The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday that it had cut the northern half of Gaza off from the southern half, meaning that there was no longer any possibility of the remaining people in Gaza City—estimated at 500,000—escaping from the hellish conditions of bombardment and massacre. A full-scale block-by-block, house-to-house ground invasion of Gaza City could develop within hours, according to military observers and journalists. This is likely to include the destruction of any building believed to be housing Hamas fighters, or any structure the IDF claims has a Hamas tunnel underneath it. Given the reports in the imperialist press of “hundreds of miles” of such tunnels, and the IDF claims that Hamas has built headquarters and other military facilities underneath hospitals, schools and other key civilian infrastructure, it is predictable that a ground invasion will involve the total destruction of Gaza City, with countless casualties among the helpless and trapped population.
The conditions for Palestinians in Gaza, both north and south, combine mass starvation with the threat of imminent death from bombs, rockets, missiles and artillery shells unleashed by the Israeli military. The Gaza director of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestinian people, said Friday that the average Gaza resident is living on two pieces of pita bread per day made from flour stockpiled by the UN agency. The Gaza Strip is a “scene of death and destruction,” Thomas White said, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the enclave had become a “graveyard for children.”
AMY GOODMAN: The heads of 18 United Nations agencies and NGOs have issued a rare joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, expressing shock and horror at Israel’s monthlong bombardment. The statement read in part, quote, “We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” unquote. But Israel is rejecting all calls for a ceasefire or even a humanitarian pause as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza and the West Bank nears 10,000 over this past month.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is continuing a trip throughout the Middle East. Blinken is in Turkey today after stops in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Jordan and Iraq. This comes as fears grow of a broader regional war. On Sunday, an Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed three children and their grandmother. The strike came two days after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a major address.
We begin today’s show looking at diplomatic efforts to halt Israel’s bombardment, which began October 7th after Hamas launched a surprise attack that Israel says killed over 1,400 people. Israel says about 240 hostages were taken during the attack.
We’re joined by Shibley Telhami, professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland, also a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy. He’s co-editor of the book The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?
Professor Telhami, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you start off by talking about this horrifying landmark moment? Nearly 10,000 Palestinians have been killed; mass protests around the world; Secretary of State Blinken going to Tel Aviv, then surprising people by going to Ramallah, went to Jordan, met with Arab leaders, then on to Iraq — the significance of that? Now in Turkey. What you feel needs to happen now?
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Well, first of all, in terms of this moment, which you asked about, obviously, anyone with a heart — that doesn’t matter whether you are Jewish or Arab or Christian or whatever — the scale of horror is just unbearable. And we haven’t seen that in, certainly, years, but perhaps decades, in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. But I think it’s even bigger than that. It’s beyond the humanitarian heartache that we all witness every day, and we have witnessed also in the attack on Israel. I think it is — you know, those people who think this is just another cycle of violence are really not capturing the moment.
This is a paradigm-changing moment. This is a moment that’s likely to really shift the way we think about the conflict. It is likely to shift the way people in the region think about the United States, because of its role. And I think, therefore, even people who are thinking about “Let’s think about the morning after,” are not coming to grips with what a morning after might look like, if there is a morning after. So I think it’s a moment that is bigger than most of us realize, because those moments in history usually are evaluated after the fact, not while you’re going through it. We know it’s horrendous, but we’re not grasping the implications.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about President Biden right now. Polls show that before all of this took place, I mean, when he was elected, he had something like 59% of the Arab American vote. We’re now talking about something like 17%. And we’re talking about key states like Michigan — Dearborn, for example. Can you talk about the significance of this nationally, and then globally, where he stands in the Arab world?
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Yeah, I think nationally, obviously, we already see implications of this. We see it in various polling that has been taken. His popularity has dropped among Democrats, coincidentally around the same time that this war started and is going on, and we don’t know that that’s directly related to it, but perhaps it is. But I have conducted a poll through our University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll two weeks after the war, and there was a bump in the sympathy for Israel, but when it comes to the Biden administration’s evaluation, more people said he was too pro-Israel than said he is too pro-Palestinian. And obviously, in terms of the implications for voting nationally, more likely to vote for President Biden because of his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, we have far more people saying they’re less likely to vote for him than more likely to vote for him. So it has implications way beyond Arab and Muslim Americans, because our poll cannot possibly capture Arab and Muslim Americans in the sample. But we do know that in the sample, based on, you know, reporting and other polls that have been done, Arab and Muslim Americans are extremely frustrated. I know definitely that some of the Arab American leaders have conveyed to the secretary of state directly that the president is likely to lose Michigan because of his stance. So, I think the president — my own view is this war is going to hurt him.
