 The death toll in Gaza is close to 10,000, its brutal Israeli attacks on the people of Palestine continue unabated. Meanwhile, people's movements across the world are calling for an end to this genocidal assault. The question is, how long will Israel's impunity be allowed to continue? We bring you the latest from this war zone. Over 70 organizations have written a letter seeking a more equitable pandemic treaty. What are these organizations demanding? And finally, a UN special rapporteur has said that the current poverty levels in the UK are simply not acceptable. This is about one of the richest countries in the world. What has led to this situation? This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before you go any further, please hit that subscribe button. Despite a groundswell of condemnation across the globe, Israel's genocidal war on Gaza continues. Israeli attacks killed over 200 people in the past day or so, and the humanitarian condition continues to worsen due to the sheer intensity of the bombing and the scarcity of resources due to the blockade on essential items. The heads of various UN agencies have once again expressed horror over the death toll and called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. And across the world, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, took to the streets over the weekend in solidarity with the people of Palestine and against Israel's brutality and apartheid. We go to Abdul for updates on all these issues. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. We're almost reaching the one-month mark since the brutal bombing and attacks by Israel have begun. And so could you take us now through what is the latest from the war zone, the genocidal attack that is taking place? We also will come to, of course, the protests that are taking place. But first of all, right now, what are the updates from the attack, from the humanitarian situation specifically? Well, the Israeli bombings inside Gaza has continued on Sunday morning. And as for the different claims made by different organizations, primarily the Palestinian Health Ministry, around 200-plus Palestinians have been killed in the overnight raid inside the Gaza. That basically takes the overall tally to almost 10,000, around 9,700, 9,800 Palestinians have been killed so far. Around 20,000 people have been injured. And if we see, if we just add the numbers about the number of people who have been displaced, because the Israeli bombings have destroyed most of the residential housing areas in all across the Gaza Strip. So around 1.5 million out of 2.3 million dozens have been displaced. And these numbers are still conservative numbers. There are people who are living with their relatives. And of course, they are not counted here and there. But they are also a part of the larger displaced population. As for the latest reports, on Monday morning, last on Sunday evening, Israel has targeted areas in and around which has been its policy ever since the first day the war began. Hospitals, the Al-Sifa Hospital, which is the largest hospital inside the Gaza Strip, is almost on the verge of closing. And this comes after a few days when several other hospitals announced closing their operations in the region because of the lack of fuel, lack of medicines, lack of other amenities which are required to run a hospital with increased number of people. Around 40,000 Palestinians, as per the reports, are taking shelter in an now Al-Sifa Hospital that shows that a small establishment is holding these many people and running without electricity. On generators, it was operating and we all know ever since on October 9th, Israel has blockaded all kinds of import, export to export of fuel and other essential commodities inside Gaza Strip. So overall situation has become, every day it is becoming worse inside Gaza. And these similar things are happening, not at that scale, but there are things happening inside occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as well. The overall people who haven't killed has crossed 150 marks, 155 people, according to the latest figure, have been killed inside occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Two Palestinians were killed on Sunday and early morning on Monday. So apart from that, there are also a regional aspect to it there are basically attacks and counterattacks happening on the northern border with Hezbollah. Israel attacked, this targeted a civilian vehicle in which three children were killed in Lebanon. In retaliation, Hezbollah also targeted northern cities in Israel. Right, Abdul Beaver, People's Dispatch recently interviewed Professor Haidari, the renowned intellectual and one thing he said that, if there is hope, it lies in the people's movements and I think Craig Mokibar, who also spoke to us said the same thing. And I think over the weekend, we have seen some massive mobilizations across the world in support of the Palestinian people, in solidarity with the Palestinian people against what the governments of these countries, the position the governments of these countries have been taking the kind of impunity, the cover they have been giving to Israel. So could you maybe also take us through some of the mobilizations that took place and what has, what have been the kind of demands? Well, the largest mobilization, one of the largest mobilizations were in Washington DC, of course. Then there are reports coming from European cities, various European cities where the demonstrations were held on the weekend. If you just see the number of people turning up on the streets and all these governments, as you rightly pointed out, have taken position. Most of them have taken positions which goes against the Palestinian people, quite pro-Israel, even if they have criticized, some of them criticize the killing of Palestinian children, they have refrained from naming who is the perpetrator behind those killings. And that kind of diplomacy, that kind of level of international politics has been completely rejected by the people in these countries and that's where the anger lies. That has been that they have seen people not only in the Europe and in US, but also in the Arab countries where you see large number of people gathering on the streets demanding that states should do something about what is happening in Palestine. And in none of the cases, the states, though of course there are minor cases of recalling ambassadors here and there criticizing, but nothing much has happened. So basic demands, of course, of all these popular movements across the world, including in the US is primarily to, first of course, to have a ceasefire, to end the conflict. There are, in US in particular, people have demanded that the US stops funding the Israeli's war in Gaza. As we all know, US has been both diplomatically and militarily aiding the bombings in Gaza, not only supplying weapons and kind of diplomatic support, but also deploying latest, in the latest report, Israel has also deployed nuclear