At Least 27 Palestinians Are Killed as Netanyahu Says Renewed Gaza Strikes Are “Only the Beginning” Mar 19, 2025
Israel continued its relentless attacks across the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least 27 Palestinians one day after Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza ceasefire and launched massive new strikes. At least five international aid workers were rushed to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah after they were injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a United Nations facility.
The group Defense for Children denounced the massacre of at least 174 children by Israeli forces on Tuesday, calling it “one of the largest one-day child death tolls” in Gaza’s history. Defense for Children Palestine wrote in a statement, “Israeli forces have signed a death warrant for Palestinian children in Gaza as they carry out nonstop attacks, continue to destroy civilian infrastructure, and prevent any humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in need. This is nothing short of a genocide.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has said he is “outraged” by the new wave of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that have killed well over 400 people since Monday.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened the latest bombardment campaign on Gaza is “only the beginning,” and said all future ceasefire talks will now take place “under fire.” Families of the remaining and recently released hostages have joined protests urging Netanyahu to return to the negotiating table.
Protests Demand End to U.S. Support for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Mar 19, 2025
Protests broke out around the world Tuesday condemning Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza shattering the ceasefire agreement with Hamas. Here in New York, hundreds of protesters gathered in Times Square Tuesday. Democracy Now! was there. This is Ysabella Titi of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
Ysabella Titi: “I think our movement is only growing. More and more people are conscious about what’s happening in Palestine. And the attack that we’re feeling right now in the U.S. on our First Amendment rights is showing us that the U.S. is willing to do anything in order to protect its relationship with Israel. And it will not be met with silence.”
“I Am a Political Prisoner”: Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil Sends Letter from ICE Jail Mar 19, 2025
Mahmoud Khalil has called himself a “political prisoner” in his first direct remarks to the public since federal immigration agents arrested him without a warrant on March 8 in Columbia University housing. In a letter dictated over the phone from an ICE jail in Jena, Louisiana, Khalil decried his arrest, anti-Palestinian racism by both the Biden and Trump administrations and the inhumane conditions faced by immigrant detainees. His open letter reads, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza. While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.” Mahmoud Khalil is a green card holder; his wife, Noor Abdalla, is a U.S. citizen who’s eight months pregnant. Khalil’s legal team has filed a motion with a federal court in New York asking for his immediate release.
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours—I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention—imprisonment without trial or charge—to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns—based on racism and disinformation—to go unchecked.
Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration's latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students—some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation—and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change—leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice. The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.
The nearly two-month ceasefire in Gaza has been shattered as Israel carries out a second day of intense airstrikes. At least 27 Palestinians were killed in overnight strikes Tuesday night. This comes a day after Israel killed over 400 Palestinians, including at least 174 children. The bombing is “the most savage attack that Gaza has witnessed in over a year,” says Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza. He says the renewed assault in Gaza is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal and political challenges at home. “When you’re in crisis, nothing would unite your government, nothing would suppress any sort of protest or opposition, more than killing Palestinians.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where the nearly two-month ceasefire has been shattered by Israel as it carries out a second day of intense airstrikes. At least 27 Palestinians were killed in overnight strikes. This comes a day after Israel killed over 400 Palestinians, including at least 174 children. The group Defense for Children said it was, quote, “one of the largest one-day child death tolls” in Gaza’s history. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, quote, “This is just the beginning,” unquote. The attacks come as Israel continues to block food, aid and fuel into the Gaza Strip.
We go now to Muhammad Shehada in Copenhagen. He’s a writer and analyst from Gaza, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Muhammad, thanks so much for joining us. Can you describe what’s happening right now in Gaza?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Thanks so much for having me, Amy.
It’s basically the most unprecedented, most savage attack that Gaza has witnessed in over a year. You have about 200 kids whose lives were extinguished in a matter of seconds. And now you have about 700 wounded civilians that are languishing in hospitals that are dysfunctional because of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. There’s, for example, a girl that is about 6 years old, Eileen Abu Zouz, who has an apple-sized shrapnel stuck in her chest, and doctors are trying to race against time to remove it to save her life. Doctors are saying that Palestinians that were wounded in those airstrikes in critical condition are under a death sentence because there’s no capacity whatsoever.
You have entire families that were extinguished completely, a whole bloodline that vanished from the civil registry. So, I have a colleague whose sister, her husband, their kids, their in-laws and their grandchildren were killed in a single airstrike.
And the viciousness of all of this is compounded by the fact that there was not a single Hamas militant that was hit in that airstrike. Not a single Hamas militant was declared dead. The most prominent figures that were killed in those airstrikes were basically four government officials: the acting prime minister, the acting minister of interior, the acting minister of justice and the head of the Internal Security Agency. What Israel is doing there has nothing to do with Hamas whatsoever. It’s been made clear by Israeli officials yesterday, who said that, basically, whoever thinks that those attacks will make Hamas more flexible is completely blind, is missing the point.
The attack was completely predictable. You had the Israeli journalist Ori Misgav in Haaretz saying a couple of hours before Israel killed those 460 people in Gaza — he said that Netanyahu is about to attack Gaza because the walls are closing in on him. He had a bunch of crises: a national crisis having to do with his attempt to fire the attorney general, the head of the Shin Bet; a crisis in terms of passing the budget — it was about to falter; there was a crisis about his corruption trial testimony that was scheduled yesterday, and he was trying to get it canceled; and there was another crisis about, basically, the demonstrations that were scheduled in Jerusalem yesterday in protest of all of this. So, the Israeli right-wing government always goes through the same dynamic: When you’re in crisis, nothing would unite your government, nothing would suppress any sort of protest or opposition, more than killing Palestinians, than destroying Palestinians and sort of parading their pain and misery on TV.
There was another dimension. So, as soon as the airstrikes unfolded in Gaza, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the extremist, far-right Israeli former minister of police, he rejoined Netanyahu’s government in convenient time to pass the budget.
The other dimension is that Netanyahu is trying to kill the Egyptian-Arab plan for Gaza’s early recovery and reconstruction without any mass transfer of the population there. There was an Egyptian major conference, international conference for Gaza’s reconstruction, scheduled in April. And there were reports that Trump gave sort of an initial approval to the Egyptian plan, with a lot of inquiries and questions about it. So, by resuming the genocide in Gaza, you get all these things off the table.
It’s insane that they’re getting away with it. It’s even more insane how mainstream media is covering it up and manufacturing consent for the resumption of a genocide.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Muhammad, I wanted to ask you about the reaction of the West on this. There was a U.N. Security Council meeting where Britain, France and Russia all condemned the new bombings, but no resolution, the United States representative defending Israel, its attacks on Gaza.
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: The reaction was absolutely underwhelming. Four hundred people killed in Gaza, that is Gaza’s own October 7th. There’s been way more kids that were killed in Gaza, over 200, compared to October 7th, where 36 were killed. The reaction of the international community is absolutely disappointing and shameful.
But there’s another dimension to it. As you said, like, the most you would get is basically expressions of concern or condemnation, without any action whatsoever. And European Union leaders have made this to us clear behind closed doors over the last year, where they said that 80% of European governments are OK with Israel doing whatever it wants in Gaza, are OK with giving this carte blanche.
The other dimension is that you have a Trump administration now willing to give Israel the heaviest bombs in its arsenal, the 2,000-pound bombs, that as soon as it’s used, it creates a fireball of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, and it kills people within the radius of 350 meters. And now Israel is raining those on Gaza again like candy, with a White House that is willing to whitewash Israel’s genocide in Gaza in real time.
It’s absolutely insane and shameful what’s going on in this regard, and even more shameful how it’s being covered up, how Israel is being given the benefit of the doubt. So, you see it in headlines where basically it says that that number of people in Gaza were killed despite the ceasefire. It does not call — actively call out Israel for violating, destroying, obliterating the ceasefire.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And is it your sense that Netanyahu and the Trump administration are now seriously continuing to entertain the idea of removing Palestinians from Gaza?
MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Yes, absolutely, especially for Netanyahu. It immediately brought Ben-Gvir to the government, who’s been actively calling for depopulating Gaza. You have other ministers on record, like Bezalel Smotrich, calling for the same thing and even openly saying that the IDF will create or is creating now a division that is actively looking for countries to take Palestinians.
There is the other dimension: Israel never, never, never respects a ceasefire with Palestinians whatsoever. It’s been the same dynamic over and over again. My late friend Refaat Alareer put it best. He said a ceasefire is basically when Palestinians cease and Israel continues to fire. Israel’s defense minister and — former prime minister and former defense minister, Ehud Barak, he put it — after Operation Cast Lead, 2008, he said, “As soon as a ceasefire is signed, nobody is going to bother with the details.”
So, as soon as the ceasefire in Gaza was signed, you had Israel killing over 150 civilians in the course of over a month. You had Israel — like, can you imagine if a single Israeli was scratched, let alone killed, a soldier or a civilian, during the ceasefire, how all hell would have broken loose on Palestinians? It shows how Palestinians are basically the most self-restrained people on the face of the Earth. That Israel has killed over now 700 people in the course of the ceasefire without a single bullet being fired from Gaza shows how Gazans are sort of desperate, keen, very much persistent to end the war, whereas Israel is sort of salivating for a carnage.
Israel was allowing into Gaza about 10% of the tents that were allowed to go — that were supposed to go in, 30% of the fuel that’s necessary to run hospitals and sewage treatment plants and water infrastructure. They were basically preventing people from leaving for medical treatment, restricting the number of people that are allowed to leave. They violated it in every single way along the way of the last over 40 days or 50 days, in order to provoke a Palestinian reaction that points a finger and says, “Look, Palestinians are the ones that don’t want a ceasefire.” It’s insane.
But, like, Israel never even started the negotiations of phase two of the ceasefire in the first place that was scheduled on February 6th. And now what you have with the Israelis is, basically, you had a channel between Trump’s envoy for hostage negotiations, Adam Boehler, with Hamas that managed to produce a preliminary outline that would see a truce in Gaza for five to 10 years, Hamas laying down their arms, a new government in Gaza. You would see hostage negotiations and hostage release. Israel’s reaction was to immediately leak it to the media, torpedo the talks and get Adam Boehler’s confirmation or nomination revoked before it was even confirmed in the Senate. So, you see who is very desperate for this war to go on forever.
AMY GOODMAN: Muhammad Shehada, we want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian writer and analyst from Gaza, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, speaking to us from Copenhagen.
Israel Kills Another 100 Palestinians; Death Toll Tops 700 in 3 Days Since Gaza Ceasefire Withdrawal Mar 20, 2025
Israel’s army has reinvaded the Gaza Strip, reclaiming control over the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the besieged Palestinian territory in two. Israel is also continuing to bombard Gaza by land, air and sea for a third straight day, after Israel unilaterally shattered the Gaza ceasefire on Tuesday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel’s renewed attacks have killed 710 Palestinians, including at least 95 people since daybreak today. One of those was a newborn baby. Another 900 Palestinians have been injured, a majority of them children and women. Some of the wounded died due to severe shortages of medical equipment from Israel’s total blockade of Gaza, which took effect on March 2.
Israel Forces Gazans to Flee Once Again in Renewed Genocidal Campaign Mar 20, 2025
On Wednesday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza and parts of Khan Younis in the south, ordering residents once again to leave their homes. The order affects thousands of people who’d previously been expelled multiple times by Israel’s army.
Jalal Dabbour: “We were feeling safe. We couldn’t believe we had just started having stability in our lives. And suddenly the situation has been turned around under the threat of the Israeli aggression. They forced us to leave Beit Hanoun. I swear to God, we don’t have any shelter except in Beit Hanoun. We had just started having some stability in the 40 days of ceasefire.”
“This Was Not an Accident”: U.N. Condemns Deadly Israeli Attack on U.N. Facility Mar 20, 2025
The United Nations has condemned the Israeli killing of one its workers Wednesday. Five others were wounded, several severely, in the airstrike on a U.N. building in Deir al-Balah. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for a full investigation. U.N. official Jorge Moreira da Silva said the U.N. compound is located in a deconflicted zone “well known by the Israeli Defense Forces.”
Jorge Moreira da Silva: “In my opinion, this was not an accident. It cannot be categorized as an accident. It is at least an incident. What is happening in Gaza is unconscionable. I’m shocked. I am shocked and devastated by this tragic news.”
International Legal Coalition Will Pursue Israelis Involved in Gaza War Crimes Mar 20, 2025
A group of lawyers has launched a global coalition that will seek to pursue legal action against Israeli dual nationals accused of being involved in war crimes in Gaza. The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians said it’ll use domestic and international law against Israeli soldiers and others “spanning the entire Israeli military and political chain of command.”
U.S. Continues Attacks on Yemen and Houthi Movement Mar 20, 2025
The U.S. is continuing its bombing of Yemen. On Wednesday, Trump vowed to “annihilate” the Houthi group after it announced it would resume strikes on commercial targets in the Red Sea following’s Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza ceasefire. Israel said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen earlier today.
Global Protests for Gaza Continue After Israel Resumes All-Out War Mar 20, 2025
Thousands of protesters across the U.S. and around the world are taking to the streets after Israel unilaterally pulled out of the Gaza ceasefire. This is a demonstrator who joined a rally in Tunisia’s capital Wednesday.
Fathi Abada: “We call on Arab people to take to the streets and bear their historical responsibilities, because Palestine is the fortress, the fortress of struggle and the fortress of steadfastness, and the Yemeni people are the last wall of resistance in the face of American aggression and in the face of Zionist aggression.”
ICE Detains Georgetown Researcher Who Spoke Out for Palestinian Rights Mar 20, 2025
Federal immigration agents detained a Georgetown University postdoctoral researcher in peace and conflict studies this week, told him his visa was revoked, and are trying to deport him. Badar Khan Suri is an Indian national on a student visa. Suri’s wife is Mapheze Saleh, a U.S. citizen from Palestine and a Georgetown student who in recent weeks came under online attacks by pro-Zionist websites. She is the daughter of a former political adviser to the Hamas government. Suri’s lawyer says the pair is being targeted because they have spoken out for Palestinian rights.
Judge Transfers Case of Jailed Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil to New Jersey Mar 20, 2025
In more news about Columbia, a judge has transferred Mahmoud Khalil’s case to New Jersey, where it will be overseen by President Biden-appointed Judge Michael Farbiarz. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman cleared the way for Khalil to stay in the U.S. and challenge his arrest and the Trump administration’s attempts to deport him for protesting for Palestinian rights while he was a student at Columbia. Khalil is a permanent U.S. resident. He was arrested in Manhattan but detained in New Jersey when his lawyers filed suit. He was subsequently transferred to an ICE jail in Jena, Louisiana.
Israel Pushes Further into Gaza; Genocide’s Death Toll Rises, with 200 Children Killed Since Tuesday Mar 21, 2025
Israel’s military has launched a full-scale ground invasion in Rafah as it relentlessly attacks the Gaza Strip for the fourth straight day since Israel unilaterally shattered the ceasefire with Hamas. Israeli troops are also pushing into the north near Beit Lahia and other areas. At least 200 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli attacks since Tuesday. This is a mother in Khan Younis whose daughter was killed by an Israeli strike.
Buthayna al-Mujayda: “Stop this war. Stop this extermination. This is an extermination of the entire Palestinian people. What is the fault of the children? These are children. What is their fault? For every child, you bring 100. What is this? Shame on you! The entire square, not a stone or anything remains. It is all destroyed. They left nothing in the whole area.”
UNRWA announced five of its workers have been killed in recent days. This brings the total of all UNRWA workers killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza over the past 18 months to 284.
UCLA Students Sue over Suppression of Gaza Protests, Violent Attack by Angry Mob Last Spring Mar 21, 2025
Over 30 UCLA students who were brutalized last spring during Gaza solidarity protests have sued campus officials and law enforcement agencies. Students had set up a peaceful campus encampment demanding an end to UCLA’s financial ties with Israel’s war. But they were repeatedly targeted for abuse, including from outside groups, culminating in what they call a “brutal mob assault” on April 30. The live-streamed attacks on students and faculty were carried out for at least four hours while UCLA security stood by. The university called in police the following day to forcefully and violently remove the protesters. The plaintiffs describe enduring physical and psychological harm. This is Binyamin Moryosef, an Israeli American undergraduate plaintiff, who accused UCLA of antisemitism over its silencing of Jewish anti-genocide voices on campus.
Binyamin Moryosef: “This lawsuit asks for the barest of respect towards the right to free expression, the right to voice our righteous opposition to the ever-present reality of imminent death every Palestinian child faces so long as the Israeli military continues its aggression. I ask the university not to collaborate with the oppressive forces of our time, unless they wish to be remembered like the heartless administration that arrested the Vietnam War protesters. Choose now to stand on the side of justice.”
International Student Activist Momodou Taal Sues to Block Trump Orders Targeting Protesters Mar 21, 2025
At Cornell University in New York state, outspoken international student activist Momodou Taal has filed a lawsuit along with two others, seeking to block Trump’s executive orders targeting Palestinian rights activists. The three Cornell plaintiffs argue they’ve been “unconstitutionally silenced.” Last year, Momodou Taal, a British and Gambian national, was twice suspended for his activism by Cornell, which moved to cancel his student visa but ultimately backed down. Taal says law enforcement agents started following him around after he filed his lawsuit earlier this week. Supporters at Cornell mobilized Thursday to demand “hands off Momodou!” Last month, Taal told Democracy Now! why he would never stop advocating for Palestinian rights.
Momodou Taal: “When we say Palestine is a litmus test, we’re saying that it is not that we privilege the Palestinian cause over every other cause, but rather Palestine holds a mirror up unto the world and says, 'What kind of world do we want to live in?'”
1,000+ Jewish Activists and Allies Rally for Mahmoud Khalil Mar 21, 2025
On Thursday, organizers say more than a thousand Jewish activists from groups including If Not Now and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice rallied in front of the Manhattan headquarters of ICE to demand the release of Columbia student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was picked up by federal immigration agents on March 8 and remains in a Louisiana detention center. We’ll have the latest on Mahmoud Khalil’s case later in the broadcast.
We get an update on legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for two weeks despite being a legal resident with a green card. The Trump administration has explicitly said it is targeting Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy during protests at Columbia University last year, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law to claim he could undermine U.S. foreign policy. Federal Judge Jesse Furman recently ordered the case to be moved to New Jersey, even though Khalil himself remains locked up in an ICE jail in Louisiana. “In doing so, Judge Furman acknowledged that the right court to hear this is here, in the area where all of these events played out, where Mahmoud’s family is, his eight-month-pregnant wife is, his community is and his lawyers are,” says Shezza Abboushi Dallal, a member of Khalil’s legal team.
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.
We turn now to look at the Trump administration’s targeting of foreign-born students who have expressed support for Palestinians. Columbia student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil has been jailed in ICE detention for two weeks, even though he’s a legal permanent resident of the United States. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman cleared the way for Khalil to stay in the U.S. and keep challenging his arrest. The judge transferred Mahmoud Khalil’s case to New Jersey, where he was initially held before being transferred to Louisiana.
Earlier this week, Mahmoud Khalil dictated a letter to his lawyers. He said, in part, quote, “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all,” he said.
We’re joined right now by Shezza Abboushi Dallal, a staff attorney with the CLEAR project at CUNY School of Law, member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal defense team.
Thanks so much for being with us. We’ve been following this very closely, and there’s been mass protests across the country. Thousands have turned out protesting for Khalil. His wife, an American citizen, left here in New York, she is eight months pregnant. Explain the latest. Explain Judge Furman’s decision and what it means for Khalil to be going to New Jersey, if he in fact is. He’s still in Louisiana.
SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: That’s exactly right. Thank you for having me, Amy.
So, on Wednesday, Judge Furman in the Southern District of New York ordered the case transferred to a federal court in New Jersey. And in doing so, Judge Furman acknowledged that the right court to hear this is here, in the area where all of these events played out, where Mahmoud’s family is, his eight-month-pregnant wife is, his community is and his lawyers are, and rejected the government’s argument that the right court to hear this is in Louisiana, where they covertly transferred him over the course of hours of his nighttime detention two weekends ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Which makes it very difficult for you to speak with him, right? You wanted — the defense team demanded that they be able to speak, not monitored, because, in fact, that’s what happens at ICE detention facilities.
SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: That’s right. So, what you’re referring to is that during our first court appearance in the Southern District of New York, we sought and received a court order allowing us to have legal calls with our client. Regular calls in ICE detention facilities are subject to monitoring by the government, and therefore use against people who are being detained. And so, we had not been able at that point to have those types of legal calls. Thanks to that court order, we have been able to since.
And we are ready to continue this legal battle in New Jersey, where a number of really important legal battles will be hashed out in the days and weeks to come.
AMY GOODMAN: And why New Jersey? Even though he was first transferred, what, to Elizabeth, but Judge Furman —
SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: — while he said he should be brought up from Louisiana, said New Jersey, not New York. And why is that significant to you?
SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: He said New Jersey because at the exact time when — and this was in the early hours of the morning, hours from Mahmoud’s detention — at the exact time when the habeas petition challenging his unlawful detention was filed, he was in an ICE detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And so, the court ordered transfer to New Jersey because of that fact and, again, acknowledging that, contrary to the incredible claims that the government is making that Louisiana is the right court to hear this, to have him battle out the challenge to his unlawful detention in Louisiana would mean to have him fight his case in a state that is 1,400 miles away from his eight-months-pregnant wife who’s due next month, from us, his counsel, and from the place where all of this played out.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to the video showing the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil on March 8th, when he was detained by plainclothes officers who did not identify themselves. The video was filmed by his eight-month-pregnant wife Dr. Noor Abdalla, whose voice you’re hearing in this clip.
DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: You’re going to be under arrest, so turn around.
DR. NOOR ABDALLA: OK, OK, he’s not resisting. He’s giving me his phone.
DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: All right. All right.
DR. NOOR ABDALLA: OK? He’s not — I understand. He’s not resisting.
DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: Turn around. Put your arms around —
DR. NOOR ABDALLA: Like —
MAHMOUD KHALIL: There’s no need for this. You already have me.
DHS PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER: Don’t worry about it. You’re going to have to come with us. Don’t worry about it.
DR. NOOR ABDALLA: Can you — can you please specify what agency is taking him, please? Excuse me. They’re — nobody — they’re not talking to me. I don’t know. Excuse me, the lawyer would like to speak to somebody. Oh my god, they’re literally running away from me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, there we have the video that the ACLU released. Mahmoud could not know who these people were. They were in plainclothes. The car was plainclothes. It was in their lobby. And what about this news of Elvin Hernandez, a DHS officer, who Trump had honored in his first term in the presidency, I think pointed him out at the State of Union address? He was one of those who arrested him?
SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: Yeah. So, you can see in the video how alarming and distressing the whole ordeal was. You have multiple Department of Homeland Security agents in plainclothes closing in on Mahmoud and his wife in the lobby of their Columbia faculty — Columbia housing.
AMY GOODMAN: They had just come back from iftar?
SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: Yeah, that’s exactly right. They were entering their building, coming back from iftar. This is Columbia University housing. And they’re followed in and closed in on by a bunch of agents in plainclothes. And they’re having trouble receiving any information at all from these men about who they are. They’re pleading for information about who they are, where they’re being taken, and receiving next to nothing, as you can see.
AMY GOODMAN: Did Columbia give them permission — ICE, DHS, permission to go in their housing? I mean, Mahmoud had appealed to the Columbia president in the days before, saying he faced danger.
