The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | March 1st, 2024: Gaza Aid Tragedy & Navalny Laid to Rest

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:    We look at the tragic incident in Gaza City where at least 100 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more injured as they swarmed dozens of trucks carrying humanitarian aid. Thousands of mourners defy Kremlin warnings to pay their respects to Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin.  Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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as his body is laid to rest at a church in southeast Moscow. I'll have the details on the service. And first, our afternoon spotlight. A chaotic scene unfolded in Western Gaza City on Thursday, as more than 100 people were reportedly killed and several hundred wounded when a convoy of trucks arrived from Egypt to distribute aid to Palestinian civilians. Now, there are several conflicting accounts about what exactly took place, but according to witnesses and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, people swarmed some 30 aid trucks

that had recently arrived from Egypt when Israeli forces started shooting. According to accounts, many of the victims died when they were run over by trucks or were trampled to death in the ensuing panic. When medics arrived at the scene, they reportedly found hundreds of people lying on the ground and there were not enough ambulances to collect all the dead and wounded. Now, according to the Israeli defense forces, troops on the scene fired warning shots at a mob of Palestinians who had rushed a humanitarian aid convoy, which resulted in the panic. IDF spokesman, Rearadmiel Daniel Hagarri, said thousands descended on

the trucks with some violently pushing and trampling other Gazans to death, looting the humanitarian supplies. Higari added that, quote, no IDF strike was conducted towards the aid convoy, end quote. Of course, Hamas is disputing the IDF's account of the incident. In a statement, the terror group claimed that the Hamas health ministry had presented evidence of, quote, direct firing its citizens. including headshots aimed at immediate killing. In addition to the testimonies of all witnesses who confirmed being targeted with direct fire without posing any threat to the occupying army. Now, even at this early stage, while there are conflicting accounts, the incident has led to an international outcry with the Palestinian United Nations ambassador describing it as,

quote, an outrageous massacre. European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Joseph Borrell said the deaths were totally unacceptable. The U.S. State Department said Thursday that the U.S. would be pressing Israel for answers as they conduct an investigation. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing, quote, far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed over the course of this conflict, not just today, but over the past nearly five months, end quote. When asked about the incident, President Biden said that it needed to be investigated thoroughly and that it was likely to complicate any efforts to negotiate a ceasefire. That is a very reasoned statement. The point being, details right now are few and far between. The immediate headlines were based on Chmass's version,

and they have a lengthy track record of lying in pursuit of their objective to destroy Israel. However, if the IDF was responsible for a horrific incident that resulted in firing on innocent civilians, well, that needs to be highlighted and dealt with openly. But as with, any incident in a conflict zone, facts need to trump emotion. So the facts here need to be laid bare and then dealt with. In the immediate aftermath, the Wall Street Journal reports that Hamas has frozen communications with negotiators and has threatened to completely pull out of talks if a similar incident were to occur again, and that's according to Egyptian officials. Coming up after the break, thousands of mourners defied warnings from Putin's government

to pay their respects to the late Alexei Navalny, who died under mysterious circumstances at a Siberian penal colony last month. Now, in reality, the only mystery here is the question of just how the Putin regime killed Navalny. I'll have the details on the service when we come back. Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill?

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Restrictions apply. Welcome back to the afternoon bulletin. Despite warnings from the government, thousands of mourners came to pay their respects at the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny today. The rushed funeral service was held at an Orthodox church in southeastern Moscow. Russian authorities exerted tight control on the crowd of public mourners and thousands waited behind barriers and hopes of laying flowers on the coffin. Ultimately, mourners were barred from entering the church.

According to reports, Navalny's body was lowered into the ground as Frank Sinatra's My Way played in the background. Crowds of people gathered outside the cemetery, demanding to be let inside to pay their respects at the grave. Several Western ambassadors were among those who came to say goodbye to Navalny, including U.S. ambassador to Russia, Lynn Tracy, and envoys from France, Germany, and Australia. Navalny's family said that they struggled to organize a service. A spokesman for Navalny said on Thursday that less than 24 hours before the burial, funeral homes all refused to work with the family after receiving threatening phone calls. Who could those calls have come from? Even attempts to hire a hearse to transport his body to the funeral proved difficult. Navalny died on February 16th at the so-called Polar Wolf Penal Colony, which is a brutal Siberian prison, located about 20.

1,200 miles northeast of Moscow. The dissidents' family and many of his supporters claim that Russian President Putin was responsible for the 47-year-old's death. The Kremlin has denied any involvement, and his death certificate says he died of, wait for it, natural causes. Now, immediately after Navalny's death, there were a number of breathless media articles asking, what's next for Russia, as if Navalny's death would somehow create a seismic shift in Russia's leadership and future. The sad reality is, what's next for Russia? Well, more of the same. Until the Russian population decides that they don't want a precedent for life, Putin will continue acting as if he's untouchable, and he'll continue killing opponents and critics who dare get out of line, and he'll

continue pursuing his dream of cobbling together some version of the former Soviet Union. Okay, I also wanted to give you a quick update on the story of Kisenya Carolina that we've been following. She's the dualed U.S. Russian citizen that's been detained in Russia on charges of treason after she donated around $50, I believe the exact amount was $51.80 to a charity that sends aid to Ukraine. A court in Siberia on Thursday denied the 32-year-old Los Angeles Women's Appeal. According to reports in Russian state media, the judge rejected a request from a law. for Carolina, that she be released from detention to stay under house arrest with her parents before a trial. She'll now be held in pretrial detention until at least April. The U.S. State

Department is still trying to get consular access to Carolina, but those efforts have so far been rebuffed. Russian authorities don't recognize the notion of dual citizenship, so as a Russian citizen, they've ignored U.S. consular efforts to meet with her. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Friday 1 March. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. We love hearing from you here at the PDB, and your questions may end up on one of our regular mailbag episodes. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back on Monday.

Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool.