 People's dispatch and globetrotter for a special segment on the conflict taking place in Gaza. It's important before we get into it to recognize that this particular conflict didn't start on October 7th. This is not about Gaza versus Israel. This is not even merely about the Palestinians versus Israel. This is a broader, much more difficult topic to cover in the brief time we have here. It's a conflict that goes back about at least 90 years when Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims began to be expelled from the region of the Levant, both Palestine but other parts of what was then in the former Ottoman Empire now controlled by the British. Very difficult 90 years, in fact, more than from 1948, 90 years of difficulty for the Palestinian Christians and Muslims expelled or massacred in their homelands as Europe decided to outsource its anti-Semitism attitudes against European Jews into this region, creating a very difficult situation. One has often heard the word intractable use to describe it. Functually, since at least 1948, there have been attacks by the Israeli military, Israeli settlers against Palestinian Christians and Muslims who have had to flee further and further from their homes since the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, fleeing further and further from their homes and then in 1967 in the Naksar, other big war coming under occupation directly. War, occupation, dispossession, this has marked this region for 90 years. And then on October 7, the Palestinians once more trying to stand up and say we exist, having been on a punctual basis, not only forgotten but their oppression allowed to continue without any respite. You've got to keep in mind that this particular uprising of the Palestinians quite remarkable in one way. This particular uprising of the Palestinians took place as a consequence of the so-called Abraham Accords put in place by former US President Donald Trump, normalizing relations between Israel and its neighbors, moving for the full expulsion of the Palestinians from their land. It also comes at a time when important members of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, including his minister of finance, have been saying things this year such as there is no such thing as a Palestinian, there is no Palestine. This kind of attitude rekindled the idea of resistance that resistance took place quite remarkably. And then this bombardment which has been going on now for two weeks. This bombardment has had a terrible impact on Palestine. Why don't you give us some of the numbers, some of the reporting coming in from Gaza, one enclave of many of the Palestinian people, the occupied Palestinian territory, which includes East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. This particular conflict in Gaza, although the West Bank and East Jerusalem under lockdown, people being killed there as well. Not in the news so much, but there are settlers attacking Palestinians during this lockdown. But give us a sense of the numbers and the reporting of what's coming out of Gaza. Well, it is hard to put a number on such immense human suffering and this humanitarian disaster. Some are calling it a genocide that has been unfolding for the past two weeks. So I'll try to give a bit of an update regarding numbers, but also knowing that this will never really encapsulate really what is going on the ground and the grief and the pain that people are feeling. But since October 7th, Israel began this bombing campaign, which as you pointed out has been quite punctual against Gaza for the past, you know, 16 years. Gaza has very every so three or four so years has suffered from these bombing campaigns. But this one of course was in response to a quite successful and as many pointed out surprise operation from the resistance. And so there's been this sort of vengeance, this sort of unbridled anger against the people of Gaza kind of no holds barred with these attacks. And we've seen that this is this is evident in, for example, the types of buildings that have been bombed, the type of disregard really for the civilian population. And so right now we're looking at over 4500 people in Gaza that have been registered dead. But as we know, this bombings, these bombings have been taking place in large civilian infrastructure, tall buildings, hospitals, churches, schools. And so there's, I think about over 10,000 people have been injured. And so unfortunately, we're looking at that death toll to likely rise in coming days, both in terms of people have been injured and who might perish, for example, in the hospitals that don't have enough supplies, but also in the people who are currently missing. And at the same time, as you mentioned, this assault on the Palestinian people is not just happening within the enclave within the Gaza Strip. But also within a historic Palestine, the state of Israel, there are retaliation attacks. Hundreds of people have been arrested and then within West Bank itself in response to protests, but also just randomly, there have been a couple dozen people who have been killed within the West Bank, which adds this number. And there was a report today stating that the number of prisoners