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Palestinian Ambassador describes the 'campaign of extermination' continuing in Gaza | LBC
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Jul 22, 2025
The head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK told LBC that the UK is not doing enough to stop Israel's 'campaign of extermination' on Gaza. Husam Zomlot was asked by Tom Swarbrick for his reaction to the joint statement written by the UK, France and Canada on Saturday, in which Israel's expansion of military efforts in Gaza were 'strongly opposed'. Zomlot welcomed the letter but mentioned the UK is still sending arms to Israel and urged this 'must stop'. Israel has launched a ground and air assault on the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has said. The charity warned the latest action by the Israeli military endangers humanitarian and healthcare sites. The operation began on Monday morning, just hours after Israel's military issued evacuation orders for areas of central Gaza. The order covers an area stretching from a previously evacuated area all the way to the Mediterranean coast and will severely hamper movement for aid groups and civilians in Gaza. The area affected is one of the few areas where Israel has rarely operated with ground troops and where many international organisations attempting to distribute aid are located. MAP said in a statement that several humanitarian organisations' offices and guesthouses had been "ordered to evacuate immediately" and nine clinics, including the MAP one, had been forced to shut down. The area is packed with thousands of displaced people from southern Gaza. Israeli sources have told Reuters they believe some hostages may be being held there.
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Samson Zonlot joins us, head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom
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Very good to see you. Thank you for coming in. Let's start with what is happening on the ground, as you understand it, in Gaza
0:09
This new offensive is beginning. Is that what you understand to have happened? Yes, it has been reported. Israeli tanks are rolling
0:17
Evacuation orders of people who have been evacuated many, many times, who are starved, hungry, unable to move anywhere, nowhere, is safe
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it's exactly a repeat of what we have been witnessing the horrors over the last 22 months
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nothing new unfortunately the only thing that is now must be discussed is how do we stop this
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garnish this is madness this is insanity in its highest form i want to come to the possible
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negotiations for ceasefire in just a moment um but one of the other reports that happened in the last
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day or so is the Hamas-run health ministry say 79 Gazans were killed by Israeli forces
0:59
whilst waiting for aid. Again, what do you understand to have happened there
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We saw the body bags. We saw the shooting. It was documented. And why do you have to say the
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Hamas-run health ministry, Tom? Because it's true. No, no, Gaza is run by us. Gaza is run by the international community. There is United Nations
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all over Gaza. Hamas were elected to run Gaza. There is every single institution you can imagine
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legitimate that are counting. We don't want to doubt the numbers in this conversation
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Numbers are horrific. And by the way, the numbers that come officially
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is at 58,000 innocent people who have been killed. And just to confirm for you, I am the Palestinian ambassador
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so this is not the Hamas ministry. 16,500 children have been slain, 10,000 women have been killed
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The numbers are there. And guess what? These numbers are so underestimated because we still don't know how many people have been killed and still under the rubble for 22 months
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The biggest issue for the innocent people in Gaza now is their inability to bury their own children and the dead ones
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And by the way, we also don't know how many people who have died because of other causes, i.e. they couldn't have their kidney dialysis
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Absolutely. Diseases. Diseases. You're talking about tens of thousands. So let's not say with Hamas-run health ministry, there is mass murder, mass destruction, mass starvation happening in Gaza, very well documented
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Israel has said since the start of this that it wants the hostages back and it believes that 20
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of the remaining 50 hostages are in this area that they are now rolling the tanks into those
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hostages need to be returned don they as part of a ceasefire agreement as part of a way of getting this stopped Yes and hostages were being exchanged
2:58
They returned, most of them, by the way, most of the hostages have been..
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That has been the most successful way that Israel has had those hostages returned, is through that ceasefire. Of course, but Israel is not interested in that
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And the formula has been offered by the mediators all along, and Israel breached already three previous ceasefire agreements
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So the question is, how do you enforce a ceasefire rather than how do you call for a ceasefire or present another formula for a ceasefire
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And having hostages still in Gaza justifies this complete blockade? I don't think Netanyahu is interested in the hostages
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Tom, he's not interested in the hostages. They would have been home long, long ago if he was
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He's interested. But it's on Hamas to release hostages too, isn't it? Yes, yes, yes. But there was..