SHEZZA ABBOUSHI DALLAL: We don’t know what Columbia has done, but what we know is what we see, which is that these officers are inside of the building — again, Columbia housing. And we also know from Mahmoud and his wife that they pleaded for assistance from the Columbia University administration in the days leading up to this detention and arrest, and they received no support. They have yet to receive any sort of support or outreach from the university.
And we know that Columbia University has had a track record over the course of the past, you know, more than a year and a half of collaborating with law enforcement agencies, giving them information, inviting them onto campus to arrest their own students. Certainly, they’ve taken the posture of collaborators and not a protective posture of their students, their staff, their faculty against this administration and the last’s agendas to target advocates for Palestinian rights and liberation.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read more from Mahmoud Khalil’s letter from jail. He wrote, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza … While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. … Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.”
Shezza Abboushi Dallal, thank you so much for giving us this update, staff attorney with the CLEAR project at CUNY School of Law, member of Mahmoud Khalil’s legal defense team.
We speak with the Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel, who warns the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to target international students and other visitors and immigrants to the United States over pro-Palestinian speech. The State Department has reportedly launched a new effort using artificial intelligence to help identify and revoke visas for people the government deems to be supporting U.S.-designated terrorist groups, based primarily on the individuals’ social media accounts. “Foreign students are running scared,” says Patel. She also notes that while “AI-driven sounds really fancy,” the process is more likely to be a basic keyword search prone to “rudimentary mistakes.”
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.
After Mahmoud Khalil was detained two weeks ago, President Trump warned he was the, quote, “first arrest of many to come.” Trump’s warning comes as the State Department has launched a program to use artificial intelligence to scrape the social media accounts of foreign nationals, including students, to identify possible targets for deportation.
We’re joined right now by Faiza Patel, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. Her new piece for the Brennan Center is headlined “U.S. AI-Driven 'Catch and Revoke' Initiative Threatens First Amendment Rights.”
Thanks so much for being with us, Faiza. Explain what is going on.
FAIZA PATEL: So, one thing that’s going on is something that’s been going on for a really long time, which is that government agencies have been collecting social media information. They have been scraping social media. They’ve been keeping tabs on what Americans are saying. And this is something that started during, really, the end of the Obama administration, continued through the first Trump administration and continued through the Biden administration.
And I think it’s important to also understand two things. One is, “AI-driven” sounds really fancy. I mean, basically, what they’re going to be doing is keyword searches. And we’ve seen this play out with their attempts to identify so-called DEI initiatives, which led to things like, you know, removing information about the Enola Gay. So, I think you have a sense of sort of —
AMY GOODMAN: The plane that dropped the bomb on Japan.
FAIZA PATEL: Precisely.
AMY GOODMAN: And they took out the word “gay”?
FAIZA PATEL: Well, they just took out the whole reference, right? I mean, you see this playing out. I mean, they make a lot of really rudimentary mistakes — right? — because there’s no context, there’s no understanding. You’re doing keyword searches, and you’re taking things offline, in the case of the DEI stuff.
But when you translate that over to the social media-scraping context, you can understand how that will work out, right? Because they will be looking for certain terms, and they will be targeting people based on this speech. And that can sweep very, very broadly. In the current context, where they’re, you know, going after pro-Palestinian protests, you’ve got to ask — right? — “Is the fact that I liked a 'free Palestine' post going to be enough to have me deported?” I mean, foreign students are running scared because they may have done something very innocuous on social media, and now they’re in the crosshairs.
But I also think it’s important to remember that, you know, the focus on Palestinian — pro-Palestinian speech is sort of the tip of the iceberg. If you look at the executive order that Trump put out, which sort of previews this program, it’s not just about what he characterizes as pro-terrorist, pro-Hamas speech, it’s also about anything that the administration considers as being basically un-American, right? And so, that covers a vast swath of speech. It covers all kinds of protest activity, from environmental, pro-migrant, pro-democracy, pro-voter. You know, it’s a wide space that can be covered here.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you concerned about this latest news we had in headlines? President Trump rescinded an executive order targeting the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison after meeting in person with its chair. Under the deal, the law firm will provide $40 million in free legal services supporting Trump’s agenda, including his “Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.” This is a law firm. And yet we just had a Jewish UCLA student, Israeli American Jewish UCLA student, saying it’s antisemitic to go after Jewish students who are protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza.
FAIZA PATEL: I mean, I think there’s a lot of concern, overall, that civil society institutions have been crumbling almost in the face of pressure from the Trump administration. And I think that sweeps across the board, to media organizations that have settled lawsuits with him, universities that — I mean, there was a report in The Wall Street Journal that Columbia was going to accede to the demands from the Trump administration. And there has been a lot of pressure on the law firms, as well. So, this is — you know, you can’t look at any one of these things in isolation. I think it’s an overall attack on civil society institutions that could potentially block his agenda.
AMY GOODMAN: So, it’s a “catch and revoke” program. Explain that further and how that fits into the First Amendment and privacy rights.
FAIZA PATEL: Sure. So, I mean, this is a play — right? — on “catch and release,” which was basically the term that was used to describe the policy of sort of apprehending people at the border who are asylum seekers and then releasing them into the country because our immigration court system just really doesn’t have the capacity to address their claims in a timely fashion, and we don’t actually have detention capacity, either. So, it’s a play on that term.
And what that means is, I mean, the “catch” part is basically, “We’re going to figure out who was involved — and currently we’re looking at pro-Palestinian protests — who was involved in these protests.” And they have a few different sources for that. There are some organizations that have been doxxing people who took part in protests, and they claim to have provided that information to the State Department and to DHS. So that’s one source.
The other source is going through social media. Now, they have an advantage when it comes to foreigners when going through social media, because since the last — oh gosh, I’m going to space on the time, but I think like seven years or so, the State Department has been collecting social media handles from everybody who applies for a visa. That’s 14.7 million people a year, roughly. And they actually now want to expand that program to another 33 million a year, which includes people who are in the United States who may be applying for immigration benefits — you know, I’m here on a student visa, I get a job, I want to apply for a work visa. So, they’re trying to extend that. This is all like this whole complex.
So, once they know your social media handle — right? — they can track what you say online very, very easily. Now, you can create new handles, but, you know, that gives them a baseline to start from. And that means that everybody’s speech can be monitored. And it’s not actually just the person whose handle you have, right? It’s not just Khalil, for example, in this case. If they were monitoring him, they would also be then figuring out who his networks are, who the people are in the United States who are his friends, who are his work colleagues, who are his teachers. It’s a very pervasive effort.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Trump’s proposal for a new travel ban that would target citizens of dozens of countries? Draft list of recommendations suggests a red list of 11 countries, including Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.
FAIZA PATEL: I mean, this is, you know, a redo of what he did in his first term. And I think one of the things that’s super scary about it is that he’s also directed the secretary of state to go back and look at people who got visas in the previous four years under the Biden administration and see if they can be deported, too.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us. And Faiza Patel is senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. Her new piece for the Brennan Center, we’ll link to, “U.S. AI-Driven 'Catch and Revoke' Initiative Threatens First Amendment Rights.”
Israel Renews Attacks on Gaza’s Hospitals as Its Full-Scale War Continues Mar 24, 2025
Gaza’s Health Ministry says the official death toll has topped 50,000 as Israel continues to bombard and blockade the territory, but it is widely believed the actual death toll is far higher. On Sunday, Israeli forces bombed a surgical unit at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis — the largest functioning hospital in Gaza. The attack killed two people, including Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’s political bureau. Hamas said he was at the hospital for treatment for injuries suffered in an earlier Israeli strike. A 16-year-old boy was also killed in the hospital attack. The American trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa was at Nasser Hospital at the time of the attack and said the teenager killed was his patient.
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa: “You know, I’ve certainly never had a patient injured in an explosion, brought to the hospital, taken care of, doing well, ready to go home, and then blown up in his hospital bed. That’s a first. And that should be what we call in medicine a 'never event.' That’s not really supposed to happen. I just — I can’t emphasize enough, it just doesn’t matter who is in the hospital. It’s not legal to blow it up. It’s not legal to kill people in here. It’s not legal to attack people in here. It’s not ethical. It’s completely crazy.”
In a separate strike, Israel blew up the Turkish Friendship Hospital, Gaza’s only specialized cancer hospital. The hospital had been closed since November 2023 due to Israeli attacks. At one point Israeli troops had turned the hospital into a military outpost. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the bombing, saying it was “part of Israel’s policy aimed at rendering Gaza uninhabitable and forcibly displacing the Palestinian people.”
In other news on Gaza, Israel’s security cabinet has approved forming what it calls a “Voluntary Emigration Bureau” in Gaza as Israel and the United States push for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Columbia [University] Caves to Trump Demands, Outlines Plans to Militarize Campus, Reinforce Censorship Mar 24, 2025
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Columbia University is on track to regain $400 million in federal funding after the Ivy League institution yielded to the Trump administration’s demands Friday. Those include banning face masks on campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a “senior vice provost” to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.
Students say they will continue to fight for Palestinian rights and for Columbia to divest from Israel. Free speech experts are sounding the alarm. This is Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Donna Lieberman: “Unfortunately, it appears that Columbia has capitulated to the bullying of the Trump administration and ceded significant control over academic decisions, like a couple of departments, admissions, discipline, to the Trump administration in return for the Trump administration backing off from its threat to cut off $400 million in grants that have absolutely nothing to do with claims of antisemitism or failure to deal with it.”
Students are returning to classes today after spring break. We will have more on this story later in the show.
The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to target free speech on college campuses and one doctoral student at Cornell University who was involved in pro-Palastinian protests on campus now finds himself targeted for deportation once again. Momodou Taal is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University who is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the Gambia. He was suspended twice last year for joining a demonstration calling on Cornell to divest from Israel and faced deportation until massive protests pressured Cornell to allow him to reenroll, thereby extending his visa. Earlier this month, Taal, along with two U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s executive orders that target foreign nationals who it claims are national security threats. “I believed I was going to be a target eventually,” says Taal.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s coverage of the Trump administration’s efforts to target free speech on college campuses with an update on a doctoral student at Cornell University who’s joined in pro-Palestine protests on campus and now finds himself targeted for deportation again.
Momodou Taal is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University, a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the Gambia. Last year, he was suspended twice for joining a demonstration calling on Cornell to divest from Israel. He faced deportation until massive protests pressured Cornell to allow him to reenroll, thereby extending his visa.
MOMODOU TAAL: With, as you said, public pressure, support, Cornell University backed down, and I am allowed to finish my degree. However, I am still banned from campus. I’m allowed in one building on campus to work. I had to fight to be able to get library access. And I think there’s somewhat of a great irony that students who were protesting apartheid are now subject to forms of exclusion bordering on apartheid, with our movements restricted, and we’re only allowed to go to designated places on campus.
AMY GOODMAN: Since Momodou Taal spoke to Democracy Now! in February, he and two U.S. citizens filed a lawsuit to challenge two of the Trump administration’s executive orders that, quote, “combat antisemitism” on college campuses and expel foreign nationals who it claims pose national security threats.
Momodou’s lawyer says the government responded to the lawsuit by sending federal agents to monitor him. Then on Friday, the Department of Justice notified Momodou’s lawyer that the Trump administration is going to begin the process to carry out Momodou’s deportation and ICE — that’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement — ordered Momodou to surrender at their office.
Meanwhile, a hearing in the lawsuit Momodou helped file that is challenging Trump’s executive orders is set for Tuesday. That’s tomorrow.
For more, we’re joined by Momodou Taal from an undisclosed location.
Momodou, welcome back to Democracy Now! So, you’re reinstated at Cornell. You don’t lose your visa. And yet, now ICE says they’re going to deport you? What happened?
MOMODOU TAAL: Yeah. Thank you so much. Good morning. And thank you so much for having me on.
I mean, as you said, I think if we’re going to take a step back, this is what happens when the universities don’t stand by their students. And fundamentally, Cornell has placed a target on my back. Given the heavy-handed nature in which they repressed protests for pro-Palestine, they placed targets on their back, and this is the result of that now. So, given the executive orders, that, you know, were vague, broad, combating antisemitism, which made it incumbent on universities to collaborate and report on their students, given the high-profile nature of my case, I believed I was going to be a target eventually.
And then we saw what happened with Mahmoud. And I thought, “OK, what is my best bet at protection here?” And that was going to be a lawsuit challenging the legality and constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders. As we’ve seen right now, we have descended into a level of lawlessness, that me wanting my day in court to be heard, which is a right, challenging the legality of Trump’s executive orders, I’ve been met with ICE agents or federal agents coming to my property, I’ve been told to surrender to ICE, my visa is revoked — all in what I believe to be in retaliation or what I believe in is to prevent me from having my day in a federal court.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what are you planning to do?
MOMODOU TAAL: I would like to hear my — I want to be able to have my day in court tomorrow. That is the plan. We have, obviously, prepared ourselves for all eventualities. But, fundamentally, in this country, the First Amendment does not just protect citizens, but it says “persons.” And our lawsuit is essentially challenging, first and foremost, my ability to speak, but also American citizens have the right to hear speech. What we’re seeing now isn’t just a crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech, even though that cannot be divorced from that, but we’re seeing that any criticism of the state of Israel, any criticism of the United States government or Trump’s administration, you can be liable for deportation. So, if you ask me what I’m trying to do, I’m trying to challenge this, and we’re seeking a national injunction, not just to protect folks, myself, but also to protect anyone in the country who may be in a similarly situated situation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Cornell University, because of protest, allowed you to continue as a student. Now you have expressed your concern that you’re being followed by ICE, and you’re supposed to show up at a hearing tomorrow. What is Cornell doing? Are they doing anything to protect you? I have in mind Mahmoud Khalil right now, who was taken by ICE, is now in Jena, Louisiana, at an ICE jail. He had written personally to the president of Columbia. That’s here in New York City. He had been, by the way, a negotiator for the pro-Palestine students with the university and said he was asking for protection from the university. What about Cornell?
MOMODOU TAAL: I have heard nothing from Cornell. Obviously, there have been great faculty who have been supportive in this truly difficult time. But I’ve heard — from the administration, I have heard nothing. I can’t speculate. I don’t know their level of involvement in this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been contacted, but I don’t have any evidence for that at this moment. But I’ve heard nothing in terms of support, protection, other than some series of vague emails that go to the whole campus saying what to do if ICE comes and how they will not allow certain things to happen. But again, there’s nothing been by way of support of me.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, Cornell police detained at least 17 pro-Palestine protesters who disrupted a panel on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The lecture was called “Pathways to Peace” and featured former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who’s been accused of war crimes in a suit filed by a U.K. pro-Palestinian group for her role in a major military offensive in Gaza in 2008.
PROTESTER 1: Five hundred children! Five hundred children in 2014, you killed them! You’re a butcher!
PROTESTER 2: Wooooooooo!
PROTESTER 3: Hey, where are you taking them?
POLICE OFFICER: You want to get arrested?
PROTESTER 3: No, I’m just asking. I have the right to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to the ongoing protests, Momodou Taal, and why you’ve continued to protest yourself? You’re from the Gambia. You’re a Gambian and British citizen. Why this issue? And you’re majoring in — or, you’re a graduate student in Africana studies at Cornell. Why is this issue so important to you?
MOMODOU TAAL: I appreciate the question. I’ve said it before on your show. But I think, for me, Palestine fundamentally holds up a mirror to the world and asks the question: What kind of world do we want to live in? And I think, as tough as this moment is for me personally, it pales in comparison to what the Palestinians are going through. And I think this is, for me, a generational defining moment, a generational defining issue.
And I think if the numbers of 18,000 children did not move people to action, then I don’t think this is a world that we can be a part of or be proud of or be — or want to even continue, because we have to ask ourselves: Why is it there’s a Palestine exception? What is it about the Palestinian issue that goes at the heart of this country? And what does it say? What questions does it force us to interrogate and engage with the world in this moment?
So, I think, from my fundamental — I think, fundamentally, I’m still a human being. I have an alive heart, and I cannot retire my moral conscience. So, regardless of the sacrifice I have to make or the consequence, for me, Palestine goes at the heart of the world today. And I think it’s a generational defining issue.
AMY GOODMAN: Momodou Taal, we want to thank you for being with us. We have 30 seconds. Any final words?
MOMODOU TAAL: I just want to say to people, thank you so much for the support. I know things are scary. I know things are unfortunate in this moment. But I don’t think the time is to keep quiet. I think the time is to double down, escalate, keep going and keep raising the issue of Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: Momodou Taal, I want to thank you so much, Ph.D. student in the Department of Africana Studies at Cornell University, was almost deported last year, but because of massive protest against what was happening then, Cornell reinstated him. But now ICE is demanding he show up at hearing with his lawyer tomorrow in Syracuse. We’ll give you all the latest as we learn it.
Badar Khan Suri is one of the many pro-Palestine scholars being targeted by the Trump administration. Suri, originally from India, is a Georgetown University professor and postdoctoral scholar on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia. Last Monday evening, Suri was ambushed by masked federal agents with the Homeland Security Department as he and his family returned to their home in Rosslyn, Virginia, after attending an iftar gathering for Ramadan. Suri was taken into custody without being charged with or accused of any crime. He was told the federal government had revoked his visa. Over the next 72 hours, Suri was transferred to multiple immigration detention centers, and he is currently jailed at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, separated from his wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, and his three children. Unlike Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate facing deportation, Suri “is not a political activist,” says Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. “He was just a very serious young academic focusing on his teaching and his research.”
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 the Trump administration escalates its attacks on pro-Palestine students and scholars, we turn to the case of Badar Khan Suri. Suri is originally from India, a Georgetown University professor and postdoctoral scholar on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia. Last Monday evening, he was ambushed by masked federal agents with the Homeland Security Department as he and his family returned to their home in Rosslyn, Virginia, after attending an iftar gathering for Ramadan. Suri was taken into custody without being charged or accused of any crime. He was told the federal government had revoked his visa.
Over the next 72 hours, Suri was transferred to multiple immigration detention centers. He’s currently jailed at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, separated from his wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, and his three children. Suri’s arrest came just days after federal agents apprehended Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who’s being jailed at a different ICE detention center in Louisiana. Both are being detained under a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which gives the U.S. secretary of state authority to begin deportation proceedings against any noncitizen deemed a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests — even a green card holder, like Mahmoud Khalil is. On Thursday, a federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting Suri while he fights his case.
DHS has accused Suri of, quote, “spreading Hamas propaganda” and claimed Suri has, quote, “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist,” without providing any evidence. Suri’s legal team says he’s being targeted for his political views and free speech, and pointed to an aggressive doxxing and smearing campaign by pro-Israel groups targeting Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh. She’s a graduate student at Georgetown and the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former political adviser to Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in Iran last year. Saleh previously worked in a civilian role at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Gaza and met Suri after he joined a humanitarian convoy to the besieged territory in 2011. The couple then lived in New Delhi.
Prior to Suri’s arrest, pro-Israel groups published a series of articles and video clips targeting Saleh and her family. One video clip was shared last month on the official X account of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. A photo of Salah and information about her, including her school and former employer, is also featured on an anonymously run website. Saleh’s father Ahmed Yousef lives in Gaza and left his position in the Hamas government more than a decade ago, becoming a frequent writer and commentator on Hamas for publications like The New York Times. He recently told the Times Suri, his son-in-law, wasn’t involved in any political activism on behalf of Hamas.
For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University, the director of the center where Badar Khan Suri was hired as a postdoctoral fellow, Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
Professor Hashemi, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you explain what’s going on with Suri right now?
NADER HASHEMI: Well, it’s a very similar case to Mahmoud Khalil. One of the differences is that Suri, in contrast to Khalil, was not a political activist. He was just a very serious, young academic focusing on his teaching and his research. I think your description in the introduction provided a good background. He’s currently in detention, we believe, in Louisiana. He has a court date in May.
And, of course, his family is completely devastated. And he, himself, is completely bewildered, because this is a young man from India, you know, who doesn’t know anything about the politics of Israel-Palestine, who Campus Watch is, what the Canary Mission is all about, why he was even targeted. So this came as a shock to him, his colleagues at Georgetown and, of course, his family, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain exactly what happened. We’ve actually seen the video of Mahmoud Khalil, not to be confused with Suri. He’s the former Columbia graduate student. He and his wife, Dr. Abdalla, were also coming home from iftar, and they were confronted by men in plainclothes who didn’t have a warrant, in an unmarked car, and told to go with them. He ended up in Jena, Louisiana. Explain what happened to Badar Khan Suri.
NADER HASHEMI: So, last Monday, exactly a week ago, in the afternoon, some of the staff that work at my center noticed some suspicious men hanging outside. They were clearly out of place. We now believe these were federal agents trying to arrest Badar Khan Suri outside of his classroom. For some reason, they weren’t able to apprehend him on campus.
But roughly around 8:00 last Monday, as he was returning home after he broke his fast, agents arrested him. They were masked. There was an incident outside of his home. His young — one of his children witnessed the arrest. And then they told him, “Your visa had been revoked, and we’re going to deport you.” And then he was whisked off to a detention facility, I think, originally in Alexandria, Virginia, and then he was sent to Louisiana, I believe, but I’m not 100% sure, in the same detention facility where Mahmoud Khalil was being held. And that’s the story.
And so, then, immediately, there was an attempt to sort of get him legal representation, to support the family, and then to get, you know, university officials to respond appropriately.
AMY GOODMAN: Mapheze Saleh, the wife of Badar Khan Suri, wrote in a petition to the Eastern District Court of Virginia, quote, “Our children are in desperate need of their father and miss him dearly. They keep asking about him and when he will come back. I cannot bring myself to tell them what has really happened to him, although my eldest child understands he is in some kind of trouble. … I feel completely unsafe and can’t stop looking at the door, terrified that someone else will come and take me and the children away as well,” this American citizen said, who is the wife of Professor Suri. Can you respond to what she’s saying? And then talk about Georgetown’s response.
NADER HASHEMI: Yeah, so, the family here has been devastated. They’ve been shocked. The children are traumatized. I do believe the target here was not my colleague, Badar Khan Suri, but it was his wife, who’s a Palestinian from Gaza. They couldn’t arrest her, because she’s a U.S. citizen, so they went after a much easier target, her husband, who, of course, you know, has committed no crime. He was just doing his work. He’s not a political activist. And I think that that’s an important part of the story.
The other important part of the story here is that the origins of this begins on the right-wing social media sphere, where these, you know, extreme pro-Israel fanatics find a target, and they start tweeting about it, tagging the Israeli Embassy, tagging Marco Rubio. And then, within a few days, Rubio sends in the shock troops. That’s the background. So, the family is traumatized, the children, as well.
The university at Georgetown, I think, deserves some credit here, because they’ve been privately very supportive, but publicly cautious. Everyone is watching what’s happening at Columbia University. No one wants to see their university targeted in the same way that Columbia has been targeted. So, I would give my employer high marks for trying to navigate this situation and do the right thing.
And now there’s a lot of student-faculty mobilization on campus trying to provide support, trying to protest what’s happening, but also linking this to, you know, the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I think this is an important part of the story that we have to get out, that there’s an attempt here to silence any and all voices on campus that are critical of this genocide in Gaza.
And, of course, against the backdrop of this is this very deep-rooted anti-Palestinian bigotry that exists at the highest level of the American government, in particular in the Trump administration. Your listeners might recall that during the presidential campaign, on several occasions, Donald Trump used the word “Palestinian” as a slur to attack his political opponents. And so, it’s against that backdrop that the U.S. can support an ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has intensified in the last week. And, you know, the Democratic Party, as well, is guilty. And there’s been very little pushback.
So, this targeting of people who are just married to a Palestinian, that’s really the crime here that I think that my colleague is being charged with, is that he hasn’t done anything wrong, but he’s married to a Palestinian and that, you know, on rare occasions, he’s tweeted and expressed support for Palestinians suffering and the national rights of Palestinians. So he gets picked up because he’s an easy target, because he has — he’s on a visa, and so he can easily be deported from this country. I think those are the important elements of this story that, you know, I think people need to understand.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re about to talk about Columbia University and the agreement it’s made with the Trump administration. But before we go, I wanted to read two quotes, one from Joel Hellman, who is Georgetown dean of the School of Foreign Service, who released a statement on the detention of Badar Khan Suri that reads in part, quote, “During his time on campus, I am not aware that Dr. Suri has engaged in any illegal activity, nor has he posed a threat to the security of our campus. … As an individual, I am deeply concerned for the welfare of a member of our community and his family. As Dean, I am deeply troubled by the chilling effect such events could have on freedom of expression on this campus, which is, of course, at the very core of our mission. … We expect that the legal system will adjudicate this case fairly,” he said.
This comes as the dean of Georgetown’s Law School rejected a warning from the acting federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who said his office won’t consider Georgetown students for jobs, internships or fellowships until the law school ends diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin made that threat in an email on March 3rd, writing it’s unacceptable that Georgetown Law, quote, “continues to promote and teach DEI,” unquote. Dean William Treanor wrote in response, quote, “Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to [determine] its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution,” unquote. If you can, finally, in this last 30 seconds, respond?
NADER HASHEMI: Yeah, I’m glad you read those quotes. I think, you know, the Georgetown administration are trying to do the right thing.
What’s clearly happening here is we have an alliance between these MAGA Republicans and these extreme Israel supporters in this country, who are really trying to undermine the basic legal and political architecture of the United States and freedoms that we just took for granted. I never thought in a million years that what happened at Cornell, what happened at Columbia and what’s happening at Georgetown could happen in the United States.
So, this is a major assault on the American Constitution and on the basic idea of an independent university. That’s what’s at stake here. And so, everyone needs to mobilize. Everyone who cares about those values needs to mobilize and push back against this authoritarian juggernaut that’s coming to strangle all of us.
AMY GOODMAN: Nader Hashemi, professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University, director of the center where Badar Khan Suri was hired as postdoctoral fellow, Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon says Columbia University is on track to regain its federal funding after the Ivy League institution yielded to the Trump administration’s demands on Friday. The demands include banning face masks on campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a “senior vice provost” to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies. Students say they will continue to fight for Palestinian rights and for Columbia to divest from Israel, but free speech experts are sounding the alarm. “We have no idea what comes next, but groveling before a bully, we all know, just encourages the bully,” says Katherine Franke, former professor at Columbia Law School.
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.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon says Columbia University is on track to regain $400 million in federal funding after the Ivy League school yielded to the Trump administration’s demands Friday. Those include banning face masks on campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a senior vice provost to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.
Students say they will continue to fight for Palestinian rights and for Columbia to divest from Israel. Free speech experts are sounding the alarm.
For more, we are joined by Katherine Franke, former professor at Columbia Law School. She was forced to resign after two members of the Columbia community claimed she created a hostile environment for Israelis at Columbia after Franke appeared on our show, Democracy Now!, in January 2024 to discuss a chemical attack on pro-Palestinian student activists. Franke serves on the board of Palestine Legal.
We welcome you back to Democracy Now! Professor Franke, first, if you can talk about what has happened at Columbia University? Talk about this agreement that they have made. And also, if you want to comment on your own status at Columbia University?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, it’s lovely to see you, Amy. Thank you for inviting me back.
I think it would be inaccurate to describe what Columbia and the federal government have entered into as an agreement. The federal government seized funds that they were legally obliged to deliver to Columbia researchers, and then issued a ransom note, saying, “We will consider negotiations further with you if you do the following things.”
Columbia considered it and did more than what the ransom note demanded, for which it got nothing in return. Normally, when someone is kidnapped or there’s some kind of ransom taken, you agree to the things in the ransom note, and then you get your stuff back. You get your money back. You get your person back. In this case, Columbia merely supplicated itself before the federal government, and then we hear Linda McMahon say, “Well, this is on the road, on track to what we’d like to see.” So we have no idea what comes next. But groveling before a bully, we all know, just encourages the bully.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go through the points that Columbia University has either acquiesced to or just says that they will institute. And let’s remember, today is the day students return after spring break. Is this already in force? I’d like you to address the issue of this new, unusual security force — it’s not exactly Columbia security, it’s not the New York Police Department, but it has the power to arrest students on campus — also the issue of masks on campus and the new vice president, this kind of provost, in charge of several academic departments.
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, they only announced these changes last Friday, and today is Monday. It’s the first day of school after spring break. So we’ll see. But remember, Amy, the university has been on lockdown for months and months. I still have to go through two checkpoints in order to get to my office at the law school. We have public safety officers inside the campus everywhere, and NYPD outside the campus. And it seems the university was more than willing to call in the NYPD both at Columbia and at Barnard to arrest students. So, in some ways, this isn’t a huge change for daily life for the students. They’ve been living in a kind of security state, while they’re trying to learn and do the things that students do, for quite some time. But the rest of these new initiatives will take some time to roll out.
But those people who are in the departments, whether they’re students, faculty, staff, that are now being monitored by a newly created senior vice provost, are really worried. My syllabus is going to be looked at. Is someone going to be sitting in my classes? Are they going to be reviewing our graduate students and who we admit into our programs?
You know, Columbia has gone from being really a bastion of free speech — it’s why I went there as an undergrad in the late '70s and ’80s, and the president we had until quite recently, Lee Bollinger, was one of the most stellar stars in defense of academic freedom and free speech — to the situation where now Columbia University has become part of the apparatus of chilling speech critical of the state of Israel and critical of the United States. It's not just managing a difficult situation. It is actually implementing that censorship in the name of the university’s mission. And I think that’s what’s shocking the faculty, the students, the members and the alums. I’m hearing from so many alums. They want to burn their degrees. They’re so embarrassed by how Columbia has been behaving itself.
AMY GOODMAN: In a letter, Columbia’s interim President Katrina Armstrong wrote, quote, “Amidst a historically charged and divisive political atmosphere, academic institutions, of all places, must be able to operate with wisdom and deliberation, even as our various constituencies are moved to articulate different positions. Responsible stewardship means we must consider every appropriate action, work with our partners across the nation, and we are doing so. Legitimate questions about our practices and progress can be asked, and we will answer them. But we will never compromise our values of pedagogical independence, our commitment to academic freedom, or our obligation to follow the law.” Your response, Professor Franke?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, I mean, those are lovely words, but if you look at what the university is doing and the statement that they issued of these new policies last Friday, they’re doing the absolute opposite of what President Armstrong has professed. So, they’re speaking out of two sides of their mouth and trying to make the best of what is in a very difficult situation — I would, of course, admit that.
But if you look at what Bill Treanor, the dean at the law school at Georgetown, that you were just reporting on earlier, has said and what other university officials at other schools have said, there’s a path for universities to stand up to this. And the time to negotiate is over. These are test balloons. What they’ve done with Mahmoud Khalil, what they’ve done with other students by threatening to deport them or deport them, what they’ve done to Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, these law firms, and what they’re doing to Columbia, these are test balloons to see what kind of resistance and pushback they’re going to get. So far, very little.
And I think, you know, Amy, we need to buckle our seat belts. Things are about to get a lot worse in April and in May, because this administration knows that it can get away with an awful lot of conduct and chilling speech and authoritarian governance with very little resistance from institutional actors, like universities as powerful, we thought, as Columbia or law firms that we thought were as powerful as Paul Weiss. So, these actions are designed to sort of test the water: How far can we go? And they now know they can go all the way.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about targeting law firms like Paul Weiss. But I want to just ask you about this, this amazing piece in The New York Times, “Decades Ago, Columbia Refused to Pay Trump $400 Million.” And it says, “A quarter-century ago, the university was looking to expand. It considered and rejected property owned by Donald Trump. He did not forget it. … When he did not get his way, he stormed out of a meeting with university trustees and later publicly castigated the university president as 'a dummy' and 'a total moron.' That drama dates back 25 years.” You can’t help but notice that there he stood to gain $400 million, and he was going to sanction the university, take away $400 million in federal funding, unless they complied. Your quick response to that, Professor Franke?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, I mean, who knows if that number, $400 million, today, which they’ve withheld from Columbia — and, indeed, I think that they’ve actually held more. It just hasn’t been in the media. It certainly corresponds to that earlier number. And we well know that President Trump is known for holding a grudge and holding it for many, many years. So I presume it’s possible that this number he came up with relative to Columbia relates in some way to that earlier real estate deal. But to be honest, I find that to be a bit of a distraction.
I think we need to look forward and to think about how we can salvage our universities at this moment. At noon today, the faculty is going to be holding a vigil outside the gates of Columbia University for the university that has now died. And we’re trying to figure out: Where do we go from here? So, I think looking backward is actually less productive than thinking about where we go in this moment, where I personally feel like we have to work with our university — we need each other — rather than seeing it as only our enemy.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about Mahmoud Khalil. You had helped to advise him, the former Columbia graduate student who sought out the Columbia president’s help when he thought he was being followed and he felt threatened, and is now — has been picked up, apparently, by the Department of Homeland Security, is in immigration jail in Louisiana. What should the university do, Katherine Franke?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, the university should have stood up for him and corrected what I know to be horrible falsehoods said about Mahmoud. I’ve worked with him for over a year. He was chosen by the leadership of Columbia University to be the mediator, the voice they wanted to speak to when the encampment started last spring. He’s a mature, reasonable, careful, responsible person. And they saw in Mahmoud someone who could play that role of mediator between both sides. The students trusted him. The university trusted him.
And then, when people in our community at Columbia set him up — I mean, it’s important to recognize that the finger was pointed at him by members of the Columbia University community calling for the federal government to arrest him. And the university did not stand up for him. They let it happen. He had written to Katrina Armstrong asking for help. And other students are in the same position right now, I will note. He will not be the only or last one who faces this kind of situation. And the university did nothing. They left him as a sitting duck. And then they didn’t speak out in defense of the role that he has played at Columbia, with their invitation and consent. So, I see Columbia as playing a role of putting a target on his back, in essence.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re talking about other students. This comes as Indian national Ranjani Srinivasan left the U.S. earlier this month after her enrollment and student visa was unlawfully revoked before she was expected to graduate this year with a doctoral degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Her lawyer said she was arrested the night students took over what’s now known as Hind’s Hall, though she did not actually participate in that protest. On Saturday, she released an open letter that read in part, “With the rapidly escalating situation, the criminalization of free speech, and eminent travel bans, what has happened to me can happen to you. Therefore, we must exert maximum pressure on Columbia and other universities to protect international students from these arbitrary state actions. And we must fight for complete amnesty and reinstatement for those whom Columbia has sacrificed in the hope of reversing funding cuts. Now is the time to come together and demand universities do the right thing,” Srinivasan wrote. Very quickly, your comment on this, Professor Franke?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, I think her case is a horrendous object lesson. She was not part of the protests. She was not arrested connected to the protests. And her visa was revoked nevertheless. I think her leaving and going to Canada was a reasonable action on her part, because she knew what would come next, even though there was absolutely no reason to revoke her visa or to detain her.
And I would say that the other students who were involved in other protests, they, too, were engaging in what we should understand to be protected First Amendment political speech. But she wasn’t even involved in those actions. So, that’s where it’s radiating out, is that they’re identifying students who are vulnerable, and in most cases, Black and Brown, students of color, who are vulnerable in the sense that they have visas that could be revoked based on completely specious charges.
And I feel horrible for her, as I do for Mahmoud and the other students who are cowering in their dorm rooms right now, afraid to leave the building, because there are sketchy guys out front with big vans with tinted windows waiting for them. I mean, I can’t overemphasize how frightening it is for our students to be attending a university, hoping to get an education, when the university is actually collaborating in their very peril.
AMY GOODMAN: In this last 30 seconds we have, Professor Katherine Franke, how would you characterize this moment in time, this moment in U.S. history?
KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, I think what we’re seeing — and this is, what’s happening at Columbia and these other schools is just a small piece — is the collapse of a constitutional order that the Trump administration has very deftly exploited. There are anti-democratic elements in our constitutional system that this administration has very adeptly exploited and has put out these test balloons, as I’ve said, with universities and law firms. And what they’re about to do next, I think we all have to be very worried about.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to continue —
KATHERINE FRANKE: As we saw the Berlin Wall — fine.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to continue this discussion and post it online at democracynow.org. Katherine Franke, former professor at Columbia Law School. As she puts it, the university retired her. To see our conversations with her in the past, go to democracynow.org, and to see our new conversation with her, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
“Do Not Let the World Look Away”: Israel Kills 2 More Journalists, Incl. Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat Mar 25, 2025
Israel’s renewed all-out massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is continuing into its second week, with at least 23 people killed before dawn today, including seven children. On Monday, an Israeli strike on Beit Lahia killed the noted Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat. This is Shabat’s colleague Mahmoud Abu Salameh.
Mahmoud Abu Salameh: “We heard the sound of the explosion near the Indonesian Hospital. We rushed immediately at the moment of targeting. At the moment we heard the sound of this explosion, we headed to the place and saw the targeting of our colleague, journalist Hossam Shabat. We were shocked by the scene. This is our colleague Hossam’s car, and this is his blood.”
A letter by Hossam Shabat, posted by his team after his killing Monday, reads in part, “For the past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury.” Shabat added, “I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.” Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak to another of Hossam Shabat’s colleagues, Drop Site News editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous.
Separately on Monday, another journalist, Palestine Today correspondent Mohammed Mansour, was killed in an airstrike north of Khan Younis.
Israeli Settlers Brutally Attack Hamdan Ballal, Oscar-Winning Filmmaker, in Occupied West Bank Mar 25, 2025
In the occupied West Bank, a mob of masked and armed Israeli settlers on Monday brutally attacked Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning Palestinian director of the documentary “No Other Land.” The group of at least 15 settlers also assaulted activists with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. The attack took place in the village of Susya in the Masafer Yatta region. One of Ballal’s co-directors, journalist Basel Adra, said the group entered their village and started the assault shortly after residents broke their daily Ramadan fast. Ballal screamed, “I’m dying,” as he was being brutally beaten. He was then loaded, while heavily bleeding, into a military vehicle. He was released earlier today. We’ll speak with Basel Adra and an eyewitness from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence after headlines.
Trump’s National Security Team Accidentally Shares Yemen War Plans with Journalist in Signal Chat Mar 25, 2025
In a stunning breach of security protocol, senior members of Trump’s administration unknowingly shared plans to bomb Yemen with a reporter on an unclassified Signal group chat. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, revealed the chats in a piece titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.” Goldberg said he did not think the chat could be real until U.S. strikes actually did hit Yemen on March 15.
National security adviser Mike Waltz created the chat, which also included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance. Vance initially argued against the strikes, saying, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does.” Vance also messaged, “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” before backing down. In response to the first wave of bombings, Waltz posted emojis of a fist, an American flag and fire. Over 50 people were killed during those U.S. strikes on Yemen, including children.
National security experts say using Signal to share classified information likely violates the Espionage Act and federal records law.
U.S. Attacks on Yemen Kills at Least 2 More People in Sana’a Mar 25, 2025
The U.S. continues to attack Yemen after Houthi fighters threatened to renew strikes on Red Sea vessels over Israel’s resumption of its all-out war on Gaza. On Monday, U.S. airstrikes in Sana’a killed at least two people and wounded over a dozen others, including children. This is a local resident who witnessed the attack.
Hafezallah Saleh Al Hamidi: “A brutal American-Israeli aggression targeted civilians in a residential area that had no weapons or warehouses as the Americans claim, only innocent civilians. They bombed an empty basement with nothing in it. The residents of nearby buildings were harmed. Among them, people, and even children, were injured.”
Columbia Student and Green Card Holder Sues Trump Administration After ICE Attempts to Arrest Her Mar 25, 2025
A 21-year-old Columbia University student on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, which is seeking to deport her for participating in Palestinian rights protests on campus. Yunseo Chung is a legal permanent resident from South Korea who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old. Federal immigration agents searched Chung’s university housing earlier this month as they attempted to arrest her. The Trump administration is targeting Chung under a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which gives the secretary of state authority to begin deportation proceedings against any noncitizen deemed a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests — even permanent legal residents like Chung and Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by federal agents from his Columbia housing earlier this month.
Yesterday, dozens of faculty members gathered to condemn Trump’s and Columbia’s attacks on free speech. This is political science professor Timothy Frye.
Timothy Frye: “Why do autocrats fear higher education? Why are they so hostile to the free expression of ideas? Well, universities are threatening to autocrats because we teach independent and critical thinking, because we train our students to scrutinize evidence and demand rigor, and because we teach students to be skeptical of authority, especially our own authority. If anyone thinks that we can brainwash Columbia students, they’ve never met a Columbia student.”
Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning Palestinian director of No Other Land, was attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, arrested by Israeli soldiers and held overnight. The group entered their village and started the assault shortly after residents broke their daily Ramadan fast. Ballal’s No Other Land co-director Basel Adra witnessed the attack. He tells Democracy Now! that “settlers and soldiers together attacked [Ballal] physically, brutally, and abducted him,” while soldiers pointed guns and fired warning shots at a group of villagers including women and children. Ballal screamed “I’m dying” as he was being beaten. “Although the Israeli military has accused Ballal and two other Palestinians of throwing stones at soldiers, another eyewitness, Jewish American peace activist Anna Lippman, says the accusations are groundless. “The double standard is so strong here in the West Bank that Palestinians know that if they were to touch a stone, that could mean their life.” Adra calls on international intervention to end the violent occupation of Masafer Yatta, where “almost every day there is [an] attack.” Since this interview was conducted, Ballal has reportedly been released from Israeli custody and returned to his family.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In the occupied West Bank, the Oscar-winning Palestinian film director Hamdan Ballal was arrested by Israeli soldiers Monday after being brutally beaten by a group of masked and armed Israeli settlers in the village of Susya in the Masafer Yatta region.
The attack came just three weeks after Ballal and his three co-directors won an Oscar for best documentary for their film No Other Land. The film follows the struggles of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amidst home demolitions by Israeli military and violent attacks by Israeli settlers aimed at expelling them.
One of Ballal’s co-directors, journalist Basel Adra, said settlers entered their village and started the assault shortly after residents broke their daily Ramadan fast.
The Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who was one of the other co-directors of No Other Land, wrote on social media, quote, “They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since,” Yuval wrote.
We’re joined now by two guests in the village of Susya in the occupied West Bank. Anna Lippman is with us, a Jewish American peace activist from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. She witnessed the settler attack on Monday. Also with us, Basel Adra. He co-directed the Oscar-winning film No Other Land. The film is based on his years of documenting Israeli efforts to evict Palestinians living in his community, Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.
Anna, let’s begin with you. You were in the area of the attack. Can you explain exactly what you saw?
ANNA LIPPMAN: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, so, we were called, myself and several other activists, by members of the village of Susya that an attack was occurring next to the elementary school. We drove over from a neighboring village. It took us about 15 minutes to get there. As we arrived at the base of the house that the attack occurred at, we saw soldiers, sirens, all sorts of things at the top of the hill.
Myself and two other activists exited the car, and we were immediately ambushed by masked settlers with stones and sticks, yelling at us. One of the activists was punched in the face and punched in the neck. Another was pushed and hit with a stick. They began throwing rocks at us. And we ran back to the car. They continued to throw rocks. They broke a windshield, the back windshield. They broke several of the windows.
And it actually wasn’t until Basel and several others ran over and begged the army, that was standing there, to intervene that the settlers actually stopped. So, as this was occurring, the entire time, the army was watching but did nothing. And we weren’t even able to get to Hamdan at the top of the hill, because the army, who was refusing to help us, was also not allowing us to move from the location.
AMY GOODMAN: The settlers were masked, Anna?
ANNA LIPPMAN: Yes, they were. There was about 15 or so masked young settlers who just converged upon us in our car.
AMY GOODMAN: The IDF issued a statement about the incident, saying, ”IDF and Israeli police forces arrived to disperse the confrontation, at this point, several terrorists began hurling rocks at the security forces. The forces apprehended three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks … as well as an Israeli civilian involved in the violent confrontation. The detainees were taken for further questioning by the Israel police,” Anna.
ANNA LIPPMAN: Yes, I mean, that’s certainly what the Israeli authorities have said. We know from what’s happening in Gaza that they love to say lots of things.
When we arrived, Palestinians had already been attacked. As Basel said, this was happening at iftar, when everyone was sitting down for their meal to break the fast of not having eaten all day. Hamdan was begging for his life while being injured. And, you know, the double standard is so strong here in the West Bank that Palestinians know if they were to touch a stone in front of the army, that could mean their life or the rest of their life in prison. So, the very thought of any of the Palestinians doing this, to me, is laughable.
And it’s such a double standard, because we literally have video proof of the settlers harming not only us, but the Palestinians. The settlers who claimed that Hamdan and others were throwing stones, they have no proof. They have no evidence. They simply told the army this, and that was enough for the army. The police refused to help us. The army refused to help us. But they instantly decided to serve the interests of the occupation and of the settlers.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Basel Adra into this conversation. Basel, this is three weeks after you and Ballal and Yuval won the best documentary for No Other Land. This conversation should be about congratulating you, because we haven’t spoken since you were there in Los Angeles winning this award. But instead, we see this taking place. Describe, from your vantage point, when you came in, what happened. And tell us more about Ballal, your co-Oscar-winning director of No Other Land. We’re trying to hear you, Basel. Go ahead.
BASEL ADRA: — comes home, and all of his family, his children, his mother —
AMY GOODMAN: Basel, can you start again?
BASEL ADRA: — are worried for his safety. Thank you for having me. Yes, I’m starting again. Thank you for having me. I am here at Hamdan’s home, my colleague and my friend. Since long time, we have been in the field together filming. I’m here at his home, and everybody and his family, including me and other friends, are worried for his safety. He has been abducted since last night, injured. His blood was in front of his home, where settlers and soldiers together attacked him physically, brutally, and abducted him. Until now, we don’t know his conditions and what’s happening to him, if he got treatment or not. Last night at 6 p.m., I arrived in Susya village after I got a call [inaudible] the water tanks, stabbing them and attacking the villagers, women, children. And shortly, a military jeep intervened and [inaudible] to help the settlers involved, settlers with rifles, who start attacking us, every Palestinian, keep throwing rocks at us. Hamdan ran directly to his home, which is 50% from [inaudible] the first [inaudible] — 50 meters, sorry, from the first [inaudible] beside the door to prevent any settler to enter inside.
AMY GOODMAN: Basel, we’re going to go to a clip of —
BASEL ADRA: And the settlers, like, chased him [inaudible] —
AMY GOODMAN: Basel — Basel, we’re going to go to the trailer for No Other Land, so that we can adjust your audio. It’s too important. We need to hear this description. So, this is the trailer that Ballal and Basel co-directed with their colleagues, No Other Land.
