Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-10-09 Thursday

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Democracy Now! Thursday, October 9, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Thank God for the ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing. I'm not the only one happy. All the Gaza Strip is happy. All the Arab people. All the world is happy with the ceasefire and the end of bloodshed. Thank you and all the love to those who stood with us. Celebrations break out in Gaza and Israel.

After President Trump announced Israel and Hamas have agreed on the first phase of a hostage ceasefire deal. But questions remain over what happens next. We'll go to Gaza and Israel for response. Then to Nelson Mandela's grandson, Mandela, back in South Africa, one of hundreds of global smooth-ful of tele activists abducted by Israel on the high seas. We were kidnapped on international waters. Palestinians are attacked, maimed, and killed. All that and more coming up.

Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Mimi Goodman. President Trump says Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire deal. Trump announced the breakthrough in a post to his social media site, Truth Social Wednesday, writing, quote, all the hostages will be released very soon, and Israel withdraws their troops to an agreed-upon line, unquote. Details of the first phase have not yet been officially released.

The Israeli government's meeting this afternoon to formally vote on the ceasefire deal. far-right ministers, including Bezalel Smochuk and Itemar Ben-Gavir, say they will not vote in favor of the plan, but have withdrawn threats to withdraw from Netanyahu's coalition government bringing it down. If Israel's security cabinet approves the ceasefire is expected it will go into effect immediately. In the meantime, Israel's continuing its attacks on Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours have killed 10 people, including two people seeking food while injuring nearly 50 others. Despite the continuing assault, Palestinians across Gaza erupted in celebrations overnight as news of a ceasefire deal spread by word of mouth due to an internet and communications blockout.

I don't have a spoon nor a fork in my house. It is just some stones. Others lost their families. Some lost everything. and some had their families wiped out from the civil registry, and they stayed alone. Others lost their legs and limbs. Some lost everything, and some went missing as well. We ask God for safety, and may safety, security, goodness, and peace prevail. After headlines, we'll go to Gaza and Israel for the latest.

Spain's parliament has approved a formal arms embargo in Israel, permanently banning the sale of weapons and military equipment. Meanwhile, protesters across the Netherlands have held sit-in protests at 20 train stations in several cities, demanding the Dutch government end its support for Israel. This comes after an estimated quarter of a million demonstrators joined a redline protest last weekend against Israel's assault on Gaza, the largest anti-war protest in the Netherlands since the anti-nuclear rallies of the 1980s. In the United States, Senate Republicans Wednesday blocked a bipartisan resolution that would have limited President Trump's authority to launch military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean. The resolution was led by Democratic senators, Adam Schiff, and Tim Cain, with backing from Republican Senator Rand Paul.

This is Senator Kane. Letting a single individual take us to war based on a secret list that he won't even reveal to the public or to Congress. sets such a dangerous precedent. And if my colleagues, as they stated, believe we should be at war in the Caribbean or at war with nations and the Americas over the NARC traffickers, they've had the ability the entire time to bring a resolution before us and have that debate in front of the American public. This comes as 60 organizations, including Oxfam America and Human Rights First, sent a letter to Congress

Wednesday, condemning the recent U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean. in writing, quote, we fear, barring decisive action by members of Congress, there will be more strikes, more extrajudicial killings, and potentially a full-blown limitless war with one or more countries in the region with likely devastating humanitarian and geopolitical consequences, unquote. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, claimed his forces halted a false flag operation to bomb the U.S. embassy in Caracas. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. government shutdown has entered its ninth day. The Senate failed to pass two funding bills that would have ended the shutdown. The Democrats bill included more than a trillion dollars in health care funding, which include Affordable Care Act subsidies. Congressional Democrats have introduced another bill that would pay child care fees for federal workers during the shutdown. On Wednesday, the IRS announced it'll furlough about 34,000 workers, nearly half its workforce because of the shutdown.

Meanwhile, Democratic senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson for failing to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grochava. As soon as you guys vote, you don't want to be under the district. How much it's totally absurd. You guys are experts in red herring that is in the direction. There's nothing to do with Epstein. To see our interview with Representative Elect, Adelaeta Grajava, go to DemocracyNow.org. The Pentagon's Northern Command says 500 National Guard soldiers from Illinois and Texas have arrived in the Chicago region, despite opposition from local officials who've sued to stop the deployment.

Their arrival came, as President Trump wrote on a social media site, that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritt. quote, should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers, unquote. On Wednesday, Governor Pritzker rejected Trump's threat saying, come and get me. He said Trump had deployed the troops without any advance notice. I've said over and over again, the federal government has not communicated with our state in any way whatsoever about what their troop movements are going to be. I can't believe I have to say troop movements in a city in the United States.