submarine in the region, basically threatening any other player in the region to basically extend their solidarity with the Palestinians and take certain actions. So this kind of policies which the US Biden government has followed is basically has angered the people in the US and that basically they have demanded that their tax money should not go in funding the genocidal war in Gaza. And that has been the primary demand, apart from the overall solidarity with the Palestinian people, supporting the Palestinian right to self-determination and basically opposing the Israeli genocide apartheid in the occupied territories. Right, Abdul, thank you so much for that update. In fact, the last one month, I think has even made it more clear how many of these governments have for decades been complicit in water war crimes, in what is apartheid and in what is ethnic cleansing at all. And I think people across the world taking a very powerful position against these practices. Thank you so much for talking to us. We'll be back to you tomorrow on this as well. For many months on this show, we have been talking about the pandemic treaty on which discussions began after the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, there have been pulls in two directions ever since these discussions began. On the one hand has been a pro-corporate agenda mainly championed by countries of the global North. On the other hand, are activist groups calling for a more just and equitable treaty. As discussions continue on this treaty, over 70 groups have written a letter to the coordinating body of the discussions. Anna Rachar of the People's Health Movement joins us for more. Anna, thank you so much for joining us. So we have talked about the pandemic treaty quite a few times on this show. But for the benefit of our viewers, could you maybe just quickly take us through what this treaty is about, why the discussion started, and then we can get down to what the organizations are talking about. The very basic idea of the pandemic treaty came from the COVID-19 pandemic. So in the midst of the pandemic, governments and civil society organizations, a lot of people actually were already pushing for an international mechanism or a tool that would allow the world to respond to future pandemics in a better way. Now, of course, we've seen different responses during the time, one of them was the push for the WTO waiver, which would have allowed easier access to COVID-19 medical products. Now, unfortunately, that didn't go through. On the other hand, the WHO with a number of other actors continued to push for an alternative agreement or mechanism that could facilitate pandemic preparedness and response in the future. Now, the story from them, then has been quite a bit more complicated if we can put it that way. And that's essentially because the progress of the negotiation has solved. We have seen that there were many conflicting interests in the room when the pandemic treaty is concerned. That includes big pharma companies, it includes governments, it includes civil society, who essentially have a different perspective of what this mechanism should be about. And then of course, one of the most important thing is that it's not yet clear what this mechanism will end up being. So as many have warned, if it's not binding, so if it doesn't oblige countries to adhere to this, then it's really questionable if it will be of much use at some point. Now, the most recent developments have shown that unfortunately there has been quite a strong turn towards the IP discourse to the intellectual property framework that the pharma industry has been pushing all along. If we remember back just a couple of weeks ago, we had the German minister speaking about the progress of the pandemic treaty negotiations in a way that essentially said that if IP waivers were included or that a more substantial renegotiation of the IP framework would be included, it would not be acceptable to Europe, it would not be acceptable to the global north because as he said, IP is in the DNA of Europe and of Germany in particular at that point. So the body, the international negotiating body which is in charge of pushing forward these negotiations until May next year when a draft should be presented at the World Health Assembly, they're meeting this week, they're meeting again in December. So we're seeing a kind of additional push from civil society to rethink what the draft should include and how it should approach intellectual property and other access issues. Right, and on this slide, we talked about 70 organizations have written a letter to this body you were talking about, which is drafting it. So could you maybe take us to what are the salient points that are being discussed that these organizations are putting forward? Well, essentially how they have summarized it, it's a request to tip the scale, meaning that until now as on many previous occasions, we have seen the interests of the global north, including the interests of the corporate sector which is so interlinked with the global north have taken precedence over the global south. And what these organizations are saying is that in case we are not willing to re-discuss that and to essentially turn towards more public production, definitely putting an accent on how to reframe and how to reimagine intellectual property frameworks, we are not going to get much use out of a pandemic treaty if it happens. So it's essentially about seeing who to let into the room. We know that from previous occasions also that the corporate sector unfortunately is strengthening its impact on WHO discussions as well on other UN agencies discussions. And also what this letter is warning about, it's that there should be a participation from everyone. So the voice of the civil society organizations of the people's movements in the global south who have been so vocal about the trips waiver already during the COVID-19 pandemic have to be taken into account. And now what they're saying is also that that cannot happen at the last minute, you cannot announce a meeting and then expect people to come in with their inputs. And then even if they do then ignore their inputs but allow for adequate time and adequate room for considering their requests and seeing how this pandemic treaty will impact their realities. Right, Anna, thank you so much for giving us the update. We'll keep tracking this issue. Of course, discussions continue next month and towards May next year. Thanks so much. Thanks. And finally, Olivier Deschuter, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights has said that the current levels of poverty in the UK are simply not acceptable. The envoy also said that the UK government is in violation of international law by allowing this situation to continue. To quote him, the policies in place are not working or not protecting people in poverty and much more needs to be done for these people to be protected. He also called for more government spending. We have with us Anish