BASEL ADRA: [translated] You think they’ll come to our home?
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 1: [translated] Is the army down there?
NEWS ANCHOR: A thousand Palestinians face one of the single biggest expulsion decisions since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories began.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] Basel, come here! Come fast!
BASEL ADRA: [translated] This is a story about power.
My name is Basel. I grew up in a small community called Masafer Yatta. I started to film when we started to end.
They have bulldozers?
I’m filming you.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 2: [translated] I need air. Oh my god!
BASEL ADRA: [translated] We have to raise our voices, not being silent as if — as if no human beings live here.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] What? The army is here?
BASEL ADRA: This is what’s happening in my village now. Soldiers are everywhere.
IDF SOLDIER: [translated] Who do you think you’re filming, you son of a whore?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] It would be so nice with stability one day. Then you’ll come visit me, not always me visiting you. Right?
BASEL ADRA: [translated] Maybe. What do you think? If you were in my place, what would you do?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for the Oscar-winning documentary, won the Oscar three weeks ago, No Other Land. Basel Adra is the Palestinian co-director along with his colleagues Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal, who was beaten yesterday by the Israeli military and attacked by Israeli settlers. And we don’t know where he is right now. I think we have adjusted the sound on Basel Adra, who is there in the West Bank. Basel, again, describe exactly what you understand took place, and tell us more about your colleague Hamdan Ballal, who, when he was being beaten, said, “I am dying.”
BASEL ADRA: I was in the place with Hamdan, with other friends. And shortly before, like around 20 settlers, with at least four soldiers, two settlers with rifles, the settlers throwing rocks at us, while soldiers pointing their guns toward us, so we run away from the place. Everybody run to different, like, direction. Hamdan ran to his home, which is 50 meters. His wife and children were there. The settlers, like, recognized Hamdan and chased him to his home with two soldiers. They start hitting him, while his children inside hearing him shouting, “I need ambulance! I am dying!” A group of Palestinians tried to approach to help him. The soldiers immediately shot live ammunition in the air to prevent anybody to come close. And then the soldiers abducted Hamdan to a military base, I guess. Until now, we don’t know what’s his situation.
AMY GOODMAN: We have word from the well-known Israeli attorney Lea Tsemel, who’s representing them, that Israeli police told her that they’re at a military base for medical treatment. But she said Tuesday morning she had not been able to reach them, had no further information on their whereabouts. Can you tell us who the settlers were, Basel? Did you recognize them, though they were masked?
BASEL ADRA: No, two of them were not masked. Two of them were in with rifles and not masked. I know who they are. I know they constantly attack Hamdan and his village. The settler that approached Hamdan and attacked him with the soldiers, before, a few months, he approached Hamdan in his home, attacking his family and [inaudible] —
AMY GOODMAN: In response to the attack —
BASEL ADRA: [inaudible]
AMY GOODMAN: In response to the attack of Hamdan, the International Documentary Association issued a statement: “We demand Ballal’s immediate release and that his family and community be informed about his condition, location, and the justification for his detention.” Have you gotten any response, Basel Adra, from the Academy Awards or any of the organizations since these attacks began?
BASEL ADRA: Like, in Susya, the attacks are since January. Where Hamdan live, 45 attacks, like, settlers’ attacks, on his home, so this is not an isolated, like, attack happening. This is happening in a way and the official policy of the state of Israel by letting these settlers [inaudible] Masafer Yatta and across the West Bank.
I’ve been seeing the news covering this. I think also the Academy, they covered this incident. We need more serious international intervention for Hamdan, but for the communities, and to protect Palestinians all over, journalists in Gaza, Hamdan and everybody, not just happened because he’s winning the Oscar — he, for sure, deserve, like, to be protected — but all Palestinians living under this brutal occupation.
AMY GOODMAN: Have the attacks gotten worse since you won the Oscar?
BASEL ADRA: It is. It is.
AMY GOODMAN: Basel, your final thoughts today, as we talk about what ’s happened —
BASEL ADRA: To be honest, yeah, it is almost every day there is attack. Do you hear me?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, we hear you. Your final thoughts —
BASEL ADRA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — right now and your final demand right now for what you want people to understand around the world of what’s happening in your area, in Yasafer Matta [sic]?
BASEL ADRA: Masafer Yatta. I need people to understand —
AMY GOODMAN: Masafer Yatta.
BASEL ADRA: The people need to understand this is not racist, radical Israeli settlers who want to expose their violence and racism, which is true, but this is the official state policy. The army and the police here are army and police of the occupation. The courts are courts of occupation, everything to legitimize the occupation and to steal our land. There’s nothing here to protect us as Indigenous Palestinians and incidents living in this community surrounded by these armed settlers. International community seriously needs to intervene seriously against the settlers, against the Israeli policies, against the occupation, which is illegal, to stop it and to stop the crimes, so we can live our life better than this.
AMY GOODMAN: Basel Adra, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian journalist, co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, speaking to us from the West Bank, from the area where his co-director Hamdan Ballal was taken by the Israeli military, was beaten, injured in the head and the stomach. Again, his lawyer has not been able to communicate with him. I also want to thank Anna Lippman, Jewish American peace activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, for talking to us about what happened. You can go to democracynow.org to see our other interviews with Basel Adra and his co-director, Yuval Abraham.
On Monday, Israeli strikes killed two Palestinian journalists: Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat, who was 23 years old, and Palestine Today’s Mohammed Mansour, who was killed in his apartment alongside his wife. This brings the total number of journalists that Israel has killed in Gaza over the past year and a half to 206. Just before his death, Shabat had shared news of Mansour’s killing on social media and filed an article with Drop Site News describing Israel’s scorched-earth campaign in his hometown of Beit Hanoun. His editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous remembers Shabat as a “warm and funny person,” dedicated to his job and his community. In recent months, he had been under increasing surveillance by the Israeli military, which labeled him a terrorist and placed him on a “hit list.” Despite being “targeted and openly hunted,” Shabat “continued nevertheless to cover the genocide of his people.”
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 Israel has killed at least 23 Palestinians in predawn attacks just today, including seven children. Israel has now killed more than 700 Palestinians, including more than 270 children, over the past week since Israel broke a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. There are reports Israel is considering a major ground invasion of Gaza to reoccupy the entire territory. The death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 50,000, and it’s actually expected to be much higher.
On Monday, Israeli strikes killed two Palestinian journalists: Mohammed Mansour and Hossam Shabat. According to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, Israel has killed 206 journalists in Gaza since October 2023.
Mohammed Mansour worked for the Beirut-based Palestine Today TV. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home in Khan Younis.
Soon after, Hossam Shabat was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in Beit Lahia. Shabat worked for Al Jazeera and also wrote for the online news site Drop Site. In October, the Israeli military placed him and five other Palestinian journalists on a “hit list.” Hours before his death, he filed his last article for Drop Site. In the piece, he describes the resumption of Israel’s scorched-earth campaign on his hometown of Beit Hanoun.
In a moment, we’ll be joined by Hossam Shabat’s editor at Drop Site, Sharif Abdel Kouddous. But first let’s hear Hossam in his own words.
REPORTER: [translated] Are you not afraid for your life?
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] As long as there are massacres and bombings, should we stop? What do you think?
REPORTER: [translated] So, despite the massacres, you keep going?
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] There are massacres and bombings, so we must continue covering and spreading the truth. The Israeli occupation is determined to chase down journalists to prevent the exposure of their crimes. Yesterday, the horrors of the massacre hurt everyone and also disturbed the Israeli occupying forces. That’s why they issued threats against Anas Al-Sharif and several other journalists. But the coverage will continue, God willing.
AMY GOODMAN: Those were the words of 23-year-old Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Monday.
After his death, Shabat’s friends posted a message he had written. It began, quote, “If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed — most likely targeted — by the Israeli occupation forces. … For [the] past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents — anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side.” The words of Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat.
We’re joined right now by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the award-winning journalist and editor at Drop Site News, who worked closely with Hossam Shabat, editing and translating his articles into English. Sharif just won an RTS Television Journalism Award and an Overseas Press Club Award for his Al Jazeera Fault Lines documentary The Night Won’t End. And we’re going to talk about that in a moment. But first to your colleague Hossam. Tell us about him, Sharif.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: A tremendous loss. Hossam was an incredible journalist, 23 years old, from Beit Hanoun, who was one of the very few journalists who remained in the north throughout Israel’s 17-month genocidal assault. And his ability to cover one of the most brutal military campaigns in recent history was almost beyond comprehension. He was witness to untold suffering and death almost every single day. He was often hungry, didn’t have enough food. He told me he was displaced 20 times. He didn’t have anywhere to sleep. He was exhausted. And he buried many friends and many of his journalist colleagues over this time. He himself was wounded in an Israeli airstrike. Despite all of this, he somehow managed to continue reporting relentlessly every single day.
And as you mentioned, he was one of two journalists that was killed yesterday. Mohammed Mansour of Palestine Today was killed. Hossam’s last social media post on his Instagram feed was a photo of the dead body of Mohammed, saying that another journalist has been martyred. Barely an hour later, Hossam is driving in his car in Beit Lahia, and the Israeli military bombed his car. There’s footage of his body lying prone on the ground, bloodied. And he was killed.
And I think we have to be very clear: Hossam was deliberately killed. He was assassinated by the Israeli military. The Israeli military has openly admitted to this. They called him a terrorist, and they said, quote, “Don’t let the press vest fool you.” OK? This is what it’s come to.
And Israel has a long history of killing journalists, especially Palestinian journalists, with impunity. But often what we’ve seen in the past is either they deny that they’re responsible for killing them, or they’ll say they were some sort of collateral damage, they didn’t mean it, or they’ll claim that the journalist — what we started to see was the journalist was a terrorist and a militant after the fact. But what was different this time is that Hossam and five other journalists in October were placed on, essentially, a hit list by the Israeli military, calling them militants, calling them terrorists, and saying they were going to kill them, basically. Hossam at the time said that he felt like he was being hunted. And this is, you know, part of a broader —
AMY GOODMAN: He was getting calls.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: He was getting calls. And the spokesperson in Arabic for the Israeli military is calling him out by name, calling out Anas Al-Sharif and other journalists, saying that “we are going to get you.” And so, this is kind of new, like preemptively and openly targeting them.
And I think it’s shameful, shameful that this is being met with something akin to silence by Western media institutions. These are our colleagues that are being killed. They’re being targeted and openly hunted by the Israeli military. You know, and this silence was something Hossam was angry about, as well. When five journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike in December, I messaged Hossam, just to check in on him, and he responded, “Our job is only to die. I hate this world. No one is doing anything. I swear I’ve come to hate this job.” And he knew, himself, that he was most likely going to be killed, because he was being hunted in this way. He continued, nevertheless, to cover the genocide of his people.
And as you mentioned, you know, this is a 23-year-old who wrote a letter knowing that it would be published after his death, that opened with “If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed — most likely [deliberately] targeted — by the Israeli occupation forces.” And it ends with these words, and I think they’re important: “I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories — until Palestine is free.” And it’s left to all of us to do just that. We will not forget Hossam. We will not let the world look away.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, Sharif, you did the award-winning Al Jazeera documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. I mean, she was Palestinian American. What kind of response — and, of course, the U.S. is funding and arming the Israeli military — came out of the very direct — we saw her killed. You analyzed, with Forensic Architecture, exactly what happened to her, with an Israeli sniper killing her, the well-known face of Al Jazeera Arabic, May 11, 2022. You even have the senator, Van Hollen, demanding the investigation be public. But?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, I mean, the U.S. essentially adopted the Israeli narrative of what happened, which only came after a lot of pressure. They initially denied that they killed Shireen Abu Akleh, blaming it on a Palestinian militant, which was an easily debunked claim. And then they finally admitted, under a lot of pressure, that they did probably kill her, but that she was caught in crossfire, although that claim directly contradicted video footage and eyewitness testimony. But the U.S. essentially adopted that narrative. I mean, it shouldn’t matter that she had American citizenship, but that makes the U.S. responsible for her. And even then, for example, President Biden refused to meet with the family of Shireen Abu Akleh. I mean, he met with the family of Austin Tice, he met with the family of Evan Gershkovich, other, you know, U.S. journalists who either had been disappeared or were in prison. But he refused to meet with the family of an American journalist who was killed.
But, you know, to go back to Hossam, I don’t know. I think that — he was messaging me literally hours before this happened. He was always eager to kind of get the story out. We had agreed that he would write this story about witnessing the resumption of Israel’s scorched-earth campaign in Beit Hanoun, where he’s from. He returned there, like so many people, after the so-called ceasefire, where upwards of half a million people returned to the north where Hossam was. But he was able to go to Beit Hanoun, and he was there when, exactly a week ago, Israel conducted one of the most brutal and vicious aerial bombardments of the 17-month genocidal assault, killing, I think, over 200 children in a matter of hours. Two hundred children in a matter of hours. And Hossam’s article was about what he witnessed that day. And I’ll read you what I translated yesterday, that I translated through tears because he had just been killed. He said — he ends it with saying, “There is no justification for this. Everything is being crushed: the lives of innocent people, their dignity, and their hopes for a better future.”
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to cite what our colleague Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News posted, this video on social media with the words “This is who Israel murdered today. Our colleague Hossam Shabat.” In the video, a child greets Hossam in his car and tells him she was scared he had been killed and that he is her inspiration to become a journalist in the future.
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] I swear I missed you. They said you were martyred.
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] Why?
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] What do you mean “why”? When the occupation entered the north!
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] Yeah?
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] We were about to mourn you, man. I swear.
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] Was it that bad?
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] We missed you. What do you believe in? That there is no god but Allah? I swear to God that I came down to see you.
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] So you missed us?
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] I swear by Almighty God that I came down to see you.
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] You’re a real champ! What do you want to be when you grow up?
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] I swear, I missed you all.
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] Why martyred then?
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] A journalist! And I was thinking, “How am I supposed to become a journalist if Hossam Shabat were martyred?”
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] We’ll make you a journalist, God willing.
PALESTINIAN GIRL: [translated] How am I supposed to become a journalist then?
HOSSAM SHABAT: [translated] You want to become a journalist? God willing, you’ll become one.
AMY GOODMAN: “I want to become journalist. How can I become a journalist?”
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: I mean, he was such a warm and funny person also. In our frequent messages and voice notes with each other, despite all the death and violence around him, he somehow still managed to be warm. And I think it was this kind of rebellion against everything that was happening around him to maintain this attitude.
And like I said, you know, he’s one of over 200 journalists that have been killed. This is an unprecedented rate of killing of journalists. And the journalists that are alive, I mean — so, another Drop Site contributor, Abubaker Abed, who’s been on Democracy Now! many times — let’s remember, Israel has imposed a complete siege on Gaza since March 2nd. So this is over three weeks, not a single truck of food, medicine, fuel —
AMY GOODMAN: Even before the bombing, they imposed this siege.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yes. This is reimposed forced starvation that is happening. Abubaker is 22 years old. He’s suffering from malnutrition. He just messaged me the other day. He said he’s completely worn out. He can’t get out of bed. He’s in pain. His body aches. He needs galvanized multivitamins and other medicines. We’re trying to get it to him. I’m speaking to doctors that we know in Gaza. They said there’s no supplies, and they can’t get anything to him.
Another journalist who also writes for Drop Site, Rasha Abou Jalal, she almost died last week when the Israeli military bombed. She’s in Gaza City, one of the many people who returned to the north. They bombed the house right next to her. The wall collapsed on the room where she usually sleeps with her husband and five children. They just happened to be sleeping in the room next door because it was warmer. And, you know, they managed to survive, miraculously, although 11 people were killed, their neighbors, including an 8-year-old girl.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Abubaker Abed speaking on Democracy Now! just in the last few weeks.
ABUBAKER ABED: People have not yet recovered from the endless trauma they have been through during the past 15 months. We haven’t taken a breath from what we have been enduring. And it’s just happened all out of a sudden. We were harshly awakened. We couldn’t really understand what was happening. I’m talking to you, and I’m literally shaking.
People have to understand that the people of Gaza cannot really go into any more seconds of this war. This is just indiscriminate, unbearable, insurmountable, inconceivable. I don’t know what else, what more ways I can tell you to describe the scenes at the moment.
People don’t know we have right now overpricing and a scarcity of food items. People don’t know people have spent their days, the past 24 hours, without a single meal at all. I know families in pain, [inaudible] family. And for me personally, I just had some bread along with some cheese. The prices are insane.
Everything is going right now is absolutely insane. It’s just about, like, you are hearing your neighbors screaming in pain. That kind of screams and that kind of several bombings that has happened over time has just reawoke a lot of painful memories that I’ve been through and that I’ve had during the past 15 months.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Abubaker Abed speaking on Democracy Now!, 22 years old. And when we show him on video — we’re showing him on video now — he’s getting skinnier and skinnier. I was with you Sunday, Sharif, when you were getting those texts where he said his whole body is aching.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, I mean, he’s suffering the way millions of Palestinians in Gaza are suffering because of the siege. And, you know, the Ministry of Health just put out, by the way, a report that’s over a thousand pages with the names and ages and ID numbers of over 50,000 Palestinians that have been confirmed dead. These are just the ones that have passed through public hospitals, 50,000 Palestinians. There’s 400 pages that are just the names of children. The first 27 pages, the age is listed as zero, because those are people, children, babies, under the age of 1 who were killed.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, you and your Al Jazeera team just won two major documentary awards — RTS, that’s Royal Television Society — you picked up this award in London — and then the Overseas Press Club Award, much coveted award — for your documentary on Gaza, The Night Won’t End. And if you can tell us where your title came from, and also the fact, and what you talked about when you came on Democracy Now!, of the level which you depended on Palestinian journalists in Gaza to bring us the images of what is happening there? Let’s remember, Israel forbid Western journalists from entering Gaza.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, these awards are testaments to the journalists in Gaza who really made this documentary. They’re the ones who filmed everything in Gaza. They did the interviews. The Overseas Press Club Award actually cites the cinematic shots of the documentary. So, this is an award that’s testament to them.
I need to say something about the Royal Television Society Awards, though. At the award ceremony in London earlier this month, they were supposed to present a special award honoring Palestinian journalists in Gaza. That was rescinded at the last minute — I didn’t know this at the time — because it said they didn’t want to add fuel to the fire surrounding a BBC documentary, that was titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, because the child narrator’s father was once a Hamas minister. So, instead of calling out the BBC —
AMY GOODMAN: And BBC revoked that —
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, pulled the documentary. And instead of calling out the BBC for doing this under pressure, a documentary about children surviving a genocide and narrating it, the RTS pulled the award honoring Palestinian journalists because it was, quote, “a political football.” But this caused outrage, and over 400 journalists and media workers signed a letter opposing this. And actually, they will be reinstating that award today in London for Palestinian journalists, who deserve, you know, all of our support. And we have to fight for justice for them, because they’re being killed at an unprecedented rate.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much, Sharif, for all of your work in bringing out the voices and reports of people in Gaza. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, award-winning journalist, editor at Drop Site News, correspondent on the Fault Lines documentary The Night Won’t End on Al Jazeera English.
We go to Gaza for a report on the brutal conditions of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians from Abubaker Abed, a 22-year-old journalist who has recently been diagnosed with malnutrition as a result of Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip. “It’s unending misery,” says Abed. “We’re here stranded. We’re seeing the systematic killing of everyone, as Israel is targeting every single one here in Gaza.” In the week since Israel’s abrupt desertion of its ceasefire agreement, says Abed, the total suffering in Gaza “is much worse than ever before.” He pleads for international intervention and accountability. “As long as the world allows Israel to do so, this will not stop.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Before we go, because this is — we are a live broadcast, unlike a lot of programs on television that put together taped pieces. It looks like we just got Abubaker Abed. He is in Deir al-Balah. He is under siege right now.
Abubaker, can you tell us how you are right now? We have just reported on the killing of your colleagues, the Israeli military airstrikes that killed your colleagues Mohammed Mansour, as well as Hossam Shabat. Your thoughts right now?
ABUBAKER ABED: I think there are no specific thoughts to tell you, but it’s unending misery, something that we can’t really imagine. You know, it’s taken a very heavy toll on every single one here, particularly the children. We’re here stranded. We’re seeing the systematic killing of everyone, as Israel is targeting every single one here in Gaza. We’re seeing assassinations of journalists, medical staffers and ordinary people. So, Israel does not spare anyone in its attacks.
And we are hoping people to help after the killing of more than 700 people in the past seven days, that this will stop, because I’ve been talking to people outside, and they are very desperate for an end to this. People are now we want an end to this genocide. We don’t need anything more. And that’s what they need, because they cannot really keep grieving more people. They cannot really keep grieving, you know, the losses of their loved ones, the losses of their entire families. That’s why when we talk about this particular issue, people don’t know what to do.
It’s an indescribable feeling that they are being killed every single day, that they are being killed every single moment and that we are into siege for more than 20 days. There’s no food available. A lot of people are being taken to the hospital to receive treatment, where doctors cannot really give the proper treatment for them, and the medications are not available. Israel has been blocking the two crossings, not allowing a trickle, one single truck into Gaza. And that has really left people on the cusp of imminent death. So, we are talking about death, that we are facing death in every single direction, from the starvation, from the relentless bombardments and from the conditions that we are living under. So it’s a very, very horrific situation.
AMY GOODMAN: And how, Abubaker, are you personally feeling, meaning physically your ailments right now?
ABUBAKER ABED: Yeah, for me, like, yeah, I’ve been diagnosed with malnutrition. I know that. I’m trying to recover, with no means at all. I’m trying to have a way through this. But, unfortunately, there is no help at all coming from outside or coming from inside, because I’m helpless towards myself. My family is helpless towards me. The doctors around me are also helpless, because there are nothing — there is nothing that I can really opt for so I can really help myself recover from the trauma, from the illness that I have.
And that’s not only me, because I’ve been seeing around me many of the children who are malnourished and who are desperate for food and desperate for everything, because even the free food that people have been receiving is no longer available, and the same here. We’re talking about that there’s a scarcity of every food staple inside the territory, like vegetables, like fruits and those much, much-needed food staples for the population. So, how can people really cope with such an incredibly dire situation, that people don’t have anything, that people do just — have just now resorted to canned food? Canned food is not helpful for us. Canned food is of a very, very bad quality. And that’s what Israel has been doing.
So, as long as the world allows Israel to do so, this will not stop. We need more people to come out in the streets, to close the roads and to go on global strikes to make sure that this can be lifted, that this blockade and this aggression can be stopped. Other than that, all that we will see is just more killings and mass murders of Palestinians. And all that you will see is more suffering and more painful memories and pictures that you have been keep watching for the past 17 months. And that’s now phase two of the genocide.
So, nothing — like, no one in Gaza feels safe anymore. No one in Gaza realizes what they are going through, because what they are going through is now going beyond hellish, because this time of the genocide, the seven days that we have been living through, is a much, much bigger scale of killing, of bombardment than we have lived ever before during the past 15 months of phase one of the genocide. So we don’t know really what to do. We don’t know how we can really cope with such an incredibly difficult situation and under the most atrocious conditions that no one can really imagine.
AMY GOODMAN: Abubaker, the latest news, the United Nations announced it would reduce its presence in Gaza by withdrawing about a third of its international workers there, following repeated strikes on its facilities by Israel. We’re talking about doctors and nurses, humanitarian aid workers. At the same time, Israel is now putting forward that they may reinvade Gaza with something like 50,000 soldiers. We have one minute for your response.
