we will hear voices from the protest including palestinian lawyer activist noura erakat, the hip hop star macklemore. >> we lead with our hearts, we speak the truth, we shutdown the propaganda, and we march forward. free palestine! free free palestine! amy: plus, as israel rejects growing calls for a cease-fire, we will look at secretary of state tony blinken's tour of the middle east. we will speak with university of maryland professor shibley telhami. we will also talk to dr. alice rothchild, a retired ob/gyn who has long worked in palestine. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. israel's military set is forces have fully encircled gaza city as it intensifies its bombardment of the besieged palestinian territory. leaders say that ground offensive has split the territory in two, a south gaza and a north gaza. gaza was once again plunged into a total communications blackout, the third such outage since october 7. 18 u.n. and other prominent aid groups issued a rare joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire after

we began with noura erakat. >> we are all here to charge this administration with genocide. israel and the united states are jointly complicit in the ongoing nakba in palestine. together they are renting international law worthless and relevant. every single tribunal from nuremberg to rwanda, bosnia to cambodia -- every prosecution at the icc -- protect as from ourselves and today we failed to stop. today we failed to stop the skies from crashing down in white phosphorus flames onto palestinian dreams. memories, potential onto palestinian these. not old enough to beseech you, to have mercy upon them. we are here now with them and for them to demand a cease-fire. we demand because palestine reveals the naked hypocrisy of western universalism. it reveals our enduring colonial rheology -- reality and offers a glimpse into future without colonialism. palace dean, we are valued people, have always existed. we are survivors and fighters, continue to affirm that they belong to a land upon which there is a life worth living. [speaking non-english] we are like olive trees like the on

earlier, i spoke to palestinian legal scholar and human rights attorney noura erakat.ceived by palestinians? i think as all palestinians who are living under captivity because of an ongoing occupation for 56 years, apartheid and 75 years of settler colonialism, it is a bit of a relief but it will not be lasting. despite the fact they were released back into society because israel remains the single authority and sovereign from the river to the sea and ruled by military dictate and racist apartheid regime. any of these palestinians, and much more, and be rearrested for being on the wrong side of the street, driving on a segregated road, digging beneath the ground for water too deeply, for going to pray injerusalem without a military permit. so, all of this is within a context and i want to highlight because of context to the audience that israel could have achieved this release, this exchange, precise exchange, in the first week of its onslaught against the palestinians besieged in the gaza strip. it could have achieved it right before the ground invasion on october 27.

amy: palestinian human rights attorney noura erakat, associate pr