‘Hold On!’: CNN Host Stops Israeli Spokesman After He Blames Hamas for Lack of Aid to Gaza
Government mouthpiece tries to evade responsibility for Israel's government
A prominent CNN host interrupted an Israeli government spokesman live, on-camera when he claimed that it was the fault of Hamas for aid not reaching suffering Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Nearly the entire population of Gaza — including Palestinian women and small children — have been displaced and largely suffering under starvation conditions following Israeli military operations which began in the wake of the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas.
CNN host Kaitlan Collins challenged assertions by Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy Friday, about the lack of humanitarian aid reaching Palestinian civilians.
“The amount of aid is actually increasing—” Levy claimed.
“But, hold on! Hold on. I want to get to aid generally and what, how much is getting in. But on the fact that the U.S. is now orchestrating air drops to go into that, is that really the solution Israel thinks is the way to get out of this, the way to help feed these starving people in Gaza?” Collins asked.
“Well, there were two questions. One is the question of aid getting into the Gaza Strip, and there is enough capacity at Israel’s crossings to get in as much aid as the international community is sending—” Levy claimed.
“But, clearly, clearly there’s not,” Collins corrected.
Collins continued to rebut Levy's finger-pointing, having to remind him that the Palestinians are quite literally starving.
Here's an excerpt of the conversation:
COLLINS: “— a lot of aid on the other side of the border where this was posted by the former, the former humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations, who’s now working for the Norwegian group here. And he was saying that that is aid that cannot get in. But I want to get to aid—“
LEVY: “The amount of aid is actually increasing—“
COLLINS: “But, hold on! Hold on. I want to get to aid generally and what, how much is getting in. But on the fact that the U.S. is now orchestrating air drops to go into that, is that really the solution Israel thinks is the way to get out of this, the way to help feed these starving people in Gaza?”
LEVY: “Well, there were two questions. One is the question of aid getting into the Gaza Strip, and there is enough capacity at Israel’s crossings to get in as much aid as the international community is sending—“
COLLINS: “But, clearly, clearly there’s not.”
LEVY: “I know, but then there’s a question of how aid is being distributed inside Gaza. And we’re talking about airdrops into areas that are difficult to reach because they are active war zones. Because Hamas is still fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, and because these are dangerous areas. And we saw what happened just the other day with those horrific scenes of the fourth convoy of the week trying to take aid into northern Gaza and being mobbed by desperate civilians who then got killed in a stampede. So one option is to airdrop aid and there was a successful pilot this week in cooperation with I believe Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, France, and the United States to airdrop aid into Gaza. And we‘re looking into other ways to deliver aid into northern Gaza and make sure, again, it gets to civilians who need it while making sure Hamas cannot steal it.”
COLLINS: “Isn’t there a safer, easier way to do this than just simply airdropping? The reason you saw that chaotic incident is people are rushing these trucks because they‘re starving. I mean, it‘s desperation in its fullest extent that you‘re watching. And we hear from the IDF saying, well, our forces felt that they were endangered and that‘s why they fired upon the crowd after firing those warning shots. That‘s what the IDF maintains.”
LEVY: “Well, they said they fired when people began to rush towards the soldiers in the way that endangered them.”
COLLINS: “But the people are rushing towards the soldiers because they have food and they‘re starving.”
LEVY: “Well, that was why they were rushing towards the trucks.”
COLLINS: “I mean, doesn’t that speak to the desperation and that the situation actually is not good and there‘s not enough aid getting in?”
LEVY: “Oh, the situation is definitely not good. We don‘t downplay that Hamas has brought tragedy and disaster on the people of Gaza by declaring this war. Now, it‘s a unique challenge to work out how you distribute aid in an active war zone, where we know that the terrorist organization Hamas is hijacking aid, that the U.N. agencies that are supposed to distribute aid have been covering up for Hamas. And worse than that, have been relying on Hamas protection for the ships, for the cargo. I saw just now, Mr. Satterfield at the State Department saying that one of the reasons —“
COLLINS: “Who’s the humanitarian aid envoy from the United States.”
LEVY: “Yes. One of the reasons we are seeing this chaos in Gaza is that Israel has been targeting the Hamas so-called police, as if a terror organization can have police, but we‘re securing the convoy. So here you have the international community admitting that until now, the United Nations has been reliant on Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organization, to secure humanitarian aid. And that‘s why it‘s important that we have options like airdrops.”
COLLINS: “But what‘s the alternative there? Because, I mean, obviously that‘s not an ideal situation for the United States and we‘ve talked about this at length, but it is an undeniable fact, Hamas is still in Gaza. So what is the option for the United States? What‘s the better way to get that aid in? Because right now, what‘s happening clearly is not working.”
LEVY: “Well, airdrops are one way where we can try to circumvent Hamas and circumvent UNRWA by cutting them out of the aid distribution system because we‘ve released audio examples, for example, phone calls with people in Gaza saying we know that UNRWA members are stealing aid. We know that it‘s being diverted to Hamas. And a lot of the aid that has entered the Gaza Strip, by the way, yesterday, we had a near record 260 trucks going into the Gaza Strip.”
COLLINS: “How many was it before October 7 that was getting in? It was hundreds more than that, close to 500.”
LEVY: “And we have the capacity for 500.”
COLLINS: “So that’s half the aid that is now getting in.”
LEVY: “And we have the capacity for 500.”
COLLINS: “All of these people are displaced and they don‘t have their homes, they don‘t have bakeries, they’re in tents, basically.”
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