 It's been 3 months since Operation Al-Aqsa flood in the commencement of Israel's brutal bombing of Gaza. What is the situation with the people of Gaza and the whole of Palestine? Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won a 4th consecutive term after a controversial election. What lies ahead for the country? This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. Over 23,000 dead, the decimation of an entire territory and a massive humanitarian crisis. None of this has stopped Israel from continuing its brutal genocidal offensive on the people of Gaza, which has now entered its 4th month. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on the tour of the region to try and prevent or it seems to try and prevent a regional war. But this has also not stopped Israel from attacking Lebanon in various instances. The most recent instance being the assassination of a senior Hezbollah leader. What is the situation in Gaza? What are the risks of escalation of this offensive into a regional conflict? We go to Abdul for all these details. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. It's been three months since Operation Al-Aqsa flood and the commencement of the brutal Israeli offensive on the people of Gaza. We've been talking about it very regularly on this show, of course. And this has not only been restricted to the people of Gaza, it's also an offensive that has escalated into Lebanon. There's been impact on Syria. There's been impact on Iraq for that matter. But some of the latest developments include the assassination of the Hezbollah commander. So could you maybe first talk a bit about what has happened there and what are the kind of responses? Well, at the time when Uncle Blinken is on his fourth trip to the region, basically in order to kind of constrain the conflict from not becoming a regional war, at that very moment, Israel chose to basically attack southern Lebanon as it has been doing for last three months and basically killed one of the top Hezbollah commanders. The name of the commander is still not out in media for some reasons. But it basically means a kind of provocation which Hezbollah chief has been talking about in his speeches last week in particular. When he said that any attempt by Israel to continue to attack southern Lebanon would lead to retaliation and that may be a full-fledged war. Though yet no formal announcement has been made, of course there will be Hezbollah retaliation for sure because as we remember last week when one of the Hamas commanders was killed, assassinated in Beirut by Israelis, Hezbollah did retaliate and attacked military bases in northern Israel. So similar things is expected. Of course we do not know yet whether it will lead to any much serious attacks on the Israeli installations in the northern Israel in particular. But yeah, there will be retaliation and that basically also means that Israel is not very worried about dragging Hezbollah into the war. This was in fact one of the initial days of the war in Gaza. There was speculation that Israel wants a war with Hezbollah as well. So what happened on Monday? It seems that this is a step towards that. And also the fact that this is not, as the South Africa's petition in the International Court of Justice shows, this is not only just the toll of war itself or just the result of bombing, but it seems like a larger campaign to target the Palestinian people as a whole in all kinds of ways. But I want to come to the point of what you talked about earlier, that this is happening when Antoine Blinken is making his fourth visit. There have been all kinds of statements from the United States. So how do you sort of see over these months the international response? What are the kind of trends when it comes to these kind of responses? Well, if you see the responses coming from the international community have by and large remained the same since the beginning of the war. There has been a division. One set of countries, mostly the US and its network allies from Europe have basically taken a stand. It basically sympathizes with so-called Israel right to defend itself and so and so forth. And basically gives a green light to whatever Israel is doing in not only in Gaza but also in West Bank. Both of these territories have been constantly attacked by Israelis. Of course, the extent of Gaza bombing and assault has been a huge in comparison to what is happening in West Bank. But nonetheless, the point is Israel has been attacking Palestinians all across the occupied territories. And the rest, the US, the European allies, UK, France, even Germany have completely supported all those attacks. And even in the Security Council, they have kind of blocked whenever there was an attempt to demand accountability to kind of establish ceasefire to save as many Palestinians lives as possible. On all those occasions, US in particular, but also its European allies basically use their veto power to block all those resolutions. And they reduced the issue of Palestine to only humanitarian aid and nothing beyond that. That's what their attempt and whenever there was an attempt to basically by made by countries like say Russia, China and other most of the other third world countries to basically demand for ceasefire and demand for accountability. And demand for the larger attempts to establish peace in the