Latest / The Front / Claims of starvation - and disinformation - in Gaza

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Claims of starvation - and disinformation - in Gaza · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, July twenty nine, twenty twenty five. Gay and
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  Speaker 1: trans rights lobby group Equality Australia wants the Federal Court
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  Speaker 1: to rule that women only spaces are unlawful. The advocates
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  Speaker 1: are seeking to join a trans woman, Roxanne Tickle, who's
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  Speaker 1: locked in a legal battle with the founder of a
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  Speaker 1: women only app Giggle. That's an exclusive live at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au right now. Palestinian activists want
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  Speaker 1: to march across the Sydney Harbor Bridge this weekend. Bartney
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  Speaker 1: South Wales Premier Chris Minn says he won't allow it.
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  Speaker 1: That says Anthony Alberanizi says Australia is in talks with
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  Speaker 1: other countries about recognition of Palestinian statehood, but warns it's
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  Speaker 1: only worth doing if it advances the cause of peace.
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  Speaker 1: Food aid is falling from the skies over Gaza as
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  Speaker 1: Israel pauses hostilities to allow Jordan and the United Arab
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  Speaker 1: Emirates to deliver humanitarian assistance. It comes amid shocking scenes
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  Speaker 1: of desperation and malnutrition, and international condemnation of Israel, but
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  Speaker 1: Israel says Hamas is deliberately contributing to the suffering of Gazans. Today,
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  Speaker 1: Chief International Correspondent Cameron Stewart joins me to step through
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  Speaker 1: this complex situation and work out how it all went
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  Speaker 1: so wrong. Can We're nearly two years into Israel's war
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  Speaker 1: on Hamas and the scenes coming out of Gaza just
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  Speaker 1: getting more and more distressing by the day, don't they?
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  Speaker 2: They certainly do this almost the height of I think
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  Speaker 2: the separation between a lot of the international community and
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  Speaker 2: Israel as far as what's happening in Gaza, probably the
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  Speaker 2: most shocking scenes we've had yet in this war.
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  Speaker 3: AID agencies have been warning that mass starvation is taking
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  Speaker 3: hold in Gaza.
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  Speaker 1: Footage released by the Israeli military showing its plains dropping
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  Speaker 1: seven packages of aid into Gaza, where two million people
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  Speaker 1: are facing a hunger crisis.
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  Speaker 2: Jordan says it's parachuted twenty five tons of aid into Gaza.
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  Speaker 3: Israel says it has air dropped aid two. Israel As
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  Speaker 3: presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation
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  Speaker 3: in Gaza. What a bold face lie. There is no
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  Speaker 3: policy of starvation in Gaza. And there is no starvation
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  Speaker 3: in Gaza.
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  Speaker 1: Gaza's not self sufficient for food. It's a very small territory.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, there's simply not enough farming land to produce
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  Speaker 1: the amount of food that the population would require, and
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  Speaker 1: so food has always had to be brought in, and
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  Speaker 1: it's mainly in the past come in by truck that
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  Speaker 1: was previously distributed by the United Nations and private charities,
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  Speaker 1: and they had a huge number hundreds of sites to
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  Speaker 1: distribute that aid from. Why did that system break down
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  Speaker 1: in the first place, camp The.
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  Speaker 2: System broke down partly because Israel was very wary of
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  Speaker 2: letting in too many of those trucks. They felt that
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  Speaker 2: Hamas was skimming and stealing a lot of that aid
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  Speaker 2: from the UN agencies. Un agencies denied that, so we
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  Speaker 2: had a bit of a he said, she said situation there.
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  Speaker 2: But these Israeli military placed quite a few restrictions on
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  Speaker 2: the routes that those trucks could take into Gaza, and
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  Speaker 2: they very carefully examined those trucks before they went in.
