- 5/14/2025
Rep. Rashida Tlaib joined a press conference on Wednesday to discuss the war in Gaza.
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00:00:00Thanks everybody for coming out and being willing to hear our words.
00:00:09The people of the world are outraged at the destruction and the deliberate murder of the people of Gaza.
00:00:18And the majority of Americans are outraged that our country is taking our tax money
00:00:24and using it to give Israel the weapons they are using to carry out this genocide.
00:00:31Giving them for free as a gift.
00:00:34A gift of $20 billion worth of bombs from the American people to the government of Israel
00:00:41to murder tens of thousands of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters.
00:00:51Families just like us.
00:00:53The U.S. government has made me and every taxpayer an enabler of genocide.
00:01:02And that is destroying the soul and the spirit of our country.
00:01:08I used to think that America stood for fairness and justice and equality and human rights.
00:01:14No longer.
00:01:16Now America stands for aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing.
00:01:21And that's in opposition to the condemnation of over 150 countries at the United Nations.
00:01:30Now America says, screw you to the rest of the world.
00:01:35And to top it off, when courageous, caring, empathetic students at our universities
00:01:42protest this assault on basic decency, our government suspends free speech,
00:01:50suspends the right to protest, arrest them,
00:01:54and forces universities to discipline these principled young people.
00:01:59We say no.
00:02:02These students are heroes.
00:02:04We stand here with them in solidarity.
00:02:08This is a protest.
00:02:10And if you're going to arrest them, you may as well arrest me too.
00:02:13Because if I was in college today, that's what I'd be doing.
00:02:18What is the message we are sending to those who go out of their way to stand against injustice?
00:02:26The message that our government sends is, you're stupid.
00:02:30You're criminals.
00:02:31You're naive.
00:02:32You just don't understand the ways of the world.
00:02:35Don't waste your time caring about people in some other country.
00:02:39Just bury your head in your books and mind your own business.
00:02:43America has lost its moral compass.
00:02:47Trump and his cronies say that we have an empathy problem.
00:02:52That we care too much about people other than ourselves.
00:02:56We say that caring about the well-being of others is at the core of who we are.
00:03:02We say that the people who are running our country are morally bankrupt.
00:03:07I'll tell you what's really going on here.
00:03:11AIPAC has made the largest political donations to politicians of any special interest group this cycle.
00:03:20Over $125 million in a process called legalized bribery.
00:03:27Our politicians have been bribed to continents' genocide.
00:03:32I know that Hamas began this horror with its attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages.
00:03:46Clearly, Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas.
00:03:51But Netanyahu's extremist government has not just waged war against Hamas.
00:03:58Instead, they've waged an all-out war of annihilation against the Palestinian people.
00:04:04And now, as we speak, now that our bombs have turned most every house, hospital, university, and school into rubble,
00:04:16we are expected to be good Americans and look the other way as Israel prevents food, water, and medicine from reaching the remaining people of Gaza.
00:04:29Israel is literally starving them to death.
00:04:35Starving them to death.
00:04:37We will not look away.
00:04:39We will not be silenced.
00:04:41We will do everything we can to get our government to stop being complicit in starving little kids to death.
00:04:49Thank you so much, Ben.
00:04:57In my district, we call it Ben and Jerry's.
00:05:00We roll the R's.
00:05:02I don't know if you know this, Ben, but I found out a couple years ago I'm lactose intolerant because of Dr. Tomia.
00:05:09But I still buy your ice cream intentionally.
00:05:12Nope.
00:05:12And I put it in.
00:05:13Yes.
00:05:13But I thank you so much.
00:05:16But I do want, I do want, I know I heard.
00:05:21Somebody actually told me that.
00:05:23I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of emails telling me this.
00:05:25But I just, I'm really happy to be here with my sister in service, Cori Bush, who I want, you know.
00:05:31So it's been unreal not having her here, but she didn't have to be here, and she is, and that speaks volumes to the fact that she's unapologetic about her stance to save Palestinian lives.
00:05:44I can't believe that right now in the United States Congress it is controversial to say Palestinians deserve to live, that many of my colleagues think supporting or being silent on starvation is progressive.
00:05:56But today, again, we're coming together because tomorrow, tomorrow marks the 77th anniversary of the ongoing Nekba, while the Israeli government continues the genocide in Gaza.
00:06:08It has always been a campaign to erase our existence, right, Nadal?
00:06:11Always.
00:06:12And we all know the Nekba never ended.
00:06:14Instead of agreeing to a ceasefire and the release of all hostages, war criminal Netanyahu announced plans to ethnically cleanse and forcibly expel the entire Palestinian population and to flatten and permanently occupy Gaza.
00:06:27What's obnoxious also and really just surprising to me is many of my colleagues who come up to me and whisper, you know, I don't like him.
00:06:34I can't believe he said that.
00:06:35But they continue to press yes to send more.
00:06:38Well, if you don't like him, then why did you send $14 billion to go kill children and to massacre a whole population?
00:06:45Make up your minds.
00:06:47Each year, we know our country sends billions of dollars to support the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
00:06:53We know the Israeli government is using starvation as a weapon of war, which is a war crime.
00:07:00Former finance minister Smotrich said, quote,
00:07:03Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral.
00:07:09Think about it.
00:07:10Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger, even though it might be justified and moral.
00:07:16For two months, Israeli officials have deliberately blocked food, water, medical supplies and fuel from entering Gaza.
00:07:23Many people are asking me, what do you think?
00:07:25What's going on with the president?
00:07:27I said, you know what?
00:07:28I don't care.
00:07:28You know what I care?
00:07:29Did any food trucks get through Gaza?
00:07:32That's what I want.
00:07:33I want you to ask me.
00:07:34What do I care?
00:07:35If I care about that, that's what I want.
00:07:36I want aid and food to come in.
00:07:38That's the answer.
00:07:39Whatever they do, these elected officials, and it's bipartisan, at the end it comes to, are we supporting war crimes?
00:07:47Are we allowing the starvation of all these people?
00:07:49You know, nearly about 60 Palestinians that we know of have already starved to death.
00:07:56Thousands of children are experiencing malnutrition.
00:07:59We're seeing the images come out.
00:08:01Yet again, my colleagues are silent.
00:08:04Palestinians have been forced to eat grass, rotten flower, and animal feed just to survive,
00:08:09while thousands of trucks carrying food have sat blocked at the border.
