nakba. It’s time to stand with the Palestinian people. And at least we made some progress at the U.N. yesterday, but we’ve got to go a lot further and a lot faster to stop the bombardment, stop the killing, stop the bombing, and get the food and medicine in urgently to support the Palestinian people.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Corbyn, we want to thank you so much for being with us again, member of the British Parliament, served as Labour Party leader from 2015 to 2020. He’s standing outside of the London High Court, which has put the extradition of Julian Assange on hold for a few weeks until the U.S. provides more assurances about how the WikiLeaks founder would be treated in a trial and to guarantee that he would not face the death penalty, though he does face up to 175 years in prison.

***

Ex-U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber: Israel Must Be Held Accountable for Violating Ceasefire Resolution
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 26, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/26/ ... transcript

We speak with former top U.N. human rights official Craig Mokhiber after the Security Council voted Monday on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all remaining hostages. The United States abstained from the vote, allowing it to pass after nearly six months of obstructing similar efforts at the Security Council. Mokhiber, who resigned in October over the U.N.'s failure to address rights violations in Israel-Palestine, says “Israel has the world record” for violating U.N. resolutions and is certain to violate this ceasefire resolution, as well, even though it expressed “the very broad consensus across the global community against Israel's onslaught on Gaza.” Israel continued bombing Gaza after Monday’s vote, and top Israeli leaders have vowed to continue the war that has killed over 32,000 Palestinians so far. “What this genocide has done is it has revealed the weaknesses, the political compromises, the moral failings of the United Nations and other international institutions,” says Mokhiber, who adds that continued pressure from civil society is needed to end the bloodshed.

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 Juan González.

Israel is continuing to attack Gaza despite a vote Monday by the United Nations Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire during the remaining two weeks of Ramadan and calling for the release of hostages in Gaza. Fourteen of the 15 nations on the U.N. Security Council voted in support of the resolution, which was drafted by the nonpermanent members of the council. The United States abstained, ignoring a request by Israel to veto the ceasefire resolution. The U.S. had previously vetoed three other ceasefire resolutions.

Israel denounced the U.N. vote, as well as the U.S. decision to abstain. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by canceling a visit to Washington, D.C., by a high-level delegation this week to discuss Israel’s plans to attack Rafah.

At the United Nations, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour praised the ceasefire resolution.

RIYAD MANSOUR: This must be a turning point. This must lead to saving lives on the ground. This must signal the end of this assault of atrocities against our people. A nation is being murdered. A nation is being dispossessed. A nation is being displaced — for decades now, but never at this scale since the Nakba.

AMY GOODMAN: Israel has vowed to ignore the resolution. In a post on social media, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said, quote, “The State of Israel will not cease firing. We will destroy Hamas and continue fighting until the very last hostage has come home,” he said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is at odds with the U.N. over whether the resolution is binding or not. Deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said U.N. Security Council resolutions are, quote, “as binding as international law.” But on Monday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., described the resolution as nonbinding.

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD: We appreciated the willingness of members of this council to take some of our edits and improve on this resolution. Still certain key edits were ignored, including our request to add a condemnation of Hamas. And we did not agree with everything in the resolution. For that reason, we were, unfortunately, not able to vote yes. However, as I’ve said before, we fully support some of the critical objectives in this nonbinding resolution. And we believe it was important for the council to speak out and make clear that our ceasefire must — any ceasefire must come with the release of all hostages. Indeed, as I’ve said before, the only path to a durable end to this conflict is the release of all hostages.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Craig Mokhiber, international human rights lawyer who formerly served as the director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, where he worked for more than three decades as a human rights official. He resigned in October over the U.N.'s failure to adequately address large-scale atrocities in Palestine and in protest of Israel's assault on Gaza.

Craig Mokhiber, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you explain the significance of this U.N. Security Council resolution, the U.S. abstaining, and whether or not this is binding?

CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, thank you, Amy and Juan. Nice to be with you again.

It is significant — you’ve picked the right adjective there — because this was a draft that was put forward by the nonpermanent members, the elected members of the Security Council, the so-called E10. And these 10 members include representatives from around the world, including some key allies of the United States, which created, I think, a degree of political pressure that added to hopes that the resolution would not be vetoed in this case.

I have to say that it follows just a few days after the council rejected a rather cynical draft that was submitted by the United States, the text of which, I have said, is a kind of an anti-ceasefire resolution. It didn’t order a ceasefire, but effectively set out Israel’s conditions for ceasing its violations of international law. And that was a real problem, because a lot of U.S. media outlets were reporting on that resolution as a ceasefire resolution, when it was anything but.

But yesterday’s resolution was an actual ceasefire resolution — a rather weak one, which I will comment on, but it is a ceasefire resolution. It calls for a brief ceasefire, for access for humanitarian aid at scale, for lawful treatment of prisoners, including Palestinian prisoners, and for release of hostages. And it’s important because, you know, we’re in the midst of a genocide. And you have this nearly moribund Security Council that has failed for six months, that is finally succeeding at least in demanding a temporary ceasefire. Any pause will save lives. And any aid that gets in as a result, during an imposed starvation, will make a difference, no doubt about it. It’s also important because it’s a signal, again, of the very broad consensus across the global community against Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, and it will be another legal tool that can help in holding perpetrators accountable after the provisional order of the World Court on Israel’s genocide.

But, you know, unfortunately, while it contains some hopeful, aspirational language that may lead to a lasting ceasefire, it only demands a ceasefire during the month of Ramadan, which will end in just over two weeks. So it is a very short pause during this genocide. And we know that one of the U.S.’s conditions for not vetoing the resolution was the deletion of the word “permanent,” which of course changes the substance of the resolution very significantly.

So, despite all of this talk about tensions in U.S.-Israeli relations and this rare instance of the U.S. not vetoing a resolution on Israel’s behalf, the U.S. is clearly continuing to run interference on behalf of Israel at the U.N. And as you say, this is made all the more clear by the statements of the U.S. immediately after the adoption of the resolution, in which the U.S. has claimed — entirely falsely, by the way — that the ceasefire demand is conditional on the release of hostages and, secondly, that the resolution itself is nonbinding. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., made these claims in the session of the Security Council after the adoption of the resolution. Both of these claims are completely false and have no legal grounding. The U.N. Charter in its Article 25, subsequent decisions of the International Court of Justice have made this undisputable. Security Council resolutions are binding on all member states. And this is black-letter law in the Charter that says that all members of the United Nations are bound to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council, as I say, subsequently affirmed by the International Court of Justice.

And the claim that the ceasefire is to be conditioned on other factors like the release of hostages, this is completely false, as well. This was a key, central focus of the negotiations, was to make sure that these things were not conditioned one on the other, but they are separate demands of the Security Council. The United States knows this, but it is cynically distorting the record in order to, on the one hand, be able to claim that it has gone along or not blocked an international move toward a ceasefire, because of pressure from domestic and international constituencies, and, on the other hand, making sure that nothing really changes on the ground. It shows how the U.S. — how committed the U.S. has been to undercutting the resolution even before the ink was dry. So, if you look at the process, the U.S. used its power to water down the text during negotiations. It still did not vote in favor, only abstaining, and then immediately and falsely declared that it’s nonbinding and conditional.

And in the end, I have to say, we also know that Israel is unlikely to respect any of the terms of this resolution. They’ve already declared that they will not do so. And they have continued all of their military offensives and genocidal assaults on the Gaza Strip since the adoption of the resolution. We also know that the United States is very unlikely to use any leverage to compel Israel to comply with the resolution. And their language now on trying to claim that it’s nonbinding is evidence that that is their intent. So, the killing continues. Forced starvation continues. Genocide continues unabated.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And —

CRAIG MOKHIBER: And I think that may be the — yes, go on.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Craig Mokhiber, what would be the — what would be the potential actions of the United Nations to a member state that does not adhere to a binding resolution of this type? And also, what is your response to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s canceling of the Israeli delegation to the U.S. over this vote?

CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, I think Israel’s intentions have been made clear. If you listen to the statements of the prime minister and other cabinet ministers and military leaders, they have been clear from the beginning that they will not relent in their assault on the Gaza Strip until they’ve effectively accomplished the destruction of the entire strip. And their attacks now on Rafah, in particular, show that the last refuge, the last piece of the Gaza Strip that hasn’t been effectively destroyed, is not only in their sights, but already under their bombs. So Israel never has had any intention. In fact, Israel has the world record for violating Security Council, General Assembly, Human Rights Council resolutions in the United Nations. And that is unchanged.

But this resolution can make a difference. On the one hand, there is an opportunity, if Israel is in breach of the resolution, to bring a resolution for enforcement under Chapter VII. Now, of course, as we’ve said, the United States is likely to block, to veto that resolution, to prevent any enforcement, just as they will continue to block any enforcement of the decisions of the International Court of Justice regarding genocide in Palestine. In this case, because the U.S. has not vetoed it, they have, in effect, blocked action in the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace resolution, where you could have seen some real meaningful action. You could have seen a resolution with teeth, with substance, resolution that included diplomatic, military, political, economic sanctions — not the enforcement of those sanctions, but the call for those sanctions — the deployment of a protection force, the establishment of a tribunal, the establishment of permanent mechanisms, as was the case within the United Nations during apartheid in South Africa. So, there are actions that could be taken here, but the non-veto has slowed action in the General Assembly, while at the same time allowing the United States to claim that, yes, the resolution passed, but somehow it’s not binding.

In the end, this all comes down to the — first, to the political will of member states across the organization, which already, after the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, are obliged to be taking action to rein in Israel’s assault on Gaza — few have done so, but I think there is pressure building — and then, secondly, the obligation on all of us in civil society to make sure that we keep up the pressure, again, as was the case in South Africa, on our own countries to make sure that there are appropriate sanctions imposed on Israel to force it to comply and to end its genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Kamal Qasim. He’s a displaced Palestinian in Gaza, responding to the U.N. Security Council vote in New York.

KAMAL QASIM: [translated] We hope that the decision is implemented and that it is taken seriously, because we know that Israel is stubborn and doesn’t pay attention to the Security Council or any Western countries or Arab countries. And you can see what the situation is like, and the life that we are living is very, very difficult, with big massacres and genocides — not just one genocide — and the situation is very, very hard. And we hope a ceasefire comes quickly and that the decision is implemented.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Craig Mokhiber, I’m wondering if can you respond to that. And also, we’re getting all sorts of reports on whether the Qatar talks are continuing, those negotiations. Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, tells reporters negotiations on a truce are still ongoing. He rejected Israeli claims that the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for ceasefire had an immediate impact on the talks. The Times of Israel said Israel has cut off Gaza truce talks in Qatar as a result. Your response and where you see this all headed at this point? I mean, even as we talk about whether Israel is going to launch a full-scale invasion, I think in the last 24 hours since the U.N. Security Council resolution was passed, something like 80 to 100 Palestinians were killed, most of them in Rafah.

CRAIG MOKHIBER: Yeah, absolutely. And this is the challenge of enforcement. It’s clear that as long as Israel’s principal sponsor — I’d say its co-belligerent — the United States of America, is not committed to reining in Israel’s assaults, those assaults are going to continue, regardless of what the International Court of Justice or the Security Council or other legal mechanisms at the international level rule. They are blocked by the power of the United States in actually giving force to the decisions that they take. And unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing on the ground.

This is an opportunity. Right? It provides a diplomatic tool and a legal tool to press for at least this two-week-plus pause on the ground. But the clock is already ticking. Nothing has changed so far. Israel has been explicit in its rejection of the resolution, and the United States has been explicit in its position that the resolution is nonbinding, and therefore, if it’s nonbinding, it doesn’t make any sense for them to take action to try to enforce it.

The key element of the U.S.'s engagement on this was to try to keep the Security Council, and the United Nations generally, at arm's length so that all the center of gravity would remain with them and their diplomatic — so-called diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, together with the Egyptians and the Qataris. Those talks have not borne fruit. Israel has repeatedly boycotted portions of those talks.

You know, an opportunity for a two-week pause that this resolution provides is disappearing with each passing day. And so are the opportunities to try to turn that two-week pause, as is suggested in the resolution, into something that is more lasting. The U.S. refused to allow the word “permanent,” but something more lasting. So the pressure is going to have to come from elsewhere. It’s not going to come from these key pressure points. It’s going to have to come from civil society. It’s going to have to come from private actors. And again, as I said before, it’s going to have to come from all of us.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Craig Mokhiber, I wanted to ask you — there’s been, for years now, efforts to restructure the United Nations, especially the Security Council, precisely because of the overwhelming power that the old European major powers exercised over the Security Council. Do you think that this war and the inability of the U.N. to act to end it will now further fuel the move to reform the U.N.?

CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, one can hope, Juan, I have to say. I mean, I think what this genocide has done is it has revealed the weaknesses, the political compromises, the moral failings of the United Nations and other international institutions. It has shown itself to be wholly inadequate, wholly unable to respond to a genocide being committed with Western sponsorship, with the sponsorship of powerful Western states. If this were happening in a developing country in Africa or Asia, you would see a very different response. But when the perpetators, the co-perpetrators are the United States, the United Kingdom, European powers, the United Nations has shown itself unable to act.

You see that even in the language of the Security Council resolution. We’re talking about a situation of massive war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Because the Security Council is not set up to deal effectively with that, especially when one of its permanent members or two of its permanent members, at least, are implicated in that genocide, it’s forced to dust off language about conflict as if this were a war between two states rather than a campaign of annihilation by a heavily armed occupying power against a besieged civilian population. And that is not going to get the job done. You get a resolution that calls for a ceasefire — even ceasefire language is not appropriate to a genocide, as the World Court itself has determined — and you get, you know, no language in here that condemns the perpetrators, that moves for accountability of perpetrators, that deals with the deployment of protection of the exposed civilian population, none of the things that would actually make a difference.

And it’s not just the Security Council. The political offices of the United Nations that have been set up to deal with issues like genocide, like sexual violence, like children in armed conflict, they have all failed miserably, because they are politically compromised, politically controlled. Unlike the independent human rights mechanisms, that have done a terrific job, and the humanitarian aid workers, that have done a terrific job in the U.N. system, these political offices and intergovernmental bodies have shown themselves to be wholly ineffective.

So it certainly has increased the demand for reform. Whether there will be a willingness amongst the member states, and in particular amongst the P5, the most powerful member states of the United Nations, who sit with special rights on the Security Council, in a mechanism that belongs in a Cold War museum, their lack of political will for change is what obstructs this. I still believe that demand from the ground can make a change. We saw it happen with apartheid in South Africa. We can see it happen, as well, if we work for it, for reforms in the U.N., which I think have to happen — we need the United Nations — and, on the other hand, for action against Israel’s genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: Craig Mokhiber, we just have 30 seconds, but the question of U.S. stopping military sales to Israel, an issue that certainly Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Merkley and others have called for, do you think that would make a difference?

CRAIG MOKHIBER: Well, it would make a tremendous difference, as I’ve said before. The United States is not just tolerating this genocide. It is, in legal terms, complicit in the genocide because of its provision of military support, of weapons, of economic support, of diplomatic cover, of intelligence support, and of, as I’ve said, the use of its official podiums to disseminate propaganda for genocide on behalf of the Israelis. Any piece of that puzzle that is removed, and especially discontinuing the provision of military aid during the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, will make a very significant change and, in fact, a much more significant change than any international resolution could hope to make.

AMY GOODMAN: Craig Mokhiber, international human rights lawyer, formerly served as the director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, where he worked for more than 30 years as a human rights official, resigning in October over the U.N.'s failure to adequately address the Israel-Palestine conflict and Israel's assault on Gaza.

