 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. It's just over two months since the conflict in Gaza began with Israel launching the full-scale attack on the region in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas fighters. The Israel-Hamas conflict has claimed nearly 18,000 lives in Gaza and around 1,150 Israelis have died. Recently, a fresh effort was made at the UN Security Council to pause the conflict on humanitarian grounds in short to stop the severe and unprecedented suffering in the Gaza Strait. But the United States of America vetoed this resolution, the only country to do so while the United Kingdom abstained. Today, we talk to journalist and researcher Abdul Rahman on two months of this conflict and whether there is an end in sight to it. Abdul, thanks very much for joining us today. Now, Abdul, it's just over two months since the Israel-Hamas conflict began. If you look at the statements of the Gaza Health Ministry, they say that the crisis there is unprecedented. The World Food Program says 36% of people in Gaza are now facing severe hunger. Can you, in this context, help our viewers understand why the United States alone voted against a UN security resolution to end this war? Abdul Pragya, the basic point made by the US related to their veto in the United Nations Security Council on Friday, was the resolution which was proposed by UAE and other countries did not condemn Hamas. And that's why they decided to vote against it. But of course, everyone knows that the US is a close Israeli and it has basically supported Israel throughout its history, whatever it does, irrespective of whether what Israel does violates the international law, violates the humanitarian laws, violates the basic principles of international law. None of that matters when it comes to Israel. And that is the basic reason behind what US did on Friday. They may give diplomatic explanations behind it, they may try to defend their position. But all that thing, of course, rest of the members of the Security Council knew it. And the world community knows that the explanation given by the US does not have any validity. It is basically an attempt to protect Israel and let it allow it to do whatever it is doing inside Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. Right, Abdul. Now, Abdul, can you also tell us what has transpired at the time when the UN actually decided to move this draft resolution? It was actually introduced. This was the sixth, if I'm not wrong, proposal. And only one such proposal has been enacted for a short while and thereafter the war continued. But what's also interesting is that Israel has said that even after the so-called conflict on its terms is over, the fighting will not stop. So what does this actually mean? Well, the Security Council met. It was not meeting for a very long time. Though you rightly pointed out that they had met five times before the sixth time they met on Friday. But there was a gap. Since the last adopted in mid-November, the resolution asking Israel to implement some kind of humanitarian pause, which ultimately led to after a few days, five days, six days truce, of course, completely unrelated to the resolution. It was basically a deal between Israel and Hamas to exchange the hostages. But nonetheless, there was an agreement among all the members of the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution which did the minimum asking humanitarian pause in mid-November. Since then, it had not met. And United Nations Secretary General had to invoke article 99 of the United Nations Charter, which is rarely invoked. For the record, it was only the fifth time since the formation of the United Nations in 1940s that it was invoked. And so that at least the United Nations Security Council meet and discuss the deteriorating situation in Gaza. And on the basis of that, only the Security Council met on Friday and decided to, UAE and other countries, decided to propose a resolution which was basically asking two basic things. The resolution demanded that the hostages which are kept by Hamas and other Palestinian resistant movements should be released. And in exchange, there should be a permanent humanitarian ceasefire. These, according to every logic which we can imply, this was something which was very genuine to demand. And there was nothing more to do at this moment by the Berlin community. But as I said before, US did not find it satisfactory as we say it is an excuse which basically led to a very strong reaction coming from the rest of the permanent members. Though UK also abstained, did not vote against it, of course, but abstained on the resolution. But including UK, rest of the countries were quite critical to what US did in the Security Council. Some of them, for example, China calling it hypocritical, Russia calling it signing a death warrant for more, thousands of more Palestinians which are going to be killed by the Israelis in the coming days. Other countries, for example, Palestinian representative in the Security Council called it, of course, yet another green light for Israeli genocide inside Palestine. So if you see the human rights organizations across the world have condemned it. In fact, some of them calling it US complicity in the war crimes, which it is committing inside Gaza for the last more than two months now because what it did basically aids, provides