But globally, it’s also going to hurt him a lot, because I think people can’t — people understood his support for Israel after the horrific Hamas attack; what they can’t understand is his inability to condemn the actions that have resulted in such mass destruction and killing in Gaza, and his seeming complicity in that. And that’s really something that goes against the — you know, after the Soviet — sorry, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we know that he tried to defend a liberal — the notion of a liberal international order, and certainly a rules-based international order, and opposed, in principle, targeting civilians or recklessly endangering them and war crimes. And what we see, he’s not able to do that with regard to Gaza. I think this is going to undermine his standing globally, not just in the Middle East, not just in the Global South, but beyond.
AMY GOODMAN: You also said in a recent interview there’s a level of shock you haven’t seen even during the Iraq War, that you’d bet Biden today might even supersede Benjamin Netanyahu as the most disliked leader in the Arab world, Professor Telhami.
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Yes. And as you know, I took a position against the Iraq War in 2002, when people were talking about it, to the point that I helped organize an ad for international relations scholars in The New York Times September 2002, saying the Iraq War is not in America’s national interest. It was hard for us to break through an antiwar message through the regular media. And at that time, I also conducted a poll in the Arab world that showed that George W. Bush had become even less popular in the Arab world than then-hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
And I bet the same is taking place at the moment. This is a moment — as I said, it’s a paradigm-shifting moment. And I think that it’s going to be very hard for Biden to recover from it. It’s very hard for people to listen to him when he is speaking about a promise of peace or a promise of two states. They had not trusted him before this in the Arab world — the public opinion, I’m talking about. And I think after this stance, it’s going to be impossible.
AMY GOODMAN: Shibley Telhami, we want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland, also senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy, co-editor of the book The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?
Coming up, a massive crowd rallies in Washington, D.C., for the largest pro-Palestinian march in U.S. history, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Stay with us.
Gaza is “becoming a graveyard for children,” the United Nations chief warned on Monday as the death toll rises and calls grow around the world for a ceasefire, one month into Israel’s assault [. . .]
“The nightmare in Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis of humanity,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters in New York, adding that the need for a ceasefire is becoming “more urgent with every passing hour.”
“The parties to the conflict – and, indeed, the international community – face an immediate and fundamental responsibility: to stop this inhuman collective suffering and dramatically expand humanitarian aid to Gaza,” he said.
As journalists in Gaza reported that the Israel Defense Forces bombed the cancer ward of a pediatric hospital in Gaza City on Sunday, advocates for a cease-fire in the blockaded enclave pleaded with powerful Western countries allied with Israel—including the United States—to take action to stop the bombardment that has now killed more than 4,000 children in one month.
Local news outlets Palestinian Hadath, Mayadeen, Haya Jadeeda, and Quds Networkreported that the third floor of al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital had been hit by an Israeli airstrike, while Reutersreported that eight people had been killed in the attack.
The Daily Beast reported late last month that medical providers in the ward, which is called the Dr.Musa and Suhaila Nasir Pediatric Cancer Department and is the first and only children's oncology department in Gaza, feared a possible bombing of the hospital, where at least 10 children were receiving in-patient treatment and could not be evacuated when Israeli officials threatened northern Gaza with imminent airstrikes.
"It's an impossible situation," said Dr. Zeena Salman, an American pediatric oncologist who has volunteered at the hospital, told The Daily Beast. "There's a number of patients who are not stable enough to transfer to another hospital. And there may not be enough resources in the hospital."
Al-Rantisi Hospital has also been providing shelter to around 1,000 civilians since Israel's total siege in Gaza began last month.
On Sunday, United Nations agencies representing children, women, refugees, and health services issued a joint call warning that "women, children and newborns in Gaza are disproportionately bearing the burden" of Israel's attack on the enclave, which it commenced on October 7 after Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage.
While claiming to be targeting Hamas, the IDF has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians since October 7 as it has bombed hospitals, schools, and refugee camps—all while blaming Hamas for civilian casualties by saying the group is using Palestinian people as "human shields."