for more. Anish, thank you so much for joining us now. These are the kind of concerns and warnings that UN officials often refer, make when they're talking about what used to be called third world countries or global South countries. But here we're talking about the United Kingdom, one of the richest countries in the world. Also, of course, sitting on centuries worth of colonial wealth and wealth that was stolen from countries of the global South. So what exactly is really this warning about? What is the context in which it has been given? Well, there is one factor which is that the United Kingdom obviously is part of an international covenant for social, economic and cultural rights which actually includes a set of duties on the state that it has to provide for all basic necessities for a person to live and thrive. And that includes obviously housing, decent income, education and all sorts of other things. And that was also that existed at the time in the 70s when it actually ratified this covenant. It pretty much existed in many ways considering its extensive welfare system that existed under previous labor governments. But right now what we're looking at is how the existing welfare system pretty much has been hollowed out to the point where it is absolutely ineffective. And this is coming at a time when obviously the United Kingdom is going through the brunt of the cost of living crisis among the developed world or the high income world in the West at least. And it is actually also reeling through a set of crisis that is pretty much unraveling from this cost of living crisis including rising number of homelessness, rising number of children under destitution. Recent statistics say that over a million children at least are in conditions of destitution, clear destitution. We're talking about absolute poverty. We're not even talking about relative poverty that we would usually speak of under normal circumstances when it comes to a wealthy West European country. But we are talking about absolute poverty here. And this is where even basic needs such as the ability to keep yourself warm, to have clean drinking water sometimes can also be affected. And that shows that this is a situation where, and it is growing, even the government website, if you go through it, you actually look at some of the statistics it is expected by the government itself. And it is admitting that it is expecting about another 800,000 people to be added to the poverty, under the poverty rate by next year. And that clearly shows us how things are going badly. And it is not just going badly, it's just there's no intent from the government right now to even address any of these issues. We have seen recent statements by the government, by ministers, recently by Sula Breviman, talking about how homelessness is actually categorized homelessness as a lifestyle choice in her attempt to defend her government's, her ministry's policy to take out tents that are usually used by homeless people in public parts of public spaces in and around London and in different parts of the UK as well. So even that basic facilities that exist that might allow people to not go on the complete distribution is something that the government is intent on taking away from. And obviously there is a hint of racism and that sort of xenophobia that is quite common these days within the government, in government policies that is also evident in their attempt to cut down on welfare, not just welfare but any attempt by government to intervene to actually alleviate people from conditions of poverty at the moment. Tanish, of course, this is not an accident in the sense that this comes after decades of, in fact, Sula Breviman's statement almost reminds you a bit of what something like Margaret Thatcher would say. And this comes after decades of policies which like you said have really led to what are called austerity, what is called neoliberalism, what is actually sort of automatically brought, it's deliberately brought this country to this kind of a situation. And I think the government hasn't really learned any lessons because if you look at its response, it seems to be in complete denial. Pretty much, it more or less is under the impression that what we're just done so far has worked for some reason and despite evidence showing that it hasn't. As you pointed out, more than a decade of very harsh austerity, obviously austerity and attack on social welfare has existed in the past but what we look in the post-crash and the post-recession UK, there has been a very significantly harsh austerity policies that actually, as I said, hollowed out the entire system to the ground and it has presented itself as a very measly attempt if there are any to actually help people who are reeling under poverty. The one of the things that the UN's repertoire spoke about was how this 85 pound per week credit system that exists for people in poor households is actually almost nothing, pretty much considering the current rate of inflation and food inflation especially. And if you consider the fact that even governments with statistics is talking about how the average UK household is set to lose about anywhere between five to 6% of their real income by next year. There is absolutely no attempt by them to actually address any of these issues and this is obviously a systematic problem. We are not talking about mere negligence. This is an actual, very intended attack on social welfare, on people actually and this comes with a very certain kind of ideological. Obviously there's an ideologically neoliberal backing for that but there's also vested interest that actually thrive on such poverty levels that thrive on bringing the working class to destitution, to exploit from them in the long run. So this is definitely a consequence of intended policies that were imposed on the people despite their opposition and despite the fact that it hasn't worked in any of the intentions that the government states on its face value. And so this, as you said rightly, this is pretty much a very systematic attack and that is something that more and more people are now pointing to but the government for some reason does not want to face up to at this point in time. Thank you so much for joining us again. Highly ironic because I think trade unions in every sector in the United Kingdom have been flagging this point again and again, making those demands for higher wages, making those demands for addressing inflation, making those demands for I think structural changes which are so essential to address this crisis of poverty but the government just refusing to hear them trying to brand them as disruptors in various ways. So we'll keep tracking the story. Thank you so much for speaking to us. And that's all we have in this Monday's episode of the Daily Debrief. Do keep coming back to our channel, People's Dispatch. Watch all our videos, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and before you leave, if you haven't hit that subscribe button, please do.