AMY GOODMAN: We're here on Democracy Now,
Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report.
I'm Amy Goodman.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Gaza, where Israeli-imposed
restrictions continue to limit electricity
to barely four hours a day, creating a humanitarian
catastrophe for its 2 million residents.
The Palestinian Authority has backed the Israeli
siege in an attempt to isolate and weaken
its political rival, Hamas, the group that
has controlled Gaza for the last 10 years.
Gaza has been under Israeli siege for more
than a decade.
In 2012, the World Health Organization warned
Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020, but now
the U.N. says the living conditions in Gaza
have deteriorated faster than expected and
the area has already become unlivable.
This is the U.N. humanitarian coordinator
for occupied Palestinian territory, Robert
Piper.
ROBERT PIPER: I see this extraordinarily inhuman
and unjust process of strangling, gradually,
2 million civilians in Gaza that really pose
a threat to nobody.
I don’t know—you know, we talk about the
unlivability of Gaza.
When you’re down to two hours a day of electricity,
which is the case earlier this week, when
you’ve got 60 percent youth unemployment
rates, where you really do have such a little
horizon, I—for me, and you probably, and
most of the people watching, that unlivability
threshold has been passed quite a long time
ago.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the situation,
we go directly to Gaza, where we’re joined
by Raji Sourani, the award-winning human rights
lawyer, director of the Palestinian Center
for Human Rights in Gaza, on the executive
board of the International Federation for
Human Rights.
He received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Award in 1991, was also twice named an Amnesty
International prisoner of conscience.
We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Raji.
Can you talk about what is happening right
now in Gaza?
RAJI SOURANI: Well, it’s the 50th anniversary
of belligerent, criminal Israeli occupation,
and it’s 11 years since the siege on Gaza
has been imposed, which is illegal, inhuman
and consists collective punishment.
And at this moment, I mean, the siege on the
peak, we are living the biggest man-made disaster.
And as the Israelis promised, rightly, they
will send us to the Middle Ages, and they
do—Gaza completely disconnected from the
outside world, subjugated during this period
to three offensives by Israeli.
In the eye of the storm were civilians and
civilian targets.
And after all these years, we are unable to
rebuild or reconstruct most of these destructions.
This led us to a situation where almost 65
percent are unpaid or unemployed, 90 percent
under the poverty line.
And almost 85 percent of the population depends
on UNRWA, World Food Program and other charities’
rations and food.
Effectively, they are making Gaza animal farm,
international community dumping some food
and medicine.
We cannot treat our water.
We cannot treat our sewage, and our entire
sea polluted and our water undrinkable.
They put people in a situation where no hope
for tomorrow and the people on the verge of
collapse.
There is 2 million people suffering this for
the last 11 years.
The last thing, Amy, we are having, it’s
the electricity.
Used to be six, seven hours a day.
Now we are having only two hours.
And you can imagine the drastic effect for
this on all aspects of life, on medical care,
on operations, on dialysis, on heart surgeries,
on people who are suffering, on the food stuff
should be fridged, and so on.
All aspects of life in Gaza on the verge of
collapse, and we are sure the worst yet to
come, every day the Israelis bringing evil
mind and evil practice to this part of the
world.
AMY GOODMAN: Just can you describe, even in
more detail, what it means not to have electricity?
I mean, for people in any city—like New
York years ago, we suffered the blackout.
Obviously, it’s catastrophic.
But explain what it means to have two—if
you’re lucky, four—hours of electricity
a day, how it affects daily living, how it
affects the hospitals, how it affects the
clean water, etc.
RAJI SOURANI: I mean, Gaza is one of the most
densely populated area on Earth.
And we are having buildings with 14, 16 stories
now.
And it’s mission impossible, I mean, to
send water to these stories up, because you
need electricity even to pump this unusable
water.
So, having water, most of Gaza, I mean, it’s
not there.
Second, the desalination factories, it doesn’t
work.
I mean, if it works, it works like two hours,
which is not enough.
Minimally, it should work like 20 hours a
day to supply Gaza with water.