00:08:15We all have seen the images of babies starved to the bone, of children mutilated and dismembered,
00:08:22live-streamed, y'all, for the world to see.
00:08:26The world is standing by and letting it happen, but not us.
00:08:30We cannot normalize this.
00:08:32Our country is an accomplice to this genocide.
00:08:36It's appalling to witness the crackdown and violent repression of First Amendment speech on college campuses in our nation.
00:08:43Students are putting their bodies on the line to demand an end to this genocide,
00:08:47to demand that their universities divest from the same weapons manufacturers that they're sending bombs to drop on Palestinian families.
00:08:58You know, Mahmoud Khalil was kidnapped by our own government,
00:09:00and illegally disappeared to a detention facility in Louisiana, as we all know, over thousands of miles away.
00:09:07Recently, we know, and it breaks my heart, if you read his letter, please, if you haven't, read it.
00:09:14I did not know this, Nadal, that as his wife is giving birth, they put the phone near her,
00:09:21so he can hear her labored breaths, so he can hear his wife and giving her encouraging words,
00:09:27while he's on the phone next to her.
00:09:30Like, having the phone, he's whispering, because he doesn't want to wake up the other people that,
00:09:35I think, ten other people that is in the same cage that he's in.
00:09:40But Mahmoud knows that the Israeli government imprisons Palestinians without charge every single day.
00:09:45The United States is doing it to him, too.
00:09:48I want to read a little bit from the letter Mahmoud recently wrote to his son, from the ICE Detention Center.
00:09:55He says, quote,
00:09:56Dean, my heart aches that I could not hold you in your arms, hear your first cry,
00:10:01that I could not unfurl your clenched fist or change your first diaper.
00:10:14I am sorry that I was not there to hold your mother's hand or to recite the event or call to prayer in your ear.
00:10:21But my absence is not unique.
00:10:23Like, like other Palestinian fathers, I was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons.
00:10:32And Palestine, this pain is part of our daily life.
00:10:36That's what he wrote to his baby.
00:10:40He continues to say babies are born every day without their fathers,
00:10:44not because their fathers chose to leave, but because they are taken by war, by bombs, by prison cells,
00:10:49and by the cold machinery of occupation.
00:10:51So today we are coming together, all of us, and we're demanding his immediate release.
00:10:57We're protesting genocide.
00:10:59We're protesting genocide, saying that protesting genocide is not a crime.
00:11:03We are coming today as we celebrate, not only celebrate, but commemorate the anniversary of the NECPA.
00:11:09That again continues.
00:11:11We are here because we all know that more Americans outside of Congress believe in an arms embargo.
00:11:17They believe in an end to the genocide.
00:11:20They believe, like Corey and I, that we must save lives no matter faith or ethnicity.
00:11:26And so, again, thank you to all the courage of Doctors Against Genocide and so many others that have come together to speak this truth.
00:11:35You know, I come from the most beautiful blackest city in the country, and I want to remind you,
00:11:39and you've heard me say it, but I want to drill it in you.
00:11:42You know, the institution behind us is not going to save us.
00:11:45What's going to save us is us in the streets demanding this institution move.
00:11:50I was taught early on that transformative change comes from us.
00:11:55These folks didn't get up and say the Civil Rights Act is a beautiful thing.
00:11:59Let's do it.
00:12:00Or, you know what, the right to organize labor is the right thing to do.
00:12:05It's when the people on the outside made them move.
00:12:07So let's make them move.
00:12:10With that, I want to introduce my sister forever and ever and ever.
00:12:14You know, we look at each other, and she only has to say a word.
00:12:16But I have to tell you, you know, today I was just talking to a team member who used to be on your team,
00:12:25and I just could not believe the level of threats, the targeting of Congresswoman Cori Bush.
00:12:32Just relentless.
00:12:35But she did not waver.
00:12:37She's a hero to me and to so many others.
00:12:40This is a woman that talked about saving lives from her first breath on the floor.
00:12:45And she continues to speak that truth.
00:12:48With that, please give her a warm welcome.
00:12:50Cori Bush.
00:12:58I have to say that there is no other place that I would need to be right now here today
00:13:06than to stand beside you as you introduce this resolution.
00:13:13Because this is the work.
00:13:15And you have been, you're saying unwavering for me, but you have been unwavering.
00:13:21You have been steadfast.
00:13:22You have been unmovable.
00:13:24And not just because it's your own people.
00:13:27Because you've stood with me on so many issues.
00:13:31Issues that pertain to black people, most directly impacted, and so many others.
00:13:35You have stood the same.
00:13:37And so I am here to stand and to support you and to say thank you for all of the work to
00:13:45you and your staff, but also to the organizations that are here today.
00:13:50Veterans for Peace, Cold Pink, Doctors Against Genocide, well, our Veterans Against Genocide.
00:13:56Thank you all for this long-standing work.
00:14:00All of the work of IMEU.
00:14:03Every single one of you.
00:14:05All of you advocates for justice.
00:14:08Today and every day, it is imperative that we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
00:14:14We don't get to choose which day and which part of the issue we support, which part of taking
00:14:22care of the people we support.
00:14:24We support humans.
00:14:25And so we support anything that's going to make lives better for humans.
00:14:31And that includes the Palestinian people wherever they live.
00:14:35And so on tomorrow, May 15th, as the 77th commemoration of the Nakba dawns, we remember the deliberate
00:14:46uprooting and dispossession of a beautiful, of a vibrant people, of people whose homes were
00:14:53raised, whose families torn apart, and whose dreams were deferred.
00:14:57This resolution is our moral compass.
00:15:00And we've been looking, staring this moral compass in the face for 19 months.
00:15:08This moral compass, it causes us to not be able to look away from the pain of the past
00:15:16and the ongoing justice of the present.
00:15:19We must name the truth.
00:15:20In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan carved up Palestine against the will of its
00:15:26indigenous majority.
00:15:27And in the months that followed, Zionist militias waged a systematic campaign of violence.
00:15:34We still see the violence, massacres, forced expulsions, and the destruction of over 400
00:15:40Palestinian villages.
00:15:43By 1949, we know that three quarters of the Palestinian population had been driven away.
00:15:48Their right to return, not honored.
00:15:52Today, there has been no repair.
00:15:54So what happened in the past had yet to be repaired.
00:16:00And now we're here today.
00:16:02Millions of Palestinians are displaced, starving and under siege.
00:16:07We watch the videos over and over again and say, oh, that's so horrible.
00:16:13And we go back to our lives.
