the us is really genocidal war is moving full steam ahead, even though there are true stocks underway, reports have also surfaced about israel's post onslaught plans which has been rejected by the pa for example and even by the us. w in this edition of the spotlight we will look at where this aggression is leading and whether israel is buying time by not agreeing to truths and thinking that it can defeat hamas. meanwile international condemnation against the us and israel continues due to the genocidal onslot. first let me introduce our guests for this edition of the spotlight. independent journalist joins us from damascus. also

i'll start with you, let's look at what is happening on the ground, number of casualties have been reported, you have this example that i'm stating is really jets targeted area in raffa for example, you have also 24 people to have been murdered in gaza's bala region, what happened to the icj ruling that said that a genocide is in the works here and that israel needs to take steps. secure basic humanitarian needs and to prevent uh civilian casualties? well, i mean, historically, israel has been given the opportunity to basically investigate itself, to investigate its own crimes and naturally to provide justification for those crimes, and really to a a degree this icj ruling, although it has huge advantages in some ways, was never going to bring a halt to... ongoing genocide and

and asking israel to comply with the genocide convention to investigate itself to to um to keep the evidence of any genocidal acts and to provide a report um after one month and i believe that that one month is is um coming up and i saw a report in the times of israel just before i came on saying that they were preparing the report to basically as i said demonstrate that they're not committing genocide, while um, on an almost minute by minute basis, we're seeing the mass ethnic cleansing, the destruction of essential infrastructure, the uh imposition of famin and starvation by the prevention of any kind of humanitarian relief, and when the trickle of humanitarian relief does get in, for example in northern gaza, those trying to reach the trucks. with any kind of

humanitarian aid or food supplies are being fired on by israeli tanks and snipers. um, so you know, this this is there can't be a clearer case of of, even it it appears to be more than genocide, there needs to be a stronger word. this is, this is just massacer on on unheard of scale. well, uh, we need to discuss this just a little bit more here before we go to other topics. alberto, um, watson and that is uh the fact that you having unra for example uh citing a collapse of social order, you have uh the israely attacks that it has cited um and restrictions on food aid uh leaving the population starved, these are all hallmarks of obviously uh what's uh crimes against humanity are are taking place. um do you think that uh there's a concerted effort for israel to do what it's doing and what aims and goals does it have behind that but definitely what we see here

is a net clingsing project from israel with the support to the united states and some other allies here in in europe, they're trying to just get rid of all the population and the gass of strip by concentrating them a in specific areas where the supposedly should be saved uh with this should find a save heaven and eventually they find themselves ' under the bombardment all the israeli forces, the israelis are intending definitely to get the population of gasa outside the gas strip and they pretending eventually perform what they called voluntary immigration to a different territory that would be egypt which is actually not collaborating with the... by

uh most probably allowing them to come into a strip that is between the border between gazah and and eventually keeping them there, so uh, not to prevent them from getting killed by the israeli forces, but preventing them from entering the egyptian nation. what we see here is basically, and in the eyes of everyone in the rest of the world, as an ethnic clingsing, they're trying to get them out of the land uh, and what they call actually voluntary immigration, but it's nothing else but nackball repeated from 1948, but with a dimension of a bigger amount of people, where the actually starving the people to death, they starving children, hundreds of thousands of children that if

they're not dying under the bombardment of the israeli forces the dying of a starvation of diseases, belly, let's move to now this post war plans that were announced by uh, the prime minister netanjahu. what do you make of it? i mean, we're looking at first of all, what comes in terms of this um invision uh or vision that uh pm netanyahu has, control over gaza, control over the security uh situation. um, it it almost sounds like uh, these types of suggestions are meant uh for there to be a rejection in order for the um onslot to continue. i'm maybe reading too much into it that way, well no, i mean this is a completely unrealistic suggestion, for one thing, i think there was one doctor that had been in gaza over christmas, so december to january, he was talking about it taking maybe

um two to three decades to be able to rebuild gaza, but not even talking about the the kind of um the the reconstruct. construction of the buildings themselves, you can't reconstruct history for one thing, um, but also how do you reconstruct the trauma and the damage, the psychological damage to 2.2 million people, huge majority of them under the age of 20 years, and many of them children, that have endered months now of of some of the most unprecedented violence and savagery and brutality from the zinest entity to the... talk about basically military occupation of the gazer enclave, a removal of all weapons from the resistance, which by the way is the right to armed resistance is enshrined in international law, so that's another international law violation, um, and

