Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-07-14 Monday

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Headlines for July 14, 2025; “War on Children”: Doctor in Gaza on Massacres, Starvation and Israel’s Plan for Concentration Camps; Netanyahu Had Ceasefire Deal in April 2024 But Kept Gaza War Going to Stay in Power: NY Times; ICE Rounds Up 300 California Farmworkers, One Dies: Eyewitness and Oxnard Mayor Respond

From New York, this is Democracy Now. They live in Azda. I don't know. What matters is that they are martyred, torn to pieces. I don't know. I don't know anything about what happened. Thank God. Thank God. The death toll in Gaza continues to climb following airstrikes and attacks on Palestinians seeking food and water. Many of the injured were brought to Nasser Hospital, the largest still-functioning hospital in Gaza. We'll speak with Dr. Tarek Lubani, who's been volunteering there since June. Then, how Netanyahu prolong the war in Gaza to stay in power? That's the headline of a new New York Times investigation.

We'll speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Bergman. Finally, to California, where a federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from conducting sweeping immigration raids and racially profiling people in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Yet ice raids over the weekend led to hundreds of arrests of farm workers. At least one man has died. We'll speak to the mayor of Oxnard and a student activist who witnessed the raid. During the immigration raids, ICE and National Guard came to Ventura County, California, and abducted over 200 people, U.S. citizens documented, undocumented, all across the board.

It affected thousands across the area. The message today for others is that ICE is affecting everyone. It doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from. This is something that is devastating all of our communities. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. The official death toll in Gaza has topped 58,000.

As health officials say over 200 Palestinians were killed over the past three days, including at least 28 so far today. On Sunday, an Israeli missile strike killed at least 10 Palestinians. including six children at a water distribution point in New Sadat refugee camp. Seventeen others were wounded in the blast. Israel also attacked a market in Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 17 people. On Saturday, health officials in Gaza reported at least 38 Palestinian aid seekers were killed. Hassan Omran is an ambulance paramedic in Ghan Yunus.

Today, more than 150 injuries and more than 20 March, around the aid distribution centers. Most of the gunshot injuries we see are in the head or the torso. The Israeli occupation purposely kills and annihilates people. The occupation uses this policy to carry out mass killings by calling on people to get their daily food. Then when these people get there, they get killed in cold blood. Former Israeli prime ministers, Ehud Olmert,

and Israeli leader Yair Lapid, have denounced a purport. by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to forcibly move Palestinians in Gaza into a so-called humanitarian city to be built on the ruins of Rafa. Olmert and Lapid likened the proposal to forming a concentration camp. Omert said the plan would also amount to ethnic cleansing. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers fatally beat a 20-year-old Palestinian-American from Tampa, Florida. Sepulah, Musilat, was killed on Friday while visiting family in the village of Almasra's Asharkia. He is reportedly the 7th American killed in the West Bank since October 2023.

A second Palestinian, Mohamed al-Shalabi, was shot dead during the settler attack. Musalat's cousin, Seifola, read a statement from the family. We are devastated that our beloved Seif Allah, Musalat, nicknamed Seif, was brutally beaten to death in our family's land by illegal Israeli settlers who were attempting to steal it. Israeli settlers surrounded Seif for over three hours as paramedics attempted to reach him. But the mob of settlers blocked the ambulance in paramedics from providing life-saving aid. After the mob of Israeli settlers cleared, hours later, Seif's younger brother rushed to carry him to the ambulance. Seif was killed and died before reaching the hospital.

A new ship from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition has set sail from Italy with hopes of breaking the siege on Gaza. The Handala's voyage comes just over a month after Israeli forces raided and seized an earlier aid ship, the Madeline in international waters. This is the Brazilian activist Tiago Avila, who is detained last month by Israeli forces during the raid. We believe that if it was not a Madeline, then the Handala, if it was not a meddling, then the Handala, It's not the Handala, the next mission that will be bigger, will break the siege of Gaza. Because a regime that depends on starving children to death and bombing hospitals, schools, shelters,

and residential areas to stay on top of people, cannot survive. So we understand that the whole world is uniting against the genocide. The peoples of the world, the planet of 8 billion people, the vast majority, they are so against this violation, and they want to do something. So that's why we're here to do something together. this boat goes with the hearts and minds of millions of people behind it.

In Britain, police arrested at least 71 people in London, Cardiff and Manchester for publicly supporting Palestine action and anti-genocide direct action group that was recently banned under Britain's Terrorism Act. It's now illegal to belong to the group or even express any support for the organization. Police in London said illegal acts include chanting, wearing clothing, or displaying articles such as flag, signs, or logos related to Palestine action. Individuals arrested could face up to 14 years in prison. In California, a farm worker who fell from the roof of a greenhouse during an immigration

raid last week died over the weekend of his injuries. 57-year-old Jaime Alanis had worked at the farm in Camarillo for 10 years and provided for his wife and daughter who live in Mexico. His niece says he'll now be laid to rest in his hometown, Imichwa Khan. The raid Thursday led to a confrontation between protesters defending the workers and ice agents who tear gas crowds, which included children. Jaime Alainis is the first known person to die in an ice raid as part of Trump's immigration crackdown. This comes, as a federal judge in California temporarily, blocked the Trump administration Friday

from conducting sweeping immigration raids and racially profiling people in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Judge Mame Uwisei Menza-Men-Safrimpung said agents are prohibited from targeting people based on their apparent ethnicity, the language they're speaking, their presence at a particular location,

or the type of work they're engaged in. The judge also ordered immigration authorities to provide anyone they arrest with immediate access to lawyers. One of the plaintiffs in the case is Brian Gavidia, who was aggressively pushed up against defense by ICE agents during a raid and questioned as he repeatedly told the agents he was a U.S. citizen. Gavidia spoke at a press conference Friday.

I truly believe that. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in America. I believe in what we stand. I believe in this court system. And I believe that what's going down right now in the United States is wrong. I believe in the Constitution. We are ignoring the Constitution at the very moment.

It is not right. We will not stand down. Americans here. We will not allow this to happen. We follow the Constitution. In more immigration news, Democratic lawmakers blasted the horrific conditions in Florida's new immigration jail in the Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz after visiting the facility Saturday. This is Florida Congress member Maxwell Frost. Hey, everybody. I just left the Everglades internment camp, the Everglades detention facility for immigrants. And I got to tell you that the conditions are horrible.

these are people being caged, 32 people per cage, only three toilets for a group of 32 grown men, and where they drink water is from the toilet. It's only a spicket that comes from the toilet, and that's where you also drink water. And, you know, they didn't let us walk fully in. They opened the door and let us look in, and people were yelling at us. Help me, help me. I heard somebody in the back yell, I'm a U.S. citizen. We're going to look into that.

The Miami Herald found hundreds of detainees at the Everglades Immigration Prison have no records or criminal charges contradicting claims by the Trump administration. In Arizona to Tucson area volunteer aid workers are seeking damages after Homeland Security agents dressed in plain clothes, pointed assault-style rifles at them, handcuffed and detained them along a border wall road in March. 74-year-old Gail Kokurik, who regularly assists asylum seekers at the border with water, food, and medical supplies is well-known and friendly with the regular border agents in the area. She was driving a vehicle with a Samaritan's logo on it at the time of the incident in March. In Vermont, a judge ordered the release on bond of two jailed immigrant rights leaders, Jose Anasio Nacho de la Cruz, and Heidi Perez were violently arrested last month after being pulled over on the road they organized with the group migrant justice. In Texas, the death toll from this month's massive flooding has reached 132. On Sunday, heavy rain and new flooding forced a halt to search efforts. Meanwhile, the New York Times has revealed FEMA did not answer thousands of calls from

flood survivors after Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem did not renew contracts for four call center companies the day after the flooding. On Monday, July 7th, FEMA received over 16,400 calls. Only about 2,600 calls were answered, about 16% of all calls. In Arizona, a historic lodge at Grand Canyon's North Rim has burned down, along with dozens of other structures as a pair of wildfires burned more than 45,000 acres of land. The North Rim had been evacuated on Thursday. President Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg has arrived in Kyiv a day after Trump announced plans to send Patriot missiles and other weapons to Ukraine. This comes as Russia continues to intensify its attacks on Ukraine.

On Sunday, Trump criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin saying, quote, he'll talk so beautifully then he'll bomb people at night. We don't like that, Trump said. Iranian state media is reporting the Iranian president, Massoud Pasechkin, was slightly injured last month when Israel bombed a meeting site of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Peschkian reportedly suffered leg injuries as he escaped from the underground facility in Tehran. A new U.N. report warns nearly 5,000 people were killed in Haiti in just the past nine months. Gang violence has surged beyond the capital of Port-au-Prince. The U.N. is urging the international community to support the Kenya-led security mission currently deployed in Haiti

and to curb the flow of firearms into the country. U.N. Human Rights Spokesperson, Rabina Shamsani, spoke on Friday. Caught in the middle of this unending horror story are the Haitian people, who are at the mercy of horrific violence by gangs and exposed to human rights violations from the security forces, as well as abuses by the so-called self-defense groups. On Friday, the State Department fired more than 1,300 workers, the American Foreign Service Association, which represents U.S. diplomats. the firing, saying, quote, losing more diplomatic expertise at this critical global moment is a catastrophic blow to our national interests, unquote. President Trump's continuing to threaten major tariffs on some of the closest trading partners of the United States. On Saturday, Trump threatened to impose 30 percent tariffs on Mexico and the European Union, effect of August 1st. The EU's Trade Commission said such a move would make transatlantic trade, quote, almost impossible.