ABUBAKER ABED: I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know, like, how long — how long the world will keep watching. I don’t know what the world wants to see in Gaza happen so they can really move and act and stop what the hell inflicted upon every single one.
Half of the population is children. They have nothing to do with this war. Most of the population have been having gone through or have had tragedies because of this genocide. Literally every single one in Gaza has lost a loved one, has lost a family member. The houses are destroyed. Everything in Gaza is destroyed. I don’t know why the Israeli military wants to conduct another military campaign inside Gaza, because there’s nothing to be destroyed at all. It’s very simple. I can’t really put it into words. But it’s very simple, that nothing can be salvaged. If Israel wants to continue that —
AMY GOODMAN: Abubaker Abed, we want to thank you so much for being with us, a Palestinian journalist, 22 years old, speaking to us from Deir al-Balah in Gaza, has been diagnosed himself with malnutrition. And, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, my deepest gratitude. Thank you for all of your work. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
Israel Kills 38 Palestinians in Gaza; Israeli Court Orders Dr. Abu Safiya Held for 6 Months More Mar 26, 2025
In Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed at least 38 Palestinians over the past 24 hours, including a mother and her five children, the youngest a 6-month-old infant. The family was sleeping at the time of the Israeli attack.
An Israeli court has ruled the prominent Palestinian doctor Hossam Abu Safiya can be held for another six months in Israeli prison solely based on secret evidence. Safiya served as the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza until he was abducted by Israeli forces in December.
Palestinian Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal Freed After Being Assaulted by Israeli Settlers & Soldiers Mar 26, 2025
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was released Tuesday from Israeli detention after being brutally attacked on Monday, first by a mob of masked Israeli settlers and then by Israeli soldiers. Three weeks ago, Ballal won an Oscar for co-directing the documentary “No Other Land” about violent Israeli settlers trying to seize Ballal’s community in Masafer Yatta. Ballal said Israeli soldiers held him overnight blindfolded and handcuffed at a military base. He spoke on Tuesday from a hospital in Hebron, where he was receiving treatment.
Hamdan Ballal: “You know, it’s like — overnight, it’s like many times, but this is first time — OK? — they came, the soldiers, with the settlers, attacking me and beating me and destroyed me. This is first time. And this came — it’s like, first, I got the Oscar awards. So, this, like, lets you, like, think, 'Why they're attacking you like this?’ It’s like hard attack after the Oscar. In the beginning, yes, there’s attack, but not like this. The army, they tried to stop the settlers. But this attack, they came, the soldiers. They came, attacking me with the settlers.”
Click here to see our interview Tuesday with Basel Adra, who also co-directed 'No Other Land' with Hamdan Ballal.
Israel Kills 6 in Syria as U.S. Lanches New Attacks on Yemen Mar 26, 2025
In other news from the Middle East, an Israeli attack on southern Syria killed at least six people on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the United States reportedly launched another 17 strikes on Yemen. The U.S. has been carrying out near-daily strikes on Yemen after Houthi fighters threatened to renew attacks on Red Sea vessels after Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza.
Waltz & Hegseth Face Calls to Resign Over Yemen Attack Plans Disclosure on Signal Chat Mar 26, 2025
In Washington, D.C., several Democratic lawmakers are calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign, after they discussed plans to bomb Yemen on a Signal group chat. Waltz had set up the chat and then accidentally invited Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to join. On Tuesday, President Trump defended Waltz, saying he had learned his lesson and was a good man.
Democratic senators grilled Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over their involvement in the Signal chat. This is Gabbard responding to a question from Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.
Tulsi Gabbard: “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat.”
Sen. Mark Warner: “So, then, if there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways. These are important jobs. This is our national security.”
Tulsi Gabbard refused to say if she was on the group chat, even though there was a participant with the initials T.G. We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.
AAUP & Middle East Studies Assoc. Sue Trump for Creating Climate of Repression on Campuses Mar 26, 2025
The American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association have sued to block the Trump administration from arresting, detaining or deporting international students and faculty involved in Palestinian rights protests. One lawyer involved in the case accused the Trump administration of creating a “climate of repression and fear on university campuses across the country.”
In related news, a judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus. She is a legal permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old.
ICE Agents Abduct Tufts Ph.D. Student in Escalating Crackdown on Anti-Genocide Campus Protests Mar 27, 2025
Plainclothes immigration agents have detained another international student without warning, Turkish national and Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk. Surveillance video shows six masked agents approaching her on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, near her home Tuesday evening. She was with friends, making her way to a meal to break her Ramadan fast.
Tufts University’s president said the school had no prior notice of her arrest and that government officials said Ozturk’s student visa had been revoked. Last March, Ozturk co-wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticizing the Tufts administration’s response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus which were calling for divestment from Israel. In a statement, Ozturk’s lawyer says she successfully filed a petition to block her client’s removal from Massachusetts, though ICE records indicate Ozturk was transferred to an immigration prison in Louisiana. Her lawyer, who as of yesterday evening had not spoken to her client, called the situation “incredibly bizarre and concerning.”
Over a thousand protesters poured into Powder House Square near the Tufts campus Wednesday. This is Lea Kayali of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
Lea Kayali: “We had hundreds of Bostonians coming out here today because they are angered about what happens when one of our community members was taken by armed agents of the state, who kidnapped her from outside of her home. People are here to stand up for the movement that she was punished for supporting, the movement for a free Palestine and to end the genocide in Gaza. And they’re also here to continue to support our immigrant neighbors, who have been getting picked up by ICE ever since, you know, not just Trump came into office, but Biden before him and every administration. So we are out here to continue to demand a free Palestine, to demand ICE out of our communities and to fight for collective liberation.”
Israel Kills Another 25 Palestinians in Gaza, Threatens to “Seize Territory” Mar 27, 2025
Israel has killed another 25 people in Gaza as it continues its relentless attacks. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to “seize territory” in Gaza if Hamas does not release the remaining hostages. Israel unilaterally shattered the Gaza ceasefire, ending discussions on the plan to release hostages.
17-Year-Old Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad Dies in Notorious Israeli Prison Mar 27, 2025
Seventeen-year-old Palestinian Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad has died in an Israeli prison. The group Defense for Children International says he is the first Palestinian child to die while detained by Israel. His family said he suffered from scabies and dysentery while locked up in Israel’s notorious Megiddo Prison, known for its abuse of Palestinian prisoners. Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad, who was from the occupied West Bank town of Silwad, had been jailed since September 2024. He is at least the 63rd prisoner to die in Israeli custody since October 2023.
UC Davis Suspends Law Student Association over Its Vote to Divest from Israel Mar 27, 2025
In California, UC Davis has suspended its Law Student Association and seized its funding in retaliation for the group’s vote backing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel amid its war on Gaza.
Calls Mount for Hegseth and Waltz Resignations as More Signal Chats from Yemen Attack Emerge Mar 27, 2025
Calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to resign are increasing after The Atlantic magazine revealed both officials had discussed precise information about the U.S. bombing of Yemen on a group Signal chat that accidentally included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. Hegseth posted detailed information on the timing and weapons used in the March 15 bombing. Waltz revealed the U.S. killed one target by bombing the building where the target’s girlfriend lived.
The White House has downplayed the growing scandal, describing it as a hoax while claiming no classified information was shared — a claim widely disputed by former intelligence officials. Several Republican lawmakers are now calling for an investigation.
During a House hearing Wednesday, Democratic Congressmember Raja Krishnamoorthi called for Hegseth to resign.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi: “This text message is clearly classified information. Secretary Hegseth has disclosed military plans, as well as classified information. He needs to resign immediately. He needs to resign immediately, and a full investigation needs to be undertaken with regard to whether other similar Signal chats are occurring in this administration.”
Over a thousand protesters gathered near Tufts University on Wednesday after masked plainclothes immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student and Fulbright scholar, from the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Surveillance video shows agents approaching her on the streets near her home Tuesday evening and handcuffing her while she screamed for help. Tufts University’s president said the school had no prior notice of her arrest. Last March, Ozturk co-wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticizing the Tufts administration’s response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus that were calling for divestment from Israel. Democracy Now!'s Hany Massoud and Ariel Boone were in Somerville at Wednesday's protest. “One of our community members was taken by armed agents of the state who kidnapped her from right outside her home,” said Lea Kayali, an activist with the Palestinian Youth Movement. “People are here to stand up for the movement that she was punished for supporting.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today in Massachusetts, where over a thousand protesters gathered near Tufts University Wednesday after masked, plainclothes immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student, from the streets of Somerville. Ozturk is a doctoral student in the school’s Department of Child Study and Human Development. She’s a research assistant at Tufts’ Children’s Television Project. She’s a former Fulbright scholar who was born in Turkey.
Surveillance video from a nearby house shows agents approaching her on the streets near her home Tuesday evening. In the video, you can hear her scream as the agents move to detain her.
RUMEYSA OZTURK: [inaudible]
AMY GOODMAN: Rumeysa Ozturk was making her way with friends to a meal to break her Ramadan fast.
Tufts University’s president said the school had no prior notice of her arrest. Last March, Ozturk wrote a piece in the student newspaper criticizing Tufts’ response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus which were calling for divestment from Israel.
Democracy Now!'s Hany Massoud and Ariel Boone were in Somerville at Wednesday night's protest.
FATEMA AHMAD: When immigrants are under attack, what we do?
PROTESTERS: Stand up! Fight back!
FATEMA AHMAD: When students are under attack, what we do?
PROTESTERS: Stand up! Fight back!
FATEMA AHMAD: I am Fatema Ahmad. I am executive director of Muslim Justice League. I want to start with an attorney statement. To clarify, I am not Rumeysa’s attorney, but this is a statement shared from her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, just to start us off. “Thank you all for coming out to support Rumeysa this evening. I hope to speak with her soon, and we’ll be telling her about the outpouring of love and support. Unfortunately, I recently received word that she was transferred to Louisiana.”
PROTESTERS: Boo! Shame! Shame!
FATEMA AHMAD: “I don’t understand why it took the government nearly 24 hours from her detention to let me know her whereabouts. DHS would have been made aware of the habe filing last night. Why she was transferred to Louisiana despite the court’s order is unfathomable. Rumeysa should immediately be brought back to Massachusetts, released and allowed to return to complete her Ph.D. program. Our country is built upon a system of laws and accountability. We look forward to her having her day in court.”
PROTESTERS: Fight back!
FATEMA AHMAD: Stand up! Fight back!
PROTESTERS: Stand up! Fight back!
FATEMA AHMAD: Stand up! Fight back!
PROTESTERS: Stand up! Fight back!
NICOLE: Hello, everyone. My name is Nicole, and I am an East Somerville resident. And I am one of the volunteer coordinators of the Somerville ICE Watch Network. The city of Somerville and many other cities in Massachusetts call ourselves a sanctuary city. But what does that really mean if our neighbors are being disappeared by state violence for weeks and there’s been silence and inaction? What our community needs to know is that how horrifying this incident and Rumeysa’s kidnapping may be, this is the terror and the threats that our immigrant neighbors live under every single day.
SAM ALTERMAN: My name is Sam Alterman. I am a Ph.D. grad worker at Tufts University, and I am proud to be one of the head stewards for the Tufts University Graduate Workers Union SEIU 509. I am even more proud to call Rumeysa Ozturk a colleague, a union sibling and a friend. Our union stands shoulder to shoulder with Rumeysa, with Mahmoud Khalil and Momodou Taal and with every worker in the United States who is attacked for exercising their free speech rights. We believe that all workers, regardless of citizenship, visa status or documentation, have a right to be safe in their workplace and in their communities, to speak their minds without fear of retaliation or harassment, and to participate in civic life. One hundred years ago, during the first and second Red Scares, the federal government also attempted to shamelessly and violently abuse immigration law to chill free speech and attack working people. The labor movement fought back then, and we need to fight back now.
ARIEL BOONE: Can you say your name and who you’re with?
LEA KAYALI: Yeah, Lea Kayali, and I’m with the Palestinian Youth Movement. We had hundreds of Bostonians coming out here today because they are angered about what happens when one of our community members was taken by armed agents of the state, who kidnapped her from outside of her home. People are here to stand up for the movement that she was punished for supporting, the movement for a free Palestine and to end the genocide in Gaza. And they’re also here to continue to support our immigrant neighbors, who have been getting picked up by ICE ever since, you know, not just Trump came into office, but Biden before him and every administration. So we are out here to continue to demand a free Palestine, to demand ICE out of our communities and to fight for collective liberation.
FATEMA AHMAD: I’m Fatema Ahmad. I’m with Muslim Justice League.
ARIEL BOONE: Can you describe what happened to Rumeysa?
FATEMA AHMAD: Yes. So, as far as we understand, you know, Rumeysa was actually under surveillance maybe for a day or two by ICE agents. So, her neighbors actually reported seeing these cars parked on the street for about two days. And then, she was on her way to an iftar with her friends. And you can see very clearly in the video that, you know, these people just surround her and take her. They don’t explain who they are. There’s no indication on their — you know, no vests, nothing, no badges or anything. And so, neighbors who saw this were, of course, frightened and reported it, assuming that it was ICE. And it was ICE, in fact, that took her.
I think 9/11 and the “war on terror” was obviously a huge escalation in not just surveillance and policing, but the structure of the government — right? — creating the Department of Homeland Security, creating ICE, which are now these massive departments eating up our budgets and coming for our community members. And every step of the way, you know, many community members have spoken out and said, “We can’t accept these things. We can’t keep adding more and more surveillance, more and more policing, more and more militarization. It will eventually come for all of us.” And I think this is the moment where a lot of people realize it is coming for everybody.
AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices from over a thousand protesters who gathered near Tufts University Wednesday evening, after masked, plainclothes immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts doctoral student, from the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts.
Israeli Attacks on Gaza Continue After It Broke Ceasefire, Killing More Students and Aid Workers Mar 28, 2025
Predawn attacks by Israel have killed at least 14 people in Gaza. In total, more than 830 Palestinians in Gaza, many of them children, have been killed by Israeli fire after Israel unilaterally shattered the ceasefire less than two weeks ago. Over a dozen aid workers have been killed or gone missing in recent days, including workers from UNRWA, Palestine Red Crescent Society and World Central Kitchen.
Israel Attacks Southern Lebanon, Beirut in Flagrant Breach of Ceasefire Mar 28, 2025
Israel is also escalating its attacks on Lebanon, where it has repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreed to in November. A strike this morning in the southern town of Kfar Tibnit has killed at least one person and injured eight others, including children. Meanwhile, scenes of chaos are being reported in the capital Beirut after Israel issued warnings to residents in the Hadath neighborhood it was about to bomb the area.
Marco Rubio Says Rumeysa Ozturk Is One of “More Than 300” Visa Holders Targeted by Trump Mar 28, 2025
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed he revoked the visa of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Ph.D. student who was abducted on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, this week by plainclothes federal agents. Ozturk was targeted for writing a student op-ed about Tufts’s response to Gaza solidarity protests. Rubio told reporters her case is part of a much larger scheme.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”
Hümeyra Pamuk: “You’re saying it could be more than 300 people?”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “Sure, I hope. I mean, at some point, I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them. But we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up. And by the way, we want to get rid of gang members, too.”
U.S. Court in New Jersey Hearing Arguments in Mahmoud Khalil Case Mar 28, 2025
A federal court in Newark is hearing arguments from the lawyers of Mahmoud Khalil today as they argue for his case to be transferred to New Jersey and for his release from federal custody. Khalil, a former student protest leader at Columbia’s encampments, was first detained in New Jersey after he was arrested by ICE agents at his home in Manhattan earlier this month.
U.S. Escalates Yemen Airstrikes, Bringing Total Deaths Since March 15 to at Least 57 Mar 28, 2025
U.S. airstrikes pounded at least 40 locations across Yemen early today, including in the capital Sana’a, as the Trump administration continues its military campaign against the Houthis. At least seven people were injured, according to early on-the-ground reports. A coalition of advocacy groups — DAWN, Action Corps and Just Foreign Policy — are demanding an end to the U.S. attacks, saying they violate the U.N. Charter and that “Congress should stop strikes on Yemen and uphold its sole authority to declare war under Article I of the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution.” At least 57 people have been killed since the U.S. bombing started on March 15 after Houthi fighters said they would resume Red Sea cargo attacks over Israel’s renewed all-out war on Gaza.
U.S. Judge Orders Waltz, Vance, Rubio to Preserve Messages from Signal War Group Chat Mar 28, 2025
Federal Judge James Boasberg has ordered top officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Michael Waltz, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to preserve all communications sent on a Signal group chat in the lead-up to the March 15 attack on Yemen. The watchdog group American Oversight sued over the officials’ use of Signal for the exchange, which accidentally included the editor of The Atlantic. Attorney General Pam Bondi has indicated the Justice Department is not planning to investigate the matter despite growing bipartisan calls.
Meanwhile, Axios is reporting Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar is planning to introduce articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth, Michael Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
We’re joined by the four-time Grammy-winning musician Macklemore, a vocal proponent of Palestinian rights and critic of U.S. foreign policy. He serves as executive producer for the new documentary The Encampments, which follows last year’s student occupations of college campuses to protest U.S. backing of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. He tells Democracy Now! why he got involved with the film and the roots of his own activism, including the making of his song “Hind’s Hall,” named after the Columbia student occupation of the campus building Hamilton Hall, which itself was named in honor of the 5-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab. Rajab made headlines last year when audio of her pleading for help from emergency services in Gaza was released shortly before she was discovered killed by Israeli forces. “We are in urgent, dire times that require us as human beings coming together and fighting against fascism, fighting against genocide, and the only way to do that is by opening up the heart and realizing that collective liberation is the only solution,” Macklemore says.
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.
The Trump administration is escalating its crackdown on international students. On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the State Department’s role in the arrest of Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk, who seized on Tuesday by a group of masked federal agents on the streets of Somerville as she was walking to dinner. A year ago, Ozturk had co-written a piece in the student newspaper criticizing Tufts’ response to Palestinian solidarity protests on campus. She’s now jailed in Louisiana. Massachusetts Democratic Congressmember Ayanna Pressley denounced Ozturk’s abduction, saying she was, quote, “kidnapped in plain sight.” Pressley wrote, quote, “She’s a peaceful protestor, grad student, & my constituent who has a right to free speech & due process. Now she’s a political prisoner. Free her now,” the congressmember wrote.
Marco Rubio was questioned about Ozturk’s abduction on Thursday.
HÜMEYRA PAMUK: Mr. Secretary, a Turkish student in Boston was detained and handcuffed on the street by plainclothes agents. A year ago, she wrote an opinion piece about the Gaza war. Could you help us understand what the specific action she took led to her visa being revoked?
SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: Yeah, well —
HÜMEYRA PAMUK: And what was your State Department’s role in that process? Can I —
SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: Well, we revoked her visa. It’s an F-1 visa, I believe. … I think it’s crazy — I think it’s stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country that are going to go to your universities as visitors — they’re visitors — and say, “I’m going to your universities to start a riot. I’m going to your universities to take over a library and harass people.” I don’t care what movement you’re involved in. Why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt? We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. And if we’ve given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we’re going to take it away.
AMY GOODMAN: This week, thousands of students and faculty and community members in Somerville, Massachusetts, have gathered to protest her abduction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio went on to say the State Department has revoked more than 300 student visas across the country.
Nearly three weeks ago, unidentified federal agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the Gaza solidarity encampments at Columbia University. He was also a negotiator with the university. He was a permanent legal resident and a green card holder. He’s now being held in an ICE jail in Jena, Louisiana. Khalil is featured prominently in a new documentary called The Encampments. It’s an inside look at Columbia University Gaza solidarity encampment and the nationwide student uprising against U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza. This is the film’s trailer.
SEN. TOM COTTON: We’re here to discuss the little Gazas that have risen up on campuses across America.
MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: There is a movement to radicalize young people.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Can you believe they are chanting about the infitada [sic] in New York City?
DONALD TRUMP: I really believe they are brainwashed.
SUEDA POLAT: There was a very concerted effort by the media to portray things a certain way and refuse to discuss Gaza. Columbia is materially invested in the genocide in Gaza. We don’t want our money to go towards Palestinian death.
MAHMOUD KHALIL: I was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp, and the university was cracking down on Palestinian activism on campus.
GRANT MINER: It’s completely farcical to imply that in any way, like, Jewish people were being persecuted.
SARAH BORUS: I have never felt more proud to be Jewish than when I was pushing our university to divest from genocide.
MAHMOUD KHALIL: They would just criminalize anyone who would participate in a protest. That was the moment where students were like, “We need to do something more.”
PROTESTER 1: Letting me on the lawn!
MAHMOUD KHALIL: The university would say, “Oh, you’re overestimating your power.” I remember, like, telling them, “There are 60 universities setting up encampments across the United States.”
PROTESTER 2: We’ve got Yale holding it down right now, all live.
JAMAL JOSEPH: In ’68, the students at Columbia took over the campus, mainly in protest of the war in Vietnam. Columbia talks about how it was OK then, but not OK now.
MAYA ABDALLAH: Bravery is very contagious. We kind of watched Columbia in awe, and we knew we were next.
PROTESTER 3: The only weapon they have is fear. And when we call their bluff, they have nothing!
AMY GOODMAN: The trailer for The Encampments, a new documentary produced by Watermelon Pictures and BreakThrough News. Later in the show, we’ll be joined by two protest leaders at Columbia. One of them was just expelled by Columbia, a fifth-year grad student. We’ll also be joined by the film’s producer.
But first, we turn to the four-time Grammy-winning musician Macklemore, who served as the film’s executive producer. In May of last year, Macklemore released the song “Hind’s Hall,” inspired by the pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University who occupied a campus building and gave it that name in honor of the [5-year-old] Palestinian child Hind Rajab. She was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in January of 2024 in a car alongside of her family members. Prior to her death, Hind was on the phone for hours with emergency workers, pleading for help, pleading for them to come and save her. Macklemore announced all proceeds from the song would be donated to the U.N.'s Palestine relief agency, or UNRWA. In September, Macklemore released a sequel to the song, “Hind's Hall 2,” with help from the Gazan rapper MC Abdul, a teenager, and Palestinian American singer Anees.
I spoke to Macklemore on Thursday and asked him about how he became involved in The Encampments documentary.
MACKLEMORE: Alana Hadid had reached out to me. I had seen her in San Francisco at Palestinian Day back in the fall, and she mentioned the film then. And I watched it and was blown away. What BTN was able to capture, I think, was a moment in American history that will be — that we will come back to, time and time again, when we look at resistance movements.
What the students did at Columbia University was deeply inspiring to me, on really every level. But it came at this point in the genocide in Gaza that I think a lot of us were feeling a certain fatigue around. What can we do, our voices? This isn’t working. And what the students did by peacefully protesting and advocating for Palestinian life and demanding that their university disclose information about the investments that they were making, their ties to the genocide that was underway, and coming together and rallying for humanity in that moment was one that rekindled a flame, I think, in all of us, and definitely in myself, of the students are always at the forefront of resistance movements. If you look at American history, the students are always those that are willing to risk, you know, being demerited, being — facing deportation, as we see with Mahmoud, and really spearheading what was to come, which was getting millions Americans back out into the streets and demanding for a permanent end to this genocide.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, the film is coming out, and now the people who are featured in the film are speaking alongside it: Grant Miner, who’s just been expelled from Columbia, a graduate student there; Sueda Polat, who, alongside Mahmoud Khalil, negotiated with the Columbia administration. I mean, originally, Mahmoud Khalil and the others were going to be live at the Q&As after the film, coming out this weekend. Now he can’t be reached. He’s in ICE jail in Louisiana. And you have this latest news of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Turkish graduate student at Tufts that is kidnapped off the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, as she’s ending her daily fast, as she’s going to iftar with her friends, and she’s taken by six masked ICE agents. Can you talk about the latest news, as your songs come out and The Encampments, the documentary, is being released?
