When you block a Gaza Strip for three months straight, it not only impacts the Palestinians, which I know you couldn't care less about, but it also obviously is going to impact the hostages. They're going to starve to death as well. You're saying Israel is starving the hostages? I'm saying yes. [00:00:15] When you block humanitarian aid for three months, where do you think they're going to get the food from? - Max Israel. - What a joke. Well, it turns out that Israel blocking humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip negatively impacted the Israeli hostages. [00:00:30] How do I know that? Well, we're now hearing from the father of one of the hostages who was released earlier this week. And guess what he had to say. Blocking humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip made it real difficult for my son to survive. Turns out it was difficult to feed him when food wasn't entering the enclave [00:00:49] for nearly three months straight. Let's go to those statements. So Yehuda Cohen is the father of the Israeli hostage, Nimrod Cohen, who was released this week on Monday, to be exact. Now, he was captured while serving in the IDF's armored cops [00:01:08] and was released from Hamas captivity. Captivity. On Monday of this week, his father Yehuda spoke to Haaretz and said the following. His son told him that after humanitarian aid was blocked from the Gaza Strip in March, there was less food. [00:01:29] Scott Jennings finds that outrageous. Are you arguing that the Israelis starved the Israeli hostages? Yeah, I am saying that. And apparently so is the father of one of the hostages who was released earlier this week. [00:01:45] That's not outrageous. That's just common sense. It's literally common sense. So beginning in March of this year, for nearly three months straight, Israel blocked all humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip. That's why you have a famine. That's why you see those images of the children literally starving to death. [00:02:05] You know, the children that the Free Press wants you to pretend don't exist, or the children who, according to the Free Press, died for other comorbidities, not because of the fact that they were skin and bones moments before they passed away. [00:02:21] I know, like random jab at free press, but honestly, that reporting was so unbelievably disgusting. I mean, the most hideous piece of propaganda I've seen in a while. But nonetheless, that's what the father says here. Nimrod's father, his son, told him that after humanitarian aid [00:02:39] was blocked from the Gaza Strip in March, there was less food now. Last February. This is a really interesting wrinkle in the story. So last February, a month before Israel had imposed that block of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, [00:02:57] Nimrod's family actually did receive some communication from him as he was held captive in Gaza. Now, the way that this all worked was this was in the middle of a ceasefire and hostage exchange, and so one of the other hostages had been released, [00:03:15] but before that individual was released, Nimrod spoke to him and told him to give his family a message, and the message was, remember, this is February, one month before the March blockade of humanitarian aid. He tells his family, I'm okay. Don't worry. [00:03:32] Love you. Now look, was he actually okay? Was he really okay? I mean, he was being held captive by Hamas in an enclave in a territory that was being brutally bombed. [00:03:47] Aerial bombardments, the likes of which we haven't seen on our television screen. Well, we haven't really been seeing it on our television screens. We saw it on our computer screens, that's for sure. And so do I think Nimrod Cohen was doing well. No, I don't think he was doing well. But remember that blockade of humanitarian aid hadn't been implemented yet. [00:04:06] So Israel took a terrible situation for the Israeli hostages and compounded it by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip after October 7th happened and after Hamas did what they did [00:04:22] in rounding up all sorts of people, but mostly Israelis, and held them captive as hostages in the Gaza Strip. I don't want you to forget about the statements that came from high ranking government officials, including Yoav Galant, [00:04:39] who at the time was the head of Israel's military, because he said out loud that we shouldn't be negotiating with Hamas to get the hostages back. We should annihilate. We should go in the number one goal. The number one thing we should be pursuing is the complete annihilation [00:04:57] of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. So from the beginning, there was an understanding among high ranking government officials within the Israeli government that the hostages were not the priority. [00:05:12] That's why you had the Hannibal directive. The Hannibal directive, which also, Yoav Galant confessed was a reality, a real policy implemented by the Israeli government. And. And what was that? Basically, if you see Hamas trying to take a hostage, it would be better [00:05:31] to kill the Israeli than to allow Hamas to have that leverage over Israel. So the IDF literally killed their own people on October 7th as Hamas was attempting to take hostages. [00:05:48] Now, I want to be clear, I am in no way providing cover for the disgusting atrocities that Hamas carried out on October 7th, especially as it pertains to innocent civilians. And that's one of the areas in which I get a lot of criticism [00:06:06] and a lot of heat from, you know, people who defend the Palestinians. And that's fine. They can be mad at me. But what Hamas did was wrong, and I have no problem saying that. But how about a little bit of heat for the Hannibal directive that was implemented by the Israelis? [00:06:25] You're not going to protect your own people. You're not going to do anything and everything necessary to save your people. And once they are taken captive, you're not going to want to negotiate, because the top priority is to annihilate in the Gaza Strip. [00:06:45] Fascinating stuff. It's really, really gross. Now getting back to Nimrod Cohen and his father, Yehuda. Yehuda also focused his ire on Benjamin Netanyahu, which I think is definitely justified. He told Haaretz that the war has not ended on the national level. [00:07:03] We have to make sure that those responsible for the incident, primarily the prime minister, step aside. It took hours for the IDF to respond to the attacks on October 7th, and because of the fact that immediately Benjamin Netanyahu went into Gaza [00:07:23] and has been at war ever since, there hasn't really been a moment for the country of Israel to deal with the fact that their government failed them and allowed for this brutal attack to happen. Given the endless military funding and support they get from the United States, [00:07:42] despite all of the sophisticated Intel they get from Mossad, despite the various pieces of intelligence that the Israeli government received a year before October 7th happened, and then three weeks before October 7th happened. [00:07:59] Why did they choose to ignore that intelligence? And I think it's time for the Israeli government to be confronted about that by the Israeli people. Because you can hate Hamas all you want. And I don't begrudge anyone for feeling that way. [00:08:14] But why is it that your government failed to keep you safe? Focus on that. And if they fail to keep you safe, why is the United States taxpayer going into debt in order to hand over their resources to your country? [00:08:30] Just want to know. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.