of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli prisons has doubled since October 7th. And that we know that one of the major demands of resistance groups over the past two weeks has been the immediate release of the, what, before the operation, 5,000 Palestinian prisoners. Now that number is at 10,000. This has been a key demand and prisoner exchanges and prisoner swaps have been a characteristic of kind of how the dynamic between Israel and resistance groups has taken place. We know that there was a really infamous prisoner swap, which was Gilad Shalit, which was one Israeli soldier for about 5,000 Palestinian prisoners. This was really crucial and there was an expectation that during this moment something similar could take place. But we have seen that from the Israeli side, there's been almost no opening to this and especially now with the number of prisoners that have been taken. I'm not sure if this path is going to be the one that moves forward, but yeah, just to say again, hospitals, schools, civilian buildings, residential buildings, offices of aid agencies, news agencies. These have been the primary targets in the bombings for over the past two weeks. 17 United Nations aid officials among the catching up to 5,000 dead in Gaza. A conference held in Cairo about getting emergency aid. Now, let's put this emergency aid by truck through the Rafa crossing between Egypt and Gaza into context. Before this particular bombing began, it took 450 trucks a day crossing that border to feed, clothe, get energy into Gaza. 450 trucks a day to feed almost 2 million people that live in Gaza, half of them children. It's very important to put this number out there because right now, 20 trucks have been allowed to cross from Egypt into Gaza, 20 trucks. Nine of them from the United Nations, 11 of them from the Egyptian Red Cross. I just want people to keep thinking about that number. It takes 450 trucks to supply Gaza at a minimal and the world has only allowed 20 trucks to cross. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said all of this must end. Not sure what he means by end, Zoe, and we'll come back to that. What is the end of this? 700,000 people from Gaza have fled the north or south Gaza. The Israelis callously have said that whatever aid comes in and look, these 20 trucks at maximum at starvation levels can provide food for a week for 40,000 people. 40,000 people could get food stretched at barely above starvation food levels. 700,000 people have moved from the north to the south as a consequence of the bombing and so on. And even that roads are being attacked by the Israelis, cutting off the ability of buses to go south and so on. People are starving. There is no end game here. What the real end game from the Israelis is, and it's very clear, is to have the Palestinian population go into Egypt and disappear. And then Israel can convert the coastline of Gaza into some sort of paradise. That's what they really want to do is to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza, just as the end game in the West Bank is annexation, annex the West Bank, move the Palestinians to Jordan to Lebanon and so on. I've often said, from the Israeli point of view, a long time ago, they've given up on the two state solution. That is to say, the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied Palestinian territory of East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza. They've given up on that. The Israeli government is in favor of a three state solution, which is Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. They want to remove the Palestinians from what they call Greater Israel, send them off all into exile, and then create a homogeneous Jewish state. That is the explicit, almost explicit, near explicit policy of the Israeli government articulated over and over again by government ministers and laws. Annexationism through the settlement policy in the West Bank is pretty clear. The best land, the best water, military running up and down Highway 90, named after that notorious annexationist, the minister Zevi, who was assassinated in 2001 by the popular front for the liberation of Palestine. Why I'm talking about this starving of the people of Gaza is it's never been a policy of the Israelis to make a peace agreement with the Palestinians. It's always been a policy to get the Palestinians out of there and claim all that land. That's basically what they've been going through. And interestingly, I'm going to get to this issue of peace deal, ceasefires and so on in a minute, Zoe. But interestingly, Huffington Post released a very interesting set of notifications. They've got a story up called stunning State Department Memo warns diplomats, no Gaza de-escalation talk. I found this very interesting. Specifically, three phrases are no longer to be used by the US State Department led by Anthony Blinken in the government of President Joe Biden. One phrase, de-escalation ceasefire, not to be used. Second, end to violence and bloodshed, not to be used. And third, restoring calm, not to be used. That means the United States government has now got a policy, not even to talk about an end to the bloodshed, a minimal demand in this time. US policy is going to be go for it, go after the Palestinians, send them to Egypt, send them to Jordan, send them to Lebanon and all talk of Palestinians make Palestine disappear. That seems to be the policy, Zoe, not only of the government of national unity, both of Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. But it seems to also be the policy of the Biden administration, which went there during the bombing of the hospital and then hook line and sinker accepted the Hasbara, the propaganda of the Israeli government saying this is not an attack by an Israeli aircraft, but is a Islamic jihad rocket went wrong. And by the way, they used al-Jazeera footage, live footage to say, well, look, it's a Islamic jihad rocket. Al-Jazeera went back and reviewed the footage and showed that the Islamic jihad rocket or somebody's rocket struck the iron dome and deteriorated. And seconds later, there was an airstrike on the hospital and a couple of other targets. So that the United States saying, well, look, the Israelis are right. This was not an Israeli attack on the Al-Ahir hospital, on the Al-Ahir Arab hospital, but it was an attack by Islamic jihad holds no water. The United States shoulder to shoulder with the Israeli government saying, allow for annexation, allow for the complete removal of the Palestinian population, a grotesque war crime. But others are calling for a ceasefire. Walk us through this talk of ceasefires. Yes. Well, there has been, as you said, the U.S. has maintained its position. And as you said, it's completely blocked any, any sort of discussion about anything other than complete support to Israel and condemnation of Gaza and just dehumanization of Palestinians. However, the U.S. and, of course, the EU, which has been right by its side with the same level of warmongering discourse, they're looking more and more isolated. And this, I would say, is definitely a shift from prior moments where maybe the U.S. was able to manipulate or have more control over global south discourse and how they were expressing themselves in this moment. Of course, no understanding that the global south has historically been with Palestine, but we're seeing some new voices expressing support to Palestinians and denouncing the acts by Israel. One voice that has stood out is Gustavo Petro. And I think for many people, this has been a welcome, a welcome voice in this discourse because, of course, Columbia, which has been, which had been historically termed South America's Israel, because of its geostrategic importance for the United States, because of it serving as sort of this military outpost for the United States, mirroring the role of Israel in, of course, West Asia, of course, with its nuances, et cetera. But also, Columbia has had military cooperation with Israel. It's had a long history, actually, with Israel itself. And Gustavo Petro in this, in this moment, he has been one of the leading voices speaking out about Israeli crimes. And of course, he's been met with a lot of backlash. He has been called an anti-Semite. He's been called someone who supports terrorism, all sorts of things. And instead of backtracking, like some politicians might do, say, oh, no, you know what, you're right. I support Israel. This is all horrible. Gustavo Petro has actually doubled down. And since the beginning of the Israeli bombing on Gaza, he's actually become, has really, really spoken out. He's spoken out about claims about anti-Semitism. He said there's nothing anti-Semitic about being against the killing of children. I forgot to mention before, but the death toll of children within these bombings is over 1,500. And it's perhaps this sheer brutality and sheer, you know, this level of killing of children that has mobilized many to really understand this is not such a complicated issue. We're talking about children being bombed, children being killed. And Gustavo Petro has really changed the discourse, at least in Latin America. I think he's been saying time and time again, this is about humanity's survival. This is about us standing up for our morals. We can't talk about being people who care about their neighbors. We can't talk about people who care about humanity. If we're standing and watching an entire people being massacred, if we're watching children being killed like this. So Gustavo Petro has been sort of an internet warrior, refuting these claims, consistently sharing the reality of what's happening in Gaza on the ground. Other Latin American leaders, Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro, has continued in the line of the Bolivarian Revolution and standing with Palestine. Venezuela has historically been a strong ally of the Palestinian people, not only receiving, you know, standing up in international spaces for Palestine, but it's school, the school of Latin American medicine has always received a couple hundred Palestinian students every year to train them as doctors so they can go back to Palestine and serve their people. So this is a long legacy of solidarity. And this was evident in the recent sending of humanitarian aid to the Rafa crossing, which again, there have been several shipments of humanitarian aid to this crossing. But as you said, a very, very, very small amount has been able to be let through. But