- Israeli attacks on Gaza have resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and a total siege on the area
- Palestinian fighters have also killed hundreds of Israelis
- Gaza is facing a humanitarian catastrophe with no access to electricity, food, water, or fuel
- The blockade has been in place for 17 years, leading to a humanitarian and economic crisis
- The siege is in violation of international law and is leading to starvation, which is a crime against humanity
- The strategic goal of the siege, according to Israeli officials, is to commit mass atrocities
- The situation has been given the green light by the United States and other countries around the world
- The actions of both sides are not justified under international law and are causing significant harm to civilians.

- The speaker is worried about the ongoing siege in Gaza, which has been normalized by Israel and the international community.
- There are concerns about a possible demographic change in Gaza and calls for a second mass expulsion of Palestinians.
- The Israeli military claims to be making targeted strikes on Hamas, but the speaker argues that the civilian population is being targeted.
- The lack of accountability for Israel's actions and the continued occupation are seen as major factors contributing to the current situation.
- The speaker emphasizes the need for holding Israel accountable and addressing the root cause of the conflict.

- The discussion focuses on the Israeli government's history of erasing Palestinian villages and towns as a solution to the conflict
- The main concern is the gradual establishment of an apartheid system by the so-called moderate Israeli leaders
- There is fear of a mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt due to Israeli actions
- The goal of Israel is to have an extended occupation with little cost to its security and reputation
- The Palestinian Authority has lost support and relevance, and there is a call for resistance to military occupation
- The political options proposed include negotiating a truce, reinforcing humanitarian aid, and devising a plan to end the occupation in the medium term.

Hundreds of civilian casualties in Gaza due to Israeli attacks
Palestinian fighters have killed hundreds of Israelis
Gaza is facing a humanitarian catastrophe with no access to basic necessities
17-year blockade leading to humanitarian and economic crisis
Siege in violation of international law, leading to starvation
Green light given by US and other countries
Both sides' actions unjustified under international law, causing harm to civilians
Concerns about demographic change and mass expulsion of Palestinians
Israeli military targeting civilian population, lack of accountability
Need to hold Israel accountable and address root cause of conflict
Fear of establishment of apartheid system by Israeli leaders
Goal of extended occupation with minimal cost to Israel
Call for resistance to military occupation and political options proposed

Hundreds of civilians killed and injured in Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
The government declares a total siege - fighting what it calls 'human animals'.
Earlier, hundreds of Israelis were killed by Palestinian fighters.
Why has politics failed so badly?
What's next - for both sides?

Presenter: Sami Zeidan 

Guests: 

Francesca Albanese - United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Diana Buttu - a lawyer and the former spokeswoman for the Palestine Liberation Organization

Gideon Levy - a columnist at the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, and author of 'The Punishment of Gaza'

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Hundreds of civilians killed and injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The government declares a total siege, fighting what it calls human animals.

Earlier, hundreds of Israelis killed by Palestinian fighters.

Gaza's people living in terror under the most intense bombing campaign Israel has ever launched against 1 of the world's most densely populated areas.

Meanwhile, more bodies are being recovered in southern Israel after Hamas fighters attacked an all-night party.

Israeli settlements and a kibbutz were targeted.

Israel has announced a complete blockade of Gaza, meaning its 2.3 million people face a humanitarian catastrophe, perhaps worse than before.

Years of Israeli occupation and siege have left more than half the population in poverty, lacking essential goods and dependent on aid.

Israel's Defense Minister, a member of the mainstream Likud party and not its far-right coalition partners described the siege strategy, referring to the Palestinians they're fighting, as animals.

I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip.

There's no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, complete closure we're fighting human animals and react accordingly

the impact on gardens of such attitudes from mainstream Harvard educated Israeli politicians is death injury and deprivation our reporter Jamila Abuzan Nuna is in Gaza City She sent us some insight into what life is like there now.

