2023-10-19 20:28:29
Israeli soldiers and settlers have cracked down on the occupied West Bank since Hamas’ shocking attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 55 and arresting more than 700 Palestinians, including several prominent lawmakers. “People are worried. “All of this is unprecedented,” he says. Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch in Ramallah.
Bashi is co-founder of the Israeli human rights group Gisha, which works against apartheid policies affecting Palestinians and urges American lawmakers to address the human rights violations that led to this conflict. “No American policy toward Israel and Palestine will be successful if it does not address abuses on the ground.”
Transcript: This is a rushed transcript. The copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! democraticnow.org, Report on war and peace . I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We now head to Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 55 Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7. Israeli authorities also arrested more than 700 Palestinians, several prominent lawmakers, including Aziz Dweik, president of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
To discuss the situation in the West Bank and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we are joined by Sari Bashi, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement. for the Palestinians in Gaza.
Sari, can you tell us about the whole situation, the imminent invasion of Gaza? You just listened to Raji Sourani. And also talk about what is happening in the West Bank. In the last year or so it is a little more, but since the beginning of the year one Palestinian has been murdered every day.
SARI BASHI: Yes, thanks.
And I’m sorry to say that since October 7 in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed, on average, 100 children a day. And that’s the statistic that stays with me.
Thus, this latest escalation began on October 7, when Hamas-led fighters entered Israel and committed heinous war crimes against Israeli civilians. They massacred attendees at an outdoor dance party. They entered the houses, in some cases they burned them and in others they shot the families. And they took men, women, elderly people, children, people with disabilities hostage. Rightly, the government and people of the United States condemned these acts, because they were heinous crimes against civilians that have no justification.
So the answer cannot be that the Israeli government, with the backing of the American government, then attacks and harms civilians in Gaza. I am especially concerned about the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza. The Israeli army cut off supplies of food, electricity, water and fuel on October 7, which is contributing to the humanitarian catastrophe. And the Israeli army is launching explosive weapons in densely populated areas with effects over a wide area. So when you do that, when you drop bombs on crowded urban centers, you predictably kill civilians. It is predictable that you will kill children. And that’s what’s happening. Gaza is about the size of the American city of Philadelphia. There are 2.2 million people. Almost half of those people are children.
And that’s something we need the US government to address more. So far we have heard general comments about the need to respect international humanitarian law. We need very specific directives for the Israeli government to immediately restore food, fuel, electricity and water supplies and stop dropping weapons on densely populated civilian areas.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sari Bashi, I wanted to ask you: Prime Minister Netanyahu has urged Palestinians in Gaza to flee to Egypt if they want to avoid the horrors of the bombing and invasion. Isn’t this in itself a form of ethnic cleansing? After all, Israel is not telling the Palestinians: “Hey, if you want to escape the bombing and invasion, move to Israel or be transported to the West Bank.” After all, even Putin, in his invasion of Ukraine, ended up admitting 1.2 million Ukrainians into Russia to avoid the worst impact of the war itself.
SARI BASHI: So, the first thing to say is that Gaza’s neighboring countries – Israel and Egypt – have an obligation to open their borders and let in people who are fleeing to save their lives. Failure to do so risks violating the principle of non-refoulement. When there are mothers with children trying to save their children’s lives, Israel and Egypt need to open their borders and let that happen. But the Israeli evacuation order risks forced relocation. The Israeli military has asked half the population of Gaza in the north to leave for the south, and Israeli military officials have also asked people in Gaza to flee to Egypt.
Now, for the people of Gaza, Gaza is: 70% of the people living in Gaza are refugees from what is now Israel. Some of the elderly people who fled Friday and Saturday from northern Gaza to southern Gaza remember fleeing the Israeli army 75 years ago. They remember the homes they left behind in what is now Israel. And they remember that they were never allowed to return, although international law defends the right of return of all refugees, whether they are Ukrainians trying to return: return to areas that have been liberated from Russian occupation or under Russian occupation, or people from Gaza who returns after the army has left.
