Human rights lawyer: Time to prioritize Palestinian lives

Human rights lawyer and former Palestinian peace negotiator Diana Buttu calls for prioritizing Palestinian lives amid their ongoing suffering.

Transcript

00:00OK, I mean, just to sort of sum up in terms of what happens next, I mean, time and time

00:05again we've spoken to people on both sides in this conflict and an Israeli person, Israeli

00:11government spokesperson would say to us, all Hamas needs to do is release the last of the

00:18living hostages, return the bodies of those who are no longer alive and the bombing will

00:22stop. Do you see Hamas heeding that call for the sake of the Gazan people who will otherwise

00:31endure potentially many more months of bombardment?

00:34The Israelis have had this option on the table back in October of 2023. And one of the things

00:43that Hamas made very clear was that they wanted to get rid, they wanted to release the Palestinians

00:49who are being held captive in Israeli jails. These are up to 10,000 Palestinians. The fact

00:54that Palestinians, that the only way that Palestinians can ever be released from Israeli

00:59prisons, from Israeli dungeons, is to have some sort of a prisoner exchange shows you

01:04just how perverse it is that Palestinians have had to negotiate for their freedom. I

01:10think that instead of putting pressure and focusing on Hamas and prioritizing Israeli

01:15lives, I think in the aftermath of genocide, which Israel has killed 60,000 Palestinians

01:20that we know of, decimated the Gaza Strip completely, I think it's time to prioritize

01:25Palestinian lives.