U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim

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Netanyahu's Lebanon Gambit: The second front has restored the prime minister’s political standing
by Seymour Hersh
Sep 26, 2024

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Smoke billows from a site targeted by Israeli shelling in Zaita, in the southern Lebanon, on September 23. / Photo by Mahmoud Zayyat / AFP via Getty Images.

One way to understand the dramatic events of the past week, and the restitution of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political standing in Israel, is to recall a famous statement of Admiral Ernest King, the US chief of naval operations throughout the Second World War. As the war neared its end, so the story goes, King was told by an aide that a group of reporters wanted an interview with him. “When it’s over,” he replied, “tell them who won.”

It could be Netanyahu’s motto today. I was surprised to be told recently by a well-informed official in Washington that things had changed dramatically in the war in Gaza—in Israel’s favor. There is no longer a possibility or a need for a ceasefire in Gaza, the official said. I further learned that ceasefire talk had been muted because, obviously, there is now a renewed Israeli war against the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Amid the continuing carnage, Bibi’s standing inside Israel has soared as the death toll in Lebanon has risen.

The Israeli high command now believes, as has been reported in the Israeli media, that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who orchestrated the murderous attack on Israel on October 7, may be dead and the Israeli Defense Force “is now in a ‘mopping-up phase’ of the tunnel war with Hamas.” The American official told me that “there’s been no communication from Sinwar in the past two or three weeks.” The implication was clear: somehow Israeli or American intelligence had been tracking or monitoring Sinwar’s communications, if not his precise underground location. There is little hope that any of the remaining Israeli hostages will be left alive. This is a conclusion that has yet to be shared with the increasingly anxious Israeli public.

(I must note here that the six hostages who were executed in a tunnel late last August were not killed, as I inaccurately recently reported, because their Hamas captors heard the noises of an Israeli sapper team whose mission was to destroy tunnels. The mission took place because the tunnel location of the hostages had become known and an Israeli special forces team was assigned to attack the site and seize the hostages. The six were found dead because there was no other exit for the guards. I do not know whether the guards were killed in a shootout or took their own lives. The full, tragic story was not made known at the time by the Israeli military, a decision that is hard to question.)

There are other facts, I was told, that indicate the Gaza war is in a mopping-up phrase. There have been no Israeli bombing missions over Gaza since last Friday (although Al-Jazeera reported that fifty people were killed in Gaza on Tuesday in various attacks), and many of the Israeli reservists who have been heavily involved in the war since last fall are in the process of being replaced by regular Israeli army soldiers.

There have been no ceasefire meetings or significant discussions with Hamas since the Israeli assassination last July 31 of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas who was in Tehran to celebrate the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, a four-time member of the Iranian parliament. Pezeshkian, a moderate, repeatedly says that he wishes to play a constructive role in world affairs, beginning with renewed talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Just a few weeks ago, Netanyahu was in trouble at home and abroad as the war in Gaza seemed to be an endless pit of horror. Hamas still seemed to be capable of putting up a fight, and the world was recoiling from the constant Israeli bombings of Gaza, the growing casualties, and the desperation of the surviving residents there. Netanyahu was continuing to disregard the anxieties of President Joe Biden and his foreign policy aides, led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who were in seemingly endless meetings in Egypt and Qatar and failing to achieve a ceasefire that would result in a bombing pause and the return of the surviving Israeli hostages.

The IDF, composed largely of reservists who had been called up for what was turning out to be an endless commitment, was fraying as the war dragged on, and the Israeli reservists inevitably turned on the civilian population in Gaza. Just last week a group of IDF soldiers were caught on video throwing four bodies—it was assumed all were dead—from the roof of a battered building in the West Bank to the street.

The American official, who has long dealt with Israeli issues, ruefully explained his view of the long-standing Middle East impasse: “The Israelis want the Palestinians to be peaceful and accept their fate. The Palestinians objected and fought back. A new day in the Middle East will never come.”

Last week, as the current Israeli impasse with Hezbollah was turning murderous, I had a long talk with an Israeli hero of earlier war—he served in an elite commando unit—whose grandchildren are nearing a one-year deployment in Gaza. He was full of contempt for Netanyahu and his refusal to agree to a ceasefire. There are families in Tel Aviv, he told me, who are leaving the country every day “to get their children out of the kill.”

He remains convinced that the war with Hamas was lost well before the October 7 attack when those in charge of Israel’s most important intelligence unit, dealing with signals intelligence, ignored the reports of a senior female officer who repeatedly warned of the coming Hamas attack. The Israeli veteran, who spent his career in special units, said he understood what happened. The men running the unit told the woman, a colonel, in essence, that “you ladies are here to bring me coffee.”

It’s increasingly evident that a full inquiry into the military and intelligence failures of October 7, once promised by Netanyahu, will not take place as long as Netanyahu is still in office.

The retired officer, whose negative views of Netanyahu I have heard about for years, also told me he is totally supportive of Bibi’s current war against Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and the Hezbollah militia. “We will nail Hezbollah,” he said, because its defeat would be a blow against Iran, “and Iran controls Hezbollah.”

Netanyahu, seemingly on the political ropes inside Israel and around the world, is suddenly in full bloom as the leader of the expanding war against Hezbollah. Most Israelis fear Hassan Nasrallah, its Shiite leader, for his close ties to Shiite Iran, long viewed by Israel as a potential nuclear power and its most dangerous enemy. The Biden administration and Congress are joined to the hip with Israel when it comes to Iran, though its closeness to nuclear weapons capability has long been exaggerated.

Hezbollah demonstrated its support for Sunni Hamas after the devastating Israeli bombing of Gaza began by initiating a series of missile and rocket attacks on Israeli cities and villages as far as 35 kilometers south of the border with Lebanon. The Hezbollah attacks eventually led to the evacuation of some 67,000 Israeli citizens, who were moved into temporary housing. Israel responded by bombing Hezbollah and other targets in southern Lebanon. That war has exploded with renewed ferocity in the past two weeks. Nasrallah added to the tension by authorizing his missiles to strike targets up to 50 kilometers south of the Israeli border, putting the historic Israeli city of Haifa in peril as well as Tel Aviv.

The missile and bomb exchanges remained at a low intensity until last week, when Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, triggered explosives that had earlier been implanted in a shipment of 6,000 foreign-made pagers that were purchased by Hezbollah and distributed to its senior leadership and soldiers. Many of the pagers inevitably ended up with the family members of Hezbollah officials and fighters, and the ensuing chaos when all were triggered by an Israeli signal became front-page news around the world.

Israel’s electronic reach was demoralizing and terrifying, both for the technology involved and the obvious conclusion that Netanyahu had escalated his confrontation with Hezbollah while ignoring pressure from the Biden administration to agree to a ceasefire. I had a talk with another well-informed Israeli veteran, who was seriously wounded in an earlier war, who explained that the Israeli decision to trigger the explosives was not the planned act of war that it seemed to be. He said the embedded materials were triggered only because Mossad learned that its action had been inadvertently discovered by a few Hamas officials who had brought their pagers in for routine repairs. It was that discovery that led Netanyahu or one of his aides to authorize the attack.

I got no answer when I asked how anyone in Mossad or any Israeli intelligence service could uncover such a random fact. Instead, I was told Israel’s secret triggering of the pagers was “a brilliant special op but not a plan to start a war.”

The pager blasts are estimated to have killed dozens of people, including children, and injured thousands across Lebanon. The Israeli veteran also said more than three thousand Hezbollah soldiers were injured, many of them seriously.

If there was concern at the top of the Israeli military or civilian authority about a rebuke for such tactics from Washington, it was misplaced. There was no reaction from the Biden administration and the American media has consistently viewed Hezbollah primarily as a terrorist organization, despite its presence in the last decade as a significant member of the Lebanese parliament and government. If anything, the reaction was awe and respect for the attack. David Ignatius, the Washington Post columnist, noted that Israel had not taken immediate credit for the attack: “it didn’t need to. An attack of this sophistication and daring in Lebanon could not have been staged by any other nation. The video scenes of Hezbollah fighters being blown to the floor by their own communication devices sent an unmistakable message to the Iranian-backed militia. We own you. We can penetrate every space in which you operate.”

The next day, Israel doubled down and triggered explosions in walkie-talkies throughout Lebanon. Newspapers reported the death of at least twenty civilians and the wounding of 450 more amid widespread panic and terror throughout the county.

Michael Walzer, a renowned political theorist, writing in the New York Times, described Israel’s actions in blunt language as “terrorist attacks by a state that has consistently condemned terrorist attacks on its own citizens.” Walzer has written on just and unjust wars and supported Israel’s ferocious response to the Hamas attack on October 7 as justified. But the wrongdoing in this case, Walzer wrote, “was Israel’s, and the plotters had to know that at least some of the people hurt would be innocent men, women, and children.”

The main plotter was Israel’s prime minister, who authorized the use of the militarily useless terror attacks that could only bring Hezbollah and Lebanon closer to war. Netanyahu has understood that a war with Hezbollah is a way to bolster his declining popularity in Israel and perhaps some of the world.

The Biden administration has supplied Israel with an estimated 68 percent of its arms, and Netanyahu has treated the president and his secretary of state and other diplomatic officials as pawns to be led on. In his farewell speech this week to the UN General Assembly, Joe Biden talked about his ceasefire proposal, seemingly unaware that the fate of hostages had been overtaken by events, beginning with the assassination of Haniyeh. But Biden did say, referring to the current crisis between Hezbollah and Israel: “Full scale war is not in anyone’s interest.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has been silent on the issue in the closing weeks of her presidential campaign, as has Donald Trump. The political axiom that foreign policy has little to do with presidential campaigns remains safe for now. The one political figure left standing and talking is Netanyahu, still the man of the hour in Israel.

It was déjà vu for a retired Lebanese government official and longtime resident of Beirut who lived through the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel that ended with the saturation bombing of South Beirut, a Shiite area where Hezbollah was dominant. “There is no Washington now,” he told me. “It is a vacuum. As for Bibi, it is a historical opportunity. And the war he is seeking will be awful. He is awful. And it will take a long time, and he will be exhausted in Lebanon.”

I have written about the 2006 war between Israel and a seemingly outgunned Lebanon in which the powers that be in Israel were confident of success. In the end it was, by all accounts, as I wrote then, a wash.

An all-out war this time will be torrential.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 27, 2024

Lebanon Calls for Int’l Community to Intervene as Israel’s Attacks Kill 700+ in a Matter of Days
Sep 27, 2024

Israel continues to bombard Lebanon, killing at least 25 people so far today, including a family of nine in the border town of Shebaa. Israel has killed over 700 people in Lebanon since Monday.

In an apparent flip-flop, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday evening he does support a U.S.-led temporary ceasefire effort, though he’s done nothing to slow down Israel’s assault and Israeli officials have threatened to launch a ground invasion. Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

Abdallah Bou Habib: “Lebanon is living through a crisis that threatens its very existence. The future of our people and our prosperity are in peril, and this is a situation that requires international intervention on an urgent basis before the situation spirals out of control with a domino effect, making the crisis impossible to contain.”

The U.N. says some 30,000 people have fled Lebanon for Syria in recent days. Meanwhile, Syrian media says an Israeli airstrike from the occupied Golan Heights earlier today killed five Syrian soldiers on its border with Lebanon.

Israel Kills at Least 14 Palestinians in Another Attack on Gaza School Shelter
Sep 27, 2024

Israel’s assault on Gaza continues with another airstrike on a school sheltering displaced families in Jabaliya, which killed at least 14 people Thursday.

Rami Abdul-Nabi: “Where are these people supposed to go? They are not here for leisure or fun. These are people whose homes were destroyed in the north, in Beit Lahia, Jabaliya base, Beit Hanoun. This is a question for the international community, which has double standards. We demand the international organizations, the international community, the United Nations to provide us with safe places.”

Israel’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it secured another $8.7 billion in funding from the United States. Israel has killed over 41,500 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7 and wounded 96,000 others, according to official numbers.

100+ U.S. Lawmakers Demand Biden Admin Investigate Israel’s Killing of U.S. Activist Ayşenur Eygi
Sep 27, 2024

More than 100 U.S. lawmakers have signed on to a letter by Washington Congressmember Adam Smith demanding an independent investigation into Israel’s killing of Turkish American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi earlier this month in the occupied West Bank. Eygi’s family has also demanded the U.S. investigate, after the Biden administration said it would instead rely on Israel’s internal probe.

Cornell University Student Facing Deportation for Participating in Gaza Solidarity Protest
Sep 27, 2024

A Cornell University student is facing deportation to the United Kingdom after administrators suspended him for taking part in a campus protest calling on Cornell to divest from companies that support Israel’s assault on Gaza. Momodou Taal, a Ph.D. student in Africana studies, says he was advised to leave the U.S. “promptly” after his academic suspension led Cornell’s immigration office to cancel his F-1 student visa. Democracy Now! spoke with Momodou Taal on Thursday.

Momodou Taal: “Yes, it’s about freedom of speech, but that cannot be divorced from Palestine. The issue why we’re facing such repression and such repressive tactics is because it’s about Palestine. It’s because you’re speaking anti-Israel and anti-Israel’s genocide in Gaza. These issues are not, like, separate. So, absolutely, I think I’m a visible person. I’m quite outspoken on this issue. And I think this is the reason why I’m being targeted.”

Acclaimed Author Jhumpa Lahiri Declines Noguchi Award over Museum’s Keffiyeh Ban
Sep 27, 2024

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri has declined the prestigious Noguchi Museum award, after the museum recently fired three employees for wearing a keffiyeh. Lahiri, who teaches at Barnard, was one of many academics who signed on to a letter in May expressing support for Gaza solidarity protesters on campus.

“No War Criminals in NYC”: Activists Take Aim at Netanyahu Ahead of Contested UNGA Speech
Sep 27, 2024

Protests targeting Benjamin Netanyahu took place across New York City Thursday as he arrived in town ahead of his address to the U.N. General Assembly this morning. Yesterday morning, activists blocked traffic near the U.N. headquarters, unfurling a banner that read “NO WAR CRIMINALS IN NYC–STOP THE GENOCIDE!” before police began arresting people. More protests and arrests took place throughout the day and into the night. This is Jodie Evans, co-founder of CodePink.

Jodie Evans: “He’s executing state-sponsored terrorism. The fact that he was allowed to land in this city and he is staying in a hotel and he is not arrested is a shame on everyone in power in the United States and in the city.”

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Report from Beirut: Israel Is “Targeting Everyone” in Bombing Campaign, Killing 700+ in Just Days
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 27, 2024

We get an update from Lebanon, where the death toll from Israeli airstrikes has risen to over 700 since Monday, following a series of explosions involving pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week. The Israeli military reiterated its troops were preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Multiple Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have appeared across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. As the Biden administration claims it’s working toward a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel is set to receive a new military aid package from the United States totaling some $8.7 billion. “People are really scared,” says Mona Fawaz, professor of urban planning at the American University of Beirut. “Israel does these so-called targeted assassinations, which, sadly, much of the Western press has been celebrating, and they talk about Israelis’ ingenuity. In fact, it’s targeting everyone.” Fawaz discusses the context for Lebanon’s crisis, organizing to shelter and survive the bombing, and the Israeli messaging about evacuation orders and Hezbollah.

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 go now to Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have already killed at least 25 people today, including a family of nine in the border town of Shebaa, bringing the death toll to over 700 since Israel began its indiscriminate bombing on Monday. Israel’s strikes follow a series of explosions involving booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week that killed at least 37 people and injured more than 3,500.

In an apparent flip-flop, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative for a temporary ceasefire, which has also been backed by France, by Canada, by Saudi Arabia, by UAE, by the European Union and others. This comes after Netanyahu had publicly rejected the ceasefire proposal and vowed Israel will carry on, with “full force,” attacks on Lebanon. Netanyahu spoke Thursday as he landed here in New York, where he’s scheduled to address leaders of the U.N. General Assembly.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] My policy, our policy, is clear: We are continuing to hit Hezbollah with full force, and we will not stop until we achieve our goals — first and foremost, returning the residents of the north safely to their homes.

AMY GOODMAN: Netanyahu’s remarks came as the Israeli military reiterated its troops are preparing for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Earlier today, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles were seen crossing Israel’s northern border into Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Lebanese officials say the number of displaced people fleeing Israel’s attacks has likely surpassed a quarter of a million, with tens of thousands sheltering in evacuation centers, in schools that have been closed in Beirut and across Lebanon.

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly Thursday, the Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib urged all parties to agree to a ceasefire, as he said the worsening violence threatens Lebanon’s very existence. He said a U.S.-, France-led proposal for that temporary truce was an opportunity to generate momentum to take steps toward ending the crisis.

ABDALLAH BOU HABIB: [translated] Lebanon is living through a crisis that threatens its very existence. The future of our people and our prosperity are in peril, and this is a situation that requires international intervention on an urgent basis before the situation spirals out of control with a domino effect, making the crisis impossible to contain. It will be impossible to extinguish the flame of this crisis, which will transform into a black hole that will engulf regional, international peace and security. The crisis in Lebanon threatens the entire Middle East if the situation remains as it currently is and if the world remains immobile.

AMY GOODMAN: As the Biden administration claims it backs a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel says it’s set to receive a new military aid package from the United States totaling some $8.7 billion.

For more, we go to Beirut, where we’re joined by Mona Fawaz, professor of urban planning at American University of Beirut. She’s also an activist.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what’s happening on the ground, with tens of thousands of people taking shelter in schools and other places, a quarter of a million people displaced? You yourself are involved with helping to house people. What’s happening?

MONA FAWAZ: Hi, Amy. And thanks for covering all of this.

So, really, everyone here in Beirut is under — actually, in Lebanon, is under extreme duress. Since Monday, we’ve had more than, the Ministry of Health just announced, 747 deaths. That is in three days, actually — more than half the people killed back in 2006 during the entire war. That means that people fled the south really very, very quickly, and the Beqaa. And so, the normal trickle down is instead huge flows of people who are traveling across stranded roads, spending hours and hours on trips that normally would just take 45 minutes.

And, of course, people are fleeing because they’ve just been watching for a whole year a genocide unfold in Gaza, and they’ve been hearing members of the Israeli political class and the generals repeating over and over again that they’re turning Beirut into another Gaza. So that means that people are really scared. And Israel is pounding the south and the Beqaa with one raid after another. And they’re also deploying all sorts of tactics to scare people, throwing leaflets, taking over the public phone station to robot call people and issue calls telling everyone to evacuate our classrooms, our homes. Everyone was getting these calls on Monday and Tuesday.

So, it’s really a lot of stress that you have to deal with, in the background of a country that for the last 11 years have suffered one shock after the other. So, that population, one in five of whom is actually still a Syrian refugee, has also lost 80% — 80% of its population is below the poverty line since we went bankrupt in 2019. We haven’t had a president since 20— for two years now, actually. So, there is a — we have had to basically try and help each other in a context which is really very severe.

And as you pointed out, the schools are closed. Our kids are home, because the schools are being used in shelter. One in two schools in Beirut is actually a shelter right now, and more than 40% of all the public schools in Lebanon have been turned into shelter.

And it’s getting closer and closer to us. I mean, Israel does these so-called targeted assassinations, which, sadly, much of the Western press has been celebrating, and they talk about Israelis’ ingenuity. In fact, I mean, it’s targeting everyone. It’s touching everyone. Just yesterday, there was an attack in Beirut, and it wounded one of my architecture students, a fourth-year architecture student at the American University of Beirut. So, I mean, these are not fighters; these are civilians. She just lived on the wrong street, because Israel decided to do that. Last Monday’s attack killed about 50 people.

I mean, I guess I’m just trying to show the extent to which people are trying to get involved, make a difference, help each other, but really in a very, very difficult context. And, yes, of course, most of the people I know are actually involved in trying to help people. So, most of us are sheltering family members or friends or people we know in our own homes. We also are fundraising for the Civil Defense, because Israel has been actually targeting ambulances, claiming that the wounded are fighters, but that means that the Civil Defense, which is basically the first responders, are losing their lives and their ambulances. And so we’re trying to fundraise for them. We’re trying to fundraise for medications. And because I work in a lab that normally would do a lot of urban visualization on housing and rent, we’re actually really mapping the violence, and then also all the schools, and trying to coordinate the action of solidarity by showing where the schools are, who can take aid where, so as, basically, the university can play that role of coordination and support for solidarity movements.

AMY GOODMAN: Israel says it’s warned tens of thousands of people — I think even the information minister of Lebanon — to move, they say, anyone who’s living near a Hezbollah facility or where weapons are stored. How do people know this, Professor Fawaz?

MONA FAWAZ: Of course, people cannot know where Hezbollah has weapons. And, of course, Israel can claim anything it wants. In fact, they’ve been sending bombs in all sorts of neighborhoods and areas of the country where it’s very unlikely that Hezbollah has any weapons. And the point is to basically set people against the party and to basically make it seem as if the war is just the result of Hezbollah’s belligerence.

In practice, there has been ridiculous videos showing people hiding weapons under their mattresses. It’s actually really condescending picture — cartoons oriented towards the Lebanese people, telling them, “Hey, you know the person who hid the bomb under your sofa? Can you — do you remember that guy? He was a Hezbollah.” This is ridiculous. I mean, people don’t know, and that is actually increasing the fear.

And it’s basically meant to be divisive, because the Lebanese society, at the base, is already quite divided on many issues, and also to put people into — under more duress, to just say, “OK, we surrender. You can do whatever you want.” No one can ever say no to mighty Israel and its sponsors.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you’re a professor of urban planning. Can you explain the scale of the destruction in Lebanon due to Israel’s attacks right now? You’re documenting the frequency of the attacks, the demolition of infrastructure. We just have a minute.

MONA FAWAZ: Well, since last October, we have been documenting the strikes on daily basis and showing where they go and how. And our evidence is very clear. It shows that Israel has hit Lebanon, until last week, four times more often and way more, way deeper. In the last week, of course, the numbers have gone up the roof, and it is impossible to count how much of the demolition has actually happened. So we are working to geo-sat that, because, as in previous wars, we will have to support the effort of reconstruction. But some of the villages on the edges of Lebanon are basically fully flattened.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Mona Fawaz. Please stay safe, professor of urban planning at the American University of Beirut.

Next up, we look at the “Anatomy of a Smear Campaign Against Rashida Tlaib.” We’ll speak with Prem Thakker of Zeteo and Steve Neavling, an investigative reporter at Detroit Metro Times. It all started with an interview the Detroit congressmember did with the Detroit Metro Times. Then CNN got a hold of it. Stay with us.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 30, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/30/ ... transcript

Israel Kills Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah; Netanyahu Addresses U.N. Despite Growing Pariah Status
Sep 30, 2024

Lebanon is marking three days of mourning after Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah Friday in a massive attack that leveled multiple high-rise apartment buildings in a suburb south of Beirut. Nasrallah had led Hezbollah since 1992 and was widely considered one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East. Multiple news outlets report Israel likely used U.S.-made 2,000-pound BLU-109 bombs in the attack. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both described Nasrallah’s death as a “measure of justice.” But on the streets of Beirut, Lebanese residents vowed to keep resisting the Israeli attacks.

Françoise Azori: “You won’t be able to destroy us, whatever you do, however much you bomb, however much you displace people. We will stay here. We won’t leave. This is our country, and we’re staying. Do whatever you want to do. We don’t care.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the order to kill Nasrallah shortly after giving a speech at the United Nations General Assembly here in New York. As he was being introduced at the U.N., dozens of diplomats walked out of the General Assembly hall in protest.

Iran responded to the assassination of Nasrallah by seeking an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, warning Israel is “pushing the entire region into an all-out catastrophe.” A prominent general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was also killed in Friday’s attack on Nasrallah.

Over the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed at least 105 people, bringing the death toll over the past two weeks to more than 1,000, with 6,000 people injured. The Israeli attacks have also displaced about 1 million people in Lebanon. More than 100,000 people have fled from Lebanon to Syria. Earlier today, Israel killed the head of Hamas in Lebanon along with his wife, son and daughter in a strike on their home in a Palestinian refugee camp. In a separate strike inside Beirut, Israel killed three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Fears are now growing Israel may soon launch a ground invasion of Lebanon. Earlier today, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, vowed the group is ready to confront an Israeli invasion.

Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza Kill More Displaced Palestinians, Journalist Wafa al-Udaini
Sep 30, 2024

In Gaza, Israel is continuing to attack schools where displaced Palestinians have sought shelter. Earlier today, an Israeli warplane bombed a school in Beit Lahia, killing at least two people. In Deir al-Balah, another Israeli strike killed Palestinian journalist Wafa al-Udaini and three of her family members, including two children. On Sunday, at least four people were killed in northern Gaza in another Israeli strike on a school turned shelter.

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Israeli Assassination of Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah “Shocked All of Lebanon.” What Happens Next?
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 30, 2024

Israel is expanding its attacks across the Middle East, bombing more sites in Yemen and Lebanon over the weekend after carrying out a massive attack in the suburbs of Beirut on Friday that killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders of the militant group. Nasrallah led Hezbollah for more than three decades and was considered one of the most powerful figures in the region. Israel likely used U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs in Friday’s attack that leveled several high-rise apartment buildings, with a death toll estimated in the hundreds. U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both called Nasrallah’s killing “a measure of justice” while saying they were against further escalation of the war. “The news really shocked all of Lebanon, both supporters and people who oppose him,” says Associated Press reporter Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, who notes about 1 million people inside Lebanon are now displaced by the fighting. “The airstrikes aren’t stopping; they’re continuing. And now people are anticipating a ground invasion.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: News reports from northern Israel show Israeli military tanks massing along the Israel-Lebanon border after Israel launched its first attack in central Beirut. Earlier today, Israel struck a building near the busy Cola Bridge intersection of the Lebanese capital after carrying out a massive attack Friday on a Beirut suburb that assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. He led Hezbollah for more than three decades and was considered one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East.

Israel likely used U.S.-made bombs in Friday’s attack that leveled several high-rise apartment buildings. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both called the killing of Nasrallah a, quote, “measure of justice.”

Meanwhile, Monday’s attack targeted senior figures in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian militant group. The strike leveled another apartment building.

MOAMEN AL-KHATIB: [translated] We are Palestinian firefighters and rescuers from the camps in Lebanon who came to help our brothers after the raid that happened here in Ain Ed Delb. We have been here since yesterday, since the incident. We have not left the site, and we will remain here until we complete the entire mission, God willing. There’s still people under the rubble, people we have not been able to rescue yet. We are doing everything we can to save them as quickly as possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Also today, Israel killed the head of Hamas in Lebanon along with his wife, son and daughter in a strike on their home in a Palestinian refugee camp.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the order to kill Nasrallah shortly after giving a speech before the U.N. General Assembly. Before his remarks, dozens of diplomats walked out of the U.N. General Assembly hall in protest.

Today, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, vowed to fight on, saying the group is prepared for a long war, in his first speech since Nasrallah was killed.

SHEIKH NAIM QASSEM: [translated] Israel is committing massacres in all areas of Lebanon and choosing villages one by one until there is no village or house that does not have traces of Israeli aggression in it. It is attacking civilians, health organizations, al-Risala Scouts, all those who are in the streets and all those who are staying in their homes, including children, women and the elderly. These people are not fighting the fighters but rather are killing and committing massacres against civilians and innocents. … The Islamic resistance will continue to confront the Israeli enemy in support of Gaza in Palestine, in defense of Lebanon.

AMY GOODMAN: Over the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed at least 105 people, bringing the death toll over the past two weeks to over 1,000, with 6,000 people injured. The Israeli attacks have displaced about a million people in Lebanon. More than 100,000 have fled from Lebanon to Syria, according to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, Israel forces launched a wave of airstrikes on Yemen Sunday, targeting the city of Hodeidah for the second time in recent months, in response to missile fires by Houthi militants.

This comes as more than a thousand Israelis protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday to call on Prime Minister Netanyahu to refocus his efforts on securing the release of hostages in Gaza, where the death toll from nearly a year of Israeli attacks is nearing at least 42,000.

For more, we begin in Beirut to speak with Kareem Chehayeb, the Beirut-based journalist reporting on Lebanon, Syria and Iraq for the Associated Press. His recent piece is headlined “What to know after Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.”

Kareem, welcome to Democracy Now! Well, why don’t you tell us about the significance of this assassination and who exactly the Hezbollah leader was?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: So, this assassination really rattled all of Lebanon. Hassan Nasrallah for decades led Hezbollah and oversaw significant developments within the militant group, oversaw, you know, ending Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah’s sort of transformation into having a more heavy involvement in Lebanese politics with MPs, parliamentarians, ministers and so on, and also led Hezbollah when it began to expand more regionally, notably in Syria, where they played a pivotal role in keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power.

The news really shocked all of Lebanon, both supporters and people who oppose him. I recall I was on the streets here in Beirut when the news happened. And, you know, some of the supporters were screaming. They were [inaudible] shocked by the news. And, you know, they thought that this was a leader — some told me that they felt like he was immortal almost. And, of course, his assassination, on top of a handful of Hezbollah leaders, seven senior leaders, over the past eight days, really rattled the organization. Even the deputy leader Naim Qassem said so today. But he said that they’re going to regroup and appoint a new leader soon. It’s unclear when. And it’s definitely something that rattled the region, for sure.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking this weekend.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Nasrallah was not just another terrorist. He was the terrorist. He was the axis of the axis, the main engine of Iran’s “axis of evil.” He and his people were the architects of the plan to destroy Israel. … As long as Nasrallah was alive, he would have quickly rebuilt the capabilities we took from Hezbollah. Therefore, I gave the directive, and Nasrallah is longer with us.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can respond, Kareem, to what the Israeli prime minister said after the assassination, and also what has happened since, both the killing of a top-level Iranian commander along with Nasrallah and now the head of Hamas in Lebanon with his family?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: So, you know, a lot of people, after the assassination of Nasrallah, sort of wondered, you know, “What happens next now?” The Israeli government maintains that their goal is to secure their north for their residents to return. And, you know, since the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, other senior officials have been assassinated, as well. And the airstrikes, you know, aren’t stopping; they’re continuing. And now people are anticipating a ground invasion.

