 The death toll from the brutal assault on Gaza has crossed 21,000 as Israeli attacks on the south of the territory continue. What is the latest from this besieged enclave? Argentine trade unions are taking to the streets on Wednesday against the policies of the newly elected Javier Mille government. What are the demands of the unions? 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 that subscribe button. The brutal Israeli assault on Gaza continues at the death toll crossed 21,000. Graphic visuals on social media indicate that Palestinian men are facing inhuman treatment at the hands of Israeli forces. However, even now the international community fails to hold Israel to account. Meanwhile, across the region, from Iraq to Yemen, there have been military actions against Israel and in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We go to Abdul for the details. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. So maybe first could you take us through what is happening right now with the Israeli assault, both the air assault and the ground assault. We know that now it is also taking place in the south of Gaza as well. So, Prashant, in the last 24 hours, there has the number of people killed in Gaza has increased by at least 300 to 400 people and taking the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza to 21,000 plus. It also means that the number of people Palestinians injured has crossed 55,000. And this basically displays how brutal the Israeli assault is. In the last 24 hours, the Israeli ground offensive in Khan units in particular has increased in southern Gaza. A large number of territories have been evacuated. And it seems that the more and more Palestinians are forced to kind of flee out of their whatever homes were remaining. In fact, there were ground offensives in Jabalia refugee camp, which basically has completely led to the destruction of the entire refugee camp. And it is literally nowhere in Gaza, which is safe. And that basically confirms to the larger Israeli scheme, which has been reported in media from time to time again, that Israel is basically forcing and trying to force most of the Palestinians out of Gaza into Egypt. Which of course, different human rights organizations have claimed that this basically amounts to not only kind of war crimes. It is also basically amounts to complete violation of all established norms in the international law. There are also reports coming that the humanitarian situation inside Gaza, particularly in southern Gaza, has basically deteriorated further. Basically whatever hospitals were functioning before the offensive started in Gaza, most of them have shut and only eight hospitals and small clinics are operational. This is happening at a time when the United Nations Security Council had passed a resolution. Basically, which of course, I've had nothing else to say apart from the fact that it basically emphasized the greater delivery of aid into Gaza. But since there is no halt in the bombing in the ground offensive, it is difficult, as aid agencies have reported, difficult to basically deliver aid inside the Gaza strip. This basically means that overall situation, both for the people who are injured, wounded, and the common Palestinians in Gaza who have been forced out of their homes, the overall situation in terms of delivery of basic essentials like food, medicine, shelter, fuel is completely disrupted and the humanitarian situation in Gaza has become completely out of control. Also, the last point that in the last few days, the communication system inside Gaza was completely disrupted. According to the Palestinian Telecom Department, there is an attempt to revive the communication as if on Wednesday, but it has not completely worked out yet and the work is still going on. Also, taking a look at the regional dimensions here, we have seen yesterday that there has been further escalation in the United States, bombing on early Tuesday, there are certain sites in Iraq as well claiming that it is in response to attacks on bases. We know what is happening in the Babel Mandir region as far as Yemen is concerned. So maybe could you take us to the regional aspect as well? Well, Prashant, before I come to the regional aspect, I should definitely mention that there are reports coming from Gaza which basically shows complete collapse of any understanding of human rights. There are videos circulating on the social media or on the news channels which shows that large number of Palestinian detainees have been stripped naked and forced to sit in open blindfolded, their hands tied behind their back in the stadiums, in the open grounds. Some of the people who were released later have claimed that they have been tortured and drugged to confess that they are Hamas operatives despite the fact that none of them had anything to do with Hamas. So all of this is happening inside Gaza and of course this has a wider repercussion both regional as well as global given the fact that there are international laws established to prevent such kind of torture of prisoners of war. So that is one thing of course. As far as the regional aspect is concerned, of course, in the last few days the Israelis have attacked southern Lebanon, increased their attacks on southern Lebanon and it looks like that their situation, the situation there is not, is going to be as bad as what is there in some parts of Gaza. The large number of homes, houses have been destroyed, civilian infrastructure has been attacked and of course whatever small retaliation which Hezbollah is doing is not enough to deter Israeli aggression. You rightly pointed out that there are US carried out strikes against multiple targets inside Iraq on Tuesday claiming that this is in retaliation to Iraqi militias attacking their bases both in Iraq, in Erbil and in Syria in which three US soldiers were injured, one of them was seriously wounded. This basically shows that the US bases as per the latest report have been attacked since October 7 more than 100 times. It shows the popular anger in the region and the anger among the militias that the US is supporting the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Apart from that, of course the Houthis have continued to attack the ships in the Red Sea despite the fact that the US has announced so-called Operation Prosperity Garjan which basically is a coalition of all the NATO and some of the countries in other parts of the world but the fact is because of the pressure exerted by the Houthis, most of the shipping companies have not resumed their operation yet and the ships to Israel are not of course moving. Also most of the NATO countries have been reluctant to completely cooperate with US in his maritime alliance despite their names being announced. So this is the overall situation when it comes to the regional and global aspects of the war in Gaza which is going on by the Israelis. Thank you so much Abdel for that update. Argentina is quickly becoming a front line state in the battle between the people and a particularly unhinged version of