i'm going to install this, so the sign that shows the distance between the north pole and ortiz office in moscow, the logic and get for the details of oldest or reusable salt lake on our to the come i will be right back. had probably a by now the, there is literally no good news coming from the war and guys, more civilians have been killed there since october 7th of 20. 23 isn't in any conflict since the 2nd world war. the stated is really goal, of course is to destroy from us. most observers, including senior, is rarely political and military leaders. acknowledge that that's impossible how much numbers don't carry around identification cards. after all. what begin for

most is released as a right just more to protect themselves and to free their hostages has become myers and accusations of genocide and murder, of starvation and displacement. and now it threatens the very political future of benjamin. it's in yahoo! the longest serving prime minister in israel's history. i'm john kerry. ok. welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 2 2 2 2 united nations officials, humanitarian organizations, and journalists on the ground have described guys as hell on earth. there is no clean water. there isn't a single working hospital. the area is on the brink of wide spread starvation, and more than a 1000000 people, half of the population are internally displaced. these talks between these really government and how much come in fits and starts,

but they never really seem to amount to anything. and many is re lease for a long time, could not understand why and is really government. but in the past has been willing to trade 500 or even a 1000 palestinian prisoners for one single is really hostage. was this time willing to just let its hostages sit in limbo and how much those hands. and at the same time, reports of leaked out of israel, of atrocities against palestinian prisoners, in his really presence, they are deliberately starved. for example, there's no medical care. they're not even permitted to walk and instead have to crawl everywhere on their hands and knees and many are beaten mercilessly. now we're learning that the situation may even be worse, much worse is really media led by the newspaper. hearts have recently confirmed that the is really military had deployed. it's so called hannibal directive, which allows the military to use what it calls all necessary force to prevent the

capture of soldiers. even if that force results in the depths of civilians including is really civilians which means hostages. the directive has been around for almost 20 years, but until recently it was a closely guarded secret. now that the information is out there for. busy to see, it has led to a debate over whether these really army is actually trying to free hostages, or merely to kill more palestinians. our guest today is the esteemed journalist, richard silverstein. he writes for keep going alone. the foremost blog covering is really national security issues. he is also a contributor to the middle east. i jacobin magazine, the new era, and l just 0. his work also has appeared in the new york times. richard, thanks so much for being with us. thanks for having me, john. great to be here. i'd like to begin with something of a broad question. richard, what makes this more different from any other war that israel has fought against

a non state actor. there have been difficult years long wars against has been love for example. why is this one so much more difficult and why is it so much more violent? this war started with this particular aspect of the ongoing decades long war between israel and palestine and started with a n it a mazda attack on israel and october 7th. that was devastating. the puncture to all mess services really, and the instability that broke through billions of dollars were savannah section technology designed to prevent just section attack resulted in a killing of $1100.00 is relays, $400.00 of whom were security agents. and i the soldiers. this had never happened to israel before it in this kind of fashion. so it was the surprise

attack carried out in, in broad daylight. actually after the fact, israel discovered that several of its intelligence operatives had worn their superiors. that plant, how much was planning this and their, their warning was ignored. so as a result of this shocking and he is slow to these really psyche, the government decided that they had to react in a massive fashion. the one that had no proportion in terms of the damages, the actual damage it did to israel. and that resulted in the genocide that we're finding here in which we're at close to $40000.00 gardens murder, a man that explains why he is really responsive. so different than all the previous invasions of what is going on and tax advisor and similar kinds of operations in

the past. tell us what's happening inside the israeli government. this is the most right wing government is really history, and indeed several ministers have previous criminal convictions for anti error of hate crimes. and for the most part, these are the ministers who are in charge of security is the, is it. these ministers who are influencing prime minister netanyahu on the conduct of the war is it is rarely public opinion. it's guiding policy or didn't netanyahu need no outside pressure to launch a war that has focused so heavily on civilians and has been accused by the international court of justice of, of genocide. in the answer to your 1st question, i think you that each of them are and then give year it was the grease minister. and then one of those said, you mentioned that you asked me to evict, to believe 8 times on a different instances of anti arab incitement. and it's all a small church and who actually as a minister controls all of a sudden,