A major rift has emerged within President Trump's MAGA movement over his administration's handling of the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the dead convicted sex trafficker, who Trump once called a terrific guy. On Saturday, Trump backed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, days after she released a memo, claiming that Epstein did not keep a client list and that no further disclosures would be warranted despite her previous claims that the client list was on her desk. This reportedly led to a heated confrontation between Bondi and Dan Bongino, FBI deputy director. Bongino did not go to work on Friday and reportedly considered resigning over the issue. In a long social media post on Saturday, Trump urged his supporters to forget about the Epstein file, sparking new outrage within the MAGA movement. Meanwhile, in Congress, Democratic Representative Rokana plans to introduce an amendment to force a vote demanding the full Epstein files be released to the public. Congressmember Kana wrote, quote,

Why are the Epstein files still hidden? Who are the rich and powerful being protected? He asked. Over the weekend, President Trump also threatened to revoke the citizenship of U.S.-born comedian Rosie O'Donnell, a longtime critic of the president. Legal experts said such a move would be patently unconstitutional. And former Nigerian President Mohamedu Bihari has died at the age of 82. He first came to power in the 80s in a military coup and later turned to electoral politics, where in 2015 he became the first ever opposition candidate to win a presidential election in Nigeria. He vowed to combat corruption and security, but widespread violence continued to spread throughout Nigeria and the larger region during his presidency. He served two terms, was succeeded in 2023 by Nigeria's current president, Bola Tanubu.

And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire deal appear to have stalled, but are ongoing in Doha. The U.S. is backing a 60-day ceasefire with a phased release of hostages, but significant gaps remain between Israeli and Hamas positions. The official death toll in Gaza has top 58,000, though it's expected to be. be far higher with people buried in the rubble as Israeli forces continued to target Palestinians

seeking aid. On Sunday, an Israeli missile strike killed at least 10 Palestinians, including six children at a water distribution point in New Sarat's refugee camp. At least 17 others were wounded in the blast. Israel's also attacked a mark in Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 17 people. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, nearly 800 people have been killed in Gaza, while attempting to access aid just since late May when the U.S. and Israeli-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or GHF took over most aid distribution sites. On Saturday, at least 27 Palestinians were killed more than 180 injured

when Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for humanitarian aid at a distribution site near Rafa. This is Palestinian paramedic, Hassan Omran. Today, more than 150 injured. and more than 20 martyrs around the aid distribution centers. Most of the gunshot injuries we see are in the head or the torso. The Israeli occupation purposely kills and annihilates people. The occupation uses this policy to carry out mass killings

by calling on people to get their daily food. Then when these people get there, they get killed in cold blood. The injured from Saturday's massacre were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunus. Early this morning, Israeli, our strikes wounded and killed. several people. This is Itamad Abu Daka, the aunt of a child injured in the strikes. They live in Azda. I don't know. What matters is that they are martyred, torn to pieces. I don't know anything about what happened. Thank God. Thank God. What is this child's fault? Was he carrying a weapon? Was he fighting them? Was he fighting? Is he a fighter?

This morning's injured. We're taken to Nassar Hospital, the largest functioning hospital in Gaza, facing fuel shortages and a widening Israeli offensive in the area. We go now to Nassar Hospital, to Gaza, to speak with Dr. Tariq Lubani, an emergency room medical doctor who has been volunteering at Nassar Hospital in Gaza since June. He's the medical director of the Glea Project, an organization creating open-source medical devices for low-resource communities. In 2018, Lubani was among 19 medics shot by the Israeli military in Gaza. In October 2023, Dr. Lubani was arrested for nonviolently protesting, calling for a ceasefire. He's also a Palestinian refugee.

Dr. Lubani, welcome back to Democracy Now, today from Nasser Hospital. Can you describe the injuries, the fatalities that you're seeing? The injuries are every manner of terrible. injuries for a doctor to see. So one of the things that we've grown very accustomed to is, for example, bombings and crush injuries in Gaza. I've been working here for 15 years. However, every day brings a new type of severe and terrible injuries. For example, yesterday, there were gunshot wounds to the head. Two or three days ago, we were noticing especially young men and boys were getting gunshots to the groin. And so every day seems to be a new accident.

exercise in the depths of human depravity in terms of targeting men, boys, women, and children, especially in terms of the youngest children. I think every doctor who operates and works in Palestine will tell you that that's the most jarring, the most terrible part of our job is just the war on children on every level. Can you talk about the injuries you're seeing as a result of people lining up to get aid from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, GHF, that shadowy Israeli U.S. so-called aid organization that so many international aid organizations have condemned. Talk about what you've seen there and the AP investigation saying, releasing video showing the opening fire on the aid seekers.

There was no surprise to me when I saw the AP video. It was exactly what patients and Palestinians have been telling me and have been telling us for the past month and a half, since GHF really started operating. Almost immediately when they started operating, they started massacring civilians. The injury patterns, there are two major injury types. One of them is sniper-style shots, people who are shot very clear, deliberately in the head, especially or in some other part of the body like the groin. And then the other one is where they just unload some semi-automatic or automatic machine, like a machine gun or a light machine gun, into a crowd of people, where essentially what they do is they open fire on these heavily densely packed groups of people

and end up not just killing and wounding the people who are seeking aid, but people even up to a kilometer away, especially when they're using the heavier weapons. As well, the Israeli army is clearly a part of the massacres. Many of the massacres happened by Israelis, and many of them happened by the mercenaries who pretend to be humanitarian aid workers for the GHF. And the Israeli army will also shoot at collections of Palestinians. We'll fire on tents close to them, so we see all of these types of injuries as well. For example, people who are laying in bed because it's often late at night or early in the