But that is what we're talking about. Illinois Governor Pritzker also said Wednesday he believes Trump's normalizing the use of the military ahead of the 2026 midterm elections when Pritzker believes Trump may have soldiers stationed outside polling places to, quote, assume control of the ballot boxes and count the votes himself, unquote. Meanwhile, Pastor is one of several plaintiffs suing the Trump administration after he was shot directly in the head by a pepperball fired by ICE agents on a roof during protests at the Broadview Ice Jail just outside Chicago. Video of the assault shows Pastor David Black of First Presbyterian Church of Chicago immediately falling to the ground. Just before the attack, he was praying. Meanwhile, a lawyer for the woman

who was shot multiple times by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Chicago says she did not ram her car into the agents as they claimed and that her gun was stored in her purse. Mara Mara Martinez was arrested with assaulting a federal officer after DHS claim the agent fired their weapon in self-defense. President Trump led a roundtable on Antifa Wednesday hosting far-right activists posing as independent journalists. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem compared Antifa to MS-13, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State. This follows President Trump's executive order last month, designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. This is Trump Wednesday, claiming without evidence, that Antifa is paid and funded. The epidemic of left-wing violence and Antifa-inspired terror has been escalating for nearly a decade.

At universities, Antifa has organized riotous, mobs to attack campus speakers. I see it all the time. And these are agitators, anarchists, and they're paid. We're going to be very threatening to them, far more threatening to them. than they ever were with us, and that includes the people that fund them. Rutgers University History Professor Mark Bray says his family's moving from New Jersey to Spain after receiving death threats, including at their home address. Bray was teaching courses on anti-fascism and terrorism at Rutgers.

He's the author of the 2017 book Antifa, the Anti-Fascist Handbook. His planned flight from the U.S. comes after the Rutgers chapter of the campus conservative group, Turning Point USA, circulated a petition labeling him Dr. Antifa and calling for him to be fired. In an interview with Newsweek, Bray said, quote, this is reflective of the broader trend in the country. The Trump administration, I believe, is moving the country in a markedly authoritarian direction, and that takes a number of forms, but one of those forms is an attack on academic freedom and higher education, unquote. Former FBI director James Comey appeared in federal court in Virginia Wednesday, where he pleaded not guilty to charge as he lied to Congress. The trial set to begin January 5th, federal prosecutors expected to last two to three days.

Comey's lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, said he would ask the judge to dismiss the case, claiming, quote, selective, retaliatory prosecution at the direction of President Trump to silence Comey, unquote. In Immigration News, the Washington Post reports nearly a quarter. of the FBI's roughly 13,000 agents are currently assigned to immigration enforcement with the number climbing to upward of 40 percent in the largest FBI field offices. Data show agents have been pulled from investigations into cybercrimes, drug trafficking, terrorism, counterintelligence, and more. Meanwhile, Apple's quietly removed the citizen reporting app deiser from its app store. The app is used by activists and immigrant communities to track ICE activity. Migrant Insider reports the decision effectively treats federal immigration agents as a protected class,

a novel interpretation of Apple's hate speech policy that shields one of the most powerful arms of the federal government from public scrutiny. In Tennessee, Democratic State Assembly member Justin Pearson announced Wednesday he'll launch a primary challenge against Democratic Representative Steve Cohen of Memphis. Pearson was a member of the Tennessee three who were expelled by Republicans from the Tennessee State Assembly after participating in a gun control protests on the State House floor. We've got a gun violence epidemic that is quite literally taking the lives of our loved ones away. The number one killer of children in our communities is not cancer. It is not car accidents. It's bullets. And if people want to do something about crime, pass some gun safety laws.

If people want to do something about crime, pass violence intervention programs. money and resources for our beloved and beautiful community don't occupy us, eradicate poverty. Yes. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to the Hungarian novelist Laslo Krasnohorchai. The Nobel Committee called him, quote, a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhardt and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess, unquote. Meanwhile, this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to a trio of researchers, including Omar Yagi, a Jordanian American chemist at the University of California, Berkeley,

for pioneering work on porous molecular structures that can be used to trap greenhouse gases and other pollutants. The Palestinian scientist, Yagi, was born in Amman to Palestinian refugee parents who fled their homes in Gaza in 1948, when those establishing the state of Israel violently expelled over 700,000 Palestinians. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Narmine Sheikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

Celebrations broke out in Gaza and Israel after President Trump announced Israel and Hamas have agreed on the first phase of a hostage ceasefire deal. President Trump said the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza would likely be released on Monday. Israel has also agreed to release Palestinians held captive in Israeli prisons, but a final list of prisoners has not been released. During the first phase of the deal, Israel will withdraw forces from parts of Gaza and allow more humanitarian aid into the besieged strip. A ceasefire is expected to begin after Israel formally approved the deal later today, but Israel is still carrying out attacks in Gaza, killing at least 10 Palestinians over the last day.

