The Electronic Intifada Podcast 17 October 2023
“The morgues are full, the cemeteries are full, and now the people are being buried in mass graves. The UN has said that Gaza is even running out of body bags. I think of the friends and relatives of people from Gaza who are abroad who do not know if the lack of a text, or a WhatsApp message or a tweet from their loved ones in Gaza is because of the collapse of the electricity and communication systems caused by Israel’s attack, or because they too have been killed in this holocaust,” he adds.
Later on in the broadcast, we take a detailed look at the possibility of a full-scale ground invasion and hear essential analysis from journalist and researcher Jon Elmer.
What the Israelis have been saying “is that the ground invasion is going to entail killing every single member of the armed groups, and they haven’t sort of tempered those statements yet,” Elmer explains.
“So if that’s the plan, if liquidating the entire armed movements after you’ve ethnically cleansed the population is the goal, then what they’re setting themselves up for is the oldest threat in military – [historic Chinese general] Sun Tzu warns you not to carry out a siege on an urban population – they’re going to be fighting in the most densely populated area of the earth.”
Maha Hussaini, human rights activist and journalist, tells us by phone from Gaza that Israel’s bombing has been unrelenting as the humanitarian crisis due to Israel’s total blockade threatens starvation and dehydration of 2.3 million Palestinians trapped inside Gaza.The place she is sheltering in, she says, “has a limited supply of water, a limited supply of electricity and a limited supply of food.”
“The children are always asking for water,” she adds.
“The worst thing about this is that you live here or stay here for days or maybe weeks, and you do not know who is still alive out there. You will not know if any of your loved ones are killed or injured, et cetera, because we don’t have any connection with them.”
We also hear from veteran war correspondent and writer Helena Cobban, who discusses the refusal of any world leader – including the United Nations’ Secretary General, António Guterres – to step in and protect Palestinians from Israeli genocide – or even to call for a ceasefire.
“It is a result of this decades-long process of grooming everybody in Western-dominated public life to value Israel’s position more than the rights of Palestinians,” she says.Watch the entire broadcast above, or listen via Soundcloud below.
