It Could Happen Here - Attacking Palestinian Health

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

In this episode Dana El Kurd talks with Yara Asi, Palestinian scholar, author, and public health researcher studying how conflict, structural violence, and political systems shape health and human security. Yara describes the attacks on Palestinian health in Gaza and the West Bank, and the Israeli policies and objectives driving these attacks.   Sources: https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/sexual-violence-as-a-tool-of-domination-and-displacement-in-palestine/ https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/israeli-settler-violence-a-strategy-to-displace-palestinians-from-their-land/ https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/israels-restrictions-on-medical-evacuations-from-gaza-and-the-west-bank/ https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/another-step-in-the-weaponization-of-aid-israel-bans-humanitarian-agencies-in-gaza/ https://www.hudassalon.movie/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to the Questlove show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Peace. Hello, everyone and welcome to It Could Happen here. My name is Dan Al-Kurd. I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today I'm talking with Yara Asi, who is a Palestinian scholar, author, and public health researcher, studying how conflict, structural violence, and political systems shape health and human security. And she's also a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center, Washington, where I'm also a non-resident fellow.

And she's been doing a lot of excellent work highlighting the health impacts of Israeli policies and American policies in the Middle East generally, but also particularly in Israel, Palestine. So today we're going to talk about what are the health conditions in Gaza. I think that we have seen a lot of the spectacular violence. We understand and even the most unaware understand the degree to which Gaza has been devastated. but she breaks down for us what that looks like and what are the policies that are being used to attack Palestinian health in Gaza and in the West Bank. And then what it means for the Palestinian people to be so de-developed, not only economically, but at every sector, including the health sector.

It's a very bleak episode. None of my episodes are good, but this one is particularly hard to listen to. there's also a mention of sexual violence. Not in detail, of course, but I do want to just put that out there for listeners as fair warning because that is a very triggering conversation, regardless even if it is at the simplest level of detail. But without further ado, this is Yadha about the health impacts of Israeli policy on the Palestinian people.

Thank you for listening. Yada, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. So I want to start, we're going to talk both about Gaza and the West Bank, but I want to start with Gaza at the beginning here. Could you give us a rundown of what health conditions are like in Gaza right now? Yeah, absolutely. You know, this has been obviously the focus of a lot of health research over the past three years since the beginning of the genocide. And for good reason, because it's kind of a microcosm of every possible public health disaster you could imagine in a single, very small, very populated setting.

So just, you know, some top line numbers. We know that at the very least, 74,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7th. And epidemiological projections estimate that the number is likely much higher, especially when you add in all of those that have died from starvation, malnutrition, or lack of access to health care because they had cancer or they needed a heart, you know, surgery, or brain surgery or something. We know that at least 20,000, around 20,000 people in Gaza, many of whom are children,

require immediate medical evacuations for some sort of procedure unrelated, typically to trauma. We're talking a lot of cancer cases, high-risk pregnancies, complex surgeries that they can no longer get in the Gaza Strip because the health care system has been essentially decimated. As of this past month, there's also, you know, more than 100,000 injuries. many of those are life-changing injuries, amputations, nerve damage, spinal damage, brain damage, that will require lifelong rehabilitation. And the obvious question is, who's going to do that and who's going to pay for that and what's going to happen to those people?

Less than half of Gaza's hospitals are even partially functioning. So prior to the genocide, Gaza had about 36 hospitals, many of which offered, you know, a variety of services, but some of which were specialized, you know, cancer care, pediatric hospital. Now we're at a point where the hospitals that are even still open because so many were damaged to destroyed or just have no resources are just basically able to do basic care, emergency care, triage, basic wound management. Israel is still restricting at the border, medical supplies, you know, basic pharmaceuticals, medications, things that would be available. and basically any other contexts on earth, even in low-income countries, are not available in the Gaza Strip.

We know that 1,700 health workers and humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza, many of whom were directly targeted, either in their homes or in aid convoys. And, you know, it's an environmental disaster. So there's sewage in the streets. There's lack of clean water. There's rats. Rats, yes, fighting people in their tents. God knows what, floating in the air that people are inhaling on a daily basis. including babies and children. So it is just as bad as we imagine. And, you know, we're about, what, a year now from this, quote-unquote, ceasefire.

More than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the, quote-unquote, ceasefire. And others are dying in other completely inhumane ways, such as building collapse that we saw a couple of weeks ago, because many people, to avoid the rats and the cold, because winter is coming, have just decided, I'm going to go back to a structure, even if it is half collapsed. Damaged.

