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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
An estimated 7 million people took part in “No Kings” rallies on Saturday. We’re going to go to that in our next segment, but right now we remain talking about Israel and Gaza. As we have reported, Israel carried out a wave of deadly attacks in Gaza over the weekend, temporarily halting aid deliveries, but Israel is now saying it’s going to resume enforcement of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. This comes as both the U.S. envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are in Israel awaiting JD Vance to arrive.
For more, we go to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Sari Bashi, an Israeli American human rights lawyer, former program director at Human Rights Watch. Her forthcoming memoir, Upside-Down Love, tells the unlikely story of how she fell in love with her Palestinian spouse.
We welcome you back to Democracy Now!, Sari. You have been following the Palestinian prisoners who have been released. We have this overnight news of Israel killing something like 40 Palestinians, Sunday to today. They said it was in response to two Israeli soldiers being killed, but it’s unclear whether they were killed as a result of their tank rolling over a unexploded ordnance. What do you know? And then tell us about the prisoners, released not only in Gaza, but in Ramallah.
SARI BASHI: Thank you.
So, on the ceasefire deal, my main concern is that things that are absolute obligations to civilians, like, for example, humanitarian aid, like, for example, avoiding unlawful attacks on families in cars, are being used as bargaining chips in political negotiations over the ceasefire. And if there is one thing that the last two years have taught us, it is that obligations to civilians cannot be used as leverage.
So, in response to allegations of violations of the ceasefire, the Israeli military stopped humanitarian aid to Gaza yesterday, despite having promised to allow in at least 600 trucks every day to a starving population. It is up to the United States to ensure that whatever happens with this ceasefire deal, that nobody quite knows what it means, obligations to civilians continue to be fulfilled, and that no matter what Hamas does, the Israeli government does not starve children in Gaza in response. Reportedly, the Israeli government agreed today to resume humanitarian aid in response to U.S. pressure. So, when the U.S. government wants to, they can, and they should, insist on obligations to civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the prisoners. We have heard and seen the incredibly moving reunions of Israeli hostages returned to their families. We know their stories, their names. Deeply emotional. But when we see the Palestinian prisoners released in bus after bus — we’re talking about nearly 2,000 — we do not know these stories. Talk about the condition of the men that have been released, Sari.
SARI BASHI: So, it’s not only men. It’s also women and children. Even after having released almost 2,000 people last week, the Israeli military is still holding about 9,000 Palestinians, in what it calls security prisoners or detainees. Only about a thousand of them have actually been committed of any crime — convicted of any crime. The vast majority of people being held are being held without trial, either in what’s called administrative detention, for the West Bank, or the Unlawful Combatants Law, for folks from Gaza. That means that there’s no allegation that they’ve committed a crime. They’re being held on a charge of dangerousness, that is backed by secret evidence that neither they nor their lawyers can either see or challenge. It is an arbitrary system in which every day, including yesterday, the Israeli military is rounding up more and more Palestinians in the West — from the West Bank now and just refilling those detention and prison cells, where people are subject to serious abuse.
For the last two years, at the request of Israel’s police minister, the conditions, that were already bad for Palestinian prisoners, have been worsened. Food rations have been reduced. Israel has unlawfully suspended both family visits as well as visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is supposed to ensure humane treatment. And there have been persistent, credible and systematic reports of rape, starvation and torture. People are coming out of those prisons badly malnourished, with scabies. Dozens have died in detention. There has been no accountability, no investigations. And that needs to change for the 9,000 people who are still being held.
AMY GOODMAN: And I just want to clarify a number. When you said 1,000 have been convicted of crimes, of the 1,700 released to Gaza, almost none have been convicted. Is that right? But you’re saying of the people who are being held in prison. Is this the largest prison population of Palestinians in Israeli jails for decades?
SARI BASHI: Yes. And what happened last week was 250 people who had been convicted of crimes, as well as 1,700 who were being held without charge or trial, were released. Still, even after that release, Israel is still holding about 9,000 prisoners. About 1,200 have actually been convicted of crimes. Another few thousand are in pretrial detention, and the majority are being held without trial, either under administrative detention or the Unlawful Combatants Law. This process completely lacks transparency or due process.
And what’s most worrying is that the Israeli government is not allowing neutral humanitarian actors, like the International Committee of the Red Cross, to visit to ensure that conditions are humane. And based on the fact that some people who were released were released directly to the hospital, they are not humane. And that needs to end.
AMY GOODMAN: Sari, you wrote a deeply moving piece in The New York Times in August, and it’s about your relationship with your husband. The article, the headline, one marriage — “Our Marriage Includes an Emergency Backpack.” Your husband is from Gaza, but you live in Ramallah. If you could summarize how your husband is dealing with everything that’s happening right now, and his relationship to Gaza as he stays in Ramallah?
SARI BASHI: Look, it’s been hell. And this is, you know, a relationship that I also explore in my forthcoming memoir, Upside-Down Love, which will be out in January. His whole family is in Gaza. Their homes have been destroyed. They’ve lost weight. My sister-in-law, for her, the timing of the ceasefire is unbearable. Her son was killed two-and-a-half weeks before it went into effect. And so, for her, it was almost not too late, and then it was.
There is no way of describing the anguish that he and so many others have felt living next to a genocide, knowing that the people he cares the most about at any moment could be killed, knowing that we sit down to a family dinner and we eat, but we know that his siblings don’t have enough food. I pray that that will end. I pray that the United States will finally put an end to that and require the Israeli government to fulfill its obligations to civilians in Gaza, in particular to allow humanitarian aid in.
AMY GOODMAN: Sari Bashi, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Israeli American human rights lawyer, former program director at Human Rights Watch, speaking to us from Jerusalem.
When we come back, some 7 million march at “No Kings” rallies across the United States, believed to be one of the largest protests in U.S. history. We’ll hear voices from the streets of D.C., and we’ll speak in California with labor icon Dolores Huerta. Back in 20 seconds.
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AMY GOODMAN: “If I Was President” by Las Cafeteras, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.