The sewage factories cannot work.
And because it cannot work, it cannot be treated,
and the entire raw sewage dumped to the sea.
And this affects, I mean, the entire sea,
and it’s contaminated.
And it’s—nobody can swim in it, because
it’s totally polluted.
If you go to the meat store, you will find
it, I mean, max for one day.
The rest, I mean, they will send it to the
garbage, because, you know, most of the people
here, because they are poor, they depend on
frozen meat and frozen fish imported from
outside.
They cannot store it, so it just gets bad,
and it’s not for human use.
If you go to the hospitals, I mean, it’s
the real disaster.
Operation theaters cannot work, and the operations
cannot be carried.
Dialysis machines, most of the time, because
they stop, they get, you know, interrupted
and broken.
So, many of the dialysis patients, I mean,
cannot do that.
All those who are in automatic respiratory
systems or intensive care units, you can imagine,
when you are lack of electricity, about that.
Even, I mean, simple things like housewives,
I mean, they cannot use laundry.
They cannot store food at their fridges and
so on.
Factories, it’s mission impossible, I mean,
to make it work.
I mean, Gaza almost with no ice cream, I mean,
for the time being, or other kinds of food
stuff needs, you know, electricity.
Most of the Gaza, I mean, like 20, 22 hours
a day, it’s dark.
I mean, during the night, you cannot really
have the light in the streets, and that’s
what makes even the number of fatal car accidents,
you know, happens here.
And people, I mean, as a result of that, pay
with their life.
And on the level of education, people who
just want to go back from their schools, from
their work, to the high stories, they cannot,
I mean, you know, go up 14, 16 stories back
and forth.
You can imagine people who are sick, and he
or she have heart surgery, want to get back,
you know, go to the hospital or to be treated.
It’s not normal life.
We are just in the middle centuries, while
we are paying a bill.
It’s not less than of the cost than the
European standard bill of electricity.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji Sourani, award-winning human
rights lawyer, speaking to us from Gaza City.
In the background, you hear a generator.
Raji, can you talk about how the situation
has gotten to this point?
Talk about what the Israeli government is
saying, what they’re saying about Hamas,
and how you see some kind of solution coming
out of all of this.
RAJI SOURANI: Well, I mean, on Gaza beautiful
shores, I mean, we are having one of the biggest
gas—gas wells in the Mediterranean.
And all what we need is small pipe, I mean,
coming to Gaza and to instill a factory for
electricity, and then we can have factory
for us and for the region maybe.
But we are not lack of business people, of
scientists.
We are not lack of professionals.
We are lack of opportunity.
The occupation wants us to be as such, living
in such conditions.
They want to shift Gaza to be not Hamas place,
but ISIS country.
When you put collectively 2 million people
under such pressure, nobody can leave or come
in.
Movement of individuals, mission impossible.
When you make them unable to receive developed
medical care, when you make them unable to
receive their basic needs of goods, when you
make them disconnected from the outside world,
when you make them unable to go and receive
developed medical care outside or developed
education outside, when they are not allowed
to import and export normally and as they
want, when you make the death and destruction
around them day and night, when you make them
lose hope of tomorrow, this is the recipe
for ISIS, I mean, to exist in this part of
the world, because what we are having here,
the Qu’ran of ISIS, it’s the rule of jungle.
That’s what we are having here.
And all what we are seeking, asking, rule
of law, nothing less, nothing more.
There is 2 million civilians living this in
part of the world.
They are subjugated.
As even the ICRC, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, everybody says in the international
arena and international community, this is
illegal, inhuman, collective punishment, and
should be imminently and completely lifted,
and give people the right of movement.
We are not asking anything more than what
the rights enjoyed and should be ensured by
the international community, the right has
been guaranteed in international law and international
humanitarian law.
This is not a war crime.
This is a crime against humanity.
But we are seeing nobody moving in this regard.
Nobody thinks, after 50 years, of having an
end for occupation, if not an end of occupation,
which is our right—it’s our absolute right
on the individual and collective level—but
at least, I mean, give us the right of movement,
the right to be basically enjoying minimal
conditions of human being.
We are not.
We are not.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji Sourani—
RAJI SOURANI: We are living these conditions,
and situation deteriorating.
Yeah?
AMY GOODMAN: Has the situation changed—
RAJI SOURANI: Sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: —in any way?
What kind of effect has the new president
in the United States, President Trump, had
on the situation?
And what do you feel that Americans can do?
RAJI SOURANI: Americans can do a lot, a lot.
America is a great country, and they can contribute
positively.
President Eisenhower, in 1957, when Israel
occupied Gaza, in one day, he ordered them
to be out, and they were out.
And obviously, since President Trump came
to his presidency, I think the Palestinians
one of the scapegoats for his policy, and
we are paying dearly and heavily, because
he’s giving 100 percent support, from wall
to wall, to a criminal Israeli policy against
the Palestinian people.
He doesn’t talk about end of occupation.
He doesn’t talk about end of the Palestinians’
suffering.
He doesn’t talk about a two-state solution.
He is just leaving 100 percent control for
the Israelis over the Palestinians.
He didn’t criticize what American government,
in very consecutive way, used to do by condemning
settlements policy and the siege policy.
He is doing nothing except supporting, endorsing
the Israeli policy.
Even criticizing Israel in the U.S. or the
UNESCO, he consider it as a crime, and he
gave the oath.
And the representative of him in the U.N.
Security Council said, "We will not allow
anything happen against the state of Israel,"
as if Israel is little god, mini god, above
a criticism, they are doing nothing.
It’s not what we are saying against Israel.
Forget what Palestinian human rights organizations
and civil society are saying against Israel.
Look what the Israeli human rights organizations
saying about the policies of Israel.
Look to what B’Tselem is saying against
Israel.
Look to what all international human rights
organizations, with no exception, criticizing
Israel and the policies about war crimes and
crimes against humanity.
Even if we want to go and resort to the ICC,
International Criminal Court, to hold Israel
accountable, U.S. is threatening.
So, effectively, President Trump giving license
to kill to Israel.
They are giving them the authorization, full
authorization, to do whatever they want against
the Palestinian civilians.
We are not in defense of Hamas or Fatah or
PFLP.
We are defense—in defense of the Palestinian
civilians, who are—in international law,
should enjoy absolute protection.
And they are called in Geneva Conventions
the protected civilians, meaning there is
real obligation, by law, to Palestinian civilians
in the Occupied Territories.
And they are in the eye of the storm of the
Israeli criminal policies in the Occupied
Territories.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Raji Sourani,
for joining us, joining us from Gaza City
under these extremely difficult conditions,
what the U.N. is calling "unlivable."
Final 30 seconds that we have on the satellite
with you, Raji, for your final comment?
RAJI SOURANI: We have no right to give up,
and we will not give up.
We have just, fair and right cause.
We are strong, strong enough, because we are
fighting for the rule of law, not for the
rule of jungle, as Israel want.
We will keep our level of moral superiority
on a criminal occupation.
We know we are not alone.
Free, committed people across the globe standing
with us.
They are standing with justice, rule of law
and dignity of human being.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji Sourani, joining us from
Gaza City, award-winning human rights lawyer,
director of the Palestinian Center for Human
Rights in Gaza, on the executive board of
the International Federation for Human Rights,
received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Prize in 1991, twice named an Amnesty International
prisoner of conscience.
We, in New York, are joined by Tareq Baconi,
who is the author of the forthcoming book,
Hamas Contained: The Rise & Pacification of
Palestinian Resistance, a policy fellow at
Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network.
And he has written a new article for The Nation
titled "How Israel’s 10-Year Blockade Brought
Gaza to the Brink of Collapse."
Very briefly, Tareq, you’re here in the
United States, though, of course, you’ve
also been in Gaza, but there is almost no
coverage of what’s happening in Gaza here,
so most Americans have no idea.
TAREQ BACONI: I think that’s absolutely
right.
I think the way that Gaza gets portrayed in
American media is in one of two ways.