And, of course, experts say that Iran is sort of in a policy dilemma. You know, Iran has dealt with several attacks that are widely blamed on Israel, including a strike on a consulate building in Syria and the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in late July. Iran hasn’t necessarily responded in such a decisive way. And the question is, you know: What are Tehran’s red lines? We don’t know how they’re going to respond to that and what this means for the region. What we do know is that, you know, they’ve sort of maintained that they’re going to keep piling diplomatic pressure. This is according to statements from different Iranian government officials. But the big question is: Given the severity of this attack, you know, will this eventually not just widen the war in Lebanon, but also have a regional component? Iran has, you know, proxies in Yemen and Iraq, and there’s a lot of speculation as to whether they will be involved or not. So, there is a really big sort of gap as to what happens next in this very intense phase of the war.

AMY GOODMAN: Kareem, we’re speaking to you in Beirut. So, you’re not only a journalist covering all of this, you’re a resident there. Can you describe what the blast was like in the suburb on Friday, and then this Beirut-based blast that just took place?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: Yeah. The airstrike in the Beirut southern suburbs that killed Hassan Nasrallah was probably one of the most, if not the most, intense strike thus far in this conflict. You know, eyewitnesses and others, even as actually close to this office, heard eight to 10 explosions. There were multiple airstrikes. And it leveled several buildings, several buildings to the ground. It was a very shocking experience for many here. A lot of people were panicking. And it definitely sparked a wave of displacement. A lot of people in the Beirut southern suburbs immediately fled their homes and went in large groups to other neighborhoods in Beirut to find safety.

And then, the strike yesterday near the Cola Bridge, you know, this is a — it’s a very central part of the city. It’s very busy during the day. You know, it’s a critical point for public transportation, as well. And this is the most central part of Beirut where Israel has struck so far in this conflict. And, you know, a lot of the questions now among people here is, you know: Where else will be hit, given that it appears that central parts of the city could be possible targets and this is not limited to just the south or the east of Lebanon anymore? So, there’s a lot of fear and anxiety and confusion among residents all over Beirut, where over the past previous months where the fighting was mostly limited to southern Lebanon, you didn’t really feel that so much.

AMY GOODMAN: And we just have reports — I mean, and this has been going on for days — of Israeli tanks amassing along the border. What is the response of the Lebanese to what is taking place? I mean, Lebanon has one of the most, if not the highest percentage refugee population in the world. Now a million people are displaced. Many are trying to go into Syria right now.

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: Yes. So, you know, the Lebanese government has sounded the alarm on a massive displacement. Prior to this recent intense escalation, I guess, you know, there was over 100,000 displaced people. Now that number is almost a million, in such short period of time. The Lebanese government is struggling to keep up. Remember, this is a country that’s going through an economic crisis. The government is essentially broke. And the United Nations is trying to get as much funds as it can to support. And a lot of what’s helping these displaced people here is just the goodwill of a lot of people, community initiatives and so on. A lot of people I speak to in Beirut and elsewhere are doing their best, but they are questioning how sustainable it is, you know, within just a couple of weeks. And yes, it does seem like a larger number are going to Syria, as well. So, it’s indicative of the desperation taking place. And, of course, you know, a possible ground invasion is certainly the talk of the town right now, and people are wondering what the consequences will be, whether it means this war will last for a much longer time and it will widen, further widen the displacement.

So, you know, it is definitely a critical time. The Lebanese government is trying to sort of push a recent U.S.-led initiative for a temporary ceasefire for 21 days. The French foreign minister is in town, met with the prime minister and the speaker of Parliament. And, you know, it appears that the message that they’re sending is that they are willing to, you know, go about this ceasefire and try to put an end to this war as quickly as possible. The question is whether Hezbollah at the same time — you know, whether they will change their approach to this. You know, Hezbollah have maintained, even after Nasrallah’s assassination, that they will stop once there’s a ceasefire in Gaza. And they accuse the Israelis and the American government of basically wanting them to set up a deal independent of Gaza. So the question really is: How can this diplomatic gridlock be broken? And I think we could be at a major turning point right now, given the heightened developments.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see Lebanese troops joining or replacing Hezbollah militants on the border?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: There is certainly a lot of speculation that has come about the fate of Lebanon politically and with the war after Nasrallah’s assassination. There are allied groups to Hezbollah that have been involved in the south since the beginning — you know, for example, the Fajr Brigades of the Islamic Group, which is the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas early on, as well, here in Lebanon were involved, as well. And, you know, the question, of course, is: If there’s a ground invasion, will more groups allied that have some sort of weapons be involved? It appears that most experts say that it might actually be more about the allies of Hezbollah outside of Lebanon, whether the Houthis in Yemen or the Iran-backed militias in Iraq will be much more involved. So, that is sort of the big question right now, given a possible ground invasion.

AMY GOODMAN: Kareem Chehayeb, we want to thank you for being with us, speaking to us from Beirut, journalist covering Lebanon, Syria and Iraq for the Associated Press. We’ll link to your piece, “What to know after Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.”

When we come back, we’ll be joined by Gideon Levy in Tel Aviv, the award-winning Israeli journalist and author, columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, a member of its editorial board. One of his latest pieces in the Haaretz newspaper, “Israel’s Barbaric Glee Over Nasrallah’s Assassination Is a New Low for Israeli Society.” Back in 20 seconds.

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Gideon Levy: “Israel’s Barbaric Glee over Nasrallah’s Assassination Is a New Low for Israeli Society”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 30, 2024

We speak with Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy in Tel Aviv, who says the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday was met with “barbaric glee” by much of Israeli society. “We are getting down and down, lower and lower, believing more and more in only one thing, namely in killing and destructing,” says Levy, who warns that Israel is very likely to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon next and continue expanding the war as long as it enjoys unlimited U.S. support. The ongoing escalation in the region comes after a year of “only bombing and refusing any kind of diplomacy,” Levy 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.

As Israel strikes central Beirut, Yemen and Gaza after the massive attack Friday in the Beirut suburb that killed the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the most powerful figures in the region, we’re joined by Gideon Levy. He is Israeli journalist, author, columnist for Haaretz, as well as a member of its editorial board. His latest piece, “Israel’s Barbaric Glee Over Nasrallah’s Assassination Is a New Low for Israeli Society.”

Gideon, thanks so much for joining us again. If you can start off by talking about what happened on Friday? You have Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, ascending the podium at the U.N. General Assembly. Apparently right after, he gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Nasrallah. Right before he came up on the podium, dozens of world leaders walked out. If you can talk about the significance of this decision and then the bombing of Yemen and, of course, the continuation of the assault on Gaza?

GIDEON LEVY: You know, Amy, listening to your program is enough. Israel is shooting here, and Israel is assassinating there, and Israel is bombing here, and Israel is bombing there. Where are we aiming to? I mean, all those operations might be [inaudible], to them, are justified. But what comes next?

This thought that Israel can solve everything by force and that war is always the first answer for everything must change, because, otherwise, we will really find ourselves one day totally lonely in the world. Even the United States, which supports Israel still blindly and automatically — and I must emphasize on your show that the United States is a full partner for everything that Israel is doing in the last year, including the massacre in Gaza — even the United States will wake up one day. And then what?

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the assassination of Nasrallah. You’re talking to us from Tel Aviv. And the response in Israel?

GIDEON LEVY: I’ll give you a few examples. In one of the main channels of Israeli TV, a reporter, live, was distributing chocolates. That’s the spirit in Israel. That’s the spirit. Another important columnist wrote, “We smashed him like a lizard.” And if this is the atmosphere, this is the mindset, this is the zeitgeist even, so it will be very hard to change things, because we are getting down and down, lower and lower, believing more and more only in one thing, namely in killing and destructing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about what Netanyahu’s strategy is and if he has one other than a military strategy? You have the tanks, Israeli tanks, amassing on the border. Do you see a ground invasion of Lebanon happening at this point? What does this mean? Does he just want to deplete Hezbollah or completely wipe it out?

GIDEON LEVY: I can’t see a scenario in which Israel is not going for a ground operation. First, it will be, as usual, presented as a very, very limited one, limited in time, limited in territory. We’ve been in those shows many times. And then it will get complicated, and then we’ll have to widen it and expand the time that we stay there. As usual, we are getting into those things without having any clue, any idea how we will get out of it. Look at Israel in Gaza. Nobody has a clue how we are getting out of Gaza. [inaudible] Gaza. Israel is going to repeat the same mistake with Lebanon, using the excuse or the passiveness of the world, which allows Israel to do now whatever it wants.

Netanyahu, I think, is also now in euphoria after what is perceived in Israel as wonderful successes, James Bond successes, first with the pagers and with the walkie-talkies and then with all the assassinations. This is perceived in Israel as an enormous success. So, being riding on this success, I guess nothing will stop Israel to get into a ground operation.

And then, you know there will be a moment that a regional war might become a factor, might become a reality. And then what, when Iran might come in? And with all those risks seem what? Unimportant? Unreal? And if Iran comes into the picture, what’s next? We will bomb Iran?

This whole mindset of bombing and bombing for one year now, and only bombing, and refusing any kind of diplomacy — remember, there were deals to release the hostages. Israel said no. Ceasefire, Israel said no. Lebanon ceasefire, Israel says no. This will not guarantee the security of Israel, not to speak about the price the other side is paying. But even the security of Israel will not get better. We are now in a less good situation than one year ago. I can tell you that in Tel Aviv, we are more scared than we were one year ago.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. military said Sunday it’s increasing its air support capabilities in the Middle East, putting troops on heightened alert. ABC News’s Martha Raddatz interviewed White House national security communications adviser John Kirby on This Week Sunday and asked about the reports.

JOHN KIRBY: There’s a contingency of additional forces in the region right now to help us with any possible contingencies that might come up.

MARTHA RADDATZ: Dozens more?

JOHN KIRBY: Certainly —

MARTHA RADDATZ: I mean, I know we have 40,000 troops in the region already.

JOHN KIRBY: Yeah, I don’t want to get into the exact numbers or who these guys are, but we did — we did deploy some additional forces into the region. I would tell you that there’s other options available, as well, in terms of adding and enhancing that force posture.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you talk, Gideon Levy, about a regional war. Right before Netanyahu spoke at the U.N., as you said, there was this discussion that the U.S. and France was leading with Saudi Arabia and others to have a ceasefire, and then Hassan Nasrallah is assassinated. Is this more than Israel engaging in a regional war, but trying to bring the U.S. into it, as well? Netanyahu is known as a close Trump ally and friend. How that would affect the U.S. elections, as well? And right before Netanyahu spoke at the United Nations, you have Israel saying Thursday it had secured another $8.7 billion in aid from the United States to support its ongoing military efforts. We’re going to end with this question of whether Israel could continue what it does if the U.S. stopped the weapons flow.

GIDEON LEVY: But the U.N. — but the U.S. does not stop —

AMY GOODMAN: If the U.S. stopped.

GIDEON LEVY: — the weapons. That’s the point. The U.S. is saying one thing and acting exactly to the opposite direction. Can you believe that a major superpower is telling Israel to stop the war and in the same time it is supplying it with weapons and bombs and ammunition? What is Israel supposed to do? Why not to shoot and to bomb, to continue to do this, if the Americans are supplying it in an unconditioned way? No conditions.

So, this hypocrisy must come to its end. The United States is supporting the war, is supporting Israel. The bombs that were falling on the bunker of Nasrallah were American bombs. The bombs that fall on Gaza are American bombs. The children who were killed, 17,000 of them, in Gaza were killed by American ammunition. And America, the United States, cannot say that it is against killing children, because it is a partner.

AMY GOODMAN: Gideon Levy, we want to thank you so much for being with us, award-winning Israeli journalist, author, columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, also on their editorial board. We’ll link to your latest pieces, including “Israel’s Barbaric Glee Over Nasrallah’s Assassination Is a New Low for Israeli Society.”

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Trita Parsi on Israel’s Nasrallah Assassination and Why Netanyahu Still Wants War with Iran
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 30, 2024

As the Middle East gets ever closer to an all-out war, we speak with Iranian American analyst and author Trita Parsi about Iran’s response in the aftermath of Israel’s assassination of longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The powerful Lebanese militia is closely aligned with Iran and is part of the “Axis of Resistance” of forces in the Middle East opposed to Israel that also includes Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen. “Israel has quite successfully cornered Iran,” says Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “At this point, if Iran does almost anything, it will risk triggering the larger regional war that Netanyahu wants and that the Iranians have tried to avoid.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! We’re going to turn to Washington, D.C., right now for more on all of this, to look at how Iran could respond to the Israeli strike Friday in Lebanon that killed the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. We go to Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He’s just written a piece for Zeteo headlined “Nasrallah Assassinated: What Happens Next?”

Trita, thanks for joining us again. What happens next? And can you respond to the assassination of the longtime Hezbollah leader — since what? 1992 — Hassan Nasrallah?

TRITA PARSI: So, a lot of eyes are, of course, on Iran and trying to figure out what Iran is going to do next. But we have to recognize that Israel has quite successfully cornered Iran. Iran played the long game, tried to avoid a direct confrontation with Israel, absorbed a lot of hits, but in the process of playing the long game, its options have become fewer, weaker and more dangerous. At this point, if Iran does almost anything, it will risk triggering the larger regional war that Netanyahu wants and that the Iranians have tried to avoid.

As a result, I think our eyes should actually be on what Israel does next, whether it will go through with an invasion — we’re already seeing reports now that some commando raids have been conducted inside of Lebanon by the Israelis, probably in preparation for a land invasion — as well as what Israel plans to do with the Houthis. If it reaches a point in which the Iranians conclude that Israel’s strategy is to take out some of these entities before going to Iran itself, that may trigger the Iranians to act now in the hope of actually having better options now rather than waiting.

But other than that, the Iranians seem to be of the mindset that they do not want to get in a direct engagement because of their own internal problems. Iran is faced with a significant anger from the population over the abuse and repression of the Iranian regime, particularly in the protests of two years ago. It does not believe that it actually can afford a war of this kind. Instead, its priorities are to try to see if it can get a deal with United States on the nuclear issue, reduce tensions, lift some of the sanctions, improve the economy, in order to reduce the distance between the society and the government. The last thing they want in that context is a war with Israel that will most likely increase that distance and the anger of the population.

AMY GOODMAN: In addition to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, Israel killed the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan, who was killed in that Nasrallah strike, a seminal or a key figure in the Iran-Iraq War. Can you talk about his significance and then the role of the new Iranian president, seen as a reformist?

TRITA PARSI: So, Iran has taken quite a lot of hits. Nilforoushan is just the latest commander that has been killed by the Israelis, not just since October 7th, but over the course of several years, in Syria and in Lebanon itself. And this is part of their long game in terms of not necessarily reacting to each and every one of these, because they know that Israel is in a stronger position and Israel has an interest of having a confrontation sooner rather than later.

But again, that strategy, that long-term strategy, only works if there’s also a short game. And Iran’s short game seems to be losing right now, given how Israel has managed to crack the communications system of Hezbollah, take out the top echelon of its commanders and put Hezbollah in a very, very weak position.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the U.S. struck Hodeidah in Yemen. And the Houthis, now the question is how they will respond. Can you talk about Iran’s relationship with the Houthis, with Hamas and with Hezbollah?

TRITA PARSI: I think one of the things that has not been acknowledged, at least not in the Western narrative, about October 7th is that it clearly came at a very bad time for the Iranians and for Hezbollah itself. I think, actually, there’s been privately quite a lot of irritation in Tehran with Hamas, because it obviously did not coordinate any of that with the Iranians. The Iranians, Hezbollah were not even aware of the plans that Hamas had for that attack. And the reason, again, is because it forced a confrontation with Israel at a much earlier stage than what the Iranians and Hezbollah were ready for. Lebanon’s economy was in complete disaster. Iran had its own problems. They were not looking for a fight. Hamas’s calculation was completely different.

And it also shows you the distance that does exist between these different entities. Iran and Hezbollah are much, much closer to each other, whereas Hamas is a more recent addition to Iran’s axis and a very problematic one in terms of their relationship. They have had several fallouts. Hamas originally was quite a strong enemy of Iran. Then you have the Houthis, who is a very different entity, does its own thing, is part of the axis, essentially, but has made it very clear it is not taking any orders from Iran. It’s been quite critical publicly of Iran, arguing that Iran has been far too risk-averse and that Iran should have entered into this fight much, much sooner, rather than watching from afar and not aiding Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis to an extent that they believe that Iran should have.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to finally ask about — the same question I put to Gideon Levy in Tel Aviv, Trita. You’re Iranian American. You’ve been writing extensively books on U.S., Iranian, Israel policy. Among your books, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy, your first book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel, and the United States. Do you feel that the Israeli prime minister is attempting to pull Iran into a war with the United States, as the number one sponsor, the United States, of the military in Israel?

TRITA PARSI: I don’t think there is any doubt that that is Netanyahu’s game plan. And the reason why he has been successful in the last couple of weeks is not because of any particular action by the Israelis — although, of course, they’ve scored some major successes. It’s because of the posture of the Biden administration. Biden has chosen to be so deferential, more deferential than any other American president has been to Netanyahu. And as a result, despite all of the talk of wanting to avoid a larger regional war, which clearly is in the U.S. interest to avoid, Biden has adopted a posture in which he essentially says that that’s what he wants to avoid, but then he provides the Israelis with the weapons, the political protection, the diplomatic support and the arms and money to be able to pursue exactly the escalation that Biden says that he does not want.

That’s the big difference that has happened here now, that the United States has now, under Biden, chosen to completely be in support of whatever Netanyahu wants to do. And Netanyahu’s plan for quite some time has been to reverse the balance in the Middle East, to make sure that Israel is once again enjoying a much stronger and favorable position in the region by cutting down many of the different challengers to Israel that exist in the region. Reversing that balance is not something that Israel can do on its own. It can only do so by bringing in the United States into the war, whether it is directly or in the manner that Biden has been supporting everything that Israel is doing.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, you have U.S. troops. You have the warships in the eastern Mediterranean, in the Gulf. You have U.S. soldiers in Jordan, around 50,000 overall U.S. soldiers in the area. If this is intensified, how do you see this playing out in the U.S. election? Do you actually think — I mean, after Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress and got more applause than any president in U.S. history — what, more than 50 standing ovations — he went down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump — this will serve Trump in this election?

TRITA PARSI: Whether one thinks that Trump is going to be different or not from what Biden has done or what Harris may do, reality is, I think, that if you have this explosion taking place in the region with the U.S. itself getting dragged into the war before the elections, it will serve Trump. The Biden administration have gone out and said that they’ve been working 24 hours without any rest to try to secure a ceasefire for more than 10 months now, and they have absolutely nothing to show for it except for constantly giving Israel more weapons and arms.

And if that may not push away some of the more loyal supporters of the centrist elements of the Democratic Party, I think it does significantly risk losing a lot of the people who have been on the fence, who have given Biden the benefit of the doubt, certainly were willing to give Kamala Harris the benefit of the doubt. But if this disaster happens, I think those voters, that voting bloc — which I’m not talking about the Arab Americans or the Gen Z or the Muslim Americans, but that other voting bloc that is more on the fence on this — they may also be lost as a result of this.

AMY GOODMAN: Trita Parsi, I want to thank you for being with us, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. We’ll link to your piece in Zeteo, “Nasrallah Assassinated: What Happens Next?” Author of a number of books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.

Next up, Hurricane Helene tears through the southeastern United States as scientists say climate change rapidly intensifies hurricanes. We’ll speak with climate activist and scientist Peter Kalmus in North Carolina, one of the states hit hardest by the storm. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Third World War” by Kris Kristofferson. The politically conscious singer and actor died Saturday at the age of 88. He once said, quote, “I was in Nicaragua with the Sandinistas. I’ve argued for Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, the United Farm Workers. I’ve been a radical for a long time. I guess it’s too bad. I’d be more marketable as a right-wing redneck. But I got into this to tell the truth,” Kris Kristofferson said.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 01, 2024

Hezbollah Denies Reports Israeli Troops Have Invaded Southern Lebanon
Oct 01, 2024

The Lebanese Health Ministry says Israeli airstrikes killed at least 95 people and wounded 172 others on Monday, as Israel’s army said it was carrying out what it called “limited and targeted raids” into southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, however, denied that Israeli forces had begun an invasion. The conflicting accounts came as Hezbollah fighters fired salvos of rockets into Israel, including an attack on the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence service outside Tel Aviv. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati says his nation is now facing “one of the most dangerous phases of its history,” and called on the United Nations to step up aid to 1 million Lebanese people displaced by Israel’s assault. In Washington, President Biden said Monday he wanted a ceasefire in Lebanon; however, the Pentagon contradicted Biden’s remark just hours later. A readout of a call between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant shows the two war leaders “agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border.” After headlines, we’ll go to Beirut for the latest.

Syria Says Israeli Strikes on Damascus Kill 3 Civilians Including TV News Anchor
Oct 01, 2024

Syrian media is reporting an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital Damascus killed three civilians and wounded nine others. It was reportedly the third such attack in recent days. The Syrian Arab News Agency said its presenter Safaa Ahmad was among those killed in Israel’s latest air raid.

Overnight Israeli Airstrike Kills More Displaced Palestinians, Including Children
Oct 01, 2024

In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike on a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp late Monday killed more than a dozen people. Witnesses say at least seven of the dead were children.

Umm Hassan al-Durra: “They targeted 14 sleeping people, young, adults and children. What can I tell you? They were not doing anything. They were sleeping.”

Israel Releases Palestinian Dr. Khaled Alser, Half a Year After Abducting Him from Gaza Hospital
Oct 01, 2024

On Monday, Israeli authorities released Palestinian surgeon Dr. Khaled Alser from prison, months after he was abducted by Israeli forces during a raid on Gaza’s Nasser Hospital in March. Dr. Alser is among dozens of doctors, nurses and paramedics held by Israel who, according to Human Rights Watch, have faced widespread torture and abuse in Israeli custody.

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Fears Grow over Israeli Ground Invasion as Israel Orders Residents in 25 Lebanese Villages to Flee Homes
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 01, 2024

Lebanese Prime Minsiter Najib Mikati says Lebanon is now facing “one of the most dangerous phases of its history,” as the Israeli military claims to have begun launching “limited and targeted raids” in southern Lebanon. However, Hezbollah has denied that Israeli soldiers have actually entered Lebanon. The possible Israeli ground operation comes after two weeks of Israeli attacks on Lebanon that have killed over 1,000 people and forced over a million Lebanese to evacuate. While Biden called for a ceasefire, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday and affirmed U.S. support for Israeli actions along Lebanon’s border. “Israel is ultimately undermining U.S. interests in the Middle East,” says Beirut-based political and security analyst Ali Rizk. “Benjamin Netanyahu … wants to go down in history as the person who was able to successfully defeat the major enemy of Israel.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Israel is claiming it’s sent ground troops into southern Lebanon, but Hezbollah and U.N. peacekeepers say the Israeli invasion has not yet begun. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati says Lebanon is now facing, quote, “one of the most dangerous phases of its history,” unquote. The Israeli military has described its actions as, quote, “limited and targeted raids” in southern Lebanon.

This all comes after two weeks of Israeli attacks on Lebanon that have killed over a thousand people, including longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in a massive Israeli bombing on Friday. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, Israeli attacks killed at least 95 people on Monday alone. Earlier today, Israel ordered residents in 25 southern Lebanese villages to leave their homes and head north.

The United States has given mixed messages on Israel’s escalating attack. This is President Biden being questioned Monday at the White House.

REPORTER: Israel may be now launching a limited operation into Lebanon. Are you aware of that? Are you comfortable with their plan?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I’m more aware than you might know, and I’m comfortable with them stopping. We should have a ceasefire now.

AMY GOODMAN: While Biden called for a ceasefire, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Austin later said, quote, “I made it clear that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself. We agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border,” unquote.

We go now to Beirut, where we’re joined by Ali Rizk. He’s a political and security analyst based in Beirut, contributor to Responsible Statecraft and other outlets.

Thanks so much for being with us, Ali. Can you start off by talking about what you understand is happening on the border? What’s clear is Israel continues to bomb Lebanon. What isn’t clear is if it’s begun a ground invasion. What do you understand?

ALI RIZK: Well, as you mentioned, Hezbollah, the media spokesman for Hezbollah has denied those Israeli claims about Israel entering south Lebanon, entering Lebanese territory. I spoke to a Hezbollah source a few hours ago, and he also underscored that the Israelis had attempted last night but were forced to retreat in face of some immense firepower from Hezbollah. So, it does appear — you know, both sides appear to be claiming that, you know, there are different claims. Israel is saying that it has entered or it had entered Lebanese territory. That’s being denied by Hezbollah, which said it forced Israel into retreat.

But we do appear to be headed towards more and more escalation. I think that the Israelis are going to go ahead with the ground incursion or try to attempt that ground incursion. And I think that that’s why they’re using some of that increased firepower. You just mentioned in your report about how some villages were identified that they will be bombarded. I think all of this indicates where we are headed. And I believe that, you know, we do have some weeks and possible months ahead of some real dangerous escalation.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, you’ve mentioned the word “escalation,” but the reality is that the Netanyahu government appears hell-bent on continuing to expand the conflict, with all of its targeted assassinations, the bombings and now the potential for invasion in Lebanon. It’s almost as if they’ve put aside Gaza and the hostages that are in Gaza and have decided to provoke a widespread war. What’s your assessment?

ALI RIZK: Indeed. I think what you said is very accurate. You have to remember that before October 7, the Israeli government had set its sights and was focused mostly on Lebanon. In fact, many people say that because it was so focused on Lebanon, it didn’t pay enough attention to the Gaza front, and that’s what facilitated the Hamas operation on October 7.

I think that a lot of this is also related to Benjamin Netanyahu’s legacy. Benjamin Netanyahu, I think, wants to go down in history as the person who was able to successfully defeat the major enemy of Israel, the mortal enemy. You have to remember that it was Hezbollah which, many people believe, defeated Israel back in 2006. In the best-case scenario for Israel, that conflict ended in a draw. And Netanyahu’s image was also shattered by October 7. He used to be described as “Mr. Security.” That reputation was left in tatters. So I think what Netanyahu is trying to do right now is to rebuild his legacy, number one, by saying, “Look, I defeated Hezbollah. I took out the number one leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was like Israel’s nemesis.” And number two, I think that he’s trying to repair that damage which was done to his own reputation as being “Mr. Security.”

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who spoke to reporters at the United Nations.

AYMAN SAFADI: The prime minister came here today and said that Israel is surrounded by those who want to destroy it, an enemy. We’re here, members of a Muslim Arab committee mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and I can tell you here, very unequivocally, all of us are willing to right now guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state, independent state, along the term and preference that you all agree.

He is creating that danger because he simply does not want the two-state solution. And if he does not want the two-state solution, can you ask the Israeli officials what is their endgame, other than just wars and wars and wars? I’m telling you, all of us in the Arab world here, we want a peace in which Israel lives in peace and security, accepted, normalized with all Arab countries, in the context of ending the occupation, withdrawing from our territory, allowing for the emergence of an independent sovereign Palestinian state on June 4, 1967, lines with occupied Jerusalem as capital. That is our narrative. That is. And we will guarantee Israel’s security in that context. Can you ask Israelis what’s their narrative, other than “I’m going to continue go to war. I’m going to kill this and kill that and destroy this and that”?

The amount of damage that the Israeli government has done, 30 years of efforts to convince people that peace is possible, this Israeli government killed it. The amount of dehumanization, hatred, bitterness will take generations to navigate through.

So, ultimately, the question is — we want peace, and we’ve laid out a plan for peace. Ask any Israeli official what is their plan for peace, you’ll get nothing, because they are only thinking of the first step — “We’re going to go destroy Gaza, enflame the West Bank, destroy Lebanon” — and after that, they have no plan. We have a plan. We have no partner for peace in Israel. There is a partner for peace in the Arab world.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Jordan’s foreign minister speaking Friday at the United Nations. Ali Rizk, if you can talk about his comments and also where Arab countries now stand on Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, of Syria, and continued, of course, the attacks on Gaza?

ALI RIZK: I think what we just heard is a clear example of how Israel is ultimately undermining U.S. interests in the Middle East. Here we have the foreign minister, a senior official in one of Washington’s Middle East allies, and look at these statements saying that Netanyahu is not a partner for peace, that we are ready for peace, Netanyahu is doing this, Netanyahu wants more conflict. But as long as the United States continues to provide this support, this unconditional support for Israel, that is going to further disrupt, I think, the ties the U.S. enjoys with its Middle East allies, be it Jordan, Egypt or other countries. So, I think this just goes to show how costly that situation is. And I recall David Petraeus, the famous American general, he mentioned in 2010 that our outright support for Israel is doing damage in terms of our ties with the Arab moderate allies.

Now, regarding your question about where these Arab countries stand when it comes to the Israeli escalation on the Gaza front and on the Lebanese front, look at the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Look at what he said recently. He said that normalization now is off the table. Again, that brings me back to the issue of U.S. interests. I think one of the major, major areas of focus for the Biden administration is to reach a normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But due to Benjamin Netanyahu’s stubbornness and due to his extreme policies, he has made that virtually impossible, and hence he’s disrupting the U.S. plans for the region.

But, and what astonishes me is that the United States is continuing with this full-fledged support for the Israeli side. As you mentioned earlier on, the Biden administration said — Biden said he wanted a ceasefire, the time is for a ceasefire in Lebanon. And then we had that about-face and the Pentagon saying that we share or we support the Israeli goals when it comes to the southern Lebanese front. So, we see the United States being dragged more and more, being manipulated by Netanyahu more and more. Unfortunately, I don’t see a clear end in sight for this from now until the American elections.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And do you see the potential for Netanyahu to keep the provocations up to force, somehow or other, Iran to respond and widen this war even further?

ALI RIZK: I believe so. And I think that’s why you’re not seeing a very rash or very escalated reaction, be it from Iran or be it from Hezbollah itself. When I say “escalatory action,” I’m referring here to possible attacks on civilian areas, residential areas. I think that Netanyahu is waiting for an excuse in order to plunge the whole region into an all-out war. And I think that he believes — and I think that he’s correct in this particular estimation — that the United States is going to support him should that scenario unfold. That’s why he’s pushing for that. He knows he can count on the Biden administration to come to its aid if we have a wider conventional war in which Iran becomes involved, in which Hezbollah unleashes all of its firepower. And I believe that Iran, Hezbollah and other players are aware of this. That’s why they are being somewhat restrained and measured in the actions they’re taking.