The Palestinian journalist, Motasem Dahlul, just revealed Israeli forces have killed his third son. Two other sons were killed last year. There are many questions over what will happen after Hamas releases the remaining hostages. Amnesty International said the ceasefire deal must be a pathway to what it called Israel's unlawful occupation, apartheid, and genocide. In the city of Kan Yunus, residents responded to the ceasefire deal. I don't have a spoon nor a fork in my house. It is just some stones. Others lost their families.

Some lost everything they own. And some had their families wiped out from the civil registry. And they stayed alone. Others lost their legs and limbs. Some lost everything. And some went missing as well. We ask God for safety. and may safety, security, goodness, and peace prevail.

In Israel, hostage families welcome the news of a deal. This is Giel Dickman. His cousin, Carmel Gat, was taken hostage on October 7th and killed in captivity. I couldn't be happier. The fact that finally hostages are coming back, that the deal was signed that the war is over. It's a happy day. It's a holiday here. That's what we wanted for such a long time.

Carmel, my cousin, was murdered in captivity. She's not going to come back. It's too late for her, but it's not too late. Her 48 hostages are going to come back. 20 of them are going to come back alive. And this is such a happy moment for us, the families of the hostages, such a happy moment for all Israelis and for all the Middle East. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Kirstama praised the deal while on a trip to India.

I'm grateful for the tireless diplomatic efforts of Egypt, Qatar, to Kiyah, United States and many others in securing this crucial first step. This agreement must now be implemented in full without delay and be accompanied by the immediate lifting of all restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza. The UK will support these crucial immediate steps and the next stages of the talks. to ensure the full implementation of the peace plan. We go now to Dira Bala in central Gaza, where we're joined by Ead Amawi,

a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee. Ead, welcome back to Democracy Now. Can you explain, describe to us the reaction on the ground to this ceasefire deal? Thank you, I mean. Thank you for Democracy Now, for your interesting. Yes, and now it's mixed feelings. Happiness, worries, and hopes, and really a lot of celebration here and also a lot of sadness.

It's a mix because the previous time we suffered from genocide, from approaching us, trying to expulsion us from our homes, from our land, from our city, Gaza. Up to this moment, we still waiting the exact appointment for complete implementations. So we're still waiting until this moment, the people hearing some tank shelters and guns in the coastal area road, and they prevent the people from returning to the Gaza City. We have some casualties now at this time. So we hope the ceasefire implementation will come speedily without any delay. So, Aad, you've laid out a number of steps that you think should be the priority. in terms of aid getting into Gaza and the assistance that's needed in Gaza most urgently. Could you just lay out those things?

Yeah. Firstly, entering the numbers of trucks that determined before, maybe 400, up to 600, without restrictions, especially for the nutritious food. And the second, the huge machinery and cairns and bulldozers that can level the lands, and remove agribles to sit up in new camps to meet our needs and our displacement people. They haven't shelters, habitants. So this is the two main issues that we need urgently in Gaza and repairing water decilination and repairing sewage networks urgently to prevent pollutions and bad environment here that caused diseases and spread of infectious disease also in Gaza.

You've also called for population distribution if you could explain why. Yeah. We now live 1 million and half in the shrinked area, especially in the western part of the south part of Dar al-Balach and in Al-Mawati region. It's just 17 square kilometers. You can imagine when we live in this circumstance, instances, we will not have a normal life and it's a very bad conditions here. So when we talk about redistribution peoples and all of the gas strip, it will be better

and we can provide people with their needs, with their AIDS, and with their shelters, everything will be okay. Can you explain, although we reported that a ceasefire deal has been reached, or President Trump did, there have been heavy airstrikes and artillery shelling. Gaza City and Khan Yunus. Israeli quadcopters also reported to have dropped bombs on civilians in Gaza City. About nine people or ten were killed in attacks in the last hours. Meanwhile, Israeli tanks blocking al-Rashid road to prevent displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza. When do you see these attacks stopping, also people killed again trying to get

food. Okay, that's great. You can distinguish between two things here with our local peoples. The announcement without determining exact power, it's also that Israeli habits in all of the ceasefire agreements. So they grant themselves more time to punish our people to increase the suffering. So when we talk about the agreement as official agreement, We need to determine the exact hour to prevent the continuity of this suffering immediately. Eadamawi, I want to thank you for being with us. I want to ask, were you in the street celebrating as you heard this news? We hope that, and we will celebrate even thought what's still happening here and what we faced before.

