00:00Well, turning now to the war in Gaza. For the third straight day, at least, Israeli strikes across the territory again left dozens dead on Friday.
00:0882 people then killed in strikes on the outskirts of Deir al-Bala and the city of Khan Yunus, according to local hospitals.
00:14Now, all of this has provoked some rare comments from the U.S. president about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
00:21Donald Trump telling reporters in the UAE earlier that he is looking at the territory and will take care of the situation there,
00:28later adding that we have to help Palestinians as, I quote, a lot of people are starving.
00:35The world is a much safer place right now, and I think in two or three weeks we could have it be a much, much safer place.
00:43We're going to handle a couple of situations that you have here. We have some very serious situations.
00:48And we're looking at Gaza, and we've got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people are—there's a lot of bad things going on.
00:56Well, in addition to carrying out daily airstrikes that are killing dozens of civilians per day,
01:02Israel has enforced a blockade on all aid entering the territory since March the 2nd,
01:07leading to alarming warnings from the U.N. and rights groups that supplies of critical resources like food, clean water, and medicine are at dire lows.
01:15Well, Human Rights Watch has said Thursday that the blockade amounts to a tool of extermination,
01:20which it said comes on top of ongoing crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide.
01:26For more on this, Yasmin Ahmed joins us on the program. She is the U.K. director of Human Rights Watch.
01:31Yasmin, thank you very much for joining us today.
01:34So I want to start by asking you, is there now consensus in the international legal community,
01:39at least amongst experts, on how to qualify Israel's actions in Gaza?
01:44I mean, of course, the use of legal terms like crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
01:50Yes, thank you for having me on.
01:51Well, what we know is that Human Rights Watch, my organization, Amnesty International, and the U.N.
01:57have all found that genocidal acts are being carried out by Israel in Gaza.
02:02We have also all found that there are crimes against humanity that are being carried out.
02:07And we, as Human Rights Watch, have also found a number, a litany of other atrocity crimes.
02:13But very importantly, and what we came out with our statement only yesterday,
02:18was to say that states around the world now have an obligation to act.
02:25They have an obligation to prevent genocide.
02:27And states are not taking it seriously and are not taking heed of the alarm bells.
02:33And that obligation to prevent genocide has very, very concrete obligations that states should be doing in carrying out.
02:41I do want to get to that in just a second.
02:44But before, I just wanted to kind of follow up that first question by asking,
02:47who, especially when we're considering these legal tools,
02:51who determines what does or doesn't fit the definition for these crimes?
02:55And similarly, I mean, why do you think that experts and international leaders have been so unwilling then to use these legal terms,
03:01especially genocide?
03:04Well, some governments, including the United Kingdom,
03:08would say that it is a matter for the court to make a determination of an international crime.
03:13But many organisations and the UN and many experts will say that there is a legal definition under the ICC statute,
03:23but under treaty law and customary international law, which set out when these crimes are being committed.
03:29And we as a human rights organisation, we look at the evidence, we look at the law.
03:34And this is not just in relation to Israel, but this is in relation to countries across the world.
03:38And we determine whether, according to that law and according to the evidence that we've collected,
03:43whether crimes are being committed.
03:45And in relation to Israel, we have found on the evidence that they are carrying out genocidal acts
03:51and carrying out crimes against humanity as well.
03:55Now, as you mentioned earlier, Yasmeen, Human Rights Watch argues that the 153 states
03:59that have indeed signed on to the Genocide Convention,
04:02that includes obviously places like the US, the UK, France and Germany,
04:05could be considered liable for failing to act.
04:07But these countries have also been some of Israel's biggest vocal supporters since the start of this war.
04:13So has this war perhaps not just simply revealed just how powerless these documents and institutions are turning out to be?
04:22Well, I mean, it's a very good question.
04:24The duty to prevent genocide, the Genocide Convention, came out of the Second World War and, in fact, the Holocaust.
04:30And the idea behind the Convention, the beating heart of the Convention,
04:34is a duty on states to take every measure within their toolbox to prevent genocide.