Today marks the fourth day of the Israel-Gaza war that has started Saturday morning after the infiltration of the Palestinian military groups into the Israeli settlements.

As a retaliation, the Israeli army has launched many raids on the Gaza Strip on residential houses, towers, and mosques as well.

It has also resulted in the death of many people, hundreds of people, thousands of casualties and thousands of displaced people into the hospitals and on our schools.

As there has been no safe place in Gaza anymore, there also has been a cut in power, fuel, water and food.

This leaves us with a complete siege with no anticipations of what's going to happen and the couple in the next couple of days or hours as we have been with the cigarette now many ambulances reaching Al-Shifa Hospital with tens of people from the south of Gaza.

Gaza has been under Israeli blockade for almost 17 years, forcing its people into a humanitarian and economic crisis.

It's 1 of the most densely populated areas in the world.

A narrow strip of land between Israel and Egypt about twice the size of Washington DC but with triple the population.

About two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are refugees.

They live in 8 camps and are dependent on UN assistance.

Palestinians in the besieged enclave live in cramped conditions in tight quarters making them vulnerable to Israeli strikes.

Well let's bring our guests into the show we have joining us from Tunis Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

In Haifa, Israel is Diana Butto, a lawyer and former spokeswoman for the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

And in Tel Aviv, Gideon Levy, a columnist at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and the author of The Punishment of Gaza.

You know, Diana, how common, I was thinking, how rare is it in modern political discourse to hear a government minister openly vowing to starve a population of food, water, electricity and fuel?

Well actually this isn't at all new for Israel.

The siege that Israel is now tightening has actually been in place now for 17 years, and actually much, much, much longer than that, if you look at the system of closure.

The problem, of course, is that Israelis have gotten used to this process of dehumanizing Palestinians.

We heard as much yesterday when he called Palestinians human animals.

And the fact that he gets to do so with complete impunity, it's this that has led to the events of this past week, that somehow they believe that they can do whatever they want to Palestinians, and that history only began on Saturday, discounting

years of military occupation, discounting 56 years of what they saw over the course of the past 48 hours being meted out against Palestinians for 56 years.

This was a territory, obviously, Gaza has been under siege for 56 years according to international law.

It has, sorry, under occupation for 56 years.

But now what Israeli officials are talking about is total siege and restricting, not just restricting, stopping completely the flow of very basic vitals of life.

And so what they're now gearing up to, I want to put it in its context so that people understand this is not new, but they are intensifying it.

And the whole point is that what they want to do is commit mass atrocities.

And sadly, they're being given the green light by the United States and by other countries around the world.

Let me move to Francesca and ask this question.

The obvious 1 that comes to mind Francesca is how does this sit with international law?

It doesn't It's completely outside what is permitted under international law and this is in fact Sounds like a broken record but this is the trajectory that I've been following in my observations and documentations of the reality on the ground and my predecessors as well.

Let me add something on this blockade of the blockade.

What it's leading to is starvation, which is a crime against humanity under international law.

And it will be criminally, it should be criminally prosecuted.

Francesca, let me jump in and present to you perhaps the Israeli perspective, at least of those who support this far-right government.

Does witnessing crimes that took place in killing Israeli civilians at all sit with the right to quote-unquote as they put it self-defense that we are defending ourselves and we have a legal right to defend ourselves by imposing this complete siege starving the population of food, water, electricity and fuel.

Can that be justified under international

No, no, because self-determination, sorry, self-defense of a state is not a basis for justifying actions that constitute crimes or other serious violations of international law, especially in the context of hostilities.

There are limits and in the cycle of every attack, the principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality must be taken, not just during the entire operation.

Per each attack, civilians cannot be targeted and civilian infrastructure cannot be targeted, which is not what is happening and it is not what has happened in the previous 5 wars that Israel has launched against Gaza since

OK, let me bring Gideon into the discussion.

Gideon, obviously I know that you do not subscribe to the far right wing of Israeli politics, but from your understanding of the Israeli body politic that's in power right now, what do you think is the strategic thinking, the strategic goal of saying we're going to stop all food, water, electricity and fuel going into Gaza?

When it comes to Gaza, when it comes to the apartheid, when it comes to the occupied territories, to the occupation, the differences between the far right wing and the so-called central left are mine or if at all.

So before we get into your question, let's not label it on the right-wing government, because I guess A central left government would react right now in the position in this context that we are now.

A central left government would have reacted exactly the same, including this total siege.

This total siege is not what worries me because this total siege cannot last for long.

Because in a certain stage people will start to starve in Gaza and Israel will not stand scenes of starvation, and the world then will say a word about opening a humanitarian corridor and having some humanitarian ceasefire.

The problem is 17 years of a non-total siege in which we all normalized it.

But the ongoing siege is totally normalized by Israel, by the international community, by everyone.

And then everyone is so astonished and shocked when the Palestinians are taking very brutal, I would even say barbarian measures, to put an end to it.

Diana, when we put this statement by the Israeli Minister of Defence about cutting off all food, fuel, water to Gaza, alongside in the context of what the Israeli Prime Minister has been talking about, about taking action that will change the Middle East, telling Palestinians to get out of Gaza.

Do you start to have some concern about whether there is thinking, Israeli thinking here, about demographic change in Gaza is on the table.

Oh yes, oh yes absolutely and people are now calling for a second Nakba, a second mass expulsion of Palestinians, a second ethnic cleansing And this is where we're gearing up.

Look, it's not that far of a stretch when you hear the statements that have been ongoing, not just over the course of the past few days, but that have been ongoing now for decades by this prime minister and by other Israeli officials, in which they say that it's time to get rid of Palestinians, that they have to finish the job of 1948.

When you hear that, you juxtapose it with the statements by Yoav Galant, who just came out yesterday calling us human animals and juxtapose it with the statement by Netanyahu saying that people should leave even though there's no place for them to go because they've closed off the Gaza Strip.

What we're really gearing up to see is mass atrocities, the mass expulsion of Palestinians or the mass

Let me jump in as well and put to you the Israeli narrative that we hear from the Israeli military that they are making targeted strikes, they say, on Hamas quarters, military installations in Gaza.

This is not mass targeting of the civilian population.

And so that any strike on Gaza to them is a justification for targeting Hamas.

About 50 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip is under the age of 18.

They've lived their entire lives only knowing the siege.

And yet the world still continues to behave as though it's business as usual.

And as Gideon said, the siege, the blockade has become totally normalized.

The suffering of Palestinians has become totally normalized, the dehumanization of Palestinians has reached peak levels such that we're not allowed to even respond back to what Israel has done to us for 56 years.

All right let me bring Gideon back into this.

Can the Israeli government change the Middle East, as Netanyahu was vowing, without launching a very serious ground offensive?

Is that really ultimately what we're looking at?

I'm sure that you are not asking this seriously because it's ridiculous.

Because Israel is using the same threats and the same methods that it used so many times and failed to reach anything so many times.

I'm ready to put aside the moral question.

I'm ready to put aside the legal question.

I mean, you asked before about the strategic goal.

The only strategic goal that Israelis can have in mind is getting rid of the Palestinians in 1 way or the other.

Do you think that's what Some policy makers, at least in Israel, are really contemplating right now, at least in terms of Gaza, that they can really, if not get rid, but shift the Palestinian population somehow in Gaza, away from the border?

Why would we guess if people, including ministers, said it clearly?

When they say about total bombarding of Gaza, what will remain in Gaza after it will be totally bombarded?

Perhaps, Francesca, for those who might not survive this, right?

Listening to what the WHO said only a matter of hours ago about how all the medicine, the medical supplies that they have pre-positioned have already run out.

What kind of humanitarian situation are we heading to and how quickly will it emerge if people don't have some of the basics like medicine, food, fuel or even water as the Israeli Defense Minister was vowing to cut off to Gaza?