But it's our life. We resume it, inshallah. Ayatamawi is a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee, coordinator for local NGOs speaking to us to Dereblah in central Gaza. Coming up, we continue to look at the ceasefire hostage deal. We will go to Israel and we will go to Copenhagen and we will go to Montreal to get response. We shall overcome We shall overcome

We shall overcome One day Deep in my heart I do believe that we shall overcome one day and we'll walk hand in hand

we'll walk hand in hand every faith and every man one day and deep in my heart I do believe that's Roger Waters performing We Shall Overcome accompanied by a young Alexander Rowettan on cello in the Democracy Now studio.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Narmine Sheikh. To talk more about Hamas and Israel agreeing to the first phase of a ceasefire hostage deal, we're joined now by three guests. Mohin Rabani, Middle East analysts, co-editor of Jeddalia, and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies. His latest piece is headlined, key points and prospects of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement. And Ori Goldberg is Israeli political analysts and scholar in Tel Aviv. He's written extensively on Iran, Israel, and the relationship between religion and politics in the Middle East. But first, we go to Copenhagen, where we're joined by

Mohamed Chahada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. His latest piece for 972 magazine is headlined two years after October 7th. Palestine has become a graveyard of failed strategies. We, though, are going to go first to Mouin Rabani, as we fix some connections. Mouin, can you respond to this hostage ceasefire deal? What do we know? What has been laid out? What hasn't?

Well, as you may recall, the Trump-Natinehu proposal announced at the White House last week dealt with three sets of issues. The immediate ones, meaning an exchange of captives, Israeli withdrawal, humanitarian aid in cessation of hostilities, then post-war governance, basically Project Blair, putting him in charge as the viceroy of the Gaza Strip. And thirdly, but only very tangentially, political issues, the crisis that produced this crisis, if you will. The agreement that was signed yesterday in Egypt deals exclusively with the first set of issues. So Israel and the Palestinians have agreed on an exchange of captives. We don't yet know the details of that in terms of which Palestinians will

be released from Israel's prison system and according to what schedule. There is a cessation of hostilities and there's a statement earlier today that Qatar and the United States have guaranteed that hostilities will not resume. I think those are relatively worthless commitments, because with Trump, you can't trust a word he says about anything. And Qatar is, of course, not in a position to compel this. And in terms of the Israeli withdrawal, there is an agreed line of withdrawal, but that also hasn't been clarified publicly. And some of these issues may, in fact, still be under discussion. The additional issues, post-war governance, and the political issues, were entirely ignored.

And this is seen as an achievement by Hamas, which very much wanted an agreement on the first set of issues, but was essentially being asked to commit political suicide and to accept national capitulation on behalf of the Palestinians with the other aspects. To one point, I think we're now to fork in the road, a continuation of this process, while it's very welcome, of course, that the genocide may be coming to an end and is at least now paused. This is a renewed Oslo process with an even lower political ceiling. And the key issue now is there is massive global momentum for a different paradigm in which, Palestinian rights in which is really accountability for its actions replaces these meaningless,

endless, endless negotiations about nothing that result in nothing. And I think that momentum also helps explain why we have this agreement finally, one that the Biden administration systematically refused to implement, but that Trump was able to force Israel to accept with a single phone call and maintaining and intensifying that momentum is absolutely essential to ensure that the genocide does not resume in full force

that ethnic cleansing remains off the agenda and that the real political issues can finally be addressed in line with international law and Palestinian rights. So we have Muhammad Shihada now. So, Muhammad, if you could respond to this deal and explain what you think made it possible now,

What role did the Gulf states play? You were just in Istanbul. What role did Turkey play? Well, the main thing that explains it is that tomorrow is the day where the Nobel Prize Committee will announce the Nobel Peace Prize winner. So that's the main thing that comes to mind. Otherwise, the second thing is Qatar after Israel bomb Doha, so viciously, Qatar has been demanding a price from the Trump administration. And Trump's security reassurances that he gave in this executive order are practically. worth nothing. So you saw basically

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and other Arab and Muslim countries, meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and trying to create some momentum towards ending the genocide in Gaza. Trump wanted to end it on Israel's own terms, which were

catastrophic. There was an earlier draft of the deal that was somewhat reasonable than Netanyahu spent six hours with Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff and manipulated it out of any meaning or substance and added to it this colonial aspect of the Trump-Layer Board of Peace. But what you had is Hamas being advised by Qatar, Turkey and Egypt to deliver a response

very carefully that said, yes, we agree to the withdrawal of the Israelis from Gaza. We agree to the release of Israeli captives and release of Palestinian captives and hostages. And yes, we agree to the end of the war. But the rest of Trump's ideas will be delayed until a later point because we do not have the mandate to negotiate all of all those things. It's a Palestinian decision. And it was a clever way of sort of like saying yes to the parts that are actually doable and the parts that were so incredibly fantastical to leave them at a later point that hopefully will never come.

Can you just explain for one moment what you mean about the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize and what bearing that has on these negotiations? So basically, we've been told repeatedly over the last year that Trump's eyes are on the Nobel Peace Prize because Obama got one, so he was very determined to get one as well because of that in particular. And it was one of his driving forces in decision-making, whether it is trying to get an into the war in Ukraine or trying to get a ceasefire deal in Gaza. The Nobel Committee is about to announce the winner of the Peace Prize tomorrow around the middle of the day, European time. So in Israeli media, they've been very explicit for days that the only or the main reason

why Netanyahu could not say no to Trump throughout this last week or even a little bit before from the UN General Assembly is because he didn't want to be seen as the one denying Trump the Nobel Peace Prize. And it's ironic, it's psychedelic and crazy, but it is basically one of the political motivations playing here. And, Mueh, Rabani, you mentioned earlier the question of the Palestinian prisoners who will be released in exchange for the Israeli hostages who remain in. captivity in Gaza.