AMY GOODMAN: Ali, if you can talk about your own family in Lebanon? How are you dealing with all of this? Can you talk about what’s happening in Beirut right now?

ALI RIZK: First of all, in the operation which took out Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, I was about 15 minutes’ walking distance away from the site of that explosion. I was here in 2006 for most of that war. But what I heard the other day is something completely different, the explosions, the sound of the explosion. I was there, by the way, with my two young daughters, who were obviously, as you can imagine, very much in a state of shock, given what took place, given that we were rather close to that location. And many people are in a state of fear in my own home. I live, fortunately, in a rather safe area, relatively, in Beirut, on the outskirts of Beirut. And I have about maybe seven or eight guests in my home who have fled the areas which were subject to bombardment.

There are many different, many other similar cases to mine, you know, people being forced to flee their homes, be it in southern Beirut or in southern Lebanon. And we’re seeing the same, the same approach, the same Israeli approach, the bombardment which led to the displacement and immense suffering of civilians. We’re seeing it repeated here at a certain scale in Lebanon, as well.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And also, this is not the first time that Israel has attacked Lebanon. Could you talk about the previous occupations and invasions and the impact that that has had on the Lebanese people?

ALI RIZK: Obviously, the Lebanese people have suffered a lot as a result of Israeli occupation and Israeli operations. We had the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. They reached Beirut back then. They withdrew, stood in that area in the south, which was occupied until 2007, until they were forced to leave due to the operations of Hezbollah. And 2006, as I said, I remember that particularly well, immense bombardment. Back then, the Israelis destroyed the infrastructure. They started by destroying Beirut’s international airport. They destroyed bridges. They disconnected Lebanese areas from one another, deliberately, I think — not “I think” — deliberately, indeed, targeting civilians. And I think that is a strategy which we are accustomed to in Israeli conduct or in Israeli warfare, whereby they try to focus on civilians in an attempt to make the civilians lash out against the parties, like Hezbollah in the case of Lebanon or like Hamas in the case of Gaza.

But I think that, more importantly, when it comes to Lebanon, the Israelis do have some rather bitter memories. As I was telling you, in 2000, they were forced to leave. And in 2006, as I was stating in a previous answer, Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill, and you can even say that Hezbollah actually defeated Israel. There was a commission which was established by the Israelis in the aftermath of 2006, which was called the Winograd Commission, and this commission was in order to look into the faults and the mistakes which were committed by the Israelis. And I think that is an admission that the Israelis indeed committed big mistakes and did not succeed in that particular war.

Bearing that in — or, with that in mind, we have to wait and see how Israel will fare this time around. I think that the Israelis believe that given the immense blows they have delivered to Hezbollah — and I am going to admit Hezbollah was dealt some very severe, unprecedented blows with the detonation of the pagers and the assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah — I think they believe that this time it may be a bit easier to go ahead with that ground operation. But from what I’ve heard, in the late hours of last night, they did encounter some fierce resistance from Hezbollah, which prevented them from entering into Lebanese territory.

AMY GOODMAN: Ali Rizk, we want to thank you for being with us, political, security analyst based in Beirut, Lebanon, contributor with Responsible Statecraft, the online magazine of the Quincy Institute.

Next up, shipping ports from Maine to Texas shut down at midnight as 45,000 dockworkers launch their first strike in almost half a century. We’ll also hear more from Julian Assange making his first public comments after being released from the Belmarsh Prison. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Men Jibalina,” “From Our Mountains,” by Sima Kanaan. The song originates from the Algerian War of Independence.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 02, 2024

Netanyahu Vows to Retaliate After Iran Fires Hundreds of Missiles at Israel
Oct 02, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate after Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the assassination of several Hezbollah leaders. Video posted online shows some of the missiles striking at or near the Nevatim Airbase, which houses Israel’s U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Israel says the only death from the attacks was a Palestinian man who was killed by falling debris in the occupied West Bank.

At the White House, President Biden responded by saying the United States will help Israel “exact severe consequences.” On Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesperson said U.S. forces had aided Israel in thwarting Iran’s attack.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder: “During the attack, the U.S. military coordinated closely with the Israeli Defense Forces to help defend Israel. U.S. Navy destroyers deployed to the Middle East region supported the defense of Israel by firing approximately a dozen interceptors against the incoming Iranian missiles.”

7 Killed, 16 Wounded in Shooting and Stabbing Attack in Tel Aviv
Oct 02, 2024

In Tel Aviv, Israeli police said at least seven people died in a shooting and stabbing attack on Tuesday. Israeli authorities claimed the attack was carried out by two people from the occupied West Bank — one was shot dead, the other was seriously wounded.

Hezbollah Says Its Fighters Repelled Israeli Troops Invading Southern Lebanon
Oct 02, 2024

In Lebanon, Hezbollah says its fighters have repelled incursions by Israeli forces attempting to invade southern Lebanon. Israeli media reports at least two Israeli soldiers were killed and 18 others wounded near the Lebanese border town of Odaisseh. Meanwhile, Israel’s military ordered more residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate their homes. The U.N. says more than 1 million people across Lebanon have been uprooted by Israel’s assault.

Israel Bombs Gaza School and Orphanage, Killing Displaced Palestinians
Oct 02, 2024

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian health officials say Israeli attacks have killed 79 Palestinians and wounded more than 80 others over the past 24 hours. In one strike, Israeli fighter jets bombed a school turned shelter in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighborhood, killing at least 13 people, including children. Israeli forces also bombed the al-Amal orphanage west of Gaza City, killing six Palestinians and wounding many others.

**************************

Regional War Feared as Biden Backs Israel’s Threat to Retaliate After Iranian Missile Attack
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 02, 2024

Israel has announced it is sending more troops into southern Lebanon as the Middle East moves closer to a full-scale regional war. On Tuesday, Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel that Iran says targeted Israeli military and security sites, a response that comes after a series of escalating Israeli attacks in recent months against Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian leaders. The United States aided Israel in intercepting many of the Iranian missiles on Tuesday, and President Joe Biden has vowed to support Israel in further retaliation. “From what I can gather, the Iranian assertion about targeting military and security facilities is correct,” says Israeli analyst Ori Goldberg in Tel Aviv. “While things were supposedly in control while Israel was going from glory to glory killing its enemies and getting the bad guys, there was also a deep sense of insecurity and a lack of control right at home.” We also speak with Akbar Shahid Ahmed, senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost, who says there is an ongoing debate inside the Biden White House between those who want to pull back from a regional war and the hawks who see this as an opportunity to reshape the Middle East. “The U.S. doesn’t know where it’s going,” says Ahmed.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Israel has announced it’s sending more troops into southern Lebanon as the Middle East moves closer to a full-scale regional war. On Tuesday, Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in an attack that Iran said targeted Israeli military and security sites. Video online shows some of the missiles striking at or near the Nevatim Airbase, which houses Israel’s U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Israel is vowing to retaliate. Israel says the only death from the attacks was a Palestinian man who was killed by falling debris in the occupied West Bank, in Jericho.

President Biden responded to the Iran attack by saying the United States will help Israel, quote, “exact severe consequences,” unquote. On Tuesday, the United States aided Israel in intercepting many of the Iranian missiles.

Iran’s attack came in response to Israel’s escalating attacks on Lebanon and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday. There have been a number of other developments in the region.

In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters are claiming they attacked Israeli troops near the town of Odaisseh. Two Israeli soldiers were killed, 18 others wounded. Earlier today, Hezbollah denounced Israel for bombing the offices of Al-Sirat, a television network based outside of Beirut.

In Gaza, Al Jazeera reports Israeli forces have killed at least 79 Palestinians over the past day alone. In Tel Aviv, Israeli police said seven people died in a shooting and stabbing attack on Tuesday. Police said the attack was carried out by two men from the occupied West Bank — one was shot dead, the other seriously wounded.

And at the United Nations here in New York, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres issued a terse statement, saying, quote, “I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire,” he said. Earlier today, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced he’s banning the U.N. secretary-general from entering Israel, saying he’s, quote, “persona non grata due to his unwillingness to condemn Iran,” unquote.

We’re joined now by two guests. Akbar Shahid Ahmed is the senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost. He’s based in Washington, D.C. And in Tel Aviv, we’re joined by the Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg, who’s written extensively on Iran and Israel. His recent piece for New Lines Magazine is titled “Why Israelis Do and Don’t Want War with Hezbollah.”

Ori, let’s begin with you in Tel Aviv. Can you talk about what yesterday was like in Tel Aviv with the 180 missiles, what happened to them, how many you understand were intercepted, and then what Israel is promising to do next?

ORI GOLDBERG: Yesterday was scary. I spent 40 or 45 minutes with my three children and our dog in a shelter. There were many explosions that we could hear. We had no idea what was happening. But reports began to come out almost immediately that there were no casualties, except for one unfortunate Palestinian.

From what I can gather, the Iranian assertion about targeting military and security facilities is correct. All over the country, including in the center near Tel Aviv and in the Tel Aviv suburbs, such facilities were the targets. There were some civilian homes that were hit by bomb blasts.

Once again, it was scary, but it was also compounded by the horrible attack in Jaffa and by a general sense that while things were supposedly in control while Israel was going from glory to glory killing its enemies and getting the bad guys, there was also a deep sense of insecurity and a lack of control right at home. The Jaffa attack was quite traumatic. It still hasn’t really been covered extensively in the Israeli press, except for providing the names of some of the casualties. But generally, the sense was that Israel was not in control. I think that was one of the reasons for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s various statements about Iran having committed a grave mistake and about how Israel will punish it and retaliate.

Generally, there’s this sense of a surreal reality, if you will, where, on the one hand, Israel, again, seems to be doing great things and going great guns and finally getting some closure and fighting terrorism, but, on the other hand, there is a sense of impending doom and an inevitability of this impending doom when it comes to Israel’s potential actions in the future.

AMY GOODMAN: An AJ+, Al Jazeera Plus, reporter, Mohammad Alsaafin, wrote in social media, quote, “Israeli journalists and most Western journalists in Israel are abiding by the Israeli military censor, so this is a very useful thread. It seems like Nevatim got hit very hard. It’s the base where US munitions are sent.” Ori Goldberg, your response?

ORI GOLDBERG: I would assume that’s true. Of course, as Israeli citizens, we’re not entitled to know the results and implications of the Iranian strike. These bits of information are heavily censored, as are, by the way, reports about what is happening to Israeli forces in Lebanon.

Again, the Iranians have shown, and they already showed in April, that they are quite aware of where Israel’s main security facilities are. And their use of ballistic missiles this time apparently made it easier for them to create further impact. Many of the missiles were intercepted, but certainly not all of them.

It also seems like the Iranians knew exactly what they were doing. This wasn’t an inaccurate attack or not an indication of Iranian weakness, as some official Israeli spokespersons have tried to suggest. This was actually quite an accurate attack. And in that sense, I don’t think it was a retaliation to the assassination of Nasrallah. I actually think of it more as a shot across the bow. I think the Iranians were concerned, profoundly. And I think one of the reasons that the IRGC and the generals in Tehran won the day and persuaded the supreme leader to retaliate, after having lost to the republicans, pragmatists, moderates — call them what you will — who had, since Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination, convinced the leader not to retaliate, the reason there was a retaliation this time is because I think they were genuinely concerned that Israel might strike in Iran after it was done with Lebanon. I think, again, this was meant as a shot across the bow, as a message to Israel, saying, “Calm yourselves.” Right? “Take a breather.”

Will Israel retaliate? Likely. I think this is being decided right now in strenuous dialogue between D.C. and Jerusalem. But in the Iranian case, I really think this was not meant as a declaration of war. I think the nature of the attack demonstrates that quite effectively. I think it was meant as a message to Israel. I don’t know if that message was received.

AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, President Biden said, quote, “Based on what we know now, the attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective.” He added, “The U.S. military actively supported Israel’s defense.” Biden added, “Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel.” Can you talk about, Ori, the U.S. role in the region, from arming Israel’s assault on Gaza — last night, and there was almost no news of this in the mainstream U.S. corporate media, 79 people killed in the last, what, 24 hours in Gaza, so that assault continues — from what’s going on in Gaza to calling Israel’s assassination of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “a measure of justice”? If you could comment?

ORI GOLDBERG: The U.S. role in enabling Israel’s campaign in Gaza and Israel’s rampage in Lebanon at the moment is undoubtedly crucial. The U.S. has allowed Israel to do this, just as it could have stopped Israel from doing it, and it decided not to do that. I think there are various reasons for America’s or the Biden administration’s support for Israel. I think a lot of them, again, have to do with historical baggage and with patterns seemingly set in stone after 76 years of Israel’s existence. I think it’s very, very hard to shake off old habits. I will assume that a Harris administration will not adopt the approach that the Biden administration adopted.

Having said that, I think there’s a real debate right now among the punditry about whether Gaza itself was a platform for initiating and generating a regional war with Iran at the behest of the United States in cooperation with Israel or whether this is the result of ongoing escalation, where there is less strategy and less forethought. I tend towards the second school. Looking at Israel’s behavior, I fail to discern any kind of plan, and perhaps even any rhyme or reason in the way Israel has been acting.

Israel has always adopted a very tactical mindset. We have never excelled at strategy. This time around, it seems like Israel approached what was happening in Lebanon as an attempt at redemption — that’s certainly true for the IDF — after the year of spectacular failures in Gaza. But also, I think Israel found itself in tactical heaven. Having managed to assassinate Nasrallah, suddenly a lot of other targets were surfacing. And it’s very important to understand that this is the way Israel approaches developing situations on the ground in the Middle East. Israel looks for targets. If these people surface, Israel hits them. Consequences, implications, midterm, definitely long-term considerations, these are usually almost completely irrelevant. Israel focuses on closure. I know that’s a little hard to accept. One thinks of Israel as a strategic powerhouse. But it really isn’t. And precedent, again, on the ground seems to suggest that that is true.

As for the United States, I think the United States has a very bad history with Hezbollah specifically, and the United States has a long memory, that goes back to the embassy suicide bombing attack in 1983. And that, I think, explains why the Biden administration spoke of Nasrallah’s assassination as a “measure of justice.” However, this strategy or this reasoning seems to be imploding, because for the first time Lebanon finds itself without a militia powerful enough to hold the country together. I think neither the United States nor Israel consider the implications of Israel’s rampage. I think they’re standing before a situation that could very rapidly devolve into war.

However, one last point, this war will likely not be a ground war. It won’t be that sort of offensive. It will be a projectile war based on missiles for some time yet. I don’t think the U.S. desires that kind of war. I think that’s true for both a Harris administration and a Trump administration. And again, I expect that in the conversations being held right now between Washington and Jerusalem, there is an attempt to find some sort of retaliatory measure for Israel that will not escalate this further.

AMY GOODMAN: During last night’s CBS News vice-presidential debate here in New York, Republican Senator JD Vance, Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz both voiced support for Israel, but Walz criticized Donald Trump for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. This is what he said.

GOV. TIM WALZ: When Donald Trump was in office, it was Donald Trump who — we had a coalition of nations that had boxed Iran’s nuclear program in, the inability to advance it. Donald Trump pulled that program and put nothing else in its place. So Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before, because of Donald Trump’s fickle leadership. And when Iran shot down an American aircraft in international airspace, Donald Trump tweeted, because that’s the standard diplomacy of Donald Trump. And when Iranian missiles did fall near U.S. troops and they received traumatic brain injuries, Donald Trump wrote it off as headaches.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Vance, the U.S. did have a diplomatic deal with Iran to temporarily pause parts of its nuclear program, and President Trump did exit that deal. He recently said, just five days ago, the U.S. must now make a diplomatic deal with Iran, because the consequences are impossible. Did he make a mistake? You have one minute.

SEN. JD VANCE: Well, first of all, Margaret, “diplomacy” is not a dirty word. But I think that something that Governor Walz just said is quite extraordinary. You yourself just said Iran is as close to a nuclear weapon today as they have ever been. And, Governor Walz, you blame Donald Trump. Who has been the vice president for the last three-and-a-half years? And the answer is your running mate, not mine. Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Senator Vance and, before him, Tim Walz. Akbar Shahid Ahmed also joins us, senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost. He’s in Washington, D.C. His recent piece headlined “Israel Is Preparing a Risky Incursion into Lebanon — as Biden Stands By.” And he’s working on a book on the Biden administration’s Gaza policy called Crossing the Red Line. Akbar, if you can respond to the U.S., President Biden, the Biden-Harris administration’s response to what’s happening in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and with Iran right now?

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Thanks, Amy.

The Biden administration is in a place they definitely did not want to be a year ago at the start of this war, right? They thought they were going to prevent a regional war, demonstrate support for Israel and not pay a huge political cost. On all those fronts, they’ve largely failed, other than, arguably, the demonstrating support for Israel. Where they are now is they feel, “Look, we are five weeks from a presidential election. We don’t want to be seen as abandoning a U.S. partner.” So they’re really emphasizing this sense of we’re defending Israel.

But I think it gets to something Ori was talking about, which is: Is there a strategy here, or is this just tactics? Right? The administration can say, “Look, we’ve stopped Israelis from being killed. We’ve sent Israel defensive and huge offensive equipment.” But where are they actually going, and how are they deescalating tensions? That was something we didn’t see from Governor Walz. It’s not something we’ve heard from the Biden administration as Israel has begun its ground invasion of Lebanon. And I think when we’re at a point where there’s 40,000 and a growing number of U.S. troops in the region, and there is a sense that Israel’s actions are inextricably linked to a green light from the U.S., there’s a real responsibility for Washington here.

From their point of view, for Biden administration officials, there is an internal debate. Many are extremely cautious and are saying, “Look, this is the moment to try to use our leverage over Israel, which is overwhelming and unique, to rein them in.” But there is a small and very influential segment, Amy, of hawkish Biden administration advisers who say, “Look, Israel has decimated Hezbollah’s leadership to a large degree. We dislike Iran. We don’t want them to have so much influence in the region. Why not sort of keep escalating further?” The question is: Where does that lead us? And I think the administration hasn’t given us an answer yet.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s going on in the White House? Who are the parties around Biden? And what role does Kamala Harris play, the vice president?

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Yeah. I think the closest person to President Biden on these matters is someone called Brett McGurk. This is the White House Middle East coordinator. He’s not a well-known figure in the way that, say, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is, but he is someone who in many ways is emblematic of U.S. foreign policy thinking in the Middle East over the last 20 years — right? — which many folks would say is a pretty dubious record. This is someone who came up in the Bush administration administering Iraq. He’s very much pushing the “Let’s kneecap Iran right now. And this is our moment.” I think there’s folks at the Pentagon — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Blinken are, to a degree, more cautious, but this internal debate is so being fought in the room with the president personally. And what we know and what we’ve seen from the president publicly is he wants to yet again demonstrate support for Israel publicly, and it’s not clear, even privately, if he’s considering any route of using the influence he has — right? — of saying, “OK, we will not give you U.S. military equipment. We will pull back some of our troops from the region.”

Inside the White House, there’s also a lot of anxiety about Vice President Harris’s electoral prospects, as you can imagine. There’s a real sense that they’ve made a decision on the Gaza ceasefire question and the broader question in the Middle East, which is they’re not going to make a huge diplomatic push before the election. This idea they had that they were going to achieve a deal, bring home hostages, send aid to Palestinians, stop the bombing and the starvation, that’s all out the window at this point, right? The shiny new thing is a Lebanon incursion, opportunity and sort of hoping Gaza doesn’t reach the top headlines.

And I think that’s why you get to a point of risk where Senator Vance was able at the vice-presidential debate to say, “The world looks pretty chaotic right now, and it’s not former President Trump who’s in charge. It is President Biden.” And that’s an argument that the Trump campaign is very deliberately using to reach out to Americans in the middle and specific groups who feel alienated, whether it’s Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, younger voters. And polls do show us recently, Amy, that an increasing majority of Americans are worried about a growing war and want to see greater U.S. diplomacy. We’re not seeing a greater public demand for more weapons or more troops being sent to the region.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the possibility, do you see, of Israel striking Iran, specifically perhaps nuclear sites?

AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: You know, I’ll think back to a pretty scary phrase I heard from a well-placed U.S. official, Korea, Korea bureaucrat working on Middle East policy. This person said to me at the beginning of this week — you know, he described how people inside government who track these issues are, quote, “stunned and shocked.” And then he said, “We feel we’re enabling a,” quote, “nihilistic regional murder spree.” Now, that’s very strong language, right? A murder spree. But what it tells you is that there’s a real sense within government that the U.S. is not going to provide a veto on Israeli actions. I think there is concern about: Does it strike nuclear sites, and does Iran lash back in a way that’s impossible to control? That the sense of a “no” from the U.S., I think, is — it’s very questionable. It’s not a guarantee.

What you could see the U.S. doing is urge Israel to strike something that looks strategic but is not necessarily a red line for the Iranians where they feel they have to respond to a huge degree. But that carries its own risks. We’ve seen the Iranians come out and say, “Not only would we, in response, target Israel; we would target U.S. partners across the region and potentially cripple the global economy.” Right? They’ve talked about targeting Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, other partners who are critical, to end global energy supplies. So, I think the U.S. doesn’t know where it’s going, but its commitment is very clear in that it wants to send a message to Iran that’s overwhelming and military.

AMY GOODMAN: Akbar Shahid Ahmed, I want to ask you to stay with us as we talk more about the debate, particularly the last response of JD Vance around the issue of January 6th and the insurrection and President Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. We’ll also be talking about abortion and climate change and more. Akbar is the senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost, joining us from D.C. We’ll link to your pieces on Lebanon and Gaza.

And we want to thank Ori Goldberg for joining us. Ori Goldberg, Israeli political analyst and scholar who’s written extensively on Iran, Israel and the relationship between religion and politics in the Middle East. We’ll link to your piece in New Lines Magazine, “Why Israelis Do and Don’t Want War with Hezbollah.” Your recent piece for The Nation, “For Israeli Protesters, Palestine Might as Well Not Exist.”

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 03, 2024

Israeli Airstrike Kills 9 Near Lebanon’s Parliament as Hezbollah Battles Israeli Invasion
Oct 03, 2024

At least nine people, including health and rescue workers, have died in central Beirut after Israel bombed an apartment building housing a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah. At least 14 people were wounded in the airstrike on the Bashoura district of Beirut near Lebanon’s Parliament. There are reports Israel fired white phosphorus munitions during the attack. Israel also carried out numerous strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced since Israel began its massive aerial assault last week. Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah claims it has destroyed three Israeli tanks.

Lebanese FM Claims Israel Killed Nasrallah Shortly After He Agreed to Ceasefire
Oct 03, 2024

Israel launched the ground invasion days after assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday. Lebanon’s top diplomat has revealed that Israel targeted Nasrallah after he had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire. Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib made the comment during an interview with Christiane Amanpour on PBS.

Christiane Amanpour: “Are you saying Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire just moments before he was assassinated?”

Abdallah Bou Habib: “He agreed. He agreed, yes, yes. We agreed completely. Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, but consulting with the Hezbollah. The speaker, Mr. Berri, consulted with Hezbollah. And we informed the Americans and the French that that’s what happened.”

Christiane Amanpour: “So” —

Abdallah Bou Habib: “And they told us that Mr. Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents.”

Hezbollah has not confirmed a ceasefire deal was reached, but Lebanon’s Ambassador to the U.K. Rami Mortada told the BBC, “We were on track trying to discuss a diplomatic alternative to the current abyss, but the hotheads in Israel chose a different path.”

Meanwhile, the emir of Qatar has accused Israel of committing a “collective genocide” as he condemned Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.

U.S. Remains “Fully, Fully, Fully Supportive of Israel” as Netanyahu Mulls Attacks on Iran
Oct 03, 2024

Israel continues to threaten to launch a major attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli military bases and other security sites. On Wednesday, President Biden said he supports Israel’s right to retaliate but that he opposes strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stressed U.S. support for Israel.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield: “As President Biden emphasized following yesterday’s attack, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel.”

On Wednesday, Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, visited Qatar, where he said Iran wants peace, not war.

President Masoud Pezeshkian: “The security of the region is the security of all Muslims, and we do not want any war or bloodshed. Since I assumed the presidency, every speech I’ve made has emphasized our quest for peace and security. No nation or region can prosper in the midst of war. … We were left with no choice but to respond. If Israel decides to retaliate, then it will face harsher reactions.”

Israel’s Attacks on Gaza Have Wiped Out 902 Entire Palestinian Families
Oct 03, 2024

In Gaza, Israeli ground and air attacks have killed nearly 100 people over the past day, including at least 51 in Khan Younis. The dead in Khan Younis included seven women and 12 children. Residents described the Israeli attack.

Mohamed: “We were at home when we heard explosions and planes. We could not leave our homes. We wanted to go out to a safe place like the city by the sea or Mawasi, but we could not get there because of the planes. Whoever left their home was killed because of the quadcopters. There was heavy fire all night. It started from 7 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. nonstop.”

Gaza authorities say Israel’s yearlong war has wiped 902 entire families off the civil registry. There are another 1,364 families where only one family member has survived. The official death toll in Gaza has reached nearly 41,800, but that is believed to be a vast undercount.

*******************

“Don’t Do It”: Lebanese Lawyer Warns Israel Against Using War to Create a “New Middle East”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 03, 2024

Israeli strikes continue to rain down on Lebanon, including a strike that killed rescue and health workers in Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced by the Israeli attacks. Israel announced eight of its soldiers were killed while invading southern Lebanon this week. Israel launched the ground invasion after assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, despite Nasrallah reportedly agreeing to a 21-day ceasefire. “This overwhelming use of force cannot change people’s agency,” says Nadim Houry, Lebanese researcher and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. “The region does not want to be a satellite of Israel or a satellite of the U.S. And by the way, the region does not want to be a satellite of Iran either. The problem is the region is not really being given much of a choice.”

Transcript

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: At least nine people, including health and rescue workers, have died in central Beirut after Israel bombed an apartment building housing a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah. At least 14 people were wounded. The attack occurred without warning in the Bashoura district of Beirut near Lebanon’s Parliament and the United Nations headquarters in the city. There are reports Israel fired white phosphorus munitions during the attack. Israel also carried out numerous strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced by the Israeli attacks.

Meanwhile, Israel has announced eight of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, which Israel invaded earlier this week.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Israel continues to threaten to launch a major attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli military bases and other security sites. Israel has also killed nearly 100 people in Gaza over the past day.

Meanwhile, the emir of Qatar has accused Israel of committing a, quote, “collective genocide,” unquote, as he condemned Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani made the comment during the Asia Cooperation Dialogue Summit in Doha.

SHEIKH TAMIM BIN HAMAD AL-THANI: [translated] It has become clear that what is happening is collective genocide, in addition to turning the Gaza Strip into an area unfit for human habitation in preparation for displacement. … We call for serious efforts for a ceasefire and stop of the attacks carried out by the Israeli occupation on Lebanese territory. Security will not be achieved without achieving a just peace. And this will not be achieved in our region except by establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of June 4th, 1967.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on all of this, we’re joined by Nadim Houry, Lebanese researcher, international lawyer, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. He worked at Human Rights Watch for over a decade, where he established the group’s Lebanon office and covered the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. He’s joining us now from Paris.

Nadim, welcome to Democracy Now! Though you are in France right now, you have close connections to people on the ground in Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes hit an apartment building in central Beirut overnight in an area considered a safe zone, given its Christian majority population. Can you talk about what you’re hearing from people on the ground, what the situation is right now with, what, 1.2 [million] Lebanese displaced, as well?

NADIM HOURY: Sure. Thank you for having me.

The offices of the research center I run is actually less than a hundred meters away from where the strike happened last night, so I’m very familiar with the area.

The overwhelming feeling today in Lebanon is fear, anxiety and anger, for a number of reasons. Fear because the Lebanese have seen what Israel can do to the country since 1978, repeated invasions, repeated attacks, the destruction of the 2006 war, and they’ve also seen recently what happened to Gaza. There’s also high level of anger because they feel this is a war that they don’t understand. This is a war that many of them feel was imposed on them. They feel that there could have been a ceasefire in Gaza, which would have prevented all of this. But also anger at a totally absent Lebanese state. Many people are actually still sleeping on the streets, many of the displaced, because the Lebanese government was unable to really put together a proper evacuation plan. And people who are being hosted are being hosted either through family or friends or through really a wonderful solidarity movement across the country.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Nadim, could you explain where exactly these displaced people are going? They’re sleeping in cars, as you had said earlier, as well as being taken in by, you know, friends or family in houses. But where in Beirut? Are there places in Beirut that are still considered safe? Or are they all leaving the city?

NADIM HOURY: Sure. So, people started moving initially from the border villages in the south months ago. But really the movement accelerated in the last 10 days, notably on September 23rd, where Israel in one day killed more than 500 Lebanese, which was the highest death toll in Lebanon since the civil war which ended in 1990. Since then, more — you know, we talked about more than a million people have moved. They’ve moved — they’re being housed by friends, but also the Lebanese government has opened now all public schools. All public schools are being turned into temporary shelter in Beirut, but also all across the country, in Mount Lebanon, in southern cities like Sidon and Tyre. The only problem right now is Israel is increasingly threatening villages and towns further north from its border. Some of the warnings of the last two, three days go way north of the Litani River, which Israel often talks about, and includes some of the major towns around Tyre, the biggest city in the south.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nadim, you mentioned earlier that the Lebanese government has not been able to come up with a proper evacuation plan, that the state is really not functional. If you could describe what the situation was in Lebanon prior to the Israeli attacks and its invasion, both in terms of the economy but also the government?

NADIM HOURY: Sure. I mean, Lebanon has been in a state of protracted political crisis for years — some would say for decades. But it really accelerated since 2018. And in 2019, we had, basically, a major breakdown of the banking system. It turns out that our corrupt elites were basically running a Ponzi scheme. And since 2019, Lebanese don’t have access to their savings in the bank accounts. They are allowed $200, $300 a month, depending on how much money they have in these bank accounts. We haven’t had a president now for, I think, over a year and a half, so it’s only a caretaker government. It’s really a state that has, in a way, not only become failed, but has almost given up. They almost act as a postal box for messages between different regional, international parties.

