 At least 3000 people have been forced to flee the Janine refugee camp after Israel launched its most intense military operation in the occupied West Bank in nearly 20 years. What does the Israeli state hope to gain from the present onslaught? It was another birthday marked in jail for WikiLeaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange, who has been in the higher security Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom, awaiting a verdict in a long-running extradition case from the United States where he is charged under the Espionage Act. This is, of course, an open declaration of what the West really thinks of the freedom of the press, what is the status of his legal fight against the system, and why do many liberal commentators feel time is not on his side. And the United Nations nuclear watchdog is said to give its backing to Japan's plan to release millions of tons of treated radioactive water from the tsunami wrecked Fukushima power plant into the Pacific Ocean. Why is the dumping so controversial? You're watching Daily Debrief coming to you from the People's Dispatch studios here in New Delhi with me Shizantani. And first up, we're talking about Palestine, where Israel has vowed to press on with military operations, including, of course, drone strikes, aircraft, and an open-ended mission involving hundreds of troops on the ground in the occupied town of Janine on the Palestinian West Bank. At least 10 people have been killed and over 100 injured, some of them critically. Thousands, perhaps those who have the means, have already fled the refugee camp, which is otherwise home to 18,000 displaced people. Abdul Rehman is with us to talk more about the situation on the ground in Palestine and also what this escalation sort of indicates in the larger picture. Abdul, thanks again, as always, for joining us on Daily Debrief. First up, what are you hearing? What is the latest? Yeah, and then we take it from there. Well, it seems that what happened yesterday after that, Palestinians have kind of taken it and organized a large number of demonstrations all across the occupied West Bank. Today, there was a national strike in the West Bank, which was observed, which is being observed. And also, those demonstrations are no more. If you are following Palestine, you will know that for a very long time it was basically demonstrations which tried to kind of fall in the larger category of peaceful demonstrations. They are basically calling for resistance against the repeated Israeli assault, which is becoming greater and greater every day. So there are open calls for armed resistance against the Israeli occupation and at different places. In whatever form possible, Palestinians have started resisting it. There were reports about, at some places, Palestinians throwing fractures on the Israeli soldiers in Israel, then there were small attempts to kind of resist Israeli soldiers in different other smaller towns across the West Bank. That is one thing which is happening again Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Brigade of the Fatah movement. All of them have given calls for resistance if the assault does not stop immediately. Though this is from the Palestinian side of it, despite, along with the fact that there is a widespread condemnation coming from across the world, the mere words which have been repeated so often that nowadays they have lost their meaning. But one thing which is noticeable is that the Palestinians, particularly on the ground, have basically decided it seems that this kind of repeated appeals for calm and peace is meaningless and they need to resist the Israeli onslaught as fiercely as possible. And that is exactly what is unfolding on the ground. On the Israeli side of it, just to kind of add it, instead of seizing the operations given the fact that there is widespread condemnation and so on and so forth, Israeli general was on record, reported by terms of Israel, saying that this is not an one of operation and as we were there, cube beats back, we will be there again in the coming days. So this is not the one and only operation which is happening in Zanin. And as they say, this is their attempt to control the court and court terrorist movement inside the occupied Palestine. But of course, that is how they define the resistance movement in the occupied territories which it seems given all the indications on the ground is increasing day by day. Zanin is of course, like you were pointing out Abdul sort of hub in that sense for the resistance against the occupation and the escalation that we are seeing or the in or the wave new wave of resistance that we are seeing is in response to also escalations from the Israeli side where there has been a sort of multi-pronged attack on the rights of Palestinians over a sustained period. So connect the dots for us if you will. See if you just see the record, since the beginning of this year, Zanin has been attacked several times by the Israeli occupation forces and scores of people have died including Zanin this time. The fact that Israeli forces are taking this repeated raids and attacks on other places inside the occupied West Bank, they have been kind of on the offensive on a very regular basis inside the occupied territories shows that there is a very strong increase in the resistance of the Palestinians to the occupation and this basically should be seen in the larger context of the changes in the global politics, changes in the Israeli politics as well and also some kind of resentment against the beaten path which the Palestinian authority has taken vis-a-vis the right to self-determination movement in Palestine. It seems that the large number of young population in Palestine in the occupied territories sees those methods useless, finds them non-productive, finds them harmful for their basic dignity, their right to life and their right to self-determination, all of this. And that is the reason that in last two, three years at least as the Israeli politics shifts towards the right, extreme right, which basically believes in the idea that there is no Palestine and does everything which basically needs to becoming the whole idea of a separate Palestinian state meaningness in West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem and in Gaza. Given that context, given the understanding that the current political scenario both at the global level and in