again, this is a strong showing of solidarity, not only in the material sense, but also in the political sense to really stand up to this blockade and say, we're going to support no matter what. So that, again, Venezuela standing with Palestine, Cuba as well, has made quite strong statements on the international stage. And within the West Asian region, again, the, I think, as you were talking about before, this move towards normalization has definitely seen a setback. Of course, Saudi Arabia did not, had not signed the agreement with the United States, with Israel to recognize Israel before this happened. And I think that is going to look extremely, extremely difficult. I think the U.S. maybe miscalculated what would happen if Israel launched such an aggressive, aggressive attack on Palestine. It's unclear if any of those agreements that had already been signed are in jeopardy, but it's definitely sure that those who are maybe on the fence about signing this definitely are going to be thinking, again, if this is the right move, probably not. So we have seen that strong, strong statements from those countries. You spoke about the call between Saudi Arabia and Iran that took place. These are important developments. And I just wanted to quickly edit a number that I had said before. The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange was just a thousand Palestinian prisoners who were exchanged for his release as a captive. You know, when you talked about the normalization slowing down, if and when the land invasion starts and the numbers of Palestinian dead, the war crimes increase, there will be a lot of pressure on the King of Jordan, on President Sisi of Egypt, and so on to reconsider their own peace agreements with the Israeli state. Already the Jordanian King has said, Abdullah II has said, that he's heart sick by seeing the massacres of Palestinians in Gaza. The Nest International's report on October 20 already calls on the fact that there are war crimes. They look at five incidents and they say, look, five incidents, not enough, but in these five incidents, credible war crime allegations, entire families wiped out, and so on. I would like to say every time Israel bombs Gaza with such ferocity, Amnesty releases reports saying war crimes have been committed. The International Criminal Court, which has opened an investigation into Israel's war crimes, just can't seem to advance the file. There's a lot of pressure coming on them from Washington, D.C. United States simply unwilling to allow anybody to talk about the language of war crimes when it comes to Israel. You have Galant, the Defense Minister of Israel, went to a parliamentary committee on Friday and he said this land war that is starting, which will follow the air war, is going to have three phases and these three phases actually already suggest a war crime. The first phase he says is to knock out all Hamas infrastructure. Well, good luck with that. That's not going to be easy. As we've seen over the last 90 years, every time Israel feels that it's been able to obliterate resistance from the Palestinians, the resistance returns. The second is to dismantle all other factions' military capabilities, unlikely again for the same reasons, whether it's Hamas, whether it's Islamic jihad, it doesn't matter. Some years ago Khalid Mishal, who was then of Hamas's spokesperson, said that, look, if the West is worried about Hamas, they have no idea that amongst arrested and angry youth in Gaza in particular, they see Hamas as too moderate. They are getting attracted to much less moderate forces than Hamas. So something that both Tel Aviv and Washington should have listened to 20 years ago, 10 years ago when Khalid Mishal said this, but the dynamic starts much earlier. You have Galant, Israeli Defense Minister's third point is the really chilling one. He says that in the third phase of this land operation that is going to happen, he said in this third phase, what they are looking forward to is a new security architecture. He basically said quite plainly that they're going to just get rid of the Palestinians from Gaza. I mean, there is no deep reading needed of what you have Galant said. He basically said the third phase will require the removal of Israel's responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel. That's what he said. You read that and you don't have to do, as I said, too much reading. That means the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza because effectively it's not just Hamas. It's not just Islamic Jihad. It's not just the other factions. It's the Palestinian people. One of the reasons people tell me in Israel, one of the reasons that they feel that the Israeli government has hesitated before sending the tanks into the Gaza Strip is that they recognize that the Palestinians, not just the factions, civilians, are going to throw everything at those tanks. They're going to stand and fight. Why? Because their children are being butchered. They're not going to permit Israeli tanks to just roll in and create a quote-unquote new security architecture. They're going to fight on the ruined streets of Gaza. One little enclave after the next. They're going to throw bottles of olive oil at those