July 30, 2025

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour and Company. Here’s what’s coming up.

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JIHAN MURAD, GAZA RESIDENT (through translator): My children go to sleep hungry. They wake up in the morning hungry.

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AMANPOUR: A mother’s cry. Time is running out in Gaza as more starved to death. Save the Children’s humanitarian director Rachel Cummings joins me

from the enclave.

And the Israelis joining a growing international chorus. I speak to the leaders of two leading human rights organizations in Israel who believe

their government is committing genocide in Gaza.

Then —

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We don’t have anywhere to go. I live on the outskirts and went to feed my dog and it’s heavy there.

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AMANPOUR: The Ukrainians living under relentless attack, a report from the Eastern front.

Plus —

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DONALD WHITEHEAD JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS: If you incarcerate people, if you use involuntary placement in

mental institutions, it does not solve homelessness.

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AMANPOUR: Homelessness in the United States a crisis. Why is it getting worse and what can be done to help?

Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.

89 children starved to death in Gaza, seven people in just the past 24 hours. The limited airdrops, an increase in aid trucks is not nearly enough

to slow this disaster unfolding before the whole world. The E.U. is now warning that Gaza faces famine. Here is some of the text. The humanitarian

situation has deteriorated to an unprecedented and unsustainable level, driven by ongoing bombardments, military operations, mass displacement, and

the collapse of basic services.

The rising tide of criticism on this issue hits a peak with President Donald Trump who says starvation is happening there, even though Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that it isn’t.

Here in the U.K., the prime minister, Keir Starmer has promised to recognize a Palestinian State unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire. This

resumption of this full-scale war is now increasingly seen as a, quote, “total failure” even by some within Israel.

The images of starving children simply speak for themselves. My first guest, Rachel Cummings, is Save the Children’s humanitarian director in the

enclave, and she’s joining me now from Deir al Balah, which is in Central Gaza.

Rachel Cummings, welcome to the program. Let me ask you first about Deir al Balah and what you’re seeing there. Because just last week, we saw Israel

send in its ground and air operations for the first time, certainly, the first ground forces in more than 21 months of this war. What has that meant

for the people you’re trying to serve there?

RACHEL CUMMINGS, GAZA HUMANITARIAN DIRECTOR, SAVE THE CHILDREN: Thank you. The situation in Deir al Balah, across the whole of Gaza is catastrophic.

And last week, as you said, there was a ground incursion into Deir al Balah about two kilometers from where we are here, which displaced between 50 and

70,000 people. But of course, in Gaza, there is nowhere for people to go to. So, it was a very significant movement in terms of population

displacement moving towards Khan Younis, Al Mawasi, along the coast, where there’s literally nowhere for people to go.

And remember, Gaza — there was 12 percent of the landmass left for civilians. The rest is either under militarized zone or evacuation notices.

It’s extraordinarily overcrowded. But the situation in Deir al Balah remains untenable for the population here. The markets are empty.

Yesterday, I was in Deir al Balah market and there’s nothing to buy. And the other day, two days ago, I was in a clinic in Deir al Balah and what I

saw there was deeply shocking.

AMANPOUR: Well, describe what you saw there, because you’ve said — or you know, Save the Children are reporting record highs, quote, “unprecedented”

rates of malnutrition in Gaza. The number of children admitted for treatment — the first two weeks of July, they say, is close to the total

for the whole of June. So, what are you seeing and what can you describe in terms of the limited amount of aid that has started coming in in response

to this international foray?

CUMMINGS: Well, you know, as I said, what I’m seeing is there’s no food — there’s not enough food in Gaza. So, when I was in the clinic two days ago,

I was struck with two things. One, every child in that clinic was malnourished, and the other was, it was nearly silent, which is very

unusual for a clinic full of children. But of course, when children are this sick, they don’t cry.

So, I spoke to my team who are treating children who are malnourished. And honestly, they were crying. They’re overwhelmed. They don’t know what to do

because they know that the children they’re treating today who are moderately acutely malnourished will come back next week with severe acute

malnutrition, and the week after, with severe acute malnutrition and complications.

Children are a downward trajectory in terms of their outcomes and the malnutrition treatment because, of course, children cannot live or survive

with Plumpy’nut or peanut paste alone. They need complimentary food. They need food and diet diversity, which they do not have. It’s a very, very

significant shift that we’re seeing.