And the Lebanese really feel that. They felt it particularly, we have to remember, after the Beirut port explosion on August 4th, 2020, where, there, again, the Lebanese woke up to see large parts of their capital destroyed and learning that many of their politicians knew that nitrate was actually being — ammonium nitrate was being stored in the port right by the city center and no one did anything.

I think there’s a strong effort of local organizing right now. And I would add maybe, perhaps, one of the challenges facing the displaced is, in 2006, Hezbollah’s logistics operation was, you know, a very well-oiled machine. They were very present. Since the beeper attacks that Israel had done against Hezbollah members — and many of those members, by the way, were not combatants, but were actually civilians somehow affiliated with Hezbollah — Hezbollah has not been able, through its various associations and services, to really fully support as well those displaced from the south.

AMY GOODMAN: Nadim, during Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon in 2006, you were at Human Rights Watch in Lebanon, looked into the reasons for civilian deaths there. You tweeted earlier this week you’re, quote, “very worried” they’re the “same patterns” developing now. I’m wondering if you can comment on this. And you also posted a series of comments on X Wednesday in response to what you call, quote, “murmurs amongst Israelis & their supporters (in the West & our region) about creating 'a new Middle East.'” You write, “Don’t do it. You have tried before & each time it has ended in disaster.” Elaborate on all of these points.

NADIM HOURY: Sure, yes. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, I spent 33 days in 2006, the entire war, documenting why Lebanese civilians were being killed. And there were really two main reasons, which we’re actually finding again today in Lebanon. The first one is that Israel deliberately treats anyone and anything remotely affiliated with Hezbollah, even if they’re clearly civilian, as a legitimate target, which is clearly something that international law rejects. And that’s why, for example, we saw the attack last night on a medical center. There is no allegation by Israel so far that they’ve hit any military object, other than to say, “Well, it was a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah.” That’s clearly illegal. We saw a lot of these attacks in 2006, and then we’re seeing many of these attacks today in 2024. That’s why we actually have now more than 20 medics in Lebanon who have been killed. A number of them have been affiliated with Hezbollah. I should note, there are some accounts that indicate that Hezbollah is — obviously, we know it’s not just an armed group. They have various civilian offices, services. It’s probably the second-biggest employer in Lebanon after the state, you know, probably with more than 100,000 employees. So, if you consider all of them legitimate, like Israel has been tempted to do, you can just imagine the carnage and the crimes that will be committed.

And the second main reason of such a high death toll is really what, actually, the Israeli leadership called in 2006 the Dahiyeh doctrine, Dahiyeh being the southern suburb of Beirut, where basically Israel decides to use massive and disproportionate force on civilian areas and civilian objects where Hezbollah could be supported as a way of kind of getting collective punishment and of deterring and, frankly, trying to push the population to say, “OK, we give up.” Now, we’re seeing these same patterns. We’re seeing these same patterns in the last 10 days with the intensification of attacks on Dahiyeh. And that explains why we’re seeing such high civilian death tolls — which brings me to my second point.

You know, with these attacks, we started hearing, particularly after the assassination of the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, but also after Iran’s strikes, we saw a number of Israeli politicians, including Naftali Bennett, who’s the former Israeli prime minister, saying, “This is our chance to remake the Middle East.” You know, but we’ve heard this before, for those of us who are from the region. We heard this in 1982, when Israel invaded Beirut to push out the PLO, and they tried to install a president and a regime in Lebanon that will be friendly to them. You know how this ended, other than the massacres and the crimes? It ended with the creation of Hezbollah. We heard that it in 2006 again, when they said, you know, “We’re going to go in, and we’re going to destroy Hezbollah, and this will be the end of it.” Hezbollah came out stronger than before. And in 2008, Hezbollah used that strength to actually control Lebanon even more by using some of its weapons against other Lebanese.

The U.S. made the same mistake in 2003. They invaded Iraq, and they said, you know, “We’re going to refashion the Middle East into our own — you know, into what we would like to see, into these pro-Western governments.” And that has been an utter failure, and the U.S. is about to leave Iraq.

You know, the problem is, with all these strategies, all these campaigns, is we know that this overwhelming use of force cannot change people’s agency. The region does not want to be a satellite of Israel or a satellite of the U.S. And by the way, the region does not want to be a satellite of Iran either. The problem is, the region is not really being given much of a choice. And that’s what’s happening in Lebanon, in Palestine, in so many other places.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go, Nadim, to comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who said on Wednesday that Israel should take out Iran’s nuclear program. He was speaking on CNN.

NAFTALI BENNETT: Sometimes history knocks on your door, and you’ve got to seize the moment. If we don’t do it now, I don’t see it ever happening. And now is the moment. I also want to explain why, because Iran’s strategy, it had two arms that were sort of defending it, or they were its insurance policy against an Israeli strike, and that’s Hezbollah and Hamas. But those two arms are temporarily paralyzed. So it’s like a boxer out in the ring without arms for the next few minutes. Now is the time that we can attack, because Iran is fully vulnerable. The Islamic Republic of Iran, it’s time to hit, destroy the nuclear program.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaking to CNN. And now let’s go to another former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who asked him, asked Barak, whether he agreed with the comments Bennett had made earlier.

EHUD BARAK: In order to, one, a full-scale attempt to change the Middle East, we need all this alliance of blessing, led by the United States. … Israel is very strong. Israel cannot rearrange the Middle East on its own.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. So, your response, Nadim, to what they were saying?

NADIM HOURY: Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You will fail. You’ve failed in the past. I mean, we know that there is another pathway. Look, there are two central questions that as long as they’re not resolved, the Middle East is not going to know peace. The first one is the Palestine question. And the second one is a question that has been central to the region since 1979, which is: What is the legitimate place of Iran?

And by trying, since the 1980s with the Iran-Iraq War and since so many other conflicts since then of trying to box in Iran and trying to sort of attack it, reduce its size, the only outcome has been Iran sort of pops back out from another door and uses nonstate actors to establish its influence. It’s done this in Lebanon with Hezbollah. It’s done this in Iraq with the Shia militias. It’s helped with the Houthis in Yemen. It’s done this, the same, now in Syria.

So, I think we need to — in my view, if the region is to know proper peace, we need to answer these two questions. You know, either the Palestinians get a full independent state, a sovereign state, à la two-state solutions, which is what the Arab countries are pushing for, or they get full citizenship in one state, Jews and Arabs treated exactly the same. And you also — you know, that equation has to be resolved; otherwise — and this is what October 7th reminded us — there can be no peace. There will be forms of armed resistance. Some you may like, some you may call terrorism, but there will be armed resistance as long as the Palestine question is not resolved in this region.

And the second one, as well, which is Iran has shown us that it can actually be very good at using patience. This is what it did after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. And guess what: At the time, I remember a younger Netanyahu telling the Americans in Congress, “It’s all going to be fine. You know, Iran is going to lose. We’re going to have democracy. Everyone is going to welcome us.” Well, guess what: It didn’t turn out exactly the same way. Yes, the U.S. had overwhelming power. Yes, the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq. And the occupation was a disaster. And today, Iran is stronger than it ever was.

So I’m not sure what Naftali Bennett hopes to achieve. And even Ehud Barak, which is trying to play more of a role of an elder statesman: “I’ve seen it. We have to be more cautious.” But what he’s saying is, “We have to be more cautious, so we need to make sure that the U.S. underwrites this whole enterprise.” I think that would be foolish.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, let me ask you about that, just before we end, Nadim. What are the prospects of the U.S. underwriting that plan, the potential for Israel to attack Iran?

NADIM HOURY: Well, look, to be honest, so far what we have seen is basically Team Biden equal Team Israel. You know, rhetorically, they say, “Oh, we’ve asked Israel not to do this. We’ve told Israel this will be bad to do.” And, you know, a few minutes later, we hear about new sales of weapons, billions of dollars being transferred, intel being provided. Right now the U.S. is acting as a full enabler of Israel’s, what I would consider not only aggressive, but actually extremely dangerous policies, which actually lead to Israel acting as a spoiled child of the U.S. and of the West, which leads it to take positions like indicating and treating the secretary-general of the U.N. as persona non grata. Which, you know, rule-of-law country would do that?

AMY GOODMAN: And just to underscore what you’re saying, Israel has said that the U.N. Secretary-General Guterres cannot come to Israel, that he is persona non grata. Nadim Houry, we want to thank you for joining us, Lebanese researcher, international lawyer, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, speaking to us from Paris, France.

Coming up, we look at a new Fault Lines Al Jazeera documentary, Starving Gaza, in 20 seconds.

*******************

“Starving Gaza”: Al Jazeera Film Shows U.S. Keeps Arming Israel as It Uses Hunger as a Weapon of War
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 03, 2024

A deliberate, man-made famine is underway in Gaza, according to many human rights experts. Starving Gaza is a new documentary by Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines investigating how Israel has killed civilians seeking aid and attacked humanitarian networks. The harrowing film is based on the work of Palestinian reporters in Gaza who are suffering the same conditions as their subjects. “They’ve been displaced, they’ve been injured, they’ve watched their own children die in front of them, and yet they somehow conjure the professionalism to pick up a camera and record and tell other people’s trauma,” says journalist Hind Hassan. “They really will be remembered in history as the titans of journalists.”

Transcript

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

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Gaza, where human rights experts say a deliberate, man-made famine is underway. Last month, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a starvation campaign in Gaza.

A new documentary by Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines worked with Palestinian reporters to investigate how Israel has killed civilians seeking aid and attacked humanitarian networks in Gaza, and that the U.S. knows this is happening and has done nothing to stop it. In a minute, we’ll be joined by the filmmaker. We begin with a clip from Starving Gaza and a warning: This contains graphic images and descriptions. In this clip, we hear from a Palestinian doctor, Ahmed Nasser, who’s trying to save severely malnourished children in Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza.

DR. AHMED NASSER: [translated] I don’t think anyone in north Gaza has enough food to eat. We have a new malnutrition case. The number of cases is beyond the malnutrition clinic’s capacity.

HIND HASSAN: Every day, the cries of hungry children fill the halls of Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza. Some children here at the malnutrition clinic have never known a full meal in their life. After the Hamas attacks on October 7th, Israel cut off fuel, food and water from Gaza. Within weeks, starvation had spread in the north. Israel doesn’t allow foreign journalists into Gaza, so we worked with Palestinian reporters who filmed for us at Kamal Adwan Hospital in June.

DR. AHMED NASSER: [translated] How often does he have fever?

ABDULAZIZ’S MOTHER: [translated] He had a high fever and diarrhea all night.

HIND HASSAN: Abdulaziz is 5 months old and starving. Dr. Ahmed Nasser has been taking care of him with what little resources the hospital has on hand.

ABDULAZIZ’S MOTHER: [translated] Should I be concerned? He had a fever for 20 days before I brought him to the hospital.

DR. AHMED NASSER: [translated] The situation is very serious. The child cannot absorb anything in his body. Anything that enters his body is excreted without benefit to him. His mother brought him to the hospital because the child was suffering from chronic diarrhea, vomiting and a high body temperature. Many times we were shocked to see 30 to 40 cases in one day for the same reason.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s part of the opening to the new Fault Lines documentary, Starving Gaza. And this is another clip. We hear from the parents of 2-year-old Khaled, who died of malnutrition in February, an otherwise healthy toddler before Israel began its Gaza assault.

HANAN ASSAF: [translated] It’s very difficult to lose your child because he was hungry. It’s hard.

HIND HASSAN: When famine starts, it takes the youngest first. It’s been five months since Hanan Assaf and her husband Muhammad buried their 2-year-old son Khaled. This is Khaled in happier times, before the war on Gaza and the starvation that followed.

HANAN ASSAF: [translated] This war destroyed everything — houses, people, trees, stones. Everything was destroyed. This was my youngest son’s room. The occupation forces burned it. They didn’t leave us a single memory. Nothing. The boy was fine. All of a sudden he started to cry all the time. He began eating less because there was no food. He was used to drinking milk and eating rice and fruits. But since the beginning of the war, it decreased until it completely ran out. There was nothing available at all except for wild greens. And the prices are unbelievable for whatever is there. The boy looked like a skeleton. He was gone. He was completely gone. I would hold him like a newborn. He stopped being able to sit up, move or walk. His body became very weak. I took him to Kamal Adwan Hospital. There was no medicine or treatment. On the last two days, he was on a ventilator.

HIND HASSAN: Khaled died of severe dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital on February 2nd, 2024.

AMY GOODMAN: Starving Gaza. For more, we’re joined in London by Hind Hassan, journalist, filmmaker, long covered Palestine and directed Starving Gaza for Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English.

Welcome, Hind, to Democracy Now! This is a horrifying documentary. If you can start off by talking about these devastating effects of this last year on Gaza? And then we’ll talk about the exposé of the U.S. suppressing its own reports on preventing humanitarian aid from getting in, Israel doing that.

HIND HASSAN: Thank you. And before I start through that, first of all, thank you for having the on the show, but I just want to say that I am a documentary filmmaker, I’m a journalist, but this documentary was made by many people — the director, you know, who’s Mark, who works at Fault Lines Al Jazeera, and all the other filmmakers that we had in Gaza, and their role is so central. And I think that’s what makes this documentary so unique, is that collaboration that we had with the filmmakers who were inside Gaza, so that they can showcase to the world the realities of what is happening in Gaza at the moment and also show just how skilled they are and the conditions that they are working in, and yet they are still producing these incredibly powerful documentaries and films.

And to your question, since October the 7th, we have seen the siege that already existed on Gaza increase, and as part of that, there has been a significant decrease in the amount of aid that has been able to get into Gaza. And as a result of that, we have seen a lot of children and women who were pregnant and newborns, toddlers and people suffering from malnutrition because they haven’t been able to get access to the necessary food or the aid that is needed for them to be able to live a healthy life. And as a result of that, we have seen numerous cases of children who have died as a result of malnutrition. But the number of deaths just touches the reality on the ground and the number of people who are being impacted by what’s happening.

And this documentary, what it does is it speaks to the victims on the ground. It talks to those individuals who have lost their children, who have had to struggle with not being able to provide milk or formula or food or have not been able — pregnant women who have not been able to provide the sustenance that babies need, doctors who are in the wards and who are trying to deal with the high number of victims that are coming in, with the patients that are coming in, showing you that day-to-day of what happens, and then also the search for accountability that you mentioned outside of Gaza, in the United States and in the United Kingdom, because, of course, we, as international journalists, have not been able to get into Gaza since October the 7th.

We have had to rely completely on our colleagues who are inside Gaza, who are not only working every single day, who don’t have a break, who can’t take a moment to try and gather themselves, but who are also — who have also been displaced, have lost family members, who have been through incredible trauma of their own, but yet they are still documenting other people’s trauma in order for us to understand the realities of what’s happening on the ground. Because we haven’t been able to go in and support our colleagues, we did what we could outside in order to support and showcase their work inside of Gaza.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Hind, could you explain — I mean, you’ve said a little bit about this — how is it that you contacted people in Gaza, since, as you mentioned, Al Jazeera has not been there? Who were the filmmakers that you worked with?

HIND HASSAN: So, actually, I want to tell you a story about one of the filmmakers. We had many people who worked on the ground with us. We coordinated with people who were outside Gaza. It’s a full Palestinian team. So, there were people who were outside who helped us coordinate inside, and then we also worked alongside cameramen and cinematographers and directors of photography who were inside Gaza. It’s incredibly difficult. It’s not easy to do, because they are constantly dealing with a lack of data, lack of ability to be able to send footage over. And the internet is very patchy and is very difficult, so communication is tough for us to be able to get in — to communicate with them, let alone send that high-quality footage over to us. And on top of that, they’re dealing with daily bombardments, and they’re dealing with their own issues.

But there is our director of photography who is inside Gaza. His name is Hussien Jaber. When I learned about his story, I was completely shocked. And there’s not much that shocks us journalists that work on these stories, because we see so many horrors and we hear the stories of people and what they’ve been through. But when I heard about our own colleague and what had happened to him, I was really blown away. It’s a heartbreaking story.

So, on the 5th of December, Hussien Jaber had gone to Gaza City, where his family were. They had been ordered to evacuate by Israel, and so they were trying to head west, which is what they had been ordered to do. And he had been working. He had gone to Gaza City in order to help his children evacuate. They had been staying in a building for a number of days. And then he sees his daughter running towards him, his youngest daughter, who’s just 4 years old. Her name is Salma. And she’s running to him, he describes the Israeli military firing bullets. It sprayed everywhere. And he sees — as his daughter runs towards him, he sees his daughter shot in the neck. She’s then still running somehow, slowly. She’s writhing in pain. He runs towards her, and he embraces her, and she dies.

And this was our director of photography. This was not someone we featured in the documentary. This was the man who was filming that trauma. He watched his 4-year-old die and be killed in the neck just — shot in the neck and killed just in December. Somehow his 9-year-old daughter Sarah survived. She had a bullet that went through her jacket, but she managed to survive. And then, his son, Omar, his 3-year-old son, he says, is still asking, “Where is Salma? Where is my sister?”

And also, during that, as his daughter was shot, he was also hit. He doesn’t remember how it happened, when it happened, because it was all a blur, and he was focused on his daughter. But he was also shot. And Al Jazeera did an interview with him, and there’s a photograph of him on the Al Jazeera website where his arm is in a sling and he has external screws on his arm.

This is the story of the Palestinian journalists in Gaza. So many of them have gone through this. They’ve been displaced, they’ve been injured, they’ve watched their own children die in front of them, and yet they somehow conjure the professionalism to pick up a camera and record and tell other people’s trauma. And I think that’s what is so powerful about this documentary, what’s so unique about it, is the way that we try to collaborate. This is a platform for them to tell their story. This is a platform for them to show the world what is happening to the children of Gaza, the impact of the lack of aid and the lack of food being able to get in. And it really is them center stage. And our role is to support them, is to be able to do that chasing and to do the accountability chasing.

There is a moment in the film where I actually speak to Dr. Ahmed Nasser. And even during that, you don’t see it on the documentary, you just see the moments that we managed to speak to him. But just during that communication, the line cut off maybe five or six times, and we had to keep calling back, and we had to keep waiting. And the journalists who were filming on the other side — so, Hussien Jaber and his colleagues — they were so patient. They were so professional.

And I think as we look back, as we look back on these moments and these times and remember the journalists in Gaza, they really will be remembered in history as the titans of journalists. And it’s a complete honor for every single one of us that worked on this documentary to be able to say that we worked alongside them.

AMY GOODMAN: And let’s remember that so many have died, have been killed in the Israeli assault over — the estimates are 170 journalists. Now, I want to go to its — the film is sort of in two parts, and then it’s responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza. This is a clip from Starving Gaza that features Stacy Gilbert. She’s former senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, resigned after over 20 years, after disagreements with how the State Department put out the report that she worked on that concluded that Israel was not obstructing U.S. humanitarian assistance to Gaza — not her conclusion.

STACY GILBERT: It is widely known and documented in the humanitarian community and the U.S. government that Israel has been blocking humanitarian assistance since the start of the Gaza conflict.

HIND HASSAN: Stacy Gilbert was a senior officer in the U.S. State Department and specialized in humanitarian assistance. She resigned in May after the Biden administration concluded Israel isn’t blocking aid.

STACY GILBERT: They have made a policy decision to support Israel unconditionally.

HIND HASSAN: What are those specific ways of aid being blocked?

STACY GILBERT: It’s everything. There are administrative obstacles, not enough customs officials checking these items, the food that goes bad because it’s waiting on the trucks. So it’s like a spigot. They turn on, they turn off. They decide that some things can’t go in, other things can. Aid workers’ visas are denied or delayed. And when the pressure builds, they will allow more assistance in, but then the spigot gets turned off again. So, Israel and the United States government will say, “Look, some assistance is going in.” It’s never been enough. And they know that.

HIND HASSAN: The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in security funding each year. There’s a U.S. law that prohibits arms transfers to countries that are blocking humanitarian assistance.

STACY GILBERT: The administration deliberately denies the facts on the ground, because it would trigger consequences to cut off security funding. It allows the weapons sales to continue. The weapons are the engine that fuel this war. And we are not taking responsibility for our role in it.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Stacy Gilbert, former senior adviser in the State Department, who resigned. Hind Hassan, this is another clip from your report, Starving Gaza, when you come to Washington and question State Department spokesperson Matt Miller.

HIND HASSAN: We went to a press briefing at the U.S. State Department to ask about Washington’s support for Israel as famine has spread throughout Gaza.

We’ve had aid organizations and relief groups who have said over and over again that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war. How do you respond to the allegations of complicity of the U.S. government? And what more will it take for the U.S. to stop Israeli military funding?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, it is the United States that has secured all of the major agreements to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza, going back to the very early days, the first week after October 7th, when the secretary traveled to the region and the president traveled to Israel and together convinced Israel to open Rafah crossing to allow humanitarian assistance in. It has not been enough There are obstacles. Sometimes those are logistical obstacles coming from Israel. Sometimes those are the nature of moving humanitarian assistance around in an armed conflict.

HIND HASSAN: Under U.S. law, it is required that any country receiving military support must not obstruct the flow of humanitarian aid during war. And every major rights group, from the United Nations to Human Rights Watch, has said that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war. Do you disagree with them? And are you — just, sorry, one final question: Are you not afraid of completely losing legitimacy, of being seen as being hypocritical when it comes to supporting human rights in one country, but not when it comes to Palestinians?

MATTHEW MILLER: Let me just answer the first question. So, I would encourage you to read the report that we issued on this very question two months ago that looked into Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law and their work and whether they had done a good enough job to let humanitarian assistance in, where we said that there were some roadblocks that needed to be overcome. And we had worked to overcome those, and we had seen Israel take steps to allow humanitarian assistance in.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, Hind Hassan questioning him in Washington, D.C., coming out of the Stacy Gilbert clip from the film, who quit the State Department over the report that was issued. And ProPublica recently revealed that USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau, where she worked, both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Your final thoughts, Hind?

HIND HASSAN: So, as you saw there, two very contrasting statements. You have the former State Department official saying that Israel is deliberately blocking aid, and then you have Matthew Miller, Matt Miller, saying, “Oh, please check out our report. Israel could do more, but they’re not deliberately blocking aid.”

And to understand this, you really have to understand Stacy Gilbert and her role and who she is. She has worked for the State Department for many, many years. She’s been doing this job for decades. And this decision may have been an easy decision for her, but it’s not one that she took lightly. She has worked in so many other countries. So, for her, at this point to decide, “I cannot continue in my job, I must step down because of this,” shows you how huge that is, that opinion is to her, or what’s happened is to her. And so, I really don’t think that you can take lightly what she’s done or any of the other officials who have resigned. I was born in Iraq, and I remember watching all the resignations of the officials in the United States who did not support the War in Iraq or the invasion for legality reasons. And so, it’s full circle now to have been sat in front of Stacy Gilbert and to hear her say that she is haunted by that report and that the reason why she resigned was because she wants to be an asterisk in the history books, that she didn’t stay quiet and that she spoke up.

And so, I think viewers can watch this documentary, and they can make up their own minds, but there is a huge body of evidence which suggests that Israel has been purposefully blocking the flow of aid into Gaza and that the United States government knows about it.

AMY GOODMAN: Hind Hassan, we thank you so much for being with us, journalist, documentary filmmaker, has long covered Palestine, is the correspondent and narrator on the new Al Jazeera documentary film Starving Gaza, worked with many Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza.

Coming up, the death toll from Hurricane Helene nears 200 as we look at six plastic factory workers feared dead after floodwaters swelled around their Tennessee workplace. Their boss repeatedly threatened to fire anyone who left during the storm. Back in 20 seconds.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 04, 2024

Israeli Strikes on Lebanon Kill Dozens of Medical Workers, Shuttering Hospitals
Oct 04, 2024

Israel’s military has carried out its heaviest airstrikes so far on Lebanon with a reported 10 massive bombings overnight in Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs. Lebanon’s health minister reports at least 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, including at least 127 children, most of them in the past two weeks. On Thursday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Israeli attacks had made it impossible for the WHO to deliver a large shipment of trauma and medical supplies to Beirut. He said Israeli strikes have killed 28 health workers in just one 24-hour span, while shuttering dozens of hospitals and clinics.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “In southern Lebanon 37 health facilities have been closed, while in Beirut three hospitals have been forced to fully evacuate staff and patients, and another two were partially evacuated. … Many health workers are not reporting to duty, as they fled the areas where they work due to bombardments.”

Biden Says He Discussed Possible Attack on Iranian Oil Sites with Israeli Leaders
Oct 04, 2024

A Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday U.S. military leaders were consulting with their Israeli counterparts on a response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this week on Israeli military bases and other security sites.

Sabrina Singh: “We continue to engage the Israelis, you know, very frequently. We are certainly talking to them about their response. But what their response might be, I’m just not going to speculate further on.”

At the White House, President Biden acknowledged he had spoken with Israeli leaders to discuss possible attacks on Iran’s oil infrastructure.

Reporter: “Mr. President, would you support Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities, sir?”

President Joe Biden: “We’re discussing that. I think — I think that would be a little — anyway.”

Biden had said that he did not support Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Biden’s comment rattled energy markets, causing an immediate spike in crude oil prices.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls on Muslim Leaders to Unite Against Israeli Aggression
Oct 04, 2024

Iran has threatened an “unconventional response” to any Israeli retaliation, including attacks targeting Israeli infrastructure. Earlier today, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers in Tehran for the first time in nearly five years as he commemorated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel last week in Lebanon. Khamanei called on Muslim leaders to band together to confront Israel.

“We Wish You Could See the Nightmares”: U.S. Health Workers Back from Gaza Write to Biden and Harris
Oct 04, 2024

Israel continues its relentless attacks on Gaza, with Israeli forces blowing up residential buildings near the Nuseirat camp and civilian homes in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. The Palestinian Health Ministry reports at least 14 people were killed and 50 wounded over the last 24 hours.

Here in the United States, a group of nearly 100 physicians, nurses, surgeons and midwives have sent a letter to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris detailing “crimes beyond comprehension” they witnessed in Gaza. They’re calling on the U.S. to support a ceasefire, to end support for Israel’s military and to back an international arms embargo on Israel. Part of the letter reads, “We wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them.”

Israel’s Deadliest Airstrike on West Bank in Decades Kills 18 Palestinians
Oct 04, 2024

An Israeli airstrike on the occupied West Bank has killed at least 18 Palestinians. On Thursday, Israeli fighter jets targeted a crowded cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp, leaving behind twisted piles of wreckage and flaming debris. This is Nimer Fayyad, the brother of the cafe’s owner who was killed in the attack.

Nimer Fayyad: “The missiles targeted a civilian building. A family was wiped from the civil registry. What was their fault? The family was asleep in their house. There’s no safe place for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves.”

Israel’s military claimed the bombing targeted the head of Hamas’s infrastructure in Tulkarm. It was the largest and deadliest airstrike in the occupied West Bank in more than two decades.

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What Is Israel’s Endgame in Lebanon? Airstrikes Intensify, Hospitals Overwhelmed, 1.2 Million Displaced
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 04, 2024

Israel is further escalating its war on Lebanon, carrying out its heaviest airstrikes so far on Beirut overnight in the densely populated southern suburbs. Lebanon’s health minister said Thursday at least 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, including at least 127 children, most of them in the past two weeks. More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced. Meanwhile, Beirut hospitals are overwhelmed by a surge in casualties as attacks intensify, and the World Health Organization says Israel’s attacks killed 28 health workers in just one 24-hour span and made it impossible for the WHO to deliver a large shipment of trauma and medical supplies to Beirut. This comes as the Israeli army appears to be preparing for a deeper ground incursion into southern Lebanon. As tensions continue to escalate in the region, we speak with Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, reporting for the Associated Press, who says Lebanon is getting used to “the new normal” of daily Israeli airstrikes on the capital, mass displacement and ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah forces in the south. “Things are moving at a very, very fast pace … and it is really unclear what the endgame for Israel is.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel carried out its heaviest airstrikes so far in Beirut with a reported series of 10 massive strikes overnight in the densely populated southern suburbs. Lebanon’s health minister said Thursday at least 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, including at least 127 children, most of them in the past two weeks.

Lebanon’s state-run national news agency is also reporting Israeli airstrikes damaged the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, closing the main road used by tens of thousands to flee Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. More than 1.2 million Lebanese have now been displaced.

Meanwhile, Beirut hospitals are overwhelmed. This is Dr. Jihad Saadeh, general director of Rafik al-Hariri Hospital, largest Lebanese public hospital.

DR. JIHAD SAADEH: [translated] The hardest thing I’ve seen was when a father was searching for his son. In the end, we found out that his son was with us, but only in pieces.

AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, the World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Israeli attacks had made it impossible to deliver a large shipment of trauma and medical supplies to Beirut. He said Israeli strikes killed 28 health workers in just one 24-hour period, while shuttering dozens of hospitals and clinics. At least 50 paramedics have been killed in Lebanon over the past two weeks.

This comes as the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon told Al Jazeera the Israeli army has asked its troops to leave their positions close to the border amidst a potential escalation of the Israeli ground incursion.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Beirut today and met with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, just hours after Israeli airstrikes hit an area near the airport where he landed.

A Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday U.S. military leaders are consulting with their Israeli counterparts on a response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this week on Israeli military bases and other security sites.

SABRINA SINGH: We continue to engage the Israelis, you know, very frequently. We are certainly talking to them about their response. But what their response might be, I’m just not going to speculate further on.

AMY GOODMAN: At the White House, President Biden acknowledged he had spoken with Israeli leaders. He has said he does not support Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, but discussed possible attacks on Iran’s oil infrastructure.

REPORTER: Mr. President, would you support Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities, sir?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We’re discussing that. I think — I think that would be a little — anyway.

AMY GOODMAN: Biden’s comment rattled energy markets, causing an immediate spike in crude oil prices.

Meanwhile, Iran has threatened an “unconventional response” to any Israeli retaliation, including attacks targeting Israeli infrastructure. Earlier today, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers in Tehran for the first time in nearly five years as he commemorated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israel last week in Lebanon. Khamanei called on Muslim leaders to band together to confront Israel.

