nick: israel strikes gaza and lebanon after it raided the al-aqsa mosque. there are fears the unrest will spread across the region. so what will it take to de-escalate tensions? this is "inside story." ♪ nick: hello, and welcome to "inside story." i'm nick clark. from lebanon, to gaza, in the occupied west bank, there's been a sharp increase in violence between palestinians and israelis. it's raised fears of a wider

confrontation and questions around what this means for the already tense situation. in gaza, the israeli military says it carried out air strikes on hamas positions after intercepting rockets fired from the region. there are no reports of casualties. israel has also carried out airstrikes on parts of southern lebanon. the military says it's in response to rockets fired into israel on thursday. witnesses say the missiles fell into an open area near a palestinian refugee camp, damaging homes and farmland. israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, promised a strong response. >> i've made it very clear that our enemy shouldn't test us. the internal struggle in israel won't stop us from responding wherever and whenever necessary. we're calling for calm, and we will act against the extremists who resort to violence. as for the aggression against us on other fronts, we will strike our enemies and they will pay a price for any acts of

aggression. our enemy will discover once again that in moments of truth, the citizens of israel stand united and unified and support the actions of the army and the security forces to defend our country and our citizens. nick: in the occupied west bank, two israeli women have been killed and another seriously injured in the shooting. israeli authorities say the attackers targeted a vehicle in the west bank. local media, reporting the victims are a mother and her two daughters. hamas says the attack is a natural response to the raids on al-aqsa this week. palestine's ambassador to the uk had this to say. >> this is the israeli playbook for 75 years, that is since its establishment, a playbook that goes like this, they provoke the palestinian people into provoking them, so they retaliate. israel has been provoking and provoking over the months, the weeks, the days.

in janine, in nablos, in hebron, in gaza, and then of course the peak of that provocation as israel knows very well has happened the last few nights during the holy month of ramadan. and this playbook goes like this because israel lives on violence. it lives on the oppression and subjugation of an entire nation. ♪ nick: all right, let's bring in our panelists. in ramallah, we're joined by nour odeh, who's a political analyst and former spokeswoman for the palestinian national authority. in tel aviv, in israel is uri dromi, the founder and president of the jerusalem press club and a former israeli government spokesman. and in tunis, francesca albanese, the united nations special reporter on the occupied palestinian territories. welcome to all of you. nour, i'd like to start with you. first of all, there is a a

tragic familiarity to all of this, isn't there? worshipers that are at a deeply sacred site, beaten, rocket attacks, reprisals, deaths, it is just a relentless cycle, and here we go again. >> well, yeah, it's relentless and it's never ending, because none of the factors change. and the one factor that has remained quite constant is the fact that israel can get away with all of it. it can get away with the remaining and occupying power, it can get away with entering and raiding and storming al-aqsa mosque and undermining the historic and legal status quo in jerusalem and al-aqsa specifically without any consequence. and so, it doesn't feel any incentive to change course, to let go of the palestinian people, to let go of that occupation, and it has set up -- set the stage really for a very violent month. i remember from as far as the beginning of the year, israel

was warning about ramadan, as if ramadan was somehow a month where all palestinians turn into werewolves, when the fact is that all these israeli deliberate provocations and restrictions produce a very tense situation that can, and as we've seen, has spiraled into further violence and further brutality, unfortunately. nick: nour, is that your sense of where this is going, escalating violence? >> well, look, i have to remind the viewers the reality under occupation is violent every day, so when we talk about an escalation, we're talking about an uptick in the violence that palestinians experience every day. i don't think that we are headed into an all-out confrontation, but i do think that the situation remains remains very, very precarious. and the more israel pushes palestinians in jerusalem and across the occupied west bank, and the more heat palestinians

and gaza feel, the more likely unfortunately it is that things might deteriorate even further. nick: uri dromi in tel aviv, given the tensions, why would israeli forces go in such a heavy-handed way into the place of worship that is the al-aqsa mosque? >> frankly, i have some bit of criticism of the way our police handled it, but let's put it into perspective. i mean, israel since 1967 has kept the freedom of religion, at the al-aqsa mosque, and with all the problems and the wars and the violence, this principle was kept really vigorously by all israeli government. the problem is that there are forces, and mainly hamas at the

