The Electronic Intifada Podcast 28 July 2025
Abu Sitta, a kindergarten teacher, writer and medical student, said it’s been about two weeks since she had a full meal. But she said actions by people around the world trying to change the situation give her and others in Gaza hope.
“But even if they cannot change it – but they are trying their best – we appreciate that highly,” said Abu Sitta. And she believes the efforts will ultimately lead to a free Palestine.
Later in the program, executive director Ali Abunimah said he wanted to remind the audience and himself of something that Israeli historian Ilan Pappé said soon after the genocide started and repeated recently on the Makdisi Street podcast.
The situation in Palestine will be at its absolute worst but Israel will collapse soon and we will “emerge to something better,” Abunimah said, paraphrasing Pappé.
But Abunimah emphasized that all of those eventual changes require continuing to speak out and organize in the ways that give hope to people like Abu Sitta in Gaza right now.You can watch the whole program in the video at the top of this article.
Palestinian boys hunted by Israeli soldiers
Israel has bombarded areas across Gaza in the last week killing 646 Palestinians and injuring more than 3,400 between 16 July and 23 July, as reported by associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman at the start of the Livestream and in her recent article.
Israeli soldiers continue to attack people seeking aid and are reportedly turning the targeting of Palestinian children into a sport, where many boys present to hospitals with injuries in the same area of the body on particular days.
“It’s almost as if a game is being played that they’re deciding to shoot the head today and the neck tomorrow and the testicles the day after,” said British doctor Nick Maynard.
Israel kills soldiers to prevent their capture
Contributing editor Jon Elmer analyzed a speech by Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida during his resistance report and in the discussion later in the Livestream.
Abu Obeida said that resistance fighters are targeting Israeli soldiers in Gaza for capture.
According to Abu Obeida, some operations nearly succeeded but were thwarted by the Hannibal Directive – a doctrine that allows the Israeli army to kill its own soldiers to prevent them being taken prisoner.
Elmer analyzed one recent operation in Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where the Al-Quds Brigade detonated an explosive on a Namer troop carrier.
The fighters were about to capture Israeli soldiers, when Israeli vehicles fired on and killed both the resistance fighters and the Israeli soldiers.
The Hamas spokesperson praised resistance fighters, saying their operations across Gaza have made them “the greatest military school for a people’s resistance confronting its occupiers in modern history.”He also offered “salutations” to people around the world protesting in support of Gaza.
Abu Obeida also strongly criticized the inaction of Arab states to stop the genocide, calling out “months of disgraceful abandonment by our Arab and Islamic nations.”
Israel relies on shipments of food, fuel and weapons, “that come on ships that could be stopped,” noted Elmer.
Executive director Ali Abunimah said that while Israel’s barbarism is no surprise, he had not believed that the world would allow Israel to go as far as it has, perpetrating genocide openly.“The Israelis didn’t think they could do it either,” added Elmer.
Catastrophic starvation
“I saw kids asking their mothers… They want to eat. And the mothers and fathers, they don’t have the power to give them the most necessary things. And kids are asking and asking,” said Donya Abu Sitta.
She said that no food is available in markets where she is in Gaza’s middle area, and that markets had been closed for three days when the interview was recorded on 23 July.
There is some food to purchase in Gaza City in the north and in Khan Younis. But prices are high and moving around is dangerous.
People also go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid centers knowing that they may be killed.
“People are between two choices: die because of hunger. Or die because they are searching and seeking food for their children,” said Abu Sitta.
More statements and inaction from Europe
On 21 July, 25 countries, mostly from the European Union, issued a joint statement that begins: “We, the signatories listed below, come together with a simple, urgent message: The war in Gaza must end now.”
Abunimah highlighted that these are mostly the same EU governments that just days earlier declined to impose any type of sanctions on Israel.
“Palestinians can’t eat statements. They can’t eat condemnations,” noted Barrows-Friedman. Both emphasized the need for action beyond mere words.
Germany escalates repression
But statements have some value to increase pressure on Israel – and Germany was not even willing to do that. It was not among the 25 signatories.
As David Cronin said on the previous Livestream, Germany is one of the biggest supporters of Israel’s genocide.
That message seems to be getting through. On 21 July, California television station KTLA reported: “A hateful message was spray painted on the German consulate in downtown Los Angeles.”
But the message simply read: “Germany starves babies in Gaza.”Editors noted that this is factual given the way Germany supplies weapons to Israel, provides political support and spreads atrocity propaganda to attempt to justify Israel’s genocide.
A more extensive commentary on Germany’s misconduct came from a new report this month, “Repression of Palestine Solidarity in Germany”.
Published by German groups PA Allies, Palaestina Spricht, Palestine Reveals and the Arrest Documentation Unit, it details how Germany is targeting Palestinians and those who organize in support of Palestine with an “escalating campaign of political repression that spans law enforcement abuses, legal sanctions and censorship.”
The report highlights language bans and excessive force by German police.
Abunimah noted that he has twice faced travel bans from Germany and threats of prison and a fine for speaking online.
“Which I did anyway. I’m not going to take orders from the Germans,” explained Abunimah.
A video of that banned talk is available on The Electronic Intifada’s YouTube channel.
Abunimah also briefly noted that he is still working on challenging in court his imprisonment in Switzerland earlier this year and hopes to have an update on that soon.
Support for genocide in Congress
Meanwhile, in the United States, Republican Congressman Randy Fine is openly supporting the genocidal starvation of Gazans.
“Release the hostages. Until then, starve away,” he posted on Twitter/X.
On the other end of the mainstream spectrum in US politics, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised a storm of protest for voting against an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill which would have cut funding to Israel’s Iron Dome.
AOC pointed out that she voted against the Defense Appropriation Bill overall, but that did little to appease the anger.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza,” AOC wrote on 19 July.“Of course I voted against it. What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
Abunimah pointed out that this distinction between “offensive” and “defensive” weaponry is illusory when the very US department focused on wars is called the Department of Defense.
“They don’t call it the department of invasions, military coups and aggression. That would be an accurate name,” said Abunimah.
The amendment to block funding to the Iron Dome was proposed by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump supporting America Firster, who has nonetheless become a forceful opponent of foreign intervention and wars.
“Much of the so-called progressive left in Congress has abandoned the anti-war agenda to the far right,” noted Abunimah.
Ceasefire talks
Editors discussed recent ceasefire talks and agreed that there was little indication that things would change soon.
Abunimah said only two factors seem to matter: the resistance inflicting enough damage on the Israeli army to cause it to want to end the war and outside pressure from people organizing around the world – which continued this week in such places as New York, Chicago and Morocco.
Editors also noted how Yemen has completely shut down Eilat, one of Israel’s three major ports.“If that’s what Yemen can do, what could the EU do? What could the Arab states do? What could Egypt do?” asked Abunimah.
You can watch the program on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.
This writer produced and directed the program. Michael F. Brown contributed pre-production assistance and this writer contributed post-production assistance.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada Livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
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