And we're unfortunately seeing that some of these structures are collapsing with people and families inside. So, you know, although the health crisis in Gaza has kind of disappeared from the news as soon as the ceasefire process started, the health catastrophe is just as bad and it is not getting better. You know, I get stuck on this question. It's like, like you said, what's going to happen to these people? even if the ceasefire stopped killing people, which, you know, like you said, there are still people dying. Like, we need something so dramatic. And it shouldn't be the case that the rest of the world steps in to pay for Israel's crimes. You know, like, anyway, that's a whole other issue.

But I want to highlight some of the work that you have been doing for the Arab Center, Washington in particular. And I'll put all of these in the show notes as well. But you wrote a piece for the Arab Center, Washington about medical evacuation and that Israel is controlling this process and using it as a tool of war. So could you break down this argument for us and describe it to listeners who may not be as familiar? Yeah, absolutely. So due to the blockade in Gaza, we're talking the pre-2020 blockade, as well as the import restrictions in the West Bank that have kind of put a ceiling on what the local health systems are able to do. So certain medical equipment is banned by Israel from entering Gaza or the West Bank. And so for decades, there has been a medical permit system that Palestinians have to apply to a permit, apply to Israel, mind you, receive permission from Kogat, paid for by the Palestinian Authority.

So Israel is not paying for these medical evacuations. And they would leave the West Bank or Gaza to receive care, usually in East Jerusalem, sometimes in Israel. Israel, sometimes in neighboring countries like Jordan and Egypt. As of October 7th, Israel essentially closed that process that had existed. And this was an already broken process, and I could talk to you all day about that process before even all of the current situation. But what has happened is Israel is really tightly constricting who is able to leave the Gaza Strip, even to go to the West Bank, which is both occupied Palestinian territory to receive the medical care that they need.

I was just at an event last week where the CEO of Augusta Victoria Hospital, which is one of the main hospitals in the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, which is where many Palestinians go, especially for cancer care. He said he hasn't seen a single patient from Gaza since October 7th.

The World Health Organization has a list of, again, approximately 20,000 cases of people that need to leave to receive care. and aside from the fact that Israel is often delaying the approval of these permits, and anyone listening knows, when you have a health issue, you don't have infinite time. They're usually time-sensitive, especially if you're dealing with something like cancer or pregnancy, obviously very time-sensitive. If you delay, you're going to need more care, greater care, and your prognosis is just worse. You're much more likely if you do have cancer. Wouldn't we rather treat it when you're stage one

then when you're stage four and you're finally able to get the permit. So we are seeing people dying while waiting for these permits. We have heard reports that for some people who did manage to leave Gaza to receive care, that they were being forced to sign forms that would basically not allow them back into Gaza. So yes, we will let you leave to get the care you need, but you can't return. And we're just seeing a blockage of this system. So there have been countries that have been willing to pay for and take these medical evacuees. But even in some of these recipient countries, we're talking dozens of cases, maybe hundreds in a few. We need thousands of cases here. And also at the same time, we need to think about what rebuilding the health system in Gaza looks like. So we don't need

to engage in this medical permit system as broadly. Now, I don't think we'll see that anytime soon. So Israel uses its control of the territories to affect health conditions inside, not just the health system, but also, as I said, sewage, lack of electricity, lack of nutritious food. Then it controls the process that Palestinians have to use to leave to get care, even if it is not Israel where they are going to get the care. Even if Egypt is willing to accept them or Italy is willing to accept them or the UAE or whoever, ultimately this is an Israel permit process. And this has been a situation, again, since especially the blockade started in 2006 in Gaza. And we have long argued that this is unjust, to put someone's health in the hands of an occupying power. And what we saw over the years was not just denials going up of the need for these permits, but delays such that people are missing appointments, people are not getting timely care,

and people are dying while waiting for services. So this has long been a really unjust process, and now we're kind of seeing the inevitable outcome of not challenging that process, the impunity that Israel has had in controlling basically every aspect of Palestinian health. And now we have people who are dying while waiting for chemotherapy. It's really inhumane. I think, at least some of us who follow this more closely, at this point, it's, like, ridiculous how accustomed we have become to the...