time, which try to use the sacred place, sacred to both jews and muslims, to spark another wave of violence in the region. and the violence you saw two days ago at al-aqsa mosque really resulted from the fact that some 300 people went into the mosque armed with clubs and stones and what have you, and i don't think most people go that way to a synagogue, or to a mosque, or to a church. so the police had to react, and as i said at the beginning, it reacted a bit hard, more harshly than necessary. nick: but that's the very point, isn't it? they went in more harshly than

is necessary, and yeah, we're in the situation that we're in, which is escalation. >> look, if we're starting again the blame game of who started what, fine. all i'm saying is, look at the broad picture. the broad picture is that every friday, tens of thousands, if not more muslim worshipers go to temple mount and pray and go back. we had a problem there, as i said, it resulted from a group of people who came there to start trouble, not to pray. >> that is incorrect. nick: nour, jump in there. >> i don't want to get into a tit-for-tat about what happened, but really, i think sticking to facts is extremely important. the israeli police has no

business and no right being inside and outside, it has no business restricting palestinians and deciding who can enter the al-aqsa mosque and for how long. and the fact is, there is a tradition, a religious tradition to stay overnight at the al-aqsa praying and in introspection, and israel wanted to restrict that, wanted to stop that, ban that. so the fact that some palestinians may have been apprehensive about a possible clash with the israeli security forces, with the israeli occupation forces, sorry, is not because they were looking for trouble, it's because they knew it was going to happen, because israel had been raiding, and for days, this was no surprise. this is the moda operandi of the occupation. and to say that israel has

respected religious freedom is really, you know -- and i want to stay respectfully here and i don't want to gear off point, but that's just factually incorrect. and all international reports refute that. when you restrict -- when you say the palestinians under 30 or 45 cannot go to jerusalem, you are restricting the right to freedom of religion when you decide who can answer and who cannot, when you ban people from al-aqsa, from the old city, then you're not respecting their rights, freedom of religion, you're not respecting them. nick: i want to move on. we haven't yet heard from francesca albanese, who's the united nations special reporteur on the occupied palestinian territories. francesca, what's your sense of where we're at now, the overall situation, how serious is it? >> i think it's very serious. but let me add on what the other speakers were saying. i think that israel's recent attacks on al-aqsa were reckless and beyond violating the basic human rights of the palestinians, including the

rights to worship and causing damage to the al-aqsa mosque. it violates the status quo agreement, which israel is under obligation to respect. and in this sense, yes, there is no reason for the police to go in. and so, these attacks are neither unprecedented nor isolated. i agree with israeli speakers that the context matters. and the context is, when abusive occupation which operates outside what is permitted by international law. so it's not a tit-for-tat, it's not something that started this week, this year, or even in 2022 or in 2021, it's a reality where the palestinians endure confinement, land confiscations, home demolitions, discriminatory law enforcement, mass incarceration, and other countless abuses and indignities and humiliation. so the violence is only doomed to continue unless this irredeemable illegality is fixed.

nick: nour, i just wonder -- just very quickly. we'll come back to that, very quickly. >> if francesca agrees with me about the context, let's broaden it a bit further and say that we came up with the oslo initiative which might have finished the occupation, and the palestinians said no. and now they are victimizing themselves forever. so this is where we are. nick: i just wanted to get it back to what's happened in the last few days. i want to unpack that. >> just one point. nick: i'm going to come back to you in a second. you'll have plenty of opportunity to talk. but nour, so thursday we have the israeli military once again attacking worshipers in al-aqsa. and then we have dozens of rockets being fired in from lebanon into israeli territory, biggest escalation since 2006.