As tensions continue to escalate in the region, we go to Beirut, Lebanon. We’re joined by Kareem Chehayeb. He is reporting on Lebanon, Syria and Iraq for the Associated Press.

Thank you so much for being with us, Kareem. Can you explain the situation on the ground after this night of massive air attacks by Israel?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: So, it’s become next to normal that Israel is conducting a series of airstrikes, roughly about a dozen, mostly in the southern Beirut suburbs, which has a lot of people in it still. A large number of people are evacuating, but there are still people who live there. The strikes are getting far more intense, particularly last night. We heard a strike that, you know, had some sort of — numerous explosions that happened after that, as well.

Meanwhile, every day the Israeli military is calling on the immediate evacuation of about another dozen or so towns from the south. So, it’s been several days where they’ve been doing that. There’s been a few dozen towns, and medical workers have been having a very hard time operating there. The Lebanese Red Cross, while relocating wounded people from the south, you know, were caught in an Israeli airstrike where four of their volunteers were wounded, and a Lebanese soldier was killed in that evacuation operation. And, you know, there are reports now that one of the most important hospitals in the southeast is closing its doors because of a strike that hit very close to the hospital.

So, this appears to becoming the new normal in this current situation. You know, there’s the ground incursion in the south, where Hezbollah and the Israeli military are clashing in border towns and along the border. Israel is calling for more and more immediate evacuations from southern Lebanon, very far north into the country. And it appears that, you know, strikes overnight in the southern suburbs are going to continue. And now with the airstrike that struck the main road towards the main crossing between Lebanon and Syria, generally speaking, people are concerned that the airport could be next, given that this had also happened in 2006, which was the last time Hezbollah and the Israeli military had a war.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the number of paramedics, doctors, medical staff who have been killed just in the last few days, Kareem, and what kind of effect this bombing has had on the hospitals, and what the World Health Organization head, Ghebreyesus, has said about trying to get aid into Beirut right now?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: Indeed, there have been several cases of paramedics being killed in Israeli strikes, but the number has certainly surged. In this particular escalation, there have been dozens who were killed, whether they were in the middle of an operation or whether they were in their offices. There was a strike in central Beirut, just a few hundred meters from where I am right now, into an office for the Islamic Health Committee, which is Hezbollah’s medical arm, and at least seven paramedics and first responders were killed in that strike. And at a time where evacuations orders have increased, at a time where strikes have intensified, the hospitals are really struggling to keep up with the number of patients. And, of course, you know, medical staff, paramedics, first responders are also struggling a lot to get people out. And this could be — this appears to be a trend going forward in this conflict.

AMY GOODMAN: And what have you been able to find out about Israel using white phosphorus? Explain what it is and where you believe it may have been used.

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: Sure. So, early on in the conflict, you know, Israel was initially accused by residents and human rights groups of using white phosphorus in southern Lebanon, especially in villages along the border, which are very rural. They’re agrarian. There’s lots of greenery and fields.

Now, white phosphorus is — basically, white phosphorus is a very dangerous weapon, where it sort of — it burns all the way to the bone if in contact with human skin. You know, it can cause severe respiratory illnesses, as well, if you inhale too much of it. Now, the concern is that if it’s used in heavily populated areas, it is considered a violation of international law. Now, Israel always says that it uses it as a smokescreen or to — you know, primarily as a smokescreen, not to target civilians or as a weapon of war. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty and other organizations have corroborated information where they have seen that this is not entirely the case. That’s what they concluded.

Now, the conversation months later, just the other day, has sort of come back. In that strike I had told you about just a moment ago where — in central Beirut, that hit that office, and another strike nearby in the southern suburbs, you know, people were talking a lot about unpleasant smells, and state media had reported that there was use of white phosphorus. Now, there is no confirmation of that yet. We had spoken to the health minister, Firass Abiad, who said that they’re in the process of verifying it. There have been no updates on that, but, you know, it would not have been the first time Israel used white phosphorus in Lebanon. But the previous incidents have been in southern Lebanon. But there has been no sort of official confirmation yet, but that’s sort of what’s been reported.

AMY GOODMAN: Kareem, if you could also talk about who Israel is claiming they’re trying to kill right now, the target, Hashem Safieddine, a cousin and presumed successor to the assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: Absolutely. So, you know, after Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated, every expert from every think tank and every corner that I spoke to believed that Hashem Safieddine would be his successor. He’s a senior figure in Hezbollah for many years, plays a very important role within the institution. He is a relative. He’s a cousin of Hassan Nasrallah. And his son is married to the daughter of the late senior Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2020. So he’s very connected to Tehran. He’s very connected to Hezbollah.

It is unclear whether, you know, he survived the strike, whether he was in the building where the strike took place. Hezbollah have not yet commented on it. But if he was targeted and killed or wounded, this follows a certain pattern over the past couple of weeks where the Israeli military, through its strikes, have been targeting senior Hezbollah leaders. And they have targeted senior Hezbollah military leaders and also members within its institution. And this could be a continuation of that pattern, but there’s no information on that.

But it is true that Hashem Safieddine is widely seen as Hassan Nasrallah’s successor. And it is very unclear whether they’re going to pick him or somebody else or when they will make that decision. When the Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem spoke a few days ago, he said that they will make a decision at the soonest possibility. And it’s unclear how they’re going to navigate with the situation, but it is widely seen that if Safieddine was targeted, it’s really unknown who to expect would replace Hassan Nasrallah.

AMY GOODMAN: And now the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says he is visiting Lebanon to make clear Iran will always stand with people of Lebanon. Can you talk about the significance of the Iranian foreign minister being in Lebanon right now and of the supreme leader, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, holding the prayers in Tehran, presiding over them publicly for the first time in five years, as he commemorated the Hezbollah leader who was killed by Israel last week?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: Yeah. So, the Iranian foreign minister has been holding meetings with senior officials, including Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who’s right behind me in this building. And, you know, it appears that, in the words that they’re saying, that Iran is trying to garner international support for Lebanon, trying to pile the pressure diplomatically on Israel. That’s how they’ve been spinning it. And they’ve talked a lot in that sense. And, you know, for them to come at a time like this is certainly interesting. Iranian senior military officials have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Syria over the past year. And there were a lot of questions whether the Israeli military would allow his plane to land at Beirut airport.

Now the question really is: What happens behind the scenes? Right? So, the Lebanese government, including allies of Hezbollah, you know, they have been trying to push for a ceasefire and handle this diplomatically. And it’s unclear what that conversation looks like with Iran, as well as their conversations with, you know, namely, the United States and Paris. You know, this also comes not long after Iran met with Saudi officials in Qatar. And it’s unclear whether this indicates that they are trying to work something out or not. You know, Iran has not given a lot of statements. The foreign minister did not give any statements after meeting the prime minister, issued a statement after meeting the speaker of Parliament. And he sort of talked about maintaining support for Lebanon. And there’s a lot of talk about humanitarian aid. It wasn’t anything that indicated it’s going to be a significant shift in this conflict. And so, it appears that whatever changes will happen will be seen on the battlefields in the south or in Beirut.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of the death of a Lebanese soldier carrying out a rescue operation in southern Lebanon, another one injured, Kareem, what this means, and the Israeli government saying the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon should move? How quickly do you see this escalating even further, as we wrap up?

KAREEM CHEHAYEB: Certainly. You know, the Lebanese army announcing that two of its soldiers were killed in Israeli airstrikes in a single day in different instances, and on top of the intensified airstrikes, on top of the calls for dozens of villages and towns to evacuate, including a provincial capital in the south, there’s a lot of concerns in Lebanon about, you know, where this ground incursion could lead to and how long this will last. You know, the public works minister, after talking about the road to the border being bombed, is saying that he is concerned even about now a siege from air, as well, almost hinting that the airport could be a target.

So, you know, things are moving at a very, very fast pace, the displacement, the airstrikes. And it is really unclear what the endgame for Israel is. They say that they want to weaken Hezbollah, they want to create an environment that’s safe for their displaced residents to go back north. But it’s not really clear what that benchmark is, what those objectives look like in practice.

AMY GOODMAN: Kareem Chehayeb, first of all, stay safe. I want to thank you so much for being with us, AP journalist reporting on Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, a journalist for the Associated Press, speaking to us from Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

As Israel continues its relentless attacks on Gaza, we will go directly to Gaza. Stay with us.

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War in Lebanon “Giving More Space” for Israel to Continue Slaughter in Gaza: Journalist Akram al-Satarri
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 04, 2024

As Israel’s military escalates its attacks on Lebanon, it has continued its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where almost a year of war has now wiped 902 entire Palestinian families off the civil registry. There are another 1,300 families where only one family member has survived. The official death toll in Gaza has reached nearly 41,800, but that is believed to be a vast undercount. Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri says one year into Israel’s war, the medical and humanitarian crisis remains unchanged. He describes some of the horrific injuries suffered by Palestinians, including many children, that have resulted in mass amputation of limbs, and says people are in a constant struggle for shelter and safety. “The suffering is continuous, and now the war in Lebanon is adding further burdens on the Palestinians and is giving more space for the Israeli forces to continue the bombardment in different areas,” says al-Satarri.

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 authorities say Israel’s yearlong war has now wiped out a shocking 902 entire families off the civil registry, another 1,300 families where only one family member has survived. The official death toll in Gaza has topped 41,800, but that’s believed to be a vast undercount. On one day in Gaza this week, Israel killed over a hundred people, with 51 in Khan Younis alone, including 12 children. Over the last 24 hours, the Palestinian Health Ministry reports at least 14 people were killed, 50 wounded in Gaza as Israel bombed residential buildings near the Nuseirat camp and struck civilian homes in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.

This comes as Israeli forces have killed at least 50 Palestinians across the West Bank since launching raids on August 28th. An Israeli airstrike Thursday on the Tulkarm refugee camp killed at least 18 Palestinians when Israeli fighter jets targeted a crowded cafe, the largest and deadliest airstrike in the occupied West Bank in more than two decades. Israel’s military claimed the bombing targeted the head of Hamas’s infrastructure in Tulkarm. There is a West Bank-wide strike today protesting that attack.

But we’re staying in Gaza right now, where most corporate media in the United States rarely get a report from, as Israel has banned international journalists from being there. For more, we are joined by Akram al-Satarri. He is a journalist based in Gaza, standing outside the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah and in central Gaza.

Very little attention, Akram, is being paid right now to what is happening in Gaza as the attacks intensify there, because of the attention on Lebanon and Iran. Can you describe what’s happening on the ground?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, the situation in Gaza is still the same for the last one year. The corporate media is not paying enough attention for the situation in Gaza, not because of the war in Lebanon, but because of the embarrassment that is caused by the fact that the Palestinians have been suffering for such a very long time, and the suffering has reached all different components and aspects of their life.

Families were lost, like you have just said. The children are living now with their parents, as you have just rightly said. Some people ended up living alone without their families, elderly people, as you have just said. Some children are left in the hospitals for strangers to care for them as foster family, because they lost their families, and no other family members remaining to look after them.

The international community, including the Arab region powers and the international powers, have been talking for the past year about the importance of upholding the principles of the international humanitarian law; however, they failed to observe those international rules. They failed to maintain the dignity of the Palestinians. They failed to maintain the right of Palestinians to a decent life. They failed to maintain the right of the Palestinians to shelter. They failed to uphold the right of the Palestinians to access medical care.

And because of that, we have a very large number of Palestinians, around 95,000 Palestinians, who need urgent medical care outside of Gaza. However, they are staying in Gaza. Some of them are already dying because the very lacking situation when it comes to the medical supplies, and also for the medical and surgical expertise that his needed to conduct such precise surgical interventions to save their lives or to improve their health conditions or to prevent any kind of disability.

Two-point-three million people in Gaza have been subjected to continuous evacuation orders, where they are asked by Israeli forces to move from one area to another. One hundred fifty thousand people were moving in 24 hours in Khan Younis area. Around 250,000, a quarter-million, were asked also to move all together in three hours in Gaza central area. And now I think Israel is contemplating some more options, including the forceful transfer of the people in the Gaza north to the Gaza south and declaring the Gaza north as a military zone.

So, the problem of the Palestinians is that the international community could not dictate any kind of solution, could not even make Israel reconsider its positions when it comes to the way it has been dealing with the larger Palestinian population, 2.34 million people, including women, around 1 million child, because around half of the Palestinian population is under 18.

So, the suffering is still continuous. And without the war in Lebanon, Palestinians were not helped a lot, and all they could access is below the minimum of any average human being outside of the Gaza Strip. So, the suffering is continuous. And now the war in Lebanon is adding further burdens on the Palestinians and is giving more space for the Israeli forces to continue the bombardment in different areas. In Khan Younis area, like you said, in one night, 54 people were killed. Twenty-two of them were same-family members, and 12 of them were children. Today, just now, few minutes ago, four women were killed in an area in Gaza, central area, four women — two old women and two of their daughters. Some other grandsons and granddaughters were injured.

And the sound of sirens in this place is also reminding us of the continuation of the crisis of the people of Palestine and of the political and moral failure by the international community to help the Palestinians and to realize their very very basic rights. People are just passing by. Right behind me, you can see now people are mourning the death of their dears, nonstop flow of the people, nonstop flow of the mothers, the daughters, the sisters, the sons, the grandparents, who are coming there just to see off their dears. Some of them are lucky enough to make it to the hospital because the body of their dears is in the morgue. But many more, up to 10,000 Palestinians, are still missing.

Missing means they have already been decomposed under the rubble of their houses. Missing means there have been some people who are living and eating and sleeping in the hope that they would find the decomposed body of their dears that has already become something that melted under soil. Missing means some families that were scattered, and they will never be reunited, that they’re still suffering and they’re still hoping justice would be served.

This is a glimpse in the life of the Palestinians. And this is part of the suffering that the people have been living and are still living. And this is only one aspect of the suffering that I have been seeing in Gaza. Food is still very scarce. Cooking gas is still very scarce. Water is extremely polluted. Living conditions are extremely below the standard. Some of the diseases are befalling the people in the Gaza Strip. Children have been suffering from digestive problems. Elderly people have been suffering from digestive problems. They have not been living in decent shelters. They are using only sheets of clothes to make sure that they stay. So, everything that has to do with the humanity is compromised in the Gaza Strip and is missing.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Akram, about the children who are wounded? More than a thousand children in Gaza have lost at least one limb. We have a conflict in Gaza that has created the term ”WCNSF,” “wounded child, no surviving family.” Can you talk more about this as you cover what’s happening there?

AKRAM AL-SATARRI: Well, I had the chance to meet some of the people, not only children, but elderly people, who are affected by the ongoing bombardment. And also, the weapons that are being used against the people in Gaza have been causing some kind of strange cuts. I spoke to one woman around 35, 37 years old. She was telling me that there was a missile that hit her home, and all of a sudden something — the missile penetrated the soil, and something went out of the soil, cutting her two legs. And now she has to live with two amputations, and she needs to be trained as to how she can respond to her basic needs. There were some attempts by international organizations to build some limbs, artificial limbs center. They are facing a considerable challenge bringing in the needed stuff, bringing in the needed materials.

The children are bearing the brunt of those things. In Nasser Hospital, in Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital, the intervention hospital, I have seen children with different degrees of the injuries and also with different amputations. Some of them lost their two limbs. Some of them lost one limb. Some of them lost three limbs. Some of them lost sight. And they are all in need, number one, to training to make sure that they can be reintegrated in life and that, and more importantly, they can deal with the reality that has unfolded after they have been injured. Number two, they are facing a great challenge: the very lacking situation that Gaza is living. Again, people are struggling to secure the food, let alone the medical consumables, the medication, the bandages that are needed for the dressing. So, their life is extremely complicated.

And I have seen different people who were just talking to me about their condition and who were asked to take their children out of the hospital. And they were telling me, because somehow I was communicating with them to know the exact situation of their children. They were telling me, “How can we probably take our children back home when we have no home? How can I take a child with two amputations in two limbs, in two legs, and they cannot walk, and they need to find some appropriate and conducive, adapted environment for them to be able to survive and to live with, adapt with the new disability? And how can we take them home when they have no home and when we are living in tents?” Tents that are erected — in al-Mawasi area, they are erected on the sand, close to the beach. Now by the tidal movement increasing — and there is one more bombardment, if you could hear it just now. With the tidal movement, they are now soaking in seawater. So, a person who is not amputated is suffering with this. Now you can imagine the suffering of a child who’s living in a tent that is not equipped to deal with his disability.

So, the situation is very lacking. And the most important thing is that the number of children who are like that is increasing because, again, of the ongoing bombardment. One hundred thirteen people were killed in the last 72 hours, and around 400 were injured. Around half of them are children. And you will definitely find some children who lost their limbs among the people who are affected, and that brings more suffering to the lives of the people, and that increases the number of the children who are suffering, with no clear answers as to how can they be safe.

Now there are some attempts to bring children outside of Gaza. Like, in the last few days, around 70 children were leaving outside Gaza. But when you have around 1,000 children in need to limbs, and they are not allowed to leave Gaza, and they have also some medical course to be followed, and they need advanced medical care because of some of the infections in their fresh amputations and the wounds, the situation is very critical. And again, the international community fail to bring comfort to the life of those children after all they have seen.

AMY GOODMAN: Akram al-Satarri, I want to thank you so much for being with us, a journalist based in Gaza, joining us from outside the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza. Please, stay safe.

When we come back, we will continue to talk about children, but children here in the United States, separated. Oscar-winner Errol Morris has made a new documentary about family separation, based on the book by NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff. We’ll speak with both of them in a moment.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

Dozens Killed in Gaza as Israel Bombs Mosque, School and Homes on Anniversary of Oct. 7 Attacks
Oct 07, 2024

Israel’s military has ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to evacuate their homes or face death, as it launches a fresh ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip. The latest mass evacuation order came on the first anniversary of the start of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza following Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7. Over the weekend, at least 26 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces attacked a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in Deir al-Balah. Elsewhere, at least nine children were among 17 people killed when Israel’s military bombed the Jabaliya refugee camp. Many residents were unable or unwilling to leave their homes.

Um Ahmed Fadous: “I am staying here. Where else would I go? I want to die here. As long as they say that evacuation is forbidden, where will I go? We are staying. If they want us to die, so be it! … And I suffer from osteoarthritis. Where do I go?”

Gaza Journalist Hassan Hamad Killed by Artillery Fire After Threats from Israeli Officer
Oct 07, 2024

On Sunday, an Israeli artillery shell struck the home of 19-year-old journalist Hassan Hamad in Jabaliya, killing him. In recent weeks Hamad had received death threats via WhatsApp from an Israeli number; he also received phone calls and text messages from an Israeli officer ordering him to stop filming. Hassan Hamad is at least the 175th Palestinian journalist killed in Gaza since last October. He’s among at least 41,900 Palestinians killed over the past year in Gaza; another 97,000 have been injured, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry — though those figures are certain to be a vast undercount.

Massive Explosions Rock Beirut and Southern Lebanon as Israel Steps Up Bombing Campaign
Oct 07, 2024

Dozens of massive explosions rocked the Lebanese capital overnight Sunday, marking Israel’s heaviest bombardment on Beirut and the city’s southern suburbs since Israel widened its war on Lebanon two weeks ago. Earlier today, Israeli warplanes bombed a fire station in the town of Baraachit, killing at least eight people. Hezbollah fired rockets at the Israeli port city of Haifa, wounding at least 10 people. Israeli’s assault has now displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon. After headlines, we’ll go to Beirut for the latest.

“Netanyahu Dragged Israel into Never-ending War”: Hostage Families Protest on Oct. 7 Anniversary
Oct 07, 2024

In Israel, the loved ones of hostages took to the streets over the weekend, blocking traffic in Tel Aviv and holding protests marking the first anniversary of October 7. Over 1,100 people were killed in Israel in the Hamas-led attacks a year ago, while at least 250 were taken hostage. Around 100 of the hostages remain in Gaza, though only 70 of them are still believed to be alive. One hundred five hostages were released by Hamas during a temporary ceasefire in November. This is Yael Or, whose cousin Dror Or was killed one year ago but whose body remains held in Gaza.

Yael Or: “Why are they still in Gaza a full year later? Because of Netanyahu. Netanyahu wants to stay in power forever. And to do that, he has dragged Israel into eternal, never-ending war. This means that our hostages have been abandoned in Hamas death tunnels deep under Gaza. Netanyahu has committed crime against his own people.”

Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak with Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon, who lost both his parents in the October 7 attack.

President Macron Halts French Weapons Exports to Israel
Oct 07, 2024

French President Emmanuel Macron says France is no longer sending arms to Israel and called on other nations to halt deliveries of weapons.

President Emmanuel Macron: “However, we also try to be consistent. And when we call for ceasefires — this is the case for Gaza, this was also the case for Lebanon last week — well, we try not to call for a ceasefire while continuing to deliver weapons of war. And I think it’s just consistency.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Vice President Kamala Harris defended U.S. military aid to Israel, which soared to a record $17.9 billion over the past year.

New Reports Reveal U.S. Ignored Warnings of Israeli Plans to Decimate Gaza, Attack Aid Convoys
Oct 07, 2024

A senior Pentagon official warned the White House last October that Israel’s plan to uproot more than a million Palestinians from their homes in Gaza would be a humanitarian disaster and could violate international law, leading to war crime charges against Israel. That’s according to Reuters, which reports the warning came in an October 13 email to the White House from Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. Stroul wrote that an assessment by the Red Cross predicting a “humanitarian catastrophe” from Israel’s mass expulsion order had left her “chilled to the bone.” Despite those concerns and similar dire warnings from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the White House expedited the transfer of weapons to Israel, including thousands of precision-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs.

Meanwhile, Drop Site News is reporting Secretary of State Antony Blinken last October signed off on a plan by Israel to bomb trucks bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza. Blinken’s approval came after he joined an emergency meeting of Israel’s war cabinet at the Israeli military’s headquarters in Tel Aviv last October 16 and 17. After the talks, Cabinet member Bezalel Smotrich said, “We in the cabinet were promised at the outset … that aid trucks hijacked by Hamas and its organizations would be bombed from the air, and the aid would be halted.”

Protesters Take to the Streets Across the Globe to Mark One Year of Israel’s Genocidal War on Gaza
Oct 07, 2024

Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in cities across the world Saturday to demand an end to Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza and its widening war on Lebanon. Huge crowds flooded the streets of London; Berlin; Paris; Istanbul; Melbourne; Cape Town, South Africa; and Karachi, Pakistan, in solidarity with Palestinians. Here in the United States, protesters rallied in downtown Washington, D.C., near the White House. This is Anyssa Dhaouadi of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Anyssa Dhaouadi: “Our role here in the United States, and specifically here in Washington, D.C., is to uplift the demand for an arms embargo on Israel and is to demand that our politicians, the Biden administration and the next administration, whoever that may be, to end all U.S. aid and end its complicity in this genocide. We know that without the financial backing and the diplomatic cover that the U.S. is providing on Israel, we know that this genocide would not have been possible.”

Photojournalist Sets Self on Fire to Protest Media Complicity in Gaza Genocide
Oct 07, 2024

At Saturday’s Gaza rally near the White House, photojournalist Samuel Mena Jr. of Arizona was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after he lit his arm on fire in an act of protest. Ahead of his self-immolation, Mena spoke of his guilt over participating in biased media coverage of Gaza, writing, “How many Palestinians were killed that I allowed to be branded as Hamas? How many men, women, and children were struck with a missile cosigned by the American media?”

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Israeli Peace Activist Maoz Inon Lost His Parents on October 7. He’s Calling for an End to War & Occupation.
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

Today is the first anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel, when Hamas’s military wing broke out of Israeli-constructed barrier fencing in the Gaza Strip. In the ensuing firefight, an estimated 1,200 people died. About 250 people were taken hostage and brought back to Gaza in a bid to pressure Israel to release some of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners it holds in Israeli custody. While more than half of the hostages were exchanged this way through subsequent deals, Israel’s primary response to the incursion was the launch of a full-scale assault on the already-besieged Gaza Strip. Conservative estimates place the number of Palestinians killed at over 41,000. More recent projections suggest that this number may have reached the hundreds of thousands.

Meanwhile, in Israel, many families of remaining hostages continue to deride Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing to accept a ceasefire deal that would return their family members, contending that Netanyahu is exploiting their loved ones and putting them in danger in order to manufacture a regional war. “Those who believe in war, they are naive, because they have been failing again and again and again,” says Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon, who has been advocating for a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories for the past year. His parents, Bilha and Yakovi, were among those killed on October 7.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel intensified its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza over the weekend. In Lebanon, Israel launched its heaviest bombardment to date on Beirut and the city’s southern suburbs. In Gaza, Israel ordered more than 300,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza to flee ahead of a new Israeli offensive as the official death toll in Gaza nears 42,000 — the numbers are expected to be actually much higher.

Israel’s latest mass evacuation order came on the one-year anniversary of the start of its brutal war on Gaza following Hamas’s attack on October 7th. Almost 1,200 people died in that October 7th attack, and about 250 people were taken hostage, of which some 100 remain in Gaza, though many of them are believed to have died in captivity. Vigils are being held across Israel today with many calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

On Sunday, I reached the Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon. He lost both of his parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, in the October 7th Hamas attack. His parents lived on a kibbutz, a farming collective just north of the Gaza border. They were 78 and 76 years old.

Maoz Inon has spent much of the past year calling for peace. He recently wrote online, quote, “True security will only be achieved when the other side also enjoys security and stability. Morally, we cannot justify the killing of innocent people as part of the fight against terrorism. The harm to hundreds of innocent civilians is neither reasonable nor acceptable. These efforts should bring an end to the war in Gaza, return the hostages, end the occupation, and achieve a political-security agreement alongside reconciliation.”

Maoz has spent the last year working side by side with Palestinian activists. He recently met with the pope. And he also had a side meeting when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress. He and our guest coming up, Aziz Abu Sarah, addressed Democratic congressmembers who refused to attend Netanyahu’s joint congressional address.

We spoke to Maoz Inon just after he addressed one of the largest gatherings yesterday in Tel Avivi.

AMY GOODMAN: Maoz, thank you for joining us. Our condolences on this first anniversary of the death of your parents last October 7th. Can you share your reflections, as you did on the stage in Tel Aviv that you’ve just come off of, on this painful day?

MAOZ INON: We must move from thoughts, from prayers, from crossing our fingers for the Israelis and Palestinians to we must move to action, because everything I’ve seen coming happened, and even worse. And if we won’t start act now, we’re going to miss. We’re going to miss this year, which was the most bloodiest year in hundred years of conflict. But it can go — can be so much worse, and the numbers of casualties, the amount of suffering, of destruction can reach to a place we cannot imagine, like we could not imagine October 7th the day before.

So, we must move to action, and we must do it now. And we must stop debating who’s right and who’s wrong, if I’m pro-Palestinian or pro-Israelis. If you want the conflict to end, you must support the peacemakers. You must force an immediate ceasefire. You must force a dialogue to release the hostages and Palestinian prisoners. And we must — the world must force a dialogue between Israel to Palestine to Lebanon and the region.

AMY GOODMAN: Maoz, can you tell us about your parents, how as a result of their deaths a year ago, you became one of the most prominent Israeli peace activists today?

MAOZ INON: My parents were loving parents. They were just supporting and caring for me and my four siblings and for their 11 grandchildren. And in October — now we are in October, and it’s the season my father would sow wheat in the fields. For 60 years, my father was a farmer. For 60 years, he was sowing wheat in the fields of Israel. And it doesn’t matter how devastating the year before was, if it was through floods or a drought. He would always sow again. And I would keep asking him, “Daddy, what are you doing? Why don’t you give up? How come you don’t do something else?” And he would keep telling me, “[inaudible], Maoz, my son, next year will be better. Next year will be better. And I have the agency to make it better.” So, we all have the agency to make the future better.

And I shared it also, so many places, that I had a dream. And in my dream, I saw the path to peace and reconciliation. I saw it in my dreams. And my mom was a very, very talented mandala painter. She painted thousands of mandalas. And from all the thousand mandalas she ever painted, she gave me only one, eight years ago. And there, she wrote, “We can fulfill all our dreams if we’ll have the courage to chase them.” My mom gave me the ability to dream. What, unfortunately, all the current global politicians lack, the ability to dream of a better future. They are just debating and fighting over the past and the present, but they are not building, shaping, envisioning us a better future. So, my mom gave me the possibility to dream and the courage, the courage to chase my dream. And this is what I’m doing. I’m continuing their legacy. This is how they raised me.

AMY GOODMAN: Maoz, early Sunday, an Israeli strike on a mosque in Gaza killed at least 19 people. Meanwhile, massive explosions have rocked Beirut, marking the most violent night of attacks since Israel started its military offensive against Lebanon late last month. Peace, many fear, is less attainable than ever. What do you think have been the biggest roadblocks to a ceasefire? What is needed now to end the bloodshed?

MAOZ INON: Amy, we are at the footsteps. We are at the footsteps not just of a regional war, of a global war, I’m afraid. But we can choose to hope over beyond this precipice to a better future. And we need to start dialogue, dialogue with our enemies, like the European nations, the founders of the EU, proved, between Italy and France, Germany and Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, only few years after the Second World War, where they were fighting among each other and killing 10 millions of each other. They realized that the only way to prevent the next war is making the enemies of the past into the partners of the future. This is humanity’s legacy. But I don’t know. Those who believe in war, they are naive, because they have been failing again and again and again. So we now must force our leaders, our politicians to give us concrete answers, what is what they are envisioning for the future and how they’re going to take us there. It’s cannot be by bombs.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re about to show clips of The Path Forward, a film that was made about you and your work with the Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah. You lost your parents a year ago. He lost his brother after he was imprisoned by Israel when he was a young man. The activism and work you’ve done together — he reached out to you right after your parents were killed — ultimately meeting with the pope, addressing congressmembers who refused to be there in the joint session of when Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress?

MAOZ INON: It means the world to me. It means the world to me, because we are modeling, Aziz and I, but so many other Israelis and Palestinians, so many others — we are modeling a radical reconciliation. We are modeling a radical better future. And we see how it’s being spread.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to you that President Biden continues to send billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Israel, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

MAOZ INON: And he also said that he’s crossing his fingers for us, for the hostages. I’m not an American citizenship, so I cannot criticize your leaders. And it’s not about blue or red, Republican or Democrat. If the American people and Biden administration are such a good friend of Israel, how can they explain that Israel today is as weak as ever. We are as weak as ever. All our borders are breached. The society from the inside is falling apart. And the hostages are left to die in Gaza. So, if your actions are not effective, it’s not a reason to give up, and it’s definitely not a reason to keep doing the same thing. It’s a reason to change your action. And this what you must — President Biden, you must change your action. You must force a ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: Where does ending the occupation fit into this?