And I said, you know, about two weeks ago, I felt we reached a tipping point in Gaza and we’re now seeing in our clinic in Deir al Balah and in

Khan Younis, but this is represented with all of the data from all of the partners across Gaza, is that we’re now seeing this doubling of the number

of children presenting who are malnourished. And the proportion of children in the population has gone from 4.4 percent in May to now 16 percent in

July, in the first two weeks of July.

And also, very concerning is that pregnant women and breastfeeding women, that rate sits at 40 percent. So, four out of 10 pregnant and breastfeeding

women are themselves malnourished. So, a very, very deeply concerning trajectory and this exponential rise that we’re seeing in the numbers and

the rates of malnutrition, this obviously requires a significant intervention at scale to be able to turn the trajectory and to save the

children here.

AMANPOUR: Rachel Cummings, you’ve been there for a while, and you have probably seen or at least heard of the airdrops that started over the

weekend and some more, I guess, trucks going in. Can you just describe, for instance, the result of the airdrops? Do you know how much has come? Do you

know whether people have been able — the right people have been able to access it? Do you know whether it’s — I mean, is it enough?

CUMMINGS: No, it’s wholly inadequate. And of course, it’s ineffective at best. But actually, what it is, it’s extremely dangerous. So, I saw visibly

today from the window four airdrops across Gaza, and you may be able to hear the drone that’s circling this evening. And what we’ve found in the

last two or three days is following the airdrops, they put the drones up to be able to watch, I guess, what’s happening on the ground.

Unfortunately, today, we also heard — and it’s unconfirmed, but three people were killed by an airdrop landing in their shelter along Al Mawasi.

Now, just today, when I saw the airdrops coming, it was extraordinary. And what you hear is now a loud plane, the heavy, heavy plane, which sounds

quite different to the jets that we have constantly. So, you hear the heavy, heavy plane carrying the supplies. And then, the first thing you

hear after that is the children running and crying along the street, and I saw that today.

And then, of course, you look up and you can see the parachutes, and these parachutes are carrying 300, 400, 500 kilograms, half a ton of weight is

coming down. And I saw today, again, with my own eyes, two parachutes that became entwined and one parachute just didn’t open and it dropped straight

to the ground. They’re dangerous.

Are people receiving the aid that need to? Absolutely not. They are dropping aid without warning. People will run, of course they will, because

they’re absolutely desperate. People are literally starving in Gaza. So, they will take any opportunity they can to find food to feed their

families.

But that, of course, doesn’t take into account any of the vulnerable population. So, pregnant women, elderly, disabled, children who manage

households. All of this need food assistance and need humanitarian support. But of course, they’re not the people who will be able to make it to the

airdrops.

And then, in terms of the humanitarian supplies that have come in, so for the last three days, maybe four days, the U.N. has been trying to bring in

around a hundred trucks a day of generally food supplies, but also some medicines and potentially, I think, some hygiene supplies, which of course

all are essential to sustain life and all are completely depleted in the markets, in Gaza.

So, whatever they’re bringing in is not going to touch the sides unfortunately, in terms of the starvation crisis and of course, the disease

outbreaks that we’re seeing, and we’ve been seeing these four months.

AMANPOUR: Rachel, can I ask you a question? Because the Israeli side keeps saying that it’s basically on you all. You all should be delivering these

trucks, which apparently, they say are waiting, are loaded with aid to be delivered. What is your answer to that? I mean, it’s — what’s the problem

with these trucks?

CUMMINGS: The enabling environment, the environment of Gaza is an extremely complex and challenging environment to move supplies around. So,

you have broken infrastructure, the roads have been completely smashed. So, trucks’ literally ability to move along are very, very hampered. But of

course, you’re also dealing with a population or trying to support a population who are starving, who are hungry, who are desperate to try and

feed their families.

So, you’ll have seen the pictures of people jumping on trucks, trying to stop the trucks, trying to get the bag of flour to take home to feed their

families. But of course, you also have organized crime, organized criminality, and there is no law and order in Gaza, that has been

completely dismantled.

So, you have these multiple influencing pieces. You put that together and it becomes nearly impossible to move supplies. But of course, if you have

such limited supplies coming into Gaza — you know, between January and March, during the last pause in the hostilities, there were 600 trucks a

day coming into Gaza with a mix of humanitarian and commercial supplies, and that was enough to meet the basic needs of the most of the people in

Gaza.

