Israel's Gaza offensive 'isn't about the people who carried out Oct 7, it's about an entire nation'

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00:00 We can cross to London and bring in Dr. H.A. Helia, a Senior Associate Fellow at RUCI,

00:05 the International Security Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and also

00:09 non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

00:13 Good to talk to you Dr. Helia. First of all, there's a lot of movements going on now. We believe,

00:20 just talking to our correspondents in Jerusalem, that at the start the Israelis of what could be

00:26 this push into Rafa at the same time the U.S. saying do not carry on without proper planning.

00:31 How much of an impact do you expect that to have?

00:34 Well, in terms of any impact from the United States in saying, you know, don't move forward

00:43 until A, B or C, I don't expect it to have very much impact at all because unfortunately it's been

00:49 very clear since the beginning of this conflict that D.C. may be willing to talk a good talk,

00:56 but unless it's willing to walk the walk, Israel knows very well that it can get away with pretty

01:02 much anything it wants to do. And I say that in all seriousness. The amount of leverage that D.C.

01:09 has over the Israelis is tremendous. It has not utilized any of it since the beginning of this

01:15 crisis. The Israelis know it, which is why they feel very emboldened and empowered to do what they

01:21 want to do. It's an interesting point. I think the U.S., Washington might push back to that point.

01:28 And just one thing that is quoted time and time again by Antony Blinken, for example,

01:33 the Secretary of State, is that they played a huge hand in persuading Israel in the first ceasefire

01:39 and prisoner hostage exchange. Otherwise, many U.S. sources say that simply wouldn't have happened.

01:45 So I think you've just made my point for me. The United States doesn't need to persuade

01:53 or talk in order to get Israel to do very much. The United States has tremendous leverage over

02:01 Israel in terms of financial support, political support, military support, provision of aid,

02:08 provision of arms. None of that has been touched and none of it has even been threatened to be

02:13 touched. So my original point, I'm afraid, stands. Give me your analysis. You followed

02:20 developments. I've spoke to you over a number of times since October the 7th of where things

02:25 now stand. And just to highlight as well, Rafa, it's important. So many viewers who will see,

02:32 this is a town in the city in the south where 1.5 million Palestinians are. Just give us a sense of

02:39 what you can see happening at this point, given that so many people have

02:42 been continually moving, continuing to be displaced there.

02:45 I frankly fear that we are about to see a mass casualty event. That's the polite way of saying

02:54 a massacre. This is an incredibly densely populated area. Gaza itself is one of the

03:00 most densely populated areas in the world and was before this particular crisis began.

03:07 Rafah is even more densely populated than, quote unquote, the average space in Gaza. So I can't

03:16 see any way that there would be a military deepening or rather deepening of the military

03:21 by the Australians without incredible casualties and casualties of Palestinian civilians.

03:29 A civilian population that is in the midst of a massive humanitarian crisis already,

03:36 a humanitarian crisis that has been threatened to get even worse because a lot of donors to UNRWA,

03:43 the main UN agency that's responsible for taking care of Palestinian refugees, they said that

03:50 they're going to pull their funding. Really something that I find quite extraordinary and

03:56 frankly immoral. So this is a really horrid situation at present. I think that we all

04:02 ought to take note of what the International Court of Justice said a few weeks ago, that there has to

04:07 be more access for humanitarian aid. I don't think unfortunately the Israelis are remotely

04:15 taking notice of that. There are protests and sit-ins blocking aid coming into Gaza from the

04:21 Israelis and there doesn't seem to be much action in that regard at all. To put across the view of

04:27 Mark Regev, the spokesperson for the Israeli government, who's told reporters in the past

04:33 few hours that this is not something that they want to do deliberately to cause harm, but we hear

04:38 repeatedly as Israel says this is about Hamas using human shields within Rafa. The fact they

04:44 thought that Yair Simua, the leader of Hamas, would be in Khan Yunis, his home city, didn't

04:51 appear to be the case. They still believe he may well be in Rafa. Yeah, that's good for Mark Regev

04:57 to say quite frankly. I think that we have to be very cautious and careful, frankly, about taking

05:03 notes from Israeli spokespeople when it comes to these issues. Let's be clear. The Israeli state,

05:11 from the presidency all the way down, has made it very clear that this war isn't about even the

05:18 people that carried out October 7th per se. It's about an entire nation. And all of these statements

05:24 were collated and presented at the International Court of Justice, which is why they said that

05:30 there's a plausible case for genocide. All right. So please, let's just be very clear on this point.

05:37 There's a lot of PR going on, a lot of propaganda going on. What we see on the ground right now

05:44 is upwards of 25,000 people having been killed, the vast majority of which were Palestinian

05:50 civilians, women and children. And that was not at the hands of some sort of earthquake or

05:56 natural disaster. That was at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces. So please. And the UN

06:03 saying that Israel have a few weeks to report back as to its findings as to its operations.

06:08 Dr. Ejai Helia, thank you. Good to talk to you, Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United

06:13 Services Institute, Roussi.

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