hello and welcome to spotlight. 11 months of relentless israeli bombings have killed at least 41,000 palestinians. tens of thousands of bombs have been dropped on the besieged ghaza strip. civilian infrastructure is almost entirely destroyed. humanitarian assistance just trickles in for the palestinians who have been displaced multiple times from one refugee camp to another. in the occupied. west bank, the regime's hunger

for palestinian lands has been insatiable, iof raids, settler attacks and illegal settlement constructions have set new records in spite of uh committing all these crimes, the israeli regime only gets more emboldened by the international, by the unconditional political support and military aid from the west, and the silence and in action of the rest of the international community. stay with us uh as um we'll be discussing. that in tonight's spotlight program with our guests, director of palestine aid ireland, frau is joining us from belfast, and we also have author, journalist and producer, sakina datu joining us from the british capital, london. welcome to the program, to the uh, both of our guests. let's start off with mr. fraus and belfast. over 4000 palestinians, mostly

women and children, have been slaughtered in cold blood since last october as israeli attacks across gaza continue, the fact that the international community has failed to stop this genocide for almost a full year is appalling and in my views disgusting, how many more innocent women and children, aid workers, doctors and journalists have to be killed before this bloodshed is stopped. well, i think we should start off maybe by saying and stating the figures that have been published by the lancet. the lancet is the newsletter of the british medical association. i believe that they said in march that the figure that they have is over 1886,00 people murdered in this genocidal onslot on gaza. i understand the uh ministry of health and gaza can only give the figures that they are able to uh standover and that

is the people who have come to hospital, the people have been certified as dead, but with the ongoing uh starvation of people in the north and many probably as yet uh unfound uh mass graves, i think that figure of 40,500 is is to be questioned uh, talking about how many people potentially will die so long as the west, that's britain, germany, france uh... america, australia, canada, the western of uh colonial imperialist uh click, so long as i continue to uh unreservedly support israel, i believe that these days will continue until the israeli plan, whatever that is comes to uh fruition, and it looks very much as if they want to destroy gaza to leave no building standing, we have seen the surgical strikes where they able to... building in

beirot and hit a building the iranian embassy in damascus, so there are no surgical strikes in gaza, there is an official policy of displacement of 2.2 million people in gaza into less than 10% of the available space without water, without food, without medicine, without hospital support, uh, the idea is to leave uh gaza as a car park which will... a phrase used previously by some of those in charge uh in israel, the des will go on unabated, america curves nothing for the civilian lives in gaza, they curved nothing for the millions that they murdered in vietnam, america, corporate bomb, cambodia and loush and and and vietnam, and what we're watching and what we're witnessing in this genocide is the carpet bombing of the civilian people uh in gaza. israel forces of

west bank over the past two decades, give us your assessment of the increased israeli violence in the west bank as the genocide in gaza is still ongoing, is this part of the regime's plan to tighten control over um occupied outs and the alarsamas compound? i think they've had a control all along, when we see some things that we've witnessed 10 days of raids in genene, it's left. a brutal destruction, this is part of the collective punishment that israel conducts on the palestinians. i mean, i was looking into this and water, suwage and 20 kilometers of the road has been destroyed, so basically they have cut off people in jane to the rest of

gaza, of the west bank, so this is a systematic effort in my view, of making different areas of the west bank as well as gaza unlievable. two fold, one is to ensure that palestinians want to leave themselves, because there is no way that they can sustain life when everything is destroyed, but also of course this is a forced displacement of people, it's ethnic cleansing in terms of them wanting the control of al aqsa, i think this is quite a well known fact, we have seen so many times b gavia talk about this, we have seen how every time that you know people go to pray in almaqs. al aqsa, we have seen the forces, israeli forces going there and killing people. i think you know when we look at what has happened in genine and we are told this hasn't happened in a long time, you see that the gloves are really off, not just in terms of what israel is all about, but in

terms of the entire world, whether we're talking about the western countries or you are talking about the muslim arab countries surrounding, in my view, there is no one now who can claim the really will... live an era where we respect human rights, we live an area where we are obeying international laws, none of these are being held, and we can see this very clearly, apart from the killings, we're talking of you know 4000 or more according to lunset, however the images that we are watching of prisoners, it just is cannot believe that these are human beings, treating other human beings in such humiliating manner, so i mean for me this whole aspect of whether they want al aqsa or why they are doing it, it comes down to the fact that israel are have lost all sorts of humanity, but not just them, think a lot of people around the world, a politicians, leaders of the world, upholders of justice,

humanity, all of them have really lost values when it comes to humanity. frag huws, if the israelies are attempting to forcibly displace palestinians. from both the gaza strip and the west bank, it potentially means driving palestinians into egypt and jordan. this has all the ingredients for another nakba, which apart from being a war crime, will also have serious repercussions for countries around palestine as well. unpack that for us please. uh, well, i think the best way to look at israeli society, which is move further and further to the rate over the last two decades, as to look at the... long term plan the zist illegal occupation of palestine, which started around 1902 when the jewish national fund started buying up tracks of land in palestine for jaanis jews to emigrate to palestine with the uh proposed idea of

creating a jewish state within the homeland of palestine, so when you check that as a basis for the context of what's happening now, we witness. 75000 people being ethnically cleansed in a nakpa, we witnessed, i think it was 350,000 being uh forced into exile during the nasa in 1967 and what we're watching is a continuation of the zanast plan of displacement and replacement of the palestinian people with the jewish worldwide uh diaspora, so the zanas have most governments are in power for five, possibly... 10 years they have five or 10-year plan for the economy, for jobs, for finance, for uh securing the state, the israeli state is built on the premise of eventually occupying and controlling all of uh historic palestine, and that's what we're

witnessing, it's not a five-year plan, it's not a 10-year plan, it is uh over 100-year plan, it's 123 years in the making so far, i think what we're witnessing. is attempt to create uh both in gaza and in the west bank conditions that are uninhabitable and unlivable for the people of palestine, the only way they can't force the people out of gaza who stead fastly refuse to leave, even those you're suffering from this enforced man-made fammon in the north of gaza, the only way they will force them out is uh at the end of guns and the end of tanks and through massacres like they did at uhim and other places in 1948 in historic palestine so if they if they try to push the people out into uh the sana i question is whether or not sicy, who in my mind is an american puppet who was put in the power with an american

coup when they removed the elected uh representative of president president morsei uh i think that if they're given enough money or he's personally uh encouraged in some fashion to allow people to move into gaza and people into jordan it's quite possible miss too uh looking at the us complicity in israel crimes, the us regularly announces that it doesn't want a broader war or any dangerous escalation, but its words and actions are in sheer contradiction, as washington claims its pushing for a cease fire, it continues to provide military, political and financial support to israel, which the regime uses to kill innocent women and children. describe for us this us hypocrisy regarding the gaza geneside and israel's regional crimes overall, the us has... lost all sorts of credibility you know around the world in a way that i think has never happened before.

today we've heard of a turkish american uh woman who was killed and she was she was american citizen. if they cannot protect their own citizens you know just because of their inequivocal support of israel, this says to you that america is not a free country and genuinely i believe that these western countries uh uk to some extent but definitely. in the us, i don't think people realize how much freedom within their own space has been compromised, they are not, the politicians, it's not that they don't see what is happening, it's even not that they completely agree with what israel is doing, however they have come to point because they have had support of you know people like the the friends of israel here in the uk, ipec has got so much control over the american. congress that even if they want to, they are not able to do anything about it, so you know

today, after their own citizen has been murdered, she wasn't even anywhere close to where the the issues were happening, where the you know she was protesting against the illegal settlements, now these illegal settlements, this is not something that me and you are talking about, this is according to the international framework that these settlements are illegal, here is an american woman, wasn't even close to where the the you know protest was happening, but she was killed by israeli forces and what does america do? they have just said that they will investigate america and the uk really western countries in general, germany after what we have seen them standing on the wrong side of history, time and again they are doing the same thing again. so in my view, the zionist tentacles, the control around the western world is so strong that local or... ordinary people in this countries do understand that israel on the is on the wrong side, palestinians are the victims, however

