crisis, devastating wars, terrorism. the israeli lobby, crackdown, diplomacy, israeli of regional escalation. of

of as hundreds of people have marched.

the voice of the voiceless press tv. welcome to spotlight. israel has carried out its deadliest attacks in monsan syria, leaving dozens of people dead. the aggression is coincided with the drone attack launched by terrorists in idlib. israel has also ramped up its deadly air strikes on lebanon in recent days. this is while the regime is pressing ahead with its genocidal war on the gaza strip and there seems to be no end in sight to the nearly six-month assault despite growing international pressure. on this

edition of spotlight, we'll try to find out why israel is trying to increase tensions and what would be the repercussions of such escalation for the... entire region and beyond, our guests on tonight spotlight are international human rights defender joining us from johannesburg and we also have human rights activist joining us from houston, texas. gentlemen, welcome to the program, let's start off with mr. patel and it's great to have you with us, so now israel, as we mentioned, in our intros launched a fresh attack on syria targeting number of locations in the northwestern city of aleppo, uh, the attack is left number of civilians and military personnel dead, it's damaged, public and private property, now the syrian military

said the israeli aggression coincided with a drone attack by uh terrorist organizations launch from itlib and the western countryside of of aleppo as the massacre in gaza rages on, "how do you perceive the israelis actions uh in other areas of the region and how much of this increased aggression would you say is tied to israel's failures in gaza? good evening and thank thank you for having me on this show. um, yes, indeed, this is the normal cause of action that israel has been doing over many years and as the war rages." is quite rightly in gaza, in fact the genocide is it rages quite in gaza, israel is feeling the pressure, it's feeling the pressure of the resistance movements uh that have continued unabated as israel has continued unabated in its atrocities and

crimes against palestinians and we got to put this in context that all these extra territorial attacks are unlawful under international law to to come you conduct these strikes in syria and again we got to look at you know what was military advantage uh and compared to what you know what human causation in other words what was the human beings that were lost in this you know they would call this uh the um so for instance uh human beings and innocent how always caught up in this conflict unfortunately but this this continues and is "we must hold israel to account, but unfortunately this is the situation, because israel feels that it's losing control in terms of its fight against the resistance movements and will try to suppress and equalize where it perceives

thats to be, and that's why we seen this this increased attacks in the region." "let's also focus on the growing tensions between" between lebanon's hesbollah resistance movement and forces of the israeli regime. the israelis have targeted vehicle in the city of tire with a drone leaving one lebanese dead. hez has also carried out retaliatory missile strikes on israeli positions in the occupied territories. are the israelis actively pursuing more tensions in the region and how do they benefit from this? i think this is a sign of israel being very vulnerable and them being weak, so because they're being defeated in the gaza strip, the solution that they're trying to come up with is to expand the war in the region, to create chaos in the region, and that's why we see them acting so erratically where now they've attacked syria, the the

fighting on the northern front with hizbullah has been happening since october 7th in which many of hizbillah's fighters have been have been have been martered. but hisbullah has also been retaliating to to strategically retaliating to israel's attacks as well and as matter of fact i wouldn't be exaggerating in in stating that the role that hisbullah has played on the northern front has led to thousands over 10 thousand settlers evacuating from that part of occupied palestine so hizbillah is playing that very key role so it is quite clear. that just how israel sees amas as a threat, just like they see syria as a threat, they see hizbullah as a threat equivalent to that of palestinian freedom fighters, so in short, if we summarize and if we conclude that the zionist

regime of israel considers the access of resistance as a threat as a genuine threat to its very existence, then we can understand the... attacks on on israel, we can understand the constant, the constant attacks on the southern front in in lebanon as well, and ironically and unfortunately the zience regime, um, another sign of the weakness is that for the most part their targets are usually civilians, may that be in palestine, syria or even lebanon, whereas the resistance front has always focused on targeting military personnel, and adding to the point that my colleague made earlier about syria, i think it's important to note that the fact that italy. "the attack of terrorists in idlib was seemed almost coordinated with

israel's attacks. goes to show that these splinter groups, these terrorist groups who have been operating in idlib, who were operating in syria, they were kicked out by hisbullah in syria, have always been a proxy the us empire and the zionist regime, they've always served their purpose, so those who are criticizing hisbullah of intervening in israel in..." intervening in in syria, now understand and now know why syria has always been of such great importance to the axis of resistance. mr. patel, how important has this unified response been from the resistance front in the region, there's lebanon, yemen, iraq, resistance groups in syria, uh, were the israelis and washington expecting that from all of the resistance fronts in the region. "i think we all know that palestine uh has been a state of resistance for several