MACKLEMORE: I don’t know if I exactly have words for what’s happening. I think that we are under the utmost threat that we have — that we have seen as Americans using our voice. Our First Amendment is completely being stripped away from us in real time, in a way that is scary, in a way that is instilling fear, or as it attempts to instill fear. And you see real-life, very serious consequences to those advocating for peace. You see it with Mahmoud. You see it at Tufts yesterday. You know, we’ve been seeing it the last couple weeks. And people are scared, people that have been very at the forefront, and not even at the forefront, of this movement, that are being targeted right now and risking deportation.
And I think what it’s serving for me in this moment is this rally cry, right? Because if they’re coming for Mahmoud — and Mahmoud, as you see in The Encampments film, is just this very diplomatic, coming-from-the-heart Palestinian refugee from Syria, you know, university student at Columbia, super educated, super tapped in and a leader. And he is a — he is a threat. They are trying to use Mahmoud and everyone else that’s been abducted the last couple weeks as examples of this is what happens when you go against — when you go against our country. This is what happens when you go against genocide. This is what happens when you criticize Israel. And the narrative that is being spun around this being hateful or a form of terrorism or antisemitic is the furthest thing from the truth. These are human beings that are advocating for Palestinian life, that are leaders, that are brave, that are willing to risk their own freedom for the liberation of the Palestinian people. And we, as those in community, this is a call to all of us to step up in this moment, to realize that our First Amendment is being compromised and that we must come to the forefront and ensure that this stops.
AMY GOODMAN: Macklemore, I was wondering if you can share with people your own journey. Born Ben Haggerty, you’re now a four-time Grammy Award-winning rapper. And if you can talk about what changed you and if you were afraid to speak out and what it meant for you?
MACKLEMORE: I was on the road in the States on tour when October 7th happened. And the nature of being on the road is that you have a lot of time in the day. You know, I work for an hour and a half at night doing a show. And as video started to come out of Gaza — and to be honest, like, I, of course, knew about Palestine and knew about Israel. I knew there was a, quote-unquote, “conflict.” I didn’t know about the 70 — at the time, 75 years of oppression. I didn’t know about the Nakba. I didn’t know what Zionism meant. I didn’t know about the apartheid state and the system that is Israel. I did not know about the open-air prison that was Gaza. I did not know. And I started to learn. And once I started to learn, in conjunction with the videos that were coming out of Palestine, something happened in me. There was an awakening and a remembering of what actually matters in this world.
And I think that there was that first couple weeks of, like, “How am I watching this, and no one else — how are we all watching this, and no one in the music industry is saying anything? I feel crazy.” And I wanted to say something, but I would have conversations with friends, and they’d be like, “Yeah, dude, if you say that, you’re going to get canceled. If you say anything around Palestine, they’ll come for you. They’ll cancel you.” And at a certain point, I remember I saw a fellow artist and friend, Kehlani, and she had said something. And someone told me she was going hard for Palestine. And I went to her Instagram page, and I saw that. And as it says in the film, bravery is contagious. And I saw Kehlani, and I was like, “OK, that’s all I needed, was one other person stepping up and saying, 'This is wrong.'” And it gave me kind of that push to make a first statement. And I haven’t really turned back since.
I believe it’s my moral obligation, not just as an artist, not as someone with a platform or four-time Grammy — like, all that is just labels. What this really comes down to is humans, human beings, humanity advocating for the most marginalized. When we strip all of it away, when we take away what — you know, what’s at stake here, what — you know, I just — I’m done. I’m done playing the game of capitalism and “let me walk the straight and narrow so I don’t offend this person and that person.” And that was an unlearning. You know, that was an unlearning for me to be like, “You know what? I am not tied to any record label. I don’t care about a brand deal. I don’t care. I’ve been so lucky in my career that I’m financially stable enough that I don’t have anything to risk that’s going to actually jeopardize, like, putting food on my table. I need to step up in this moment right now.” And I felt called. I felt called by my ancestors. I felt called from those who came before. I felt called by all the people that have put their freedom on the line for the freedom of all of us. And I’m not going to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: The film, among others, features Grant Miner, who’s what? A fifth-, sixth-year graduate student at Columbia, who is a Jewish American, now expelled. So, were you afraid of being, as you were talking about, being called antisemitism, when so many of the activists around the country who are fighting for Palestine are Jewish?
MACKLEMORE: Of course. Of course I was afraid of it. But you realize this has never been about Jewish people. This is — at the very root, at the core of this resistance movement, is beautiful Jewish people in solidarity with Palestinians. As Mahmoud says in the film, Palestinian liberation is Jewish liberation. Jewish liberation is Palestinian liberation. They are not separate. But this term “antisemitic” is being used in this way to instill fear, to create division, to continue the absolute genocide that is taking place in Gaza, to center that fear and use it as a mechanism in which to silence the people.
And what we have seen is education is the greatest tool. It’s the greatest tool in this moment. The young people — at a certain point, we know what it is. We see it. Young people are educated. They know the difference between Judaism and Zionism. They are not — they are not linked. Zionism is a political ideology. It has nothing to do with the Torah. We know this. But the way that it is being spun in the media as anything but a movement of love and of solidarity is completely false. So, shoutout to Grant. Shoutout to all — to JVP, to IfNotNow, to Israelism, the film. There’s so many Jewish people right now in our country stepping up and dispelling this insane notion of antisemitism. They’re actually showing the beauty of collective liberation.
AMY GOODMAN: Macklemore, can you talk about the making of “Hind’s Hall” and “Hind’s Hall 2”? Start with “Hind’s Hall” and why [Hind Rajab], her story, the [5-year-old girl], touched you so much. It became basically an anthem of the encampment movement across the country.
MACKLEMORE: I hear the 911 tape of Hind, and I hear my own 6-year-old daughter. You know, I have a 6-year-old. She just turned 7. Hind didn’t get to turn 7. I hear her crying out. I cannot help but imagine my own 6-year-old. And it makes me emotional even just saying it. I can’t imagine my 6-year-old making that 911 call and pleading for someone to please come and save her, and the way that her life was ended by IDF bullets, you know, over a hundred of them. I can’t make sense of that. I can’t make sense of that world.
And really, the song came from a place of — I was writing. I was just — I had no other way to process this. You know, writing has always been a means of me trying to process this world and get deeper into my own truth and this human experience. And I was so moved by what the students at Columbia were doing. I was so moved by — by their bravery and taking over Hamilton Hall, you know, being reminded of resistance movements of the past, of seeing that the students have never been wrong. They have always been on the right side of history. And look at what they’re doing again. Look at what they are doing again. They are leading not only our country, but showing the rest of the world what it looks like to risk, to risk all — you know, again, they paid — who knows how much money they paid to go to college there at Columbia University? They are uprooting this notion of “I need to protect myself,” and they stepped in. And I think that it came in a time where we were all feeling that fatigue, and Columbia reminded us of what is possible.
And it spread. It spread to universities all across the country. That news got back to those kids in Gaza. They saw, “You know what? Although the U.S. is literally bombing us, Israel is literally killing us, there are people out there that know that our lives are worth the exact same as anyone else in this world.” Those kids in Gaza felt seen.
And the students at Columbia reminded me of what it means to show up. And I remember I came home one day, I went to yoga, and I left yoga, and my heart was feeling open, and I heard this sample by Fairuz that my friend Tamara had played me. And it came on in the car, and it was divine timing. I came right down here to this chair that I’m in, and that song wrote itself. You know, I believe that songs that come from source write themselves. I was just — I happened to have the pen in my hand at that moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you share a few lines with us of “Hind’s Hall”?
MACKLEMORE: [rapping] The people, they won’t leave What is threatenin’ about divesting and wantin’ peace? The problem isn’t the protests, it’s what they’re protesting It goes against what our country is funding Block the barricade until Palestine is free Block the barricade until Palestine is free When I was seven, I learned a lesson from Cube and Eazy-E What was it again? Oh yeah, F— the police.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, “Hind’s Hall 2,” you made that with the help of a Gazan teenager, a rapper named MC Abdul, and the Palestinian American singer Anees. Can you talk about them?
MACKLEMORE: I wanted to continue, you know, continue. I think it was important for me to give Palestinian artists a voice, that was maybe a voice through my platform. Obviously, both those artists have amazing platforms and voices, but I think that my demographic is different. And I wanted to ensure that, like, everyone was able to come and lend their perspective on what’s going on right now, and have it be as heard by as many people as possible.
Anees and I had been going back and forth, and we had kind of both talked about, like, “Yo, we got to do something. We got to say something. You know, we got to make a song.” And it was the perfect opportunity. And right after “Hind’s Hall” came out — it was probably within a couple days — I was in New Zealand. And I hit Anees, and I was like, “Bro, we got to do — we got to do a remix to this.” And I started making the beat. We started sending things back and forth. And slowly, you know, in the next four months, the song was made.
My guy Ghazi from Empire Records put me in touch with MC Abdul, 15 years old, you know, from Palestine, who’s just a phenomenal MC, phenomenal person. And yeah, he sent his verse in. And just the imagery — you know, he’s able to tell a story that I’m not able to tell. He’s able to tell us a very personal story about, you know, losing family, about getting out, about the Palestinian struggle from the perspective of a Palestinian that’s from Palestine. And that voice needs to be heard.
So, to me, it’s just, we are storytellers. We are — art is the greatest form of resistance, or a form of resistance. And “Hind’s Hall 2” was birthed out of that resistance and coming from a place of “We are going to tell our story and not have it be told by anybody else.”
AMY GOODMAN: Macklemore, what do you hope will happen with the film The Encampments, that’s just opening today in different theaters, from Los Angeles to New York?
MACKLEMORE: I hope it wakes up people’s hearts. I hope it reminds people, it serves as a deep reminder, that we are all connected, that it dispels any notion of division, and yet what it actually shows is true solidarity. I hope that it rewrites this history. I think this history — the truth will be our history, as much as it’s attempted to be censored right now. But I think that it will remind people, again, that the students are never wrong. It rekindles bravery. It rekindles courage. And it’s a call to action. We need to get mobilized, organized, And we are in urgent, dire times that require us as human beings coming together and fighting against fascism, fighting against genocide, and the only way to do that is by opening up the heart and realizing that collective liberation is the only solution.
AMY GOODMAN: Four-time Grammy-winning musician Macklemore. He’s the executive producer of the new documentary The Encampments, which is opening in the next week in New York, in Los Angeles and beyond. Coming up, we speak to two Columbia graduate students, one who’s just been expelled, as well as the producer of The Encampments. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Hind’s Hall 2” by Macklemore, featuring Anees and the teen MC Abdul and Amer Zahr.
The new documentary The Encampments, produced by Watermelon Pictures and BreakThrough News, is an insider’s look at the student protest movement to demand divestment from the U.S. and Israeli weapons industry and an end to the genocide in Gaza. The film focuses on last year’s student encampment at Columbia University and features student leaders including Mahmoud Khalil, who was chosen by the university as a liaison between the administration and students. Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident, has since been arrested and detained by immigration enforcement as part of the Trump administration’s attempt to deport immigrants who exercise their right to free speech and protest. “Columbia has gone to every extent to try to censor this movement,” says Munir Atalla, a producer for the film and a former film professor at Columbia.
We speak with Atalla; Sueda Polat, a Columbia graduate student and fellow campus negotiator with Khalil; and Grant Miner, a former Columbia graduate student and president of the student workers’ union who was expelled from the school over his participation in the protests. “Functionally, I was expelled for speaking out against genocide,” he says. All three of our guests emphasize their continued commitment to pro-Palestine activism even in the face of increasing institutional repression. The Encampments is opening nationwide in April.
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 look at this new documentary, The Encampments, about the historic Columbia University Gaza solidarity encampment and the nationwide student uprising against U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza. The film prominently features Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia graduate student protest negotiator who was seized by federal agents three weeks ago and remains locked up in an ICE jail in Louisiana. There is a court hearing for him today in New Jersey. This is a clip of Mahmoud Khalil from the documentary.
MAHMOUD KHALIL: I was approached the night of the encampment that I would be the person communicating with the administration. The organizers trusted me, given my background in terms of, like, working in diplomacy either at the British Embassy or here at the U.N. We discussed who’s best, too, to support me, and we felt that Sueda is the perfect person.
SUEDA POLAT: The university wanted to shut down the encampment in any way that it could. When it first started, they were like, “Let’s not let them bring in water. Let’s shut down all of the gates. Let’s not let them bring in tents. Let’s not let them bring in blankets,” because it was cold. It was freezing.
MAHMOUD KHALIL: They underestimated the will of the students. They literally, like, feel that these are just kids. Through my conversation, I just felt how much the university is detached from reality. What university in the world want to invest in weapon manufacturers? Why would you do that? You’re concerned with education. Like, we are literally giving you back the university to be a moral university. Every time in the negotiations when we told them that, they would say, like, “Oh, you’re overestimating your power or your influence.” But then, after the fourth day, they were just like so silent, because clearly it’s a global movement. I remember, like, telling them, like, at this point there are 60 universities setting up encampments across the United States. They’re just like waiting to hear what would happen at Columbia.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Mahmoud Khalil, the graduate student protest organizer and negotiator with the university, who’s in this film, featured in The Encampments.
We’re joined by three guests. Munir Atalla is the producer of The Encampments, head of production and acquisitions at Watermelon Pictures. He was a Columbia adjunct professor of film last spring. Grant Miner is also with us, the president of the Student Workers of Columbia, UAW 2710. He was expelled by Columbia for taking part in the pro-Palestine campus protests. He was fired as a graduate worker one day before his union entered bargaining talks. He’s president of the local UAW at Columbia. And Sueda Polat is with us, graduate student in human rights at Columbia University. Along with Mahmoud, she negotiated between the student activists and the Columbia administration.
Sueda, I want to begin with you. It’s also where the film begins, very movingly, as you talk about why you even came to Columbia as a graduate student in human rights, that that’s not a common major.
SUEDA POLAT: It most definitely isn’t a common major. This is my graduate degree. And prior to that, I was in sociology. But before starting at Columbia University, I spent some time in Palestine, particularly in the West Bank. And I think it was — just seeing the strangulation of life in Palestine, the squashing of people and the regular indignities that they’ve been exposed to in their everyday life, I think, was a very transformative political moment for me.
And upon returning from the West Bank, I knew I wanted to work on the Palestinian liberation movement. And in the United States, Columbia University had the strongest record particularly for Palestine, with the Center for Palestine Studies, as well as being like a host for so many scholars of Palestine, of Edward Said, of Joseph Massad and so many other professors. And it was also known as being a protest school. And I felt that it would be the right fit. But I was sorely mistaken.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how did you end up being a chief negotiator between the students and the university, along with Mahmoud? So, the two of you worked side by side as you met with the administration.
SUEDA POLAT: I think the first few days of the encampment, particularly, were very confusing for a lot of people. On the first night of the first encampment, prior to the arrests, is when the administration first reached out, wanting to talk about what our demands were. At the time, like Mahmoud said in the documentary, he had a lot of experience in diplomacy, but he didn’t want to go in alone. And some of my friends recommended me to meet with the administration with him.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you mean he had experience in diplomacy?
SUEDA POLAT: I mean, he’s been working at the Palestine Mission at the United Nations. He’s at SIPA, where he studies a lot of diplomacy, international relations.
AMY GOODMAN: The School of International Affairs at Columbia.
SUEDA POLAT: Yes, the School of International Affairs at Columbia University. And he’s also — you know, he’s 30 years old. He’s very experienced. He’s a diplomat through and through. So he was a good choice.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to go to another clip from the film Encampments.
SUEDA POLAT: The genocide did not start on October 7th. Neither did the pro-Palestinian movement generally on campus. Students had already pushed, like, divestment referendums in previous years. We had voted on divestment referendums at various colleges within Columbia. All of them passed.
NAYE IDRISS: Immediately, the president sent out an email saying, “We don’t have actual general consensus amongst the student body or amongst our community,” in which they include in the community the Columbia alumni.
Free, free Palestine!
PROTESTERS: Free, free Palestine!
NAYE IDRISS: Free, free, free Palestine!
PROTESTERS: Free, free, free Palestine!
NAYE IDRISS: What do we want?
PROTESTERS: Justice!
NAYE IDRISS: When do we want it?
PROTESTERS: Now!
GRANT MINER: We had done everything we could think of. We did peaceful protest. That was ignored. We did strategic interruptions. That was ignored and punished. Students had written up this whole divestment proposal, saying that it is not only possible, but would be easy. And that was just dismissed out of hand.
MAHMOUD KHALIL: They changed all the protest rules. They wouldn’t approve any of our events. They would just criminalize anyone who would participated in a protest.
GRANT MINER: If they were just going to ignore us, then we had to do something that couldn’t possibly be ignored by the administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Another clip from The Encampments. And one of the voices there was Grant Miner, the president of Student Workers of Columbia, UAW 2710. He’s been fired and expelled, a fifth-year grad student. Grant, you’re also Jewish American. Can you talk about why you participated in this? And address directly the issue of somehow the encampments creating an antisemitic environment. When Democracy Now! went to cover it, so many of the students involved were Jewish students.
GRANT MINER: Yes. I mean, why I participated in it, there’s a number of reasons. I’m a labor organizer. It’s really important to our members that we had a firm, firm stance on this. We are a social justice union. The UAW, more broadly, practices social justice unionism.
AMY GOODMAN: And you were a graduate instructor.
GRANT MINER: Yes, yes. And so, you know, it was important that we were there. I think, as a Jewish person, as well, it was important to me that we be visible in the Palestine movement.
And I guess to address the sort of specter of antisemitism in the encampments, I mean, to be honest with you, it’s just not something I have ever experienced in the Palestine movement. The encampments, in particular, were enormously welcoming. We had, you know, services. The encampments coincided with Passover. There were actually members of the Jewish studies faculty that would come into the encampment and speak and be in community with Jewish students.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another clip of The Encampments, with the Jewish student protesters at Columbia and their allies taking part in a Havdalah service. The clip features the Israeli American Rabbi Abby Stein.
RABBI ABBY STEIN: We are here — and if anyone here disagrees with me, you can tell me, but I think we are here because we are Jews, not just because we happen to be, because that is part of who we are, to fight for liberation of every human being, to know that every human being is a divine image. That is what we’re doing right now. And we are separating ourselves from people who are somehow incapable of seeing that. We are fighting for the divine spark, for b’tselem elohim in every person. You are all so amazing, and it’s an honor to be here with you.
JEWISH STUDENT: If you’re familiar with the Havdalah service, please sing loudly and proudly. If you’re not, please sing loudly and proudly. It is very Jewish to not know the words and not know everything, but you’ll catch on.
AMY GOODMAN: Another clip from The Encampments. Grant, you have just been expelled. That’s not just losing your job. That’s your five years that you’ve been a graduate student. You’re not getting your Ph.D.? On what grounds were you expelled?
GRANT MINER: I was expelled for participating in pro-Palestinian protests. I mean, functionally, I was expelled for speaking out against genocide. And, you know, it was really shocking. I mean, I learned this as I was away doing research on a departmental grant. And it was tough to learn that Columbia was, you know, more than willing to just totally concede to Trump, to throw its students under the bus, to throw international students especially under the bus, just to get back some money and to please the administration.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is a very frightening time. You not only have Mahmoud who is jailed in Louisiana, you have another student who has left the country because her visa was revoked, this star student. Munir Atalla, you are the producer of The Encampments. It’s opening in what? New York, Los Angeles next week and beyond?
MUNIR ATALLA: That’s right. This is a film that’s going to be opening here in New York this weekend, and then we’ll take it nationwide next weekend. Already the demand has been very strong. I think people are eager to see the encampments from within, from the student perspective. Most of the coverage of the encampments to date has been from people who actually never even set foot on the encampments, whereas for us, you know, I was an adjunct professor at Columbia last spring, and we witnessed the student movement.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re teaching film there. You were.
MUNIR ATALLA: Right, yeah, exactly. Actually, a lab in documentary production. And some of our students even chose to cover this as part of their work. But, you know, what we witnessed —
AMY GOODMAN: I saw many of the Columbia journalism students. It was quite something, what they were doing. They had a little more access than other reporters because the university had shut down the campus.
MUNIR ATALLA: Absolutely, yeah. No, I mean, Columbia has gone to every extent to try and censor this movement and be really a leader in repressing it, as well. Let’s not forget, this was the largest student movement in U.S. history. And, you know, the students have always been on the right side of history. Columbia’s own history shows that. They were on the right side in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. They were on the right side in the ’90s in the fight against apartheid.
AMY GOODMAN: I wish Juan was joining me in this conversation, Juan González, our co-anchor of Democracy Now!, because he participated in the Columbia 1968, basically, you could say, encampment, occupation. And you go back and forth in the film.
MUNIR ATALLA: That’s right, you know? And just as the students stood on the right side of history in the past, so, too, are they standing on the right side of history today. And their demands for disclosure of financial assets, their demand for Columbia to invest its multibillion-dollar endowment from arms companies is not only a righteous and just demand, but it is inevitable. And the sooner Columbia sees that, the more embarrassment and shame it can save itself. You know, can you even call Columbia a university anymore? A university has the obligation to protect its students. A university has the obligation to stand by the core values of academic institutions, freedom of expression and speech.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to have to leave that question there, but the film comes out around the country starting tonight in New York and then going beyond. I want to thank you all for being with us, Munir Atalla, producer of The Encampments; Grant Miner, president of Student Workers of Columbia, UAW, just fired and expelled by Columbia; and Sueda Polat, graduate student in human rights at Columbia University.