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“The Worst of What Humanity Is Capable Of”: Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan on What She Saw in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/28/gaza_msf

Almost six months into Israel’s assault, Gaza’s health sector has been completely decimated. Before October 7, Gaza had 36 hospitals. Now only two are minimally functional, and 10 are partially functional, according to the United Nations. The rest have shut down completely after either being shelled, besieged and raided by Israeli troops, or running out of fuel and medicine. Israel’s assault has killed over 32,500 Palestinians, including over 14,000 children, and wounded nearly 75,000. We speak with Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician who just spent two weeks volunteering and living at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza, about what she witnessed and the conditions of healthcare in the beleaguered and devastated territory. “This is not a humanitarian crisis. This is the worst of what humanity is capable of, and it’s entirely all man-made,” says Haj-Hassan. “This is an utter and complete failure of humanity, and, to be frank, I feel ashamed to be an American citizen. I feel ashamed to be part of a society that has allowed this to continue.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nearly six months into Israel’s assault on Gaza, the health sector has been completely decimated. Before October 7th, Gaza had 36 hospitals. Nearly six months later, only two are minimally functional, and 10 are partially functional, according to the United Nations. The rest have shut down completely after either being shelled, besieged and raided by Israeli troops, or running out of fuel and medicine.

The death toll from the Israeli assault has topped 32,500, including over 14,000 children, with nearly 75,000 wounded. The entire population of Gaza is facing high or catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, and famine is imminent in the north. At least 27 people, mostly children, have died of malnutrition and dehydration.

AMY GOODMAN: In Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest hospital in Gaza, an Israeli raid is continuing for the 10th day. Israeli forces there have killed at least 200 people and detained over 400.

Meanwhile, the U.N. reports that as of Tuesday, Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis has ceased functioning. That leaves the remaining hospitals in Gaza that are able to partially function completely overwhelmed. One of those is the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Our next guest just spent two weeks volunteering at and living there with a team of international doctors.

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan is a pediatric intensive care physician who works with Doctors Without Borders. She’s co-founder of the social media account @GazaMedicVoices, which shares firsthand accounts from healthcare professionals in Gaza. She just left Gaza yesterday. She’s joining us now from Amman, Jordan.

Tanya, welcome back to Democracy Now! I know you’re absolutely exhausted. Can you just share your experiences of the last two weeks, what you feel it’s most important for people around the world to understand?

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN: Yeah, certainly. Thank you. Just to clarify, I was in Gaza with a charity called Medical Aid for Palestinians UK, MAP UK.

It’s really difficult to describe in words the horrors that we saw in our two weeks there. You know, you watch the news, you have some idea of what you’re going to see. But experiencing in real time entire family structures collapsing, entire families being wiped off the civil registry, having to tell a father or a mother that their entire family, their lifelong partner and all of their children, have just been killed and you weren’t able to resuscitate them, is something that was very difficult to experience and something that I hope I never have to experience again. And frankly, it’s something that I just feel ashamed that we’re still talking about, you know, seven months into this. It just is such a stark representation of our failure, of our failure as humanity. This is not a humanitarian crisis. This is the worst of what humanity is capable of, and it’s entirely all man-made. And when you witness it firsthand, it’s an unbearable injustice.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, thank you for that account. If you could also talk about some of the nurses with whom you worked? For our television viewers, you’ve seen some of the images that Tanya sent to us. And if you could speak specifically about a nurse whose name you cannot reveal for security reasons, who holds in his hand an infant, which we’ll show now on screen? If you could talk about the story of what happened with this nurse and the child in his hands?

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN: Yeah, certainly. I think this photo is very representative of the utter exhaustion and yet ongoing determination of the healthcare staff there. Healthcare workers in general have been targeted since day one, as have health facilities. Al-Aqsa Hospital is a smaller hospital in the scheme of Gazan hospitals. The largest two hospitals are, first, Al-Shifa Hospital and, then, Al-Nasser Hospital. And as you mentioned in your introduction, both of them have been directly besieged. They’ve been targeted, bombed, deprived of resources. Their healthcare staff have been forced to flee. Many of the healthcare workers are arrested. They describe — they describe changing out of their scrubs or being told by civilians to change out of their scrubs when they’re fleeing. We’ve had civilians give healthcare workers their own clothes so that they’re not seen wearing scrubs, because we know that healthcare workers have been systematically targeted in this particular — in this particular war. So, I think I wanted to start by saying healthcare workers are under an enormous amount of pressure. They’re directly targeted. These healthcare workers evacuate, travel a very long way, and then, ultimately, are back at work, work extremely hard, do all that they can to keep patients alive.

And in this particular photo, this particular nurse, one of the most hard-working nurses that I worked with, had come to the end of a 24-hour shift, had tried very hard to resuscitate this infant, and unfortunately was unable to, and then just passed out, out of exhaustion, onto the stretcher in front of him, carrying the now-dead child. A lot of times we can’t even tell the parents that their child has been killed, because there are no parents to be found. And that’s, unfortunately, a very common occurrence.

In many of the other photos that you’ll see in front of you — I’m not sure which photos, Democracy Now!, you’re sharing; I can’t see them on my end — but you can see the carnage, the very difficult circumstances under which the emergency room department is trying to operate. A lot of the senior doctors have fled. Junior doctors, who are straight out of medical school, are on call overnight, receiving mass casualties, mass casualties with stories I can share with you, but stories that are very difficult and unbearable to experience, let alone talk about. But I’m happy to share more.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where you stayed; if you slept, where you slept?

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN: Yeah, we slept in a room in the hospital. They had the female healthcare workers in one room on mats, and the male healthcare workers in another room. And we basically worked day and night. We had a surgical team with us that operated through most of the night just so that we can get through the very large backload of cases. I mean, this is a very small hospital that has a capacity of about 200 patients and is running with over 700 patients at the moment, and then there are thousands of internally displaced people there, as well. So they have a backlog of patients that require medical attention, that require surgical procedures, to prevent their wounds from becoming infected, to stabilize fractures. And, unfortunately, they don’t have the surgical space or workforce to get those cases done. So our team was just trying to offload some of that work. The teams there are also just utterly exhausted. I mean, they’ve been doing this for over 170 days. We did it for two weeks, and we’re exhausted. I cannot begin to fathom what it feels like for them.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, if you could — you mentioned, in the image that you sent us and that we showed of the child in the nurse’s hands — you said that there were no parents or family members to whom you could convey the information of what happened to this child. The last time we had you on, you spoke about this new acronym, “wounded child, no surviving family.” Obviously, this child was among those. If you could talk about the number of children who were coming in, either on their own or who were left on their own?

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN: Yeah, certainly. In fact, there are a number of them that are living in the hospital at the moment and being cared for by strangers or relatives. Often what happens is we’ll receive children, dead or still alive. We’ll attempt to resuscitate them, and we’ll start asking around, “Does anybody know if there’s family for this child in the hospital that have come in with the same mass casualty?” And we’ll have a distant relative look at us and say, like, “They’ve unfortunately been martyred,” or “They’ve been killed.” And so, it was a very common occurrence to have a child that we were resuscitating and not know if any of their family were alive, or be told that their family had been killed, or be told that that other woman that we’re resuscitating simultaneously on the floor is the child’s mother.

I remember one incident where we received a young boy who the side of his face had been blown off, and we were providing care for him while providing care for his sister in the adjacent bed. His sister had 96% of her body burned. Their parents and all of their other siblings had been killed in the same attack. And he kept asking for his family, and he had a distant cousin who was at his bedside, who kept saying, “They’re fine. They’re fine. They’re injured. They’re going to be fine.” And he kept saying, “Where’s my sister?” He could see the patient next to him. He just couldn’t recognize her, because she was so badly burned. But that was his sister. She unfortunately died despite our efforts. A 96% body surface area burn is essentially a death sentence, particularly under those resource circumstances. She died a couple days later in the intensive care unit. And he is still in the hospital receiving reconstructive surgery for his neck and face. But as of the moment I left, his distant relatives hadn’t had the heart to tell him that they had all died. He was suspecting it. So, when I would pass by to check on him, he would say, “I have a feeling my family has been martyred. I wish I had been martyred, too.” So I think he knows. But it’s utterly unbearable.

There’s another child that has an external fixator, so rods in his leg after some complex fractures, that, you know, lives in the hospital at the moment for ongoing care and is cared for by strangers because he doesn’t have any relatives in the hospital. And his car was bombed as they were trying to flee. And his family was killed, but he still thinks his family is in the north.