kind of support to the war crimes of Israelis inside Gaza. So there has been widespread condemnation, but despite all those condemnations, the fact remains that the Palestinians in Gaza and even in other occupied Palestinian territories, for example, in West Bank, continue to face Israeli bombings, indiscriminate Israeli bombings, continue to face ground offensive raids, which basically kills more and more Palestinians every day and destroys more and more homes, destroys all the basic facilities in those territories, of course. So that is all which we can say about it on what happened last Friday in the inside the United Nations Security Council. Abdul, what's actually also very important to note is that there are these constant demands to condemn Hamas and the more condemnation is issued, it becomes a pretext or a ruse to launch further attacks. So the more people condemn it, the more Israel tends to attack. And I just wanted to, you know, the numbers of the dead in Gaza is now over 17,700. And of course, the refugees on the Israeli side are just below 1,200. So is this the reason why, is this one of the, of course the number of those injured and homeless is completely another, at another scale, I think 48,000 are wounded in Gaza. Now, is this the reason why the U.S. is coming in for condemnation itself, even as it demands condemnation of Hamas? I mean, it's a very bitterly ironic situation for the U.S. But what do the condemnations mean if the conflict continues? Well, as I said before, some of the positions taken by some of the countries on Friday explains what does it mean? It means nothing for the Palestinians. More and more Palestinians are being killed. The numbers you just quoted, every hour those numbers are revised and hundreds of more Palestinians are aided into that number. And the fact that the most of the Palestinians killed are not even members of Hamas. They cannot be members of any terrorist organization as per the Israeli claims of Hamas being a terrorist, even if the world community at large does not recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. Primarily because most of them are children or women or the elderly person, more than 60 years old, some 70 years old people, none of them are in any position to kind of take up arms against Israel. So this claim of kind of trying to justify, trying to legitimize the war crimes, the genocide of Palestinians, in the name of saying that what Hamas did or what Hamas is doing since October 7 is all terrorism and what Israel is doing is basically self-defense is completely baseless. It has no base, not only as a moral position. In fact, illegally in international law, the acts of Hamas or the act of other Palestinian resistance on October 7 is not recognized as terrorism. It is recognized as the right to resist against the occupation and Israel is an occupying power according to the resolutions which were adopted, which have been adopted by the United Nations Security Council ever since 1967, if not before. So these claims that, okay, we have to kind of try to create an equation between what Hamas does or what Palestinians do and what Israel is doing is basically a bogus attempt to legitimize something which cannot be defended, which has no legal basis, which has no moral basis which is completely, you can say, a guilt, which basically the occupation and the powers, particularly the United States, which is backing such kind of massacre of Palestinians, this is that guilt which basically reflects in such statements, of course. So there is no logic behind trying to create an equation between Hamas and Israeli acts. One of the things that we're hearing, a sort of warning about repeatedly is that the crisis in Gaza will no longer be just from the attacks by the Israeli forces, but it will be of disease, a health crisis and a starvation. So in that context, placing it in that context, can you tell us what the situation is right now, how far this conflict has progressed? Well, on Sunday itself, the UN agencies have warned that around one-third of the Palestinian population in Gaza, which is around 2.2 million people divided by 3, around 7, 8 million people are already living in kind of a very severe food crisis on the level of starvation. And that number is basically going to increase in the coming days, primarily because Gaza is dependent completely on imported food grains, imported medicine, imported basic fuel, in fact. And none of these things are allowed ever since Israel started bombing Gaza. Whatever limited aid which is now pouring in which started during the truth around 150 trucks a day, that is not enough given the size of the Gaza population and its dependence on imports. So that of course leads to a very severe shortage of basic food, medicine, fuel, and whatever other basic community. In fact, the drinking water is a major concern because whatever civil infrastructure were there in Gaza and we should remember that this is a territory which has been under block since 2006. And all of these facilities were operating in a limited capacity even before the war began, this current war began. So given the fact that the overall civic infrastructure was really bad before the war started, the war has in fact completely wiped out whatever civil infrastructure was there. That means there is not enough drinking water available for the majority of the Palestinians