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  Speaker 2: All of this sort of stuff slowed down that delivery
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  Speaker 2: of aid, and effectively, not enough aid was coming in
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  Speaker 2: to feed the population. But the main concern about it
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  Speaker 2: was simply that the Israelis were concerned that Hamas was
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  Speaker 2: stealing and profiting off this aid. This story of this
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  Speaker 2: escalation to the problem that we're seeing now Claire really
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  Speaker 2: began in March, and that's when Benjamin Ettiahu's government made
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  Speaker 2: a big decision and a very controversial and even though
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  Speaker 2: it didn't attract a lot of attention at the time,
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  Speaker 2: and that was to basically cut aid going into Gaza. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the thinking behind it from the government's point of view
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  Speaker 2: Israeli government was that was they hadn't defeated Hamas militarily,
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  Speaker 2: but Hamas was skimming off AID supplies as they came
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  Speaker 2: into Gaza and then reselling that AID back to the
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  Speaker 2: population for a lot of money and basically using that
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  Speaker 2: money to help finance their war. Now, the Israelis wanted
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  Speaker 2: to find a way to get that to stop, and
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  Speaker 2: they thought that if they stopped AID coming into Gaza,
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  Speaker 2: then that would weaken the revenue stream for Hamas and
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  Speaker 2: also potentially make the population rise up against Tamas. I
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  Speaker 2: think they were the two assumptions that the Israeli government had.
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  Speaker 2: But then just about two months ago, the Israelis to
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  Speaker 2: try and stop a mask getting any aid coming in.
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  Speaker 2: Decided to to create a new aid system which was
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  Speaker 2: going to cut Hamas out as a middleman, if you like.
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  Speaker 2: It was called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Fairly unclear the
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  Speaker 2: origins to this organization, but it is backed by the
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  Speaker 2: US and Israel. And what it does is there's three
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  Speaker 2: station points in Gaza, and Israeli troops are in the
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  Speaker 2: periphery of each of those points to prevent Hamas from
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  Speaker 2: taking the aid. And that has been the distribution point
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  Speaker 2: for about the last two months in Gaza. But it
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  Speaker 2: has not worked because it has basically failed to produce
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  Speaker 2: enough aid to feed the population. And the people of
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  Speaker 2: Gaza have to walk to these three places along various
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  Speaker 2: routes which cross Israeli lines and military lines of various points.
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  Speaker 2: So there's been confusion, there's been shootings, there's been deaths,
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  Speaker 2: and because now the hunger level in Gaza has reached
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  Speaker 2: extreme point, we're seeing desperate scenes of mobs of Gazans
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  Speaker 2: literally rieting to get whatever aid is available. Again that
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  Speaker 2: has caused shooting and chaos. So it just isn't enough.
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  Speaker 2: It's too little, too late.
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  Speaker 1: One of the complexities of Gaza. Cam is that Hamas
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  Speaker 1: the government that was elected many years ago and no
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  Speaker 1: elections have been held since. Hamas runs everything in Gaza,
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  Speaker 1: It runs the health ministry, it runs the schools. How
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  Speaker 1: is it possible to differentiate Hamas personnel from everybody else.
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  Speaker 2: It's very difficult. And the calculation of Benjamin etnier who
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  Speaker 2: really was that, you know, you get hunger into the
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  Speaker 2: territory and Hamas will lose, well, they will be the
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  Speaker 2: loser from this. But Hamas is still not surrendered power
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  Speaker 2: and the people of Gaza are in the starvation conditions.
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  Speaker 2: So that has been an assumption by Benjamin Attniero that
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  Speaker 2: simply hasn't worked.
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  Speaker 1: In a way that's also played into Massa's hands, hasn't it. Cam.
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  Speaker 1: One of the goals of the October seven attack on
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  Speaker 1: Israel was to precipitate a response from Israel that would
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  Speaker 1: galvanize world opinion against Israel. That worked, and now this
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  Speaker 1: has worked again to incite international revulsion about Israel.
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  Speaker 2: That's true. Her Massus absolutely exploited this situation to the maximum.