then to talk about the removal um of hamas all together, and the imposition again of of a zionist aligned uh form of governance in gaza, um, the removal of the palestinian authority, etc., this is, this is totally unrealistic, it's a par with asking or forcing hezballah to move uh, from southern lebanon to north of the latane river, it's never going to happen, so yes, you're absolutely right, i think, um, in believing that this is so unrealistic that it's never going to be accepted by the palestinian. resistance or by the entire resistance access, the rejection of a palestinian state by israel also is another point that stands out, alberto watson, and uh, you know, when you take a look at that, it goes flat in the face of what the us has said and other countries, uh, and and the eu for that

matter, um, if if we can put that in there, uh, so the question comes about is, first of all, the amount of influence that the us has, which everyone says, the us can stop this genocide if it wants to, the us has... that much influence and power over israel, but we're looking at uh that stance. uh, of course there are also countries like the islamic republic that say, let the resistance continue until there are grounds made for um referendum to take place, which uh iran believes that is the route to go. uh, but what do you make of the fact that netanyahu's rejection of palestinian state goes against the us? well, actually, the... um sinus entity and never had in in in their plants the possibility of the creation of a state of palestine as a matter of fact since bangurion the first prime minister of israel had

already expresses determination of a great israel which actually have borders starting from the nail. river in egypt going all the way to the euphratus river in iraq uh it never actually um program, the possibility that ever would be a possibility of the creation of a palestinian state, it was never there even when jisak rabin signed the osla courts together with arafat in 1993 at the white house together with bill clinton, afterwards shortly after design. uh expressed that it was no way that israel was going to

accept the presence of a palestinian state next to the israeli state, this this was always a morgana, it was always a kind of dream or kind of carrot that you were put in in front of a donkey where uh this was a possibility. see that it was never to happen and the united states is using actually the same method, now is coming out with the two-state solution when the united states has never ever made anything possible implement two state solution since the oslu accords in 1993 till today over a 70% of increase of the expansion of settlements of settlements only for jews and palestinian territories for

taking place uh, just once in december of 20 16 uh was that the united states a abstain of resolution where actually the united nations were trying to prevent the israelis for expanding. their uh settlements in palestinian territories, but actually that was just symbolic, the israeli settlements represent the possibility of annexation of palestinian territories to uh the israely entity, and that's the way that they concluded is the possibility for them to keep on annexing all the palestinian territories uh to the greater israel, that's the way that they see it, well. v correct me if i'm wrong and i think uh uh what you said before uh i'm not correct to conclude that uh many don't

realize that the us as uh supposed to to have been an impartial mediator has been exactly the opposite prolonged uh this situation to the point that we've reached right now and uh has allowed israel to expand for example as our guess there mentioned uh settlements so it's not an impartial mediator but my question to you then is what is the us goal uh over here um i think i asked you that before but does it want this uh genocidal war to continue in the hopes that it may uh with all the weapons and military equipment that is providing israel to defeat hamas, which again many not only within israel but from the outside are saying that that's just an impossibility. well, it's an impossibility to defeat hamas, because hamas is is not only hamas, there are 17 resistance factions in gaza alone, it it's an ideology, and and you can't defeat an ideology. "this is the point, resistance is literally ingrained in the dna of every single palestinian and every single

um people of nations that have been living under neocolonialist aggression um and savagery and economic sanctions just as iran has of course um and i i think for me the clearest statement that demonstrates how the us is is aligned with israel and..." and how israel serves the us supremacist agenda is uh when robert f kennedy junior said very clearly that israel was essential to the united states to prevent the independence of the global south, the freedom of the global south and to prevent the rise of russia and china and the multi-polar world that would squeeze the us out of the control of global uh commodities, including oil, gas, etc. and so therefore israel itself is essential to

the united states and to the countries that are aligned with the united states, the palestinians to to a degree stand in the way of israel's security and israel's supremacy in the region, and as joab galan, the war minister said before december, before christmas, they have to have victory in the middle east in order to survive. so what we're seeing is the us tacitly supporting palestinian genocide, but actually not so tacitly, because by supplying the weapons, by cutting off funding to ara. "they now come into the line of fire for actually uh not only being complicit in the zionist genocide, but also committing genocide themselves. uh, taking a look at the other motivation and incentive that the us has uh, which is quite evident in the statements made there by blinken, alberto watson, if you agree, is the fact that it seems like the us is pushing for

this so-called normalization to happen between uh israel and uh saudi." and it's banking on that, but in the context of a palestinian state, so there comes another inconsistency here between the israeli vision and the us vision that perhaps stands in the way of that. what do you make of the us approach, which i'm guessing behind closed doors, it may even be a condition or precondition that the us perhaps is uh posing in this scenario if you agree, definitely saudi arabia is not gna um conclude normalization of relations with with israel as long as we don't find a solution for the palestinian uh chapter uh they made it very very clear that as long as there is no um a

uh sovereign uh recognition of the palestinian state internationally. recognize uh there would not be definitely a recognition in this relations and the normalization of relations between israel and saudi arabia, but saudi arabia, however and israel has had a long term of negotiations in the past, and at at this point is very difficult to to see if really definitely is unknown is unsincere. uh relation between the palestinian cause and the saudi arabian sort of complex and compromise of sticking to these what i think that is a compromise for the palestinian cause before starting on

normalizing relations with israel i see that saudi arabia. it's not going to fall into the israeli and north american pressure of it starting relations with israel as long as the israel is on complient to international law and does not recognize palestinian state which actually is is in the israeli agenda something that is completely out of out of the question for them because they're not they're not willing to accept. the possibility of a palestinian state, so saudi arabia, i, i'm not very, very sure that they actually trying to pressurize israel or the united states to uh start negotiations and in order to get first the troops out of the gaza strip to stop the genocide and eventually to

start talks with the palestinian national authority. to be able to find a possibility of recognizing the palestinian state before uh recognition or anormalization of relations between israel and saudi arabia. all right, billy, um, let's change gears a little bit. there was a report that came out about four or five days ago that uh said the israeli gdp contraction for the last three months of the quarter of the previous year uh was around the 19.4%. that's a lot uh the estimates has started at uh one point uh to have been given 1%. have moved up to 10% and then here we are, almost 20%, just like other uh announcements uh like the daily cost, which was around 190 million to 200, and it's up to $269 million. i think it gives the impression that the situation is much worse than what we really can uh see from the reports. how bad do you think israel is suffering economically

where it needs to really worry about it to the point that if you think it poses an existential threat to it maybe? yeah, it certainly does. i mean, israel is effectively imploding. you've got a situation of lack of security in in the northern occupied territories, uh, where more than 200 thousand settlers have been forced to, illegal settlers have been forced to evacuate. you have a situation, where the threat of a war with heizballah has actually been described in 130 page report that was reviewed by uh israely media in the last 10 days um that this report was compiled over three years and it highlights the incredible economic impact of a war with... unwinnable war with hezballah and that's according to uh zionist uh military officers and commanders who contributed to the research for the report,

so that's one thing, but the other thing and which is incredibly important, what country now is going to invest in israel, um, certainly not russia or china, none of the global global south countries, india must be reviewing the the economic. or that was talked about by netanyahu prior to october the 7th, because you you're looking a country that is committing a genocide that is massacring really tens of thousands of people, the majority of which are women and children, not only in gaza but also in the west bank, where now even in the 48 territories where palestinians have israeli passports, they're not going to be allowed to go and pray at. some mosk during ramadan, so you're seeing if you like, a withdrawal of interest from much of the world from dealing with israel, and that might not be visible

right now, but in the future it's going to have a tremendous impact upon the economy, settlers, illegal settlers must be leaving israel out of fear of escalation from any of the resistance factions um, from uh southern lebanon, from palestine. self from inside syria, iraq, yemen, uh, etc. very well, we're going to have to end it there. thank you very much. vanessa beely, independent journalist, uh, spoke to us from damascus, and alberto garcia watson, thank you. activist and political analyst from malaga, spain. thank you to you both. with that we come to an end for this edition of the spotlight. in the team, it's goodbye.

palestine has risen from the ashes, the nation has gone a long way in its struggle against the occupation regime of israel, from throwing stones to flying drones. but who can deny iran's decades long support in this arduous journey. this is my land and my country, it is not

only the 1948 or 1967 borders from the sea to the river, i am not ready to let go of a centimeter. israel is here like any for by the support of the europe, by the support of the united states. that's why they separate the land, well i was at the babel shams protest last week and uh i myself had a my head banged against a bus by soldier illegally on illegal stolen land and they are arresting us the palestinians, this is historical palace. this

time, i believe that working together we can make history.

your headlines on press tv: 141 days after the start of the us israely genocide in gaza, the killing and destruction campaign against palestinians continues with the... death toll nearing 30,000. iran's leaderslam's west hypocrisy regarding the ongoing bloodshed in gaza, condemning the us for repeatedly violating un resolutions to stop the onslot. and israel's aggression on gaza continues to cast the regime with more boycots, now four norwegian universities have cut ties with israeli universities.