Since the 2nd of March, there’s been no humanitarian supplies entered Gaza until the trickle that started at the end of May. So, what we have is a

sustained siege of supplies coming into Gaza. Nothing’s entered Gaza. So, of course you have — now, of course, we’re seeing the result of that,

which is increased rates of malnutrition, increased rates of diarrhea, and the desperation of people who just need to feed their families.

AMANPOUR: And of course, all your U.N. agencies are warning that time is running out to mount a full-scale humanitarian response. Rachel Cummings,

thank you. Thank you for being with us and thank you for telling us what’s going on inside, as we cannot get in to report this. Thank you very much

indeed.

Later in the program, allegations of genocide in Gaza are mounting with two Israeli human rights groups accusing Israel of the gravest crime under

international law. Both are joining me live from Tel Aviv.

AMANPOUR: Amid the starvation crisis in Gaza and the 60,000 people killed there, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak now says Israel is becoming a

global pariah, and he’s even calling for quote, “massive non-violence civil disobedience” until Netanyahu is ousted. And now, in separate reports

released simultaneously this week, two leading human rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, say the government is

committing genocide in Gaza. The Israeli government has issued furious denials.

Let’s now bring in be B’Tselem executive director Yuli Novak, along with Gai Shale, the CEO of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, who both joined

me from Tel Aviv. And it’s important to say that this is unprecedented. No other Israeli organization has taken this step despite mounting use of this

word and accusations of this crime against the current government.

So, let me ask you, Yuli Novak, first, because B’Tselem has been a leading human rights organization for decades in your country. Since you actually

issued this report, what is the response being inside Israel and amongst the Jewish population worldwide?

YULI NOVAK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, B’TSELEM: So, thank you, Christiane. I’ll just say that in our report, what we try to explain there is exactly how of

what we just heard with your previous guests. So, how did we get to where we are? How does this Israeli system works? And what we try to write about

and to investigate and to analyze is the policy behind it. And get — that goes also to your question about how is Israelis and Israeli society react

to it, because this is part and parcel of the fact that genocide is being committing — committed now by this regime.

No genocide in history happened without the support either by taking part or supporting it from afar or just turning a blind eye of the people — of

the group of the perpetrators. And unfortunately, and it is heartbreaking for me as an Israeli, this is exactly what takes place now in Israel.

You asked about the reaction to our reports, I would say that 99 percent of Israelis didn’t hear about our report because part of what the Israeli

media is doing is completely deny Israeli public from knowing what’s going on, first of all. And then, there is the overall sentiment and something

that became almost normal, the incitement for genocide.

So, I think, again, it is devastating as an Israeli, but it’s a really good example for how disconnected people that conduct genocide can be from what

they actually do.

AMANPOUR: Before I get into the details of your allegations in this long report, 79 pages, I want to also ask Guy Shalev from Physicians for Human

Rights, the Israeli chapter. Israel is a nation that was born out of genocide, out of the Holocaust. This is an unprecedented internal Israeli

accusation against the government of committing similar crimes now in Gaza.

Again, what led you, at this time, to decide that it was right to use this word, this legal term in terms of what’s going on right now? What was the

criteria for you?

GUY SHALEV, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ISRAEL: Right. So, first of all, as Yuli said, we are doing it with a heavy heart because

of our history, my personal family history and my people’s history. It’s not an easy moment to be, to accuse my own society, my own communities in

committing genocide.

And for us, we are sticking to the international law, the definition according to the Genocide Convention that Israeli signed on, and we are

looking at the cumulative information that we are gathering from the ground for almost two years. We’ve been working every day in emergency mode for

the past almost two years to collect the data, to speak with our colleagues in the Gaza healthcare system. And we are looking at the attack — the

systematic attack on Gaza’s healthcare system and all life sustaining systems.

And what — when we look at that together, attack after attack, hospital after hospital, blocking of water, blocking of food, destruction of

infrastructure that’s just needed for people to survive, that’s when we get to the conclusion that a genocide is being committed, unfortunately.

AMANPOUR: So, your organization focuses a lot on the medical and the doctors and the hospitals that we have seen and we’ve reported. And so, I

understand, yours is using that set of information. So, you talk about the U.N. Convention. And indeed, the crime of genocide was defined in 1948 by

the United Nations as quote, “The intent to destroy in whole or in part a national ethnical racial or religious group as such.”

And, Yuli, based on B’Tselem’s examination you reached the, quote, “Unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated deliberate action

to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip.”