Is there, you said, of course, those names have not been released, but is there any indication that either Marwan Baruti or the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Sadat, will be among those released? Thus far, there isn't. So far as I can tell, there's no clarity that they will or will not be released. Clearly, they're at the very top of Hamas' list. And that would also allow it to present itself as acting in the Palestinian national interest rather than only, let's say, it's factional interest.

But, you know, Israeli media have reported that Israel is required to make very painful concessions in the context of this agreement. That may be an indication their names are on the list. But as yet, there is no confirmation about this one way or the other. And your response, moving, to those who say, I mean, you think in the piece that you wrote overnight after the deal was reached, that Hamas has not lost all its leverage by agreeing to release the Israeli hostages, could you explain why you think that's the case? Yes. I mean, the idea that retaining the Israeli captives was somehow Hamas's only guarantee for ending the war is not really one I subscribe to. I think the captives serve as leverage only for the purpose of an exchange with Israel and obtaining the freedom of Palestinian captives in Israel's prison system.

Apart from that, they have primarily served as a pretext for genocide, and they most certainly haven't served the purpose of defending either Hamas leaders or even a single Palestinian child from this unprecedented genocidal Israeli bond. campaign. And it may, in fact, be the case that releasing them in the context of an exchange and not having any more Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip could make it more difficult for Israel to resume its genocidal military campaign. But again, you know, this is an agreement. It's not a peace agreement. It's a ceasefire agreement and a partial one. And given Israel's previous conduct and even more important, the U.S. indulgence for Israel's conduct, the indulgence of the West as a whole,

this is a situation where Israel should it so choose, and it will so choose, I suspect, will find a method to abrogate this agreement and ensure it is only of a temporary nature. Mohamed Shahada, your family is from Gaza. You are from Gaza. You're now in Copenhagen. What have you heard from your family on the ground? And also you've said that this deal, was just signed, that was just being agreed on is the clearest admission by Israel in the U.S. that they've deliberately been starving Gaza and that Israel's been holding thousands of Gazans hostage without trial or charges. I mean, over time, over the decades, Israel's held more than a million Palestinians detain them. And I think at this point, right, it's the

highest number of Palestinians held at any one time in Israeli jails. yes absolutely precisely so you have basically in the written agreement that trump released it said explicitly that in return for hamas releasing the 20s really living captives that israel would release 1,700 Palestinian captives that have been taken after october 7th from Gaza what that means is that those are people that were not in the october 7th attack when it unfolded that people that were rounded up basically every area that israel has invades in Gaza, they would take people at random, process them with racial profiling,

anyone that they think resembles sort of a religious person, they would take them, or anyone that is a doctor or a journalist or a nurse or an academic, they would take them to this daytime man concentration camp, or Israel's own Bits Salem, a human rights organization referred to as a torture camp, and hold them there as a bargaining chip without visits by the Red Cross,

without legal counsel, without charges, without trial. So I have a friend whose brother was taken this way, and he was only allowed to meet with a lawyer one time, and he's been asking the Israelis, why am I here? The same answer they gave him over and over and over again is that you are here until a ceasefire deal is signed and then you will be released. Trump, you heard him saying earlier this year that it only takes a very sick mind for someone to hold a dead body as a hostage, but little did he know that Israel has been holding hundreds of Palestinian dead bodies way before October 7th,

one of them is Nura Araqat's cousin who was murdered by the Israelis at a checkpoint in the West Bank on his way to his sister's wedding, on the day of his sister's wedding, and Israel has been holding his body ever since. You had at least 250 Palestinian dead bodies that Israel was holding as a bargaining

chip, and they collected hundreds more of bodies throughout the genocide that they're holding as what they call strategic assets to use as leverage in negotiations. The other thing about the starvation is you had in the deal written explicitly that Israel would allow more aid to go into Gaza, which means that Israel had the capacity, the ability all along to allow way more aid to go into Gaza, but they had

the clear will to not allow any of this in. We've seen it in the previous ceasefire. All the problems that Israel keep siding as the reasons for the famine disappeared, the looting, the gang violence, the chaos, all of it disappeared and food was coming in 600 trucks per day. Now in this agreement you will have 400 trucks coming through five border crossings and then it will be scaled up to 600. The last thing about family and friends in Gaza, I've been calling people on the ground since the morning. There's the sentiment that they will believe it only when they see it. And even when they see it, because we've been here before multiple