neoliberal capitalism. In the short time since Javier Mille has come to power, a flurry of policies have been announced by his government which will affect most sections of the people but especially workers. On Wednesday, Argentine workers and trade unions are taking to the streets against these anti-people policies. To get more details, we go to Zoe Alexandra. Zoe, thank you so much for joining us. So widely anticipated that trade unions people's movements would take to the streets following the announcements made by Mille's governments quite shocking actually. So what are the kind of demands that these movements are making? What are the kind of agitations that we might anticipate? Yes, all major trade unions in Argentina are on the streets today as part of a massive mobilization to reject the austerity measures of the government of far-right libertarian Javier Mille. Specifically these trade unions such as the Association of State Workers and the General Confederation of Work, the CGT, have called this mobilization because the decree that Javier Mille issued last week essentially says that workers who have been working for less than a year do not get their contracts renewed. And this according to trade unions corresponds to at least 7,000 workers. And so that means that next year 7,000 workers are losing their jobs, state jobs because of the austerity measure of Javier Mille. They're also of course raising their voices about the other measures that were mentioned in the decree of Mille as we spoke about in People's Dispatch on this show and others. This would drastically devalue again the Argentine peso. It has other impacts of course in reducing subsidies for transportation, for basic services in the country. And it's really seen as the first major hit to the working class in Argentina to organize movements of course to trade unions and to workers in general who are preparing again for very, very difficult months ahead in Argentina. Javier Mille has said it himself, these are not going to be easy months, it's going to be hard, a lot of economic pain, tidying again the most basic of services, the areas where the Argentine people were able to manage such as with transportation and with some of their services like electricity and gas that will soon become untenable for many, many people. Many people will find that they're unable to keep up with their payments, that they're unable to really survive on a month to month basis, which they were already struggling to do as we know that they're 40% of the population in poverty. So today's mobilization, again, momentous, we've already seen how movements in Argentina, how trade unions are building day by day this resistance, which is going to be permanent throughout the presidency of Javier Mille. Javier Mille became famous for a lot of the ridiculous things he said, the crazy slogans against the left, some of the more wild things in his past, his outbursts, but at the end of the day, he is a person who corresponds to a political project that believes that, first of all, human rights don't exist, that social justice is a threat to the people. All of these fundamental ideas which are in contradiction with the possibility for people to live with dignity in the country, and especially as we've said in a situation of severe economic downturn. Right, 2022 been quite a complicated year for Argentina, of course, the major election, the kind of results that came out really shocked people, and it looks like it's going to be a long struggle ahead for the people. So maybe could you do a roundup as we are ending this year? Could you do a roundup of how the year has been for this country? Well, of course, as we just said, it ended with the victory of Javier Mille in the December presidential elections, but it has been a pretty tumultuous year in Argentina. We know that just one year ago, Argentina was celebrating the victory in the World Cup, a moment of jubilation of joy. I think many people thought that that wave of joy would continue, that this would increase support for the government on Puerto Fernandez. This didn't happen. This is, of course, alongside as we entered the year of 2023, the Lawfare campaign against Cristina Fernandez, the Kitchener, intensified. A lot of the year was spent sort of waiting and seeing about what was going to happen in the presidential election. So as Javier Mille was rising in popularity, there was, of course, this legal battle regarding Cristina Fernandez and her possibility of actually participating in these elections. There are many back and forth regarding that. Legal decisions barring her participation. Finally, in the end, she was not able to participate, and this was seen as a huge setback, of course, for popular movements, given that she was the only viable candidate who would be able to garner the support and the votes needed to defeat the center right and the far right in Argentina. We know that August, for example, saw the primary elections in the country where the threat of Javier Mille actually became serious, where people actually took it into account that this is not just some crazy guy who talks about how human rights are bad, but this is actually someone who could arrive to power. A lot of people are underestimating him, and the appeal that he has in Argentine society amongst young and working class people who have seen their situation deteriorate drastically, not only under Mauricio Macri, but that continue to deteriorate under Alberto Fernández. And then, of course, the last four months of the year was this very, very intense electoral dispute with Sergio Massa actually coming in first in the first round of the elections, but then really being unable to beat this right-wing coalition of Javier Mille supported by the center right with Patricio Bulverich and Mauricio Macri. So very difficult year, and people are already going into the new year with a lot of struggle, a lot of mobilization. Last week we saw the first protest against Javier Mille on December 24th, which is Christmas Eve. Social movements held once again their Christmas, no Christmas with hunger, and so that means they have a huge, huge serving of food and activities for working class people in the country who don't have enough to really have their own homes. A very important celebration, but also a moment to recommit people to the struggle. And as I said today, Wednesday, December 27th, massive mobilizations organized by the country's trade unions. This will be the first of many protests. I think we can look at the four years of Mauricio Macri's presidency to get a sense of what does it look like when the Argentine movements really join together, unite, and are able to really fight determined struggles against these austerity measures. I think we're going to see a lot. It's not just going to be Javier Mille pushing through these decrees, but there's going to be a lot of pushback on the streets and by the people. Thank you so much, Zoe, for talking to us. That's all we have in today's episode. 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