decades undergoing legerent military occupation in the occupied palestinian territories and in occupied palestine at at large um it we've always known and i mean the enemies of palestine, the americans, the israelis have always known that there are certain groups that will be steadfast to..." to the standing with the resistance of palestine, which is a fundamental right under international law, because the right to resistance is strongly associated to the right of self-determination, and palestinians need to exert that right, so i think in some in some cases they may have been surprised by the broadening of the access of resistance, as we've seen the huzis in... yemen, closure the red sea, the you know the the stopping of

ships in that area, and stopping that kind of cargo, which is very good dvs campaign, and then we've seen the access of resistance hisbullah in southern lebanon, northern occupied palestine, and of course in syria and iraq, and that needs to broaden, we need to look look at this also from from the context that we've got arab countries around. sign syria, jordan or well, let me rather put jordan, egypt and other countries that have normalized, some countries have normalized with the zianist regime, and we've seen that there's been no real military intervention despite the carnage in gaza, and just coming back to my previous point, and i think it's important what my colleague mentioned is that in all of the attacks by these terror groups and israel and... that by the us and of course we must also remember that the united the european union and european union

countries uh sell huge and licensed huge volumes of arms to israel and this is been used indiscriminately for many years since i think the 2009 war when we issued when we launched the first docket criminal complaint against israel uh with south african authorities we had focused on war crimes where israel has perpetually used indiscriminate. use of force and indistinction of military target to civilian population, that has continued, israel is continuous to be responsible, criminally responsible for igrigous crimes, such as crimes against humanity, crimes of apart, torture, force displacement and many other crams and of course now we see genocide, whereas the arm resistance of unresistance groups have have had focused targeted areas. "and i think when we look at this, it needs to be looked at, is it from the perspective

of international law, and what are the laws of war and what must, what must be complied with, and what, what are the levels that a certain you know, use of force comply with, or do we need to look at it from an islamic perspective of what our responsibilities are, and i think the resistance groups are very conscious of the islamic responsibilities in terms of conflict and how to..." what of the aggressor in these instances? yes, let's go back to mr. israeli prime minister beniamin netanyahu has defiantly vowed to go ahead with this military campaign, this... tidal massacre saying that the international pressure on his regime will not work, have all the years of impunity and us cover for israel made this child killing regime believe that it's actually above the law and it's safe from accountability. absolutely, there is absolutely no doubt about that that the zionist regime independent of the us is

nothing, it has no power, the only reason... why the zience regime has been imposed on the region of west asia is because of the support that it gains from the us within the international community, we now see that the european union is also taking a very clear stance in in in shifting away from being a party to the zianist, the the israely zionist crime that they are committing in in gaza today, we we see them taking a... slightly different line from the zionist regime, but the one country that we still see to date that unequically supports the israeli regime, may that be militarily, may that be diplomatically, may that be in the international arena in the united nations, that is the united states of america, so now it makes sense when amamini said that america

is the great satan, america is shaitan and buzurg, when he said that um... many must not understood that statement before, but it is now seen, it is now, it is now, we can we can now conclude that the statement that was made by imam khumeini, it had lot of wisdom in it, is the zionist regime um is not the real issue, but it is rather the policies of the us empire that has empowered this weak, this this this so callalled state, this occupying power which is as weak as the spiders web in that region. and another statement that i would like to make in in addition to the previous question that was asked few minutes back is that when the zionist regime tries to target a military personnel from hizbullah like they targeted shaheed ali abdul hassan naim who was one of the leaders of the heavy warhead rocket fire unit of hizbullah we need

to understand that and they already know but just to kind of reiterate for. the audience is that hisbullah is very organized, it's an organized military giant in the region now, they thought that they'll be able to weaken hizbullah when iman was murtered, they thought that after jihad is murdin is martered or when shahid abbas muswi or sheikhib or when they when they when they are martered, hizbullah will become weak, but history has shown us that the the the school of martidom within hizbullah has only strength. hizbullah and has made them into the giant that they are today, they are so organized that they work in ways that they always have parallel leaderships within their divisions like any other military power. mr. batal hamas has hailed a ruling by the international court of justice ordering the israeli regime to address famon in gaza. the

reaction came after the icj ordered israel to allow the immediate delivery of humanitarian supplies into gaza. hamas is called on the international community to create mechanism to ensure the orders implementation, how do you see that happening? what would be step one in your opinion? yes, i think this is an important development and to give your viewers context, i think south africa has been busy with this since january or december when the hearings initially started at the international court of justice, the application was made. and in fact the icj has now issued three orders in terms of provisional measures. initially the provisional measures were very clear in syscent that there needs to be humanitarian corridor and there needs to be access to aid and that was one of the conditions. we saw the united states and israel uh use and use