So, as you know, as well as I do, that the issue would be intent. Obviously, Israel denies any intent to do that. And clearly, consistently

denies that it is targeting deliberately civilians and that it is going after Hamas. So, what — you must have built a case around intent, not just

what you are observing. So, is that correct? Am I correct?

NOVAK: I’ll start — I’ll say that there — you just read the legal definition, which is important. But first of all, let’s all remember that

genocide happened way before 1948. I mean, the legal definition didn’t create the phenomena, the social and political phenomena of attacking

another group in order to destroy it.

And when we are doing this legal analysis, which is super important because perpetrators should be brought to justice, that’s not what help people on

the ground today. And this cannot be only a theoretical discussion. So, let’s talk about intent as we see it, as people who have eyes and ears and

mind to think, when the top leadership of Israel stands in the first day — of days of this attack, and I’m talking about the prime minister, the

minister of defense, even the president himself, and telling us what’s the goal of this attack. They’re telling us, destroy Amalek, that mean, destroy

everybody. They’re telling us, “We are fighting human animals and will treat them as such,” and I quote.

I — they say it’s an entire nation there that is responsible for the crimes of Hamas on October 7th. So, when you hear that and then you look on

the results and the outcomes, which we just heard about, and you listen to the commanders and the soldiers on the ground and take all this into

account, together with the fact that even if they didn’t know it before, which I have a really hard time to believe, once they saw the outcome of

their statements they for sure understand what it means to send a whole army to attack civilians in another area and instructing them to destroy

this whole population, telling them that there are no civilian people there. And that exactly comes back to the intention of genocide.

Because, again, genocide is about attacking people who are being attacked only because they are part of a group, not because what they did

personally, not because what they think or who they are. And the second thing, that they have no way to protect themself.

So, I’ll just say Israel, talking about a war with Hamas, but what we are talking about here is genocide. It’s a war that Israel started and

attacking the entire population of the Gaza Strip, and that was very clear from their statements from the first day and until today.

AMANPOUR: Can I ask you here, because I’m going to go through some of these quotes that you’ve just talked about and that we all heard, and that

led a lot in the International Community to criticize Israeli leaders for making these comments at the beginning and still. But you said Israel

started this. They will say, no, we didn’t. Hamas started this on October 7th.

So, I want to ask you both whether you are prepared to also say that Hamas showed genocidal intent and committed a genocide, if they could have done

more what they did by targeting unethical religious national group on October 7th? Let me just ask you, Guy, I don’t know whether you’ve thought

about this, but it’s a question that other lawyers are asking.

SHALEV: I think, first of all, analyzing what Hamas has done in October 7th is something that is very important. Also, looking at the crimes done

by Hamas, war crimes, crimes against humanity during this attack is something that is very important to do, but it’s always important to

remember that according to international law, according to international humanitarian law, there is no connection between what one party does to

what the other party does.

And whatever crimes Hamas have done, and they have done that — the crimes, very horrible crimes in October 7th, it doesn’t excuse or it doesn’t

justify any crimes done afterwards by Israel in their attack. And I want to address also the question of intent, if I may.

The Genocide Convention addresses not only mass killings, bodily harm, but Article 2C of the convention deals with the systematic infrastructure

attack on people in order to destroy that people. And this is the article that we are focusing in our report, on the attack on healthcare and health

sustaining infrastructure.

And when you look at the attack — and the attack on healthcare, you see pattern of conduct, you see an attack after attack. Already in October 13,

just five days after the attack started, Israel issued 22 evacuation orders for 22 hospitals in the entire area of the Gaza City and the northern part

of the Strip. More than 1 million civilians were in that area at that time. How are they going — how they will be able to survive if all of their

hospitals are evacuated? What happens to the patients? What happened to the staff members?

These are not coincidental. This is a policy. It’s a decision made. And a decision made that the results are very, very clear. And when we look at

these attacks, these policies, one after the other, for 22 months of destroying a hospital after hospital, killing more than 1,500 doctors and

medical workers, detaining more than 300, these are policies that we unfortunately see the results now on the ground.

AMANPOUR: Let me just ask you, Guy, because I have to, as you know, Israel says Hamas inhabits those hospitals underneath, gun positions, command

centers. What do you say to that?

SHALEV: Maybe I’ll ask you back. Have you seen the evidence?

AMANPOUR: I have not, because I haven’t been there. And this is another huge problem, Guy. It’s a huge problem. We international journalists who

are fully equipped to be able to see and analyze and report what’s going on and who’ve spent a whole career doing it have not been allowed in there.