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Hey, what's up? I'm Tony Gonzalez. And I'm October Gonzalez. But you can call me Toby. you to join us on our new podcast, No Safe Words with October and Tony Gonzalez. We get real about marriage, parenthood, sex, divorce, and all the nitty-gritty stuff we all think about, but just don't say out loud. I hate that job. You're probably just going to meet with some rich guy and he's going to whisk you away and I'll never see you again and, oh, well, this is awkward. Would you say a D-less actor? D? I don't even know there's this thing as D. No, no, no, no. I mean, like, I can't even get on

the C-list. Like, I'm not even an average. I'm not even passing. I'm failing. Listen to No Safe Words with October and Tony Gonzalez, part of My Culture Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Also in December, you wrote about how Israel suspended 37 humanitarian groups, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, the IRC, and these groups provided more than half of Gaza's food assistance and supported the hospitals as well, if I understand correctly. So what justification did Israel give?

for suspending these humanitarian groups and what is really going on here? So Israel has used the same justification that it has used basically for every restriction that it has placed on Palestinian life, which is this kind of blanket, unquestionable, 100% urgent, necessary security needs. So all of this, the checkpoints, the permit system, the incarceration of Palestinians, the, I mean, all of it. This whole system is justified by Israel, again, and its allies. as this kind of, we need this for security. And so we have seen that with humanitarian organizations as well. Now, I won't get too into the preamble of this,

but even before this new registration rules for humanitarian organizations, Israel has been working very hard to whittle away the power and access that humanitarian organizations have, perhaps most notably to your audience in Unruwa, which it has been discrediting, delegitimizing for decades. because, you know, Unrua is, for all its flaws, an organization that does recognize the rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland. And so Israel kind of, you know, placed all these accusations on Unrua that members were aligned, you know, aligned with October 7th or participated in October 7th. It caused a lot of countries to cut funding.

Now, independent investigations have since found that, of course, these accusations were completely unfounded in most cases. and at the very least did not justify kind of dismantling the entire organization. But as it has happened many times, nothing really was done. I mean, this kind of happens. People say, well, gee, that's not fair. And then everyone just kind of moves on. So the inevitable has happened, which is now Israel, again, an occupying power, which is not in debate, according to international law,

is trying to impose new restrictions on humanitarian organizations who are working, particularly in the Gaza Strip. And part of what they are requiring is the name and address of every local worker that works at these agencies. Now, let's think for two seconds about why these agencies

may not want to engage in that. Humanitarian and health workers have been killed in their homes by bombs with their families there. Aid convoys that have been clearly marked. Probably your audience is very familiar with the World Central Kitchen Convoy and that kind of

infamous image of this van with the logo on it with a bomb right next to it. And so many of these organizations said, we're not going to be able to do that. We're not going to do that. But we're essentially, you're asking us to give you all the personal information of our staff. Now, Israel had initially said, if you don't comply with these by March, at the time that I wrote that piece, then they would be deregistered. We've since seen many organizations come out and say that they would not participate. Some have. So we have seen some compliance by some organizations. And of course, their argument is always, well, we need access. And this is what we have to do for the access.

So we have seen some delays in Israel's courts as to actual implementation of this. And organizations like Unrua and others that have a heavy local Palestinian staff presence on the ground, they don't need internationals to get entry permits, which Israel is blocking. And we've seen this increase in recent months. basically foreigners of all types, including foreign ministers who are trying to enter the West Bank, let alone Gaza, are being turned away. But we have seen those organizations are still functional to some level. But I have heard whispers and, you know, people are very, very concerned about what this means for the future of these organizations as it relates to their work with

Palestinians. Local staff need to be paid. They need to be sure that they're safe. They need to have the equipment and resources that they need to help people. And so again, Israel creates rules and then basically says, you have to submit to these rules or you won't be able to do what you need to do, what you're tasked to do, and what you had previously been permitted to do. Again, the rules themselves are unquestioned. Again, we saw some condemnations of this, but primarily from the humanitarian organizations themselves, we saw quite a strong statement early on signed by many of them that said, this is completely unacceptable.

But unfortunately, the global powers and the funders of these organizations have not meaningfully pushed back on this. Now, we're seeing a lot of upheaval, and I won't go too much into this, in the Israeli Supreme Court. And, of course, Israel has elections coming up. So a lot of these processes

have been kind of delayed and put on hold. So we're really interested, to say the least, as to how a lot of this unfolds after Israel. elections. Correct me if I'm wrong with this because obviously this is not my area of expertise, but I was at a meeting with the Commissioner General of Honor Ra recently. I mean, before I ask the question, also tell the listeners without bearing the lead, the reason they want to dismantle Honorwa is because it keeps alive this, or they think it keeps alive this issue of the right of return, as if like that is a right that can disappear if Onerwa disappears.

