as hundreds of people have marked. hello and welcome, i'm gisumi shah ahmedi and you're watching the spotlight. israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid for the gaza strip may amount to a war crime. now those are the words of the un human rights chief. this as the european union's top diplomat also on monday accused israel of using starvation as a weapon of war by preventing humanitarian aid from reaching gaza. now in this addition, we will be discussing what

this actually means from humanitarian point of view to legal issue. and in order to do that, i am joined by danielle yagich who was joining us from beirot, and also paul ladory, co-founder of the free palestine movement, joining us live from berkeley. let's begin with our guest from beirot, mr. yagich. uh the uh international, the integrated food security phase classification, the ipc report released on monday says that malnutrition and food shortages have probably exceeded femine levels in northern gaza. what do we mean by exceeding femine levels, because i believe for us and most of our viewers, femin itself is the extreme. yeah, i mean it is of catastrophic ' even think about what a

situation in gaza must be like now six months into this genocide, and of course we need to keep in mind that in addition to what the israeli regime has been conducting for the past half year and using starvation now as a method of war, um, the context before october 7 uh was awful in gaza as well, um, i mean the un and human rights organizations have in a previous decade warrant that uh gaza would uh be uninhabitable at the beginning of this um decade, so the current is really genocide of course adds even more to um a situation in which the population had already ready been under a siige for many years and under a volcade and it's very difficult to imagine what the outcome of all of this will be because starvation now is added as an additional form of warfare in addition to um the bombings. and uh killings of palestinian

in so many different ways as we have seen being live streamed actually by the perpetrator the israel regime for the past half year. okay, let's bring in mr. paul ladore. mr. ladure, we've been hearing the word may too often. this may be considered a war crime, it may be considered a genocide. why are officials refraining from clearly stating that uh using uh food and starvation as a weapon against palestinians is a war crime and what israel doing, what israel is are doing, there is a genocide? well, diplomats and un officials uh are always overly cautious, uh, they want to wait until something like the international court of justice or the icc or some official body uh declares, uh that this is in fact the case,

they defer to other authorities to verify uh what they say in cautious terms publicly. but the fact is everybody knows this, in fact the israelis have not been hiding it at all, the their public officials have been advocating the use of um of disease exposure that is uh exposure to the elements by destroying the homes of palestinians and starvation and uh the lack of clean water, drinking water, portable water, as means of eliminating the palestinians, they specifically have said openly and publicly that they, their intention is to eliminate the palestinians in the gaza strip, so this is this is hardly

secret, and it matters little what the the united nations officials say to it, it's happening first in the north of gaza, where delivery of aid... is its least extent and where they are eating grass and and whatever they can manage animal feed, we know all all the stories, but this is intentional, the the israeli military has been been destroying markets and warehouses full of food, they have been bombing the the farms and the animals and and everything, their intention, and why are they doing this? why are they doing this? it's because uh, when they shoot somebody or bomb somebody, they are blamed for killing them. when they starve them to death, they haven't actually touched them, have they? but their intention is, and if

they have the means, within months or however long it takes, they will starve people to death, and in fact, as we know, children. especially and the elderly and others have actually starved to death, this was predicted and it's happening, you're absolutely right, and the fact that it is being done intentionally, let's uh move back to our guests in beirot, well we do know that the icj issued a provisional ruling uh stating that humanitarian aid needs to get to the people in gaza immediately, and that provisional ruling was issued only. because it was supposed to be implemented immediately, which the israelis completely overlooked, and that itself obviously requires a ceasefire, because you can't send humanitarian aid under constant bombardment, so does this leave any room to doubt israel's

intentions as using food insecurity as a weapon against god? "there is absolutely no doubt, the israelis have been very transparent in both their goals and in the ways in which they want to achieve them, and this has been very well documented, the israeli regime for the past weeks and months has openly braged about their genocidal intentions and very clear clearly made clear that they want to remove palestinians from gaza through policies of ethnic cleansing and genus" site so um this is very clear um what is happening what we see more on the political and media discourse is that in particular the western political and media elites um including we have to to mention the european union are investing crucial efforts and providing propaganda on behalf of the

israeli regime and to basically to some extent even in the use of language conceal uh this very transparent communication that the israelis are actually providing for the entire world to see. so there is absolutely no doubt about what the israelis are intending to do, and also here, if you look at the brother historical context, this is setler colony that only works under the framework of apartide, and the movement or the ideology of zionism on which this was founded is inherently anti-indigenous, it's a colonial movement with the idea that palestine should be settled by the settlers and it's not the land of the indigenous people, and in fact if we go back... after the early writings of zionism, palestine is fantasized, as i'm quoting here, a land without a people, for people without a land and so on. so the genocidal intent is very clear in um, at least the political discourse by the israeli regime, but much more so, stretches throughout uh decades of zinanism,

and what we see now should not be a surprise, nor should there be any doubt about the intentions of the israeli regime. now that the intentions are obviously very clear, mr. laruti, and i'm sorry if i mispronounce your name at first, mr. loudi, we are using some words that... previously we would uh see them in historical texts and referring to very serious crimes to be pursued in international uh courts, are using the word war crime, are using ethnic cleansing, we're using genocide, what is the legal aspect to this matter and how far should the israelis go before we can see actually a court ruling uh to stop this? well let see a court ruling to stop this, the world court has judged on this, but the problem is that uh, there's there's very

little in the way of enforcement, and in fact the genocide convention does not uh, the the only enforcement under the genocide convention is that all the signatories of the genocide convention, meaning 153 of them, one of whom is is israel, "they are bound to do everything possible not uh to to avoid supporting the genocide, meaning removal of all arms deliveries and other types of services to the one that's committing the genocide or who is committing what can be called genocidal act actions since legally speaking the world" won't even determine that genocide takes place until after it's

happened, but nevertheless they can issue injunction as they have against anything that can be can be considered a genocidal action. now that that's the only thing is is and you have unfortunately a minority of countries that are directly enabling the genocide. most importantly the united states sending mountains, just unlimited arms with which israel can bombard the civilian population of gaza unrelentingly, and and eliminate the population one way or another, either by expelling them somehow, although there are not any..." willing cooperating countries, not egypt and not the others, but otherwise

they're not, they're not going to step back from the possibility that they might annihilate the all or most of the population of gaza, that's that's not off the table, and of course you did mention that there is a court ruling, i assume you mean those provisional measures that were issued by the icj, but um... "the israeli regime is not complying by those rulings and mr. gegic uh, if you could please tell us what are the measures that we can take to force the israeli entity to comply? yeah, that's a very good question, and i fear um there is currently no international mechanism or institution that is able or ready to hold the israeli regime." accountable simply because we can ask a question who would be able to do that, and it's at this point of course the

united states which could put an end to this genocide very easily today, but not only is the united states not willing to um end the israeli atrocities, it is even more complicit and it is enabling uh this war against palestinians, so at the end of the day palestinians are victims of a uh genocide that is being carried out by united states and by parts of the western world uh against defenseless population which is trapped in an extermination camp that gaza has become and then if we look at the international court of justice, the united nations, i mean the um the hegemony that the united states still holds or much of the world also enables the israeli regime to stand above international law and to get away with these atrocities and crimes while the rest of the world is able uh to to watch them live on television so um it is very much this um power imbalance of power that makes it very at this point as we see

impossible for um any brother intervention and at the same time we need to keep in mind the majority of the world belongs to the global south to the third world and even in the un in a general assembly there's a very clear majority uh in support of a cease fire in support of palestinian human rights but none of this can be enforced under the current uh so-called currently the so-called international community is depending on. so let's go back to mr. larudi, are there any ways to enforce these court rulings? ones issued by the icc and the icj because uh, it would seem very irrational to have an international court set up this body without having the mechanism to enforce what it rules. well, i differ to some extent with my colleague daniel, with whom i agree on almost

everything else. i think there is a way to enforce the ruling and to enforce more importantly. the will, the international will, yemen is doing it, they are reducing the flow of naval traffic through the red sea, now it's true that it's being diverted by land across the uae, saudi arabia and jordan, and it's getting into israel, but not as easily, not as well, and and at cost, in addition, some countries, and it was either this morning or yesterday that canada passed bill in parliament saying that it is not going to supply any more arms to israel, period, and other measures were included in

that, i don't have it at my fingertips, but but countries can... do that, and even the netherlands has also said it will not ships spare parts. uh, there are other are other ways that that countries can intervene. for example, they can, i know that airlifts have a and airdrops have a bad name because of the control of israel over these airdrops, but suppose the countries of the world or serious number of major... countries in the world, let's say dozen of them, decide to send without israeli controls, massive amounts of airdrops and aid into the gaza strip without flying through israeli territory, only gaza territory, and to drop a defying the the the

will of the israeli military and the airspace and basically to take over the airspace of gaza, these are these are things which are are possible, would would israel and let's say shoot down the aircraft of nations like spain and and norway and belgium, would they do that? i i don't think so, i think that there are ways and little by little countries the world are coming to adopt some... these ways, the united states is is an obstacle, but but i think even the united states will have to take some measures pretty soon, president will most likely lose if he runs in the in the fall election, he may resign

before then or decide not to run, but but there are ways that the countries of the world, if they have the will to do it, they can do it with or without the united states. you're absolutely right, and we also have the international public opinion completely shifting against israel, we are seeing demonstrations in countries that are known to be allies of the israeli regime, and interestingly we see that the people in those countries are now uh against uh israel, which shows that public opinion now today is more aware of what is happening on the ground and it is not taken by the propaganda of mainstream media and support of the israeli regime, so uh back to our guest in beirot, um, do you think that public opinion can all actually bring about some kind of a change?

yeah, i think it remains to be seen in a long run, to what extent the ship and... opinion or the very visible demonstrations that we see, including in western capitals will have an impact, but of for sure we can see that to some extent uh it might exert pressure on um elected officials and it might also increase the very clear discrepancy between the regimes that are most of which in particular in the west are tied to the israeli regime and the gap between them and the people, but we've also seen especially in places such as germany and increase and censorship and increase and coersion of public descent of protests and um a boycott of protesters by the state, so this has led in some places even more... measures that limit freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the free in particular when it comes to um palestine, but i do think that it's become um at least much

more obvious that there is a global uh support for human rights and that the palestinian cause and what is actually taking place in palestine has become impossible to ignore at this point, exactly and mr. larudi, this would be our last question so... uh, in your opinion we're also seeing a political fallout within thesign entity itself with uh some members saying that you are going to extreme and we are losing our allies. what do you think the future holds for the scienist entity? considering the situation? the zionist entity is finished, this it has lost this war. it has lost the support of the uh international um community, and it has lost the support of even the jewish youth in the united states, which is the largest jewish

population outside israel, in fact, i think it's even slightly larger than israel, and i i think israel now, it's my understanding that roughly million israeli jews have... have left since october 7th, that's a major proportion of their population. unfortunately, what's left in israel is very militant and you can say terrorist population, and they are extremely racist, extremely partial i say, blood thirsty, it's it's it's not limited to the... officials of the government, there's a large proportion of the population that supports the genocide. uh, i think that, um, this is going to be

difficult for them to overcome, if i had to, um, see, to call a winner in in the war, it seems to me that it's going to the side of hamas, despite the the genocide that... uh israel is perpetrating on the palestinians, so um, but in the meantime we have to try to do something to uh to spare to stop the genocide and to spare the people of gaza. exactly, we need to get that to stop. thank you very much. we're running out of time, and mr. daniel yegich, author and researcher, joining us from beirot, and mr. paul larudi, co-founder of the free palestine movement from berkeley. thank you very much for joining us and thank you to all of you viewers for watching this edition of the spotlight.

bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

the resistance is also ready to defend the palestinian people with the same in. intensity and longer than the enemy may expect. first of all, he threatens

the operation rafa, but this threat from the resistance perspective has no weight, because even if they enter into rafah, this won't change the situation on the ground. and i believe that the issue of rafa is going to be delayed, because the zionist army is not ready for such a battle, and in any case it won't change the facts on the ground because israel. will not do in rafa more than it did

inus or in gaza or in the north.