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 edition we will be discussing what this of 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. from berkeley, let's begin with our guest from beirot, mr. yagit, 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 femin levels in northern gaza. what do we mean by exceeding femin levels, because i believe for us and most of our viewers, femin itself is... extreme yeah, mean it is

catastrophic um 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, the context before october 7 uh was awful in gaza as well, i mean the... and human rights organizations have in a previous decade warrant that uh gaza would be uninhabitable at the beginning of this 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 siege for many years and under a balcade and it's very difficult to imagine what the outcome of all of this will be because 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 israeli regime for the past half year. okay let's bring in mr. paul ladorey. 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 using food and starvation as a weapon against palestinians is a war crime and what israel doing, what israel is doing there is a genocide? well, diplomats and un officials are always overly cautious, they want to wait in until something like the internet. national

court of justice or the icc or some official body uh declares that this is in fact the case, they defer to other authorities to verify 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 exposure to the elements by destroying the homes of palestinians and starvation and the lack of clean water, drinking water, potable water, as 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 uh 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. is full of food, they have been bombing the the farms and the animals and and everything, their intention, and why are they doing that? why are they doing this? it's because uh, when they shoot somebody or bomb somebody, they are blamed for killing them, when they

starved them to death, they haven't actually touched them, have they? uh, 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, uh, 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. uh, 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 cease fire,

because you can't send humanitarian aid under constant bombardment, uh, so uh, does this leave any room uh to doubt israel's intentions? as using food insecurity as a weapon against gazons. there is absolutely no doubt the israelies 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 bragged about their genocidal intentions and very clear clearly made clear that they... want to remove palestinians from gaza uh through policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide. 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 in 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's absolutely no doubt about what the israelis are intending to do, and also here, if you look at the brother historical context, um, this is setler colony that only works under the framework of apartite, 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 to the early writings of zinanism, palestine is fantasized as i'm quoting here, a land without a people for people without a land and so on. so the genocidal intend is very clear in at least the political discourse by

the israeli regime, but much more so stretches throughout decades of zionism, and what we see now should not be a surp. nor should there be any doubt about the intentions of the israeli regime? now that the intentions are obviously very clear, mr. larudi, and i'm sorry if i mispronounced your name at first, mr. larudi, we are uh using some words that previously we would see them in historical texts and referring to very serious crimes to be pursued in international uh courts, are using the word warcrime, we're 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, they've seen 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 the only enforcement under the genocide convention is that all the signatory the genocide convention, meaning 153 of them, one of whom is is israel, they are bound to do everything possible not 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 uh, legally speaking, the world court won't even

determine that genocide takes place until after it's happened, but nevertheless they can issue injunction of the 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 to

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... ruling, i assume you mean those provisional measures that were issued by the icj, but the israeli regime is not complying by those rulings and mr. gegic, if you could please tell us, what are the measures that we can take to force the israeli entity to comply? yeah, there 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 if we can ask the 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 um 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 the... of today palestinians are victims of a uh genocide that is being carried out by the 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 cour 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 israely 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 a general assembly there's a very clear majority uh in support of a cease fire in support of palestinian uh human rights, but none of this can be enforced under the current uh so-called the system, currently the so-called international community um is depending on. uh, so let's go back to mr. larudi, uh, are there any ways to enforce these court rulings, the 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. um, 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 or 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 greater 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 inc. in that, i don't have that it at my fingertips, but but countries can do that, and even the netherlands has also said it will not ships spare parts. 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 uh 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 uh the israeli military and the airspace and basically to take over the airspace uh of gaza, these are these are things which are are possible, would would israel and let's say uh shoot down the aircraft of nations like spain and and uh norway and uh belgium, would they do that? i i don't think so, i think that there are ways... and little by little um countries of the world are coming to adopt some of these uh ways, the united states is is an obstacle uh, but uh, but but i think even the united states will have to take some measures pretty soon, president biden will most likely lose

if he runs in the in the fall election, he may resign before the... or or decide not to run, but uh, 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 uh known to be allies of the israeli regime and... interestingly we see that the people in those countries are now uh shifting against uh israel, which shows that public opinion now today is more aware of what is happening on the ground and it is not uh 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 the long run, to what extent the shift in public 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 uh and the gap between them. and um the people, but we've also seen uh, especially in places such as germany, increase in censorship, increase in coersion of uh public descent of protests and um a boycott of protesters by um 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 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 uh, a political fallout within thesignity itself, with some members saying that, you are going to extreme and we are losing our. allies, what do you think the future holds for the sinust entity considering the situation? the zionist entity is finished, this it has lost this war. "it has lost the support of the 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..." um, it's my understanding that roughly million israeli jews 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, how shall... i say blood thirsty, it's it's it's not limited to the officials 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, uh, we're running out of time, 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. it's a good way to see how poor people uh in poor countries or even in our own countries live. thing basically heightens your awareness of your surroundings and everything and it brings back the reasons for doing dois for reading for on. when the sun sets uh it's

a fantastic feeling of achievement.

i was at the age of 16 very interested by the world, what happened around my me, and i was, i traveled when i was 17 years old, i traveled even to iran. camera is kind of

protection between me and the rest of the world and it's very very useful, it became very famous because when you see billion of people in the street claiming the name of, he was a symbol is trump. is very important, actually this is tomp of a man would change history, would change the world and at least the middle east.

is really forces once again attack people gathering for aid in gaza killing at least 30 civilians as tol belt of regime's genocide tops 31,800, the un warns israel could be using starvation as a weapon and its aggression in gaza, same blocking aid into this trip may amount to a war crime, and iranians along with millions of people in several other countries are preparing to welcome the arrival of norus or the persian new year.