Hi, I'm Jim Hightower, and I'm hoping that you will tune in to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, because it will turn you radioactive. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Scrovan, along with my co-host, David Felden. Hello, David. Hello, Steve. Hannah is out today, but we do have the man of the hour, Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph. Hello, the new edition of Capital Citizen is just out. For those who want another round of unofficial journalism on Capitol Hill, go to capitolhillcitizen.com. We have an incredibly intriguing program today. We're spending the whole hour with Nadav Wyman, who is the executive director of Breaking the Silence. Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada. Most of you already know this, but for those who don't, the Second Intifada, or uprising, of the Palestinian people took place from the year 2000 to 2005. Mr. Wyman served in a sniper's team in the special forces of the Nahal Brigade and attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. Breaking the Silence have taken it upon themselves to expose the public to the reality of everyday life in the occupied territories through testimony from former IDF soldiers about what they saw, what they did, and what they felt. And their aim is to bring an end to the occupation. So Nadav Wamen will be coming to us from Tel Aviv. as always we will also check in with our relentless corporate crime reporter rosal mokhyber but first we have spoken often and urgently of the violence perpetrated against the palestinian people what of the soldiers who have carried out this violence Nadav Weiman is the executive director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli veterans who expose the reality of life in the occupied territories, and they work to end the occupation. Mr. Wyman served in the snipers team in the special forces of the Nahal Brigade and attained the rank of staff sergeant. He also worked as a history and literature teacher and was the legal guardian at a home for underprivileged teens in Tel Aviv. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Nadav Wyman. Hi, hi. Happy to be over here. Yeah, welcome, Nadav. We're a little concerned that the Israeli human rights groups, and I think you signed on to one of their articles in the New York Times, December 13, 2023. There were 16 human rights groups. They're getting very little coverage. in the US mainstream press and not all that much in the independent press. So we're very glad to have you on to lay before our listening audience a lot of information that they may not have been aware of. And I'd like to start by something we have wondered here and abroad, the death count of Palestinians in Gaza has constantly been defined by Hamas. And there is probative evidence all over that the real death count is multiple times greater than the present level of 52,000 deaths since October 7th. And so the students who demonstrated recently in front of Columbia University, their chant was, quote, 400,000 dead and you're arresting us instead, end quote. What's your estimate? Now, I'd say it's a good question. We in Breaking the Silence, we don't have an estimate, but I can say something interesting about the numbers of Hamas. You know, until October 7th, in every operation in Gaza, in Castled 2009, Protective Edge 2014, and all of the small operations in between, We took Hamas numbers of casualties and accept them as the official numbers. For example, in Protective Edge 2014, we killed 2,200 Palestinians. From that number, 293 of them were kids and infants. And nobody questioned that before. But now the state of Israel is putting a question mark every time something comes from Hamas because it's easier for us. Now, we will have official numbers many months from now, many months after this war will end. And it didn't end at the moment because of a couple of things. First of all, we, as I'm sure you saw and our listeners saw as well, the Gaza Strip is in rubble. If I will quote one of our testifiers that fought in Gaza now and just came out, and he said that Gaza looked like Hiroshima because everything is demolished. So you have so many dead bodies under the rubble. But even more than that, you talked about the tons of bombs that we dropped over there. Now, when you have light construction like you have in Gaza, not like in my house, the cement walls and all of that, and you use the firepower that we are using over there, a lot of the bodies will never find them. And if you will hear what our testifiers are talking about, so one of the things that a lot of them are mentioning is smell or stench of decaying and rotten bodies or even stray dogs eating human flesh in front of their eyes because everything is just out in the open. So the number, I'm sure it would be a lot higher. I don't know if it's 400,000. I'm not sure of that. But the number would be a lot, a lot, a lot higher. Well, in Lancet, the British Medical Journal months ago, they had it just under 200,000, and they thought that was a conservative estimate. This brings us to Israeli society, which usually has an open press, but in recent years, it has been downgraded compared to other countries in the scale of press freedom. Why is it that even though Haaretz and some small television stations are relaying the truth and the reports that Breaking the Silence comes out with and Beth Salem. Why is it that the majority Israelis don't seem to know what's going on over there when it's, as you say, only a few miles away? Yeah, so first of all, I would like to disagree. I don't think we have free press in Israel. Our press is, it's not the watchdog of democracy. Yes, you have Haaretz, but how many people in Israel read that newspaper or go to Haaretz's website? The majority of Israelis are watching news through channels on TV or through Yediot Ahonot or Yisraelim, the big newspapers that are very, very right-wing. So the media in Israel is very right-wing. The normal mainstream media. Because over there, you won't hear voices of Palestinians. You know, not only from October 7th, but even before that, the views that I represent. You won't see people like me sitting in panels in the different talk shows or news channels. It just doesn't exist. And Palestinians, they don't exist in the Israeli media, right? 21% of the citizens in Israel are Palestinian citizens of Israel. How many anchors in Israel that you have that are Palestinian citizens of Israel? Right. How many channels in Israel are Arabic speaking channels? You don't have it. Right. And when Israelis would talk about the occupation, for example, not even October 7th or the war on Gaza now, on the occupation, it will happen only when a soldier would get stabbed or a settler would get stabbed. The day to day routine of the occupation doesn't exist. Right. But even more than that, crime inside Israel, Palestinian citizens of Israel, nobody will talk about unless somebody will get murdered. And there is a very high murder rate inside Israel. But it's almost only in Palestinian citizens of Israel. Right. And if we talk about Gaza, so Israelis are seeing Gaza only through the scope of the IDF spokesperson view. That's it. When a newsroom in Israel, since October 7th, it's on steroids, right? Israelis are seeing only videos in black and white from drones. And you see like a targeted killing or something like that. It's very sterile. You don't see the lines of hungry kids in Gaza. You don't see amputees. You don't see the videos that every adult or teenager around the world can see in your news channels of blown up bodies of children. of bereaved families in Gaza, it doesn't exist in Israeli media. Nedav, 20% of Israeli population is composed of Arab Israelis, and they have a few members of the Knesset. And some of these Arab Israelis have lost relatives in Gaza after October 7th. Are they trying to speak up, or are they just keeping a guarded silence, both in the Knesset and where they live in Israel? I've got to say that the Palestinian citizens of Israel, they try to speak up. But the problem, let me give you an example. I used to be a high school teacher. My wife, she's a high school teacher. Palestinian citizens of Israel that are teachers since October 7th, if they would post an emoji of a smiling face on their social network, they could be arrested. And it's not just an example I invented, it really happened. A student, a Palestinian student posted her making a shakshuka, like an omelet, and a smiley face, and she was arrested for incitement. Right. The kindergarten teacher posted a verse from the Koran, not even about jihadi case, nothing about that. She was arrested for incitement and she got fired. Right. So in Israel, if you're a Palestinian citizen of Israel, shut up. Right. Because our police, which is Itamar Bengvir's police, the extreme right wing, the supporter of terror, is the minister in charge of internal security, now will arrest you and you will get fired. Right. And if in your workplace you spoke Arabic too loud or even in buses, I see it in Tel Aviv, somebody would jump on you. Right. So the fact that there are civilians just like me, they don't have the same rights. There are a couple of kinds of civilians in Israel. And if you're Palestinian citizens of Israel, you're quite low, right? And yes, they try to speak. And yes, there are protests. But the protests where Palestinians of Israel are holding signs or just photos of Palestinian kids that got killed in Gaza, standing in Haifa, right, in the northern part of Israel, they get beaten severely and arrested by the police, right? My wife and her friends would do the same thing here in Tel Aviv and they won't get arrested. because they're Jewish. They're from Tel Aviv. Let's talk about another subject that some observers here are wondering about. How could the most sophisticated border security apparatus, technologically and human intelligence on the Gaza border, collapse on October 7th, opening the border to the Hamas assault that day? If that border security held, all that has happened since might not have happened. spreading into Lebanon and Syria and the Iran situation, the West Bank. Netanyahu is opposing an official investigation. There's some resistance to that, we understand, in the security world of Israeli intelligence. Can you tell our listeners, how could this collapse have occurred? Was it a blunder or was it more calculated? Doesn't matter how much fences, ditches, outposts, cameras, weapon you have, you will never have full protection. But the problem over here is different. And the reason October 7th happened is because two main reasons. First of all, what Benjamin Netanyahu invented, it's called managing the conflict. which means that we're not going to solve the conflict. He doesn't want it because then nobody will vote for him. So how do you manage the conflict? We continue the siege that we have on Gaza. We'll give them crumbs, meaning two or three nautical miles for fishing, 10,000, 20,000 work permits inside Israel. And then they will keep their heads above water. And then we control them. And we don't need peace agreement, another Oslo agreement. We don't need to speak with the Palestinian Authority, nothing. Then when we are managing the conflict like that, we can build more settlements in the West Bank. We can do the Trump initiative and the guns deal with the Emirates and the normalization with Saudis and all of that. And you don't need to think about Palestinians. But the problem is Palestinians, they want freedom. Right. And we are oppressing them. And we have military regime over the Palestinian territories since June of 1967. Right. And Palestinians, it doesn't matter that, you know, some of them will get work permits. You have some of them, which Hamas, which is a terror organization that wants to break that siege. But when you fell in love in managing the conflict, you think you can do whatever you want. And then the other reason, the other reason is that we fell in love in what we thought we have superior firepower, superior technology, right? We had a huge fence and sensors and... cameras and machine guns mounted on cameras around the Gaza Strip and automatic vehicles driving over there and microphones and all of that. But that's nothing, right? Because the minute you break the barrier, the fence above ground, that's it, right? The idea of positions, bases around the Gaza Strip, they won't. Bases that were supposed to be under fire. They were all planned and built like that. That there would be like a fortress, right? That as a soldier, you can fire from within. You are protected. No, no, no, no. They were built as places where IGF soldiers can sleep. That's it. And in those bases, we had makeshift of units that didn't spoke with one another, that didn't even train what to do when there would be an invasion. And that's important. Let's talk about numbers. Around the Gaza Strip, on the Gaza border, On October 7th, that morning, we had about a platoon of tanks and about 400 soldiers, okay? In the West Bank, guarding the settlements over there, the morning of October 7th, we had 23,000 soldiers. And that is the priority of this government, protecting settlers, even they're committing settler terror when they're murdering Palestinians, burning their field, burning all of that. They will get protected. The kibbutzes on the Gaza border weren't protected at all. Why? Because settlers are the most privileged part of our society. And we have a settler-led government, an extreme right-wing government. So it wasn't only a failure of the intelligence that didn't keep track of what's going on with Hamas. It was our government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, believing that we can manage the conflict, that we don't need to speak with Palestinians, that we don't need to solve anything. And if I'm quoting now Bezalel Smotrich, our finance minister, he said that the PA is a liability. And Hamas is an asset. Why Hamas is an asset? Because that's the problem you introduce into the Palestinian society, right? You say all of the Palestinians are terrorists. We don't need to negotiate, right? The PA is a problem. And why the PA is a problem? Because the PA wants peace. The PA wants a Palestinian state, right? The PA wants to speak with us. That's why they are a problem and Hamas are an asset. Our finance minister, that's what he said. And that derives from the doctrine of managing the conflict. So it wasn't only a catastrophic failure of our secret service and the Mossad and Shavak and all of that. It was a catastrophic failure of years in Israel believing that we can do whatever we want. We've been talking with Nadav Wyman, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, which is a courageous organization of veteran soldiers who are trying to get the truth out about what's happening in the occupied territories, both Gaza and the West Bank. The present situation, Nadav, in Gaza is beyond catastrophic. It's no longer a humanitarian crisis. There's starvation. People are dying because they can't treat wounds. They can't treat disease. the Israeli military broke the ceasefire and has embargoed all entry of humanitarian aid trucks, which are lined up in the hundreds, we understand, paid for by the American taxpayer. Isn't there at least a compassionate sense among more Israelis now that The suffering by Gaza families who had nothing to do with October 7th, babies, infants, children, mothers, fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, deserves the entry of these humanitarian trucks. And what is breaking the silence doing on that front? Yeah, so I've got to say that we are witnessing now the tip of a long process of dehumanization of Palestinians in the Israeli society. Again, it's not from now. We are dehumanizing them because, think of that, if you need to control 5 million Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza that don't want your control, and you do it by military regime, the only possibility you do that, that soldier just like me would... Right after they finish high school, go study in a checkpoint and raid homes and drag kids from their beds in the middle of the night. You need to dehumanize Palestinians. And Palestinians, you can see how they are referred in the Israeli media. And you can see how, again, I used to be a history teacher, how they are referred in our history books. There isn't any Palestinian national movement. There isn't any Palestinians, basically. They are referred to street gangs in our textbook in classrooms. I don't know if you know, but there is a law in Israel in each classroom, in every high school in Israel, you need to put next to the board a map You need the symbol of Israel, the national anthem, and a map of Israel, but a map, and that's by law, without the green line and without the name of Palestinian villages or town, unless there was a Jewish presence over there during the Roman Empire time. Which means that you sit for six years in high school and you see in front of you a map without the green line and without Palestinian names over there. From the river to the sea, Israel and Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt are blurred. So Israel looks like an island, right? This is what you see. This is what we teach our kids, right? We say we are a villa in the jungle. You know, that's super racist. Like, is there a jungle around us? No, right? We are the only democracy in the Middle East. We were the only democracy in the Middle East for about six months, just before the occupation started. And this is what you have in your head. And again, in the Israeli media, when Palestinians are referred, they are all criminals or terrorists, all of that. And then October 7th happened. And there are Hamas atrocities of October 7th. Mass rape, mass kidnap, mass killing Israelis and foreigners, right? Shooting indiscriminately in the kibbutzes, murdering everyone, which was horrible. October 7th for me was a very traumatic day. First of all, breaking the silence, we lost two of our activists. Chaim that was murdered in Kibbutz Holit and Shachar, my very good friend, and my officer from Special Forces was killed in Kibbutz Be'eri while he was defending the medical clinic for seven hours until he ran out of ammunition. He fought bravely. And I was with my kids in the shelter all day long and, you know, it was chaos over here. And that amplified the dehumanization of Palestinians over here. Do all of the Gazans committed atrocities on October 7th? I don't think so. No, it's impossible, basically. Right. But Israelis are referring to all of the Gazans now, just like they are, I don't know, Sinwar or, I don't know, like anarchy terrorist, which is just not true. You know, even in the IDF, you have laws saying that you're not supposed to shoot at women and kids. Right. You're not supposed to shoot at unarmed Palestinians. But we do it. We do a lot of it. From October 7th until the ground invasion started on the 27th of October 2023, you have 20 days that hundreds of thousands of reservists were in their bases watching in loops all of the videos because Hamas, you know, they had like GoPro cameras on them. It was like so many videos and from the NOVA festival party. And then they entered Gaza. And in Gaza, they got commands, every man military age should to kill. What's military age? 15? 16? 17? 18? 75? 85? What's military age? And why every man should to kill? You're supposed not to shoot at everyone on sight, right? But our soldiers were told that every Palestinian you see in the areas that you are invading are suspected terrorists or terrorists because we threw leaflets from there, told them to evacuate. And if they're over there, you can shoot and kill them. And then when those soldiers got back home, everybody was so proud of them because they defended Israel. Maybe they released our hostages. Most likely they killed some of our hostages, right? And everybody's are praising them, and their commanders are telling them that the commands that they are getting are kosher, are legitimate. So they don't think they did something bad. And that's the thing about soldiers. It goes both ways. What you do on the ground inside Gaza, but when you get back home, you're a mini-IDF spokesperson. You say, yes, everything was legitimate. We killed only terrorists and all of that. In every second house, there is weapons in Gaza and all of that. Now, it's not true. I've got to say our testifiers are talking about something very different. Netanyahu has often said that Hamas, which he bragged about before October 7th, supporting and helping funding from the Gulf because Hamas was against a two-state solution, which is favored by the Palestinian Authority. And then October 7th happened, and he started calling Hamas an existential threat. Hamas had a few thousand guerrillas with some rifles and rocket grenades hiding in the tunnels. It never was an existential threat. But he's exaggerating it in order to justify falsely stating that there are command and control centers in every little place in Gaza, even hospitals and clinics, so the Israeli military can blow them up. What's your view of the Hamas threat? to Israel. He said he wants to destroy Hamas, so it's never again a threat to Israel. It was only a threat when the border security apparatus collapsed. It was never really a threat to Israel. Can you give our listeners some estimate of what's left of Hamas, we never hear about Israeli casualties in Gaza because they are so minimal. And a lot of them are collapse of buildings that they were in, accidents or friendly fire. But there have been very few casualties. We never hear about any Hamas counterattack. Was there any threat to begin with other than October 7th with the border collapse? And what's the threat now? Let me correct you. Hamas, it's not a street gang. They have 40,000, 50,000 before October 7th, 50,000 soldiers, and they are heavily armed. And they managed to pull out October 7th, which was a very sophisticated attack. Some of Hamas operates drove more than 20 minutes on motorcycles inside Israel. They entered a classified base and were on the way to... connected to the intelligence core mainframe and stealing files from over there with maps and aerial photographs that they got, I don't know where, after they knocked down entire outposts on the Gaza border. And so it's not a street gang. It's an enemy. It's a serious enemy. And they have a very important card up their sleeve, and that's the tunnels. You don't have any Western army that had to face the tunnel system just like Tamas has in Gaza. And that's a huge thing. And by the way, you don't need to be a military tactician to understand that when a standard army with tanks and APCs and all of that is entering into Gaza, densely urban areas, when you don't control the subground, all of the tunnels, guerrilla will always inflict a lot of casualties to a standard army. And this is exactly what happened in Gaza. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers, actually more than 400 soldiers, died after the ground invasion. Now, I know that the scope of the American society is 400, but it's a lot for Israelis. And more than 800 soldiers died since October 7th. That's the highest amount of soldiers that died. On October 7th, 350 soldiers died. That's numbers that we never encountered. In the first week of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, 300 soldiers died. So in about three hours, 350 soldiers died on October 7th. So that's what a huge, huge blow. So Hamas, they are quite a force and trained and they are organized. Yes, they are not a standard army like we. They don't have a long-range missile and F-35 and all of that, but they're dangerous. And I've got to say that at the moment, we don't really know how many operates remain to Hamas. Israel estimates about between 20,000 and 30,000 Hamasniks. And if you calculate, by the way, the number, Israel saying that we killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and only 20,000 of them were Hamasnik, it means that we killed a whole lot of civilians. And I've got to say something, by the way, Hamas is hiding and using all of the infrastructure in Gaza, meaning even hospitals. And exactly 35 minutes ago, we bombed the European hospital in Chanyunas, tried to kill Muhammad Sinwar, the brother of Icha Sinwar, that now is in control of Hamas. It's all of the headlines now in Israel. I don't know if we managed to kill him. But we bombed the hospital. And by the way, we bombed the hospital yesterday, killing a journalist, a Hamas journalist with a suicide drone. So for Israel, for us, the fact that Hamas is moving around inside civilians or hiding behind civilians doesn't stop us. We fire and we kill them. And let me quote one of our testifiers, by the way, that said that before October 7th, collateral damage in an operation is supposed to be zero, right? You want to kill that individual and you don't want to kill anyone around him. And since October 7, collateral damage for a very low-ranking Hamasnik, it's 15. Or if I quote the testifier, for a Hamas truck driver, collateral damage, 15. 15 human beings, civilians that you know they are innocent, but you say, yeah, the target is valuable. But Hamas truck driver, I don't think it's a valuable target, right? One of the reasons why the numbers of casualties are so high. And yeah, Hamas is using civilian infrastructure, obviously, but telling now something that everybody knows, where the headquarters of the IDF is located, you know? In the heart of Tel Aviv, in the middle of Tel Aviv. And you know where Southern Command is located? In the heart of Be'er Sheva. And you know where Northern Command is located? In the heart of Tzfat, right? And I can go on and on. I grew up in North Tel Aviv, and in my neighborhood, there were three military bases. Two of them classified, right? And it's everywhere. So saying that Hamas is using Gaza as human shield, so what do we have to say? You know, the chief of staff of the IDF is sitting in a tunnel under Tel Aviv. In the heart of Tel Aviv, there is a kindergarten 15 meters away from the fence of the headquarters of the IDF in the middle of Tel Aviv. But that's not using civilians as human shield, right? Because if you listen to what the IDF is saying, that Hamas is using Palestinians as human shield, so every time Hamas is, and that's where we can shoot at them, so every time Hamas is firing a missile on Tel Aviv or Be'er Sheva or Jerusalem, that's okay, because you have military bases over there. I don't think so. I think civilians are out of the question, right? So for your question, no, we don't know what's the numbers of Hamas operatives that are still alive and functioning, but they are forced to be reckoned with. Let's talk about the situation of Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank, about which you know a great deal. There is an anonymous op-ed in Haaretz on March 30, which is attributed to a senior officer in a non-reservist brigade. And he claims that in Gaza, quote, almost every IDF platoon keeps a human shield, a sub-army of Palestinian slaves. End quote. Also, the American doctors back from Gaza have X-ray evidence that the snipers have targeted infants and toddlers and shot them through the head. They have X-ray evidence of this, indicating what you implied, that there are very few rules of engagement here. And all this comes down to what is the moral trauma on these soldiers when they go back home? And is there a mental health crisis here? And are more of them going to speak out at your forums when you travel around Israel? Do you think more of them are going to start speaking out? Yeah. So when the first soldier came to us in December 2023 and told us about the idea that he's using Palestinians as human shield, I thought it was a rogue commander. I thought it was, you know, an isolated event. But then another soldier came and another soldier and another soldier. And then we understood it's a protocol. It's a new protocol in the IDF. It's called the Mosquito Protocol. Mosquito, it's according to them on the radio saying, taking a Palestinian man and put him on his IDF uniform. And in some cases, a GoPro camera on a helmet or a GoPro camera on a chest or even cell phone with a video call. And then... Soldiers were ordered to send them into tunnels, to sweep the tunnels, or into homes to sweep the homes, so there won't be IEDs or something over there. And that's the mosquito protocol. You have another protocol called WASP. WASP protocol, Palestinian, sweeping tunnels, but this time a Palestinian working with the IDF that were brought from the West Bank. And they were told that they will get something from us, a permit, I don't know, something like that. And there's another protocol, which is called... Mongoose? Mongoose protocol. And that is that the Shin Bet, the Secret Service in Israel, took asylum seekers, Sudanese asylum seekers from Tel Aviv and the area, and told them, we're going to enlist you. You're going to sweep tunnels. And after that, we will give you a green card that you can work in Israel legally. Okay, because Sudanese, they're Muslim, they speak Arabic, and you have a Sudanese neighborhood in Rafa, inside Gaza, right? So they were used as well. So you had all kinds of protocols. And I've got to say that after we published that in Arez, with our testifiers, more and more testifiers came. Then we understood it comes from all ranks, different parts of the Gaza Strip, different parts of the war, different times. Everybody said the exact same thing.