Israeli politics is completely against the established demands of Palestinians and determination, a majority of the Palestinian youth think that this the international understanding is no more working and there is the time, right time, this is the right time to basically take the resistance to another level and that is what we have seen in the last, at least last couple of years and in particular since the beginning of this year that there has been growing resistance and so the Israeli attempts to kind of clog that resistance also increases both in scale and in its brutality on the ground. Yeah. All right. Thanks, thanks Abdul for like putting it in those way clearly understandable terms also and we'll catch up with you very soon. I'm sure on the DDP for an update. A British court last week denied WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange permission to appeal an order to exidite him to the United States where he faces criminal charges under the Espionage Act. Although Assange's legal team of course will continue to explore all the options they have. It seems like the news around his neck is clearly tightening and time is also not on his side. Anish in the meantime it's another prison birthday for Julian Assange. Give us an update first on where matters are in the legal sense of things where the appeal is concerned, where the exudition process is concerned as well. Yes. So the legal process itself Assange is basically facing the last appeal that he can actually possibly go for in the current process and if this appeal fails he's pretty much set for exudition and that is like road clear for the United States to extract him and try before a penalty in the US. Now the issue is such that I think the emergency is such that there is a significant risk not just of exudition but also the fact that there could be harm, bodily harm to him through this exudition not necessarily not just because of what the defense team was talking about which is a debilitating mental health problem that Assange is facing under prison conditions right now within Balmarsh. It is also the fact that the prison conditions in the US is going to be a lot more worse considering how the record itself a public record that exists on high security prisons especially for political prisoners in the US and on top of that Assange is also a suicide risk. So there is significant danger or dangers that actually and we are talking about immediate bodily harm posed on Assange just because of an exudition right now and so being so close to something that can be so dangerous for him is actually alarming a lot more people than it used to report because a lot of people actually believe that the British courts at the very least would have some level of protections and would probably consider the fact that he is a political prisoner at the end of the day that he is a publisher and that there are no grounds to actually prosecute him under the not not the official streets but yes but yeah exactly and that is what the Biden administration is pursuing at the moment which is obviously continued from the Trump administration era prosecution but and the British courts have been taken over by some diplomatic assurances that they have given after the first verdict was given which actually cancelled and rejected the exhibition itself. So we are looking at a system that is actively making way for the exhibition rather than actually looking for checks and balances because we are not supposed to. Exactly the appeals processes are also have also not gone through any kind of rigorous trials ever since the high court the high court justice in London ruled against the magistrates course decision to reject the execution. So we are seeing what we are seeing is like the even none of the new evidence of published reports of statements by private witnesses that they have forced the testimony none of that has been considered very seriously in the British courts. Moral it is only these diplomatic assurances that the US ambassador gave to the British government that has been taken at face value for this exhibition to go forward. And Anish there are literally hundreds of elected representatives who stand for democracy freedom of the press freedom of speech and expression in his home country Australia in the United Kingdom elsewhere in Europe and the western world. What does the sort of startling lack of opposition to this entire process at least in terms of like mainstream public discourse tell us about the what the western establishment actually thinks of all these terms and concepts. Well the democracy is laid bare with this entire trial we have seen how and there have been instances where there were deaths of prison blowers in maximum security prison in the US after being extradited from those alliance countries or friendly countries. But none of that has been taken into consideration. We have seen a very narrow down kind of trial where even the scope of evidence that can be presented by the defense was also quite small. So apart from the courts we have also seen a certain level of not silence per se but an endorsement in fact by certain people within the government. Tourists obviously the conservative government in the UK have been there ever since Assange was in trial no matter who the prime minister was. We've seen several of them changing seats in this musical chair but nevertheless every single one of them have endorsed the exhibition every single one of them before they became the prime minister and those of those notions that Assange somehow more criminally liable for exposing war crimes than the actual perpetrators of the war crimes to be revealed. And the Biden administration has always kept talking about the due process of like letting the due process move forward but very conveniently hides the fact that it is a political prosecution it is made by a political appointee an appointee that who is there simply because the president wishes so and not because of you know any kind of merit or qualification or any kind of administrative mechanisms it is simply because president appointed that person. So the prosecutor general or for that matter any of the federal prosecutors for that matter are appointed by the president who does not exist without a political affiliation or alliance with the president or the ruling establishment. So the whole system the whole case itself is a completely motivated case