region while addressing the long, very important question of two state solution. All of these basically were again reduced, there was attempt to reduce it to Hamas versus Israel. And that's what the West has been trying to do. Even when Blinken in visiting the region, he is talking about two state solution as has been the US position for a very long time, but he's not talking about ceasefire. And he's not talking about kind of even this, as you rightly pointed out, South Africa's petition in the International Court basically is basically has been ridiculed by the US that whatever Israel is doing has nothing. There is no evidence of genocide. There is no evidence of war, crime, and so on and so forth. So that is one position, of course, if you see, just to kind of sum it up, one can see that there has been a greater, you can say, attempts in the last few weeks, at least by the western allies, US western allies to portray that they are also concerned about humanitarian situation in Gaza. And therefore they have started talking about more about humanitarian aid and also about quote unquote saving civil life while Israel has the right, continues to have the right to attack Gaza. So they are trying to create a balance between the popular, you can say, anger, which has emerged following the killing of thousands of Palestinians, more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed. And more than 75, 70% of them are children, women, and other non-combatants, people from non-combatant age. So there has been attempt to kind of balance the discourse, but it seems that their attempts to kind of balance the discourse by bringing in humanitarian issues while completely ignoring the political and the larger issues is not working. And more and more people are agitated on the streets across the globe. And also the reason, the countries in the region and particularly the militias, what we call the access of resistance are not buying it. And they continue to basically stand with the Palestinian people in solidarity of Palestine. And then finally, just to sort of also take a look at the humanitarian situation, what could you give us an overview of what's happening? Well, the humanitarian situation is, as we have already talked about it, is in a very bad state, particularly in Gaza, where more than 80% of the population is displaced. And even in the shelters where they are forced to live, they are not safe because those shelters have also been attacked. Then there are attacks of repeated attacks, in fact, on hospitals. One hospital which was attacked in the initial days of the Israeli land incursion is basically has been reattacked again in the recent days. And according to the reports, around 600 health workers and patients, which were there in northern Gaza, the hospitals whereabouts are not known. Whether they have been taken by the Israeli forces, whether they have been killed, what happened to them is not clear for the last 24 hours. There are reports which says that there is no clarity about the situation. On the other front, there is a allegation made by the different kinds of international organizations, including the UNRWA, which basically says that Israel is using a starvation as an weapon against the Palestinians. So around 40 to 50% of the Palestinian population in Gaza is basically deprived of basic food and other nutrition elements, which basically leads to greater starvation and hunger in the region. And that is also the situation, apart from the fact that the UN resolution was talked about increasing the humanitarian aid, which was the last thing which was achieved in the United Nations Security Council is also not working. In fact, the humanitarian aid, the flow of humanitarian aid has not increased in any substantial manner since the United Nations Security Council adopted the resolution. It means most of the Palestinians in Gaza are in a very bad state and both health-wise and of course the physical security-wise. Thank you so much, but do stay back. We'll come back to you for our next story. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won a fourth consecutive term in power after elections which were boycotted by the main opposition party, the BNP. Now the elections were controversial coming after massive protests, which Sheikh Hasina and those following her said were a result of actions by right-wing elements. In fact, many of the opposition do comprise extremist right-wing forces, including the Jamaat-e-Islami. Now Sheikh Hasina in power, what does this mean for the country? What does it mean for its relations with its neighbors and global powers? What are the challenges facing this new government? We go back to Abdul to understand all of this. Welcome back, Abdul. So as anticipated, Sheikh Hasina returning for a fourth term in power, I believe. Very controversial election given the circumstances. Could you maybe take us through what really was at stake? Who were the players and what were the kind of controversies that were involved? Well, the main controversy was of course the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, BNP, which basically refused to participate in the election. Of course, alleging that Sheikh Hasina, basically it was demanding that Sheikh Hasina should resign before the election and hand over the authority to a neutral, quote unquote, neutral