for our audience, tell us about who fired those rockets and why from lebanon. >> well, we don't know who fired the rockets, because there have been no claims of responsibility as far as i know. israel accused hamas, even though hamas is not based in lebanon, and it responded by bombarding the gaza strip, which it still considered an occupying power of it, a land that is besieged by israel since 2006, and it also bombarded southern lebanon. the idea that an escalation, that these scenes of brutality can happen in jerusalem while palestinians look on, while people say that there is this entrenched culture of impunity, of no consequence, is absurd,

israel continues to insist that it can do whatever it wants in jerusalem and it expects palestinians everywhere else to be quiet and mute. and that has proven folly, as francesca said, while this brutality continues, it is unrealistic to expect palestinians not to respond. so we saw that escalation in southern lebanon. i don't think there is any verifiable way to know who fired the rockets and i don't think it really matters, because it is obvious from the way israel reacted that there is no -- that nobody's seeking an all-out confrontation. the easiest target for israel is the palestinians. it can target them and brutalize them without any consequence, without getting any regional actors involved, and so it has done that and it will continue to do that as long as it can get away with it. that's just the brutal reality of it.

it is about ending the occupation, oslo or not. nick: all right, francesca, for those who don't know the history, how does hezbollah fit into the picture? and they may not have been responsible for these rocket attacks, but they would have known about it, right? >> yeah, just one point to answer briefly the question before. whatever the agreements, the agreements cannot infringe the right of self-determination of any people, including the palestinians. let's say previous previous violence unleashed against the palestinians at al-aqsa in 2021, 2022 have caused the tensions with military groups in gaza. now the situation is worse because there have been indiscriminate attacks launched by southern lebanon as well, the largest attack from lebanon since 2006. i cannot say who was behind it, but i condemn all attacks on civilians. civilians must be protected and there are principles of proportionality and distinctions that are cardinal and introgressible in international law. but again, the context is a debt

of of an escalation that was predictable and israel had the means not to trigger it. and this is this is a question that we should all reflect upon. the asymmetry of power between israel and palestinians groups should also be considered. i mean, when we talk about the indiscriminate attacks against against civilians, the occupation is the trigger to this violence. and it's not an occupational maintained for security reasons. i'm sorry. otherwise, why would it have translated into the creation of over 270 colonies in the occupied land and the transfer of over 720,000 israeli civilians? this is what we should be talking about. because this is the trigger of the violence with the

palestinians. nick: do you want to come back to that? this is the trigger that inevitably the resistance is going to come if the palestinians are treated in this way. >> well, the difference between the way israel defends itself and the way the palestinians feel they are defending their cause is that israel tries goes -- israel tries to go out of its way not to hit civilians. and i can tell you, as a former air force colonel, that many times when the pilots or people operate unmanned vehicles, they stop, they don't launch the missile or something because some uninvolved people are around. on the contrary, what we saw today in the west bank is some

palestinians killing brutally and intentionally two sisters and critically wounding their mother, and i didn't hear anything from the other two speakers about this. so that's the difference. nick: my question to you was more about the trigger for all this violence. one way or the other, it comes down to the root cause, which is the occupation. >> the continuation of the occupation as a result of the continuous rejectionism of palestinians to any peace settlement. and we came up with -- >> oh my god. >> with the oslo accords, and still they keep saying no and no. and this is what happens.

personally, i'm not for settling the west bank with jews. i would rather stay in israel proper. but when you have on the other side a partner which even doesn't take yes for another, it's a problem. nick: okay, nour, respond to that, if you will. >> i mean, where do i begin? but let me just remind the viewers, because there's been so much hasbara in the past few minutes, that israel has killed thousands of palestinian civilians, it has destroyed entire residential buildings, it has targeted the press, it has downed an entire building, a -- entire building housing al jazeera and ap in gaza. it killed our colleague and franzarina barclay in janine. so when we're talking about the israeli army, let's keep that in perspective. the plethora of evidence about targeting civilians, about wiping entire families of the population registry are abundant, and they can be found very easily.