Definitely the risks are immense and therefore also the concern.

We are not talking of a normal situation that all of a sudden is cut off from the rest of the world.

Gaza was already severely depleted and compromised before the 7th of October.

And again, I share Diana and Gideon's dismay at the normalization of this situation and at the poor action, because the blockade in itself constitutes already a war crime, a form of collective punishment.

And what is going to come to happen next without essential supplies, food, medicines, and water or electricity?

People are going to die and the wounded will not be able, sorry, the hospitals will not be able to cure the wounded and there will be diseases spreading.

Already people from Gaza are fearing cholera, which will happen with all the destruction of civilian infrastructure and impossibility to cure the wounded.

Diana, if we look closer at the politics of this, how have we reached this point in terms of complete failure of the political process and the political systems?

The first is that there was a lot of emphasis on negotiations and somehow two-state solution rather than focusing on the problem, which is military occupation and the denial of freedom and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

But then beyond that, it's that there has never been in place a system of accountability regarding Israel's actions.

My friend, your colleague, Shirin Abu Aghli, is just 1 example.

She was assassinated on May the 11th of last year, and today nobody has been held to account for that.

And there are thousands of Shittians that are out there where Israel has never been held to account.

So in the mindset of Israelis, this just becomes a system in which they can do whatever it is that they want to do and Let

You're right a lot of international organizations have documented killings of what they considered to be extrajudicial killings of not only journalists and civil society workers, but other Palestinians or members of the Palestinian population and they say very clearly there's a lack of accountability.

Let me present to you though the Israeli narrative and they would say what has paralyzed the political process is what they call terrorism by these Palestinian groups that they keep practicing targeting of civilians and attacks on civilians as the likes of which we've just seen sadly few days ago and so many people lost their lives.

You know this is again trying to flip things on its head.

Israel is doing the occupying, and Palestinians are resisting and trying to obtain their freedom.

And if they don't like the response, which is violence, then they have to get to the root of it, which is occupation.

But that's the problem, is that everybody keeps flipping it on its head, demanding that there be a peaceful occupation.

And even then, Israel doesn't do anything.

So I think, rather than the world blaming the victims, being the Palestinians, they should be looking at themselves and asking themselves, how is it that we've left this system in place now for such a long period of time?

How is it that in 2023, We're still talking about the denial of freedom.

How is it that this system is still in place and is now apartheid?

We need to have adults who are gonna come forward and hold Israel accountable.

Without that, Israel continue to do whatever it wants and Dehumanize Palestinians in the process and then be shocked when there is a response

Gideon I know you said earlier that you don't see there's a lot of difference right now in the thinking between the far right and I think the centre-left was what you were talking about.

When you look back at the statements of people in the Israeli government like the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smoczric, his call in March for Palestinian villages like Hawara to be erased.

Is there something of a history in the thinking, at least in that branch of Israeli body politics, about population change, erasing villages, erasing towns, as a solution, as a policy option?

So far, Israel is doing it slowly, slowly, very gradually.

But in the last months and even in former governments, people were uprooted from their lands, people were uprooted from their homes, from their properties.

And the silent wish was that if we'll tyrannize their lives badly enough, they might decide 1 day to leave.

No doubt that the rhetoric of those fascists who would answer the definition of neo-Nazis, would they be Europeans like Bezalel Smotrych and Ben-Gurion, those, no doubt that their rhetoric is really by far more extreme than the more civilized rhetoric of the center-left.

But by the end of the day, the real danger is from the so-called moderate ones, because they put the basic and They established the occupation.

And they're establishing now the apartheid system.

And they do it softly, or relatively softly, and therefore they are much more destructive because nobody gets against them.

They do so-called normal things, you know, that the silent majority is supporting, both in Israel and in the world, while the extremists at least create some kind of alarm.

So we should concentrate on the mainstream of Israel.

Francesca, if we, if Israeli statesmen who are making statements like total siege, total bombing, if that is carried out, might we see a situation in which pressure will mount maybe on Egypt to open up their border and we witness some kind of mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt?

Well this is what I understand is 1 of the possible scenarios because this is what Israel, There have been statements by Israeli officials in this sense, and the response by Egypt challenging this.

But what it seems to me is that the measures taken, including the bombing of the Rafah crossing, hints to an intention to really starve and kill the people who are inside the Gaza Strip now.

Of course, Palestinians fear that the threat of a second Nakba, which wouldn't be really a second because there have been so many instances of displacement, including we shouldn't forget that in

So it's been an ongoing forced displacement for them.

But of course, they fear that under threat, they will be forcibly displaced and never allowed to return even to the little and to the misery they have been confined to in Gaza.

Gideon, I know we talked a moment ago about what is the strategic thinking.

Can we talk at least a bit about what is the broader goal?

Is the calculus or is the broader goal here to try and return to a situation where you can have an occupation, an extended occupation, with little cost to Israel's security, to its reputation.

To get back to that kind of scenario, is that what's being targeted?

Israel would like to live in peace and security without any connection to what it's been doing both in Gaza and in the West Bank.

I mean, let us occupy, let us create an apartheid system, let us kill civilians, Let us uproot them from their lands.

If you will behave yourselves, we will offer you the economical peace.

Namely, we will bribe you with some money, some aid, and everyone will be happy.

The Palestinians said on Saturday, not the first time, but in the most brutal and barbarian way, the Palestinians said on Saturday, this is not enough and this cannot last forever.

Diana, since we're talking about changing calculuses, Has the calculus changed for internal Palestinian politics, especially the PA after the events, the recent events we're seeing?

Look, it's been changing for a while because we've increasingly seen that the Palestinian Authority has lost all support, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

We are, of course, seeing that more and more people recognize that there needs to be resistance to military occupation.

And the Palestinian Authority has done absolutely nothing to protect Palestinians or to even offer an alternative.

So yes, the calculation has completely changed now within the mindset of Palestinians, so much so that Abu Mazen, Mahmoud Abbas, who was irrelevant before, has been made even more irrelevant now.

Francesca, what other political options going forward do you think in this kind of very bleak scenario?

And again, without, I know that this is something that might sound strong, but while there is a right to resist an oppressive regime, And the Palestinians have been under oppressive regime for decades now.

It's also, there is an imperative to remind ourselves that mass killing is not justified.

So I would like to take the fact, I mean, Saturday as an example not to follow.

Now, in terms of what are the political options, I will tell you what I would recommend, because there is nothing that is really being put on the table by the main policy makers other than one-sided support and violence and armed responses.

So I think that first of all it's fundamental to negotiate a truce with immediate cessation of hostilities, the release of the hostages but also the other persons, the Palestinians.

But Francesca 1 could argue we've gone through this so many times haven't we in conflicts and they start all over again.

This is just the first step, this is just the first step.

The second is reinforcing humanitarian aid and then forming a UN task force to ensure, sorry to monitor truce but also to ensure a protective presence of the Palestinians and others on the ground.

Because, and again, this has always been put aside.

In the longer term, I mean, in medium term, what is need to be devised is a plan to end the occupation, but not in years.

It needs to start to be discussed now and not envisaging the realisation of Palestinian self-determination and freedom once the peace process is achieved because this is like kicking the can in the air frankly.

All right there's plenty more I'm sure that we could discuss we'll have to leave it there for now let's thank our guests Francesca Albanese, Diana Butto and Gideon Levy.

And thank you 2 for watching you can visit the show again anytime by heading over to our website aljazeera.com for further discussion go to our Facebook page that's facebook.com forward slash AJ inside story you can also join the conversation on X formerly known as Twitter you might remember our handle there is at AJ inside story from me Sammy Zaydan and the whole team here, for now, it's goodbye.

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