MAOZ INON: That’s a must. Of course, that’s a must. There are two people between the river to the sea. There will be no security and safety to one without the other. There will be no shared — no recognition and acknowledgment to one if not to the other. If there will be no equality and dignity to both people, there will be to none. So, that’s a must. This is something that, again — so, we are waiting. Maybe at the last three months of his term, he will push for a U.N. council resolution to force the end of the occupation. So, now is the time to do it.

AMY GOODMAN: How many of the hostage families feel the way you do?

MAOZ INON: More and more. And again, I can give you numbers of hostages’ families. I can give you numbers of bereaved families from October 7 that keep approaching us and telling me, “Maoz, we are standing with. Maoz, you are right. You were right from the first time.” And the only way — now the discourse is changing to understand and acknowledge that the only way to bring the hostages back is to stop the war. That’s the only way. And we will stop the war, and then they will be able — Hamas will be able to give them oxygen and water and food, and then to start a negotiation. But military pressure is killing them.

AMY GOODMAN: What gives you the most hope as you stand after addressing this largest venue in Tel Aviv on this first anniversary of the death of your parents?

MAOZ INON: I think that we start shifting the discourse. And this is what’s needed, to shift the discourse from war to peace. And when I was — I was saying the same words, Amy, few days after my parents died, that we must stop the war, we must bring the hostages — that should be the first priority — and we must start a peace process. This is what I was saying from day one. But at the beginning, no one was willing to listen to me, in Israel and overseas. And now I have no time in my day and night to answer, to answer and get all those requests to speak, to be interviewed from Israelis and internationally. So we are shifting the discourse.

And we are working very hard. We are working very hard. But I won so many brothers and sisters in the last year. That started with losing my parents. But I won so many brothers and sisters, Palestinian, Israelis, from the international community. And my brothers and sisters, they are not giving me hope; we are making hope together.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon. His parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, were killed in the October 7th Hamas attack one year ago today.

Coming up, we’ll speak to the man he travels the world with, Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah. Maoz and Aziz are featured in the new documentary The Path Forward. The film’s co-director, the Oscar-nominated Julie Cohen, will also join us. Stay with us.

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“The Path Forward”: Palestinian and Israeli Activists Working Toward Peace Featured in New Film
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

The Path Forward is a new documentary that weaves together the voices of Palestinians and Israelis in their efforts for peace and reconciliation. The short film features the stories of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who have worked together before and after October 7 and Israel’s relentless war on Gaza. We play excerpts from The Path Forward and speak to one of the activists featured, Aziz Abu Sarah, as well as to co-director Julie Cohen. “People who believe that war is the only way, what scares them the most is people who are modeling a different future,” says Abu Sarah. “Our route to freedom is a joint route.”

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 to mark the one-year anniversary of the Hamas October 7th attack on Israel and the beginning of Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza, we turn now to The Path Forward, a new short film that features the stories of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who have joined together calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the occupation. This is a trailer for The Path Forward.

YAEL BRAUDO-BAHAT: All of us want to stop the killing of our children, our children and your children.

MAOZ INON: We are crying for the world to act now, before it will be too late.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: From their deepest pain.

MAOZ INON: What happened to my parents on October 7th, some nights I cry throughout the night.

AZIZ ABU SARAH: If somebody kills your brother, you want to hurt whoever hurts your family.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: They found their greatest purpose.

MAOZ INON: Every relationship that I will be able to build with Palestinians, it’s very meaningful.

AZIZ ABU SARAH: It didn’t matter to me that his parents were Jewish. Those who were killed were my people, too.

PROTESTERS: Salaam, peace, shalom!

JOMANA KARADSHEH: At this time of great pain, you choose to be together.

YAEL BRAUDO-BAHAT: If not now, when?

AHMED FOUAD ALKHATIB: I wanted to break the cycle of incitement, hatred, violence, revenge, rinse and repeat.

ALON-LEE GREEN: How can we move further away from this hashtag #StandWithPalestine or I hashtag #StandWithIsrael?

SALLY ABED: If we are not able to grieve the loss of our humanity together, we will never be able to plan a future together.

MAOZ INON: Those who believe that bombs will bring safety, they are naive. They are naive.

RIMAN BARAKAT: We lost our compass of humanity, and we need to bring that back.

AMI DAR: The idea that I should care more about a dead child who happens to be of someone who shares my nationality, as opposed to someone who does not, is insane to me.

PROTESTERS: No more war! No more war! No more war! No more war!

AMY GOODMAN: The Path Forward includes the stories of Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon, who we just interviewed on this show. His parents, Bilha and Yakovi Inon, were killed in the October 7th attack. In this clip, The Path Forward, Aziz begins by talking about reaching out to Maoz after news of Maoz’s parents death a year ago today.

AZIZ ABU SARAH: It didn’t matter to me that Maoz’s parents were Jewish. That’s not part of the calculation. When people talk about October 7th, it’s Israelis versus Palestinians. It didn’t feel to me Israelis versus Palestinians. Those who were hurt, those who were killed were my people, too.

MAOZ INON: I just replied immediately, “Thank you for being there.”

AZIZ ABU SARAH: A few days later, he made a post on Twitter.

MAOZ INON TWEET: “I am not crying for my parents — I am crying for those who will lose their lives in this war.”

AZIZ ABU SARAH: He doesn’t want revenge, and he doesn’t want what’s happened to him to cause more people to suffer. And I said it took me eight years to come to that point. When my brother Tayseer died, he was 19 years old, and I was 10 years old. He was arrested on suspicion of throwing rocks. He was beaten up in prison by an Israeli soldier, which caused internal injuries. He died as a result of those injuries. It’s still painful. A few days after Maoz’s parents were killed, just I can’t imagine stepping out of your pain to think of somebody else’s pain, to think of what other people are going through. It takes so much of a humanity of someone to do that. So I wrote him that, and he sent me a message right away, saying, “Let’s talk.”

MAOZ INON: I knew that my life has changed dramatically. It’s not just what happened to my parents, my childhood friends and Israelis. I knew that a war was just about to happen, and a war that we have never experienced before in our lifetime. So, every contact, every bridge, every relationship that I knew that I will be able to build with Palestinians, it’s very meaningful, just for me, Maoz, as a person, but for the region.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from The Path Forward, featuring Maoz Inon, who lost his parents a year ago today, and Aziz Abu Sarah, Palestinian peace activist, who’s joining us now from Greenville, South Carolina. He’s also author and founder of MEJDI Tours and a resident of East Jerusalem. When Aziz Abu Sarah was 9 years old, as you just heard, his older brother Tayseer died soon after his release from an Israeli prison of internal injuries suffered after he was tortured in prison. And here in New York, Julie Cohen is with us, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker who’s made many films, including RBG, My Name Is Pauli Murray, Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down. Julie is a Jewish American and co-directed The Path Forward with Mo Husseini, a Palestinian American writer.

We thank you both for being with us. Aziz, your thoughts on this October 7th anniversary?

AZIZ ABU SARAH: It’s been a hard morning already just listening to news. And I’ve talked to Maoz already this morning, been in touch with some friends. But it’s been not just the anniversary of October 7th; it’s this whole year has been like a nightmare that I keep wishing I can wake up and just forget all about it and assume that — you know, believe that it was just a dream, just a nightmare. And unfortunately, it hasn’t.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed. So much pain, so much suffering. So many people I know, both Palestinians and Israelis and Lebanese, are suffering. My family are all in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Every time I get a phone call, I’m terrified of receiving horrible news. It’s been impossible to have a normal life in this last year. It is impossible to have a normal life. So, it’s just a reminder of how far we’ve gotten in a negative way, in a terrible way.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Julie Cohen, can you talk about focusing on Aziz and Maoz, Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, in this year of so much suffering?

JULIE COHEN: Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s a day of grief today. As Aziz says, there’s this sort of ongoing nightmare to wake up to every day. For me personally and for Mo, my directing partner in this, in a way, finding and sharing the voices of Aziz and Maoz and other pairs like them, because there are many, many more like this, is the greatest comfort to the nightmare and possibly, you know, the only hope, in our minds, of a solution, of a moving forward, of looking at the horrendous situation the world is in, people who have suffered the greatest pain, like Aziz and Maoz, who take that pain and think, “Wait a second. How can we go for,” as Maoz said earlier, “radical reconciliation, radical peace, a radical search for justice?” Like, in some ways, looking for love and compassion and sharing pain and sharing grief is better than the “militaristic solutions,” quote-unquote, which have failed us again and again and again. And so, we just wanted to bring their voices forward, because they seem useful and constructive in a world where there is too little usefulness right now.

AMY GOODMAN: In your film, you have woven throughout this a peace march of Palestinian and Israeli Jewish women that happened on October 4th, three days before last year’s October 7th. One of the people leading this march was Vivian Silver, the well-known Canadian Israeli peace activist, who would die on her kibbutz. We have interviewed her son, demanding a ceasefire from the beginning, as Maoz and Aziz have.

JULIE COHEN: Yes. You know, it’s a sadness almost that more of us weren’t aware of this march when it originally happened on October 4th, how little American news coverage this got, that the fact that a couple thousand women, Palestinian and Israeli Jewish women, together, linking arms, singing, calling, crying out for peace. And I think what’s so beautiful is how many of the activists, including those featured in our film, did not react to everything that was to come just a few days later by pulling apart, but it actually strengthened their resolve, you know, to, like, know this shows that what we need is something new and different, and let’s work together towards building improvement, building a better world.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask Aziz if you feel more or less hope. Right now you have Israel in the most massive, deadly bombardment of Lebanon that we have seen in decades. You have the bombing of Iran. You have Iran’s missiles on Israel. You have the bombing of — Israel’s bombing of Syria, Israel’s bombing of Yemen. As we wrap up, what gives you hope?

AZIZ ABU SARAH: Well, I want to just say something before I tell you what gives me hope, is Vivian was a dear friend who I’ve known for many, many years and was a mentor for me. And that image of Israelis and Palestinians marching together has not changed. That’s what gives me hope.

I was in Jerusalem just three weeks ago, and we went marching in Al-Auja, in a Palestinian village in the West Bank that the water was diverted away from the village to a settlement. And Israelis arrived from Tel Aviv, Israelis arrived from Jerusalem, Israelis arrived from all over, joining Palestinians, and we marched together. And I saw something powerful, is even though we were only a few hundred, the fear of those who opposed us — you know, the army and the police — even though we were extremely peaceful, compliant, we didn’t want to confront anyone, we marched with messages that says we refuse to be enemy, water rights for everyone, this kind of very universal language. And they were terrified. And in some ways, that gave me a little hope, because I can see how people who believe that war is the only way, what scares them the most is people like us. What scares them the most is people who are modeling a different future, that we’re able to say, “Look, we don’t hate each other. We can work together.” And so, it was no surprise that the police came and gave traffic tickets to everyone, pretty much, who arrived. It was no surprise that the military was trying to provoke us, because they were terrified that we are showing what the possibility is.

So I do have hope, and my hope is not in leaders or politicians who claim to be leaders. My hope is about the people who are like us, my colleagues, Israelis and Palestinians, who are refusing to fall into “If I’m Palestinian, I must hate all Israelis or Jews,” or “If I’m Israeli, I must hate all Palestinians,” and realizing that we are on the same side, those of us who believe in equality and justice and peace. And those who don’t yet, our mission is to convince those who don’t yet to join us and realize that bombing somebody else, killing a civilian, killing a human being is never going to be the way to bring you safety and security and that our route to freedom is a joint route.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, we just have 30 seconds. The Path Forward, where can it be seen, Julie?

JULIE COHEN: You should be following myself, @filmmakerjulie, and @mohu on our socials. We’re moving towards more screenings of this film and getting it out where everyone can see it online very soon because of the urgency of Aziz and Maoz’s message and all the others that are involved in this really significant work.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julie Cohen, co-directed The Path Forward with a Palestinian writer, Mo Husseini. And I want to thank Aziz Abu Sarah, Palestinian peace activist, featured in the film.

Coming up, we go to Durban, South Africa, where we’ll be joined by Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha. Then to Beirut. Stay with us.

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Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha: One Year After Oct. 7, U.S. Is Still Arming Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

The Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, who fled Gaza in December after being detained by the Israeli military, is releasing his second book of poetry, Forest of Noise, next week. We speak to him one year into Israel’s relentless slaughter in his home of the Gaza Strip as he notes, “It is really devastating to think that after a year, the world is still thinking about October 7 only, rather than about the years and decades before October 7 and the many and long, long days and weeks that followed October 7.” Abu Toha also pays tribute to his former student, Hatem al-Zaaneen, who was recently killed while collecting firewood for his family, and shares the status of his own surviving family members in Gaza, who have been displaced once again as they seek safety from unrelenting Israeli bombardment.

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 Gaza as Israel’s military has launched a new offensive on northern Gaza. Over the weekend, Israel ordered more than 300,000 Palestinians to flee. Israel’s latest mass evacuation order came on the one-year anniversary of the start of its brutal war on Gaza following Hamas’s attack on October 7th. Over the weekend, Israeli forces attacked a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in Deir al-Balah, killing at least 26 Palestinians. The official death count in Gaza is nearing 42,000 but believed to be much higher.

We’re joined now by Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian poet and author. He left Gaza in December after being detained by the Israeli military. His essay in The New York Times, published Sunday, is headlined “Gaza’s Schools Are for Learning, Not for Dying.” And his latest piece for The New Yorker magazine is “The Pain of Travelling While Palestinian.” He’s a columnist, teacher, founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, author of the award-winning book titled Things You Mays Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza. His second book of poetry will be out next week. It’s titled Forest of Noise.

Mosab, welcome back to Democracy Now! We talked to you right after you came out of Gaza. We also spoke to you in Gaza. You had been detained by the Israeli military. Your thoughts on this anniversary of both the Hamas attack and the beginning of the slaughter of Palestinians by the Israeli military in Gaza?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Thanks so much, Amy, for hosting me and for this platform.

My thoughts is that whereas the Israelis were able to bury their dead after October 7th, there are just thousands of Palestinians who — either whose bodies were not found because of the Israeli airstrikes, the intense Israeli airstrikes, and others whose bodies were left under — still under the rubble of their houses. I lost 30 members of my extended family, three first cousins, two of whom with their husbands and their children, and I haven’t been able to bid them farewell. Some of them, they have nothing in their bodies left for me to locate them. And many of them are still under the rubble, because there is no fuel, there is no equipment to remove the rubble from above the bodies. So, it is really devastating to think that after a year, the world is still thinking about the October 7th only, rather than about the years and decades before October 7 and the many and long, long days and weeks that followed October 7.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can respond to the pope calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon, in Gaza, the French President Macron calling for an end to weapons sales to Israel, the U.S. continuing those weapons sales — though President Biden has said he wants a ceasefire — and these latest attacks in Gaza?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: I mean, it’s really funny when someone says that we need to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible — this is what President Biden and Kamala Harris are asking for — but at the same time they never stop sending bombs to Israel. And they never even took any measures to stop Israel from invading humanitarian areas and from targeting humanitarian aid trucks when they enter Gaza. So, instead of monitoring whatever bombs and weapons get into Israel — not only sending Israel weapons, but instead of monitoring whatever bombs Israel is using against the civilian population and even the tent areas, where there are only tents there, there is even no house, there are even no houses there — so, instead of monitoring the weapons that are getting into Israel and the kind of weapons that Israel is dropping, they’re keeping very close eyes on the kind of trucks and the kind of foods and biscuits and luncheon canned food into Gaza.

And this is something that I wish I could hear after Palestine was occupied in 1948. Weapons should have stopped being sent to Israel not in 2023 or 2024. It should have been stopped, you know, after 1948. And they should have called for a ceasefire, you know, and the halt of settlement construction in the West Bank and the expansion of settlements. They should have called for all of this, not only for a ceasefire, because a ceasefire does not lead to peace. There should be justice. And all those who care about Palestinian lives, why don’t you recognize them as a people, as people who should have their political rights, not only to look at them as victims of Israeli terrorism?

AMY GOODMAN: You were a teacher in Gaza. So many schools in Gaza have been hit. So many were turned into shelters and then still hit by the Israeli military. You write in your New York Times column, “On Saturday morning, I learned from my school’s WhatsApp group that my most talented student, Hatem al-Zaaneen, had been killed in Beit Hanoun, where Israel that day carried out strikes.” Can you talk, as we wrap up, about your students, about your colleagues, those who are dead and alive, your own family, and how it’s coped with, leaving Gaza today?

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Just honor my student, his name is Hatem al-Zaaneen. I would like to pronounce his name the way he —

AMY GOODMAN: I’m sorry.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: — used to tell me his name when I first met him. Hatem’s hope was to join me in the States when he grows up. I promised him, literally, when he was — he was one of the only students, one of the few students who kept in touch with me when I was in Syracuse doing my M.F.A. two years ago. And he kept in touch. “When are you going to come back? I need you to teach me. I love all teachers, but I want you to teach me. I love your teaching.” And I told him, “You know, when you grow up, you should come to this country. It’s very beautiful. People here are really beautiful, and the universities are really magnificent.” And I told him, “I will help you apply for a scholarship to come to the States.” He was very, very brilliant. And he won a short story competition, and I still have the video on my phone of him reciting the short story that he picked for the contest. I mean, this is Hatem.

And he was not — I mean, first, I thought he was killed in a municipality building where he was sheltering with his family. But later, a teacher corrected this to me, early today, that Hatem was looking for firewood to help his family bake and cook food. And Israel is not only blocking the entrance of food trucks, but they are also killing people who are looking for ways to survive. So, children like Hatem and my siblings and their children, they are not living. They are only spending their time trying to survive.

And there’s no place that’s safe in Gaza. Very important, Amy. You mentioned that Israel ordered people in north Gaza, about — I mean, Gaza used to have about 1 million people, but now with the evacuations, now I think the number is about 400,000 people, including my father, three of my siblings and their children. Today, they ordered — and also my wife’s family, all of them are in north Gaza right now, and they are looking for ways to evacuate, but they don’t know where. So, they ordered Beit Lahia, Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun to evacuate. And an hour after that, they ordered three areas in Khan Younis in south Gaza to evacuate. So, the thing is not about evacuating. So, people are evacuating from north Gaza to south Gaza, and then they find themselves bombed in south Gaza. So they are cramming people there.

And I thought — I was asked a lot of times by friends, dear friends of mine, after October 7th, “Why are you not going south? The Israelis are telling you to go south. Why don’t you go south?” I told them, “Well, do you have any guarantee that I will make it alive south?” And then, the second question, “Do you guarantee that I will be safe in south Gaza? Is there any place that’s called safe?” And safety is not about not being killed by shrapnel or by airstrikes. Safety is about finding food, finding water, finding medicine. There is nothing in south Gaza even. So, wherever you go, there is nothing that’s called a humanitarian area.

AMY GOODMAN: Mosab, we are going to have you back on to talk about your new book of poetry. I want to thank you so much for being with us today. Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian —

MOSAB ABU TOHA:Appreciate it.

AMY GOODMAN: — poet and author. His new book, out next week, is called Forest of Noise. He’s speaking to us today from Durban, South Africa. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Yeah. Just to — if I have a moment, I am here to participate in a poetry festival that I was invited to. And I’m based right now in upstate New York.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you, Mosab.

MOSAB ABU TOHA: Appreciate it.

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Report from Beirut: Israel Intensifies Bombardment of Lebanon, Displacing 1.2 Million
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

Today marks both the first anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip and one week since Israel began its ground invasion of the neighboring country of Lebanon. Israel’s brutal military response to the Hamas-led October 7 incursion has shown no sign of slowing down as the United States, its primary supplier of military aid, continues to commit weapons, funding and rhetorical support to its deadly assault on Arab populations in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon. Over 1,000 Lebanese civilians have been killed and over a million displaced as they flee the encroaching violence. From Beirut, we speak to Rima Majed, a professor at the American University of Beirut, who highlights the disruption to daily life that Israeli warfare has created. “This is really a huge catastrophe, and it’s not a humanitarian one. It is a political catastrophe, and it’s a social catastrophe. And this would not have happened … if it wasn’t for the [international] backing and the arming of Israel.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel has launched its heaviest bombardment to date on Beirut and the city’s southern suburbs. Earlier today, Israeli warplanes bombed a fire station in southern Lebanon, killing at least eight people. Israeli’s assault has now displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon. Many have fled to Beirut from the south.

DISPLACED BEIRUT RESIDENT: [translated] We have been displaced for 10 days now. We don’t have food with us. We were not able to even go and bring new clothes. We left our homes and came here. Every night, there’s a strike. You cannot sleep. We came here, and we are unable to go back from where we came. Our situation is terrible. If someone is able to find any way to get out of the country, they should. It’s better than living on aid.

AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, Hezbollah fired rockets at the Israeli port city of Haifa.

In Beirut, we’re joined by Rima Majed. She’s an assistant professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut.

You’re speaking to us from Beirut, where these massive explosions rocked the city over the weekend, marking the most violent night of Israeli attacks in recent weeks. We’re hearing reports of Israeli strikes pounding southern Beirut and a massive airstrike on Sunday near the city’s international airport. Describe what it’s like to be there, Rima.

RIMA MAJED: Thank you so much, Amy.

I mean, it’s, of course, horrible to be here. I mean, our nights are very long. Unfortunately, the heaviest bombing happens at night when people are getting ready to go to bed. But the past weekend and the weeks before have been really horrible. I mean, this week, it’s been mainly Beirut, but the south, the Beqaa and other areas have been very heavily hit in the weeks before. The situation is really very, very, very dire. I mean, I can go on for hours describing how horrible this whole situation is.

I mean, this is also a country where there is already — it’s a country that’s already suffering from multiple crises in the past five years, from one of the worst financial crises in the world, you know, the port explosion in 2020, of course COVID and its aftermath, earthquake last year, and a political deadlock that — where at the moment we have no president, a caretaker government, and a Parliament that has not convened since the beginning of this war. So we are talking about a situation that is very difficult.

And what I want to talk about is the effects of these bombs are massive, not just at — I mean, of course, at the humanitarian scale, but, I mean, I think the humanitarian aspect is something that people have become — I mean, it’s become very, very dehumanizing to just focus on humanitarianism. I mean, we’re talking about bare life here. I mean, all we care about is for people to just have shelter and food and be safe. We’re forgetting about, I mean, lives of millions of people that are put on hold, dreams that are put on hold, you know, social worlds that are disrupted and everyday life that has changed in drastic ways overnight. I mean, I made it to this studio very late because I couldn’t drive from a distance that is very close to here that usually takes three or four minutes. It took me 45 minutes, and I couldn’t continue the road. I had to be picked up on a motorbike to get here because of how crammed the city has become.

So, the effects of this are going to be immense for months, if not years, to come. Israel is using a tactic that we’ve seen in Gaza. It’s razing whole areas. I mean, Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, and many areas in the south and the Beqaa are being completely destroyed, which means people will have nowhere to go, to go back to. But also, I mean, these orders of evacuation are also — I mean, it’s the same absurdity that my friends in Gaza are describing. I mean, we tell people to evacuate, but go where? It’s very hard to find shelter in these conditions. People are sleeping in the streets. Winter is coming. It’s starting to rain in Beirut. We’re starting to talk about the possibility of epidemics spreading. So, this is really a huge catastrophe. And it’s not a humanitarian one. It is a political catastrophe, and it’s a social catastrophe.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Professor Majed —

RIMA MAJED: And this would not have happened if it wasn’t for the —

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

RIMA MAJED: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for?

RIMA MAJED: If it wasn’t for the backing and the arming of Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: And your response — we have just a minute — to Israel saying they’re just destroying, trying to destroy Hezbollah; they’re telling everyone else to leave to protect them?

RIMA MAJED: Yeah, we’ve heard the same thing in Gaza: They’re just trying to destroy Hamas. I mean, two things. First, it’s important to understand who Hezbollah is. Hezbollah, of course, is a political and military organization, but Hezbollah also has a social base, and these are not people that are involved in military action.

AMY GOODMAN: Rima, we have just 15 seconds.

RIMA MAJED: But the other thing that I want to highlight is that the war with — the war with Lebanon — the war of Israel on Lebanon has not started with the creation of Hezbollah in ’82. Israel has invaded Lebanon way before ’82. Hezbollah was created as a result of the Beirut invasion in ’82. So, the aim, I think, is not just Hezbollah, but the aim is to kill any possible resistance to a state that is —

AMY GOODMAN: Rima Majed, we’re going to leave it there —

RIMA MAJED: — that has no borders and that is expansionist.

AMY GOODMAN: — from the American University of Beirut, but we’re going to do Part 2 and post it online at democracynow.org. Stay with us, please. I’m Amy Goodman.

[admin]

Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

Five Children Among the Dead as Israel Bombs Homes in Deir al-Balah
Oct 08, 2024

In Gaza, another 25 Palestinians have been killed as Israel’s unrelenting war on the besieged Palestinian territory enters its second year. On Monday night, Israeli strikes in central Gaza hit houses in the Bureij refugee camp in the city of Deir al-Balah, killing five children and two women.

Abu Muhammad al-Maqadma: “The war is against civilians and children? Women? The elderly? Who is this war against? What do we have in the Gaza Strip? Do we have aircraft carriers at sea or F-35 planes? What do we have? We have always been unarmed people. All Arab and European countries know that we are oppressed and lost our rights.”

With the latest killings, the official death toll from one year of Israel’s war is approaching 42,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. That would mean Israeli attacks have killed one out of every 55 people living in Gaza, though the figure is likely a significant undercount. More than 16,700 of the dead are children.

Israeli Forces Kill 12-Year-Old Child and 66-Year-Old Man in Raids on Occupied West Bank
Oct 08, 2024

In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society says Israeli forces detained another 30 Palestinians overnight during raids on Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem and occupied East Jerusalem. The group reports Israel has arrested more than 11,200 Palestinians across the West Bank over the past year. On Monday, two West Bank Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli raids. Twelve-year-old Hatem Ghaith was fatally shot in the abdomen by Israeli forces in a raid on the Qalandiya refugee camp. And in the city of Dura, Israeli troops fatally assaulted 66-year-old Ziad Abu Hlail as they raided his home to arrest his son. His widow Basma recounted the fatal assault.

Basma Abu Hlail: “We were asleep at 4 a.m. when the army surrounded the house and arrested my son. They took him out of the house. His father wanted to run after him, but they didn’t let him. They pushed the door into him, and he fell and died. He became a martyr. We called the ambulance, and it didn’t arrive.”

Israel Orders Expulsion of Lebanon’s Southern Coast, Expands Attacks on Beirut Suburbs
Oct 08, 2024

Israel has expanded its attacks on southern Lebanon as it continues to strike Beirut’s suburbs. The Israeli military said it has deployed more troops into southwest Lebanon, which followed intense overnight bombardment. In response, Hezbollah has launched a series of missile attacks into northern Israel, including the city of Haifa. Meanwhile, Israel has issued expulsion orders to about one-quarter of the population on Lebanon’s southern coastline ahead of a planned maritime attack. This all comes as the World Health Organization has expressed concern over intensifying Israeli attacks on healthcare workers and hospitals across Lebanon, which have so far forced the closure of at least five healthcare facilities. The WHO is also warning of disease outbreaks due to the overcrowded conditions in shelters for displaced people.

Mourners in Michigan Hold Funeral for Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad, Killed by Israeli Strike in Lebanon
Oct 08, 2024

In Dearborn, Michigan, thousands of mourners gathered at the Islamic Center of America on Sunday to remember Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a 56-year-old husband, father of four and Lebanese American who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his hometown of Nabatieh, Lebanon, one week ago. Jawad’s family says he’d chosen to remain near the city’s main hospital to help the elderly, disabled and those who couldn’t afford to flee Israel’s bombs. In a statement, his daughter Nadine Jawad wrote, “His life is one of over 50,000 lost at the hands of Israeli aggression across the Middle East. The fact that he was an American citizen should not make his story more important than others. As Muslims, we believe that every life matters. If my dad’s story stands out to you, every other civilian murdered by the Israeli regime should as well.”

“Every Life a Universe”: On Oct. 7, Jewish Activists Mourn, Pray and Demand End to Gaza Genocide
Oct 08, 2024

Here in New York, Jewish activists and allies gathered Monday for a vigil on the first anniversary of October 7 to mourn Israelis and Palestinians who have been killed and to call for an end to the Israeli massacre in Gaza and beyond. Participants performed prayers and read out the names of those whose lives have been lost. Democracy Now! spoke to Eva Borgwardt of the group IfNotNow at the vigil.

Eva Borgwardt: “So, the motto is 'every life a universe,' and it’s from 'pikuach nefesh,' which says that to destroy a life is to destroy an entire world, and to save a life is to save an entire world. And our government is not treating every single life as a universe. They’re treating Palestinian lives as less sacred.”

That was Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson of the group IfNotNow. Another speaker who joined a later rally of Israeli Americans who are relatives of hostages in Gaza also spoke.

Adi: “My name is Adi, and I’m an Israeli American. A year ago, I was here in New York with my mother anxiously texting our family in Be’eri as they were trapped in their homes listening to the sounds of a massacre outside, abandoned by the Israeli government to fend for themselves. My uncle was murdered, together with a hundred other kibbutz members, and 31 members were kidnapped to Gaza. The brutality did not start a year ago, but for me and most of the people I know from my region in the world, this year was like a magnifying glass to the unimaginable damage of oppression, occupation, war and violence. … Now take this loss as I feel today, and multiply it by millions and millions, the millions of Palestinians, Lebanese, Israelis, Iranians, millions of hundreds who lost lives, lost loved ones, body functions, their homes, food, shelter, things with sentimental values, a million little connections lost forever. I want to scream. Scream. None of them are my enemy. I want nothing but peace and healing for all of them.”

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“The Message”: Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Power of Writing & Visiting Senegal, South Carolina, Palestine
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

We spend the hour with the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose new book The Message features three essays tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, book bans and academic freedom, and the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. The Message is written as a letter to Coates’s students at Howard University, where he is the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the English department. As part of the research for the book, Coates traveled to Senegal and visited the island of Gorée, often the last stop for captured Africans before they were shipped to the Americas as enslaved people. Coates also visited a schoolteacher in South Carolina who faced censorship for teaching Coates’s previous book, Between the World and Me, an experience he says showed him the power of organizing. “That, too, is about the power of stories. That, too, is about the power of narratives, the questions we ask and the questions we don’t,” Coates says of the community’s response.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Vigils and memorials were held across the globe Monday and this weekend on the first anniversary of October 7th to mourn Israelis and Palestinians who have been killed over the past year. The anniversary comes as Israel is widening its assault on Gaza and sending more troops into Lebanon.

Today, we spend the hour with the acclaimed writer, the journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the new book The Message, based in part on a trip he took last year to the occupied West Bank and Israel. Ta-Nehisi compares Israel’s apartheid system to that of Jim Crow here in the United States. He writes, “It occurred to me that there was still one place on the planet — under American patronage — that resembled the world that my parents were born into.”

In his book, Ta-Nehisi Coates also writes about traveling to Senegal, where he visited the slave trade memorial at Gorée Island, and going to South Carolina, where school officials tried to ban his book Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015.

The Message is written as a letter to his students at Howard University, where Ta-Nehisi Coates is the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the English department. The Message is Ta-Nehisi’s first collection of nonfiction work since his 2017 book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.

Ta-Nehisi, welcome back to Democracy Now! Last time, during the pandemic, you were in another studio, so it’s great to be with you in our New York studio.

I wanted to read one of your quotes: “We are plagued by dead language and dead stories that serve people whose aim is nothing short of a dead world. It is not enough to stand against these dissemblers. There has to be something in you, something that hungers for clarity. And you will need that hunger, because if you follow that path, soon enough you will find yourself confronting not just their myths, not just their stories, but your own.” Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Message.

We’re going to talk a lot about what’s happening in the Occupied Territories, in Gaza, in the West Bank. But I wanted to start where you go in The Message first, and that is to Senegal.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this journey that you actually took with great trepidation.

TA-NEHISI COATES: I did. I did. As you said, you know, we’ll spend a lot of time talking about the Occupied Territories and Israel and the West Bank, but it’s good to start here because the two parts are kind of paired to each other.

African Americans are a group of people who have lived under the weight of an artifice or creation, a kind of mythology of what Africa is in our minds. All of the myths of racism, all the justifications for enslavement, all the justifications for Jim Crow, at the end of the day, they have their origins in these constructions of Africa as this savage place, the idea that, you know, having been brought here, we’re better off — very, very typical of, you know, colonizing and conquering a movement. And one of the things we’ve done to push back is create our own narratives, our own journeys, our own ideas of what Africa is. My very name comes out of that, which I’m very uncomfortable with, as I talk about in the book. And —

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about it.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Oh boy. Oh Lord. I wrote it. I should be very comfortable talking about it. You know, I was born in 1975, and that was a period in time coming out of Black Power, coming out of “Black is beautiful,” like really discovering this idea that our sense of beauty, our nose, our lips, our names, our heritage, we had the right to take control over that, including our history.

And so, my name is an ancient Egyptian name that refers to the ancient kingdom of Nubia. The notion was that, put very, very crudely, that if the West had its kings and queens, if it had its great monuments, if it had its great ideas, so did we. And part of growing older, part of, you know — and I actually talk about this in Between the World and Me — part of becoming a writer, actually, is, like, our job is to be skeptical of clean stories. And I learned that very, very early on. And The Message is kind of a continuation of that.

Of course, the ultimate, I would say, I guess, climax in that journey is going to see the continent itself and moving past myth, moving past the idea of constructed narratives, even when they’re liberatory, even when they’re emancipationist, to see the people themselves. And that is what took me to Dakar. And that is what I think took so long for me to go to Dakar.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of what most surprised you in the trip, could you talk about that?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. What most surprised me is a thing that will not surprise any African American watching this interview. It was my deep sorrow. It was my deep, deep, deep sorrow. And I think, like, much of what I just said in answer to Amy’s question, I had already intellectualized before I went, and so I was already thinking about this. But thinking about something and being confronted with it is a totally, totally different thing. As the great Mike Tyson said, everybody’s got a plan until they got punched. And as soon as that plane started descending out of the clouds over Dakar and I saw the buildings rising up, I was being punched. It is one thing to think about the Middle Passage, to think about your ancestors theoretically. It is quite another to literally sit on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and look out and understand that this was, if even only symbolically, last stop.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you went to Gorée, you decided that you did not want to have any of the tour guides —

TA-NEHISI COATES: No.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — that you wanted to wander around on your own.

TA-NEHISI COATES: No, but it —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Talk about that experience.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Juan, by then, it was like day three. And so, I understood that as much as I thought I was going to see the continent, I was actually going to see some sort of departed version of myself, you know, from hundreds of years ago. I was walking with ghosts the whole time. And I just — I didn’t want to be talked to.

My family is from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, not too far from Ocean City, for anybody who knows that geography. It’s like right on the Atlantic Ocean. And so, to get back to Senegal, to get to Dakar, which is itself right on the tip of the continent, you know, I would look out, and I would have these moments, and I would say, “My god!” You know what I mean? “There’s part of me all the way on the other side, and then there’s part of me that’s here.”

And so, again, Gorée is a place that has a lot of story and a lot of myth around it. And I had read about that. I thought I was fully prepared. But I’m going to tell you, brother, you get on that boat, and that boat pulls off, and you think about all your ancestors. And it was 7 a.m. in the morning, and I was alone on that boat. And it is a very, very different experience.

AMY GOODMAN: And back to your name, Ta-Nehisi?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And also, which goes to your parents, as well —

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — and their influence on you. Your dad, a former Black Panther, ran a publishing — a publishing press right in your house.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, yeah, no. And I think, like, what they were really trying to do — and this actually goes to the core of what the book is about. How do you tell your own story? How do you free yourself from a history, from novels, from film, from television, an entire architecture that is designed to tell you that you are exactly where you belong because of who you are, because of what you are, either because of your genes, because God said, you know, you belong there? How do you construct something different?

And one of the things I’m trying to confront in the book is, I think perhaps step one is almost to make a mirror image of the people that have put you in that situation: “Well, you say we’re this. We’re actually that.” But I think one of the most difficult things is to free yourself entirely of that structure and to construct your own morality, your own stories, your own ideas, that don’t necessarily depend on those who have put you in the situation to begin with.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the structure of your book is addressed to your students at Howard. The decision to choose that form for your book?

TA-NEHISI COATES: You know, I was, to be honest with you — I have not said this anywhere — I was very worried about that, because I had done that. Like, I had written this letter in Between the World and Me, and I thought people were going to say, “Oh my god, he’s going to do this again. What? Between the World and Me again?”

But the fact of the matter is, I am always trying to achieve intimacy with the reader. That’s the primary job. You know, I would tell my students all the time, “Look, you are dealing with readers who could be doing anything else. They could be on their smartphones. They could be playing video games. They could be watching movies. They could be watching TV, be somewhere making love. They could be doing anything but reading you. And so, you have a responsibility to make them feel a sense of intimacy and immediacy.” And I was lucky in the sense that, you know, these were very, very real conversations that I had had with my students, so I had something to pull from, and also the fact of just the letter form allowed me to do that and allows me to get a kind of intimacy with my reader.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about George Orwell, “Why I Write,” and —

TA-NEHISI COATES: That’s a great essay.

AMY GOODMAN: — connecting politics and language in the promise you made to your students at Howard. Between the World and Me was written to your son Samori.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: This, to the students.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. So, we usually start, actually, with “Politics and the English Language.” That’s the first essay that I have them read, you know, just to think about language as a political thing. You know, we live in this world where I feel that oftentimes we are taught — not that everybody subscribes to this — that art lives over here and politics lives over here, and that politics itself is actually very, very limited, that it happens every two or four years — it’s in the voting booth, it’s who you decide to vote for, it’s what issues you decide to activate on. But one of the arguments that I make in The Message is that there’s an entire architecture outside of the world of mean politics that determines how politicians actually talk, the choices they give, you know, etc. Why does Kamala Harris feel the need, for instance, to say that she has a gun? What is that actually based on? And I would say it is based on archetypes of femininity. I would say it’s based on archetypes of race, archetypes of the cowboy. And where do those archetypes come from? They come from our art. They come from our literature. They come from our film, our TVs, our commercials. And at their base, they ultimately come from writing, because somebody has to write those ultimately. And in that world, things that seem separated from politics never really are. And so, I wanted to start that book — or, this book, The Message, with that Orwell quote, because that’s like one of the things he kind of is obsessing with in that essay.

And at the same time, there’s this beautiful tension that I often feel, which is, in a different world, you know, he would just write beautiful stories. He would just play with language for the hell of playing with language. But he doesn’t live in that world. And I don’t feel that my students live in that world. They live in a world of, as we’ll talk about, genocide, apartheid, segregation, global warming, you know, Category 5 hurricanes, flood on one coast, fire on the other. These are immediate issues. And I don’t believe that they, as writers, we, as writers, have the luxury of sort of sitting back in our salons and in our living rooms simply constructing beautiful language for the hell of constructing beautiful language. It has to be engaged with something.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ta-Nehisi, from Senegal, you take us to Columbia, South Carolina. Why that choice?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, I was writing this in a time where this wave of book bannings was happening. And I always wanted to write about that, but I felt that — I was worried about making the writer the center of the book banning, because even though the work is directed at the writer, the writer is actually not the person that suffers under the book ban. The teachers suffer under the book ban. It’s the teachers who are under threat for losing their job. It’s the teachers who get harassed. It’s the librarians who are under threat of losing their jobs, the librarians who get harassed. It’s the students who lose the ability to have access to different worlds and different ways of thinking. And I was trying to figure out how I could write this in such a way so that I would not be the center of it.

Luckily, you know, I ended up in conversation with a teacher by the name of Mary Wood from Chapin, South Carolina, went to Chapin High School, where she teaches and where she was trying to teach Between the World and Me and got into some amount of trouble for that. And she invited me down, you know, just to go to a hearing. And that’s what I did. And it was quite eventful. It was not the world that I expected. It was not the audience I expected. It was interesting to see how much support actually was rallied behind her, even though she’s in a deep red area in a deep red state. And so, that, too, is about the power of stories. That, too, is about the power of narratives, the questions we ask and the questions we don’t.

AMY GOODMAN: You write, in The Message, about this experience in South Carolina, “I see politicians in Colorado, in Tennessee, in South Carolina moving against my own work, tossing books I’ve authored out of libraries, banning them from classes, and I feel snatched out of the present and dropped into an age of pitchforks and bookburning bonfires. My first instinct is to laugh, but then I remember that American history is filled with men and women who were as lethal as they were ridiculous.”

TA-NEHISI COATES: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, if —

TA-NEHISI COATES: We got one running for president right now, you know? Lethal and ridiculous.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you talk about the area you were in, 70-30 split, 70% for Trump. And yet — and this is what you were just talking about — this 30%, how surprised you were by the minority, the power of it when it’s mobilized.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. You know, it’s like one of these things. Like, again, like, this goes back to how we construct language. It’s either a blue or red district, right? Even purple doesn’t quite, like, carry the quite — you know, like the real context. They think it’s red. OK, battle’s over. Why am I here? You know? But 30% — if 30% activated around an actual issue, it’s actually a lot of people. You know what I mean?

And it was like — like, I could not have known that without seeing it. Like, you have to — and this is, like, one of the messages I have for my students in the book. You have to walk the land. You can’t sit on your butt reading reports — you know what I mean? — and even reading books like this one, and say, “Hey, I’m going to be a writer.” You have to have actual experiences. And so, I have to walk in that room and meet this white woman in her seventies, you know, who tells me, in the wake of George Floyd, “We organized a reading group at our church for Black authors, and I love Colson Whitehead. Oh my god! Have you read him?” You know, like, I have to have that experience with somebody. You know, I have to have that shock, you know? And so, I just feel like it was, like, really, really important in The Message to actually model the work that I was articulating or model the lessons that I was actually articulating for my students.

AMY GOODMAN: When you just referred to President Trump, can you elaborate further?

TA-NEHISI COATES: He looks ridiculous, but he is in fact quite lethal. You know? And I think, certainly in 2016, there was great, great temptation to laugh. You know what I mean? You hear these things, you know, you hear him say certain things, you see him in certain places, and there’s a kind of dismissiveness. But what we actually are dismissing is a kind of darkness that I think lurks deep, deep within all of us and can actually be appealed to. It’s not comfortable to say that you can win through hate. It’s not comfortable to say that you can win through anger. It’s not comfortable to say, historically, it actually has been very effective, electorally, to pick out weak people or people who are not in the most advantaged political space and to demonize them and use them as a tool, that that actually has been quite effective for people in pursuit of power. We would rather think that good wins all the time, that people see the best in each other. It reifies our notions of what America is, our stories that we tell ourselves of what America is, but it doesn’t correspond with the actual history and the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi, we’re going to break. And then, when we come back to your new book, The Message, we’re going to talk about Israel and Palestine. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates: I Was Told Palestine Was Complicated. Visiting Revealed a Simple, Brutal Truth
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 07, 2024

As the war on Gaza enters its second year and Israel expands its attacks on Lebanon, we continue our conversation with the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, The Message, is based in part on his visit last year to Israel and the occupied West Bank, where he says he saw a system of segregation and oppression reminiscent of Jim Crow in the United States. “It was revelatory,” says Coates. “I don’t think the average American has a real sense of what we’re doing over there — and I emphasize 'what we're doing’ because it’s not possible without American support.”

Transcript

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

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

Last night here in New York, hundreds of activists — Jewish and Jewish allies and Palestinians — rallied in Union Square for a vigil on the first anniversary of October 7th to mourn Israelis and Palestinians who have been killed and to call for an end to the Israeli massacre in Gaza and beyond. People performed prayers. There were rabbis there. And they read out the names of those who have lost their lives. One of those who spoke, I talked to afterwards, Eva Borgwardt. She is a spokesperson for the group IfNotNow.

AMY GOODMAN: Right now people are wearing signs that say “No U.S. money for bombs.” And talk about the motto of this October 7th vigil.

EVA BORGWARDT: So, the motto is “every life a universe,” and it’s from ”pikuach nefesh,” which says that to destroy a life is to destroy an entire world, and to save a life is to save an entire world. And our government is not treating every single life as a universe. They’re treating Palestinian lives as less sacred.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you get so involved with this issue?

EVA BORGWARDT: I got involved through the Ferguson uprising. And I was watching Black and Palestinian activists trading tips on Twitter about how to deal with tear gas, and it became clear that Palestinians in the West Bank are facing a military charged with policing, and Black Americans are facing a militarized police force. And that was my entry point, where I said, “I need to organize my community,” which was unable — or, which was limited in being able to show up for the civil rights fight of our time, for the Black Lives Matter movement, because they were upset about the messaging for a free Palestine in those protests. And so, I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life working on building the movement of Jewish Americans who are calling for equality, justice and a thriving future for all, no matter where people live.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Eva Borgwardt of the group IfNotNow, one of hundreds of people here in New York City in Union Square for two large rallies on the anniversary of October 7th. Our guest today is Ta-Nehisi Coates, the prize-winning journalist and author of the new book, The Message, in part about a visit he took last year, organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature, PalFest, to the West Bank and Israel. Talk about this whole journey you took. You were part of the PalFest, and then you also stayed.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah. And I guess, to be honest, my journey began 10 years ago, when I published “The Case for Reparations.” And there was a section — again, as a writer, as a journalist, you’re always trying to make people feel things, make things real. And there was a section where I offered an analog for reparations, for how it could possibly look. And it was from West Germany to the state of Israel — and I need to be very specific about that — not to Holocaust survivors, but to the state of Israel itself. And that part of that essay came under quite a bit of critique — and what became clear to me was, deservedly so. It took 10 years for me to get it fixed, because writing takes a long time, you know? But I knew I had to — like, that I was going to have to go at some point. You know, I knew it wouldn’t be enough for me to, you know, appear at a rally, do a slogan, whatever.

And long story short, I began talking to PalFest in 2016, finally got there in 2023, just in time for The Message. I spent five days with them, mostly traveling through the Occupied Territories and through East Jerusalem as a Palestinian would, getting a sense of what their daily life was. And then, the next five days I spent mostly in the company of a group called Breaking the Silence, former IDF veterans who are against the occupation, and I saw the country largely through the views of an Israeli, how they move through the world, how they move through Jerusalem, how they move through the roads. But I also, again, spent a lot of time actually talking more to Palestinians.

It was revelatory. It was — I don’t think the average American has a real sense of what we’re doing over there — and I emphasize “what we’re doing” because it’s not possible without American support. I have heard people say over and over again, “There are great evils happening the world, states across the world perpetrating evils against whole groups of people. Why pick on Israel?” And the thing I say is, “I’m an American. This is the thing that we have our fingerprints on.” Those bombs over Gaza, the planes that drop bombs on Gaza, the plaques that I saw, for instance, in Jerusalem, all of that is America. And we are going around the world propping ourselves up as the font of democracy. We are going around the world propping Israel up as the only democracy in the Middle East. This is a deep, deep fiction, a very, very dangerous fiction that must be addressed. And that’s what I tried to do in the book.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You write in the book, quote, “It occurred to me that there was still one place on the planet — under American patronage — that resembled the world that my parents were born into.” Can you elaborate?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes. And I think I talked about it the last time I was here, actually. These are the words I have even now, and they are probably insufficient to what a Palestinian would offer who experiences this, but the words that come to me are “segregation.” When you are on the West Bank, there are separate roads. There are roads for Israeli settlers and citizens of Israel, and there are roads for Palestinians. These roads are not separate and equal; these roads tend to be separate and unequal. It tends to take longer to get where you want to go if you’re a Palestinian. If you enter a city like Hebron, for instance, Hebron is quite literally segregated. There are streets that Palestinians cannot walk down. There are streets that Israeli settlers are given complete and free movement of. Moving throughout the West Bank in general, there are checkpoints everywhere for Palestinians. These checkpoints are sometimes normal checkpoints that they know are there. Sometimes checkpoints appear out of the blue, what they call flying checkpoints. Your basic movement is constantly in peril.

The justice system, which is deeply familiar for African Americans today, is quite literally segregated. There is a civil justice system that the minority of Israeli settlers, as Israeli citizens, enjoy, and then there is an entirely separate justice system that Palestinians on the West Bank are subject to. You can be arrested, for instance, as an Israeli citizen, and you are, you know, due all the due rights that we are familiar with. You have to be told what the charges are, etc. If you are arrested as a Palestinian, you can just be taken. In another political context, we would call those hostages, because nobody has to say why you’re taken, nobody has to say what you were taken for, nobody has to inform your family. You are under the jurisdiction of the military.

It has been this way since 1967. And the word we use for that is “occupation,” which is a kind of a deeply vanilla word that does not actually describe what is going on. How a country that maintains this separate and unequal system, how a country that does not even allow the, quote-unquote, “Palestinian citizens” of the state full equality with its Jewish Israeli citizens is allowed to refer to itself as a democracy is a mystery to me. And the closest analog I can think of is the time in which the United States of America referred to itself as a democracy even as it was disenfranchising whole swaths of Black people in the Southern states. And so, when I say Jim Crow, when I say segregation, that is because that is the period that immediately comes to mind for me.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about being stopped by an Israeli soldier, Ta-Nehisi.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Oh, well, we were stopped all the time, to be clear, you know, because we were on the roads. We were constantly stopped. You know, I was — you know, you just kind of got used to it after a while, which was also weirdly familiar. But I think the instance you’re referring to is when I was in Hebron, which is a flashpoint for anybody that’s been over there.

I was walking down a street attempting to patronize a Palestinian vendor, and a guard, IDF guard or IDF soldier, stopped out — he was young enough to be my son — stopped out and asked me what was my religion. It was clear that I had to state my religion in order to pass. When I told him that I was not religious, he asked what my mother’s religion was. When I told him my mother wasn’t particularly religious, he asked what my grandmother’s religion was. And this is a very, very important thing, because when you start asking what my mother and grandmother’s religion is, you are referring to something beyond do I accept Christ as my personal savior or what god I pray to. You are asking a deeper question about my ancestry. And it became clear that if I did not give the right answer to that question, I would not be allowed to pass.

I highlight this because when you hear Palestinian and Palestinian American activists make the charge of racism, this is what they’re talking about. Why does who my grandmother or my mother worshiped matter, if we’re strictly talking about a god? Not that it would be right even in that sense. But when you hear the charge of racism, this is what people are referring to.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi, this is a powerful book, and you went on CBS This Morning recently to talk about the publication of it. And I want to go to that interview —

TA-NEHISI COATES: Oh, that will be fun.

AMY GOODMAN: — on CBS This Morning. The New York Times is now reporting CBS News has rebuked one of the morning anchors, Tony Dokoupil, over what he did in that interview to you, and, maybe you could also say, to his fellow anchors as he dominated this. CBS executives said the interview fell short of the network’s editorial standards. This is an excerpt of that interview.

TONY DOKOUPIL: Ta-Nehisi, I want to dive into the Israel-Palestine section of the book. It’s the largest section of the book. And I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist. And so, then I found myself wondering, “Why does Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I’ve known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much?” Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the First and the Second Intifada, the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits? And is it because you just don’t believe that Israel, in any condition, has a right to exist?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, I would say the perspective that you just outlined, there is no shortage of that perspective in American media. That’s the first thing I would say. I am most concerned always with those who don’t have a voice, with those who don’t have the ability to talk. I have asked repeatedly in my interviews whether there is a single network, mainstream organization in America with a Palestinian American bureau chief or correspondent who actually has a voice to articulate their part of the world. I’ve been a reporter for 20 years. The reporters of those who believe more sympathetically about Israel and its right to exist don’t have a problem getting their voice out. But what I saw in Palestine, what I saw on the West Bank, what I saw in Haifa, in Israel, what I saw in the South Hebron Hills, those were the stories that I have not heard.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Ta-Nehisi, you sitting on the set of CBS This Morning with the former football player, now anchor, Nate Burleson, Gayle King, very well known, both African American anchors, and Tony Dokoupil. He dominated the discussion, talking about your book belonged, could be found in an extremist’s backpack. Talk about the backlash on this, the aftermath of this, and also who you felt was most wronged in this.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, it wasn’t me. I mean, at that point, let me tell you, it was not me, you know? It certainly — and I don’t know that it was anybody on that set. Look, I think there is a meta-conversation that happens here, where we end up — because we’re media, where we end up talking about media and media politics. But I do think it’s really important to broaden the frame from the few people that were there, and talk about what was actually excluded and who was actually excluded from that conversation by the very structure itself. I just don’t want to lose sight of that.

I don’t really have a problem with a tough interview. You know, I knew what I wrote. You know, I knew I’d be confronted. You know, was he rude? Was he aggressive? You know, like, I can’t really get into that. Like, it’s not really something that I think too much about.

The question I would ask, though, is: How often on CBS, on NBC, on ABC, or on any major news organization, do you see someone who is a defender of the Israeli state project get confronted in that kind of way, given a tough interview in that kind of way? When was the last time you saw, for instance, a defender of Israel, a defender of Zionism confronted with the fact that major human rights organizations say that Israel is practicing apartheid? How do you defend that? When is the last time you’ve seen an interviewer, how often do you see interviewers — because I don’t want say it never happens — how often do you see interviewers say, “Listen, we have the former head of Human Rights Watch that says you are practicing genocide right now in Gaza. How do you respond to that?” How often do you — how often do you see that? How often do you see, “How do you define yourself as a democracy when fully half the people under your rule are not equal?”

There is no problem with confronting me. You know, I would like to see some other people confronted. And the second part of that is: Who gets to do the confronting in the first place? I have said, and I will continue to say, I am a little uncomfortable with this role and a little uncomfortable with the publicity, not because I feel like I do not know, but because I feel like there are people who are going through this experience and who have gone through this experience, who know so much more, who are completely out of the frame. And those are Palestinians and Palestinian Americans. So, it’s not just the issues that are raised in the confrontation. The question I would ask is, you have to imagine a world where a Palestinian American journalist could be on a mainstream show like CBS This Morning and confront someone who wrote a book that, say, defended Israel or defended Zionism with that kind of aggression. It’s fine if I get it, but I want to live in that world, too, you know?

And that really is, you know, like, one of the things I was really, really trying to get at in the book, in The Message, you know? It’s the questions we ask. It’s the stories we get to tell and the stories that we don’t tell. And perhaps most importantly, it’s who gets to tell them and who doesn’t. And I just — I really feel this passionately. This is not about me. This is not about Tony. This is not about Gayle. This is not about Nate. We’re going to be fine. It’s the people who are invisible. It’s the people who were not in that set — you know, on that set to begin with, who were not part of that conversation.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ta-Nehisi, this criticism that you weren’t sufficiently taking into account the history, when the reality is here we are on the anniversary of the October 7th attacks, and very little discussion occurs about what was Gaza like before October 7th of last year and how were the residents of Gaza being treated, essentially, in an open-air prison.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes, no, I completely agree. Look, I love the young lady who was saying earlier in the lede in, “Every life is a universe.” I truly, truly believe that. And so, you know, as I’ve said before, like, there really is no part of my politics that has the ability to look at October 7th and not mourn the death, the massacre, the atrocities perpetrated. I just wish that some of my countrymen — especially my countrymen, especially Americans who are responsible for this, who are propping this up — had that same sort of compassion and that same sort of energy for October 6th, October 5th, etc.

You know, this kind of abstracting events outside of their historical context is really necessary to the political order, because it allows us to justify ourselves and not have to think harder or not have to ask much deeper questions. You really have to be able to hold both. And I know that that sounds a bit cliché, but I truly do believe that you have to, you know, believe in this idea that I actually just heard today, that every life is a universe. You know, I think that’s a really, really beautiful articulation, you know? And that has to be true for all life. That has to be true on October 7th, you know, and loudly said, but it has to be true on 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 also.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And also, I wanted to go back for a second, because we are running out of time, and ask you about —

TA-NEHISI COATES: I’m sorry my answers are so long.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah — about President Trump and the upcoming election. The great surprise to me, all these years now, is the enormous support that Donald Trump still has among huge swaths of the American public. To what do you attribute this?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Darkness. There’s a darkness in all of us. I mean, this is — this is not new. You know? And if you just took American history from the perspective of an African American, and I suspect from the perspective of the Indigenous people of this continent, what they would tell you is there is nothing new in people using power, in people using the worst tropes in the world to win and to dominate. For any Black person that grew up in the South from — I don’t know — 1876 to 1964 and probably beyond — I’m being very conservative by saying that — this is what politics was. Like, this is just what we grew up under.

And so, I think maybe we thought, or we allowed ourselves to believe, that somehow we had escaped the gravity of history. But no people, no country escapes the gravity of history. We live within it. We are part of it. And so, I think it’s a very, very dangerous thing that our leaders led us to believe in 2016 that this was like a thing that could not happen in America, you know, whereas had we looked at history from another perspective, we would know that this actually is very American. You know, that doesn’t make us inhuman or somehow demonically evil; on the contrary, it just makes us human. It means that we’re subject to, you know, the darkness in our souls like any other group of people would be.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi, I wanted to go to that point you say of who gets heard. We were at the Democratic convention. Everywhere we were interviewing people —

TA-NEHISI COATES: I saw you out there.

AMY GOODMAN: We saw you in the background.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yes, yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: We were interviewing the delegate from, what, Michigan, from Florida and from Connecticut —

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — who unfurled a banner in the Florida delegation that said “Stop arming Israel.”

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You were there as we were interviewing them in the hallway. When we were outside, when they were about to begin the sleep-in overnight, demanding that Kamala Harris allow a Palestinian American to speak, you were there. And then, the next day, you wrote a piece in Vanity Fair about your experience, “A Palestinian American’s Place Under the Democrats’ Big Tent?” the piece looking at the “uncommitted” movement and their unsuccessful efforts to have such a speaker. This is Ruwa Romman of the uncommitted movement. She’s a Palestinian American Georgia state representative. This is part of what she would have said if she was chosen.

RUWA ROMMAN: For 320 days, we’ve stood together demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike, to reach a ceasefire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That’s why we are here, members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world. They’ll say this is how it’s always been, that nothing can change. But remember Fannie Lou Hamer, shunned for her courage, yet she paved the way for an integrated Democratic Party. Her legacy lives on, and it’s her example we follow.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the Georgia state Representative Ruwa Romman. And needless to say, there was not a Palestinian American voice on the stage. Last night, Kamala Harris did an interview with 60 Minutes — at least they played it last night. This is what she had to say about Israel-Palestine.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: When we think about the threat that Hamas, Hezbollah presents, Iran, I think that it is, without any question, our imperative to do what we can to allow Israel to defend itself against those kinds of attacks. Now, the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done which would release the hostages and create a ceasefire. And we’re not going to stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region, including Arab leaders.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaking on 60 Minutes last night. As we wrap up, you were just talking about Trump. Talk about what the position of the Biden-Harris administration is right now. They did hold two separate commemorations yesterday. President Biden was at the White House, and he lit a candle and also, I also, crossed himself right after. And Kamala Harris, the vice president, in the Naval Observatory, planted a tree, a pomegranate tree.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, you know, that’s good and appropriate, you know. Like I said, we don’t want to have a politic that does not take life serious and does not take loss of life serious. On the larger question, and maybe even as an extent of that, but we have to take all life seriously. I don’t think we’re doing that. This is morally untenable.

What I saw was — and this is the first time I’ve ever said this or put this in this frame, and maybe the uncommitted delegates understood this — there was as much a moral gap between what I saw in Chicago, that is to say, to go on stage and promote these values of diversity, humanity, big tent, and to exclude the peoples whose families are being bombed right now, as it was in the early 1960s and before, when the Democratic Party claimed to be for the working man and the working person while millions of workers all through the South were effectively in a system of indentured servitude, and they refused to give those people political representation. It is a gigantic moral gulf, that is troubling, disappointing, heartbreaking and deeply, deeply personally upsetting.