00:16:17Their children continue to suffer from malnutrition and a lack of clean water, while U.S. tax dollars
00:16:24continue to flow into the very weapons that demolish homes and block humanitarian aid.
00:16:31This resolution demands we reclaim Palestinian rights and our own integrity that the United States lost so long ago, if it ever.
00:16:42It calls on our nation to commemorate the NACPA, to denounce its ongoing legacy and to educate every person of this country about our country's role in its complicity in this catastrophe.
00:17:00It insists we restore social services through UNRWA, uphold the right of return guaranteed by the UNGA resolution 194 and Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in U.S. support for arms used to destroy Palestinian communities.
00:17:16We know that justice deferred is justice denied.
00:17:20We know that every moment we remain silent, more families lose their homes, more families lose hope, more families die.
00:17:28So today, I urge every member of the House to embrace this resolution, not as a gesture, but as a promise that the United States will finally, at this moment in time,
00:17:45stand for humanity over hypocrisy.
00:17:49Such a hard thing for the U.S. to do for truth over turning away.
00:17:54Such a hard thing for this house to do and for freedom of all people.
00:18:00All means all. If you look it up, it just simply means all.
00:18:04This is our chance to make a demand on the history, history that should be singing a different song.
00:18:13This is our chance to affirm international law, to lift every voice crying out for justice and the and the legacy that we should have repaired.
00:18:25Let us walk through this door of courage together because peace without justice is no peace at all.
00:18:42Hi, my name is Mike Ferner.
00:18:44I'm former director of Veterans for Peace.
00:18:48I was a hospital corpsman in the Navy during the Vietnam War, and I know what war does to people.
00:18:58For three years, I worked in a hospital and tried putting together the broken pieces of humanity that our government sent back from Vietnam while we were busy killing two million people in Vietnam.
00:19:10And I learned shortly after I got out of there, the wisdom of what Smedley Butler, a Marine Corps major general said that war is a racket.
00:19:20It always has been. It always will be.
00:19:23And that racket is run by the corporations and run by the people with well manicured hands and smooth faces who make a lot of money out of the misery that war causes.
00:19:41And this is going on today as you've heard and you know about what's going on in Palestine.
00:19:48What I wanted to mention is just very briefly one thing that as of five days ago, the IPC, the integrated food security phase classification, said that Gaza's entire population is at critical risk of famine and 500,000 are in danger of immediate starvation.
00:20:09Is this what we think America is all about and should be doing with our tax dollars?
00:20:18Should we be pouring billions and tens of billions of dollars into Israel so they can bomb and burn innocents so they can provide health care for everybody in Israel while tens of millions of people in this country have no health care?
00:20:35Last year, five miles from this place, Aaron Bushnell self-immolated senior airman, Aaron Bushnell, the protest against his genocide.
00:20:48Not many of us have the courage that Aaron had.
00:20:52But this war is killing all of us slowly inside as we know the reality of what happens to people on the ground and to do the best we can.
00:21:07Veterans and allies are going to have a fast for Gaza starting May 22nd, 40 days at 250 calories a day, which is probably more than they get in Gaza, 40 days in New York at the U.N.
00:21:26And we hope hundreds of people around the country participating wherever they are.
00:21:36The two demands of that are full humanitarian aid under U.N.
00:21:40authorization and no more U.S. weapons to Israel.
00:21:45It's the least we can do.
00:21:47It's what we have to do.
00:21:49Tell the people in this house who are not our government, they're owned and rented and bought by you know who.
00:21:58But as the Congresswoman has said here, it's our responsibility to stand up and make these SOBs listen and try to get them to do the right thing.
00:22:08Thank you, Mike.
00:22:13My name is Josephine Gilbo.
00:22:15I am a 17 year Army veteran and a farmer intelligence officer.
00:22:20Seventy four days.
00:22:24Seventy four days.
00:22:26The Israeli government, along with its accomplice in genocide, the American government has not allowed food or water to enter inside
00:22:36of the concentration camp that is known as Gaza.
00:22:41Seventy four days.
00:22:42No food has entered to one million starving children.
00:22:48Where is the hypocrisy in our government when we are supposed to stand on Christian values, on the teachings of Jesus Christ,
00:23:01who said to stand with the weak, stand with the hungry and stand with the poor.
00:23:07Our corrupt politicians are blasphemous.
00:23:12They use Christianity to perpetrate an agenda.
00:23:16That is all that they do.
00:23:18It is time for mothers, for Christians, for Americans and for patriots to stand with the values that this country has the potential to hold.
00:23:31Stand against the genocide.
00:23:33Stand against the starvation of children.
00:23:37Lift the aid.
00:23:38Lift the blockade.
00:23:39Let the aid into Gaza.
00:23:42Stop the genocide now.
00:23:45Stop the genocide.
00:23:50Hello, my name is Greg Stoker.
00:23:53I'm a former U.S. Army Ranger who conducted four combat deployments to Afghanistan under Joint Special Operations Command.
00:23:59And now, among other things, I'm one of those irritating anti-war activists who tries to get you to care about conflicts happening half a world away.
00:24:07The United States has been at war for 93% of its existence, meaning that it's only experienced about 17 years of peace.
00:24:15This equates to 228 years of war out of 245 years of existence.
00:24:21I bring this up because foreign wars have been so normalized in the American consciousness that perhaps the leveling of Gaza, the destruction of its people, half of whom are children, is simply business as usual.
00:24:32What can I do about it and why should I care?
00:24:35After 20 years of the ill-fated global war on terror, which destroyed millions of lives, compromised our defense industrial base, and netted the U.S. absolutely nothing beyond washing taxpayer money out of the public sector into the private, it's a given that the U.S. will always have a violent engagement in the Middle East.
00:24:56Gaza is different, however. We have watched in real time how Israel has systematically assassinated journalists, medical workers, civic leaders, demolished every school in Gaza in order to erase Palestinian identity, leveled graveyards, destroyed all civil infrastructure save a few bombed-out hospitals, and killed more children than in any other modern conflict.
00:25:18My colleagues have amply demonstrated the humanitarian catastrophe, and if that can't prick your conscience and steer you to action, perhaps this will.
00:25:26Whatever our politicians, most of whom are captured by corporate and foreign interests, are willing to do to Palestinians, they are inevitably, over time, willing to do to you.
00:25:36The precedent has been set. The state policy of bombing hospitals is normalized. Controlled mass starvation is now acceptable, and the arbitrary disappearances in detentions are on the rise globally, including here.
00:25:49Over the past 15 months, the entire world has become less safe. Rule of law has been irrevocably degraded, and America is no exception. If we break our own laws abroad, we'll break them here on U.S. citizens and on U.S. soil.
00:26:02Former Vice President Kamala Harris accused President Donald Trump of being a fascist without acknowledging that she is part of the same exact system that funds a genocide abroad and expands the national security and police state here at home.
00:26:15This is not a left-right issue. This is an all-of-us issue. The mechanisms of violence and repression that we exercise abroad are almost immediately implemented right here, back at home.
00:26:27The same policing methods and technology that enforce occupation and apartheid on Palestinians are monitoring you, starting with journalists, international aid workers, and activists.
00:26:37If our government and its driving corporate interests are willing to starve Palestinian children, they are willing to starve yours as the material conditions here in America worsen, as rent continues to rise, Medicaid and other social programs are cut, and poverty is increasingly criminalized.
00:26:53There is only force, the funding of the military, and the suppression of dissent both foreign and domestic. Whether you like it or not, you are connected to the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, and there is no daylight between foreign and domestic policy.
00:27:06It's all part of the same system and the same playbook, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and there's no liberation except collective.
00:27:13So Palestine, which has exposed the violence and hypocrisy of our leaders, should be the rock upon which we come together and say enough.
00:27:21Enough with the sensitive, senseless, self-destructive wars, the lies, and the blind hatred.
00:27:26If we can't agree that a genocide is bad, that mass displacement and starvation of entire people doesn't align with our values, then I have serious concerns for the future of this country and its people.
00:27:38So if you're going to get involved and demand justice for Palestine, justice for yourselves, come on board. It's never too late. Free Palestine.
00:27:45Thank you. Thank you everybody for being here today. It means so much to all of us. My name is Diana Ostreich. I'm in Iraq War and served as a combat medic veteran there.
00:27:58I went to war knowing what I was willing to die for. The answer had unquestionably always been America.
00:28:05But the night my commander gave me an order to run over an Iraqi child to keep the convoy rolling the next day, challenged me.
00:28:14How can I run over another mother's child? Was this what my God and my country required of me?
00:28:21God stood in front of my good intentions and disarmed me. It wasn't enough to know what I would die for anymore.
00:28:29I needed to know what was worth living for. I was going to fight for what every soldier wants. Peace.
00:28:35But with sacrifice instead of bullets. Because no one is outside of God's jurisdiction to love.
00:28:42Waging peace is how we fight for the world that God dreams of. Where Christians feed the hungry instead of starve them.
00:28:51Where the poor are blessed instead of the billionaires. And the peacemakers are called the children of God.
00:28:58In Gaza, 3500 children under four years old are on the brink of imminent death by starvation.
00:29:07If you knew a bomb was going to drop on a daycare center where 3500 children were playing, wouldn't you do everything you could to step in front of it?
00:29:17We're stepping in front of the capital because we refuse to allow the country that we love to be collaborators with starving children to death.
00:29:27Starving children is not a war tactic. It's a war crime.
00:29:32We will make no peace with Israel starving Gaza's children for 73 days. End the blockade.
00:29:41We will make no peace with five to nine year olds making up the single biggest age category of the dead in Gaza. End this genocide.
00:29:51We are calling all Americans to step up and step in front of the bomb of starvation and stop Israel's blockade on food.
00:29:59Because all children are worth stepping in front of a bomb for.
00:30:04We are clear on our marching orders, America. Are you?
00:30:08As a combat medic, my orders charge me to fight to save every single life on the battlefield, civilian or enemy.
00:30:16Provide food and medical aid, even to prisoners of war.
00:30:20This matches my marching orders as a Christian.
00:30:23To feed the hungry instead of allowing them to be starved.
00:30:27To protect the poor and to fight the powerful.
00:30:30Far too many Christian nationalists and Zionists are singing about heaven today while creating a hell in Gaza.
00:30:39War showed me this truth. We are not bystanders. We are collaborators.
00:30:45Or we are resistors. We're calling every American of conscience and good faith to resist.
00:30:52Resist Israel's blockade on food to Gaza.
00:30:56We're interrupting genocide because we refuse to collaborate with it.
00:31:01And we're interrupting Israel's starving children because we refuse to collaborate with war crimes.
00:31:07Waging peace requires us to put courage into action.
00:31:12America, will you put your courage into action?
00:31:16Because whatever we have done onto the least of these, we have done to God.
00:31:21Thank you, Brie Palestine.
00:31:23Brie Palestine.
00:31:24Brie Palestine.
00:31:28Brie Palestine.
00:31:29Brie Palestine.
00:31:30Brie Palestine.
00:31:31Brie Palestine.
00:31:32Brie Palestine.
00:31:33Brie Palestine.
00:31:34Brie Palestine.
00:31:35Brie Palestine.
00:31:36Brie Palestine.
00:31:37Brie Palestine.
00:31:38Brie Palestine.
00:31:39Brie Palestine.
00:31:40Brie Palestine.
00:31:41Brie Palestine.
00:31:42Brie Palestine.
00:31:43Brie Palestine.
00:31:44Brie Palestine.
00:31:45Brie Palestine.
00:31:46Brie Palestine.
00:31:47Brie Palestine.
00:31:48Brie Palestine.
00:31:49Brie Palestine.
00:31:50Brie Palestine.
00:31:51Brie Palestine.
00:31:52Brie Palestine.
00:31:53Brie Palestine.
00:31:54Brie Palestine.
00:31:55Brie Palestine.
00:31:56place in the world that has a morning that has a sun that has a truth that is
00:32:01shining while the whole world lives in darkness especially here it is dark here
00:32:09in the United States. My name is Dr. Nidal Jibour. I'm a Palestinian American
00:32:18doctor and that by itself hurts a lot. I'm a Palestinian which means my people have been
00:32:31slaughtered for two years in front of my eyes. Our children, our women, our elderly, our men.
00:32:40I'm American. It's our bombs, our money that is killing my people. And I'm a doctor. We got
00:32:52school for decades to save one life. We spent nights and nights in the hospitals and the ICUs
00:32:58to save one life. Only for one 2000 bomb, American bomb to slaughter hundreds of children in one
00:33:08second. It's been happening in front of our eyes for two years nonstop. Did do they get tired of
00:33:17killing children? How are we allowing this? Do not believe that Israel is committing the genocide.
