The Electronic Intifada Podcast 6 December 2024
Despite that, Donya Abu Sitta said she was determined to join the show live from the coastal enclave to discuss the devastating impact of the Israeli-imposed famine in Gaza, particularly its effect on children.
A regular contributor to The Electronic Intifada, Abu Sitta is also a teacher by profession. Together with her sister Lubna Abu Sitta they help run a makeshift kindergarten in their area of Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
“I’m here to tell the world about the Israeli crimes in the Gaza Strip,” Donya Abu Sitta told The Electronic Intifada audience.
“We adults can stay without eating all day. But what about the children?”
The Electronic Intifada also interviewed Issam Younis, director of Al Mezan, a human rights group based in Gaza.
The group has continued carrying out its work since Israel unleashed its genocide in the coastal enclave. Its field workers document what Younis calls “unbelievable atrocities,” including systematic attacks on healthcare facilities, workers and patients.
Younis, who survived the genocide for nearly two months before escaping to Egypt, talked about the challenges faced by Palestinian human rights defenders who continue to document these crimes while themselves trying to survive the genocide.
Two of Al Mezan’s offices in Jabaliya refugee camp in the north and Rafah in the southernmost area of the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed “with all of our belongings,” Younis told Ali Abunimah, director of The Electronic Intifada and the show’s co-host.
The group’s third office in Gaza City was damaged by nearby attacks in the neighborhood but remains standing.
Still, to the extent possible, field workers persevere in documenting Israel’s daily violations against Palestinians in the Strip.
Having documented previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, Younis remarked that the scale and nature of Israel’s crimes through the genocide have been “qualitatively different” than in previous attacks.
Younis also discussed the historic arrest warrants issued against Israeli leaders, and the role Palestinian organizations have played in supporting the accountability efforts at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
“The road to justice is very, very lengthy, and it cannot be achieved by one blow,” Younis told The Electronic Intifada.
“We’re still optimistic, because we are on the right side of history, and we feel strong as long as there are others who care.”
Associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman delivered the latest news highlights, noting Israel’s intensified attacks on the Kamal Adwan hospital, once vital for Jabaliya in northern Gaza, now severely damaged and only partially operational as Israel intensified its attacks on the facility and its personnel.
Contributing editor Jon Elmer broke down the resistance news from Gaza – including operations in Rafah and Jabaliya.
Elmer detailed a multi-stage ambush by the Qassam Brigades – the armed wing of Hamas – that accounted for the movements of Israeli troops.
Elmer showed how there is an “uneven” ceasefire between Lebanese resistance organization Hizballah and Israeli forces on the northern front, as Israeli violations and airstrikes mount despite the agreement.
In this week’s program we also discussed the new offensive taking shape in Syria by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Turkish-backed offshoot of Al-Qaida and ISIS.
Abunimah provided an overview of how the US and its allies channeled billions of dollars worth of arms and training to Syrian opposition militants, including groups affiliated with al-Qaida and ISIS in the early years of the war in Syria, more than a decade ago.
These groups have been mobilized by the West as proxies in an effort to divide and weaken the Axis of Resistance in the region and there is concern that this is one of the major motivations behind the timing of the revived Turkish-backed insurgency in Syria now.
“No one in the region is going to have their self-determination, their freedom, their ability to choose their path as their government in any country, particularly the vassals of the United States, while we have this US empire in the region. It’s incompatible,” Abunimah said.
“Nothing is more incompatible with democracy and freedom and self-determination than the intervention of the United States.”
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 and The Electronic Intifada’s Maureen Clare Murphy and Asa Winstanley contributed writing and production. Michael F. Brown contributed pre-production assistance and Eli Gerzon contributed post-production assistance. Ali Abunimah contributed reporting.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
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