The Mosquito Protocol. It's a protocol. Right? And the amazing thing is that as a soldier, you learn about the illegal command. It's called the neighbor procedure because we had the same procedure in the West Bank. But that was banned by the Supreme Court in Israel, 2007. And we used to take when you come to arrest somebody that was armed, you know, that Palestinian will take the neighbor. You tell the neighbor, you knock on the door and the neighbor knock on the door, you will get shot. And then we will stone the house and kill that Palestinian man. So that was banned by the Supreme Court in Israel. So it's something that you learn in like basic training. You see that was wrong. We are not doing that again. And then suddenly October 7th happened and we are using Palestinians as human shields. And by the way, after we published that, there was a commotion in the international community. Maybe we did a couple of press about it in CNN and Washington Post and other places and all of that. But it wasn't stopped. Actually, testifiers that just came to us a couple of weeks ago told us that they are still using it. If in the beginning, it was more structured, taking that Palestinian man, making sure that he has a family in Egypt or family in the West Bank, so we can pressure him. Now... We were told by soldiers that grabbing people on the street, using them as human shield. And by the way, it doesn't only stop after they sweep the tunnel, right? They live with you in the makeshift base in one of the houses that you took over in Gaza. They are blindfolded and cuffed. So you have to feed them. You have to give them water. You have to take them to the bathroom. And an individual can be a human shield for two weeks, three weeks, a month, three months. Right? Which is crazy. Now, the soldiers that gave us testimonies, they told us that they came to their commander and said, okay, this is too much. And their commander said, listen, we lost too many dogs in the dog unit, so we're using Palestinians as human shield. Or some commander said, listen, do you prefer that you will be blown up from an IED or disgust? Your life is more important. And another testifier told us that his superior officer told him, let me worry about war crimes. You just execute commands. OK, but all of those cases coming back to what I said before, dehumanization of Palestinians for so many years in Israel. So you can feel free to use them as a human shield. And that's very coherent with one of the main. We have two main doctrines in the IDF. And one of the main doctrine is called zero casualties to our soldiers. We take all of the dangerous part of being a soldier and put it on the other side, on the civilian side of the enemy. Meaning if I want to sweep a house in Gaza, Gaza in 2008 and 2012. So before you enter a house, maybe a tank would hit one of the walls, or maybe a shoulder missile on one of the walls, and then you get through that wall, but you do a wet entry. So you throw a grenade, it explodes, and then you enter while firing into the room, each room, right? So you will be very protected, but if there are civilians over there, they're f***ed. And that's only one example of zero casualties to our soldiers. And that's something that every human being in Israel will recite, say, yeah, of course, our soldiers are more important. But there are laws and there is morals when you're fighting civilians out of the question. Only gunmen on both sides, the Palestinian side and our side, are supposed to fight one another, not civilians. Before we get to the impact of breaking the silence that could occur in the United States, which I think will interest you a great deal, there are 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, and the conditions are quite brutal. Some Israeli doctors in these jails have testified to that, and they're largely without charges, and they include women and children. And they're hostages too. What is Breaking the Silence view of this as the focus on hostages has been almost entirely on the hostages held by Hamas? Yeah, so after this war started, the IDF built a makeshift detention center in Steteman detainee base, just outside of the Gaza Strip. And immediately, the testifier started to come to us from over there, because it basically became a torture camp. And we uncovered that in the Israeli and international media a couple of months ago. And I say torture camp because there were really torture camps. In Guantanamo Bay, in I don't know how many years it's open, not a lot of prisoners died over there. But in our prisons, more than 40 Palestinians lost their lives since October 7th. Some of them because they were amputeed by medics, not by doctors, and not using sedatives. Some of them were chained to beds for months on end, blindfolded and cuffed. And horrific things happened over there, and obviously a lot of violence. again, dehumanization of Palestinians, because Israelis, the other guards, were told that if you have Palestinian prisoners, it means that all of them murdered Israelis on October 7th. We've had on our show Jewish Voice for Peace, if not now, standing together. A couple times we had Gideon Levy from Haritz. But you bring a different dimension to American public opinion. So we'd like to ask you the following questions. Do you connect at all with Veterans for Peace in the U.S.? ? We have amazing partners in the U.S. They're called Common Defense. It's an organization of American veterans against the American never-ending war and a couple of progressive goals. And in last July, actually, we did an advocacy trip together at the Hill in Washington. While Bibi was addressing both House of Congress, we did a series of meetings with congressmen and women and Senate members. And actually, while Bibi was speaking in Congress, I was speaking in a room next to him where more than 12 congressmen and women from the Democratic Party came to hear what is going on in Gaza, not the propaganda that Bibi was talking on the floor. Speaking of that speech by Netanyahu for Congress, as you know, about a month before that, six prominent Israelis sent a letter to members of Congress urging him to disinvite Netanyahu. They include Ehud Barak and a former high-security official, one of the leading authors in What's the nature of the establishment opposition to Netanyahu? That's a bit complex, but I think that one of the problems that we have in my political camp is that people want to go back to the old status quo, when we just occupied Palestinians without the catastrophic death tolls in Gaza and the way we're fighting now, because they thought that would bring us security. The problem is that as long as there's occupation, we won't have security. Israelis are not safe since June of 1967 when we occupied the West Bank and Gaza, and until now. And I've got to say that what is happening in the last couple of weeks and months in Israel are astonishing, right? We have the old institution, like the old generals and parliament members and all of that, calling for a ceasefire and releasing our hostages. Latest polls show that more than 70% of Israelis are pro-cease-fire and ending the war on Gaza to release our hostages, meaning even Benjamin Netanyahu's voters, they want to end this war. And just a couple of days ago, Bougieh Elon, which used to be the commander-chief of Seret Matkal, our Delta Force, and then commander-chief of the IDF, And then the defense minister under Bibi said that what Bibi is sending our soldiers to do in Gaza now, it is war crimes and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Boogie alone, just a couple of years ago, called breaking the silence us, called me a traitor because I talked about the exact same thing that we are doing in Gaza. And now he understands it as well. We came to a point when this institution, defense complex institution, is against this war because the command that IDF soldiers are getting at the moment, the craziest command that we ever had. Only this week, the war cabinet minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said that we are going to occupy Gaza. Doesn't matter if they release our hostages, we're not going to give the land back. And a parliament member from the Likud party, Moshe Saada, said, now this time we are going to annihilate Gazans, Hashmada in Hebrew. That's what happened to my grandfather in Poland in the 30s and the 40s, right? This is what our government is speaking at the moment. So, yes, Commander-in-Chief of the IDF, including Yehud Barak, and Bugi Ayalon, but also the former head of the Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon, are openly talking against Bibi and this crazy right-wing extremist government. And that shows you that the Space in Israel to speak more critical about what we're doing over there is getting bigger. And in the last couple of weeks, we had letters of 940 Air Force personnel to stop this war because we're killing our hostages. And then hundreds of other soldiers and then teachers and then government workers. You had a variety of letters, people signing letters saying, let's end this war, cease fire now, leave in Gaza because we need to release our hostages and stop all of the bad things that we're doing over there. Before we let Steve and David have their question, Nadav, how could people find out more about breaking the silence? You must have a website, and you invite peace-loving people from all over the world to be knowledgeable about what your courageous members are doing. It's not easy under Netanyahu to do what you're trying to do as you go around Israel and speak to forums and universities. Could you give our listeners slowly the website? Yeah, so our website is breakingthesilence.com, but you also can find us on social media, on Facebook, on Twitter and Instagram, where we published all of the testimonies that we get in Hebrew and in English about what's going on on the ground. And I've got to say that we are not only doing our work, the majority of our work is here in Israel, 80% of it in Hebrew and Israel, but also we work in English in Israel or abroad. And for example, our activists did a campus tour in the U.S. just a couple of weeks before all of the encampments started. And it was amazing because we did East Coast. And in all of the universities, in the hall, were sitting the pro-Palestinian students and the pro-Israeli students. And they told us in the end of the lecture, and they said, listen, it's the only time that we're sitting in the same room together, right? Because our message is a complex message, saying that we're Israeli patriots, we love Israel, we want to defend Israel, but Israel... not the West Bank and Gaza. And we think the occupation is harming Israel. And by the way, I think if you want to be labeled as pro-Israel, you need to be pro-peace. And you need to see Palestinians as human beings. That's pro-Israel, not the fascist pro-Israel, pro-settlements and pro-apartheid regime in the West Bank. That's not pro-Israel. That's against Israel. Do you expect your ranks to swell with returning reservists? Do you expect more reservists to join your group? Yes. From October 7th, we have a flood of new testifiers. And by the way, when we return to fight in Gaza now, on the 18th of March, Just now, when we broke the hostage deal, we had more reservists coming to speak with us, but also on duty, conscript soldiers coming to speak with us. Because now everybody in Israel understands that Bibi is slaughtering Gazans only to keep his government. That's it. Not to release our hostages, not to fight Hamas, only to keep him in government. Well, apart from the war in Gaza, he's pretty despised most Israelis. He wanted to weaken the judicial system and its independence, huge rallies against that. He's under prosecution by Israeli prosecutors for corruption, and they still fault him for not protecting them with a secure border on October 7th. Isn't that right? Yeah, before October 7th, we had the biggest protest in Israel. We had hundreds of thousands of Israelis marching on the streets every weekend and every midweek against the judicial overhaul that Bibi and his friends tried to do. By the way, the judicial overhaul was funded by two American citizens that established an organization called Kohelet Forum. that they are ultra-libertarians, basically, and they're trying to make Israel a crazy, crazy, crazy place. And I've got to say that the same people that protested against Bibi before October 7th, they came with us to the West Bank by the busload every week, because when you protest week after week in Israel, protecting the Supreme Court, protecting the democracy in Israel, you suddenly start to understand that what we're doing in our backyard for the past 58 years is It's undemocratic at all. We in Breaking the Silence said, oh, okay, we have a wave of like an awakening in the left wing or center left in Israel. And maybe the occupation is about to be over. And then October 7th happened. And that was really devastating for the peace camp in Israel. I wonder, given all the activities that Breaking the Silence is involved in, Whether it's time for you all to write a book for the American audience, is there a book in the works? Actually, everything we publish in Hebrew and in English. And for the last couple of years, we're writing a book about Gaza, by the way. And we were supposed to publish that last year, but then a lot of things happened. And we will publish it. But we're publishing our testimonies all of the time. Again, go to our website, breakingthesilence.com, and you can read everything. Very good. Steve? My question was going to be, Nadav, about the loneliness of being a dissenter in Israel, but it sounded like the tide is turning. But tell me, give us a little insight into your everyday life dealing with the people who are getting their information, like you say, from the right-wing press and you being served. Is that a lonely position? Yes, yes and no, I've got to say. First of all, you know, the anti-occupation camp in Israel is getting bigger and bigger all of the time. And the protest against the judicial overhaul before October 7th, there was an anti-occupation block, a very big one. And, you know, people are coming to our tours, to our lectures, to our panels. We work a lot with, I know it's going to sound weird, with the pre-military academies in Israel. In Israel, you can postpone your army service for a year and do a leadership program to become an officer in the IDF. Those are pre-military academies. And we have more than 120 of those. And we walk every year with about 70 of them. We take them to the field. We do lectures. We meet them. And after October 7th, that didn't stop as well. You know why? They invited us and they said, you know, after October 7th, I came to the first lecture to a pre-military academy and I thought it's going to be a fistfight. You know, nobody in Israel wants to speak with us. And then a guy raised his hand and said, Nadav, can you please not talk about the West Bank and talk only about Gaza? Because in the Israeli media, we don't hear what's really going on in Gaza. And in a couple of months' time, we're going to join the IDF. And we did in December, January 2023, 2024, we did about 40 preliminary academies. Thousands of 18-year-olds, right? So, yes, when I take a taxi in Tel Aviv, I won't tell the taxi driver that I walk and break in silence. Yes. And still, when we come to family dinners, my mother would tell me, don't speak about breaking the silence. I tell him, I'm the executive director. I'm doing this for 14 years. Like, and argue, it's a good argument. And yeah, I can say that after October 7th, I lost even more friends. And I heard genocidal talk in every cafe, grocery shop, supermarket, and on the beach, you hear genocidal talk. And that's hard. That's difficult. But I've got to say, at the same time, it doesn't matter how hard it would be. It doesn't matter if they put us in jail or close our organization like they are trying to do now. They're passing legislation against human rights organizations in Israel. At the moment, if the option is to be silent, that's not an option for me. We have to speak. I have to speak because I did it. I stood in checkpoint. I fired the Palestinians. I arrested them. I invaded their homes. I fought in Gaza. And I have to speak because I'm an Israeli citizen and I believe in a democracy. And I have to speak because I'm a Jewish man. And I know what my family endured in Europe, right? So I have to fight for the freedom of everyone. So maybe it's hard, but that's what we need to do. David? Netanyahu is promising to keep Israel safe. So let's talk about accountability for Netanyahu. What has he accomplished in the way of security since October 7th? Is Hamas still firing rockets into Israel from Gaza? Are the rocket attacks from Hamas as lethal as they were before October 7th? Is Hamas weaker today than it was a year ago? And more importantly for me, is Hamas as popular with the Palestinians in Gaza today as they were before October 7th? First of all, Netanyahu says that he's Mr. Security, that he's the only one that can bring security, he's the only one that knows. The biggest terror attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust happened on October 7th. Happened under Netanyahu, right? Netanyahu would say, I will defeat Hamas and all of that. But first of all, you cannot defeat an idea, okay? And second of all, so the Hamas would fill up their ranks in the next couple of years, right? Or months, or I don't know what. And maybe you have more Gazans now, they don't like Hamas and all of that. Okay. But the question is, what is the cost? And if Benjamin Netanyahu destroyed Israel, destroyed Israel, right now, when I'm flying abroad, right, and I meet people and I used to say, for no problem, I'm Israeli, I'm a human rights activist. Now everybody are looking at me like that crazy country that committed the atrocities that is happening now in Gaza. My army was sent over there to do all of that. My friends and family did that. And so Benjamin Netanyahu, I cannot even say in the short range he brought security to Israel. But in the long run, when you think about what he did to Israel... He destroyed his country. Destroyed. He tore us apart. Because his supporters are now... You've got the exact same thing. You have Fox News. We have Channel 14. Alternative facts, they call it, or fake news, or all of that.
You know, my neighbors -- I live in South Tel Aviv -- my neighbors over here, which I love them a lot, they believe that it was an internal betrayal of officers inside the IDF and the Shin Bet that opened the gates for Hamasniks, and gave them all of the information who to kill. They really believe it, because this is what Benjamin Netanyahu and the right wing in Israel are saying. So [that] Benjamin Netanyahu could avoid accountability for what happened on October 7th.
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Every stone, every vehicle
Two to three months. That’s how long it takes for a new spotter to know her sector “better than anyone else in the IDF,” Talia says. “In my sector, I know every stone, every vehicle, shepherd, Hamas training camp, laborers, birdwatchers, trails and outposts.” In her words, a veteran spotter does not need “8200 in order to tell immediately whether her sector is operating unusually,” a reference to the fabled intelligence unit.
It is hard work, often Sisyphean. A spotter’s shift lasts for nine hours, during which she sits in front of a screen attempting to monitor anything that seems at all unusual, even a slight deviation from the norm. Any such event must immediately be logged in an operational report, which is sent to the base commanders, and from there to the intelligence desks of the relevant divisions and command centers.
What happens in practice with the information they have just relayed? The spotters are finding it hard to answer that question.
This was also the case when Hamas drones started flying regularly in their sector.
“In the past couple of months, they began to put up drones every day, sometimes twice a day, that came really close to the border,” says another spotter, Ilana. “Up to 300 meters from the fence – sometimes less than that. A month and a half before the war, we saw that in one of Hamas’ training camps, they had built an exact replica of an armed observation post, just like the ones we have. They started to train there with drones, to hit the observation post.”
Ilana recounts how they passed this information on according to protocol, but even went beyond that: “We yelled at our commanders that they have to take us more seriously, that something bad is happening here. We understood that the behavior in the field was very strange, that they were basically training for an attack against us. Until now, nobody has come and told us what was done with this information.”
And then on Black Saturday, when they saw the drones blowing up their observation posts one after the other, the spotters knew where this was headed. “We knew from the moment the attack began: this was exactly what was happening in the last month and a half of their training,” Ilana says.
There were other preliminary signs too, spotters says. More reports that they wrote, and sent, but whose whereabouts are unknown.
“They never told me what happened with the information we were passing on,” says another spotter, Adi. “We were constantly being told that there might be a terrorist infiltration, that it could happen.” Of course, the IDF needs to be prepared for such an incident, but apparently there was no concrete threat – no matter how many concrete events the spotters reported.
“In the last year, they started to remove pieces of iron from the fence,” says Adi, citing an example of what was written in another report that might be buried in some drawer somewhere. And there’s more.
“In my sector, they built a precise model of a Merkava IV tank and trained on it all the time,” says another spotter from the Gaza Division. “They trained on how to hit a tank with an RPG, where exactly to hit it and then, in front of our eyes, they trained on how to capture the tank crew.”
She says the spotters tried warning that these training exercises were actually increasing in intensity, “that there were more people taking part, and that they were being done with additional Hamas units coming in from other areas.”
They also noticed that vans and motorcycles were frequently being used in the training. And when protests started taking place by the border [in the months prior to the attack], they observed that “there are Hamas operatives who are constantly examining the places where we are less effective with the cameras. They really planned everything down to the smallest detail. Anyone who says today that it was unavoidable or that it was impossible to know – that’s a lie.”
In her words, ”They abandoned our friends to die because nobody wanted to listen to us. It’s beneath their dignity to listen to a sergeant – who for two years has been staring at the same screen and knows every stone, every grain of sand – tell them something contrary to what the senior intelligence officers are telling them. Who am I, some little woman, before a man with the rank of major or lieutenant colonel, for whom everybody stands at attention when he enters the room?”
They studied us in depth’
Forty fighters from the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, some Bedouin trackers and three women combat soldiers from the artillery corps who were on standby: this was the entire force at Nahal Oz on the morning of Saturday October 7 facing hundreds of terrorists – a significant proportion of the 3,000 or so who infiltrated with vans, cars and motorcycles from the sea, land and air. The soldiers had no chance.
“They knew much more about us than we thought,” says another spotter, Liat. “Today I know, and my friends are also sure of it, that they studied us in depth. Not just where we were sitting and observing from. They did an insane job.”
A spotter who was on duty at one of the lookout posts that day says: “There were so many warning signals along the way. Hamas didn’t do this under the radar. It’s just that nobody thought to accept the opinion of some spotters when intelligence personnel were thinking completely differently.”
In April, Smadar sat at the lookout post in Kissufim and noticed something new at one of Hamas’ training camps. “They had built a precise model of the border area,“ she says. “They trained there on how to break through the fence. Contrary to what the IDF thought, their training was for infiltration on the ground, not from tunnels. As time passed, their training became more intensive.”
About a month and a half before the attack, that training apparently shifted up a gear.
“We started to see them getting 300 meters from the fence, and their trainers stood with stopwatches and measured how much time it took them to run to the fence, to reach it, and to return to their positions. We knew there was something [happening],” says Liat. According to her, even though disturbances were also taking place near the fence, “the forces we sent did practically nothing – even the warning shots stopped. Combat soldiers would arrive, fire tear gas and leave.”
Those reports, it seems, piled up in the rubbish heap of the tragedy.
A month before the war, there was an apparent change of approach among some spotters: A senior officer from the Gaza Division came to the operations room on one of the bases along the Gaza border in order to talk about the sector, so one of the spotters decided to tell him exactly what was on her mind.
“I told him there was going to be a war and we’re simply not ready,” she says, recalling the conversation. “That what’s happening with Hamas along the border fence is not normal. That they’re mocking the IDF, that our hands are tied and we’re not even [firing] warning shots.”
The response of the senior officer was to ask for her name, to regard her with admonishing eyes and to “put her in her place” for having the temerity to address him directly rather than going through the proper channels.
“He said to me, ‘I’ve been in the sector since 2010. I was a commander here, an intelligence officer, I know Gaza inside-out, and I’m telling you that everything’s fine. You’re here only six months and I’ve been here 12 years. I know the sector like the back of my hand.”
Someone who has known the sector for less time – but still in depth – is Einat, a spotter from Nahal Oz. That Saturday, she was at home (“in the safe room with the family”), but recognized immediately what was about to happen.
“As soon as I understood that there was such a large infiltration, I told [my family]: ‘There’s a Hamas raid, they’ll kidnap soldiers and charge into the residential communities.’ I even told them there was no way they weren’t coming with paragliders. They looked at me like I was crazy. I started shouting that we knew there would be something and no one would listen to us.”
Then the messages from friends at the base began to arrive, plus the photos and videos from Palestinians on Telegram. “We were seeing how they were murdering our friends and how they were being taken to Gaza,” she recalls. “I cannot describe the frustration, the sense of abandonment by the senior commanders. We issued warnings, we told our commanders, but we’re considered the bottom of the division’s food chain.”
And by the way, the chief of staff of the IDF, Herzog Levy, resigned. Good. Good. He failed. The head of the Shinvet is going to resign in a week and a half, if I'm not mistaken. The head of Central Command resigned. The security minister, Gallant, was kicked off. Everyone left besides Bibi. Accountability reached until his desk and then stops. He's not accountable for anything. And one of the biggest problems that we have is that the media in Israel are not really speaking. Bibi is not speaking with Israeli media. He gives only interviews to Fox News, by the way. And so they're not questioning him a lot, not talking about his failures enough. His failures, not like October 7th. His failures. And I forgot to say that he doesn't believe that he's in charge of anything. If you ask Bibi, it's the army's fault. It's the Shin Bet's fault. It's the kibbutznik's fault. It's the left wing's fault. It's I don't know whose fault. Right? So accountability and Bibi doesn't go together. My question is, is there light at the end of the tunnel for Israeli politics? There is substantial opposition in Netanyahu among Israeli and American liberals. But is there any alternative figure who could plausibly win power that would pursue peace with Palestinians? In the coming elections. Yeah, so the election is supposed to be in the end of 2026, if there will be elections, right? Because they're trying to change all of the laws and make our democracy disappear because Bibi is behaving like a dictator, basically, or a wannabe dictator. Yes, yes. I've got to say you touched one of the most important subjects. We don't have leadership in my political camp. Unfortunately, people thought that Benny Gantz would be the next leader. But Benny Gantz said a couple of days ago, if somebody is talking about the Palestinian state, he's a lunatic. And he said that the settlements are good for us and all of that. He was always right wing. And Yair Lapid, I don't know what happened to him. He disappeared, basically. And the only leader that is emerging at the moment is Yair Golan, which is the head of the Labour Party in Israel. And he was a general in the IDF. And he did an amazing thing on October 7th. He just went out of his house, went down south, grabbed a weapon and a uniform from a base, and fought and saved people from the NOFA party. Because he said, this is what you need to do. Nobody commended him to do that. He was a retired general, right? But he's also one of the most elegant speakers against Bibi Netanyahu, and he's not afraid to speak against him. But he's also not afraid to march in protest in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And he was beaten by police, by Ben Gvir's police. And he's talking about a joint Palestinian-Israeli struggle inside the Palestinian cities of Israel. And he's talking about ending the occupation. So I think that would be one of our more permanent leaders in the years to come. But Nadav, before we close, just for the record, 64 members of the House of Representatives, Democrats, during the last days of the Biden administration, demanded that Biden tell Netanyahu to let foreign reporters into Gaza, including American reporters and Israel reporters, so they can report independently. And AIPAC would not support that. They basically support keeping American journalists out of Gaza. And just for your information, The major press outlets, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Ajahn Press, Associated Press, 75 of these groups put a full-page ad a few months ago in the New York Times demanding access to Gaza. And this is still not being pursued by the State Department or the White House, just for the record. AIPAC wouldn't even support airlifting horribly burned Palestinian infants to ready and able US hospitals. They wouldn't even do that. So I thought you'd like to know that. I've got to say that there is a ban of Israeli journalists to enter Gaza more than 20 years now, right? And I believe we all understand the reason. When journalists would enter inside, so it's not only the IDF in charge of information coming out, because all of the journalists that went inside since October 7th were embedded in IDF units, Israeli and international. And we don't want the information of what is really happening in Gaza to go out. And one thing about AIPAC. AIPAC doesn't represent, I don't think it really represents Jewish Americans. And obviously it doesn't represent me. I think AIPAC... is one of our biggest problems because it stopped voices like me. There is an amazing group called J Street in the US that we work a lot with. And they are liberal Jewish Americans, very progressive, amazing. And I believe they are the true voice of Jewish Americans. But again, our problem, our problem is that AIPAC is so powerful and suppresses voices like me that are coming from Israel and brings only other voices that supports Bibi Netanyahu's government. Before we close, can you give the website once more? And thank you very much. Our website is breakingthesilence.com. Follow us on Twitter or follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Thank you very much for the time and for this amazing conversation. And the best of luck to you. Thank you. We've been speaking with Nadav Wyman. We have a link to Breaking the Silence at ralphnaderradiohour.com.