Now, that said, Honorwa has been under attack, and like you said, they've attempted to dismantle it in a variety of ways. But based on what I heard at that meeting, Onurwa does comply with the state of Israel. Onerwa does provide lists and fires people based on Israeli suspicions. And at least this is what I got out of that meeting. Maybe I misunderstood the degree of coordination. Yes. So we could have a whole other episode, right, about critique. About Anurwa. Yeah. And that would be a whole interesting conversation. But But UNRWA has rightfully so been critiqued by Palestinians. So when you look at camps and they're really underdeveloped, overcrowded, very, you know, dusty, very thin streets. And then you look at the UNRWA school, big, shiny, the foreign staff that are coming in to overlook these schools

and hospitals are paid much higher salaries than the Palestinian staff. There's a whole host of arguments about UNRWA. And it's important to remember that when UNRWA kind of was founded in the late 1940s to deal with this new and expectedly short-term Palestinian refugee problem. At the same time, there was another, you know, kind of strain that was meant to deal with the political side. So Udurwa was never meant to be a political actor. It was only meant to kind of provide relief in these new camps that had sprung up that went from tents to buildings to basically towns. And so in some ways, they are critiqued for something that is not their mandate. They are a relief organization. And so as long as Palestinian refugees need relief, their argument is,

we're going to give the relief. Someone else needs to work out the political side. And we can argue about how that relief and how humanitarian ecosystem as a whole has kind of enabled Israel's actions and made it so that Israel does not have to comply with its obligations as an occupying power to provide food, to provide medicine, to not transfer populations, for example, from occupied territory to Israeli jails. We can have a conversation about that. And Unruwa is very publicly, I would say, conservative when it comes to critiquing the Israeli government. So when you look at recent statements from organizations like Oxfam or even MSF, which typically really prioritize neutrality, even they have been really willing to say now, you know, they've used words like

genocide. This is ridiculous. Yes, this is ridiculous. This is a complete affront to the entire infrastructure of humanitarianism as we devise. developed it after World War II. Unrua is much more conservative with its statements. And again, it claims that its priority is access. It is the biggest service provider for health and education in the Gaza Strip. And it is one of the biggest in the West Bank. So, you know, it's this kind of catch-22 that the Palestinians that depend on those services are in. Now, as far as I know, because Unrua is in the UN system, their argument is that they do not have to be subject to the same restrictions that Israel would place on non-UN humanitarian organizations.

And recently we've seen other Israeli activities, such as they bulldoze the Unrua headquarters in East Jerusalem. Like they are trying both bureaucratically, administratively, and physically to kind of remove this entity. But as far as I know, and things change very quickly on this, they did not comply with the new registration details. That said, they did really internalize these accusations that Israel had levied against them after October 7th.

They did fire some staff. They, in the opinion of many, did not forcefully defend their staff as much as they could have. And when you talk to people that work with or work in Unrua, again, they say, we are just trying to get through this period

and maintain as much of an infrastructure as we can. And they have been through ups and downs before. I don't know if they've been through downs that are this down at any point. You know, the past, especially since the first Trump administration, we've seen really targeted attacks against Unrua, which the Biden administration continued. But yes, it is undoubtedly, Unrua is not as vocal in terms of defending its staff, in terms of making political proclamations, in terms of, you know, just what we would kind of

hope that one of the primary actors that is tasked with protecting a very vulnerable population would do. I mean, defending its own mandate. Right. Defending its own mandate. Right. to provide relief. And it's kind of constantly, and so much of the international community is kind of constantly playing by Israel's rules. Israel makes an accusation, makes a rule.

And instead of being like, that accusation is insane or this rule is based in nothing, people just start arguing about, well, how can we get against that rule or how do we defend against that accusation? And this has been the playbook for a really long time.