Other children know that their family has been killed, and are being cared for by extended relatives. Fortunately, their faith is strong, and they are able to rationalize, in whatever way this is — you’re able to rationalize these atrocities. I find them very difficult, if not impossible, to rationalize. This is an utter and complete failure of humanity, and, to be frank, I feel ashamed to be an American citizen. I feel ashamed to be part of a society that has allowed this to continue. And I am very much hoping and looking forward to the moment where we decide to take a courageous stance and put an end to this massacre.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did you go back, Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan? You have been there a number of times.

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN: So, I had been there over the last 10 years to teach. This is an area that’s been besieged for 16 years. And you have healthcare providers that are working under unimaginable circumstances before October 2023. And I think witnessing what was happening from a distance thereafter, witnessing the injustice, witnessing the immense pressure under which our colleagues were working, I found it unbearable not to be there with them. And, in fact, I probably felt most at ease in the last — since October, the moment I arrived in Gaza and knew that I could now actually join them in solidarity, in providing care for their patients, because they’re doing exactly — exactly — what we signed up to do in our Hippocratic Oath. And they’re doing it with a level of commitment and determination that is incomprehensible. It is so impressive. And yet they’re being attacked and directly targeted. And I think most healthcare workers that I know that are aware of what’s happening feel the same way I do and cannot wait to be there in person to provide solidarity, or are providing that solidarity in different ways from a distance.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And as you were treating — Dr. Haj-Hassan, as you were treating children, people with such horrific injuries, if you could talk about the kind of equipment you had to work with? There are reports of aid trucks being denied entry because there were basic medical supplies, scalpels, scissors. Explain what doctors there have to work with as they confront these absolutely unimaginable injuries.

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN: So, there’s certainly a shortage of a lot of things we need to work. And I think, at a very basic level, there’s just shortage of space. So, you can imagine, when we resuscitate a single patient that arrives into an emergency department, we put them in a resuscitation bed in a bay surrounded by equipment. That is not at all what’s happening in these hospitals. When you receive a mass casualty, the most critical cases get moved into this red area. There are three beds in the red area. And then the rest we resuscitate on the floor in the red area or the yellow zone. And so, we’ll have amputations that we do on the floor of the yellow zone of an emergency department.

And, you know, basic things that we take for granted are just not available — sterile suture kits. Ketamine, I have to beg for. It’s a drug that we use to provide pain relief and sedation when we do basic procedures. But, you know, I tend to use it on most pediatric cases when we need to do painful procedures in the emergency department, but they’re short on supplies, so you have to pick and choose which patients you provide it to and how much you provide, because you know that, you know, it’s opportunity cost for another patient. And that’s a very hard reality, and it’s not one that I’ve had to deal with before in my career, despite working in humanitarian medicine for a long time. We often have to think about resource limitations, but these particular resource limitations are very difficult to bear.

And I should mention that Al-Aqsa Hospital is better off than so many of the other health facilities throughout the Gaza Strip, that have either been destroyed or are completely cut off. I mean, you think about the north, Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital, and how cut off it’s been from the very beginning, or Al-Nasser Hospital, that was besieged for so long, and the healthcare staff inside those institutions not having access to food or water for several days and sometimes weeks. That is a much more extreme situation than that which I’m describing to you at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where, despite me describing severe resource shortages, we were still better off than many of the other areas in the Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, we want to thank you so much for being with us, pediatric intensive care physician, was in Gaza for two weeks with Medical Aid for Palestinians. She just left on Wednesday, co-founder of the social media account @GazaMedicVoices, which shares firsthand accounts from healthcare professionals in Gaza, speaking to us from Amman, Jordan.

***

I Could Not Stay Silent: Annelle Sheline Resigns from State Dept. over U.S. Gaza Policy
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/28/ ... transcript

A State Department official working on human rights issues in the Middle East resigned Wednesday in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Annelle Sheline, who worked as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, was not planning on publicly resigning, but her colleagues asked her to “please speak out” against the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel. “At the end of the day, many people inside [the State Department] know that this is a horrific policy, and can’t believe that the United States government is engaged in such actions that contravene American values so directly, but the leadership is not listening,” says Sheline. “I’m trying to speak on behalf of those many, many people who feel so betrayed by our government’s stance.” Sheline describes being moved by the words of Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty U.S. airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in protest of the war on Gaza, who implored everyone to take a stand against genocide. “I have a young daughter, and I thought about, in the future, if she were to ask me, 'What were you doing when this was happening? You were at the State Department.' I want to be able to tell her that I didn’t stay silent.”

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: A State Department official working on human rights issues in the Middle East resigned Wednesday in protest against U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Annelle Sheline worked as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for a year, before publicly resigning.

In an op-ed published in CNN, she wrote, quote, “For the past year, I worked for the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East. I believe strongly in the mission and in the important work of that office. However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible. Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities, I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State,” she wrote.

AMY GOODMAN: Annelle Sheline is the most significant protest resignation over U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza since the resignation in October of Josh Paul, the senior State Department official involved in arms transfers to foreign governments.

Annelle Sheline joins us now from Washington, D.C.

Annelle, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you tell us further about the decision you made?

ANNELLE SHELINE: Thanks so much for having me and for your coverage of this issue.

I hadn’t initially planned to resign publicly. I hadn’t been at State for very long, and I didn’t think it would necessarily matter. But I decided to go public because when I started to tell colleagues that I was planning to resign over Gaza, so many people’s response was, “Please speak out. Please speak for us.” Many people are not in a position where they feel they could resign, or they are trying to do what they can on the inside. There’s still a lot of important, crucial work the State Department does. And so I decided I would go ahead and go public.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, you told — Annelle, you told The Washington Post that you tried to raise concerns internally with dissent cables and at staff forums. So, what was the result of that? And how are other people within State, as you said, trying to speak out within the State Department to change policy?

ANNELLE SHELINE: Yes, many people are extremely horrified by the U.S. government’s position on this horrific conflict and the actions of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments. There is the dissent channel inside the State Department. I was in — I co-wrote a cable and signed other cables. There have been forums for State Department employees to speak out. I spoke with supervisors. I was able to speak with a senior official about my resignation. I think, at the end of the day, many people inside State know that this is a horrific policy and can’t believe that the United States government is engaged in such actions that contravene American values so directly. But the leadership is not listening.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by a reporter about the internal dissent channel within the State Department and employees raising concerns over the policies.

HUMEYRA PAMUK: What is the point of the whole channel? And, like, I mean, the secretary listens, and we’ve all reported about various listening sessions between mid-level or, like, more senior officials with the secretary, more junior officials. If it’s not — if it’s being heard, but if it’s not taken into account in the policy at all —

MATTHEW MILLER: So —

HUMEYRA PAMUK: — then don’t you think it’s a little bit pointless?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, I would disagree with that completely. It is taken into account in the policy-making process. The secretary has heard things in those meetings that he takes on board and that he — that influence his thinking and that he brings to bear in making policy decisions. Now, if what you mean is, are we going to execute a complete reversal of the policy that —

HUMEYRA PAMUK: No, that’s not what I mean. That’s not what I mean.

MATTHEW MILLER: — hold on — we implemented, or are you going to — are we going to implement exactly some of the policies that the people in these meetings have called for —

HUMEYRA PAMUK: No, not at all.

MATTHEW MILLER: — that’s not how —

HUMEYRA PAMUK: That’s —

MATTHEW MILLER: Hold on. That’s not how this process works. That’s not how government works. And that’s —

HUMEYRA PAMUK: No, I don’t think that’s anyone’s expectation.

MATTHEW MILLER: And that’s — let me just say, that’s not how any organization works. I daresay any of the media organizations in this room, if reporters go to their bosses and offer feedback, and the bosses say, “Well, that’s a good point. We’re going to take that to bear. But on the larger policy, this is the decision that we have made,” that’s how — that’s how leadership —

HUMEYRA PAMUK: You’re doing a long rant about something that I didn’t suggest.

MATTHEW MILLER: That is how leadership works.

HUMEYRA PAMUK: But do you have any examples on, you know, any changes —

MATTHEW MILLER: Yeah. I will — I will say —

HUMEYRA PAMUK: Like, I’m genuinely curious.

MATTHEW MILLER: I will say, with respect to any number of issues, with respect to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, we have heard good ideas from people inside the building who have come and offered constructive feedback, and we have implemented those.

HUMEYRA PAMUK: So —

MATTHEW MILLER: Now — now, there are people that when you say if — like, if the idea is that — to the United States to cut off support for Israel, that’s just a fundamental policy disagreement. So, when you see people who offer interviews that say, “We want the United States to stop supporting Israel’s right to defend itself,” that’s not something the secretary agrees with, it’s not something the president agrees with, and ultimately they are the ones who have the responsibility of making those decisions.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Annelle Sheline, if you can respond to the State Department spokesperson Matt Miller?

ANNELLE SHELINE: You know, I think American law is quite clear here, in terms of the Leahy laws, for example, that when a foreign military is credibly accused of gross human rights violations, the law is that the U.S. will no longer provide weapons to those units, or 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, that a government that is blocking American humanitarian aid is no longer eligible for U.S. military assistance. These laws are not being applied.

So, I think this is not only having a horrific effect on the people of Gaza, but in terms of America’s standing in the rest of the world, this administration came in pledging to reestablish American moral leadership, reengagement with the international community, uphold the law and the so-called rules-based liberal international order, and I think it’s just become clear that this administration is not, in fact, conducting — carrying out any of those pledges. And, you know, my work was on human rights, which is very important work that the State Department does. But I think, on this issue in particular, the political calculus has been that U.S. support for Israel is a better political move. But I think what the administration may be starting to see is they may have made the wrong decision on that politically.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Annelle, can you explain whether there’s any distinction made — there’s a blanket statement about U.S. support for Israel. But is there no distinction within discussions at the State Department between different forms of U.S. support for Israel? So, for instance, obviously, in this instance, the most important question is that of military aid to Israel at this moment.

ANNELLE SHELINE: There, I should be clear that, you know, my area of focus, I was not — Israel and Palestine were not part of my portfolio. I was focusing primarily on North Africa, so I can’t speak directly to some of those conversations. I do think, you know, at the end of the day, the U.S.-Israel relationship is considered of such political importance that decisions regarding it are made at the very top. And so, while there are other processes and certainly discussions going on inside State, inside other parts of the government about some of those nuances you were discussing, I don’t think we’re likely to see any public shift on any of that until those decisions come from the top that they’re ready to reimagine the U.S.-Israel relationship.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another clip of the State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, saying the Biden administration has not found Israel’s actions in Gaza to be a violation of international law. This is some of what he said.

MATTHEW MILLER: We have not found them to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance.

AMY GOODMAN: That was this week, Annelle Sheline, either violation of international law or when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance. And yet President Biden says he is building a port because the Palestinians cannot get enough aid.

ANNELLE SHELINE: Exactly. I think that the evidence speaks for itself. We’ve had, you know, not only the ICJ’s ruling, not only the U.N. Security Council ruling. Clearly, the administration is unwilling to admit to reality. And again, I just want to reiterate, I think this is not only obviously devastating for the lives of people in Gaza, but is doing incredible damage to America’s standing on the international stage. It is incredibly demoralizing for people inside the State Department, many of whom believe very deeply in what America says it stands for. So, I’m trying to speak on behalf of those many, many people who feel so betrayed by our government’s stance.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Annelle, could you explain the effect that the massive protests across the United States have had within the State Department, what discussion there was of them, and then, of course, the “uncommitted” vote?

ANNELLE SHELINE: So, within the State Department, you know, civil servants are very committed to their role of being nonpolitical, of following the instruction that they receive. You know, within State, people are aware of what’s going on outside. But, you know, this is not the first time that people have been involved or had to carry out policies they perhaps did not agree with, and it is something that many of these people have signed up for. This is the role of carrying out America’s foreign policy.

On this issue, I think, because it has been so horrific and because we are seeing such growing political pushback from the American public, people are increasingly frustrated. You know, many other people with whom I spoke said they’re considering resigning. But again, it is challenging for someone to — you know, it’s not easy to not have a job in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to quote further what you’ve said in explanation of why you’re resigning. You said you’re “haunted by the final social media post of Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old US Air Force serviceman who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on February 25.” You quote him: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” If you can explain what that meant to you and how people have responded to you?

ANNELLE SHELINE: Sorry. You know, that post, I think, spoke to me and many people, who had to really look at what they were doing and whether — you know, for me, I have a young daughter. And I thought about, in the future, if she were to ask me, you know, “What were you doing when this was happening? You were at the State Department.” I want to be able to tell her that I didn’t stay silent. And I know many people who are deeply affected by those words that Aaron Bushnell posted. And I do think people are trying to do what they can. There is still very important work being done inside the State Department. But I do think, until our top levels of leadership are ready to make a change, there’s very little that the rank and file are able to do.

AMY GOODMAN: Annelle Sheline, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Annelle has just resigned from the State Department in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza. She worked as foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. She’s also the first State Department official to publicly resign since Josh Paul did months ago.

***

As Gaza Faces Famine, Israel Cuts Ties with UNRWA and U.S. Halts Funding for Critical Aid Agency
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 28, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/28/unrwa#transcript

Despite a U.N.-backed report sounding the alarm on imminent famine in northern Gaza, Israeli authorities announced Sunday they will no longer approve the passage of any UNRWA food convoys into northern Gaza. “Our ability to adequately continue saving lives is really being obstructed,” says UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alrifai. “What’s going to happen to UNRWA if we can no longer truly operate?” The decision came as President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion appropriations bill that strips funding to UNRWA for the next year. The U.S. first suspended aid to UNRWA in late January, when the Israeli government claimed 12 of the agency’s 30,000 employees were involved in Hamas’s attacks on October 7. The unsubstantiated allegation prompted top donors to cut funding to UNRWA, though many of them have resumed funding as the agency welcomes new donor countries and an unprecedented number of civil society donations. Seeing the U.S., the agency’s largest donor, “withhold funding … is a huge blow to us,” says Alrifai. “Stripping UNRWA of funding not only shrinks its ability to respond to the looming famine in Gaza, but also puts at risk the schools, the access of kids to proper education, the vaccines, the mother and child care — everything across the region.”

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: Despite a U.N.-backed report that found famine is imminent in northern Gaza, Israeli authorities informed the United Nations on Sunday that it will no longer approve the passage of any UNRWA food convoys into northern Gaza. This is Israeli spokesperson David Mencer speaking to reporters on Monday.

DAVID MENCER: UNRWA are part of the problem, and we will now stop working with them. We are phasing — we are actively phasing out the use of UNRWA, because they perpetuate the conflict rather than try and alleviate the conflict.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In response to the news, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a social media post, quote, “This is outrageous & makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man made famine. These restrictions must be lifted. UNRWA is the largest organisation with the highest reach to displaced communities in Gaza. By preventing UNRWA to fulfill its mandate in Gaza, the clock will tick faster towards famine & many more will die of hunger, dehydration + lack of shelter,” he wrote.

AMY GOODMAN: The decision came as President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion appropriations bill that strips funding to UNRWA for the next year. The U.S. first suspended aid to UNRWA in late January when the Israeli government leveled allegations that 12 of the agency’s 30,000 employees were involved in the Hamas attacks of October 7th. The unsubstantiated allegation prompted other top donors, such as Germany, the European Union and Sweden, to cut funding to UNRWA, although a number of countries have recently announced their intention to resume funding.

For more, we go to Amman, Jordan, where we’re joined by Tamara Alrifai. She’s spokesperson for the U.N. Palestinian agency, UNRWA.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Tamara. If you can start off by talking about the significance of what the U.S. has done? President Biden signed off on a bipartisan law that dealt with a lot of issues, but among them, cutting off aid to UNRWA for the next year, and the U.S. is by far the largest funder of this U.N. Palestinian relief agency.

TAMARA ALRIFAI: Thanks, Amy. And thanks, as always, for giving UNRWA this platform.

The decision by Congress, and consequently by the U.S. government, to stop funding to UNRWA this year is a huge blow. There is no sugarcoating. The impact on our finances is huge, and also the impact on the politics around UNRWA. Seeing our largest donor, and many times our closest partner, withhold funding, which means withhold trust to UNRWA, is a huge blow to us.

However, I also want to say that, in parallel, several governments, European and non-European, have either much increased their funding to UNRWA or have given us money for the first time. Also, we are getting overwhelming individual support, donations from $10 to $20,000, to our campaigns and our drives. And that speaks for a sentiment that is also galvanizing around UNRWA around its role, and mostly around the fact that it is not possible to just decide to pull the plug on a U.N. agency. Any change to the way a U.N. agency works, especially as UNRWA gets its mandate from the U.N. General Assembly, should be discussed at the General Assembly. It is not about one or two U.N. member states to decide whether UNRWA can continue working or not. This is a global decision, and the General Assembly is where we get an overwhelming vote of support. And that is where such a conversation should take place.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Tamara, could you talk about the countries that had previously rescinded funding to UNRWA and may now — have either resumed it or intend to resume it?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: Yes, I can talk about a few countries that just over the last few days made their contributions to UNRWA — Germany, for example, which, by the way, had not really suspended its funding. It just took a little bit of a pause to think. And they just announced — Germany just announced $45 million in income to UNRWA just in the last few days. The same, Canada, Australia, Sweden and a number of other countries that had initially withheld their funding to UNRWA following these allegations around 12 of 13,000 staff members in Gaza, now are releasing their funding.

But I also want to talk about the role of Ireland or Spain, both of them having much increased their funding to UNRWA and also their political support. The European Union, our second-largest donor as a group, did release the large part of its funding to UNRWA. And also, countries like Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and, just today, Kuwait, all of them are supporting UNRWA. And again, income from private sources, from individuals and foundations, has skyrocketed since the beginning of this year, especially now during Ramadan, where many Muslims around the world are looking for a zakat-friendly way, so a way to donate as per Islamic Sharia law. We have this mechanism, and many, many Muslims from around the world, from Malaysia to Indonesia to Singapore, are donating to UNRWA.

AMY GOODMAN: Canada, as well, hasn’t it, said it’s restoring UNRWA aid?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: Sweden, you said? I couldn’t hear you.

AMY GOODMAN: Canada?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: Oh, yes, Canada did restore its funding. Yes.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, if you could say — also speak, Tamara, about the fact that Israel has now said it will no longer approve any UNRWA food convoys to the north? What are the implications of that?

TAMARA ALRIFAI: The implications are huge. In the last few days alone, we received five denials to our requests to move food from the south of the Gaza Strip in Rafah to the north. Now, we’ve also — so, we consider this to be a ban on UNRWA’s food distribution in the north. The commissioner-general of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, was also denied access to Gaza two weeks ago, despite having followed the usual procedures to ask for him and his delegation to go into Gaza.

What we’re truly seeing here is the space around UNRWA in Gaza is really shrinking, and our ability to adequately continue saving lives is really being obstructed. We’re talking here about food distribution to an entire population that is food insecure. “Food insecure,” in layman, laywoman terms, means people are hungry. Half of that population no longer has access to any food. There’s nothing in their pantries. Seventy-five percent or more of the population is displaced. Most of these people displaced are now in Rafah, which has witnessed a sixfold increase in the population. Many of these people are in UNRWA shelters, where they do receive food, vaccines and medical treatment. And many, many of them are in tents in Rafah. When I last was in Gaza, what I saw in Rafah was an immense tented community out in the open. Many people have gathered around UNRWA shelters, hoping they would receive some of the aid that UNRWA distributes. What’s going to happen to UNRWA if we can no longer truly operate?

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a clip of independent Senator Bernie Sanders. You know, this was a $1.2 trillion appropriations bill that keeps the government open through October, but it includes stripping funding to UNRWA. The bill vote, 74 to 24. Bernie Sanders voted “no” because of the stripping of funding to UNRWA.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Tens of thousands of people are starving. UNRWA is trying to feed them. And the Israeli government and its allies, like AIPAC, spend much of their time lobbying to defund UNRWA, the major organization which is feeding starving people. Sadly, tragically, many members of Congress seem to be happy to be part of this starvation caucus.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Tamara Alrifai, if you can respond? And also the fact that the 30,000-member agency UNRWA is not just supporting the people who face famine in Gaza, but also throughout the Middle East. We’re talking about Lebanon and Jordan.

TAMARA ALRIFAI: That’s a great —

AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds.

TAMARA ALRIFAI: — point. That’s a great point, Amy, to remind that UNRWA is the agency that is fully in charge of Palestine refugees, from registering them and their descendants, to offering a very sturdy education system to them through 700 schools, to offering all primary healthcare. So, stripping UNRWA of funding not only shrinks its ability to respond to the looming famine in Gaza, but also puts at risk the schools, the access of kids to proper education, the vaccines, the mother and child care — everything, across the region — Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Tamara Alrifai, spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees.

[admin]

Protesters Disrupt Record $25 Million Biden Fundraiser in NYC as Thousands March Against Gaza War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 29, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/29/ ... transcript

Pro-Palestine protesters disrupted the largest one-night fundraiser in presidential campaign history on Thursday. The event at Radio City Music Hall in New York City included numerous celebrities and featured President Biden alongside former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, raising a record $25 million for Biden’s reelection campaign. The main event was an onstage conversation with the three U.S. presidents moderated by late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert, but people began disrupting it just 10 minutes into their conversation, as Biden was talking, with protesters calling on the president to stop arming Israel and to enforce a ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, thousands of protesters were also massed outside the venue to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. We play voices from inside and outside the event.

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.

Pro-Palestine protesters disrupted the largest one-night fundraiser in presidential campaign history here in New York yesterday. The star-studded event at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan featured President Biden alongside former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, raised a record $25 million for Biden’s reelection campaign. More than 5,000 people paid to attend, with tickets costing up to half a million dollars each. For $100,000, guests could get a picture with the three U.S. presidents taken by renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz. Celebrities in attendance included Queen Latifah, Mindy Kaling and Lizzo.

The main event was an onstage conversation with the three U.S. presidents moderated by late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert. But just 10 minutes into their conversation — Biden was talking — protesters began disrupting the event, calling on the president to stop arming Israel and to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We had no president on January the 6th. [inaudible] There was an insurrection.

PROTESTER 1: Shame on you, Joe Biden! Shame on you! Shame on you! You are supporting genocide in Palestine! And no amount of false concern that you do will change the billions that you are doing!

SECURITY GUARD: Out the door.

PROTESTER 1: You have blood on your hands! Blood on your hands!

BILL CLINTON: They create the policies. But I do believe —

STEPHEN COLBERT: For people watching at home —

BILL CLINTON: Do you want to say anything?

STEPHEN COLBERT: Excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. President.

PROTESTER 2: You are all complicit in genocide!

STEPHEN COLBERT: The people who are watching, who are watching at home on TV, may not be able to hear the protesters here, who — hold on a second here.

PROTESTER 2: You have killed 32,000 Palestinian people!

PROTESTER 3: How dare you talk about the innocent death of Palestinians! How dare you talk about the innocent death of Palestinians! Palestinians are dying right now because of your actions! Palestinians are dying right now because of your actions!

PROTESTER 4: Shame!

PROTESTER 3: Because of what you’re doing! Because of the things that you’re doing! Blood is on your hands!

PROTESTER 4: Shame! Shame! Stop brutalizing him!

PROTESTER 3: Blood is on your hands!

PROTESTER 4: Stop brutalizing him!

AMY GOODMAN: The protesters were all physically escorted outside. The event disruption was organized by a coalition including Adalah Justice Project, Palestinian Youth Movement and Jewish Voice for Peace and the Sunrise Movement.

Meanwhile, outside the event, thousands took to the streets to protest President Biden’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Protesters gathered at Bryant Park and marched up to Radio City Music Hall. Democracy Now! was there and spoke to some of the protesters about why they were there.

PROTESTERS: From the belly of the beast, hands off the Middle East!

PROTESTER 5: Currently we are working on the Leave It Blank New York campaign for the upcoming primary happening April 2nd, on Tuesday. We are asking people to leave it blank, because there is no “committed” or “uncommitted” option in New York City. So, we, rather, tell them to scan their ballot as is, and that will then count as “uncommitted,” to show Genocide Joe that we are not going to stand while we watch our brothers and sisters being genocided.