04:41And the obligation is particularly strong on states that have a close relationship and have leverage over that state.
04:49And what we have seen is not only states failing, this is we're talking about sanctions,
04:54we're talking about withholding or suspending military and diplomatic cooperation, everything within their toolbox.
05:02But not only have we seen states failing to do that in the face of starvation and these crimes,
05:08but we've also seen states continuing to provide weapons to Israel, which essentially, and licensed weapons,
05:15which essentially makes them risk of complicity of atrocity crimes.
05:20So there is an important question now, but we would say right now we're at a precipice now.
05:26We've already seen so much destruction.
05:29We've already seen starvation, but we're at a precipice where we've heard and the Israeli officials have made very clear
05:37what their intentions are, which is to displace the entire Palestinian population,
05:42to destroy most of the civilian infrastructure and to append Gazans into a tiny space.
05:51And what we're saying now is these are the warning signs, if there have ever been, of genocide
05:56and that states must immediately act.
05:59And what we will see in retrospect is a failure and a damning record of history if states fail now the people of Gaza.
06:08And perhaps on top of that, the collapse of the credibility of these legal instruments and these international organizations.
06:15Now, this catastrophe in Gaza has recently produced a slew of reactions from international leaders,
06:21including from countries that have thus far been been quite reticent to criticize Israel since the start of the war.
06:27Why do you think it's taken until now for that to happen?
06:30I mean, has Israel's strategy changed in the past month or has it essentially been the same since the early months of this war?
06:37Well, Human Rights Watch has documented the strategies have been the same.
06:41We've seen a repeat, but they've only got worse.
06:44We've seen, and we said from early on in this recent hostilities, that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war.
06:53We've seen three ICJ, International Court of Justice, the highest court in the world,
07:00stating that there's a risk, a serious, incredible risk of the rights of Palestinians under the Genocide Convention.
07:06And calling on Israel, demanding Israel to ensure that they allow in humanitarian aid.
07:13But the situation has, in fact, not just stagnated, but got worse.
07:18We're now into over 70 days of a complete blockade.
07:25But in addition to this, as we've said, we're now seeing plans that would mean that it's now not just an ongoing,
07:31but accentuating the atrocity crimes that are being committed.
07:34I think in terms of the time it's taken, I think obviously we have just seen a piling of atrocity crimes on top of atrocity crimes.
07:44And now global leaders and international institutions, they cannot look away.
07:48And I think on top of that, what we're seeing is an Israeli government who is further emboldened to make very clear what their intention is.
07:57And their intention, as we have said, is an intention which looks very clearly to be the extermination of the Palestinian population in Gaza.
08:08Now, as you said, you know, Israel has been really quite clear about its intentions, especially arguably since the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January.
08:17So given that, given the fact that some ministers are essentially acknowledging crimes being committed there,
08:24to what do you attribute the general inaction that we've seen thus far from world leaders on the situation in Gaza,
08:30be it Western leaders or even Arab leaders that, you know, decades ago were perhaps Gaza's most vocal supporters?
08:38I think, I mean, there are many reasons.
08:42Obviously, the most critical player in all of this is the United States.
08:47And we saw a US administration under President Biden that reinforced and supported without qualification everything that Netanyahu and his government were doing in Gaza.
09:00And obviously, traditionally, Israel has been seen as a critical ally, not just to the United States,
09:05but to many governments around the world, a critical ally in the Middle East.
09:09But as you've noted, it's not just the US and not just European and the UK, European states in the UK.
09:16But it's also been a failure on behalf of the international community more generally, including Arab states, I would say.
09:24I think there are a number of reasons.
09:26But I do think and obviously the relationship between the US and Israel continues to be an issue.
09:32And the fact that they continue to provide them weapons, they continue to shield them from accountability.
09:38But I think now what we are seeing is a turning.
09:41We're seeing a turning point.
09:42And unfortunately, it's off the back of the lives of Palestinian, 15,000 Palestinian children who are dead.
09:49But I think we are seeing a movement and a change now.
09:51And I do hope that finally states will see that they must take action.
09:57Yasmeen Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch.