I think Unrua has not been very effective in defending against that. Again, I think they would probably argue that's not what we're supposed to do. There's supposed to be political entities that defend against that. And we have seen some of the funders that pulled funding initially after October 7th have reinstated funding. That said, Unrua is in a very precarious position. And I and others are really interested in seeing in five years, what will Unrua look like? Will it be an organization kind of in name only? You know, there's so much uncertainty, I think, coming up. And they're a

huge part of that. Because if their services go, we suddenly have hundreds of thousands of people with no school, no hospital, no clinics, and a lot of Palestinians that work for UNRWA with no jobs and no salary and to contribute to the already insane unemployment rate and, you know, kind of economic doom spiral that the West Bank and Gaza are in right now. So it's a really complicated, nuanced issue. And there's just so much uncertainty. I couldn't even begin to speculate. on what comes next. Yeah, like you said, there's so much to talk about on that, on that topic and on Gaza as a whole. I just felt like despite how much they comply, you know, there's no winning. No winning. That's it. Yeah. That's the main takeaway. Yeah, Israel isn't trying to cooperate,

obviously. Like, right. Yeah. So let's move on to the West Bank now. Sure. I've talked in a recent episode about how the West Bank is being ethnically cleansed. So listeners can refer to that episode if they want more info. But in July, you wrote for the Arab Center, Washington, about specifically the use of sexual violence in both territories. But let's, you know, since we're talking about the West Bank, how is sexual violence being used in the West Bank right now? How is it being used and by whom? And what is it accomplishing? Yeah, this is a tough topic, you know, and that was a really tough piece to write just because I think part of what we as kind of Palestine focused scholars or people, even just observers of the situation, there are just so many pieces and mechanisms

of displacement and ethnic cleansing utilized by Israel. So my primary lens that I used to look at that is degradation, de-development, and destruction of the health system. But I think, you know, what we've seen, especially since October 7th and all of these accounts that are coming out of Israeli prisons, is that sexual violence is wielded as a tool of essentially abuse and torture primarily of Palestinian prisoners. Now, as early as the Nekba, there were reports in villages that were being kind of raided by Zionist militias of sexual violence of women and girls as a way to kind of show power. I mean, that's really the core of sexual violence.

It is a way to show power. It is a way to induce powerlessness. It is a way to say, I can do this to you, and there's nothing you can do about it. And I'm going to do it publicly. And so there are many reports from the, Anakba and the years afterwards that indicated that sexual violence was being used. And then the women, in some cases, were being paraded around Jerusalem as kind of a warning to other Palestinians. So it's been a part of this ecosystem, you know, for almost a century. So what we've seen lately

is many Palestinian prisoners, male and female, have reported sexual violence under Israeli guards. There have been, in fact, there was, I'm sure your audience is familiar with that famous video from, I believe, the State de Mont prison of a Palestinian male prisoner who was being sexually assaulted. He needed medical care for his injuries. And there has been many reports that along with other forms of torture and medical neglect, so lack of clean food, lack of showers, lack of bathrooms, lack of care for medical needs, that sexual abuse and violence have been used against Palestinian prisoners. This includes stripping people publicly, including women.

This includes sexual assault in some cases. Sometimes it includes threatening sexual assault upon people's families that are back home. If they don't collaborate or cooperate or give information, you know, it's all used as a form of torture. And this is a very difficult issue to discuss throughout the Middle East. We have unfortunately very little good, comprehensive data on incidents of sexual violence and assault. Much of this comes from firsthand testimonies of those who have experienced it. But there has been an undeniable increase in those reports. I mean, Israel has imprisoned thousands of Palestinians just since October 7th, many of whom,

no charge, you know, kind of under administrative detention. And there is no access to these prisoners by the Red Cross or others, sometimes they won't even allow their lawyers or their families to talk to them. So all of this is kind of happening in secret. And it's those lucky prisoners who are released or have some contact with the outside world that are able to kind of tell people what is happening. And so we've seen this increased brazenness with Israeli soldiers. They are kind of even boasting about their crimes online, posting videos, posting pictures,

posting, you know, what they see as kind of funny. stories about how they're treating Palestinian prisoners, and we're seeing sexual violence reported by them as well. So it's not just the prisoners reporting this. The perpetrators are also saying, yeah, we're doing this. No one can do anything. I think much of that has gotten lost in the conversation of what's happened to Palestinians because, you know, there's so much overt things happening, you know, the destruction of Gaza, the genocide, the settler violence throughout the West Bank. But the settler violence has also taken a tone of including sexual violence and abuse. There was this story that I recount in the piece of a man who was sexually assaulted by settlers,

then kind of paraded through his own village. So we are seeing this kind of tool of domination utilized more brazenly, more openly, more explicitly by both primarily Israeli prison guards and Israeli settlers. And again, the incentive structure is that you can do this and nothing is going to happen to you. And so in that kind of bubble of impunity, as we've warned about, and many scholars have warned about and many observers and many Palestinians, the more you let them get away with crimes, even documented crimes, the more they are going to perpetuate these crimes and escalate when we're in the escalation phase right now. Yeah, there's this dynamic of like also even the threat of sexual violence is pushing Palestinian families to leave because they're worried about their children. They're worried about their. Exactly.