I’m just asking you to respond to their response. And their — and what the U.S. says and what the Brits say, what the Europeans have said throughout,

you know, it’s their defense. No, no. I want to hear, Guy.

SHALEV: All right. So, the fact is that the evidence that — yes. So, the evidence that they presented is very thin. Israel attacked 33 of the 36

medical facilities in Gaza. They — for each and every of these facilities, they claim that Hamas has a command center within this — the premises of

these hospitals on, apart from two.

And later on, Israel took control of these entire facilities, wing by wing, department by department, they had full control over the entire premises of

these institutions, but still did not present the evidence. Of course, we can assume that if Israel had the evidence of command centers in each and

every of these hospitals, they would present it to the world, because, of course, they would want to show that they act accordingly — according to

these evidences. But unfortunately, there is no evidence.

And the proportionality is another thing. You cannot destroy an entire system of healthcare, providing for more than 2 million people with these

very vague and general accusations.

AMANPOUR: And we can see the result now, people are essentially wasting away. They can’t get the medicine, they can’t get the care, and they are

starving. So, YulI want to ask you, Yuli. Some critics have said that using this particular legal term, which is a step above the general accusation of

war crimes, which even some Israelis, such as your former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, former defense secretary or defense minister, Moshe Ya’alon

and others, use the word war crimes, but they haven’t gone to the word genocide.

But I want to ask you, what do you think the result will be? Will Israel take your — will the government take your report and say, we’re going to

do something about this or will they go into a greater defensive crouch and, I don’t know, fight back harder? What do you think? I guess, what’s

your ultimate goal?

NOVAK: So, our ultimate goal is to save life and to protect human rights. And no, I don’t think the Israeli government showed us any sign that they

are about to do it. They don’t care about what we say, about what you say, about what the international media say. They proven us that.

They — actually, they’re becoming more and more delusional. You just asked Guy about the medical system. They’re also claiming that there is no

starvation in Gaza, right? So, I wouldn’t count on them not to stop it by themselves, not to understand the depths of this disaster that they are

bringing upon this land, not only because dozens of thousands of people are getting — got killed and still — and starved and getting killed, but

because what they’re doing is taking out the most basic sense and rules and norms of humanity out of this space.

One — and that is what genocide is about. It’s about marking a group of people as non-human, strip them from their humanity and their rights, and

then you can do whatever you can to them. And then, if — just to say, there is no justification for that. Israel can say whatever they want and

use whatever excuse, whether it is Hamas, whether it is October 7th or whatever. And October 7th was real. We all — for all of us, it was

probably the scariest days of most Israelis I know, including me, but that doesn’t allow you to start a war against the entire people in order to

destroy them and to eliminate them. So, in that sense, no, I don’t think Israel government will do anything.

What I do hope for is that leaders of the world, which not for the first time, see genocide live, know exactly what happened. Very much aware — we

are all very much aware of what takes place on the ground. And I agree with you once journalists will go in, probably will see reality that is much

worse than anything we know. But it’s not the first time that leaders of the world allow a regime to attack people in that way to conduct genocide,

and they are either standing by and let it happen or keep cooperating with it and enabling this horror to take place.

So, in that sense, I think it’s not only an issue of the victims, the Palestinians, or the Israelis as the perpetrators, genocide is an issue

that every human being should be concerned about and stand against. And people of the world need to demand from their leaders to do whatever they

can in order to stop the Israeli government for — from keep doing that.

AMANPOUR: Can I ask you both? Because part of the 79 — part of the big report that you’ve put out, I know they’re separate reports, but

nonetheless, you have used, and you mentioned it earlier on in this interview, several quotes from Israeli leaders. You quoted Prime Minister

Netanyahu about Amalek, which I know goes back to a biblical and historical fight back after an attack. But that they now say part of that quote is

actually on the Yad Vashem monument. It’s part of, you know, an Israeli internal, you know, you fight back when you are attacked. That’s one

response.

When President Isaac Herzog in October said it’s an entire nation out there that’s responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians who are not

aware and not involved, it’s absolutely not true, and we will fight until we break their backbone. And then, we’re told that in the same appearance,

he goes on to say, there’s no excuse to murdering innocent civilians in any way, in any context.

And then, of course, we’ve got Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, also at the beginning, in October, calling for a complete siege. And I think he said,

no food, no water, no electricity, saying we are fighting human animals, in his context. Again, his defenders say he was referring to Hamas, not all

people of Gaza. Deputy Knesset speaker, Nissim Vaturi, from the Likud Party, posted that Israelis had one common goal, quote, “Erasing the Gaza

Strip from the face of the Earth.”

So, there are a lot of very, very hard comments that have been made by your leaders that would lead you to make certain conclusions. But what do you

say when they say, well, no, this was the context and this is what we said, you know, also?

NOVAK: So, I would say first, leaders should take responsibility. And our leaders definitely don’t know how to do it, not when it concerned their own

Israeli-Jewish citizens, right, that they’re being left to die in the hands of Hamas in captivity. And for sure, not when it has to do with

Palestinian’s lives.

And, you know, I’m sorry. I can’t accept it. I didn’t mean that. Well, you are a prime minister. And if you realize that you did something that turned

— you said something that turned into a genocide, into a mass killing, into a mass destruction that goes on and on and on for almost two years

now. You had enough opportunities to stop it.

And you know, as we sit now here and talk, bulldozer and D9 are rushing through whatever left of Palestinian cities in Gaza in order just to ruin

it. Just to make sure. As Guy said before, that there will be no way to sustain life there. That’s what the Israeli army is doing now in — just as

it was ordered by statements of officials that you just read.

And for — if anyone is questioning, no, they didn’t stop with those — this incitement. The Israeli public discourse, including our politicians,

but not only, is full of incitement to genocide, a clear incitement to genocide that mostly is directed towards Gaza. But we have to say here that

— and that’s also in our report, we are also here to warn about the possibility that genocide not — will not stay confined to Gaza. Because

the same regime with the same army, the same commanders, and sometimes the same practices, even if a lower, in a lower scale, are taking place in the

West Bank.

And right now, there is no mechanism, either local or international, that is working to stop or able or want to stop Israel from doing it. And the

Palestinians everywhere under Israeli control is now left completely unprotected.

AMANPOUR: Guy —

SHALEV: I’m supposed to say something about — sorry.

AMANPOUR: Let me just ask you this, because we may be running out of a bit of time. But in the report, you basically both say the October 7th Hamas

attack led to, quote, “Profound social and political changes in Israeli society.”

So, Guy, I just want you to reflect on that. And also, a personal question to you both of the toll it’s taken on you to collect this and to report it,

knowing that your nation will not thank you for this. Guy?

SHALEV: Right. So, what — yes. When we look at the attack on Gaza, it of course hasn’t started in October 7. We look much more to the past. We see

how the dehumanization of Palestinians is part of Israeli culture and Israeli politics for many, many years. And definitely the October 7th

attack, with the trauma it arose in Israeli society was a trigger, a very dangerous trigger for people to just consider the other as less human than

they are. It caused people to not want to engage, not want to get the information. That is what our two organizations are really struggling with.

We are collecting the data, speaking in Hebrew with the people here, with our families, our communities. We want them to know, we want them to know

what’s going on, because denial is what allows these atrocities to continue. And we are hoping that by them reading, getting to know what’s

going — what’s being done in their name will get people here in Israel to rise up, demand the government to stop these attacks and hopefully, stop

the genocide.

AMANPOUR: Well, you know, I mean, Ehud Barak has asked for peaceful, nonviolent mass resistance. Yuli, in the last 30 seconds that we have, how

are you feeling after doing this? Are you afraid?

NOVAK: I am afraid, but not more than I was two days ago or three days ago. I am afraid about the future of this place, about my ability to raise

my son here. What I do feel a bit better is the fact that we were able, in our organizations, Israels and Palestinians, we have dozens of Palestinians

from the West Bank, from Gaza and from inside Israel who work together with Jewish Israelis to try and make sense of what we see around.

Although this making sense is horrific reality that we need to face. And to struggle together opposing also the polarization and the imagination that

we can — that this imaginative thing that our — or ethos that we cannot live together.

So, basically what we’re trying to do here is take forward the struggle of the people. Of the people who live here in order to create a space where we

all can live safely.

AMANPOUR: Well, Yuli Novak, executive director of B’Tselem, and Guy Shalev, CEO of Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, thank you both very

much for joining us on this important report.

And tomorrow, we will continue this discussion with a former government adviser and we continue to request interviews with Israeli government

ministers sitting now, with ambassadors and opposition officials.

AMANPOUR: And now, in the United States where more than 770,000 people experienced homelessness in one single night in 2024, Hari Sreenivasan of

us and speaks to Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, who’s experienced this struggle firsthand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Donald Whitehead, thanks so much for joining us. President Trump recently

laid out an executive order about homelessness. What’s it about?