JENNA: My name is Jenna. I am a first-generation American Palestinian. And we have had enough. My family has voted Democrat for as long as we’ve lived in the U.S. It’s heartbreaking. We feel guilty, and we feel awful. I feel like I voted for my own people’s genocide. And I’m done letting Democrats get away with it just because we’re scared of the alternative.

KARINA GARCIA: My name is Karina Garcia. I’m running for vice president of the United States with my comrade Claudia De la Cruz. And we’re running with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. And we’re here today, as we’ve been through all of these protests for Palestine, because we understand that our government is orchestrating this genocide, that without their support, without their financing, Israel could not be doing what they’re doing to the Palestinian people. And it’s important for us to come together and not allow these war criminals, like Biden or Clinton or Obama, to just use these moments to be in New York City to raise money. The people are waking up, and they’re seeing that the Democratic Party is where hope goes to die, and that the people have to build a new government for the working class, for the people of this country, that we cannot allow them to drag us into the 1800s, drag us into a nuclear war.

PROTESTER 6: You know, the fact that we had access to watching a genocide in real time and we were able to see for ourselves that these people are liars, that everything that they have told us about Palestine and about the Middle East has been a lie, means that we are able to make — and also we’re able to make the connections — young people are able to make the connections between what’s happening in Palestine, what’s happening to migrants in the U.S., what’s happening to queer and trans people in the U.S. And we are saying, “Free Palestine. People over profit. And an end to U.S. imperialism everywhere.”

PROTESTER 7: Anybody who sees this, no matter where you come from, no matter who you are, you have to take part in this. You cannot be silent. Everyone must become involved. There are lives being lost. There are pregnant women being run over by tanks. This is abominable. We cannot learn about the Holocaust and watch movies about the Holocaust and then say, “Oh, well, you know, I would have done something then.” You have to do it now. It’s like Aaron Bushnell said, “What would you be doing during those times? You’re doing it now.” So, if you don’t like what you’re doing, if it’s not enough, change it.

AMY GOODMAN: Voices from outside Radio City Music Hall, where presidents Biden, Obama and Clinton spoke inside in the largest single-night fundraiser in U.S. presidential campaign history. More than $25 million was raised.

***

“Like Lying in a Coffin”: UNICEF Spokesperson Warns of Devastating Toll on Gaza’s Children
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 29, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/29/ ... transcript

As the death toll in Gaza tops 32,600, we speak with UNICEF spokesperson James Elder in Rafah near the Egyptian border, now home to some 1.5 million Palestinians seeking shelter from the fighting. He says Israel’s continued obstruction of aid into the territory is a “man-made and preventable” crisis of hunger and acute malnutrition that could be ended if Israel just opened access to more aid trucks, especially in northern Gaza, where desperate people could be reached in as little as 10 minutes. “When I’m on the street, every person, the first thing they want to tell me, in English or Arabic, is 'We need food, we need food,'” Elder tells Democracy Now! “They are saying that because their assumption is the world doesn’t know, because how would this be allowed to happen if the world knew?” He also reiterates UNICEF’s call for a full ceasefire and warns against Israel’s planned ground invasion of Rafah, which he describes as “a city of children.”

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.

In Gaza, the death toll has now topped 32,600, including 14,000 children, with over 75,000 people wounded. At least 31 people, including 27 children, have already died of malnutrition and dehydration.

For more, we go to Rafah in Gaza, where we’re joined by James Elder, spokesperson for UNICEF, which stands for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, James Elder. Thank you so much for joining us as you stand outside a hospital in Rafah. Talk about where you’ve been in Gaza and what’ve you found.

JAMES ELDER: Amy, hi there.

Look, I’ve been south to north, north to south. If we start here in the south, in Rafah, this is a city that’s normally 300,000 people, and it’s now about 1.5 million, so you can imagine the congestion. I’m looking now at a field hospital. The number of times, Amy, well, I’ll walk around and just think this place feels like a war zone. Now, of course, it is a war zone. So, if I’m in a hospital, you’re talking about being in a hospital, and it is absolutely heaving with people. So, the corridors are now no longer corridors. They are tented up, people using blankets, whatever they can, thousands and thousands of people trying to take refuge in hospitals, and, of course, thousands and thousands of people with the wounds of war in hospitals. So, here, Rafah, this is a city of children, Amy. This is where most people from Gaza have now fled, with a very real fear of an offensive here.

When you go further north, to the very north, as I’ve been to Jabaliya and Gaza City, well, first you see the devastation. I’m seeing, Amy, entire cities turned to rubble, more or less, things I’ve never seen before, every street. When I go with people from that city, drivers who — drivers who grew up in that city, and who simply don’t know how to get around anymore, Amy, because they’ve lost those landmarks to direct them. And then you see the nutritional status, those children you spoke about. More children died overnight in the last couple of days, dehydration, malnutrition. I see those families, Amy. I see mothers in tears, crouched over cots with children and babies who are paper thin, thousands of people on the street doing that universal sign: food now.

That’s some sense, north to south. Whatever it is, it’s desperation, and it’s exhaustion. People have done everything. They break their last piece of bread to share if they have four or five families stay with them. But I’ve sat with families this morning that I can speak to. They’re exhausted. And yeah, they’re confused as to why they don’t have the world’s attention.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response to the latest news, James Elder.

JAMES ELDER: I’ve got no hearing, guys.

AMY GOODMAN: The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to ensure unhindered aid could get into Gaza. The legally binding order was issued after a request by South Africa, which brought the genocide case to Israel in January. The court noted in its latest order, “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, but … famine is setting in.” The judges also cited U.N. data which finds at least 31 people, including 27 children, having already died of malnutrition and dehydration. The court is ordering Israel to submit a report within a month showing how it’s implemented the order. The significance of this, as the U.N. warns famine is imminent in northern Gaza? And the number of children who have been affected, James?

JAMES ELDER: Yes. I mean, we saw a report, Amy, almost two weeks ago by the most respected nutrition body in terms of crises on the planet, and it is talking about more people now being in that, what we call catastrophic food insecurity than in their 20 years of reporting. If we look at the north of Gaza, where before this war, less than 1% of children under the age of 5, less than 1%, suffered acute malnutrition. Now if we look at those north, to 2-year-olds, the most vulnerable, Amy, it’s one in three. One in three. This is the speed at which we’ve seen this catastrophic decline.

So, yes, at the United Nations, from my own executive director to the secretary-general, have been calling for months and months for unhindered, safe — sort of very difficult place to work — safe access for aid. Now, that’s road access. The most efficient and effective way to get supplies, lifesaving supplies, food — food, water, medicines, to people is on the road network, not just from the south, because that can be difficult. It’s 30 or 40 — 30 miles, doesn’t sound like a long way. It is a long way when you’ve got tens of thousands of people on the street. Amy, there are crossings that are 10 minutes away from those people who are hand to mouth, from those mothers who are cradling children who are severely malnourished. Ten minutes away.

So, in the same way that this crisis, this nutritional crisis affecting children and civilians in Gaza, is man-made and preventable, it can be turned around. Now, if you want to be a glass half-full, that’s good news. This can be reversed. But we do need those decisions to be made. We need all hindrances gone, all obstructions gone. We need safety. You know, we know that more my United Nations colleagues have been killed in this war than in any war since the creation of the United Nations. We’ve seen those horrendous videos of desperate people, desperate because they see a truck of food once a week — there is no consistency — desperate people being killed accessing food. There are crossings in the north. If those are opened, we can flood the Gaza Strip with aid, and this is solved within a matter of weeks, magic pace that UNICEF has, changes their lives dramatically.

But we’re not seeing that. Instead, UNRWA, the biggest U.N. agency here, the backbone of humanitarian aid on the Gaza Strip, that was sending 50% — Amy, 50% of the food to the north, they’ve been blocked. So we have to be very clear and very, very honest in terms of what the restrictions are. The restrictions currently are why we are seeing this level of malnutrition, particularly among children.

AMY GOODMAN: So, why — what is Israel saying to you, to the international body, the United Nations, to you particularly at UNICEF, why they’re not letting this aid go, and particularly saying they will not work with UNRWA at all in northern Gaza?