times, Amy, in November 2023 or in January this year, or I personally lived through 10 Israeli military operations, three wars and two grand invasions. Each of them ended with a ceasefire agreement where Israel would make promises about ending the siege, the draconian siege on Gaza, or at least reducing it. And as soon as a ceasefire deal is signed, nobody bothers with the details. Gaza disappears and it's back to this slow, latent, invisible violence of starvation and engaging people in a permanent state of non-life. It is expected to be the exact same thing. I'm, been talking to people, they don't feel anything positive about the declaration until they see it materialize and they know that there is a lot of devils in the details. They know Israel has a vested

interest in sabotaging that deal throughout. This morning, Israel even intensified the bombing way more than before. It's like they are in a rush in a hurry to kill as many people as possible and destroy much of the urban space as much as possible. They've been detonating those robotic suicide vehicles since yesterday. They've been bombing Khaniounis. There is al-Balha. Gaza city, Al-Sabra, Talil Haua, al-Shati camp. I just saw a footage where Israeli tanks are literally bombing people alive on television, on the beach,

the people that were trying to go back to their homes. One of our colleagues, Muatissim at the Lul in Gaza, just lost his third son today that was murdered by the IDF. So, in the other side, you have people that are so exhausted, that are desperate for any glimmer of hope. I was just talking to a cousin in his late

40s in Gaza City last week, and he looked exactly like my grandfather when he died, he was over 100 years old. He was skin on bone. You can literally see his eyes are sunken. His face is wrinkled and darkened. And those people are disparate for the slightest glimmer of hope.

So hopefully they will get some good news soon. Well, let's bring in, Orie Goldberg. We were just sorting out some technical issues. Ori, if you could respond to the deal and tell us how people in Israel are responding. The hostages are expected to be released on Monday. Of course, there will be the living. hostages and also the deceased ones? Well, the only issue that matters to the Israeli Jewish public at large is the fate of

the hostages. They absolutely don't care in any way, shape, or form about the suffering or the plight of the Palestinians. And even the fate of the hostages is more aminth than it is oppressing national security issue. Israel has resorted back to discourse that's familiar to every Israeli post-war, and that is mistakes were made, people are to blame, we will find them, we will force them to bear responsibility,

and then we will rise from the ashes as we always have, because that is what we do. We will rise, we will make Israel better, we will make it a more robust democracy, we owe it to our children and so forth and so forth. But so even the issue of the hostages, which is, again, the only reason Israelis have called, or an end to the quote-unquote war, is resonating the very much in a human interest kind of way or in a finally this nightmare is over. We can wake up and go back to reality. There are Israelis who, especially religious ones, who celebrate overtly the killing of crime.

Palestinians. And they, of course, are disappointed. They wanted a total victory. They wanted Hamas destroyed. But the great majority of Israelis enable the genocide and support the genocide by not talking about the genocide. It is a genocide by... You're an Israeli political analyst. You're a scholar based in Tel Aviv. What about Ben Gavir and Smotrick, not supporting the ceasefire, but not pulling out of the government, which would bring it down? Ben-Vir and Smokritch are less powerful than they may appear from the outside. They're both sectorial leaders, and there's a real difference between them. Smotrich is an ideal... He has an ideological movement behind him. The settlers and what's called religious

Zionism, which is also the name of his party. Ben-Vir is an old-session populist here to simply torch the place and cause as much mayhem and death and destruction as he can. both would be lost without their membership in Netanyahu's government. Both would lack for the executive power, the prize so dearly Smotrich in the West Bank and Bangville over domestic security in everything from licenses for carrying weapons to not investigating or enforcing Israeli law on crime, which is rampant in Israeli-Palestinian society. They are not leaders meant for the opposition. They are meant for power, and they know it. And they will find excuses, perhaps Smotich will leave, but it's more likely that they will explain to their base

that it's better that they're on the inside to prevent even worse decisions from being made. But I think perhaps it's more important to talk about Netanyahu himself and why this deal is good for him, not bad for him, because Netanyahu can now be the complete package. Netanyahu was the fearless leader who fought a difficult, inevitable war, but he is now the fearless leader who brings the difficult, inevitable deal, and he is the grown-up in the room. Smotich and Ben-Vil are the adolescents, you know, they do whatever they want,

they're juvenile, they have no responsibility. Netanyahu knows what's what, and he was able to bring the hostages back. And should a snap election be called in Israel over the next six months, there's a very good chance that it will, that makes Nathaniel perhaps the most favorite candidate to win the prime ministership again. And, O'hee, if you could respond to what our guests earlier were saying, some understandable skepticism about whether Israel will abide by the agreement, and if so, to what extent?

If I was a Palestinian, I wouldn't trust an official Israeli farther than I could throw him. But I think we need to take into consideration the fact that certainly over the past two months, Israel's international stature and Israel's absolute impunity have taken real hits. Israel is not as strong as it was even two months ago. And the notion that Israel always dictates the pace of events, that was the grand prize for which Nathaniel fought. He wanted to demonstrate that Israel can do whatever it wants, the whomever it wants, wherever it wants.