in Gaza and whatever water they're drinking is not safe. Of course, which will lead to different kinds of diseases. Already there are reports of thousands of Palestinians facing different kinds of waterborne diseases and other skin diseases which basically comes because of the lack of water to take bath and so on and so forth. There are also reports of how hospitals are not functioning, majority of the hospitals all across Gaza are destroyed because of the Israeli not only bombing from the air but also ground offensive which it has taken and targeted the hospitals in particular claiming that those are hospitals have been used by Hamas to take shelter and so on and so forth. None of those have any evidence is provided to substantiate those allegations. Anyway, the point is majority of the hospitals are not functioning inside the territory and whatever hospitals are functioning they are functioning under stress. People are operated on the floor, they're operated under the mobile lights because most of the hospitals do not have fuel to run their generators, to run the power supply. Their medical equipments are not functioning so the case of the hospital, al-Shifa and other hospitals are there already there in the public domain how the babies had to be shifted from the incubators to Egypt on some other countries to kind of save their life because the incubators were not able to function because of the lack of power and because of the attack carried out by Israel on those hospitals. The fact that the health infrastructure has crumbled medical health workers whatever workers are there which are working under the international aid agencies Red Cross and Red Crescent and WHO all of them have been attacked by Israelis the ambulances have been targeted and the ambulances are not functioning as per the capacity because there is not enough fuel to basically run those ambulances so that the people who are injured under the debris cannot be transported to the hospitals whatever hospitals are there in some of the cases. So all of these basically creates a situation where the health infrastructure has completely crumbled food supply is limited medicines are supplied in a limited way there is no electricity and there is no supply of water and drinking water and even the sanitation is completely destroyed and all of this will of course lead to people are forced to live in open people are forced to live in overcrowded shelter homes which are often attacked by the Israelis so all of these of course is gradually leading to a situation where this will be a humanitarian situation cannot be kind of managed in any way if there is no ceasefire at this moment and that situation is coming any day there can be a complete collapse of whatever limited aid functions or the attempts to regulate the systems which support the people will collapse any day and therefore there is an immediate need for ceasefire in Gaza Abdul what does this situation actually imply in terms of the kind of pressure that can prevail upon Israel and upon its friends in the world like the United States and what does it mean for those who support Palestine as well where are countries standing today well a lot of countries trying to provide aid to Gaza there is only one border which is operating which is Rafa border across through Egypt and that also in a limited way because Israelis do not let that border function freely so whenever they allow the trucks to move in the trucks go otherwise the trucks are stranded in Egypt for a longer period of time so even if the countries try to send relief material that relief material is stranded in Egypt for a very long period before they actually are allowed inside Gaza so the situation in Gaza for the countries which are trying to support it of course is not conducive primarily because even if they send the relief material they are in no position to do it freely because Israel controls the borders and it has imposed a blockade the question about its impact on Israel or US which is backing the Israeli action in Gaza see ever since after the first week when Israel started bombing on October 7 the humanitarian situation was quite obvious because Israel targeted a hospital in the early days of the war which basically led to the killing of more than around 500 people Israel completely refused to acknowledge that it bombed in fact it tried to portray that Hamas was responsible for it and US backed it so the humanitarian situation is very well known to Israelis and the US but they apart from expressing concern the US about the growing humanitarian situation in Gaza they have not done anything concrete to resolve it even the aid supply which is now allowed is not because Israeli wanted to do it it was basically a compromise between the US and Israel as a space saving mechanism to basically let some kind of aid flow in so that their attempts to kind of defend their act has greater legitimacy that they are not actually targeting the civilians and the civilian casualties or their humanitarian situation is basically a collateral damage and so on and so forth but if you see the Israeli politics domestic politics even those 100 trucks every day one should remember that before the war started every day minimum of 500 trucks used to pass different borders into Gaza to basically provide the basic amenities services food and so on for 2.2 million Palestinians