agency so that the elections are conducted in a free and fair manner. That was their claim. Of course, Sheikh Hasina government did not agree with it and that led to them byquoting the election. And that has basically impacted overall voter turnout. Only about 42%, 41.8% voter electorates came to vote. And out of that, of course, Sheikh Hasina's party got around 220 seats out of 300. And our opposition is completely decimated. Only 11 seats have been won by the Jatiya party, which is the main principal opposition now in the new parliament. The rest of the seats have been won by the independents and other smaller parties, which basically means that Bangladesh again will be without any effective opposition. Last time also out of 288 seats were won by Sheikh Hasina's Awami League and this continued to continue to be the case. Apart from that, the Awami League has basically accused, had accused before the elections, that the BNP's claims about neutrality or fairness of the election has nothing to do about their concerns of democracy, but about their attempts to create a much more situation where they could rule by fear because there were attempts to initiate violence during the process of the elections. Around 14 people were killed during the entire campaign period and there were also reports of arson and attempted violence in different parts of the country. So this was the context in which at least the immediate context in which the elections were held in Bangladesh. But surprisingly, this time's election has been much more peaceful than the last time election and that is the overall situation results which were announced earlier on Monday. A complicated situation in Bangladesh because on the one hand, the Sheikh Hasina government accused of suppressing protests of a streak of authoritarianism, lots of allegations of corruption as well. On the other hand, the main opposition party, the BNP and its allies in the Jamaat-e-Islami clearly having a very strong right-wing extremist streak, which is something, you know, sections of the left, progressive sections have also been fighting against. But what do you sort of see as the challenges for this government in the coming term? Well, the most important challenge of course is the economy. Sheikh Hasina and Awawi League has been basically credited for bringing Bangladesh out of its massive economic backwardness and poverty since 2009. Apparently, it has been a government which basically brought both the 6% annual growth since 2009 and that has also reflected in the overall improvement of the living conditions all across Bangladesh. Of course, it is not at the par as it was expected, but it has been much better in condition than what it was before. But in the last few years, particularly since 2019, first due to the COVID outbreak, because Bangladesh is primarily export dependent economy and also because of the war in Europe between Russia and Ukraine, which has basically led to it also is dependent on the import of particularly energy resources. This basically has created a mismatch in the Bangladesh economy. Inflation has risen the living standards for the particularly the working class because the exports got stagnated. And because of that, the working class, which is hugely dependent on the export of garment products, basically are suffering up. So that needs to be addressed and that would be the primary concern. Apart from that, as you rightly pointed out, BNP and Jamaati Islami and other groups have been basically accused of bringing radical religious elements, the right wing elements into the Bangladesh society. That is of course given the fact that it is a society which has a substantial number of minorities, which has a substantial number of other groups which do not follow the kind of dictates the religious right wing. In fact, BNP has been raising in Bangladesh the controlling such elements and kind of introducing a much fairer, much open society in Bangladesh is also one of the major concerns. And that basically is reflected in the repeated vote to Amavi League, which is considered to be much more open, much more secular in your orientation than Khalid Adjia's or Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which basically has been accused of dealing with extreme right wing groups. That is the second thing. Of course, the third major issue in Bangladesh is basically the workers right along with the situation of migrants, primarily the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. So how the government will tackle that those issues is to be seen. And that is the major, these are the major challenges in front of Sikhasina government. Apart from that, of course, the relations with India is also on the agenda always have always been an agenda, despite the fact that there has been improvement claims of improvement of relationship. There are always issues, which basically because India ruled by a right wing government also has also accused repeatedly that Bangladesh has been a source of illegal immigration, quote unquote illegal immigration to the country. And that leads to problems between both the countries from time to time. So these are the major issues which Sikhasina government will have to face in its fourth term, consecutive term. Of course, this is our fifth term altogether, but this is the fourth consecutive term for her.