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  Speaker 2: And you know they are using this situation to highlight
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  Speaker 2: the fact of Garzan's starving and knowing that it really
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  Speaker 2: is creating a huge international backlash against Israel, which of
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  Speaker 2: course suits a mass, which of course is hugely hypocritical,
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  Speaker 2: and her mass's pass given that they actually created this
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  Speaker 2: entire conflict with their attack on Israel on October seven,
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, knew that there would be a massive
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  Speaker 2: attack on their own people by Israel, and this is
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  Speaker 2: really the latest chapter in this tragedy.
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  Speaker 1: There have been numerous deaths at AID sites, and Israel
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  Speaker 1: has said on various occasions that its forces have opened
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  Speaker 1: fire on people attempting to get aid. What's your sense
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  Speaker 1: of why those things have unfolded. Is this a case
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  Speaker 1: of soldiers panicking or is there something more sinister at play.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's a mixture of things. The aid distribution
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  Speaker 2: points have not been organized nearly as well as they
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  Speaker 2: should have been. There's not enough of them. There are
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  Speaker 2: too many Ghazans who are hungry who are trying to
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  Speaker 2: get to them. And also the Israelis have been very
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  Speaker 2: prescriptive about the roots that the people have to walk
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  Speaker 2: to get to these centers, and if they cross military
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  Speaker 2: lines often they get fired on. I think that the
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  Speaker 2: AID centers were set up by Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
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  Speaker 2: for good reasons to try and rob Hamas from stealing
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  Speaker 2: and taking the AID. I don't think they were set
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  Speaker 2: up for any worse purpose than that.
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  Speaker 1: Israel denies there's any starvation in Gaza and says there's
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  Speaker 1: misinformation being spread by Hamas, including photographs that they say misleading.
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  Speaker 1: There are also reports that one photo in particular that's
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  Speaker 1: been splashed on newspaper front pages around the world of
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  Speaker 1: an emaciated one year old boy in fact shows a
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  Speaker 1: child with cerebral palsy coming up Hamas wants the old
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  Speaker 1: un led system back. Is that the solution. One of
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  Speaker 1: Harmas's demands in the talks over a ceasefire is for
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  Speaker 1: an end to the guards of Humanitarian Foundation, which they
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  Speaker 1: regard as an Israeli puppet, and a return to having
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  Speaker 1: the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations distribute AID. Do
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  Speaker 1: you think that's something that Israel will ever agree to.
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  Speaker 2: I think that the obvious solution here, Claire, in lots
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  Speaker 2: of ways, is to open the valve at all levels
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  Speaker 2: until the hunger and the famiine conditions subside, and that
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  Speaker 2: is basically using the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as they're doing
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  Speaker 2: at the moment, but also opening the valves for the
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  Speaker 2: old UN system of the trucks coming in now. The
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  Speaker 2: problem with that is that Benjamin Ettner, who's right wing
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  Speaker 2: coalition partners, the more nationalist extreme version of his coalition,
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  Speaker 2: are very opposed to this. They say this is rewarding
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  Speaker 2: her mass because her mass will take the aid, they
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  Speaker 2: will skim it and the old problems will remain. So
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  Speaker 2: he's got a revolt on his side of politics against
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  Speaker 2: this concept of opening all the valves and just getting
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  Speaker 2: lots of aid into Gaza. The real danger for Benjaminettier,
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  Speaker 2: who is not just his right wing coalition partners, but
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been increasingly frustrated with Benjaminettnier,
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  Speaker 2: who and the war in Gaza, the fact that it
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  Speaker 2: continues on without solution, and I think these terrible images
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  Speaker 2: of malnourished children coming out of Gaza really makes it
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  Speaker 2: quite possible that Trump will lose patience with Netanyahu, and
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  Speaker 2: I think that is a real danger for NTNYA, who
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  Speaker 2: was in pursuing this policy.
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  Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. You can
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  Speaker 1: read his reporting and analysis anytime at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot a