Today an international United Nations staff member was killed in Gaza.
In Rafah, to be exact.
Rafah, of course, is a border town in Gaza that is very much at play right now,
considering the fact that Israel wants to carry out a ground invasion,
and the United States has temporarily halted weapons shipments to Israel
over its disagreement with Israel doing a ground invasion there.
Now, the UN staff member and others were traveling in a car that was marked
with a United Nations flag, just like the humanitarian aid workers
for the World Central Kitchen were in a convoy of, you know, trucks that were
clearly marked with World Central Kitchen.
And of course, they were hit with three back to back drone strikes,
killing seven people.
Now, this incident that happened today marks the first death
of an international UN staff worker since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
Now the story just broke and I'm sure more details will develop in coming days.
But here's what we know for now, based on what we're hearing from Farhan Haq,
who is the deputy spokesman for the United Nations secretary general.
He told the Washington Post that the following.
So Hok confirmed that the staff member was the first international UN casualty since
the beginning of the war on October 7th.
The name of the name and nationality of the staff member have not been released.
The United Nations did not say who they believed
was responsible for the attack, and I think that is the responsible thing to do.
This just happened.
And so there should be at least a little bit of an investigation
before they place blame.
We can speculate, though.
Now, Hawk also told The Washington Post that we informed the Israeli side
of the movement of our convoys.
They are all clearly marked UN vehicles. I'm not surprised by that.
That is what we've heard from humanitarian aid workers that have
been targeted by Israeli Defense Forces.
And so here you have a UN truck that was clearly marked.
The post reports that the vehicle had UN lettering on the truck in front doors.
You're looking at the truck with the bullet holes as we speak, and there's
also a UN flag posted above the gas hub.
Now, another UN staffer was also injured in the attack.
They're currently receiving medical treatment,
according to The Washington Post.
Video footage captured in front of the emergency department of the European
Hospital, where the injured UN worker is reportedly receiving medical treatment,
showed the aftermath of Monday's attack.
Bullet holes, as you all saw from the video, are visible
in the rear windows of the vehicle.
Now, Hawk has called for a full investigation into the incident,
and I think that full investigation absolutely needs to happen again.
I want to make sure, you know, we don't know for sure who did
this attack, but let's hear from the IDF.
They've responded to questions, and they say that an initial inquiry indicates that
the vehicle was hit in an area declared an active combat zone, said a spokesperson
for the Israeli Defense Forces, who added that the IDF had not been
made aware of the route of the vehicle.
The spokesperson said the incident is under review now.
This is very similar to what we've heard from the IDF in other incidents
where innocent people have been killed, including humanitarian aid workers
and journalists.
And so you should take what they're claiming here with a grain of salt.
But I do think the words combat zone should spark some memories
of stories we've done recently.
Because remember, Haaretz, an Israeli publication, had reported some weeks ago
that the IDF kills any living thing that enters an active combat zone, but they
don't tell anyone where the active combat zones are, and so innocent civilians
might enter a combat zone unwittingly, and they get killed immediately.
And so hearing the IDF referred to this area as an active combat zone concerns me.
So was I'm curious what you think about this story.
Obviously it's still developing and we don't know for sure who carried
out this attack, but recent history might give us some reason to believe
that it could be the idea, pausing.
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However you feel about the war, whether you think it's justified, if
you're like, you know, pro-Israeli regime and you think how they're prosecuting
the war is justified or not, whatever side of that you're on,
I don't think there's any reading of how they've prosecuted this war as them
being precise or discerning or like anything but brutal and indiscriminate,
like the idea that you could kill aid workers, you're killing U.N.
Workers.
It just shows that, like the way that you're going about prosecuting this thing
just doesn't take anything that we would call humanity
and being humane, into consideration.
It just doesn't feel that way.
And I think that's what people are bumping up against when it's like, yo, why is our
government basically giving them a blank check to prosecute this war with our
tax dollars and helping them commit what a lot of people think a lot of smarter
people than me think are war crimes.
And this incident just falls right in line with that train of thought.
For me, it just feels like what they're doing over there
is just completely brutal.
And like, they just they're taking no prisoners and it's awful.
And I don't know how you see a war like this get carried out against the people
and not think it's pretty messed up.
Like, I mean, like you don't even have to have a politics about it.
It's like the way they're doing it seems just so awful.
I mean, I just.
Put aside where where anyone falls on whether they consider themselves Zionist,
whether they support the formation of Israel or not, that that actually doesn't
really matter when you're analyzing what's happening on the ground in Gaza right now,
even the most ardent Israel supporter, can they really say that the way
the IDF has carried out this war is just can they really, with a straight face,
allege that this is the most moral military that is going to extreme
lengths to protect civilian lives?