00:33:25Do not believe that Netanyahu is committing the genocide. It is America that's committing the
00:33:30genocide. Do not believe it. We are calling on President Trump. You are getting the billions.
00:33:38You are getting the gifts in the Gulf from the Arabs who are always kurama and gracious.
00:33:48You pledge to stop wars and bring peace. Do it. You can do it with one full call. No lies,
00:33:55no excuses. No excuses. You can do it with one full call. Stop the bombs. Allow the food in.
00:34:03We cannot take your lies, America, anymore. Two years ago, in November 2023,
00:34:11we were here with two courageous congresswomen, Corey and Rashida, for the first press conference that we
00:34:19ever had as Doctors Against Unicide with my co-founder, the other Palestinian doctor here, Karama Hawash,
00:34:25and we had a press conference here for ceasefire. And we said, this cannot go on any more day,
00:34:34not any more week. And here we go, two years later, 18,000 children lost, 300 civilians killed,
00:34:46and we're still appealing to this criminal world. It is dark in the world. The whole world is
00:34:52complicit. The whole world is criminal. It's only light in Gaza. Gaza is the only truth. Good morning, Gaza.
00:35:01We're here because over 18,000 children in Gaza have been slaughtered because hospitals have been bombed
00:35:15every day. And you saw the news yesterday. Two of the last remaining hospitals in Gaza were bombed
00:35:21with your money, with your taxes, with your complexity, all of us in front of our eyes.
00:35:30More than one million child have been starved for months and months. While the food, the aid,
00:35:38the medicine sits there five miles away, we are allowing the bombs to go in. But the great United
00:35:46States of America, the great Trump, cannot allow the food to go in. And they want us to believe these
00:35:52lies. Children are not collateral damage. They are the target for this genocidal and criminal Israel.
00:36:00I am Palestinian. I am American. I am a doctor. And I do have the right to say the truth. And I do have
00:36:10the right not to be politically correct. If there was more than one million Jewish children being
00:36:17started in front of our eyes, the world will not stay silent. This is the truth. We are all complicit.
00:36:24We enable this. We are allowing this. It's only happening and allowed because this Judeo-Christian
00:36:33wall is racist, is criminal, is built on genocide, is used to do genocide. And we say no more. They
00:36:41have no morals. They have no right to claim the moral upper ground. We say enough is enough. This is
00:36:49not a war. This is a genocide being live streamed by the victims for two years. What else do you want
00:36:57them to say and to show us? And what about the American medical organizations, the AMA, who stand for
00:37:06life, protection of life? They did not say a single word about it. History will judge you. And if you come
00:37:15and apologize after 10 years or 100 years, we will not accept your apology. This is not complicated. It can be
00:37:24ended with a phone call. It can be ended today.
00:37:33Bread, not bombs. Let the children eat. Let aid in. Stop this disaster. It's shameful. It's disgusting.
00:37:42It's criminal. Thank you.
00:37:55My name is Karama Hawash Kummerli. I'm an American Palestinian. I am from Nablus and I am from doctors
00:38:03against genocide. In Gaza, there are innocent, smiling babies. One second, they are smiling.
00:38:12The second, they are half a human because their limbs have been cut off and medics cannot even reach
00:38:20them. And the rest of their family members are under the rubble. Right now, children are killed or
00:38:28turned into half humans or turned into completely traumatized, shaking little children who cannot
00:38:38make sense of what is happening to them. These are my children and the children of my sisters and
00:38:46brothers in Gaza. I cannot fathom the cruelty of the Israel government and those who give Israel the cover
00:38:56to do what it has been doing every day for decades. Pope Francis said in one of his final public
00:39:05statements, this is a genocide. We have been saying this is a genocide for years. It is not normal to
00:39:14grind Gaza like meat. It doesn't. It is not normal to bomb hospitals and starve million children. It is not
00:39:24normal to see children starved to the degree that they cannot even cry. We Palestinians name our children
00:39:33beautiful names. We raise them with love. We teach them to read, sing and dream. And we will never stop
00:39:41fighting for the right to live. We come here along with Veterans Against Genocide, along with Congressman
00:39:49Rashida and Corrie, who is an amazing woman among the clergy people and all these amazing people who
00:39:59spoke. We come here to say, let the children eat, let the children live, not another hospital, not another
00:40:07child, not in our name. And we want the president of the United States to do something immediately
00:40:15because he is just as complicit as the one before him. And he needs to end it now. Thank you.
00:40:26Thank you, everyone. My name is Mohamed Daoud. I'm a Palestinian American and a proud Marine Corps
00:40:32veteran. I was born and raised in Ohio by two loving Palestinian immigrants who taught me that dignity,
00:40:38service and sacrifice are the most honorable traits a person can carry. I served my country because I
00:40:44believed in the constitution. I believe in civil liberties, justice and the right of every person
00:40:49to live free from fear. And I would do it again because I believed and still believe that to wear
00:40:54that uniform meant standing for something greater than myself. In many places, I was the first Palestinian,
00:41:02the first Muslim and the first Arab American
00:41:04that many Marines have ever met. And I carried that with honor. But the truth is my service didn't
00:41:10start or end in the Marines. I carry a deeper commitment. My time living in the West Bank taught
00:41:16me that the values we claim as Americans, freedom, equality, the rule of law are not exclusive to us.
00:41:23Palestinians crave and fight for those same values every day and they bleed for them.
00:41:27And what I saw in Palestine wasn't just occupation. It wasn't just injustice. It was the total betrayal
00:41:35of everything I thought America stood for and what I served for. The supremacist settler colony
00:41:42ideology of Zionism is incompatible with American values. It is anti-ethical to liberty. It is a system
00:41:49that uses race and religion to determine worth. And that is not democracy. That is tyranny.
00:41:54So why am I here today? And here's the truth. I should be in Palestine right now, preparing for
00:42:00our grape and olive harvest season. But instead, last February, in Detroit Metro Airport, I was
00:42:07ambushed by federal agents, FBI and DHS. And I was denied to board my flight. And they seized my electronics
00:42:16and went through everything that I was essentially on my persons. They interrogated me and tried to
00:42:22intimidate me out of doing the very thing I took an oath to do, defend liberty. You want to know
00:42:30what's un-American? It's silencing veterans who speak out, suppressing the voices of Palestinians who
00:42:35refuse to disappear, criminalizing our grief, our resistance and our humanity. We're here because we
00:42:41refuse to be silent. We're here because we believe in a better America, one that doesn't hand billions of
00:42:46dollars to fund apartheid and war crimes. One that listens to the people claims to represent. We
00:42:50are citizens, veterans, doctors, clergy. And we are telling Congress, you can't say you stand for
00:42:56freedom while bankrolling ethnic cleansing. This is our country. And this is our moment. And this is our
00:43:02message. Free Palestine, lift the siege on Gaza and the occupation and stop funding genocide in our name.