it in a different way, they've used the haspara and the spin on the order stating that the word seasfire did not was not. included, but the order could not be effected without an effective cease fire because of the humanitarian aid, it was required at scale, subsequently to that, south africa requested further measures to the international court of justice, and the response from the icj was that no further provisional measures were required, israel was bound to the initial order that was given by the court, and just recently the order based on f and starvation, we know that the catastrophic situation that now exists in gaza, northern gaza is effectively now separated from southern. netanyahu has spoken about the demilitarized zone, which means effectively more belligerant military occupation and and and certainly that

feminine and starvation is serious problem so africa in its application stated that there's almost a concern for about 80 thousand civilian deaths that are imminent if this problem is not uh you know seriously regressed as there is imminent imminent harm to a civilian population. "and of course there was also the un reporter that came out with her report an anatomy of genocide uh claiming and claiming that israel is guilty of at least three of the five acts in terms the genocide convention, so the international pressure is mounting, the international community has spoken clearly through the general assembly, unfortunately the un security council has always been politicized and we've seen the number of vetos that the us has exercised, but my view in a..." just come back from from tehran recently is that there's nothing stopping islamic states or muslim countries from intervening in this crisis, and in fact my belief is that they

should have intervened from the very outset, because we know that israel is is is now a ultra right zio fascist government and they've been helped on the destruction of the palestinian population, we not only seeing this genocide unfold in gaza, but also the increased rates in the occupied palestinian territories, so muslim countries and countries should intervene and and but they need to be politically enabled and not be politically influenced and controlled unfortunately by the western powers that that you have neutralized them, that is the reality of of the fact that they've been utterly neutralized, only way that we been able to see any. movement is through the resistance or the access of resistance, but they're not going to be enable to be able to provide the humanitarian aid at scale, so i think we got to insist on the international

measures and the international community to force israel to comply with the international court of justice orders that humanitarian aid be delivered, that access be opened and that it be provided to the needs of the thousand population. of time, but i want you uh to uh to discuss a video that surfaced showing israeli forces executing unarmed palestinians near gaza's coast, they were waving white flags in a show of surrender, the israeli soldiers, after murdering them, they went to bury their bodies in the sand with bulldozer, is this a clear indication that this genocidal massacre is not only been a war against gaza's resistance, but actually against all of its people. absolutely, the resistance has simply been used as a pretext, um, the civilians in gaza have not, this is not react, this war did not start after october 7th as most of the world might think,

but this genocide against the the innocent civilians of gaza is exactly why you now have freedom fighters in the shave of hamas, islamic jihad, the alaxar brigades who are now defending the very rights of their people, and also i would like to reiterate the fact that um, to to to to go down on such low levels to to assault and to disspect civilians in such manner and only be expected off the zionist regime and only goes to show how weak they are that because they cannot fight like real men, they can't fight the military, they can't fight palestinian freedom fighters, they exert their frustration and their pressure on innocent civilians by disrespecting and insulting them like this, but they need to understand is only exposing themselves when they act in such manner. okay, i'm sorry, uh, we're running short of time. now, allow me to thank my guests, ziad ibrahim pattel, international

human rights defender, joining us from johannesburg, and human rights activist, mosa nagvi speaking to us from houston, texas. thank you gentlemen, and also allow me to thank our viewers for staying with us tonight. spotlight is good night for now, and see you next time. when palestinian journalist shirin abule was killed by nis vd sniper on may 11, 2022, the israelis meant to get across a clear message, that they don't want any narrative other than their own and the decades all. ation of palestinian lands and their aggression. it wasn't the first time israeli sought to put gag on the alternative narrative, and every

time it has failed. watch the history of the israeli measures and palestinian counter measures in this documentary. for muslims across the world, eid alfitter, which marks one month of obedience to god in the... holy fasting month of ramadan is a special feast. muslims feel festive and proud for their servitude to god. ramadan is called the month of blessings. out of respect for the holy month, muslims put aside their differences and hostilities and forge a stronger unity. different cities and villages

in iran have their own traditions for ramadan which date back to centuries. get a glimpse of it in this documentary on press tv. bismillahirrahman. الله امواتا بل احياء عند ربهم يرزقون فرحين فرحين بما اتاهم الله من فضله ويستبشرون ويستبشرون ويستبشرون بالذين

hello, i'm sean murray, and this is the conversation where we take an alternative look at political events and current affairs through annaries lens. in this show we hope to pick, probe, investigate and uncover the stories that you want to hear. we go where mainstream won't go. this week we talked to a small bond of investigative journalists.