I mean, over 100 journalists dead, killed in Gaza,
most of them Al Jazeera journalists.
And at the same time, you know, Israel has just banned Al Jazeera
from operating overall in Israel banned.
And so you want me to believe that over 100 journalists who were killed
in Gaza were killed accidentally?
Really?
And if that's the case, could it be that maybe dropping 2,000 pound bombs
in a densely populated area isn't the isn't the best way to carry out this war?
So you prevent the loss of civilian lives.
I'm not a military expert, but I would venture to say
that the 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs were not appropriate for Gaza.
But it was an easy solution if you want to
minimize the number of, you know, soldiers
dying on the IDF side and maximize damage
in Gaza, make it uninhabitable, right?
Just level residential areas, level, refugee camps level, the hospitals level,
the you know, it goes on and on, the hospitals, the mosques, the churches.
There was a Greek Orthodox church that was bombed.
It just goes on and on and on.
And so when you see Americans start to speak up, it's not necessarily because
they're against Israel, it's because they don't feel comfortable seeing their
hard earned tax money fund a war that they might have felt would be just in the
beginning, but now feel as deeply unjust, given how careless the IDF has been
with civilian lives, with the lives of humanitarian aid workers, with the lives
of journalists, with the lives of.
And now we're hearing about UN workers getting killed.
It's insanity.
So for me, like the debate about Zionism or no Zionism,
that's kind of in the periphery.
The moment that we're experiencing right now in Gaza and the way the war
is being carried out in Gaza, I want to ask the people who are
ardent supporters, supporters of Israel, are you okay with this?
And do you really, genuinely think this is just.
And if they do, man, they've got those blinders on.
Because I would venture to say that if Russia was doing the exact
same thing and killing as many civilians in a short period of time like the IDF
has, oh, they'd speak up and they'd have deep concerns about it.
But for some reason, there's a double standard that I don't really understand.
And they can't really explain it.
So they just shout you down and accuse you of being an anti-Semite.
Like it's just ridiculous.
And by the way, Israel's a sovereign country, pretty wealthy country.
If they if they want to prosecute a war against their neighbors in a far off land,
that's their prerogative.
I don't think it like if we went to war with Mexico tomorrow, they couldn't.
There's not a country on earth that could tell us, oh, you need to stop that.
Like you can't do that.
Like it kind of just be what we were doing, right?
Like, all right, cool. Carry out your war.
But why should American people be paying for a foreign war?
It doesn't make any sense.
Like, look, one, I think the Israeli regime is doing
generally what their population wants.
Their people are with them on this.
So I think that's something that people on the left don't like to,
like, readily admit.
But it's like, bro, like they're responding to the wants of their people.
And you might say, hey, those people are like, really blood thirsty right now.
And a very vulnerable moment for them post October 7th.
Sure, you can make that argument, but the bottom line is
this war is popular in Israel.
And so like, again, like to me it's just like, all right, these folks should
be able to carry out their popular war.
Go ahead.
But again, I don't understand why our country should be footing the bill,
why our country should be doing so much of the heavy lifting on this thing.
- It just makes no sense to me. - Yeah, I totally agree with you.
And I think a lot of Americans feel the way that you're feeling right now.
And by the way, Israel in 2022 had an economic surplus.
Did you know that? I didn't know that until this weekend.
- I did. - Not know that. 2022.
They're like, I know.
That their government put out a report, a statement.
They're like, oh, we're killing it. We're killing.
It. And it's like, we we've had a deficit since 2001.
What are we doing? Why are we?
Why are we giving Israel?
For aside from this war and the additional military funding
we've provided Israel during this war?
We've been giving them $4 billion a year in foreign aid.
They had a surplus in 2022.
Now that's been reversed because of the war.
But man, it is a I don't think most Americans know that.
I think most Americans think of Israel as like this small, weak, you know,
defenseless little country that.
- But that's the propaganda, though it is. - And it is, of.
Course, it's the little country that could amongst all of these,
you know, terrible Arab neighbors.
They're the only democracy, their neighbors hate them, even though they're
in league with the Saudis, even though the UAE is their peoples, even though Egypt
has been, you know, basically, like made up with these guys decades ago, like, you
know, but that's part of the propaganda is this little country that could and not
a really rich and prosperous country who has the backing of the greatest
empire in the history of humanity.
Okay. Yeah.
It's it's nuts.
And Netanyahu dropped the ball on October 7th.
Okay.
Why was Hamas able to do what it did for six hours without a response from the IDF?
Okay. It's just.
Is he going to take any personal responsibility
for how badly he failed Israelis?
No, he'll never do that.
It's just it's gross. All of it is gross.
And it's really sad to see it. Thanks for watching.
The Young Turks really appreciate it.
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