Yesterday, Oxfam International declared that Israel is using starvation as a tactic and a weapon of war against the people of Gaza. You're probably wondering what that looks like, and you're probably familiar with some of the statistics by now. But just to give everyone a frame of reference, before this war, [00:00:17] this most recent war happened. Gaza again was a fully sealed strip territory controlled by Israel in terms of electricity and water, goods that come in and out. There was a blockade on the people of Gaza because of the Hamas government, [00:00:33] so they couldn't get access to basic food and medicine and supplies. However, they would rely on a lot of international aid. So the United Nations and other entities, 104 trucks would deliver food to Gaza every single day. So that was incredibly important, one truck about every 14 minutes. [00:00:53] Now, what's it looking like when it comes to food? Despite there being 62 trucks of aid being allowed to enter southern Gaza via the Rafah crossing since the weekend, only 30 contained food. And in some cases not exclusively slow, [00:01:08] this amounts to just one truck every three hours and 12 minutes since Saturday. Again, 30 contains food for 2.2 million people. Oxfam analyzed UN data and found that just 2% of food would have been delivered has entered Gaza. [00:01:26] Since the total siege was imposed on the 9 October, clean water has virtually now run out. It's estimated only three liters of clean water are now available per person. The UN said that a minimum of 15 liters a day is essential for people in the most acute humanitarian emergencies as a bare minimum. [00:01:44] This is on top of the electricity, the fuel, all of that. Very little has come in, there's a shortage of bottled water. Let's see, bottled water stocks are running low, the cost of bottled water has surged beyond the reach of an average Gazan family. [00:01:59] Prices spiking fivefold in some places. A spokesperson for the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees pointed out that some of the food aid allowed in, rice and lentils is useless because people do not have clean water or fuel to prepare them. Right, you need a stove to cook your lentils, [00:02:17] you need clean water to actually eat any of that food. More from Reuters about Rafah. The Rafah crossing is the main entrance and exit to the Gaza Strip from Egypt, it's controlled by Egypt. Aid officials say Rafah's principal goal in the past had been as a civilian [00:02:36] crossing that was not equipped for a large scale aid operation. In response to the cross border infiltration by Hamas fighters on the 7th that killed more than 1400 Israelis. Israel did impose that total blockade of Gaza, leaving Rafah as the only route for [00:02:52] humanitarian aid and the only exit point for Gaza residents seeking to flee. This is on top of the fact that bakeries have been bombed, so there's no bread. Supermarkets have been damaged in airstrikes. [00:03:07] Electricity has made it difficult for farmers, livestock breeders, refrigeration, crop irrigation. Israel has cut off the fishing industry from the ocean, they've done that before. Oxfam says it's basically physically impossible to deliver food to Gaza City because of how deteriorated the roads are. [00:03:26] So even when you're getting the aid in, the roads are deteriorated and without a ceasefire, again, if you do manage to survive, if you are one of the lucky ones, how are you going to eat? And I, as someone who [LAUGH] knows that there [00:03:42] is an American warship off the coast of Gaza, my God, if only we lived in a world where that wasn't a warship from the US. That was a ship full of aid, Gaza is a coastal area people. We could help people, we could get there by sea. [00:04:01] But instead, we just decide to send more and more millions of dollars in weaponry to Israel. Waz, your thoughts on this? >> Speaker 2: I mean, this isn't really that complicated, it's a disaster. It's more than a humanitarian crisis, there's just no other way to put it. [00:04:19] And again, if you wanna be charitable to what the Israelis are doing, you say, this is something you got to do, to, quote, unquote, choke Hamas out, or something to that effect. And again, I would say not to be a broken record. [00:04:35] To what end, I'm not sure. And again, people need to understand. It's not as if there's never been a period of time where these folks tried to do it the sort of South African way, right, where it's just, we're gonna protest. [00:04:52] We're gonna put international pressure on the people we deem to be oppressing us. That kinda stuff got stamped out, it certainly wasn't rewarded. That's the environment under which an organization like Kamas could even get some support, they say, all you do good is, what good does it do you? [00:05:10] They got nowhere with it. And so, yeah, these kinds of tactics, it's my belief that it inspires people to be extremely extremists and deranged, right? Everybody agrees that what Hamas did was an atrocity, nobody believes otherwise. [00:05:28] There might be people who say, they were chasing some military end, but nobody could say that this wasn't an atrocity. But again, I don't think these militants, they don't float in from outer space, there's a context that produces these folks. [00:05:45] And doing the exact same thing over and over again and thinking that, this time it won't be a crazy, unhinged group that emerges. It'll be reasonable people, I don't see how that can be the calculation. >> Speaker 1: Well, and especially since Hamas in it throughout its history, [00:06:02] has been supported and given aid by Israel vis a vis other entities, but they've basically invested in the creation of Hamas because, why? Because when you divide and conquer, when you support extremists, it undermines their ultimate political goals, and it helps yours. [00:06:19] Because obviously, anyone looking at Hamas is saying, yeah, these guys are bloodthirsty and they're terrorists. And so when you lump, as the Israeli military has done, Hamas and all Palestinian civilians in together, it's like it undermines the cause [00:06:37] completely, which is literally just the right to eat food at this moment. And out of the current president's mouth said something to the effect of, look, Gazan civilians had their chance. They could have risen up against Hamas, and they chose not to. [00:06:54] I don't know what the tactic is now to starve them so they'll rise up against Hamas. When you rise up, you might need a little food, you might need some calories when you wanna rise up against Hamas internally. I mean, this is all a cruel joke, obviously, and I'm being incredibly [00:07:13] facetious, there is no safe place for even children in this area. And so I'm glad that Oxfam and so many of these international groups and communities are speaking out. Just as an update, we know that because of UN Secretary Gutierrez's call for [00:07:30] an immediate ceasefire, Israel has denied visas to the UN. So UN workers and personnel cannot get access to Israel, obviously, or to Gaza. And so that is because they had the audacity to call for [00:07:46] a humanitarian ceasefire. It's the UN, that's what they do.