DONALD WHITEHEAD JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS: It covers a number of things, all very horrifying. It encourages

cities to enforce forced institutionalization in mental health institutions and jails and we think maybe even detention camps. And forcing people into

substance abuse treatment. It also discourages some of the programs that we have seen have best outcomes. They are best practices. Those programs are

discouraged. And funding will be taken away if people use things like harm reduction or if they don’t criminalize people.

SREENIVASAN: In there, it says, surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor any other

citizens. My administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety. Is public safety a problem because of an increase in the

homeless population?

WHITEHEAD JR.: The safety is really people experiencing homelessness who are more likely — and people with mental health issues who are far more

likely to be victimized than any member of the public. And furthermore, I would say that this particular executive order doesn’t do anything to solve

homelessness.

If you incarcerate people, if you use involuntary placement in mental institutions, it does not solve homelessness. What solves homelessness is

housing supportive services, healthcare and jobs that pay livable wages.

SREENIVASAN: So, there’s a couple of different layers I want to unpack here. When you look at the surveys over time, isn’t homelessness on the

rise?

WHITEHEAD JR.: Sure. Homelessness is on the rise. But it’s on the rise for reasons other than anything related to criminalization. Homelessness is on

the rise because housing costs are on the rise. So, there’s a direct correlation between the rise in housing costs across the country and the

number of people who are experiencing homelessness.

We see a rise in the number of people 55 and older experiencing homelessness. We’ve also seen a rise in this kind of practices that

criminalize. And what I mean by criminalize is they jail, they ticket and they find people experiencing homelessness, which actually increases the

likelihood that they won’t be able to get out of homelessness.

So, I believe that the criminalization — we’ve seen 320 new cities institute laws that would criminalize homeless people since the dreadful

Supreme Court decision last year that said, even though nowhere in this country there’s enough shelter or enough housing for people experiencing

homelessness, cities are able to institute these measures that criminalize people experiencing homelessness.

SREENIVASAN: So, we saw that in part as a reaction to the encampments that were happening in cities like, say, Portland, Oregon or Los Angeles, et

cetera, and that there are now cities who want to prevent that from happening in their own backyard, right? Now, I wonder, at the same time,

when you look at the perception of reality, the public opinion polls, you see an increasing number of people saying that homelessness is a problem.

Is that because of how these stories, for example, come out on the news or on YouTube, et cetera, or is there something else?

WHITEHEAD JR.: Well, I think public perception is actually guided by misinformation. So, we’ve done our own internal polling and we’ve worked

with other groups that are in the homeless sector. And what we find is that 70 percent of the people do think that there is an issue with homelessness,

but they don’t believe that you should find arrest or jail people. Again, that does not solve homelessness.

What we need to solve homelessness is more affordable housing. We need a dramatic influx of housing production in this country if we’re going to

solve homelessness. If you look at reports out of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, you’ll see that housing wage in this country is above

$20 an hour. Minimum wage is $7 an hour. People can’t keep up with housing under those conditions.

We don’t think people should be living under bridges and in abandoned buildings and encampments, especially our elderly population, children,

other groups. No one should have to live outside. Everybody should have a decent, safe, and affordable home, but we’re not producing more housing.

The president’s budget actually zeroed out housing programs. It actually would cut term limits for housing. So, people would only be able to stay in

housing for two years. Those are all recipes for a disaster.

And so, this administration needs to really use evidence-based information and look at the true underlying structural causes of homelessness.

SREENIVASAN: So, what does the evidence-based information say? What are programs that actually help people not be homeless anymore?

WHITEHEAD JR.: Great question. One is the Permanent Supportive Housing program. Now, when researchers have looked at that program, there is a 90

percent success rate. One of the provisions in this executive order says that people utilizing those kinds of programs. So, this is a program where

people are taken off the street, they’re put in their housing unit, and they’re provided an array of wraparound services for mental health, for

substance abuse.

And this program is designed for people who have been homeless the longest, who have the highest probability of not being able to get out on their own.

And we know that those services, substance abuse treatment, behavioral health treatment, all of those things are better done for people in a

stable unit. It’s really hard to provide those kinds of services when someone is sleeping in and out through a location.

That program, again, has a 90 percent success rate in studies. And so, it just absolutely boggles the mind to think that that kind of program would

be one that this administration has an issue with.