an activity on the last day and who, when he was younger, was arrested by that shouldn't batch and found with an explosive device in his car . this was during the withdrawal from cause i know 2004 by israel and he planned to detonate this explosion device on the aisle on highway which is the major highways until the he was arrested and held for 3 weeks and refused to answer his interrogators and he was eventually released, so we have to really, i call him is really jewish terrace. and they are running uh the security operation in israel. and this is why these really police have become so vicious, not just a palestinian. so of course they've always been bitch to, but they were attacking protesters. they were attacking the families of the kid

that the, the hostages were protesting against the lack of a ceasefire. and a genuine, it was a refusal to agreed on seats fire. so whether they're using whips out a recent horses with whips, and they're whipping the protesters. so this is a violence mass violence, at least by the is road state against the is really citizens themselves. i think that the government is impermeable to a political grassroots action. there have been before the war started, there were weekly rallies of hundreds of thousands of this river just posted. the government is really sort of choosing the premier certain being corrupt. any faces for indicted. he's indicted on 4 charges of corruption and that haven't been adjudicated. and there's no reason that nets and you know,

has to pay attention to this or did pay attention? is you only constituency a has just been clear and, and smoke just because they control his coalition. if they withdraw, they resign from the coalition. there is no government and attorney, i'll ask you about elections, and he will be vulnerable to the court cases, which are for some reason it's in, i've been phrased this way, but they seem to have been put in advance while he is prime minister. so the war itself is critical to him, remaining is prime minister with no war. we referred to a status, quote, antiques and go back to the kinds of protests and unrest that happened before 17 and, and he is, is a read. this is a reason why he refuses to read this is fire is the reason why he's given the hostages short trip, which is on,

which is unforgivable and also unprecedented in this early history. for a leader of the government to have no concern for the opposite just course he mounts concern, but he does nothing and refuses every opportunity to negotiate as he's fire. and by the way, president by announced a week or 2 ago with fanfare, that hamas had softened its demands, and that there was no new promising basis for cease fire. and as soon as that happened, the time jago announced 5 new demands that from us could never be to. and this in effect has sabotaged and killed the latest attempt to cease fire. richard, let's talk about the hannibal directive. this is a story that you broke. this came out of the 1986 war against has by law and was formerly implemented about 20 years ago. it has been a secret until recently, and the bottom line is that it's significantly changes the way the public sees,

the government's commitment to is really hostages. so actually, let's start with that is the, is really government still committed to rescuing hostages or is the prime directive now to not be taken prisoner and to just kill palestinian combatants even if it means killing is really hostages. let's talk about the animal directive and give some background what it entails is a policy that the idea of follows in war time. this is how it originated, follows in war time to prevent the idea of soldiers from being captured by uh from us. um and this uh, i started reporting this 10 years ago during operation protective edge, which was in to that on the 14th. and that uses the invoking of the animal dog, the doctor, and actually ended up killing to heidi of soldiers who are being carried

back to the gaza, or carrying away from their units and into captivity. the idea of not only killed the 2 soldiers, but it destroyed the neighbor. and if she died, which is where the hostages were about, the captives were about to be taken literally, mass destruction and the entire neighborhood was destroyed. and this is similar to what happened in new sierra to about 2 weeks ago when the israel, when the idea of mounted a rescue operation there and since 4 of the hostages in order to do that. and to prevent from us from initiating a counter attack which they were doing to stop the rescue. they basically went in and carpet from the neighborhood, and they killed nearly $300.00 a pound city and civilians in the process and succeeded in releasing

a free 4 of those hostages. hannibal is heinous and it's fits because it's the a one of the 1st episode is one of the 1st pieces of evidence i've seen of the military of the country willingly, unintentionally murdering its own soldiers. that was 2014. now bringing us up to date to 2024 on on october 7th, actually at 2.23. the worst on for 9 months time flies. but in uh on october 7, they expanded hannibal and they said that we are going to invoke it to jo is really civilians. these were civilians who were being sped and jeep, stacked towards gaza after being captured in israel during the invasion by tomas. these were soldiers who had been captured on that basis in southern israel. and

we're being taken back. the reeds were in another instance, an idea general commanded a tank to fire shellpoint flight into a home in a few boards where they knew there were hostages is really civilians, along with the last fighters. and instead of negotiating, we're trying to figure out a way to free these railings, they actually killed. thank you, richard. we're going to take a short break. and when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with richard silverstein, and we'll discuss new reports that the palestinian death toll maybe astronomically higher than what has been previously reported. stay tune, we have a lot more coming up the. 2 the time, scott bennett, i'm a former united states army psychological warfare officer, really served in the state department counterterrorism office under investor dell

bailey, the, the, the so i wanted to come here to russia in the dawn bass area and to gather the facts, to take back to the american people, the hold on bass of the front line. so this is where the bombs and the bullets are raging. this is where people are dying. this is where the buildings are exploding the go. i wanted to see 1st hand the scars of war. the

welcome back to the whistle blowers. i'm john kerry, onto we're speaking with journalists, richard silverstein, he writes for keep going along the foremost blog covering is really national security issues. he's also a contributor to the middle east di jacobin magazine, the new era, the end of june 0, and his work also has appeared in the new york times. richard, thanks again for being with us. great to be here, john. thanks again. my pleasure is mine, richard. let's talk about the guys a deaf tall and about a recent piece in the lancet. now the length is the pre eminence british medical journal. as of june 19th, 2024, the guys and ministry of health had determined that 37396 palestinians had been killed in gaza. is really military confirmed that the ministries numbers were

likely correct. the ministry further estimated that at least another $10000.00 people were likely bearing the under the rubble. but the lancet article goes on to say that the actual number of dead could be much, much higher as high as 186000 people. can you explain that to us? well, the last it publication, and as you said let's, it does not publish reports like this, you know, just willy nilly it, it has a lot of data that uses and is very conservative in these sorts of situations in which there's a lot of contention. there's a lot of this information, especially on the, is really side to discredit the health ministry figures. but the reason it suggested that it could be a 186000 is that it's not just the 30, if,

by the way it's, the latest figures are closer 230000 more than 30000. but it's not just the 38000. those are the ones we know, or that we have a really half of the buildings in casa, are destroyed. that's not just homes that include schools, universities, power plants, and rich and rough facilities. united nations are leak organization. the entire landscape of cause a is. this is a ruler underneath all of those ruins or thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of buttons. there is no excavation machinery in cause of that can like in the case of earthquakes, where you can bring in massive excavators and whatever and, and take through buildings and work for bodies. and the dog shoot can see about the corpses and, and try to re maria the freedom from that level. so there are,

there's a huge number of people that have their, their desktop and count. in addition, you have um, you have a so you have impacts that are not direct. for example, people will die of disease after the conflict will die of starvation after the conflict. they'll die from medical neglect because as i think, you know, the, all the hospitals have been destroyed in the us. so without medical treatment, you may not right now, but you will die later of the implications that it causes of that brought you to leave the medical care in the 1st place. so the key factor here in coming to that number is they've compared cause it to other similar conflicts. and they've said that for each known victim whose die there or somewhere between $3.00 and $5.00 people who have died,

that they do not know about yet won't know that until well after the conflict ends . so if you do the multiplication there you come up with, you know, nearly 40000 times 3 or 5, you're getting up to the 186000 a year. and this, what's the genocide and i use that term very deliberately and i think we're going to talk about that in the 2nd. but this genocide puts it in the arena of the genocide in rwanda and the genocide in east timor. and it actually is greater than many of the really well known just sites like in cost us. so we're talking about an unprecedented historic event as in which no, no global, no, no criminal or regal system, such as the international criminal court in the international court of justice.

none of them, even though they've attempted to address the genocide, none of that has been able to have any impact on israel. and the reason why is that israel's allies, especially in the united states, but many european countries support the israel support with student and do so with 18000000000 education us congress, 18000000 in weapons had been sent to israel since october 7th. so that's the reason why there is no rule space or difference, right? what everybody likes to call it. that's the reason why the manager and effort is fail. there basically is hardly any monetary deafening cause. and because it's real, as, as if by killing many of the aid workers, in addition to killing the journalists themselves, were reporting on this. there's a 125 journalists who have been murdered in and use the term murder because they deliberately targeting, not only the journalists themselves,

but in some cases the families of the journalists, the entre 0 corresponding cause. i know that he died, but his wife was, was murdered. and this was done intentionally as a warning to cousins and to generalize. and israel does not want this reported the only journalist who side from the gods and sort of strangers for various media. who can go into god, the only foreign journal to go into the past to go in with the idea has to be embedded with the idea of this skews the coverage that you'll see in world media. you will mostly be getting the is really the point of view. and that really is another factor that renders it impossible for the outside world to have much impact to stop this or, or to amount it. however, protests that will, you know, lead to the end of this message as well as you've so correctly noted. so many of

these deaths are a result of disease, thirst, starvation, and an utter lack of medical care, even for injuries and failing to count these depths is actually a violation of international law. the international court of justice in january of 2024 required israel to quote, take effective measures to prevent the destruction and to ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of the genocide convention on quote, has this real done that? and if yes, why are the death numbers so far off of israel is ignored every outside a factor in attempting to exert some control or hold israel accountable. i'm just mentioning international criminal court. and the chief prosecutor several months ago announced that he was going to ask a few additional panel of the i c. c to issue arrest warrants for be mentioned,

no annual, and cost the defense minister. however, the panel is not announced any decision. so israel, by the way, screamed bloody murder about these global judicial forms and attacked and attacked anyone inside israel or the palace thing to collaborate with these un bodies and treated them as terrorist or an image of the state. including by the way, is really a human rights and she is, i have been spirit and targeted as well with not just a really with tax, but physical attacks as well. so israel has been able to completely ignore, ignore, of these. it is just acts with impunity. it certainly is pursuing continuing genocide. the death toll continues to mount

despite the fact that israel claims that it's trying to or is separating civilians from, from, from, from us fighters. and that's actually a lie. and i don't think that anyone in the world leaves it, but it's not helped by the fact that you have states apartments, folks, people in the us, secretary of state who ignore this, who, who, when the word genocide as mentioned to them they bristol. and they claim that it isn't genocide, it can't be genocide. it's as if the word star is showing is really talking points . and it's speaking as if it is israel itself. and this is really an aspect to the american people. 60 percent of the american people disapprove not only of israel's standard signing casa, but they are disapprove of binds policy and approach towards it. but they will not

negotiate a solution to these early positive conference. they will not accept a few state solution. so anyone, especially someone white present by an anti blanket who believes that they want the opposition and power because they might be able to achieve their goals of the 2 state solution if they're really serious about that, which is another question. i don't think there will be any major change and the same thing holds true by the way the us policy won't change very much in gaza or elsewhere. they'll be continuity. and um, and, and the things that we would like to see changed in u. s. foreign policy will not change the things that we might want to see changes mostly policy regarding every immigration and such issues. those won't change either. but in this real it's, you know, it's even more critical because you have the capacity of a regional war. israel is on the verge, perhaps isn't being loaded on and,

but when you're war against your board, and if they do around as promised to, to enter on the site. if there's more. so you have the situation like the, you know, just before we're, we're one. we're gradually all the major powers in the region have been drawn into one side of the other of the conflict. so you have israel's enemies, the actual access it resistance. it's called include iran and because the ball on the booties and iraqi shiite militia and syria, by the way. and so all of them could be entering the conflict on the half of a of those more. and you'll have israel in the us and its allies. so this is an extremely volatile situation, extremely dangerous situation, and we have to really, really work hard to restore some sanity to the situation. even though

it doesn't seem that's possible right now. but we have to do as much as we can to stand in the way of discharging on a trade in destruction. richard, thank you so much for joining us. it's a pleasure. genocide is a tough word. what distinguishes genocide from murder and even from acts of political violence that claims as many victims is the intense genocide is the desire to make of people extinct. the idea of genocide is a crime. nelson mandela, worn the world years ago to not look the other way. it is within all of us to prevent genocide from happening. i'd like to thank our guests, richard silverstein for being with us today, and thank you to our viewers for joining us. for another episode of the list of lowers. i'm john kerry. aku, please follow me on subject at john curiosity. we will see you next time. the. 2 2 2

2 2 the in this thing of the continent of boxes. oh, said we into rough, with the rest of the world. we're going to relate to the wind in terms of donations on, in terms of tray assets, a must define what she wants political africa might define ourselves. cultures, africa must define ourselves critically. the cause of your guys, no choice, but to move forward. forward should be in the the,

on the defensive basha into subset another verizon attack drones loans by x ray and at 3 border region kindly call them those key of losses from its ongoing and caution. continue to mount looking for peace as easy as broad minutes to wrap this up with a trip to cab, hoping to find a way to end the war. washington questions new down these efforts. we welcome. by being healthy, we lead the conversations with the grades and it's got to start from an understanding of where president zalinski is not disturbing images from southern basha has an investigation continues into a prison uprising by inmates to pledge allegiance to his lot make state.