That is not the case anymore, despite the reluctance, despite the alliances, the criminal alliances between Israel and global leaders, Israel simply cannot have its way every time. And that in and of itself, I think, is grounds enough to assume that the situation now is different. Add to that the fact that the Israeli public considers itself to have undergone the very difficult two years, sees itself as unrightfully victimized by its own government and by every global leader out there. An Israeli public, it's a very public, it's wants to get back to normal, which means to repress the fact of the occupation and to return to life as a Jewish and democratic state, effectively, and ethnocracy built on Jewish supremacy.

Nathaniel knows this. He knows this very well. Nathaniel is not an aberration. He's not an anomaly. He's the quintessential Israeli prime minister. That's why he keeps winning. Not because he's a magician who pulls cards out of his sleeve, because he knows this is what Israelis approve of. And consistent polling shows that he's right. While Israelis may have protested his government, while certain sectors of Israeli society did not see themselves aligned with his ministers,

the great majority of Israeli Jews supported his government's policies in Gaza. That is not something that can be wished away. That is still true. His would-be competitors, his would-be heirs from the opposition, have never said anything that differed significantly from the genocidal policies we've seen for the past two years in Gaza. Netanyahu knows this and he is using this as any savvy politician would to situate himself for further battles.

So, Ori, you said that this signals basically the end of Israeli impunity on the global stage. Do you think that applies to the U.S. as well? I do because I don't think Trump is beholden to Israel, even as remotely when you consider the way Joe Biden was beholden to Israel. I think the American political map is changing. I think public opinion in the United States is changing. I think it's become very much an almost basic principle

that America should not be forced to fund foreign wars, especially foreign wars to turn into genocides. I think Trump is hearing that incessantly from his own base I think Trump is under pressure from that base, not because of the genocide, but because of the Epstein files and because of his behavior within American politics, because of the government shutdown. I think all of these political interests are converging. And that is why I am cautiously optimistic about the potential of this deal, because this isn't about the Palestinians. None of the major players here care about the Palestinians, except for the people who represent the Palestinians.

None of them care about the Palestinians. Everybody has something to gain from this deal. It has to do with their political future, their political survival. And at this time, after two years when the world ignored the Israeli genocide, perhaps the only thing that can start a process in motion is when the stars align and political interests converge. Finally, Uri, if you can talk about the significance of apparently President Trump going to Israel, Netanyahu, inviting him to address the Knesset, the Israeli parliament as early as Sunday? Well, that is political pageantry. We're used to it in Israel, having an American president address the Knesset usually is something that goes with the signing of a peace treaty. we have to keep in mind, of course, obviously, as your other guests have said, that this is not a peace treaty.

There's no peace after a genocide. This perhaps, perhaps signals the end of the beginning. It's a ceasefire. It's a cessation of death, and hopefully, the cessation of a massacre. And the fact that Trump claims this is his privilege, perhaps that will be a consolation prize when he's not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Ori Goldberg, we want to thank you for being with us, Israeli political analyst and scholar outside Tel Aviv and Herzlija. We also want to thank Mohamed Shahada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

And finally, Mouin Rabani, Middle East analyst, co-editor of Jadaliyah, a non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict on Humanitarian Studies. Coming up, we go to Paris, where one of the hundreds of global Samud flotilla activists who were abducted by Israel on the high seas and detained is now. We'll speak with Progressive International's David Adler and hear comments from Mandela Mandela, the former South African MP and grandson of Nelson Mandela, both just released. Thank you. I'm gonna'n't. I'm gonna'n't I'm gonna'n't I'm gonna'n't

This is democracy now, democracy now, democracy now.org, the war and peace report. With Nirmin-Sheikh. Israeli forces intercepted another Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla in the early hours of Wednesday morning that was as tempting to break Israel's blockade and deliver humanitarian aid. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Thousand Madelines to Gaza sent a fleet of 11 vessels with 150 people on board, including doctors. They initially said three boats were attacked in international waters, 120 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza. Soon after, all boats were intercepted by Israel. This was the second such interception in the past week. Days before, Israeli forces intercepted about 40 vessels and detained more than 450 activists who were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Some of the activists abducted on the high seas, reported physical abuse, humiliation, and inhumane treatment by Israeli soldiers. Detained activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla included the former South African Prime Minister Mandla, MP, sorry, member of parliament, Mandela, Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela. He was held in an Israeli prison for six days before being released via Jordan. We were handcuffed with cable ties, tied tightly behind our backs, taken off our boats, and put on the platform paraded for all the Israelis

and the allies in Europe and the West and the global community to see but it's nothing compared to what Palestinians have been subjected to on a daily basis we were kidnapped on international waters Palestinians are attacked maimed and killed

whilst many of our comrades were offered opportunity to shower They ensured that the South African delegation was denied this. But we understood very well why that is so. Because we are a nation that dared through our government to take apartheid Israel to the International Court of Justice. That was Mandela, Mandela, the grandson of North. Nelson Mandela, after he was released from an Israeli jail, part of the Samud Flotilla,