JAMES ELDER: Yes. Look, obviously, you know, we function here based on our impartiality, and we talk to anyone. So you’re right to ask. I’m not privy to the exact conversations. Like anyone else, you hear the statements made that there is, you know, limitless access here. The reality on the ground says differently. In the first three weeks of March, one-quarter of aid convoys were denied. As I say, the restrictions on UNRWA are immense.

I can speak to my own experience of the complexities of even getting that food aid to the north, which is why if you come in from the north in those crossings, that’s a game changer. In the same way that the world has focused a little bit on airdrops and ships, obviously, right now the desperation is so great that those people who have been forcibly put into this position will take food aid wherever it comes from. It shouldn’t be the case, when, I mean, in the north, you’re talking about an area that was famed for strawberries — not for malnutrition, for strawberries. But we have to be clear that when a ship comes in, it has the equivalent tonnage of around 12 trucks. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trucks, you know, five miles from where I am now. You could get hundreds and hundreds of trucks within 10 minutes, if that border crossing was open in the north, to those people who are cut off. That’s an important thing to remember.

When I was in the north, Amy, those people are cut off. You’re past the last checkpoint when we access those people. When I’m on the street, every person, the first thing they want to tell me, in English or Arabic, is “We need food. We need food.” Now, I know this, of course. This is my work. But of course I listen to them. What was revealing is why they’re saying that. They are saying that because their assumption is the world doesn’t know, because how would this be allowed to happen if the world knew?

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the effects on children of malnutrition? If they don’t die of hunger, the effects of the dehydration and malnutrition that they’re experiencing now?

JAMES ELDER: Yeah, look, in one sense, it’s one of the saddest things you’ll see, because a malnourished child, literally, their body starts to feed on itself in its last desperate acts. As my executive director said when she was — she’s been in malnutrition centers around the world. Remember, in UNICEF, we are serving children around the world, and critical, critical scenarios for children particularly on nutrition, from places from Sudan to Ethiopia. And she spoke of just the silence in a malnutrition ward, because babies do not have the energy to cry.

But what usually kills children with this most severe form of malnutrition is a disease, a simple thing, pneumonia, a simple childhood disease. Children with severe acute malnutrition are 10 times more likely to be killed by that. And that is something that UNICEF has been warning about here for months. Because now Rafah has become a city of children, because the water system and the sanitation system have been devastated, it’s impossible to have the services here that children need. I mean healthcare. Never before in Gaza have so many children needed healthcare. Only one-third, one in three, hospitals are partially functioning. Toilets — toilets, both in terms of dignity but in terms of sanitation, Amy — the global standard in an emergency is one toilet for 20 people. Here we’re looking at about one toilet for 800. For a shower, multiply that by four, one shower for three-and-a-half thousand people. Imagine for a teenage girl, much less, yes, a pregnant woman or a child. So, our great fear, which we are starting to see, is when you have severe malnutrition and you add in disease, this is the perfect storm. This is when this horror show for children becomes just as lethal on the ground as it currently is from the skies.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, of course, this is aside from the — I think the number has topped 14,000 of children who have died, uncounted number of them still in the rubble. If you can talk about this death toll, and also compare Gaza to other conflict zones you’ve been in, James Elder? You’ve been all over the world, to say the least.

JAMES ELDER: Yeah, look, for me, Amy, in a way, I’m loath to make the comparison, simply because, for UNICEF and myself, of course, a child is a child wherever they are. And when you see what’s happened to children, you know, from Ukraine to Afghanistan, it’s horrendous, and that’s why my colleagues are frontline workers in all of these places.

Yes, though, there is something particular here, the intensity of devastation. Obviously, it’s such a big child population in a compact space with, let’s be clear, indiscriminate attacks. The numbers you’re sharing there, it’s unprecedented. And when you see in a hospital those wounds of war to children, Amy, remembering that when there is a missile or a bomb on a family home, it’s not just one injury to a child. It’s the broken bones. It’s the burns. It’s very hard to look, but we must keep looking, the burns on a child. And it’s the shrapnel. These are the images that I turn, every time I turn around in a hospital, and I don’t think I’ve seen that, that consistency.

You have these rare moments, Amy, of clutching onto some hope. And once was a moment in a hospital, a little boy Mohamed, now, he had bad burns, but as I walked in to Mohamed, he made this little effort — it hurt him — to put a little thumbs-up, an unsolicited movement. And I just thought, “Wow! What a character!” And then the adult with him explained that Mohamed was also the best student in his school, showed me photographs of this beautiful little boy receiving awards. And I thought, “This little guy’s going to be OK.” And you hold onto these moments. Then that adult explained to me that when the missile hit Mohamed’s home, it killed everyone. And because families are hunkering down, I mean everyone — mother, father, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Mohamed didn’t know this yet, but Mohamed is now the last surviving member of his entire family.

These horror stories, Amy, are being normalized here. I didn’t think I’d ever hear such a thing in Gaza, but I’m hearing it time and again, time and again. So, yes, and these wounds of war, I should add, you know, in the last two days, I made a point to go to hospitals since the ceasefire decision, which was a cause of great hope here. Great hope. Well, that hope has been well and truly drowned out right now by bombs. And I saw many children who doctors did not think would still be alive today based on the bombings that have occurred since Monday’s decision.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re standing, James Elder, in Rafah. If you can talk about what’s happening right now in Rafah? You have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying, absolutely, an invasion, ground invasion, will happen. It’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.” You have talked about a possible ground invasion in Rafah. What would this mean?

JAMES ELDER: The horrors in Gaza do start to outstrip our ability to describe them. And it would be a catastrophe. But, of course, that word has been rightly used many times. But this is a city of children, as I say. This city, Rafah, now has twice the population density of New York City, but — I don’t know what you can see, OK, but that’s as tall as they get. This is ground level. And most people — most people are in tents. They’re in street corners. They’re on beaches. They’re in what was agriculture, what was agriculture. They’re ground level, 600,000 children here.

And what they’ve endured, I mean, we’re in uncharted territory when it comes to the mental health of these children. Amy. Night after night, even for me — and I get to leave this place — for me, I lie in bed, and you hear the bombardments that wake you, and your building shakes, and you lie there feeling like lying in a coffin. Like, what are the chances of waking tomorrow morning? Children here go through that with their families every night. Every night with a mother and child, there’s no lullaby you sing to a child to drown that out.

And so, for those people here, not only are they just holding on, their coping mechanisms at a wit’s end, they have nowhere to go. We have to understand that. It’s not — the social services are devastated. Khan Younis, the city next door, as I say, I’ve never seen that level of annihilation. Gaza City, further north, the same. There’s talk of an area near here, al-Mawasi. It’s a beach. You know, literally, you’d be doubling the population density again. So, it’s a terrifying thought, Amy. I didn’t imagine it would come to this, but, yes, as you rightly say, the conversation is very commonplace now. I just wish people could see the density of people here, could see the exhaustion, could listen to a doctor as I speak to him in a hospital as he’s treating a child with massive head wounds, and the doctor’s in tears, saying, “What did this child do?” Well, we will see that on a scale I don’t think any of us, certainly not me, can imagine.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what would an immediate ceasefire mean for the children of Gaza, for the whole population there?

JAMES ELDER: You know, I’m glad you end like that, because that gives me a chill. Everyone asks still: Do we have hope? Is there hope? And most people hold on to this idea, Amy, of like, as a mother said, “I’ve lost my — I’ve lost two children. I’ve lost my home. I’ve lost my ability to earn income. I’ve lost my ability to feed my remaining child. All I have is hope.”

Now, a ceasefire is a game changer. Ceasefire. Firstly, let’s get the hostages home. There are children somewhere, after five-and-a-half months. End the torment. End the torment for they and their families. A ceasefire enables us finally to flood the Gaza Strip with aid and bring this nutritional crisis, imminent famine — make no doubt about it, imminent famine. And a ceasefire, Amy, means that those families that I spoke of, who tonight again will endure what I mentioned there, they will go to bed, if there’s a ceasefire, a mother and her child, and they will know, for the first time in months, that they will wake up tomorrow.

AMY GOODMAN: James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson — UNICEF stands for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund — joining us today from Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Thank you so much, and be safe.