nobody is able to do anything because there is such a strong control of the zionist entities, this is financially, you know, in in all different manners, politically, people have been placed, zionists have placed their own people in all key areas and therefore i think you know it's it's almost like in some way we are also hostages to what is happening because we cannot convince our governments to do anything significant. sure he's talking about focusing on the us, it's facing widespread protests and demonstrations for its complicity in the gaza genocide, most notably at university campuses, which are going to gain steam again as the new semester starts. how can american politicians just ignore how displeased americans are with this war and with their tax is being sent to fund this genocide, most american and western politicians in general haven't even second

guess their support for the israelies? yes, well i think first of all uh recently i heard george galloway talking about apac and america, they are boasting that they have just spent uh $100 million dollars uh in the american elections so far with two months still to go, so it's going to be huge amount of money being invested by apex, but consider that before october 7, 2023, the american tax payer was sending the israel state 3 billion dollars, so the american taxpayer sends 3 billion dollars. to help provide a free education, free healthcare and social housing for people in israel, when you cannot get free healthcare, free university tuition and free social housing in america, so you send the billion dollars to america, and they spend 100 billion plus in order to buy members of congress, members of the senate

and to influence the presidential risk uh, we know that baiden is aver zanist. uh he's actually said before that if israel didn't create uh sorry if israel wasn't in existence uh they would have to create it in order to maintain american hegemonic control within west asia when it comes to oil and gas pipelings. i remember one of the first things that was done in afghanistan after the american laid war on afghanistan was a gas pipeline that went through afghanistan. this was the very first uh uh the... first uh law enacted by uh carse uh when he became the american puppet in afghanistan, so it's about control of resources, oil, gas, the se canal and other uh things that are important to uh western imperialism, so when you think of donald trump, the thing i think of is that there's photographs of him with uh epstand,

so i just wonder what photographs or what commentary... or what emails uh are actually compromising donald trump and his support for the israeli states, so the american senate and the congress is bought, they spent millions of dollars recently trying to unseat pro-palestinian uh independent or uh democratic democratically elected democrats in the congress, so they're buying political power uh through financial power and that's been witnessed all over europe uh and in other uh western five five countries. sakinad to after close to year, the palestinian resistance continues to fight back hard inside gaza, which marks the great failure for israel's military campaign on the ground. what does that say about the steadfastness of the resistance? um, palestinians, i think are

cut from a cloth that does does not share with anyone else around the world. if we was to see the kind of... distance that we are seeing in palestine, in other places, in egypt, in turkey, in the us, in uk, this world would have been a very different place. i don't know where they get the strength from, but i can only see that the trust in god is what really gives them the strength to keep resisting. now when we talk about resistance, here are even talking about resistance in western countries these days has become issue because there is huge crackdown on the media here, recently we've seen sarah wilkinson. you now under house, we have seen richard medhurst, we've witnessed clive mensis, there's lot of other other you know journalists who are being constantly threatened for speaking out, speaking out and just talking about basic resistance, now this resistance is according to the international law, you know they have every all people have a right of self determination, so when we

talk about resistance we are not necessarily talking about hamas or talking about you, we're talking about ordinary people and this is... because they are occupied, israel is a colonial power and therefore you know resistance is is something that is, they are allowed to resist. i really, i really look at those mothers, and think that god has sometimes you you can lose trust in god, sometimes you can watch what is happening and really wonder where is god when people are being subjected to these kind of atrocities, but you know on reflection in my view, i think the people of palestine, when you watch the resistance of those mothers, those children, it it is to awaken the rest of us, maybe the rest of us around the world are so infiltrated into this material world where it is constantly about getting more and more and more and they are there to awaken our conscious and and to really make us question ourselves. i just want to you ask the the

masses, particularly masses in egypt or those students who are you know... in in the us, yes, they have shown us a way, but where is everybody else? we already see that a process such as elections is no more free, people are supposed to be in a democracy, it's the people who are supposed to be deciding their leaders, but in reality all elections are boat, this is a time for the resistance such as that of palestine to spread around the people the world, people who believe in peace, who believe in humanity all around the world, they have to take example of these students that we've seen in university campuses, we need to see this spread around the world to end this shame that is upon the world today. for the israelis have taken to the streets again. to protest benyamin netanyahu and his far right cabinet's handling of this war. netanyahu stands accused of systematically obstructing the gaza cease fire for his political and