My concern is that while it is acceptable, and in some cases advisable, for warring parties to issue warnings, those warnings are only effective if there are safe ways for civilians to avoid harm. So when you tell a million people to evacuate but there’s no safe place to go and no safe way to get there, that’s not an effective warning. And another thing that the United States government should do very clearly is ask the Israeli government to cancel the evacuation order and to take all measures to protect the civilians who remain in the north. There are many people (men, women, children, older people, people with disabilities, hospital patients) who cannot or do not want to leave northern Gaza, and retain the protection granted to them under international law.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk to us about how Palestinians in the West Bank are being affected as a result of the ongoing conflict in Gaza?
SARI BASHI: Here people are more worried. There have been road closures. The workers have not been allowed to enter Israel to carry out their jobs. There has been an increase in military activity in the West Bank, including raids and arrests. You mentioned arrests of people who expressed support for the October 7 attacks. The businesses that were dedicated to that have closed for the night, with the arrival of the Israeli army. People, for the most part, are worried.
All of this is unprecedented. The attacks that Hamas-led fighters carried out on Israeli civilians on October 7 are unprecedented. It was the worst massacre of civilians in Israel’s history. And the level of harm, targeted harm, that the Israeli military is inflicting on civilians in Gaza is also unprecedented.
At Human Rights Watch we are trying to keep open a narrow space for the basic universal principles of humanity. It is never okay to commit heinous war crimes against civilians, as was done in southern Israel on October 7. And that in no way justifies the commission of war crimes against civilians in Gaza.
And for Americans who are confused by everything that’s going on, I would suggest that you just remember that very basic principle that civilians need to be protected, and then encourage your elected representatives to remind the United States government of that principle, because The US government is providing $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel, and is sending even more weapons here right now. It has the responsibility to stop attacks on civilians, call on Israel to cancel the evacuation order and protect civilians in Gaza, and immediately restore humanitarian supplies to civilians.
Israel has left devastation in its bombings of Gaza since last October 7. Photo courtesy of the Palestinian agency Wafa.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference between your experience in the West Bank, as a Jewish Israeli lawyer, and your husband’s experience, as a Palestinian professor, resident of Ramallah, so that people understand? And also this issue: You know, Jake Sullivan said recently, just a few weeks ago, Biden’s national security adviser, that he’s been calmer in the Middle East than at any time in 20 years. This is the time when at least one Palestinian a day was killed. And let’s talk about the settlers and the army.
SARI BASHI: Yes. I think part of the concern (and I know Raji was referring to this when he talked about the root causes) is that some of the root causes of violence, including what Human Rights Watch and many other groups have called apartheid, are invisible to American policymakers. . We find ourselves in a situation where American policymakers are too busy negotiating normalization agreements between the most right-wing Israeli government in history and dictatorial Arab governments, and they are not paying attention to what is happening on the ground.
For decades, Israeli authorities have engaged in a systemic repression of Palestinians, including not allowing people in Gaza, refugees in Gaza, to return to their homes in what is now Israel, and harsh punishment over the past 16 years. that has not allowed proper supplies into and out of Gaza and has not allowed people to travel. And that’s part of the reason why people in Gaza were so vulnerable even before this violence began.
Furthermore, the Israeli government is privileging Israeli Jews over Palestinians. And that is the essence of apartheid’s crime against humanity, when it commits inhumane acts and engages in systemic repression to privilege one group over another. So, I’m an Israeli Jew and also an American. My partner is Palestinian. And I can do things he can’t do. I can travel quite freely. And although his mother is a refugee from what is now Israel, she cannot pass through areas that are off-limits to Palestinians. I have excellent rights. I have health. In Israel, cities are being built only for Jews, and also in the West Bank settlements are being built only for Israeli Jews, while Palestinians are cornered, unable to build cities, and their houses are being demolished due to lack of permits that are almost impossible to obtain. . Israeli authorities are engaging in forced removals, expelling Palestinian communities from the West Bank to make way for settlements. All of this is part of the root causes of violence.
And the only thing I can hope is that American policymakers realize that there is no peace here. Terrible abuses are taking place. You just have to listen to what people on the ground tell you and adapt accordingly. No American policy toward Israel-Palestine will succeed if it does not address abuses on the ground, first, second, and third.
AMY GOODMAN: Sari Bashi, we want to thank you for being with us, program director at Human Rights Watch, co-founder of Gisha, the leading Israeli human rights group promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza.
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