there as I said before they are heavily dependent on imports after the war for almost for one and a half month very few number of trucks passed inside Gaza because Israel imposed blockade and the fact they knew the impact of it did not stop them from implementing that for even after the truth was broken of early this month the point I'm trying to make is within the domestic Israeli politics there is a resistance to this limited concession of aid flowing in inside Gaza and they claim the Israeli politicians claim that this aid will be used by Hamas to basically strengthen themselves and to kind of gain legitimacy and so on so we should not allow any aid to flow inside Gaza so Israelis are not bothered about it in fact they want to make it much more worse for the Palestinians because they think that may ultimately lead to achieving their whatever is a stated goal to of course what Palestinians say that this is an attempt to force Palestinian out of Gaza because if we make the situation desperate they will have no other option but to move out from that territory and that basically is the stated objective of Israel and from the Israeli point of view it will kind of create a kind of legitimacy crisis for the Hamas because Hamas will be held responsible by the Palestinian failure of kind of putting them into this kind of situation so there is a political calculation behind not allowing enough aid to Gaza by the Israelis and therefore they do not have the humanitarian situation unfolding that hardly has any impact on Israel that is where we can understand the statements by some Israeli officials that well you know even after two months even if the war ends after two months the attacks will be exactly the logic behind it in fact one should remember if you what the statements made by the Israeli defense minister in the early weeks when the war started that we are dealing with human animals inside Gaza and they will be treated as such so when you basically dehumanize Palestinians when you think that putting Palestinians in a particular condition where they become desperate to kind of go against their own situation basically is the strategy to kind of deal with whatever problems they identify in Gaza one will be clear about the overall situation overall orientation with which the Israelis are operating inside Palestine or inside Gaza it sounds like a very bleak situation which doesn't have an immediate end inside is that what people are saying people whose reports you are all reading and is that the general opinion today that this is a conflict whose end we cannot see it one is looking at what is happening in Gaza and kind of reducing it to the events related to October 7 and onwards of course there will always be a kind of hope that okay when Hamas is quote unquote eliminated there will be some kind of peace in fact some of them have argued in public domain and comparing it with other situations in the world that where the quote unquote terrorist organizations were eliminated and hence though during the process some people died this is a very myopic vision to what is happening in Gaza of course what happened on October 7 has a context as we earlier talked about it that the context is the occupation of Palestine by the Israelis if not from 1948 at least from 1967 when Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem were captured by the Israelis and these are the occupied territories and until that occupation remains in force remains a reality the Palestinians in one way or another will always resisted they have been resisting since 1967 and Israel will always try to portray that resistance as terrorism or something that to its existence and so on and therefore this cycle will continue so if one is really worried about the peace in Palestine the only solution is that they are an independent Palestinian state or in other words end of occupation until Israel is ready to acknowledge that fact there is no peace in the region what Israelis are saying of course they are not very willing to accept this particular fact acknowledge this particular fact and therefore they are ready to live with it that's what the statement means when they say even if there is a end of the current level of hostility aggression after two months that will not be the end against end of the operations inside Gaza they are basically not ready for peace at the moment and because that would mean they have to acknowledge the Palestinians right to self-determination they have to acknowledge their occupation the illegitimacy of it they have to withdraw the settlements from the inside West Bank they have to withdraw all kind of water controls which they have imposed on Gaza they have to withdraw from East Jerusalem they have to and there are other issues which have been much more complex history so until that history is resolved one should not expect even if Israel does not want it even if Israel wants to kind of create an end of hostility there will be no end of war in that region there will be no peace until there is an independent Palestinian state and one should remember that when one is talking about the end of the current war or end of the killing of the Palestinian citizens because that did not start on October 7th and that will not end after two months until there is an independent Palestinian state Alright Abdul thanks very much for joining us once again