"The idea that 'they were being shielded by children so we murdered the children too' is so absent of morality, it's outrageous," said author Gabrielle Alexa Noel last week in response to an MSNBC segment in which anchor Joy Ann Reid also condemned the claim.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
The Gaza Health Ministry has announced the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has now exceeded 10,000 from Israel’s monthlong bombardment. On Friday, at least 15 people died when an Israeli airstrike hit a convoy of ambulances outside Gaza’s largest hospital.
We’re ending the show with Dr. Alice Rothchild, retired OB-GYN who has long worked in Palestine, was last in Gaza in August. On Friday, Dr. Rothchild participated in a nonviolent protest to shut down the Federal Building in Seattle, where Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington has an office, urging the senator to call for an immediate ceasefire. Dr. Rothchild is on the steering committee of Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council and mentor liaison for We Are Not Numbers, on the board of Gaza Mental Health Foundation.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Dr. Rothchild. If you can talk about the attacks on hospitals right now? You have the attack on the ambulance convoy. Israel said it’s because they were transporting Hamas fighters. You have the attack on the hospitals, like Al-Shifa, the largest. Israel says it’s because command and control is underneath. Can you comment on all of this and the number, the death toll at this point?
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: Well, this is an appalling situation in terms of the death toll. And there are multiple international laws, starting with the Geneva Accords, that are being violated. You are not allowed, under any circumstances, to bomb hospitals, to bomb health centers, to bomb ambulances. This is against international law. Israel has —Israeli military has for years, with multiple different attacks, accused health facilities of sheltering, quote, “terrorists.” They have never produced good documentation. And even if there were, for instance, tunnels under a hospital, you are still not allowed to bomb a hospital. So this is a grave violation of international law and also part of the situation where civilians are dying in massive numbers and being injured in massive numbers.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you comment on the level of protest that you’re seeing right now and the amount of suffering that you’re seeing right now in Gaza? You have these 18 groups, rarely, issuing a joint statement, NGOs, along with U.N. agencies, demanding a ceasefire. And what this would mean, and what Senator Murray has said to you as a representative of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, as you shut down the Federal Building in Seattle?
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: Well, I think that I’ve been doing this for — solidarity work for 25 years, and this kind of response is unprecedented. And I think it’s a reflection of the unprecedented nature of the Israeli attack. And Senator Murray has not been willing to call for a ceasefire. But people all over this country and all over the planet are calling for a ceasefire, because we must stop this bombing, and we must stop all of the civilian death.
It is clear that the Israeli military is not doing a war to destroy Hamas, whatever that means. It is a war to destroy Gaza and destroying the infrastructure and killing thousands of people. You know, over half the homes are destroyed. A third of the hospitals are destroyed. It’s just a massive, massive catastrophe for this region. And there is thought that this is all part of an Israeli plan to run Gazans out of Gaza and displace them into Egypt. There are all sorts of horrific ideas going around. So, the response to this is all being seen internationally.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the health situation? We just came out of the third total blackout of Gaza, with health organizations, human rights groups begging the Israeli government to turn back on the electricity, the cellular service, because of what it means for people, organizations that are trying to coordinate their surviving workers on the ground to help the Palestinians.
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: Well, the health system is catastrophic. It has collapsed. And if you think about it, what it means not have electricity, you cannot call an ambulance. You’re in labor. You cannot communicate with anyone. Hospitals can’t communicate with each other. They can’t pump water into the system. There is no — almost no water at all that’s clean. That means you can’t wash your sterile instruments. You can’t wash wounds. There’s a lack of antibiotics. People are dying of infection.
I mean, it goes on and on and on, if you think about not having water, not having electricity and also not having food. There is now a serious risk of starvation. The average Gazan is living on two pieces of bread a day and spending hours searching for water. And people are starting to drink agricultural water, so we’re seeing an uptick in diarrheal diseases, respiratory infections, chickenpox. You know, this is a humanitarian and health catastrophe that is basically being live-streamed in front of our eyes.
AMY GOODMAN: And the position of the Biden administration? We just have 30 seconds at this point.
DR. ALICE ROTHCHILD: The position of the Biden administration is entirely inadequate and utterly outrageous. Biden needs to call for a ceasefire. The U.S. is sending — planning to send Israel more weapons, that will only create more havoc. So, Israel should not be getting weapons, and Biden must, must, must call for a total ceasefire. That is absolutely necessary from a humanitarian, healthcare, political, human and moral point of view.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Alice Rothchild, we thank you for you for being with us. We’ll continue our conversation and post it online at democracynow.org. Retired OB-GYN who has long worked in Palestine, was in Gaza in August, on the steering committee of Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council.
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