tanks, throw anything, throw their bodies at those tanks. The Israelis understand that. They understand that this death toll if the tanks roll in can go to several tens of thousands because the Palestinians are not going to put up the white flag of surrender. That's why they're hesitating. But that's why also they're saying, we're going to just wipe the people off. They recognize this is not a problem of Hamas and the factions alone. The Palestinian people are going to resist because indeed they have a right to resist. So a lot of talk now Zoe about Israel's right to defend itself. Palestinians actually have a statutory, a legal right to resist against occupation, a declared occupation. The UN calls Gaza part of the occupied Palestinian territories under international law. Palestinians have a right to resist. It's a legal right. It's not a moral right. It might also be a moral right, but it's a legal right. Israelis know that they're hesitating. They don't want to enter into a cauldron. But in the few minutes we have left, tell us a little bit Zoe about not only what governments have been doing, but I have watched occasionally large demonstrations around the world. Yeah, I think it's important to end on this note of hope because it's hard to see everything that's happening. Hard to see just the callousness of some of the global North leaders in regards to this situation. And it's very easy to get discouraged. It's very easy to feel that there's no hope. But I think that the example of the Palestinian people over these past 90 years and their steadfast resistance to this occupation and their continued hope and resilience, that has to be centered and that we have to carry that with us as well because the Palestinian people have never stopped resisting. And I think that the international response to these war crimes that are taking place has also been quite inspiring and quite uplifting. Again, there have been bombing after bombing of Gaza, maybe back in the 2000s just after Hamas won the elections and we saw bombings in the end of that decade. We would have seen a couple of thousand people in the street, maybe in just Washington D.C., maybe in Paris, the couple of thousands. Today we're seeing tens of thousands of people, not just in capital cities, in towns and cities across the United States, across major European countries, across the African continent, across Asia. This is something that's truly inspiring. I mean, to see, for example, in New York City, which the mayor, Kathy Holtzl, said that New York will always stand with Israel. And then the next day to see, again, over 10,000 people in the streets. That is truly, that's truly remarkable. Again, in cities across Europe where it has been banned to even carry a Palestinian flag, where there's been a ban on people's right to protest saying they can't actually protest and stand in solidarity with Palestine. Still, thousands of people have said, no, nothing will stop our resistance, our solidarity with the Palestinian people. Nothing will silence us. And I think that's something that we have to continue. We have to continue reporting on what's happening with the solidarity, with people demanding better from their governments. The U.S., for example, yesterday approved billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. This is while millions of people are taking off healthcare, while millions of people are losing their welfare and other crucial, crucial social security safety nets. Yet the government decides that they're going to send more military aid to Israel, more military aid to Ukraine to essentially sponsor massacres from happening. And people have stood up and said, not only are we against you taking our tax money for these things, for the military, for military companies, for the weapons contractors, which have seen a massive raise in their stock prices, but also we will not allow you to massacre the Palestinian people, and we know that you have blood on our hands. So I think that is continuing. The wave of solidarity is only rising. More people are taking to the streets. More actions are being organized. I know that on November 4th, there's an international call for solidarity mobilizations with Palestine, and that will definitely be tremendous. Here is the morality of the West Zoe. Twenty trucks of aid allowed in to Gaza through the Rafa crossing. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry being air shipped to Israel. The UN Secretary General Antonio Gitter has said, let this nightmare come to an end. He's right. The issue is what nightmare is he referring to? The trucks not entering Palestine. Is that all he's talking about? The ceasefire of this conflict? Or is the nightmare something much greater than that? Is the nightmare the occupation, the dispossession, the war? Hopefully the United Nations is not just talking about the trucks, although the trucks must get in. Hopefully they're talking about the war, the dispossession and the occupation. You've been listening to People's Dispatch with Zoe Alexandra and Vijay from Globetrotter. Coming to you with a special report on the nightmare that is afflicting the Levant region. In 90-year-old nightmare, hopefully we can get past it. Thanks a lot.