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So what pressure can be applied to them to do that? What more pressure needs to be applied to them to do
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There was, there was, and they're still on the table, a ceasefire agreement that would have seen all hostages to be released
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But guess what, Tom? Including our hostages. Israel hold more than 11,000 Palestinians
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Many of them, thousands, 3,600 of those held in Israeli prisons are held without charge, without trial
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360 of them are children. So, of course, there has to be exchange of hostages
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You call this hostage, but you call the Palestinian captives as prisoners, as if they are criminals
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Israel is rounding everybody. So a ceasefire agreement should see the exchange of hostages and captives from both sides
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A ceasefire agreement should see a permanent, immediate and permanent end to this genocide
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A ceasefire should also see the moving fast and swift towards rebuilding Gaza, uniting Gaza with the West Bank and the one Palestinian government
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And guess what? We have the plans. The Arab world has the plans. The rest of the world support this plan
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We have all what it takes. Everything is ready. But there is one man that is stopping us and insisting on the continuation of this act of and campaign of extermination
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That is Benjamin Netanyahu. So how do we stop him? How do we stop Israel? How do we compel Israel to act in accordance with international law
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Is that going to be helped? In what way would that be helped by this letter that has now been signed by 26 countries
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including the United Kingdom, that calls on the immediate lifting of restrictions on the flow of aid to Gaza
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and an immediate end to the war that forced displacement orders do not allow for the transport of life-saving medical equipment and supplies
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I mean, the rhetoric is very strong in this letter, but it's a letter
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It is indeed We did welcome it just now officially welcoming the statement from the UK led by the UK by the way drafted by the UK And we commend that very strong worded letter
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However, we are long past, Tom, we are long past statements. This requires compelling, this requires enforcement of the international will as expressed by that statement
6:05
And we know exactly how the international community was built. The system of the world was built to compel actors that are unhinged, such as Israel, that are committing all that the world now knows. This starts with arms embargo. The UK and the rest of the world must immediately, immediately stop sending weapons to a state actor that is committing genocide
6:30
There is no discussion about that. And there are some countries that are still sending weapons to Israel as we speak
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The US, Germany, and still the UK sends weapons. It did stop some partial arms
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There is no legal conversation here. Once a country is in the International Court of Justice now
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officially on trial for the plausible crime of genocide, you stop sending them weapons
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This is a legal obligation. You cannot be half committed to law
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You cannot be selective when it comes to what do you send and what you don't
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You simply have a full ban on the exportation of weapons that are being used
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including the F-35s. Number two, you impose sanctions on the entire government
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that is committing the genocide. that is absolutely clear in its intent
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People are talking about humanitarian... You say that. Hang on. You say that you use the term genocide
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Lots of people use the term genocide. I asked one of the UK's most eminent Supreme Court justices last week
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about that term genocide. He said that there is massive evidence to show
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that Israel has committed war crimes in the process of this. But he stopped at calling it a genocide
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because he said the intent was hard to prove. So I'm making that point there as a point of fact
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Do you think the people, our people from Gaza, the Palestinians from Gaza, including myself, I was born in Gaza, do you think they lack money
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They have money, by the way. What Israel has been doing for a long, long period is a blockade of anything to get into Gaza
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So this is not about humanitarian, humanitarian, Israel equipines Gaza. So you impose a full blockade on baby's milk formula, on food, on water, on what exactly you know
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then you go and you completely destroy all the agricultural land, all the livestock, all the livestock
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and then go back only yesterday. If any Palestinian does to go and fish because Gaza is on the Mediterranean
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very rich in fish industry If anybody goes and is killed or arrested yesterday they killed three arrested three Why are they doing all that Why are they And then when you approach these so humanitarian centers which are death traps by Israel
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you are shot and killed as the number you've just quoted, 79. Why are they doing that if this is not genocide
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This is part of the legal case for intent. Okay, so please do not get too much focus on terminology
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We must agree that there is a campaign of erasure. a campaign of erasure
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a campaign of extermination and annihilation you're going to have to allow me to speak
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I am allowing you to speak but you're challenging a word as opposed to when I just was
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driving here and I was seeing people literally fainting Tom fainting, girls
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babies, children fainting because there is no food I'm not here to argue with you that it is not absolutely a calling
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so we're discussing is Israel committing these crimes or not now, after all this
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we're not discussing whether necessarily they're committing crimes but that there is a legal
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definition for genocide and I completely accept your point that what is happening in there is
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absolutely awful and the images are would move anybody but it is a legal term defined by intent
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so that will be one I suspect for the ICJ to and the ICC to look at can I ask you about a bit of
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legislation here was it wrong to prescribe Palestine action well this country has set of
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laws and it is very renowned. It's renowned for its legal system, it is
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renowned for its judicial system, it's renowned for its police and the
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way that police protect people's right to protest. And actually I must commend the British police and
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the British courts for giving and maintaining the space for the British
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people to protest. Only this weekend there were tens of thousands of the
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British people voicing the anger at the genocide that is happening, wanting it to end
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So you don't have an issue with the way they're being policed? So people have been, and all these hundreds of thousands of the great people of Britain
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millions over the last 22 years, have been protesting peacefully. I hope that, you know, if any criminal acts are committed
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let the police and the courts deal with it. But politicising the issue is not something..
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Including support for Palestine action? Overstretching the law is not something that we..
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Do you think this is? We should do. Ask that for lawyers. But people's right to protest has to be enshrined
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And if criminal acts are committed, I'm sure your police and your courts are capable to deal with this
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Describing people's attempts at fighting terrorism, describing people's attempt at trying to stop a genocide
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as terrorism needs to be thought about very, very, very seriously. Let's hope this situation improves very, very quickly
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