In a radio interview with Between the Lines, Phyllis Bennis talks about the massive death toll and danger of a wider conflict in the Israel-Hamas War, and she breaks down the key points in her recent op-ed in The Hill, “As Israel and Gaza Erupt, the US Must Commit to Ending the Violence — All the Violence.”
Bennis goes further than U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said that the Middle East was on “the verge of the abyss,” countering that the region is in fact “in the abyss.”
She emphasizes that the rising death toll in Gaza has largely been civilians, over half of them children: “It has been ordinary citizens, civilians — seniors, babies, women, children, elders, men, everyone — who are suffering and are paying the price.”
She reiterates the urgent call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying, “‘The urgency of now,’ as Dr. King put it, is that we desperately need a ceasefire on all sides. We need to stop the killing. We need to stop the violence.”