now back in South Africa. We're joined in Paris by David Adler, co-general coordinator, a progressive international, who participated in the Gaza-bound global Samud Flotilla before it was intercepted by Israeli forces. He's written a new piece for Jacobin, headlined, I spent five days in Israel's Desert Prison. Welcome back to Democracy Now. David, we spoke to you on the high seas. Tell us what happened to you and what happened to the other flotella activists before you were deported. So last Wednesday night, in the early hours of the morning, we were violently raided and abducted by Israeli naval forces in international waters. And over the coming hours, as was said by my comrade Hamad de Mandela, we were taken to the port of Astod, where our belongings and boats were stolen from us and confiscated.

They literally ripped jewelry, necklaces, rings, precious things out of our bags and belongings and threw them away or confiscated them without any access to them or demand that we could make on our own. And we were put in positions of humiliation and paraded around for Ben Gavir and his friends to take a photo opportunity. At that point, they reached down in some of my passport, which had my full name, David Rashi, Kremlin Adler, and asked if I was Jewish. I said I was Jewish. They ripped me by the ear and forced me to bend down and stare at the flag of the state of Israel for Ben Gavir to come and have a personal one-on-one and call me a terrorist to my face. Over the coming hours, we were strip-surge, zip-tied, blindfolded, and disappeared into the

Negev desert, into one of the most infamous Guantanamo Bay of Israel, Ketsiot's detention camps, 400,000 square meters, where many hundreds and thousands of political prisoners from Palestine had been held and tortured over the course of the past 30 years since, and indeed since it was reopened in 2002 after they had to shut it down for repeated reports of serial human rights violations. Over the coming days inside that camp, we as internees, I should say, it wasn't a prison, it was an internment camp, suffered serial and systematic violations of our most basic rights. We had on and off no access to food, water, never a shower. The North Africans in particular were were targeted for severe abuse and beatings, taken out of their cells with German shepherds

and guns at their heads and cuffed at the hands, cuffed at the ankles, blindfolded and then put into isolation. We had to sort of try to rally as a cell block to get them back. And I must say, systematic deprivation of life-saving medicine, which includes insulism. One of the women in the cell blocks had such a severe kidney infection that she fainted twice and over two days was denied access to medicine. And these were just the most basic conditions that we endured over the course of our time in Ketsiod, while we had no access to legal representation, while our families were left without any

information about our whereabouts, about our health and existence, and needless to say, without any access or support from U.S. consular services. Well, indeed, as far as the U.S. response has gone, the Trump administration's response earlier this week. On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, took to social media to attack you, David Adler, personally, as a, quote, self-absorbed tool of Hamas. Your response? My response is that we must break the myth that has been installed in so much of Hollywood propaganda at the United States State Department is out here to save, extract, and rescue you from wherever you are in the world. In fact, if you look at actually the different delegations that are part of

this mission, the U.S. delegation was treated by, far, one of the worst by our own consular services. They did not arrive to the prison camp until maybe four days after our disappearance and detention in the middle of the negative desert. And when they did, they said, you know what, guys, you're on your own. There's nothing we can do for you. You're in Israel's hands now. And I will say it did not stop there, the systematic abandonment by the State Department and the consular services. When we were eventually freed and deported to Jordan, we were dropped there. The other delegations that were there were greeted, welcomed, treated, hugged, put into hotels, given flights home.

The U.S. Consul told us, we are not your babysitters. We will not provide food, water, clothes, hotels, transportation. The most we can do for you is have the Jordanians drive to the airport where we're going to drop you off without any cell phones or money. You are on your own. That is how our government thinks about us. They do not serve us. They serve this state of Israel.

And they share what I would maybe describe as the Pete Hexeth School of International Law that due process is no process. And it doesn't matter that we never saw a judge, a jury, never saw our lawyers or a prosecutor, we never charged with anything. This is just a fraction of what we know Palestinians who are still in these torture and detention camps, 11,000 of whom are taken from Gaza alone, let alone the West Bank, are suffering in a daily basis. This is what happens to, you know, white Westerners, in my case, a Jewish-American, humanitarian workers who are simply trying to deliver basic critical aid to the starving people of Palestine.

David Adler, we want to thank you very much for being with us, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, who participated in the Gaza-bound Global Samud Flotilla before it was intercepted. by Israeli forces. We'll link to your article. I spent five days in Israel's desert prison. That does it for our show. I'll be speaking in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 17th, after the showing of the film about Democracy Now, Steal This Story, Please. That's at the Lensick Theater, October 17th. On October 18th and 19th, the film will show at the Woodstock Film Festival, and I'll be speaking along with the Oscar-nominated filmmakers of Steal

the story, please. Tia Lesson and Carl Deal. And Karen Renucci, the producer. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermine Sheikh. You can check our website at DemocracyNow.org.