SREENIVASAN: You know, if we see that this problem has been getting worse, is that an indictment on the fact that our policies are not working? I

mean, is — maybe that’s part of what’s motivating this approach by the administration?

WHITEHEAD JR.: So, again, I would say that when we have done things that would be preventative in nature, that prevent people from becoming homeless

in the first place, expanded housing production, it has worked. We saw that during COVID. We saw communities move away from congregate shelters with

hundreds, maybe thousands of people to smaller individual settings. We saw eviction prevention dollars put in place. We saw emergency housing

vouchers. And housing vouchers are one of the best solutions to homelessness.

The Permanent Supportive Housing program I talked about is a great program for a portion of the population, it is not a be all and end all. We need

much more. We need vouchers. Everybody deserves, again, a safe place to live.

Another issue that this executive order fails to recognize is the number of children that we see enter this population. Certainly, we don’t consider

our children in the school system, almost 1.5 million of them, criminals. So, there’s a need to look at this issue comprehensively.

What we’ve been forced to do as a sector is to choose portions of the population, because we were forced to operate in a scarcity model where

they picked the population, sometimes it was veterans, sometimes it was the chronically homeless, but we never have gotten to scale with the resources

for this issue where it was a comprehensive solution.

So, I agree with you, the policies have been failed but the policies are not on the part of people experiencing homelessness. They should not be

blamed for the growth of homelessness. We have a federal government and elected officials who have never addressed the problem in a comprehensive

way.

SREENIVASAN: When you look at the population of homelessness, is the proportion of people with mental illnesses and mental health problems

rising? I mean, the numbers in New York, it’s somewhere around 17 percent and almost a quarter of the population in California. I mean, is the

administration right to try and target this population? The president says, for those who are severely mentally ill and deeply disturbed, we will bring

them to mental institutions where they belong with the goal of reintegrating them back into society once they are well enough to manage.

WHITEHEAD JR.: Well, it is certainly a great need. We do have a proportion — a portion of the population that does suffer from mental illness and

many that suffer from severe mental illness. We learned in the ’50s, we learned almost 70 years ago that that was not putting large numbers of

people into mental institution was a field policy. That’s how we got to deinstitutionalization.

What was a much better solution was smaller community-based facilities where people got to have agency but addressed their mental health at the

same time. So, what is being proposed is detention camps and putting people in institutions, basically warehousing them. And there is no housing that’s

attached to this. So, that’s a very important point here.

So, if you put people in those institutions, and I’ll repeat this, or you put them in a correction facility, one of the largest concentrations of

people that have mental health issues is the Los Angeles County Jail, for instance. They don’t have housing when they leave those institutions. And

so, you haven’t done anything but disappear people, made people believe that you were doing something to address homelessness, when really, you’re

hiding the issue. But it does not solve homelessness. It removes people from systems of care that they’ve engaged in that will help towards their

eventual escape from homelessness. People are forced into that issue.

They want treatment. The treatment is just not available. New York tried to do a forced institutionalization. They found that they were hundreds of

thousands of beds less than the need for people that needed that particular intervention. And that would be the same everywhere in this country.

We have to do something very different than warehousing people. It does not work. We’ve seen horrific videos, you know, 50 years ago, and we don’t want

to return to that. But we think this is kind of a recipe for us to return to that.

SREENIVASAN: Donald, why is this so personal for you?

WHITEHEAD JR.: Part of it is because I care about other people. But the other issue is I’ve experienced homelessness myself, and I experienced it

twice. I experienced it as a child and I experienced it as an adult. And since that time, I’ve been able to save tens of maybe hundreds of thousands

of people.

I put 200 people that I found on the streets of Prince George’s County, Maryland into units during COVID. So, it is very personal. I talk to people

experiencing homelessness every day. And I’ll tell you I answer an e-mail box that is frequently, and every day I see more and more people that are

really, really concerned.

They’re saying, I’m homeless and I just heard that I’m going to be arrested. What should I do? Those are the kind of things I’m hearing in our

info box. So, every one of those stories touches me because of my own personal experience. I know what it’s like to be homeless. I know what it’s

like to be harassed while I was on the street. So, it really hits home on a personal level and I am committed to doing everything I can to make sure

that we push back against this executive order.

SREENIVASAN: Executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, Donald Whitehead, thanks so much for your time.

WHITEHEAD JR.: Well, thank you so much and I really appreciate you bringing attention to this issue. It is so, so important.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So, many important issues. That is it for now. Goodbye from London.