and that is something that is also quite very well given in many of the press itself but we also have to get credit to whatever opposition that does exist. We have seen some lawmakers in the US and Britain calling out on the not just the prosecution but also the continued incarceration of Assange in a prison condition where he's pretty much locked away from the world. He doesn't have access to his lawyers or his families does not get to call them as often as he should. In many cases even during the time we've seen that more than 20 hours of his time a day goes in complete isolation inside the prison which is actually something that even for people who do not have any kind of pre-existing mental health conditions could actually give them some level of deteriorating mental health problems in the long run. So this is a quick word that means observing inside this prison in this prison commission and there have been calls for at least from the Australian establishment that's currently we have seen the Australian government trying to make these government memos to get him back home very clearly saying that they want Assange back and they do not want him to get excited. So even that fact that there is the Australian establishment right now calling for his return it itself shows how significant and how popular it is for to haven't believed but the very fact that this is being known by the British and the US establishment shows that there is a complicity and even an endorsement of this continued incarceration. Right Anish thanks for that update stick with us we'll be back with you in a minute because we're talking about Fukushima and the international atomic agency is backing of Japan's plan to release 1.3 million cubic meters of wastewater that has accumulated since 2011 at the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The plan has of course drawn fierce criticism from Japan's neighbors in the Pacific not the least on grounds that they were not even consulted but the UN agency is backing the plans anyway. Anish we'll come back to you now what is the IAEA's stand on this matter and does it make sense? Well from a scientific point of view we have to consider the data that they have given is quite rigorous because of the long schedule and actually clearly shows that there is a significant lower risk of releasing these water which basically have tritium and carbon pressure. Now both of these are not highly radioactive, tritium is basically just a radioactive version of hydrogen and so they are considered to be beta emitters and they not pose this sort of risk that other kind of radioactive material would have carried but the concerns regarding these emissions are the release of such wastewater into the ocean would be A the fact that there will be an accumulation of bio-accumulation absorbed over years or maybe even decades and it can have long term impact A secondly the fact that there is complete lack of consulting between the nations on how the effects and how these waters will be released to begin with and the level of the level of these wastewater released into the ocean and finally the likelihood of all these fishers who live in the region not just in Japan but also in the area because a lot of them are not just fishers but also pretty much any kind of industry that depends on the ocean which apart from fishing also includes salt making industry all of them we are already seeing reports of how Koreans are stocking up on salt sea salt because of their concerns over the ocean water. Now these issues are obviously being addressed in the report itself what we are looking at is how safe it is that is pretty much it is a very narrow set of study that has been conducted and it only looks at how safe these waters will be does not consider not just the political and social education but also maybe you know a very long term impact of these pollution into the ocean in a very long span of time rather than just say a couple of years ago. Anish we are also I think struggling a little bit the quality of your audio on the show today so just just very briefly if you can sum up for us what the kind of political response has been and give us a sense of how a UN agency can come to an understanding on a plan that has not been discussed really like you were saying at a multilateral level. Yeah so the idea is basically for Japan it was always to show and portray and you know insist on the fact that at least a wastewater release would be safe and that is pretty much it that's what the IA report actually talks about and that's the only thing that they talk about over a period of time there are other political implications to it and not just political we are talking about social and economic implications that will not be discussed as much and that is the key issue here and it is not something that is only being raised by say countries like China will see it as you know an adversary to Japan in geopolitical terms but also friendly countries like South Korea even though the South Korean government has taken a pro-release stand at this point in time and is trying to convince this population to meetings and everything but there are also other friendly nations in the Pacific who are very much concerned about the release of these waters and we are not even talking about a plethora of within the scientific community who have also opposed such you know arbitrary release of waters without consultations and without without full transparency of the entire plan we do not know how much of it is going to be released at once if there is going to be a set of plan on how there is going to be schedule because all of these matters when you talk about concentration and radioactivity and none of these are being divulged at the moment by the Japanese government is essentially acting more or less unilaterally at the point and that is the issue here at the moment. All right thanks very much for that update Anish we'll I think catch you again and it's good to see you after a while on the show as well hope you're doing well and with that we bring to a close of course this episode of daily debrief as always we invite you to head to our website peoplesdispatch.org for updates on these stories and all of the other work we do don't also forget to give us a follow on the social media platform of your choice if you haven't already we'll be back same time same place tomorrow until then goodbye.