they're readily available to say that palestinians reject that freedom and self-determination, and that's why israel must occupy them is an old line. it seems that some think that it doesn't get old, but it really really is old and used. and it's also not nonsensical. -- and it's also nonsensical. the palestinian right to be free of israeli domination, of israeli brutalization is absolute, and to excuse the commission of war crimes, which is what building settlements and transferring the occupiers population is, is simply laughable. israel could end its occupation if it were interested, but you have a government now that is committed to not just decimating the palestinian people, but to treating the entirety of historic palestine as the land of israel, to denying the existence of the palestinian people, to denying their very own humanity.

you have ministers who are responsible for controlling the lives of palestinians who had been convicted even in israel for being provocateurs, for attacking israeli security, for attacking palestinians, and they're inviting a lot of these programs and a lot of these attacks by israeli settlers against palestinian civilians and by israeli occupation authorities against palestinian civilians. this is not a case of palestinians who want to remain occupied so they can remain violent. that's a very racist idea to present, quite frankly. the continuation -- nick: let's move it on. the bottom line is, little's going to change without a massive international effort. francesca, what do you make of the response to the al-aqsa

provocations? the canadian prime minister called on israel to shift its approach from the violent scene -- the violence seen at al-aqsa, but there was little else, really. would you call for more international condemnation and what more needs to be done for say the united states? >> yes, it is clear that mere words of condemnation do not work. they do not work anywhere, particularly here. again, i want to stress for the viewers that the relationship is not a submittable one between two equal entities or countries. there is one people on one state occupying another with a significant asymmetry of forces and power coming into play. instead of acquiescing to this state of affairs and calling for negotiations between the occupier and the occupied, an international community should simply abide by international law.

and so, to not recognize the least act the internationally wrongful act committed by israel and not cooperate or extend recognition of of this, of the colonization of the occupied territory. and also ask for reparations for this illegal act. but also in the current reality, it's absolutely necessary to deploy a protective presence that guarantees the safety and security of all civilians. first of all, mostly the palestinians, because they are the most exposed to the violence, but also the israelis. but again, this should lead as a long-term solution to the dismantlement of the occupation and the dismantlement of the colonization that israel maintains over the occupied territory. because this is not in line with international law. nick: i want to come back to nour's point about the current government. and it's fair to say, isn't it, that the right wing elements,

they do nothing to reduce tensions like ministers smotrich and -- please continue. >> they stand for or say there's a democracy in israel. unfortunately, they won the elections. but now recently we have because they launched a motion to really move israel from being democracy, the majority of the israeli people is uprising against it, and i think it will reflect itself in the next elections. but i really was a bit annoyed by what the speaker from the un said, and frankly, we're talking about a big perspective. it's about time that the u.n. starts to look at the palestinian problem and tries to

really solve it, because the u.n. has this ulnra which perpetuates the situation of the palestinian refugees instead of solving and settling it. and instead of encouraging them to join the members of the abram accords, who move forward with israel, rather than being stuck in the in the past. -- rather than being stuck in the past. nick: okay, let's throw that back to francesca. coming right to the end of the program. so francesca, if you could wrap it up pretty quick, thanks. >> yes, i mean, i agree again that the u.n. should take responsibility for the question of palestine, which is a responsibility for the un. and there's been so far 75 years. but this cannot happen without again ending the occupation. because right now, this is the main problem that needs to be resolved. nick: final word to you, nour.

ending the occupation, that's the only solution? >> yes, and jerusalem will remain the epicenter of events at this point, because israel is deliberately provoking. as long as there is this occupation that continues and as long as palestinian refugees continue to be denied their right to return to their homes. and as long as you have people who are willing to dehumanize palestinians and attack them for demanding freedom without feeling shame or without facing consequence, it is unlikely that we will see any change in the dynamics, unfortunately. nick: all right, on that note we'll leave it. thanks very much indeed to our guests tonight. thanks very much indeed. and thank you, too, for watching. you can see the program again at any time by visiting our website, aljazeera.com. and for further discussion just go to our facebook page, facebook.com/ajinsidestory. you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is @ajinsidestory. from me, nick clark, and the whole team here in doha, it's goodbye.

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