00:43:09Thank you, everyone.
00:43:14I'm sorry, we do have a special guest with us. She's a medical hero, Dr. Rezan Najjar, who just came
00:43:20back from Gaza last week to share her first account, eyewitness account from Gaza, the situation in
00:43:27Gaza. Dr. Rezan, sorry, Dr. Rezan Nahas. She's an emergency room doctor here in DC. She went to
00:43:35Gaza twice on two missions. The last one of them was for more than five weeks, two months. And she just
00:43:44came back from Gaza to share with us here what she saw there. Dr. Nahas, thank you for your heroism,
00:43:54for your sacrifice and for everything you do. Thank you.
00:44:01Hello, everyone. My name is Rezan Nahas. I'm an emergency medicine physician. And I recently returned
00:44:09from a two month medical relief mission in Gaza. During my time there, I worked at four different
00:44:17hospitals. All of them were operating with minimal resources, exhausted and overworked staff,
00:44:24starving staff, many of whom were volunteers and under the constant threat of attack.
00:44:32Several of these hospitals were targeted by Israeli airstrikes, both while I was there and since my
00:44:39return. At the hospital, staff were given just a 15 minute evacuation notice. Doctors, nurses, patients,
00:44:50their families scrambled to flee before the hospital was struck by an Israeli air missile.
00:44:57The streets filled with injured patients, people who should have been receiving care within the safety
00:45:03of the hospital. A few of them died before reaching a nearby facility. The emergency room was destroyed.
00:45:10The lab, the pharmacy also destroyed. A hospital that was serving the medical needs of the majority of
00:45:18people in Gaza City was put out of service. Nasr Hospital was also struck while I was in Gaza. And again,
00:45:26just a few days ago, patients already injured from prior Israeli attacks were again hit while receiving
00:45:34care in their hospital beds. Many were killed. Al-Aqsa Hospital campus grounds were targeted multiple
00:45:42times during my stay there. Areas sheltering displaced civilians, women and children. Areas where any of the
00:45:50hospital staff, including myself and other international medical providers, could have been at any moment.
00:45:57European Hospital, which had been the only hospital in the entire Gaza Strip to not have been directly
00:46:04targeted, was just bombed yesterday with nine missiles into and around the courtyard. The hospital
00:46:11grounds were destroyed, dozens killed and injured, with bodies buried beneath the sand. And just moments ago,
00:46:19while I was on my way to this press conference, Shifa Hospital was threatened. And they are currently,
00:46:25at this moment, evacuating the patients and the staff. People that I spent weeks working with.
00:46:33And I haven't seen the news. I don't know if they've bombed it yet or will be bombing it shortly.
00:46:39We've also seen repeated attacks and direct targeting of doctors, nurses, paramedics,
00:46:44and members of the civil defence, being abducted and detained, tortured, buried alive. So many of the
00:46:52brave medical staff I worked alongside with, would share stories of their own detainment and torture,
00:46:58being among the ones that were lucky enough to be released and alive. These attacks on Gaza's
00:47:05healthcare system are clear violations of international humanitarian law. The entire world is watching.
00:47:12And yet, instead of speaking out, condemning these atrocities, instead of demanding Israel stop its
00:47:19murderous campaign, this government, our government, continues to fund and endorse this genocide.
00:47:27Entire families wiped out, bloodlines erased, sometimes a few survived. I remember two young
00:47:35children, a brother and sister, six and eight years old, who fortunately only had mild injuries after an
00:47:43Israeli missile struck a neighbouring tent while they were in their sleep. As I was scanning their
00:47:49abdomens with an ultrasound to rule out internal bleeding, they both giggled because the gel was cold
00:47:56and ticklish. They didn't know that their mother, brought to the hospital just before them,
00:48:02lay dying from a severe head injury on the stretcher next to them, just feet away, separated only by a
00:48:09curtain. There were moments during my time in Gaza where I truly felt hopeless, defeated, like my hands
00:48:17were tied. One mass casualty incident after another. Hospitals flooded with patients, mostly women and
00:48:25children. You start to ask yourself, what am I even doing? With very limited resources, you care for a
00:48:33patient in the ER, you place tubes in their chest, control the bleeding when you can, place them on
00:48:39ventilators if they were available, send them to the operating room, admit them to the ICU if there was a bed. For what?
00:48:48Only to receive the next rush of patients a few hours later. Only to find out a few days later that many of
00:48:55the patients you took care of still died. An endless loop of injury, death and destruction, such that no
00:49:03matter what my colleagues and I did, it often felt futile. I remember Jenna, a nine-year-old girl, a victim of an
00:49:11Israeli airstrike, the sole survivor of her family. She spent weeks in the ICU. Every attempt to remove
00:49:20her from the ventilator, the machine designed to artificially support her breathing, would fail.
00:49:26And she would quickly decompensate and end up back on the machine. She was extubated and re-intubated,
00:49:32extubated and re-intubated multiple times. Every time we thought she was improving,
00:49:37she would decline. And this was the case with so many patients, especially children. Why?
00:49:45No infection control. We're treating patients oftentimes on the floor because the few hospitals
00:49:51left do not have the capacity for the number of patients that flood through the doors with each
00:49:56airstrike. Sterile gowns, gloves, antiseptics, scarce. I was often caring for patients with my bare hands,
00:50:04because with the sheer number of patients that would enter we would not have time to go and search
00:50:09for gloves to exchange them between patients. Antibiotics and medications, scarce. Ventilator
00:50:17tubing, meant for single use, used repeatedly on different patients. Why? Because Israel is blocking
00:50:25the entry of medical aid. Israel is also obstructing the delivery of food. Starvation is being used as a
00:50:37weapon of war. In malnourished patients, malnourished children cannot heal. Their immune systems cannot
00:50:46fight infections. A child with every rib protruding from malnourishment cannot heal. They need protein
00:50:59for building new tissue. They need carbohydrates and fats to provide the energy to support the healing
00:51:05process. No aid has entered Gaza since March 2. People are starving to death while aid sits just miles
00:51:14away blocked at the border. I could speak for hours and hours of the horrible things I witnessed in
00:51:21Gaza without scratching the surface. And it would still pale in comparison to what my brave colleagues,
00:51:28the doctors, nurses and medics of Gaza, the true heroes. I am not a hero. I had the privilege of
00:51:34returning. They are the heroes. It would pale in comparison to what they have had to endure over the
00:51:41past 19 months. It's been 19 months. 19 months of bombs, tanks, drones. 19 months of displacement,
00:51:52starvation, fear. 19 months of obstructed aid in targeted hospitals. 19 months of genocide. What more is
00:52:02there to say? This must end now. With every day that passes, more lives are lost, more families destroyed,
00:52:12more children traumatized. The people of Gaza have suffered enough. The genocide must end now.
00:52:19I call on this government to end all military aid to Israel, to support an immediate and permanent
00:52:26ceasefire, to allow the flow of unrestricted humanitarian aid, and to ensure that those
00:52:32responsible for the war crimes and crimes against humanity are held accountable. Thank you.
00:52:56My name is Caleb Dix. I'm a five-year United States Marine Corps veteran, having served as an
00:53:03infantry rifleman and a Marine security guard posted at multiple embassies overseas.
00:53:07As an infantryman, I was trained in the art of violence and war. I was trained how to outmaneuver
00:53:13and overwhelm my enemy with violence of action through strategic tactics and proper employment of
00:53:18lethal weapon systems. However, I was not taught that it was okay to use these skills and tools against
00:53:23civilian populations, humanitarians, paramedics, journalists, and doctors, which is exactly what
00:53:29we have been seeing done over and over again by the cowards of the Israeli military.
00:53:36Like many of you here today, I swore an oath to defend the constitution of the United States
00:53:40from all enemies foreign and domestic, and I served my country honorably. But as I look at the state of
00:53:45our country and the politicians today, I question the sincerity of the oath they took. When our politicians
00:53:50seemingly prioritize the needs of a foreign government over their country and people,
00:53:55sending billions of taxpayer dollars to arm a government knowing full well that those weapons
00:54:00would be used to decimate innocent civilian populations time and time again.
00:54:06This is not merely complicity in genocide. This is a joint effort between the United States and the
00:54:12Israeli government to commit an act of genocide as we speak. To the politicians who support arming
00:54:17Israel, your hands are dripping with the blood of innocent Palestinians. Thousands of children
00:54:23dismembered and torn limb from limb by weapons we continue to supply Israel is a crime that I can no
00:54:28longer stand to watch. The fact that you can sleep at night knowing your involvement in this evil is
00:54:34a testament to your wickedness and hardened hearts. Why is it the new norm for our politicians that
00:54:41character and virtue is so easily compromised by personal greed? As a nation, as Americans,
00:54:48why are we complicit in genocide or apathetic at best? To my Christian brother and sisters,
00:54:55what will you say to your maker on the day of judgment when he asks,
00:54:58and what did you do with the abundance that I gave you when my people were in desperate need?
00:55:03What love and grace did you show to people suffering at the hands of your leaders?
00:55:06While thousands of dismembered children scream in agony, your voices remain silent.
00:55:13And if the constant barrage of missile strikes hasn't been bad enough,
00:55:16Gaza has not received any humanitarian aid for over nine weeks, which is now bringing a new horror.
00:55:22A slow and painful death for thousands of innocent people in desperate need of food,
00:55:26water, medical supplies, and essential items for survival in an active war zone.
00:55:31Last month, I visited Palestine in the West Bank. Although it is not as dangerous as Gaza,
00:55:38and does not receive the same news coverage, it is still a place of turmoil and everyday struggle
00:55:42for Palestinians. I saw the apartheid firsthand. I spoke to Palestinian families living in oppression
00:55:48at the hands of their colonizers. I saw their beautiful lands being colonized by a foreign government,
00:55:52like something out of a dystopian movie. Entire Palestinian towns bulldozed to be replaced
00:56:01by Israeli settlements, illegal Israeli settlements. Refugee camps for the displaced Palestinians in
00:56:06their own country. Restriction of movement by over 700 Israeli checkpoints throughout the West Bank.
00:56:12City streets wrapped up by tanks, apartheid walls to coordinate Palestinians like cattle, and much more.
00:56:16What I also saw was the humble yet mighty spirit of the Palestinian people. I visited with everyday
00:56:28people like you and me, simply wishing to live a normal life and have just 10% of the freedoms we
00:56:32have here in America. Strong people struggling to work or to have food, water, freedom of movement,
00:56:38freedom of speech, sovereignty, and basic human rights in their own land. I came home from that trip
00:56:44and changed man. Now a messenger and a brother to the Palestinian people who showed me love and
00:56:49hospitality with open arms. Now I stand here today as an American and a messenger for the people with no
00:56:55voice. I call for peace. I call for tangible actions to stop arming Israel in this war and to finally open the
00:57:02humanitarian blockade in Gaza. I call on my fellow countrymen to open their eyes and hearts to the
00:57:07Palestinian people and be a voice against these atrocities. Thank you. Free Palestine and God bless you all.
00:57:14My name is Annel Scheline. I resigned from the State Department about a year ago.
00:57:26I resigned because it had become clear that nothing that Israel did was going to change
00:57:31the Biden administration's policy. Despite the fact that numerous laws were being violated,
00:57:37laws that were passed by courageous people in this building just behind us. The Leahy laws prohibit the
00:57:45the provision of U.S. security assistance to a military that engages in gross violations of human rights.
00:57:53Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits U.S. security assistance to a country that is blocking
00:58:00American humanitarian aid. A portion of the Foreign Assistance Act, which has unfortunately never
00:58:06actually been upheld, prevents the U.S. from selling weapons to countries that violate human rights.
00:58:14We know that this president is not one that tends to be governed by the law, but he does tend to care
00:58:21about public opinion. And he has responded to the fact that a vast majority of Americans can no longer
00:58:28countenance what our government is supporting and what our tax dollars are funding. He's a smart
00:58:34politician. He won the election on this and the Democrats lost. My hope is that he will continue to
00:58:41be willing to push back against the knee-jerk militarism that this country has so long embraced,
00:58:46reflecting the interests of massive weapons producers in contrast to the desires of the American people.
00:58:54My hope is that he will continue to reach out to groups like Iran, to the Houthis, to Hamas,
00:59:03in contravention of the preferences of the Israeli government. However, he's only going to do that if
00:59:10all of us continue to stand up, if Americans make clear that we are no longer willing to support any of
00:59:16this. And so it is, as others have said so much more eloquently than I, how are we all going to
00:59:23live with ourselves the longer that this goes on? Thank you.
00:59:35Each of us here represents large swaths of sisters and brothers of the human family
00:59:45yearning for peace in our wounded and war-torn world, especially among the children, women, and
00:59:53men of Gaza. My honor, Francis Gargani, to represent my Roman Catholic community of redemptress priests and
01:00:03brothers and brothers and the international peace organization Pax Christi. But up almost to his last
01:00:12breath, our now deceased beloved Pope Francis was pleading for an end to the genocide in the war ravaged
01:00:22strip of Palestine that we call Gaza. It was just one day before his death, caught on video, Francis
01:00:33grasped. Yesterday, the children were bombed. This is cruelty. This is not war. In practically every public
01:00:47address, Francis begged for the people of Gaza. And we know personally, he called the small Christian
01:00:55community there, struggling to survive along with everyone else, every single night. In his final
01:01:03Orby at Orby address, Francis asked the world, think of the people of Gaza, where the terrible conflict
01:01:12continues to cause death, destruction, to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation. I appeal to the
01:01:22warring parties, call a ceasefire, release the hostages, and come to the aid of a starving people
01:01:30that aspires to a future of peace. Over a year ago, the Pope was beyond distraught over the famine facing our
01:01:39sisters and brothers, thanking Jordan and Lebanon, taking in people as refugees. It was even then, Francis said,
01:01:48according to experts, what's happening in Gaza has all the characteristics of genocide. It should be
01:01:57carefully investigated and by jurists determined and by every international body. And the verdict is now in.
01:02:07Genocide is happening before our very eyes. And we cannot remain silent. Veterans for Peace here,
01:02:18along with Pax Christi International, Palestine Justice Network, friends of Sabio North America and others,
01:02:26are entering into a fast next Thursday, as you heard, to witness to this nightmare enfolding before us,
01:02:34calling us sister and brother Americans to join them. Today's New York Times front page article
01:02:41attests that even the Israeli military recognizes the people of Gaza are facing total starvation.
01:02:51We're here together representing thousands, raising our voices, pleading with our congressional leaders
01:03:00to refuse any further military aid to Israel, as long as it pursues this insane policy of starvation of
01:03:09the war-ravaged citizens, our sisters and brothers of Gaza. The dignity of the human person
01:03:17is the bedrock of all social teaching, especially for us. And fundamentally, every faith and tradition
01:03:25holds to that, all of us made in God's image and likeness. It's intrinsic to us,
01:03:31not something dependent upon our nationality or created standard of worthiness. St. John Paul II,
01:03:38upholding the principle of solidarity, wrote, solidarity is a firm and persevering determination
01:03:44to commit oneself to the common good, that is to say, to the good of all and each, every individual,
01:03:51to the good of all. Because, really, we are all responsible for all and for everyone.
01:04:00Just this past May 9th, Friday, Israel bombed a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
01:04:08Refugees building in Jabaliyah refugee camps, severely damaging food distribution center, warehouse,
01:04:15health centers run by the United Nations Refugee Agency. That May 9th attack came as part of Israel's
01:04:23scorched earth palming campaign that has resumed full force on March 18th, following the so-called
01:04:31brief ceasefire. Israel has since then targeted charity kitchens, displacement camps, schools, hospitals,
01:04:41as we just heard from an eyewitness and other so-called humanitarian zones. The Christian Science
01:04:50Monitor, May 7th, reported notes that over the last two months, Israel halted all humanitarian aid
01:04:58entering Gaza. Nine out of ten people then are beyond hungry, famine widespread. Tom Fletcher,
01:05:05United Nations Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, unequivocally states,
01:05:12blocking aid is killing the people of Gaza. World Food Program mobile kitchens have run out of all
01:05:19their food in their warehouses. A hundred sixteen thousand metric tons of food assistance in the
01:05:26meantime stand outside the gates that could feed a million people for over four months.
01:05:34The over sixty thousand severely malnourished children, their secret pneumonia, hepatitis, meningitis,
01:05:42while the practically non-existent food products that sometimes appear in stores are up five hundred
01:05:50percent in price. Over two thousand seven hundred Palestinians were killed just in the last several
01:05:58weeks. At least nine hundred of them children. Over fifty-three thousand people is now the official death toll,
01:06:08with thousands missing in the rubble. These statistics boggle our minds, but may they pierce our hearts.
01:06:18Last week, the Security Cabinet approved another plan to further escalate its military offensive on Gaza,
01:06:25proposing a plan to deliver limited qualities of aid under severe restrictions, establishing so-called
01:06:33militarized zones inside of Gaza, where private contractors would distribute food through a process
01:06:40that includes highly restrictive security vetting and calorie control quantities. Fifteen UN bodies and over
01:06:49two hundred NGOs denounced this plan in a joint statement counter to all humanitarian principles and logistically unworkable.
01:07:01Tomorrow, our Refai proclaimed, the plan will endanger the lives of civilians since they're not going to be allowed,
01:07:09in reality, forced to go to Israeli designated distribution hubs in the South during continued bombing
01:07:18and violent hostilities. Not to mention the total halt in water service, leaving Gaza as a region dying of thirst,
01:07:28with acute diarrhea now accounting for millions of disease cases. This time, four years ago, Pope Francis' words
01:07:37had a stunning effect then and still do now. Francis said, I am following with great concern what's happening
01:07:47in Gaza and the Holy Land. Violent armed clashes degenerating into a spiral of death and destruction.
01:07:55Among the many people have been injured and many who have died are children. This is terrible,
01:08:02unacceptable. This is unacceptable. Their death is a sign that they do not want to build a future,
01:08:11but rather to destroy it. And so, sisters and brothers, we cannot be among those who have given
01:08:17in to the destruction of the future. We stand up for the future. We stand together for the people of Gaza,
01:08:27or we stand for nothing. We refuse to unwittingly become agents of nihilism and darkness. Our presence
01:08:37together today states, we rather are agents of God's light and peace, of disarmament and healing,
01:08:46of compassion and of love.
01:08:48Thank you, Father. Thank you, everyone that's here and attended. We really, Congresswoman Bush
01:08:58and I sincerely appreciate it. We're not going to take questions. However, some of the doctors and
01:09:02others might be available to do one-on-one. Please identify yourself and please stay away from asking
01:09:06racist questions. Thank you so much.
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