So, yeah. It's really interesting because settler violence, you know, it can come in several forms. It can be very explicit. They attack or threaten you. They attack your car. They kill your livestock. They burn your fields. They, you know, spread garbage on your crops.

quarter. Exactly. There's a million mechanisms. And what we're seeing lately is that added to that list is either sexual violence or, as you said, the threat of sexual violence. And in that piece, I recount how some families said that was the line for us. We were willing to stay. We were going to stay. We could deal with the physical attacks. But once it got to the point where I could no longer sleep because I was, I felt feared for my mother or my daughter or my sister or, you know, people in my family at the risk of this sexual violence that was threatened, we had to go. And so you can see how it is a tool of the ethnic cleansing that you pointed out, because it is a way to, without actually even doing, you know, enacting the violence, you can force people to leave their homes. And what happens after people leave their homes is settlers immediately take over that land. And we've seen that happen over and over again. Yeah. And it's not, it's not an empty threat because, like you said, they get away with it. So if they did enact the violence, so like these Pasoenian families are making rational choices. Rational choices, exactly. Yeah. It's just such a hard topic. Yeah, it is. And just to know,

we've barely even scratched the surface because so we know that because of, you know, religious and cultural context, many people who experience this are simply too ashamed, to shame. To shame. They certainly won't report to a researcher or even a field worker, even if they're a local Palestinian and this happened to them. So undoubtedly, this is happening to people and not being reported at a much wider scale than these publicly reported stories. Yeah, absolutely. I always think also like first of interfalda, second interfaula, like sexual violence was used and they weaponized that shame. They weaponized that secrecy. Right. And now we're just seeing it at such a scale that there are some brave people who are ringing it to our attention. That's a great point. It's become so

unavoidable and overt that people are even willing to kind of overlook or overcome that shame and stigma because I think one thing that Palestinians have been trying to say forever is look what they're doing to us. Please just look. At least acknowledge that you see that it's happening. And there's been a million instances of that and a million different, you know, ways that Palestinians have tried to tell their story. And this is now, unfortunately, a horrific part of that story. Radio experience. Carly Pierce, live at the Opera House, October 16th. Win your way in to the exclusive IHeart Radio Soundcheck Party, an intimate pre-show performance and Q&A. And then stay for the full show.

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We get real about marriage, parenthood, sex, divorce, and all the nitty-gritty stuff we all think about, but just don't say out loud. that job. You're probably just going to meet with some rich guy and he's going to whisk you away and I'll never see you again. And, oh, wow. Well, this is awkward. Would you say a D-less actor? D? I don't even know there's this thing as D. No, no, no. I mean, like, I can't even get on the C-list. Like, I'm not even average. I'm not even passing. I'm failing. Listen to no safe words with October and Tony Gonzalez, part of My Culture Podcast Network. Available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Finally for the publication current history in an essay titled,

When Health is the Target, Violence Restriction, and Neglect in Palestine, you examine the systematic degradation of the healthcare infrastructure that's long been used, as we've been saying, as a political and military tool against Palestinians. And you describe a lot of the tactics we just talked about. But could you explain to us specifically in this last part what de-development means and how Israel is pursuing that goal? Yes, definitely.

And so de-development is kind of been, especially as it refers to specifically Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, was a term coined by political economist Sarah Roy, which described not an underdevelopment, which you would see with, you know, lack of money, lack of financial ability to build better things, to do more, but an active de-development, which basically placed a ceiling on the level of development, the Palestinians had. So it wasn't suddenly about how much aid was coming in or how educated Palestinians are. Do you have the specialists that can do this or that? Do you have college educated people? As we know, Palestinians are among the most educated populations in the Middle East.

Lack of skill was never an issue. But through primarily this system of movement restrictions, import restrictions, preventing the movement of people in and out of Palestinian territory, Israel has been able to de-develop, first Dr. Roy referred to this in the Palestinian economy. So Palestinians used to have a, you know, it was a small territory, but a relatively important role and, you know, importing olives and olive oil and olive soap. Gaza had its strawberries. You know, Yaffa had its oranges. It was a country, it was a place, I suppose, that was active in terms of a global market.

And through first the Nekba and the establishment of the state of Israel, but especially through the occupation, and then of course through the economic restrictions of Oslo, Israel has been able to essentially, with a metaphorical dial, control how the Palestinian economy could grow. And by preventing, you know, collecting taxes, withholding taxes, preventing import of goods. So, you know, you want to be an entrepreneur. how are you going to import the goods that you're going to sell? How are you going to export the goods that you create? And we started seeing this across sectors, the agricultural sector. Palestinians couldn't import the fertilizer and the seeds that they needed. They were, you know, the land was getting smaller and smaller. So what we're seeing in the Palestinian healthcare system is this same de-development phenomenon. How it's enacted in the health sector is in a multitude of ways. So they

They prevent literal building materials from entering the territories, particularly Gaza. I mean, we're talking cement. We're talking wires, pipes. They prevent import of those materials that would build the infrastructure that we need. But of course, infrastructure is not all the health system needs. You need educated staff and providers. They have limited the types, especially in the Gaza Strip of specialties that medical schools can teach because they simply don't have the equipment or they don't have the staff. Then they prevent Palestinians from being able to leave to get that training and then return to the Gaza Strip. So part of what has been so horrific to witness in Gaza is not just the killing of health workers, but so many of them who had experienced, who were

specialists, who had gotten training in Switzerland or Saudi Arabia or somewhere come back to Gaza. Now what we're seeing in Gaza is of the remaining health care system. A lot of it is new graduates or trainees. You have lost decades upon decades of experience of wisdom, heads of departments, deans of medical schools, you know, these people that kind of had the infrastructural knowledge and know how and knew how to make things work and knew how to connect people together. You strip all that away. You have a quote unquote health system, but it's very limited in what it can do. In the Gaza Strip, you had limitations on import of pet scanners and CT scanners because of the argument that Hamas could use materials from that equipment to dot dot security risk, right?

Don't ask questions. We've seen limited amount of import in the West Bank. In the West Bank, we also see destruction of ambulances, attacks on paramedics. Paramedics of the Palestinian Red Crescent are now wearing bulletproof vests. We're seeing, as you noted, ambulances and other people stopped at checkpoints. There have been hundreds of births by birthing mothers at checkpoints who are on their way to the hospital. I include, as part of the de-development of the health sector, the kind of environmental degradation. So health includes your ability to eat good, nutritious, clean food. It includes your ability to drink water. You know, the West Bank is under significant water restrictions at all times, essentially. And in the Gaza Strip, there's very little clean water,

even prior to the genocide. It's something like 95% of the water was non-potable and had to go through different treatment facilities. You know, sewage in the streets, lack of public services, I mean, I could really go on and on. So through its system of deprivation and restriction, Israel has essentially created a healthcare system that is never operating at 100%.

So even when the WHO talks about fully functional Palestinian hospitals, there was still so much they could not do that their colleagues in Jordan or Lebanon or Syria or, any other country, even in the region, can do simply because they can get the tools, they can get the specialists, they can get the skills. It's not a matter of, again, more money. We don't need more humanitarian agencies on the ground. It's Israeli restrictions that are purposefully kind of creating this environment where there is a ceiling to how well the health system can do. And so the kind of pressure valve for that was the medical permits. So a huge part of the Palestinian Authority's

budget towards the health ministry was paying for Palestinians to leave Palestine and in some cases get care in Israel. So, I mean, think about the logic of that. You have a struggling health system and sometimes your best option for patients is to pay your occupier. Exactly. Pay the occupying power or pay the Jordanians. You know, Jordan has an entire corridor for Palestinian patients because it takes so many of them. Similar Egypt has a specific hospital. that are well known for taking Palestinian patients, much of the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, which used to be the heart,

the beating heart of the Palestinian healthcare system, was severed from the West Bank, especially after the second intifada. And now Palestinians, even that live in Ramallah, or Bethlehem that are, what, 45 minutes away, it takes weeks or months of waiting to get a permit. And then it's not just you that needs a permit. Let's say you're sick.

Maybe you want your partner to come with you, or maybe you want your mother to come with you. Or maybe your child is sick, and they need you, of course, to come with you. Israel also controls the companion permits, and sometimes that is an entirely separate process. And then you need a permit for every visit. So there is not a single aspect of health care, whether it's in a Palestinian hospital, in Palestinian territory, broadly speaking, or needing to leave Palestine to get care somewhere else that Israel has not actively de-developed through deprivation and restriction.