It’s either portrayed as nothing more than
a humanitarian catastrophe, you know, some
sort of post-apocalyptic reality where life
is catastrophic, which, of course, that is
one side of the situation in Gaza.
And the other way it’s often portrayed is
as a terrorist haven, you know, as an enclave
on the Mediterranean that is ruled by a bloodthirsty
terrorist organization.
And both those ways of portraying Gaza are
extremely simplistic.
They leave no room for understanding the complexities
of the situation, for understanding what people
in Gaza are facing on a human—on a human
level, on a day-to-day basis.
It dehumanizes everything about the Gaza Strip.
So it removes any room for empathy or understanding
the complexity, and it removes the fact that
this is a political problem that’s man-made.
AMY GOODMAN: Have things gotten worse since
President Trump took office?
TAREQ BACONI: Absolutely.
I think things have gotten much worse, and
in a very short period of time, for a number
of reasons.
I think what we’re seeing happening in the
region, let’s say, between the GCC and Qatar
now, is mirrored in the microcosm that is
Gaza now, or the Palestinian territories.
The way these countries have taken solace
in the Trump administration, the way they’ve
started to move against, quote-unquote, "Islamic
extremism," we see that happening on a very
small scale within the Palestinian territories.
So, President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision in
the West Bank to start tightening the blockade,
although it’s informed by local politics,
as well—and we can talk about that—but
it’s very much a signal to the Trump administration
to say, you know, "This is—I’m taking
a tough stance against Islamic extremism.
I’m taking a tough stance against Hamas.
If there’s a peace process that’s going
to start, I’m your man on the ground."
And so this message plays into this rationale
of isolating the Gaza Strip and of using 2
million inhabitants as political pawns.
AMY GOODMAN: Your sense of, right now, Israel
vis-à-vis Hamas and the victims being the
2 million people who are in Gaza right now?
What do you see as the solution?
TAREQ BACONI: Look, I think Gaza has long
been a problem for Israel, even before Hamas
was even created, let alone come into power.
So the idea that the Israeli policies towards
the Gaza Strip are somehow informed by Hamas
is a misreading of the history of the situation.
You know, the reason that Gaza presents such
a problem for the Israelis is because they’re
a majority refugees, they have political rights,
they’re demanding their political rights.
And so Hamas, in a way, presents Israel with
a fig leaf, with an excuse to maintain the
policies of isolation and the policies of
containment.
So, even if Hamas were to be removed from
the equation tomorrow, the policies that are
in Gaza aren’t necessarily going to change.
And so, to my mind, until we start dealing
with Gaza as a political problem rather than
an economic problem or religious problem,
until we start addressing the political drivers
that animate resistance from Gazans—the
right of return, the right to self-determination—Dr.
Sourani spoke very eloquently about the right
to live and the freedom of movement—until
we start talking about these political rights,
the situation in Gaza isn’t going to change.
And the U.S. has a big role to play in that.
The U.S. has, not just under the Trump administration,
but under previous administrations, as well,
played a very strong role in supporting Israeli
policies to divide the Gaza Strip from the
West Bank and to prevent any form of unity
government between the PA and Hamas from emerging.
The blockade is not criticized at all by the
U.S., even though it is a form of collective
punishment and even though it also comes with,
you know, three military assaults that resulted
in thousands of deaths, of civilian deaths,
that are disproportionate, and crimes against
humanity.
And so, until we start addressing Gaza as
a political problem, not as a humanitarian
problem, until we start seeing it as part
and parcel of the Palestinian struggle for
self-determination, nothing will change.
AMY GOODMAN: Tareq Baconi, I want to thank
you for being with us.
His forthcoming book, Hamas Contained: The
Rise & Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.
Thanks so much.
TAREQ BACONI: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’ll link to your piece
in The Nation.
This is Democracy Now!
When we come back, a Haitian resident of New
York with four U.S. citizen children has a
check-in with immigration authorities Thursday
morning.
He fears he will be deported.
We’ll speak with him and his daughter.
Stay with us.