AMY GOODMAN: Ta-Nehisi Coates, award-winning journalist, author, professor. His new book is The Message. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, with Juan González in Chicago.

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Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 09, 2024

Israeli Soldiers Push into Gaza’s Jabaliya Refugee Camp, “Firing at Anyone Who Moves”
Oct 09, 2024

Israel’s military has once again invaded the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, its third such offensive in the last year. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says the assault has left dozens of people dead or injured, as soldiers “fire at anyone who moves.” The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports Israeli troops surrounded the Kamal Adwan Hospital and gave medical workers 24 hours to completely empty the hospital of patients and staff. Israel issued similar orders to the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals. The orders threaten to collapse the healthcare system for an estimated 400,000 Palestinians who remain trapped in northern Gaza.

In central Gaza, mourners gathered in Deir al-Balah earlier today to pray for 17 people killed when Israel bombed tents housing displaced people in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps. This is Ragab al-Khalidy, who carried the body of his young nephew Hossam, who was killed in the attack.

Ragab al-Khalidy: “They were sleeping safely. Why are they targeted with two rockets? What fault did they commit to be targeted with two rockets? Why should we have to get them out of the fire?”

Israeli Bombs Rain Down on Lebanon as Hezbollah Says It Repelled Israeli Border Incursions
Oct 09, 2024

Israel’s military continued its devastating attacks on Lebanon overnight, with massive explosions reported in Beirut’s southern suburbs and the Beqaa Valley. The bombings compounded the misery of displaced families, many of whom have been forced to find shelter in open-air encampments in Beirut’s streets.

Rabih Ayoub: “We fled from the bombing, from the rockets that were coming at us. Our homes were destroyed. Come and see the people who are displaced here. They have been humiliated.”

Amira: “Is there anyone who is not scared of war? Especially that we have a child with us. God help us, and God help the people.”

Earlier today, Hezbollah said its fighters repelled two incursions of Israeli troops attempting to invade southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said in a statement the group was prepared to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel.

Israeli PM Netanyahu Warns Lebanon Could Face “Destruction and Suffering Like Gaza”
Oct 09, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly addressed the people of Lebanon in an English-language video message, boasting that Israel had killed Hashem Safieddine, who was meant to replace assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Netanyahu warned Lebanon’s nearly 6 million inhabitants they could face “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Do you remember when your country was called the pearl of the Middle East? I do. So, what happened to Lebanon? A gang of tyrants and terrorists destroyed it. That’s what happened. Lebanon was once known for its tolerance, for its beauty. Today, it’s a place of chaos, a place of war.”

Syria Says Israeli Strike on Damascus Killed 7 Civilians
Oct 09, 2024

Syrian media is reporting seven civilians were killed and 11 others injured Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in a suburb west of the capital Damascus. Women and children were reportedly among the dead. Israeli officials claimed the attack was aimed at killing a Hezbollah official involved in weapons trafficking.

U.N. Chief Warns Israel Against Blocking UNRWA’s Work Aiding Palestinian Refugees
Oct 09, 2024

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres says he’s written directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning him against dismantling the U.N. agency tasked with providing food, healthcare and social services to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Two bills under consideration in Israel’s parliament would prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work. Guterres said passage of the legislation would “be a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster.”

Secretary-General António Guterres: “Without UNRWA, the delivery of food, shelter and healthcare to most of Gaza’s population would grind to a halt. Without UNRWA, Gaza’s 660,000 children would lose the only entity that is able to restart education, risking the fate of an entire generation. And without UNRWA, many health, education and social services would also end in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

Israeli Defense Minister Cancels Plans to Meet in Washington, D.C., with Pentagon Chief
Oct 09, 2024

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has canceled plans to travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with his U.S. counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Israeli media is reporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked Gallant’s visit because he first wants to speak with President Biden about Israel’s plans to attack Iran, in response to Iran’s missile attack last week.

Palestinian Activist Issa Amro and British Israeli Architect Eyal Weizman Win Right Livelihood Awards
Oct 09, 2024

Prominent Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro has received the 2024 Right Livelihood Award for the work of his organization, the Hebron-based Youth Against Settlements. The group, based in the occupied West Bank, was recognized for its “steadfast non-violent resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation, promoting Palestinian civic action through peaceful means.” Amro has been detained by Israeli forces several times over his activism, beaten and tortured in Israeli prisons. Other Right Livelihood winners include British Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, who accepted the award on behalf of Forensic Architecture, which has mapped out possible war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian territories. Click here to see our interviews with Eyal Weizman and Issa Amro. The other Right Livelihood Award laureates for 2024 are Indigenous human rights and environmental activist Joan Carling of the Philippines and Anabela Lemos, a Mozambican environmental activist.

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“The First Live-Streamed Genocide”: Al Jazeera Exposes War Crimes Filmed by Israeli Troops Themselves
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 09, 2024



A new documentary from Al Jazeera takes a look at evidence of war crimes in Gaza in the form of social media posted by Israeli soldiers recording and celebrating their own attacks on Palestinians. We play excerpts from the film Investigating War Crimes in Gaza, now available online, and speak to two of the journalists involved in its production, director Richard Sanders and Gaza-based correspondent Youmna ElSayed. “Israelis themselves were telling us precisely what they were doing and why they were doing it,” says Sanders about the evidence the team reviewed. “They don’t think it’s complicated. They don’t think it’s nuanced. Their rhetoric is often overtly genocidal.” ElSayed adds, “They’ve had all the courage to do that because they know that they are not even going to be condemned.”

Transcript

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

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Health officials in Gaza say the death toll from Israel’s war has now topped 42,000, though many fear the actual death toll is far higher. We begin today’s show looking at how Israeli troops have repeatedly filmed themselves committing and celebrating war crimes in Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has just released a documentary on Israeli war crimes, based in part on social media posts from Israeli soldiers themselves. The documentary begins with the Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa, as well as footage of the Al-Awda school massacre in July, when Israeli troops killed at least 31 people at a school sheltering displaced Palestinians. The moment the bomb exploded was captured on video by someone recording a youth soccer game in the Al-Awda school courtyard.

SUSAN ABULHAWA: The West cannot hide. They cannot claim ignorance. Nobody can say they didn’t know. We live in an era of technology, and this has been described as the first live-streamed genocide in history. And I believe that to be true.

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] That blew me away!

SUSAN ABULHAWA: They are conducting a genocide now with glee. They’re setting their atrocities to music and putting them on catchy reels on TikTok. Ordinary Israelis see what their military is doing and celebrate it.

NARRATION: A crowd is singing, “May your village burn!”

SUSAN ABULHAWA: It’s not just fringe elements who see this and think it’s a good thing.

PRESIDENT ISAAC HERZOG: When a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we’ll break their backbone. … It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from a new documentary on Israeli war crimes made by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit. That last speaker was the Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

This is another clip from the documentary. We hear from Human Rights Watch’s associate director for the Middle East and North Africa, Bill Van Esveld [sic]. The clips begin with video posted online by the Israeli 202nd Paratroopers Battalion that shows a possible war crime of the shooting of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. This is a graphic warning.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: As troops leave Gaza, they place commemorative videos online.

ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] When they meet the 202nd battalion, they are going to regret being born.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: This video documents the activities of the 202nd Paratroopers Battalion.

CHARLIE HERBERT: I’m just going to halt this here. I’m going to play this back again. This is extraordinary. The fact that he’s put this onto video, he’s released this on YouTube, to me, is kind of quite extraordinary, that degree of impunity.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: The video shows two other instances where unarmed men are shot by snipers.

CHARLIE HERBERT: Of course I don’t know the context of what happened before. I don’t know what happened two minutes before that. They may have been involved in contacting and shooting at Israeli forces, and they may have been legitimate targets. But it sure doesn’t look like it to me.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from a new documentary on Israeli war crimes made by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit.

We’re joined now by two guests. Youmna ElSayed is a correspondent for Al Jazeera who is based in the Gaza Strip. And Richard Sanders is the director of Al Jazeera I-Unit’s new feature-length documentary, Investigating War Crimes in Gaza.

Youmna, let’s begin with you, as you narrate this film. If you can talk about the video footage that we see, that is actually taken by Israeli soldiers themselves?

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Yes. Thank you for having me on your show again, Amy.

Of course, Israeli soldiers in Gaza taking these videos and posting them on different social media platforms, they haven’t been — they’ve had all the courage to do that because they know that they are not even going to be condemned by posting these videos. They are showing off how much they dehumanize Palestinians, how much they kill. They destroy their properties. They completely torture them and dehumanize them in different ways, whether they’re children, they’re men, they’re women. They brag about it, and they’re very proud of their doings.

And all this comes back to the fact that the Israeli army acts with complete impunity, and they know that even these videos being posted online, they won’t even be shown in other Western news outlets to point out how horrific these videos have actions committed by the Israeli army towards the civilians. On the contrary, Benjamin Netanyahu comes out and says, “We are the most moral army in the world,” when in reality they are the most inhumane army in the world.

As a journalist, as a civilian in any war zone, I am supposed to have the guarantee that a soldier from any other — any other place in the world, any other nationality in the world, as long as he carries that term, that definition that he is a soldier, he must have morals, he must have ethics that he would not hurt me as an unarmed civilian, as a journalist, as a paramedic. But in Gaza, for them, every single Palestinian, as long as you are a Palestinian, you are a legitimate target.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I just want to issue a slight correction: The person in the first clip that we showed from the documentary was not Bill Van Esveld of Human Rights Watch, but, rather, Charlie Herbert, a retired British major general.

So, Richard Sanders, if we could turn to you, talk about the origins of this documentary, the fact that it begins with the Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa saying we are “in an era of technology, and this has been described as the first live-streamed genocide in history.” I mean, in a way, the film itself documents precisely how it is a live-streamed genocide. If you could elaborate?

RICHARD SANDERS: Well, thank you for having me, Amy.

Yes, and that’s precisely why we begin the film with those comments from Susan Abulhawa. The essential point of the whole film is no one can hide. The Israelis themselves were telling us precisely what they were doing and why they were doing it. The film is rooted in these soldiers’ videos, of which there are thousands and thousands. And we didn’t pick particularly damaging examples. They’re all like that. I mean, one thing that’s very striking is, what you don’t see in these videos is combat, or very rarely. There’s very little combat. Every now and then you see soldiers expending an enormous amount of ammunition, but they’re frequently standing up, and there’s clearly no incoming. So, that’s what you would think soldiers would want to post online, but they don’t.

Now, it’s not only soldiers’ videos, of course, we have in the film. There is Israeli media, Israeli politicians and Israeli social media. We’re not picking – again, as Susan says at the beginning of the film, we’re not picking unrepresentative examples. In the West, there is sometimes this rhetoric — even when people aren’t overtly supportive of the Israelis, there is this rhetoric of “it’s complicated,” “it’s nuanced,” “it’s difficult.” And what we’re really saying in this film is listen to Israelis. Listen to Israelis. They don’t think it’s complicated. They don’t think it’s nuanced. Their rhetoric is often overtly genocidal. It’s certainly frequently all about ethnic cleansing. They couldn’t have been clearer about what they were doing. And if we are ignorant, we’re willfully ignorant.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Richard Sanders, how do you interpret the fact that these videos were made and posted so liberally by Israeli soldiers themselves? I mean, the obvious question is: To what extent did they think they were totally immune from any kind of repercussions as a consequence of what they were doing, which, you know, if you see those clips that you show in the documentary, are so obviously war crimes? In fact, the international legal expert whom you spoke to said that it’s very uncommon to have clips like this. He said “a treasure trove which you very seldom come across … something which I think prosecutors will be licking their lips at.” So, if you could just, you know, talk about that, how — what do you make of the fact that soldiers themselves so openly, transparently and widely distributed their own acts that could be construed as war crimes?

RICHARD SANDERS: They clearly felt this would be popular in Israel. They were competing for clicks, you know. And they were right. These videos were popular. You know, they were using some of the photos they took of themselves on dating apps. And yes, as you say, it speaks to an astonishing sense of impunity. I mean, the clip you’ve played there, where you actually see unarmed men being shot, that’s fairly unusual, but even so, that was put on YouTube by the people who did it.

Now, you know, what we very much hope is that this material — and, of course, there’s an awful lot of material additionally which isn’t in the film — this material will be of use to the ICC. It’s quite interesting, within Israel, if you follow Hebrew-language social media, there’s been a panicky deleting of social media accounts over the last few days. But it’s too late. We’ve got it all saved.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from your new Al Jazeera Investigates documentary, when we see Israeli soldiers, in footage that they themselves shared, talking about the complete destruction of the Shuja’iyya refugee camp in Gaza.

ISRAELI COMMAND: [translated] Butterfly station, this is command. We’re launching Operation 8th Candle of Hanukkah, the burning of Shuja’iyya neighborhood. Let our enemies learn and be deterred. This is what we’ll do to all our enemies, and not a memory will be left of them. We will annihilate them to dust. Command out.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: The destruction of buildings is regularly featured, often set to music.

BILL VAN ESVELD: You see huge blocks getting blown up, universities getting blown up.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that clip ended with Human Rights Watch, Bill Van Esveld. Richard, could you respond to what we saw there? And also, you know, what most surprised you as you were researching this documentary? I mean, there’s extremely disturbing testimony that we hear. And just a couple of examples: a man who says he was forced to lie on a decomposing corpse, as well as another in a detention center in southern Israel who witnessed a young inmate being raped by a dog.

RICHARD SANDERS: To be absolutely honest with you, nothing surprised me. It’s what I would have imagined was happening inside Gaza. I would say, imagine 40 years ago, before social media and, you know, before every camera — every phone had a camera. This would all have been done in the dark. But, in a sense, it makes no difference, as we say in the film, because they’ve posted it all online.

One of — the only thing, I would say, that surprises me — I’m not surprised that the Israeli soldiers feel complete impunity and so on, but the fact that higher up the chain of command and in the government, they clearly feel the same impunity, as well. No one has come down the line and cracked down on this and said, “Stop doing it.” It’s quite clear that Israeli politicians and Israeli military commanders feel that they enjoy complete impunity for what they’re doing in the Gaza Strip, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring — go back to Youmna Elsayed. Last year, we spoke with you in Gaza shortly after an Israeli airstrike had just killed the family of your colleague, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh. He learned of the deaths of his wife, son, daughter and grandson while reporting live on the air. The Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp killed at least 25 people in total. And Wael Dahdouh had fled to the refugee camp with his family after Israel ordered residents of northern Gaza to vacate their homes. This, Youmna, is what you said then.

YOUMNA ELSAYED: When we say there is no safe place in Gaza, we’re not lying. We’re not being biased. We’re not exaggerating. The north, Gaza City, and the south, they’re all just the same in terms of bombardment, in terms of targeting, and in all the life conditions.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was last October. Before this, we spoke to you, Youmna, in 2021 when you were reporting in Gaza and Israel bombed and leveled a 12-story building that housed the offices of media organizations that you worked for, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. Israel claimed, without evidence, the building was being used by Hamas operatives.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the message is that was delivered to the media by this attack on the main media offices, Al Jazeera and AP, where you work, other media organizations, now Tony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, saying he was not told of any direct evidence of Hamas working in this building?

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Yes, and I’m sure that there isn’t going to be any. I mean, the Israeli army, when it has the proof for anything to back its story, it provides it, one, at once, instantly. I mean, it wants to back its stories. It has to. OK? But it’s not a coincidence that three towers hosting media offices would be completely destructed. This is no coincidence. I mean, this is just a deliberate targeting to the media voice in the Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Youmna Elsayed in 2021. You notice there we’re not seeing her face, because the media building that we would talk to her in was blown up, that housed Al Jazeera, that housed AP. And then speaking again after — well, at this point, we’re talking about something like 174 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza. If you can talk about the significance of this and, in your reporting on this documentary, the killing of journalists in addition to doctors and nurses, paramedics and ambulance drivers, Youmna?

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Well, Amy, I’ve always said this, and I continue saying it, that every single time there is a war or a conflict in the Gaza Strip, military escalation, something that was so much easier than what we have been going through for the past year, this ongoing genocide, there was always an attack on the journalists and their offices in the Gaza Strip. In 2021, the largest three towers, media buildings, housing all media offices in Gaza, were completely destroyed. Al-Johara had over 50 media offices; al-Sharouk tower, the same; and Al Jazeera and the AP, as well, in that tower alone. This is Israel’s first approach towards journalists and their offices in Gaza at the beginning of any war. It’s always to try to make their job as difficult and as impossible as ever.

And it’s not just in wars and military escalations. I mean, at the protests of the Great March of Return, when we used to cover these protests, and these protests were taking place in the borders — on the borders and from the Palestinian side, where there’s a buffer zone of 300 meters away from that security fence, that was infiltrated on the 7th of October. When someone approached those 300 meters away from the security fence, they were shot. And we were labeled as journalists. And even away from that area, we would be targeted with gas grenades, that drones came and dropped them over our head. So, it was not a coincidence at any of those times.

This time — we have always spoken for many years about the suppression and oppression and violations and aggression of the Israeli army towards Palestinian journalists. But this year or last year, this suppression and oppression and fight against the freedom of press has not only been against the Palestinian journalists. If you’ve seen, it has reached and affected all international journalists, as well, because Israel has banned them from entering the Gaza Strip. And no matter how much letters they have issued, no matter what kind of pressure they have tried to put on the Israeli government to allow them to enter the Gaza Strip to do their legitimate responsibility and work, they were banned. They were declined. So, that oppression, that we have been speaking about for years, has also affected the international journalists today.

But on the other hand, the violation, the aggression against the Palestinian journalists, because we are Palestinian and we are inside the Gaza Strip, has been unprecedented, the killing. One hundred seventy-five Palestinian journalists, until today, have been killed. How many others, dozens others have been injured, and our families threatened and killed and injured? Unimaginable numbers.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Youmna ElSayed, Al Jazeera correspondent based in the Gaza Strip, though speaking to us from London, and Richard Sanders, director of Al Jazeera I-Unit’s new feature-length documentary, Investigating War Crimes in Gaza.

Next up, we’ll be joined by the acclaimed Palestinian photographer Motaz Azaiza, who repeatedly risked his life to document Israel’s war on Gaza. Stay with us.

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Motaz Azaiza, Acclaimed Journalist from Gaza, on Photographing War & Making “Art from the Pain”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 09, 2024

“I never expected the world will know my name [because of] a genocide of my people,” says Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who gained international acclaim for his work during the first 108 days of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza. Since evacuating in January, Azaiza has brought his advocacy for Palestinian rights around the world. Democracy Now! speaks to him from Washington, D.C., where he has just wrapped up a nationwide speaking tour titled “Gaza Through My Lens” in support of UNRWA USA. “Israel is targeting our children. Israel is targeting our babies, targeting our mothers, targeting our families. I just want to show the whole world so maybe I can bring help to my people through my photography,” Azaiza says.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Mona Miari and Zafer Tawil, performing this past weekend in Brooklyn at an event honoring our next guest. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We’re joined now by the acclaimed Palestinian photographer Motaz Azaiza, who at the age of 25 has become world-known for documenting Gaza. For the first 108 days of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, Azaiza risked his life to show the world what was happening. In doing so, he gained over 17 million Instagram followers and emerged as one of the most prominent photojournalists in the world. Since evacuating, Azaiza has become a global advocate for Gaza. GQ Middle East magazine named Azaiza its “Man of the Year.” Time put him on its list of 100 most influential people of 2024. And he’s been nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.

AMY GOODMAN: Motaz Azaiza is in the United States as part of a nationwide speaking tour titled “Gaza Through My Lens,” with UNRWA USA, the nonprofit that supports the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. In moment, he’ll join us from Washington, D.C. But this is the video produced by UNRWA USA describing Motaz’s work with the agency. The clip begins with UNRWA USA’s Mara Kronenfeld, but first Laila Mokhiber.

LAILA MOKHIBER: Gaza is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and that beauty was documented by a young photographer named Motaz Azaiza for years, eager to show the world his culture, his people, its rainbows, its sunsets, its sea.

MARA KRONENFELD: Even with this blockade, there was so much life in Gaza. And we thought, “We need somebody on the ground who can show us that life and also, of course, can show us the importance of education and health and shelter assistance that UNRWA is providing to those in Gaza.”

LAILA MOKHIBER: When I eventually was looking for a photographer on the ground to capture stories, to help show the people of the United States the real stories of Palestine refugees, I convened some of Gaza’s greatest around a table at Al Deira Hotel, a place I’ll forever cherish and miss. Among us were the late Dr. Refaat Alareer and others.

MARA KRONENFELD: Laila collected many applications. One was a lovely woman named Amjad, and one was Motaz. That day that those two were selected changed us in so many ways as an organization, and, frankly, changed us each personally, as well. Seeing Motaz suffer, along with all Palestinians in Gaza, and see him — and I’ll never forget this — seeing him holding a bloodied child, a girl, and taking her, speeding, to the hospital, and he had never learned to drive before that moment.

NAHED ELRAYES: Nobody in Gaza, in all of Palestine, chooses to be a hero. This includes Motaz. Once, I asked him over ice cream, “What is the number one thing you wish the world knew about Gaza?” And this nerdy photographer, whose favorite thing was capturing people’s faces and pretty sunsets, he just had this sad look in his eye, and he said, “That we’re human.” He never wanted to be a hero. He just wanted to survive.

AMY GOODMAN: A video by UNRWA USA about our next guest, the acclaimed Palestinian photographer Motaz Azaiza. He’s joining us now from Washington, D.C.

Motaz, it’s great to have you with us on Democracy Now! I wanted to go to the picture of — that introduces you on this tour that you took across the United States. You’re sitting in the rubble. So, of course, this is not a photograph that you took, but a picture that a photographer took of you, the photographer Fouad, who was killed. Can you tell us about Fouad and then talk about your work for that 108 days in Gaza since October 7th?

MOTAZ AZAIZA: Thank you for having me, Amy.

His name is Fouad Abu Khamash, and he was a volunteer with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. He was doing his volunteer work documenting the work of the PRCS on the ground saving lives and transferring the injured people to the hospital. He was a dreamer. And that day, it was like a massacre, when he took this picture for me in my town. I was documenting this massacre, and he just shouted to me, “Motaz, just I’ll take a picture of you.”

It was then two months Fouad was killed beside, like, four of his colleagues in the PRCS. They didn’t know that the Israeli tanks will be on Salah al-Din main road in Deir al-Balah city, didn’t expect it. And they just found the Israeli tank in front of them. And he was inside the ambulance. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a body for Fouad and other colleagues. Yeah, they opened fired on the ambulance. They killed everyone inside.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Motaz, I want to go now to another photo of yours. This one is of a young girl stuck under rubble after her eight-story building was bombed by Israeli warplanes. Time magazine named it one of its top 10 photos of 2023. The woman lost seven of her family members. She was evacuated to Tunisia. She’s now facing the amputation of her leg. So, tell us about this woman and how you’ve come to advocate for her.

MOTAZ AZAIZA: Actually, she’s a young girl. She’s now 18 years old. And there was, like — the Israeli occupation bombed the eight-story building in Nuseirat refugee camp. So, I was there with other colleagues documenting what’s happening, and Civil Defense beside civilians are trying to help to save people from under the rubble. More than 180 people got killed that day. In this moment, we were, like, hearing her shouting, but nobody was seeing her. So I used the low shutter speed on my camera and a small hole so we can find her, and we found her. Everyone is trying to get her out. But, unfortunately, she’s now really facing amputation for her leg.

Let’s say, I feel at least she’s lucky that the world now sees her picture. Everyone, like, saw her picture from the world. But there are others, thousands of children, thousands of young girls, thousands of women, thousands of elderly, that nobody is looking to them, and they really need help. So, I’m trying my best, through the pictures, through the images of the people, to help them themselves, because, yeah, this picture has been selected by the Time as one of the top 10 pictures around the world for 2023, but the person in the picture needs the help. Not just like I want to be recognized for the picture. We need to help the human themselves. I want to save the lives through the pictures.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Motaz, I want to ask you about your journey, how you became a photographer. You never wanted to become a war photographer. That is what you’ve ended up becoming. But talk to us about how you became interested in photography and how you documented life in Gaza through photography.

MOTAZ AZAIZA: Photography was my passion since 2014. I started to practice photography. I had my first camera in 2015. My cousin sent it to me. He was living in the U.S., Miami. And I hope he’s now safe from the hurricanes that’s happening there. [Inaudible], be safe.

I started to take pictures for the life, the simple life in Gaza. I started to take portraits. I started to be a dreamer who wanted to travel the world, take pictures, and everyone knows his name. But I never expected the world will know my name beside a genocide of my people. So, I was always trying to make art from the pain, and the beautiful pictures in a place that, like, every month there is aggression, every time there is a bombing, every time there is people losing their lives by the Israeli airstrikes, by the Israeli snipers.

I was, like, a volunteer since, like, 2016 with the PRCS. I was having my camera. In 2018, I got shot in my left femur by taking just pictures, because I was near to the borders with the PRCS, trying to save lives, because this a thing I — like, I’m loving. I’m trying to use myself to save my people and, the same thing, to take pictures.

So, I kept practicing photography, but every time the war grabbed me to it. I’ve been always trying to avoid taking pictures of war, but this is my life. This is our lives. So, you can’t run from the war that’s happening in your home. And this is what I did. I used, in this time and every time — this is not my first time to document a war. I documented massacres since, like, 2017 with my camera, and 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022, 2023 in May, in 2023 on October. So, I’ve been always trying to take — to capture the beauty, but it’s impossible to run from the war in my country.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Motaz, I mean, the images before October and after are so striking. I want to now show a photo of a toddler gravely injured in a strike. If you can tell us what happened to this 2-year-old child named Jood? The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund has evacuated him to Chicago. You know, on your trip, you met a child in Dallas for the 5K run who had been evacuated. I saw you in Brooklyn when you met a little boy who had been evacuated, who was gravely injured. Tell us about Jood.

MOTAZ AZAIZA: I remember that day when I took the picture for Jood. I used my imagination. Like every young boy, his dream, like, to be like Spider-Man. But this boy was deeply injured, and his hands and his legs were like — he can’t move. And, like, I don’t know, in this moment, I remember that this boy, he will be a lot like Superman and Spider-Man. But, like, I saw, like, his image, the the moves of, like, Spider-Man, but at the same time he’s injured, he can’t move. He lost his mom. He lost his family. And his father, he didn’t come to the hospital yet. He was, like, low on the ground. There is no free space or a space for him to find a bed in the hospital.

So, I took this picture. I shared the story. And thank God, this picture, it was like a reason to save his life. So, he’s now getting treatment. He’s now in the U.S. with his father. And I’m happy for him. But in the same time, I’m really sorry for the thousands of children that I wish to take a picture for everyone to show the world that Israel is targeting our children. Israel is targeting our babies, targeting our mothers, targeting our families. I just want to show the whole world so maybe I can bring help to my people through my photography.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Motaz, can you talk about what it was like for you, yourself, to have to flee Gaza? Do you still have family there? Describe your journey out.

MOTAZ AZAIZA: Yeah, my whole family is there. My whole relatives is there. I’m originally from Deir al-Balah city. I’m originally from Gaza Strip. So, my whole family is still there.

It wasn’t an option for me to leave; it wasn’t an option for me to stay. In the last days before I leave, I’ve been suffering to find food, to find tents for, like, in order if something happened. Israeli tanks, it’s like at the end of my street. And I was, like, suffering, and I stopped doing my work, like, just to find water, to find food, to find diesel for the car. So everything was really complicated and the risks so high.

After I lost two of my colleagues, Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Wael al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuraya, the drone — friend who was taking the drone shots for me, it was really hard for me to stay, and there was no protection for me as a journalist. And I don’t want to lose, like, a part of my body to just show the world and to lose my life, to lose my parents, and I already lost 25 of my family, my relatives, 18 of my friends. I lost my whole life. So, I don’t think — I didn’t think that day, like, I need to lose more. For me, OK, maybe I will sacrifice my life if it will do a change. But I’m seeing more than 175 journalists got killed in front of the whole world, and nothing changed.

And I got refused by Israel to leave twice. It wasn’t easy. And I thought maybe when I will go out, I will make more changes. I will do something more on the ground to be between the people. And here I am. It’s been a year I’m trying to do something to stop this, or at least to protect the civilians.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Motaz, as we talked about this weekend, that moment that was so moving of you taking off your press flak jacket, with your colleagues around you, taking off the jacket with you as a kind of communal effort, when you left, with your parents and siblings, ultimately, Gaza.

MOTAZ AZAIZA: I wish I took the jacket with me. It wasn’t allowed, because it’s like — at the border, they believe that it’s a kind of armor, so you can’t take it. But it was a thing that I have from day one with me. It wasn’t going to protect me if Israel decided to target me with, like, drones or with snipers.

AMY GOODMAN: You had gotten calls on your phone, Motaz?

MOTAZ AZAIZA: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that.

MOTAZ AZAIZA: Yeah, it was calls from no caller ID, but it’s known, for Gazans, no caller ID, that means the IDF, so — or the IOF. So, yeah, they were, like, asking me to not go there, ordered me, like, to not go there, to not — OK, show something else. Don’t go into this area. And you will be killed if you go in there. Stick to the sea. You are not doing the right work. You should do something else.

And I believe the millions of the people who follow me, this made some protection for Motaz, that the whole world is watching him. And if something happens, it’s in front of the millions of the people. So, I felt that maybe the millions that made them speak to me in a way that it’s not just, “OK, we will kill you or do something to you.”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Motaz, finally, you went earlier this year, in April, to the pro-Palestinian student encampment at Columbia University. Your response to the protests and what you’d like to see happen here?

MOTAZ AZAIZA: I would like to see everyone standing for us, standing for the humanity, standing for the right of Palestinians in their land. I want to see the white people, the Black people, everyone here in the U.S. standing for the right — on the right side of history. I want to see everyone just standing for humanity. Stop watching us being killed. Stop paying your taxes and sending it for Israel as weapons to kill the Palestinians, who even don’t have an army. And, like, just support us to get our rights in our land, to get our free Palestine. It’s not hard. It can be done, but we need a real stand with Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: Motaz Azaiza, we want to thank you so much for being with us, acclaimed Palestinian photographer, who documented the first 108 days of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Thank you so much, joining us from Washington, D.C.