And so that is what we talk about when we say, it's not just, oh, this is a war-torn country. And if only they had more aid, if only they had more this and that, things would be better. No, this is a artificial situation policy created by the Israeli state. And, I mean, I guess fortunately for us, they've only become more explicit about saying what their goals are, which is this, what they're calling voluntary immigration, but is essentially kicking Palestinians out of the land so that they can take it. and they have utilized every sector, education, agriculture, economy, and health to enact that goal. And by, you know, public surveys and by what we're seeing, it is successful. There have been hundreds of villages ethnically cleansed in the West Bank in just the past few years. More than, what, 60% of the Gaza Strip is now basically inaccessible to people in Gaza.

And we have seen polls of younger Palestinians who are saying, I can't do this. I can't live here anymore. If an opportunity comes for me to go somewhere else, to study somewhere else, to get a job somewhere else, I'm going to take it. And this is the voluntary, quote unquote, immigration that the Israeli authorities are talking about, making life so difficult such that anything you need is a challenge. Every journey when you leave your house is a question. Will I come home? How long will it take? You know, my son wants to go to a wedding in a neighboring village. What will happen to him? I'm having, you know, cramping while I'm pregnant.

Should I go to the hospital and risk it or should I just stay home and see what happens? I mean, just think about like the daily stress and decision. Palestinians. The grind, yeah. It's unimaginable. And, you know, I haven't even talked about mental health yet with you. I know. I mean, that's a whole other aspect of this.

We need you back on a different episode just like talk through like every single aspect of this because it's like, I am Palestinian. I was born in Columbia Hospital. Like, I lived there. Yeah. And I still can't fathom. how bad it has gotten. I don't understand how people are living.

I don't understand they've been under attack to this level. Yeah, I will say, you know, my family is primarily in the north, in and around Nablus. And, I mean, some of the elders in my family, you know, they, and I've said this many times lately, they lived through 67, they remember the jets flying over the village, they lived through the first Intifada, they lived through Oslo, they lived through the second Intifada, without exception, they are reporting that now is the worst I can remember. And for the first time, because as you know, it's like a very Palestinian, you know, Samud, right?

I would rather stay and die on this land than go somewhere else. That is like such a rally and cry, yeah. Cultural thing that you grow up with. But for the first time, they're saying, I don't know if we can expect the next generations to do what we did. No one's getting paid. And if you are getting paid, there's very little to buy. And if you can buy something, you worry about going to the store. I mean, it's every level of life. And imagine raising a child trying to go to work. And, you know, the settlers, just the knowledge that they are out there. People are so terrified of going anywhere. I mean, not even leaving the village or the town, leaving your house. If you live near a settlement, leaving your house is a threat. Yeah. And they'll come to your house too. don't worry about it. You stay in your house, they'll also come. Right. Yeah, it's very bleak. I apologize that we ended on such a bleak note, but this is really the reality facing Palestinians.

No, it's important. Yeah. And I really appreciate your time breaking all this down for us that this is such a crisis on so many levels. But yes, like health, like human health and the human condition is so under attack in both territories. But thank you so much, Yato, for your time. I really appreciate it. No, thank you for having me and for asking, you know, I think such detailed questions so that we can, I mean, I feel like we've barely scratched the surface, but hopefully your audience has a good look at just how holistic and comprehensive the current emergency is. You know, this is we're past the point of, is this a humanitarian crisis? What is a political solution? This is an existential crisis for Palestinians at this point. And what happens in the next few years will, I think, really determine what happens to us as a people.

Yeah, no, I agree and hope that it isn't too late. Yeah. Thank you again. Thank you for having me. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. There should not be a single law enforcement agency. It does not have body cameras. It's real. Black farmers have been under attack. This is just the latest example of them just slapping DEI on anything. It's raw.

And I'm sitting here going, they are playing y'all for fools. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. I believe that whoever was in that room and did that was a murderer. A new podcast series, Faultline Haditha, tells the story of a shocking crime and a cover-up at the highest levels of the United States Marine Corps. If you've got five players and you offer immunity to four, you better be right about the fifth. Because if you're not, then you've just given immunity to your killer.

Listen to Faultline Haditha on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The new NFL season is here. And you should be listening to NFL Daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61. It is in the name NFL Daily. You'll have fresh content in your feed every day all season long. That game winning drive. Maybe it's Herbert. Maybe it's Gino.

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Listen to NFL Pro on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On recent episodes of The Questlove Show, I chatted with Jojo about her music and Wallo 267 about his story, everything in between. Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave it out, or too little too late, or baby it's you. Oh, no. And I'm going to be like, okay, cool. Check out my conversation with Jojo, Wolo 267, and more on the Questlove show.

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