morning, who then get shot because of the rampant and wanton firing of bullets. What I end up seeing, like I said, is a lot of head injuries, people who come in essentially brain dead, even with the best care, they may not survive. However, with the massive shortages, we have shortages of fuel, which means that we have shortages of oxygen. We also have shortages of equipment, which means that we don't have basic supplies to treat our patients. Yesterday, when we had one of these massacres, not an aid massacre, but a tent massacre, yet another new form of depravity we didn't know before this war. And I was on the ground trying to intubate to provide advanced assistance to a patient while I was on my stomach on the floor and the patient was on his

back on the floor. So what we see is these reckless types of injuries in addition to specifically targeted and sniper-type injuries that result in literally dozens of deaths every single day, if not hundreds, and also hundreds of injuries, that then we have a very hard time treating because of the severe lack of equipment. I wanted to ask you, Dr. Tariq Lubani, about Israeli forces targeting Palestinian medical staff. I mean, you have doctors detained like Dr. Abu Safia, if you have heard anywhere where he is. And then we've gotten reports most recently about threats to medical staff at Nasser,

where you are, and email medical staff are receiving, threatening texts. Do you know anything about this? Yes, yes, absolutely. We are, as medical staff, we are a number one public enemy for the Israeli army. We know that. It's been clear since the beginning. And Palestinian medical workers have said that. Over 1,500 medical workers in Palestine have been killed in the last two years. At least 350 remain in Israeli captivity today. Many, many more people are disappeared. And it is clear that there's a war on the entire medical system. At the very best, we received drips and drabs of medical equipment. Yesterday, I was reviewing the inventory so that we could try to figure out what to prioritize bringing in. The reality,

is that over 80% of all essential medications are completely stocked out. And that's figures that, you know, I see day to day, that's figures that the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization are all releasing. There's no secrets here. And of course, when I came into Gaza and when other medical teams come into Gaza, if any of them had anything that resembles medical equipment that could be used on others, it is confiscated at the border.

So, yes, we as a medical system are turned. targeted. The texts you're talking about are texts that were received by everybody at the Nasser Medical Complex yesterday, who had a cell phone, especially the medical team, telling them that they were de facto targets of the Israeli military, and that unless they turned themselves in and turned who even knows in, then they would be considered as hostile enemies. So we're talking about the massive injuries, the dead. What about the condition? of people starving? Every single patient I see is in a state of starvation at this point.

And, you know, I know starvation. I've seen, you know, people go on hunger strike and things like this. I myself have previously been on hunger strike. I've seen people who haven't been able to eat for a week or two or three. That's not what I'm seeing here. What I'm seeing here is people who have completely depleted all of their protein stores, all of their fat stores, who are literally skin and bones that I've only seen in textbooks and history videos. And when they come, you know, they tell me, when I ask sometimes out of curiosity,

well, what took you to the aid sites? And they tell me about how hungry they are. They tell me about how hungry their families are. Like one man just two or three days ago, who was shot in the head. He was brain dead when I saw him. And when I asked his family why he went, they said because his four children were so starved that he finally decided to risk it. Of course, ended up losing his life over it. The starvation levels affect 100% of people in Gaza. Nobody at all is spared. Every single person is hungry. And the most incredible thing to me was how quickly it's set in, even for people like me, who arrived well-fed and healthy, and then immediately started to experience these severe caloric deficits from the first day. So not only,

are we not receiving food, not receiving enough calories. The food we receive is not nutritious. We're allowed to eat rice. We're allowed to sometimes eat lentils. You can't raise babies on that. There is no policy that justifies baby formula being denied entry into a place like Gaza. And yet I visited the pediatric malnutrition awards. It is a horror show of little children who really should be thriving and who are,

withering away one moment at a time while their parents don't know what to do and sometimes they're willing to take the risks to go to these aid sites so they can try to feed them. Can you talk about the push to move people south, people who've been displaced over and over again? We just had a headline that former Israeli prime ministers, Ehud Olmert, and Yair Lapid, have denounced a proposal by Netanyahu's government to forcibly move Palestinians in Gaza, into a so-called humanitarian city to be built on the ruins of Rafa. Both have called it a concentration camp. You have Yayyir Lapid saying that if they cannot exit, it is a concentration camp.

And talk about this procession of humanity south. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that Israeli politicians, have finally come to the same realization that Palestinian healthcare workers and activists have been talking about for at this point over two months. This is not a new idea. It is clear that the Israelis have been trying to trap Palestinians in concentration camps. I mean, for all intents and purposes, Gaza was an open-air prison before the war, and Palestinians had been warning about the possibility of that turning into a concentration camp at any moment. So, yes, I'm glad that they've now arrived to this conclusion. I'm glad that the Western world is now taking

the Palestinian warning seriously about a concentration camp. What the Israelis have been proposing to do now for at least the last six months is to try to put all Palestinians into a small area where they have full and complete oversight, where they can dictate life or death, and where they can dictate all of the terms and conditions under which that life or death happen. And of course, as we see from the GHF's operating philosophy, they would be able to kill anybody who they wanted at any point. I mean, right now, the GHF receives people who they run through all of these security checks, and despite that, is murdering them, gunning them down with wanton, reckless abandoned. So I think that the idea of a concentration camp is predicated on forcing people out.

You know, there's nothing voluntary about it, as some Israeli politicians talk about on forcing people out by removing all of the ingredients of life. We've seen them remove clean water. There's no clean water in Gaza for any intents and purposes. There's no food really anywhere and it's getting worse by the day. There's no fuel. The fuel shortages that I mentioned earlier are yet worse than they've ever been. And all of this has been resulting in hundreds of additional deaths each day. I see patients who are shot every single day. I see patients who are blown up every single day. But what's new over the past month is that now I also see patients who are starving to death or who have starved to death. I see little babies, which are often reported,

sometimes not. And I also see elderly people, people with immune conditions, people with chronic conditions. This is what the Israelis count on to force people into the concentration camp. However, they are so incapable of even pretending for one moment that they would treat anybody humanely, that I think based on what we see from the GHF, Palestinians are nowhere near falling for this trap. Finally, like every other doctor who's worked in Gaza, you work, you've treated children. There's a new acronym that has been coined since Israel's siege of the territory, W-C-N-S-F, wounded child, no surviving family.

Can you end by telling us some of their stories? Yeah, I will. You know, I always thought that Palestine was something that I needed to understand, to understand what else was going on in the world. What I've come to understand and see by stories like wounded child, no surviving family, is that Palestine is the central issue, not just of our time, but of the past hundred years. Everything we see happening in Palestine like the treatment these children are receiving

is what's going to happen. in every other domain. And that's an idea, not one that I've come up with, but that talented analysts and historians have been talking about for a while, such as Dr. Gujardo or Dr. Podor who both analyze these and talk about them. In terms of wounded children,

basically what we see a lot of the time, what I've stopped doing for the past several months now, I've stopped asking any child I see about whether they're there with somebody or whether there's anybody there for them. You know, it gets so busy, we get literally dozens of patients at a time because of these massacres. And so sometimes we need somebody to go grab blood for this little two-year-old or one-year-old

who's on the floor. And when I ask, you know, where's this boy's family? Where is this girl's family? Often, I get the same acronym back. Dr. Tata, this is a wounded child, no surviving family. And so we try to treat them. They're often too young to understand that their parents are dead, but they sit there struggling, wounded.

We've seen so many. We've seen a flood of videos. Like, for example, just two days ago, a child who I saw who had more than half of her body surface area burned, and where I was looking for somebody to comfort her, and there was simply nobody. And so I picked her up and just held her for a few minutes. until there was somebody else who could come to hold her so I could go back to treating my other patients.

All I could think is that this story, there are tens of thousands at this point of people of children in Gaza who've lost one or both of their family. Understanding what's happening to them is understanding war as it's being proposed for the rest of the world. Dr. Tariq Lubani, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian-Canadian doctor, emergency room, medical physician. volunteering at NASA Hospital in Gaza since June, medical director of the Glea Project, an organization creating open-source medical devices for low-resource settings. Coming up, how Netanyahu prolong the war in Gaza to stay in power. That's the headline of a new New York Times investigation. We'll speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Bergman, back in 20 seconds.

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you know that I'mavon you know who ma'evoy FENFO, something to say by Fatumata Jawara, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Mimi Goodman.

How Netanyahu prolong the war in Gaza to stay in power. That's the headline of a new investigation in the New York Times magazine published Friday. The co-authors write, quote, Why, after nearly two years, has the war yet to reach a definitive conclusion? Why did Israel frequently turn away chances for de-escalation, instead expanding its military ambitions to Lebanon to Syria and now to Iran? Why has the war dragged on, even as the leadership of Hamas was decapitated and more Israelis called for a ceasefire, unquote? The authors write, they interviewed over 110 officials in Israel, the U.S. and the Arab world, in addition to reviewing scores of government documents and records to investigate.

these questions. They go on to say Netanyahu, quote, when an extended ceasefire was finally forged in January, he broke the truce in March, in part to keep his coalition intact. The cost of delay has been high. With each passing week, the delay has meant death to hundreds of Palestinians and horror to thousands more. It also meant at least eight more hostages died in captivity, unquote. We're joined now by Renan Bergman. He is a Pulitzer Prize, an Israeli investigative reporter and staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, co-author of this piece in the magazine. Can you lay out your findings, Ronan?

How Netanyahu prolonged the war in Gaza to stay in power? Thank you, Amy. I think it's, of course, very hard to differentiate between the different vectors in such as the war in Gaza. It's a regional war, something that started with Hamas attacking Israel on October 7 and Hezbo attacking Israel on October 8 and then it erupted

to a regional war and some of the things that Netanyahu has done I think any Israeli Prime Minister would do countering of course following Hamas horrific attack

but some of what he did was clearly motivated at least partly by his coalition motivation and his fear of the integrity of the coalition

his coalition is dependent on the ultra-Rour right parties that again and again threaten Netanyahu that if he goes for a deal, if he goes for a ceasefire, a ceasefire that will bring back the hostages, a ceasefire that could bring, you know, a new page to this

so painful bloody war. If he does that, then they will disassemble the government. One of the scenes that we are describing, this is just a case study, together with my colleagues, the Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times, Patrick Kingsley, and the reporter for the New York Times in Jerusalem, Nathan Odenheimer, is happening in April 24. You just quoted something that happened almost a year after, which repeated that. But in April 24, Benjamin Netanyahu, together with his small cabinet and national security and military advisors, agreed to a deal that would put the war to a halt. It would have weeks of ceasefire.

it will have an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages and it will bring hope for negotiation, for cessation of hostilities, withdraw the Israeli military and possibly also something that Natalia has thrived for many, many years to get, and was the closest

of any prime minister, which is the normalization of relations with the most important Arab country Saudi Arabia that was willing to do that. he was about to bring this to the larger cabinet he says to advisors I'm not putting this on the agenda I want to put this as a surprise

or not to let the more extremist ministers to oppose and coordinate and when he was just about to do that the Ministry of Treasury Betsalis Motritch one of the ultra-right members of the cabinet entered doom bursting and said Prime Minister

I heard that you are going to put a proposal for a ceasefire the details bothered him and he says, I just wanted you know Prime Minister, I wanted you know that if you do that you do not have a government, meaning that they will leave the coalition and it will be disassembled

and Netanyahu said, no, no, no, no, I was not going to put anything on the table and he whispered to his aides, don't put this offer forward. This happened in a time when it was not just sabotaging the possible hostage deal and a possible

ceasefire deed. Of course, ending the misery of the hostages, of the billions of Palestinians, bringing back the hostages, saving the life of many Israeli soldiers, and maybe be a page turn to a better future for the region. But it could also bring normalization for Netanyahu, something that he really wanted. Now, Amy, it's not that Netanyahu doesn't want the hostage to come back. It's not that Netanyahu doesn't want normalization. with Saudi Arabia. He does, I'm sure. But there are things he wants more

or maybe more precisely things that he fears more. And that is the integrity of the coalition. And repeatedly again and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu put the integrity of the coalition, the safety of his continuous rule of the government and the state, well, he's up on

severe corruption charges. He put this as a first priority ahead of any other priority. So just today, he was back in court after coming to the United States, back in an Israeli court, saying, you know, he should not be tried

because he has to deal with national security issues. You're right, for Netanyahu, the immediate rewards of not having a peace deal have been rich. mass more control over the Israeli state that at any other point in his 18-year, 10-year as prime minister, he successfully prevented a state inquiry that would investigate his own culpability, saying the fallout must wait until the Gaza war ends. Even as the defense minister, army chief, domestic spymaster, and several top generals, all either have been fired

or have resigned. And you talk about how he attends court up to three times a week for corruption trial, his government now moving to fire the Attorney General who oversees the prosecution. If you can go more into that and investigation into how October 2023 happened with Netanyahu himself approving millions of dollars brought in what by Qatari officials to Gaza to support Hamas. Yeah. Let me start with the latter, with your permission, Amy. Netanyahu said publicly and privately for years that he sees Hamas as an asset.

How come? Because once you have Hamas, an extreme jihadist, fundamentalist regime in Gaza that does not recognize the right of Israel to exist and now we see from Hamas secret protocols that were all about eradicating the state of the Jews. They were about, they were wanted, not about, but they wanted to destroy Israel,

they wanted to coordinate the regional war. Once you have something like that in Gaza, Netanyahu can say to the world, why do you want me to negotiate with the Palestinians? How can I negotiate with the Palestinian Authority in West Bank? When you have something such an entity in Gaza, and he saw Hamas as an asset, he convinced the Qataris to funnel many, many hundreds of millions of dollars

to help the Hamas government in Gaza, to help them survive. while at the same time, as we uncover, during the last year, since he became Prime Minister again in early 23, and until the war, he pushed back again and again and again on any idea of his military chiefs and the leaders of the intelligence community to confront Hamas, to assassinate their leaders. As late as October 1st, so a week before Hamas attack, he pushed back on ideas to confront Yich Yixir Sinaldouard. the mastermind behind October 7 and said, you should keep them quiet. I have other priorities like the normalization with Saudi Arabia. So the bottom line, his willingness to not just let Hamas thrive,

but help Hamas thrive, not to force him to have international pressure to negotiate two-state solution, led to Hamas, fortified its rule, and secretly planning the October 7th, surprise. Now, after the October 7th surprise, everybody was sure that Netanyahu is going to be expelled from politics after bringing a year of an attempt to weaken the judiciary to fire the Attorney General, what he's trying to do now as well, after a year of weakening

the military that was divided and disassembled in some of its units, because of the judicial overall, everybody thought we're sure that he's going, he's going down in politics. That's the end of his political career. But Netanyahu prevailed. He used smart, sophisticated, sometimes brutal, sometimes in honest politics, together with sophisticated propaganda machine working in Israel, together with confronting the judicial system,

he promised to make himself available for his tribe, but then when the trial came, he's doing or using any excuse not to be there. And at the peak of that, and I think this is the biggest triumph of his career. He was able to flip the war, hit Chisbalah. And we have to mention the fact that Chisbala was the first to launch unprovoked attack on Israel. And then, and this is maybe the peak of his diplomatic and political career, convinced President Trump. just recently on their call on October, or sorry, June 9th, to agree that Israel will strike Iran and then to convince President Trump to join the strike when sending the B2 to bomb the Iranian

nuclear sites. And now, after two years, he's almost, sorry? We just have 30 seconds. Go ahead. I'm saying, and now after two years, he is stronger than ever since October 7, and some say maybe even strong enough after all that happened to re-win the elections, and it's not a coincidence that he's trying to weaken the gatekeepers and fire all of them just before maybe announcing elections.

Renan Bergman, I want to thank you for being with us, Israeli, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the New York Times, co-authored the investigation in the magazine, how Netanyahu prolonged the war in Gaza to stay in power. His book is titled Rise and Kee. kill first, the secret history of Israel's targeted assassinations. Coming up, we speak to the mayor of Oxnard and a migrant rights activist about the immigration raids this weekend where a farm worker has died of his injuries and hundreds have been

rounded up back in 20 seconds. Let me take you down Because I'm going to Strawberry Fields Nothing is real And nothing to get hung about Strawberry fields forever Living is easy with eyes closed

Misunderstanding all we see It's getting hard to be someone But it all works out It doesn't matter much to me Deja me La Santa Cecilia Playing their rendition of strawberry fields Forever a tribute to migrant workers

in our Democracy Now studio This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org I'm Amy Goodman. We turn now to California where a farm worker who fell from the roof of a greenhouse during an immigration raid last week died over the weekend of his injuries. 57-year-old Jaime Alainis had worked at the farm in Camarillo for 10 years providing for his wife and daughter who live in Mexico. His niece says he'll now be laid to rest in his hometown of Michoacan. Jaime Al-Alanis is the first known person to die during an immigration raid since Trump returned to office. He reportedly called his family during the raid to tell them he was.

hiding before falling about 30 feet from the roof. The raid there Thursday led to an hour's long standoff between protesters and federal border agents who block the roads with military-style vehicles and tear gas community members, including children as crowds attempted to protect dozens of farm workers from arrest. This is one of the protesters. These guys showed up all tough, f***ing cowards, and they've already tried to push us out. But there's more of us here now than there were before. At the end of the day, they're the ones coming from a war.

were there. They're not from here. Farmers who work here take more of a beating than anyone else. They're not the ones who deserve this phishing treatment. The Department of Homeland Security said over 300 immigrants who were detained in dual raids on cannabis farms and agricultural fields in Camarillo and the coastal city of Carpentaria. Among those taken into custody were at least 14 immigrant children. The United Farm Workers Union issued a statement in response saying, quote, farm workers are excluded from basic child labor laws in its unfortunately, not uncommon for teenagers to work in the fields to be clear detaining and deporting children is not a solution for child labor, they said.

This comes as a federal judge in Los Angeles Friday issued an order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from conducting sweeping immigration raids and racially profiling people in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Judge Mamay Wussi Menza Frimpung said agents are prohibited from targeting people based on their parent ethnicity, the language they're speaking, their presence at a particular location or the type of work they're engaged in. The judge also ordered immigration authorities to provide anyone they arrest with immediate access to lawyers.

One of the plaintiffs in the case, Brian Gavidia, who was aggressively pushed against offense by ICE agents during a raid in questions, as he repeatedly told the agency he was a U.S. citizen, spoke at a news conference Friday. I truly believe that. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in America. I believe in what we stand. I believe in this court system.

and I believe that what's going down right now, the United States is wrong. I believe in the Constitution. We are ignoring the Constitution at the very moment. It is not right. We will not stand down. We are all Americans here. We will not allow this to happen. We follow the Constitution.

For more, we're joined by two guests. Angel Marie Taylor's an undergraduate student in her senior year at California State University Channel Islands. Volunteer with 805 Immigrant Coalition. 805 Immigrant Coalition was present during the federal immigration raid in Camarillo. And Lewis MacArthur is mayor of Oxnard, California, about 10 miles from Camarillo. He was previously the police commander of Oxnard and worked on the police force there for 35 years, now speaking out against the ice raids, saying they're, quote, aggressive demonstrating insensitivity toward the direct impact on our community. We welcome you

both to Democracy Now. I want to begin with Angel Marie Taylor. Describe the raid. Describe the raid that you saw. You are an eyewitness. It was almost unlike anything that we had ever seen before. Most of the protesters out there are your average people, we are average community members who have been volunteering our time to patrol our own streets to keep each other safe from these ICE agents, ice thugs, I would say, who have been operating entirely outside of the law, not identifying themselves, not allowing us our rights. And that's just us as protesters who come to witness and document these ways. And that's not even to speak to the even more intense violence

that the farm workers themselves experience in the blocked off area, as you mentioned, where over 300 people from our community were taken. And mayor, if you can talk about what is happening, you're the former police chief, now you are the mayor of Oxnard. In a social media post, you wrote, while this matter is taking place outside the jurisdiction of Osnard, I'm increasingly mindful that

many of the facilities employees are likely from Oxnard and are seeking refuge in their vehicles amidst the high temperatures, raising concerns about the safety and well-being of those individuals. Can you talk about the Oxnard residents, Luis MacArthur, who were targeted? Yes, absolutely. You know, what we're seeing is these unjust and harmful actions by ICE officials without following any due process. And we had it hit home here on several instances. As you may know, Oxanon is the largest city in Ventura County. Ventura County has about 830,000 residents.

Oxan has about a quarter of those residents. And many of them, when I heard about what was unfolding there at the Glass House in Camarillo, which is right next door, it was just a few miles away. I know having, you know, grown up here in Oxnard, the many of the individuals that worked at the Glass House were Oxnard residents. And so that's what caused me to turn back around. I was headed to Los Angeles to come back and to be present. And what I also saw is just a lot of insensitivity. I was personally receiving phone calls because my cell phone number was shared from people that were inside the facility that were taking refuge in their car.

and with a son as strong as it was that day and the number of hours that the operation lasted, it became very evident as to what I had stated previously that these actions are very harmful to our community to individuals. We're talking about human beings. We're talking about parents just like the gentleman that passed because of the chaotic actions of ICE. I'm not saying that the ICE agents that killed the gentleman, but because of the chaotic actions, they caused this man and others to seek refuge, and this man fell down from the roof at first, from what I understand, and died as a result of that. And then we had people that actually sought refuge as well, not only their cars, but also on the dirt field and cover themselves up with dirt. And that was

information that was being relayed or trying to be relayed to these eyes ages. But the fact that they work in secrecy without a person willing to interact while I was there on site. There was no deliberate intent by anyone from ICE to come out and just engage in some dialogue with us so that we can relay this information. There was just any, there was none of that. And that's what we're talking about is just a lack of due process. And as I have asserted, like any other police officer, it was the tenure of time that I spent in the police force. I've arrested some of the most, just persons that had committed atrocious crimes in our city,

from murderers to folks that have sexually assaulted others, and just a number of other felonious crimes. But nonetheless, those individuals were afforded a due process following the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution. They were afforded their right to see an attorney, to counsel with an attorney, to stand before a judge and to be made available an opportunity to defend themselves. And that's not what we're seeing now. We're seeing people quickly being expedited out of here.

And that's where the errors are occurring. And for us, it's a community of what it's doing. Not only is it impacting our economy, but it's directly impacting children who are oftentimes left with our mom and dad here to care for them. And this is putting a tremendous amount of strain. We're seeing a lot of nonprofits come out and help at stepping up. But we can't endure this much longer.

Mayor. And this is what has been done. I want to go to Angel Marie Taylor. You're an undergraduate student in your senior year at California State University. On Thursday, you were at the raid with John Carveo, a faculty member at your university, who is arrested and remains detained. I want to turn to him speaking the night before the raid Wednesday at the Camerio City Council. meeting's public comment period. My name is John Caravello and I'm a professor at CSU Channel Islands.

I'm also a longtime organizer with Ventura County Tenants Union and more recently a volunteer with VC Defensa. Many of my students are undocumented and many of their families are undocumented. It's my responsibility to protect them and so I've been patrolling the city streets following armed, masked thugs trying to kidnap my neighbors. Many call these neighbors illegal, but let's talk for a second about what's really illegal. When the U.S. bombed civilian nuclear sites like they did in Iran late last month, it's illegal. When the U.S. provides weapons to an apartheid state to fuel a genocide like it continues to do in Palestine, it is illegal. And today, armed mass thugs are bending the knee to just follow orders to kidnap, imprisen and deport our neighbors to countries that we destabilize,

that we have under the thumb of our political and economic domination, whose soil we destroy with pesticide-ridden bananas, whose leaders we depose and whose people, our media, continue to dehumanize. Who are we to constrict the movement of our fellow human beings? Who are we to judge how people choose to live? ICE is not welcome here, just like the U.S. is not welcome in other countries. And you, our elected officials, should swear them off, if not in policy, then in spirit to, at the very least, pay back your undocumented community

members for picking your f*** strawberries. No one is illegal power to the people. So that is John Caravello, who is a faculty member at California State University Channel Islands, where Angel Marie Taylor, you teach. He was arrested the next day. We just have 30 seconds. He hasn't been released yet. No, Professor Caravello hasn't been released, and as you've heard in that public comment,

he has always used his voice to speak up for those around him. Myself as a student coming from an immigrant background, like most other students here in CUC Channel Islands, Professor Catellobella has been continuously targeted because of his outspoken views to defend his community, and he was one of the protesters on the ground who was helping other protesters amidst the violence. Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. Of course, we'll continue to cover this. A judge in Los Angeles ruled that migrants can no longer be rounded up in Los Angeles without cause. Angel Marie Taylor, student and volunteer with 805 immigrant coalition.

Thank you for being with us. And Luis MacArthur, mayor of Oxnard, 10 miles from Camarillo. Previously, the police commander of Oxnard. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.