personal gains. is that how you view it as well that netanhou is prolonging this war just to keep his head above water? well, first of all, i could adddress the fact that there are someone's claimed up the 50000 israelies on the streets of tel aviv and other towns and cities. calling for sess fire, they're not calling for sess fire, what they want are the remaining captives released uh and brought back home to israel, and then they don't cur if gaza is turned into a car park afterwards, after 11 months of genocide, they are not on the streets calling for an end to the war, they're not calling for an end of the genocidal purge on gaza, they are not complaining about the people in the west bank here being murdered or the 10th. dtnees actually in the kineset, not that long ago, they were debating whether or not, according to their religious values that it is legal or moral to rip men and women, to gang, rip

them, the most vulnerable people in the world, people you can't decide what time to get up in the morning, what time eat, what time to exercise, what time to read a book, they are totally conditioned and controlled within the israeli prison system, these people are being brutalized, starved, beaten, tortured and ripped and there's no one in tel aviv on the streets calling for this to come to an end, what you're witnessing is the uh entitlement i would describe it of the the chosen people who believe that the lives of the captives are above the lives of palestinian men, women, children and newborn babies, they cur nothing for the ghazans, nothing for the palestinians in the west bank, the soul concern is for the captives that they want brought home. "the opposition want uh out purely because they want to get in the power, but israeli society has moved so far to the right that i believe if they had elections in the next six months you

would see the settler movement gain more power, more influence and more positions, and you may see bent giver or uh smutrich or someone else of that elk becoming the leader uh within the caneset in a hung parliament, so uh it's all you talk about american..." hypocrisy around these fires, what we're witnessing in tel aviv is the hypocrisy of fascist, right-wing society who voted into power, yet again, netanyahu, the war criminal for 20 years with blood and his hands of innocent palestinians, they voted in smoke, they voted and ben giver, uh netanyahu wants to stay there as long as possible, i think he has the dream that he will be the israeli leader who finally settled the palestinian question, and i think that's part of the reason why... wants to stay on power, he wants to leave hero regardless of what the people feel now, if he can win in gaza and he can destroy the west bank, he will see himself as hero. all right, that's all the

time we have for tonight's show, thank you to uh director of palestine ireland, frau huves joining us from belfast and author, journalist and producer sakina datu, speaking to us from the british capital, london. a special thanks to you our viewers for staying with us tonight, spotlight. it's good night for now and see you next time. this is forest. in today's show, we'll be looking at how this global war even extends to the annual emmy awards that recognize excellence in television and emerging media. this campaign uh is is uh is something which um which is a feeling and which will will be an indication. i think of the uh the general um beginnings of failure of the lobby. bisan hoda is a palestinian journalist um who has

been covering the war in ghazza from the very beginning. she already won pbody award in the news category.

نزل لي الساند هذا بسرعه. the siege of gaza must end.

we're coming back and we'll keep coming back until palestine is free. for decades, women in the united states have been fighting uphill battle against gender inequality, and yet they have a long way to go. the culture of violence against women is still reflected in domestic violence and sexual harassment. every 9 seconds, one woman

is battered in america, while one out of three women in the country has experienced violence from her husband or partner. we will not be meeting soon on press tv. this is... about people who got silenced but kept fighting, supervision and controlling of freedom of speech only comes up when you're criticizing israel. 45 palestinian journalists behind israeli bars at the moment, they warn students that if they remain here they will be arrested. this is about the voices of palestine.

step into the compelling world of the syrian poet, ahlam banawi, as his captivating documentary explores her unwavering dedication to syria and the profound personal struggles that she endured during the... war in syria, levi left us letter, my mother had found it, here is to all the ones i love, i'm sorry i

could not... take it anymore, so it is time for me to go, to go where the sun is always sunny and the grass is always green, and the flowers smell like honey. the happy son that i had known that loved life so much and loved children and animals, now we just seem like this shell of a person, i think he could still be here today had he been given the proper treatment. sometimes after 9/11 attacks in 2001 in the

us, three egyptian fishermen in the italian port city of anzio, 50 km from the capital rome were arrested. according to italian security authorities, they were planning to assassinate then us president george w. bush. they were also accused of planning to carry out suicide missions in public places in rome. ingrato.