What Life is Like in Gaza; Will Recognition of a Palestinian State Make a Difference?

0:00Today on State of the World, what life is like in Gaza.

0:08You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. In a few minutes, we'll hear one expert's opinion on whether countries recognizing a Palestinian state will make a meaningful difference in the stalled peace process. First, for weeks, Israel has been advancing troops into the last urban area in Gaza it doesn't hold, Gaza City. NPR's Anas Baba reports on what life is like in Gaza City now. Tens of thousands of Israeli troops are advancing toward the heart of Gaza City under the cover of deadly airstrikes.

0:50The military's goals are to displace all of Gaza City residents and occupy it. Every day, the Al-Shifa hospital fills with bodies of the dead from Israel's attack on the city, once home to a million people, many of whom have fled. The situation is so bleak that this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross sent the hospital medical supplies along with 500 body bags. Entire families killed in Israeli attacks are being buried here on the grounds of the hospital. Because the city's graveyard can no longer be reached, some are in makeshift tombs, other buried in mass graves. Here, we can see that's the family of Al-Haddad, Adil, Marwa, Abdelkarim, Mohammed, Mahmoud, Tasneem, Sham, another two.

1:44And next to me, one of the relatives that he came today to sit to them, next to them. He picked some flowers from outside the hospital. Mu'min Haddad is holding red hibiscus flowers that's used to line the streets of Gaza City. He plants them atop fresh graves. He says there were nine people, four of them children, killed in the Israeli airstrike on his cousin's home. Two of the kids are buried here. The other two are missing under the rubble. Israel's military says it's targeting Hamas and using precise munition to mitigate harm to civilians.

2:26Haddad says his cousin Abdelkarim was his age, just 21. They were like brothers, but he says death has become a mercy in Gaza, a fate better than this life.

2:42Al-Shifa Hospital has seen mass graves before in the war. One was found on its courtyard after an Israeli raid that destroyed the complex. Haddad says the hospital has become a graveyard, and the graveyard has become the hospital.

3:02New graves are being dug here every day now. One is marked with the food boards of old hospital beds, another with window frames. The staff watch over the grave at night to keep stray dogs away. Muhammad Najjar is struggling to find clean drinking water for his three kids. Aid to the city is running dry.

3:29He says the decision in London and Paris recognized the state of Palestine has no real value if Israel's war here cannot be stopped. Anas Baba and Pure News, Gaza City. As Anas just mentioned, France, the UK, Canada, and others announced this week that they would recognize a Palestinian state. To talk about whether this step can make a meaningful difference in the lives of Palestinians, we're going to hear from Rector's professor Nora Erekat. She's a Palestinian-American and the author of Justice for Some, Law, and the Question of Palestine. She spoke to NPR's Ari Shapiro. What does international recognition of Palestine actually mean in practical terms for Palestinian people today?

4:15International recognition under international law means very little, especially for Palestinians who in 2012 were recognized by a majority of the General Assembly to be non-voting members of the United Nations. So international recognition at this stage actually means less than symbolism because those very states, one, are late to recognize Palestine per their legal obligations, but also they're doing it at a time when they're continuing to support Israel's genocide through the provision of arms and cover. For example, the UK is one of the most significant weapons providers to Israel, and they should be imposing an arms embargo at this moment.

5:01France, for its part, has said that it won't recognize necessarily the arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu by the ICC and has provided him airspace to fly over it. So at the same time that these countries are late to the game to recognize Palestine as a state, they're also part and parcel of the problem that continues to remove Palestinians from their lands in order for settlers to be able to take their place. Let me just recognize you referred to genocide. It's a legal term. While Israel has been accused, it has not been convicted. And also you mentioned the ICC. I want to note that's the International Criminal Court.

5:37You said that this is less than symbolism, that it is not going to have a positive impact. Could it have a negative impact? Because Israel has reacted with anger, saying that there has to be immediate countermeasures. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir has talked about possibly annexing the occupied West Bank. Do you think this could ultimately create a backlash that leaves Palestinian people worse off? Let me start by saying that I do think the one positive thing that comes out of this is that for the first time we're seeing European nations coalesce, consolidate their efforts in order to confront longstanding U.S.

6:13policy, which is to provide unequivocal support to Israel in its systematic human rights abuses and crimes against humanity against the Palestinians. The negative effects that you indicate, which is the backlash by Israel, should really concern everybody, that Israel is responding to its crimes that it's committing, the war crimes, crimes against humanity on the ground. You say alleged genocide, but many scholars and institutions have said that it was genocide, have responded to that by promising to commit more crimes through the annexation of the West Bank, which is the acquisition of territory by force.

6:50And so here we have exactly what the problem is, which is a context in which Israel has been able to act with impunity and rather than respond to this moment of international mobilization has basically told the international community, we're going to do even more and even worse. And there's nothing that you can do about it. You express this hope that Europe speaking loudly with one voice, along with other countries like Australia and Canada, can build momentum to some positive outcome for Palestinians. Can that happen as long as the U.S. remains a strong supporter of Israel, even if Israel and the U.S.

7:23become more isolated on the international stage? Can there be meaningful change for the lives of Palestinians as long as the U.S. continues to allow the Israeli government a free hand? The U.S. is certainly the primary obstacle to an outcome, to a multilateral outcome and an international resolution to the Palestinian condition of unfreedom. But the U.S. was also the last domino to fall when it came to protecting apartheid South Africa. So we have seen in the past that though the U.S. may be the primary objector, it isn't necessarily going to be the final determinant of whether or not a people are able to prevail in their liberation struggle.

7:59We heard European leaders say one reason they chose to recognize a Palestinian state is in order to protect the possibility of a two-state solution. Given the facts on the ground right now, from the devastation in Gaza to the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank, do you think there is still a path to that outcome? Ari, you know, I think the two-state solution as a label is so misleading because Israel has been admitted into the United Nations as a state since 1948. The Palestinian Liberation Organization recognized Israel in 1993. So when we say two-state solution, you're basically saying, is it possible to establish a Palestinian state?

8:37But for Palestinians, that possibility is setting us up to live in a police state without sovereignty. It's another way of encaging Palestinians where we will be overseen by a Palestinian police force that is beholden to Israeli interests. We will be forced to demilitarize and not allowed to have a state where we can even exercise our own electoral agenda. So not only on the ground do we have our land that has been made non-contiguous and settled by settlers, but also in the configuration that's planned in the New York Declaration, we will not have meaningful sovereignty. sovereignty. At this point, those states that want to preserve anything should preserve their legitimacy, should preserve the international order and human rights by abiding by the ICJ decision that said not to recognize Israel's unlawful presence in the occupied territories, which means boycott, divestment, sanctions, which means abiding by the ICJ decision that said that there is plausible genocide, which imposes upon them a duty to prevent genocide, not merely to punish, meaning right now they should be imposing an arms embargo.

9:48There's many ways that the international community can act rather than distracting us in this moment and not offering Palestinians the liberation that they deserve, that they need, that all people need, not to set a precedent here in Palestine that can be replicated elsewhere. We've been speaking to you as a professor, a scholar, an author, a human rights lawyer, but as a Palestinian, as a Palestinian American, how do you feel seeing these world leaders say, we recognize the state of Palestine? As a Palestinian, my heart is very broken that a genocide can continue, that Palestinian babies can be slaughtered, and there is a debate over whether or not that's okay or how it should be done better.

10:30As a Palestinian, I'm so frustrated that rather than take aim at the oppressive systems that place us in these conditions, like prolonged military occupation, apartheid, and genocide, that we are made into a problem to be resolved. We are not the problem. These conditions that oppress us are the problem and should be what the international community targets to destroy rather than allowing us to be the target of destruction. Professor Nora Erekat of Rutgers is author of Justice for Some, Law and the Question of Palestine. Thank you so much for speaking with us. Thank you for having me, Ari. And just for a bit more context on the genocide question, Israel strongly rejects accusations that it has committed genocide or crimes against humanity in Gaza.

11:13It says it is fighting a war of self-defense against Hamas. And yet earlier this month, a U.N. commission of inquiry found Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

11:27And that's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.