hello and welcome, i'm gisumi shahmadi 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 of preventing humanitarian aid from reaching gaza. now in this edition we will be discussing what this actually means from of humanitarian point of view to legal issue and

in order to do that, i am joined by danielle of yagit who is 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. yagit, the uh international, the integrated food security phase classification, the ipc report. release on monday says that malnutrition and food shortages have probably exceeded femine 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 the extreme. yeah, i 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. 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 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 been under a siege for many years and under a bcade 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 killings of palestinian in so many different ways as we have seen being live streamed actually by the perpetrator uh this for the

past half year. okay, let's bring in mr. paul ladorey. mr. ladouri, 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 is. really are doing, there is a genocide? well, diplomats and un officials are always overly in cautious, they want to wait until something like the international 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. 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... uh 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. where delivery of aid is

its least extent and where they are eating grass and and whatever... uh they can manage animal feed, we know all all the stories, but this is intentional, the the israely 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 that? why are they doing this? it's because 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 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, 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 guest in beirot, well we do know that the icj issued a provisional ruling uh stating that humanitarian aid needs to get it to the people in gaza immediately, and that provisional ruling was issued only because it was supposed to be implemented immediately, which uh the israelis completely overlooked, and that... itself obviously requires a ceasefire because you can't send humanitarian aid under constant bombardment, 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... 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 genocide, so this is very clear, 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 um 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. "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 intent is very clear in um at least the political discourse by the israeli regime, but much more so uh stretches throughout uh decades of zionism and what we see now should not be a surprise nor should there be any doubts about

the intentions of the israeli regime. now that the intentions are obviously very clear uh mr. larudi and i'm sorry if i mispronounced your name at first uh mr. larudi, we are uh 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. we are using the word warcrime, we're using ethnic cleansing, we're using genocide. uh, 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 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 to to avoid supporting. 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't issue injunction they 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 the... not they're not going to step back from the possibility that they might uh annihilate the uh 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, assume you mean those provisional measures that were issued by the icj, but um the israeli regime is not complying by those rulings and uh mr. gegic uh if you but 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, 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 at the end of the day palestinians are victims of a uh genocide that is being carried out by the united states and by parts of the western world 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 in 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, 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 or by land um across the uae, saudi arabia and jordan, and getting into israel, but not as easily, not as well, and and at greater cost. uh, in addition, some countries, and it was either this morning or yesterday that canada uh 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 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 uh that countries can intervene, for example, they can, i know that airlifts have a and airdrops have a bad name because 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 it, 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... 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 of the world are coming to adopt some of these ways, the united states is is an obstacle 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 then 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. 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 uh 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 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 um officials and um 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 and 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 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 uh some members saying that uh, 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 international 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 think israel now, 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 is... 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 ' i think that um this is going to be difficult for them to overcome, if i had to um see uh

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 ghaza. exactly, we need to get that to stop. thank you very much. we're running out of time, and mr. daniel yegic, author and researcher joining us from beirout, 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 from. watching this edition of the spot.

hello everyone, iranians are preparing now to welcome the arrival of norus or the persian new year in just few minutes time. now this year, people are celebrating this event around the country as the occasion coincides with the holy fasting month of ramadan. now celebrating no ruse in iran dates back thousands of years and is accompanied with many. customs to enter the new year with totally fresh and festive spirit, and now families, they visit one another, sit around that have seen a table to exchange gifts and

affection and pray for a good year ahead to come, about 300 million people worldwide celebrate norus with traditions and rituals that vary each country. now back in 2009, the united nations proclaimed noruz an international event at the initiative. of several countries that share this event including iran, afghanistan, tajikistan, india and turkey. now this year, muslims in these countries are also celebrating ramadan, which gives holy bibe to the new year celebrations. now, nourus or the uh persian new year is festival based on the iranian solar calendar, and it marks spring equinox, which occurs on or around the 21st of march on the grego. calendar, now the day of nourus has its origins in the traditions of the iranian people, however it's been celebrated by diverse communities for over 300 years in

west. asia, uh, central asia, the caucases, the black sea basin, the balkans and south asia. now, as a spring equinox, norus marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, that's the moment at which the sun crosses the equator. traditional customs of uh, norus, they include families getting together, exchanging gifts and reciting the holy quran. there are also relevant dishes and pastries involved. as well as other symbolic objects and traditions varying from perhaps country to country or among um ethnic groups and as i mentioned that the un officially recognized the international day of norus with the adoption of a resolution by the uh general assembly back in february of 2010, i mentioned 09 earlier, but it culminated, it was finally uh made into that resolution early 2010, now in iran, noru's

holidays the... last 13 days on the 13th day the new year, iranians, they leave their homes, they enjoy nature and go a picnics outdoors to the foot hills of mountains, out to local parks, sometimes out in rural areas, they get together, um, have festive day together, families, they uh spread out their their their their blankets and the and their covers, and they have a wonderful picnic, eat together, and it's called sizda, dad, which is the 13th day, hit the door, get outside, enjoy each other, enjoy nature, it's called the seasab ceremony. now the greenery grown uh on this half scene, i should probably take moment and um explain the the half scene to our viewers that may not be familiar with it, or for those who hard that may not know the exact uh symbolic relevance of what is on the half seen table, now halfseen it is means

seven esses so basically there're going to be uh seven items usually there there could be a um mixture of different items i start with in the iranian language uh a persian a se uh seib se means uh garlic - c means apple um you have a somog which is an herb but to uh take a quick look at our have seen here at uh press tv "we have um sabzi, you see the the greenery right there, and that could be a grass, it could be grown from uh lentil sprouts, it could be uh grown from bean sprouts, uh, usually sabs it could be from wheat from barley, and it symbolizes rebirth and growth, and then we have samanuu, which is a wheat based uh pudding.