israeli officials this week lifted a nearly threemonth blockade on food medicine and other essentials today that aid including baby food began trickling in but the UN's humanitarian chief said it was a quote drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed by the roughly 2 million Palestinians in the war torn Gaza Strip sammy Shabban is among the Palestinian Americans in New Jersey who've been advocating for an end to the war and for more humanitarian aid he's the head of the state's Muslim Civic Coalition but he's also lost at least 40 members of his family killed in Gaza in Israeli air strikes he joins me now sammy thanks so much for coming back on the show um let me ask you first about what you've been able to hear from uh folks on the ground about whether they've been able to gain access to any of the aid that has now made it through the crossing within these last uh 12 hours or so yeah we have been in contact with my family over there very little aid is getting to anybody um even at the highest points you're talking about only a small percentage of people that will actually get what they need the rest of the people are left to fend for themselves you're talking about a deprivation in food in health care an inability to basically perform basic functions in your life because you just can't move you're just debilitated from you know a lack of any human resources that you would need yeah i I know the UN um the Israeli prime minister said that they were looking to focus on the most needy families but do you have any idea how they're um making that discrepancy when uh I know you have said and and many have said um it's borderline famine there yeah I I I actually would not call it borderline famine i would call it allout famine um and it's a complete lack of any water of any food goods of anything that would be uh sustaining life there is literal starvation it's to the point that my family cries to us and just says "What why don't they just kill us at this point?"

Like it's it's too much we we we can't survive like it's the slowest possible death that you can inflict on somebody i mean what do you say to them when you hear that over the phone we cried together we try to make the the most light of it that they're very God-believing people so they know that God has a plan in all of this and they know that once their you know their finality meets them they're they're looking forward they they believe that their patience will be rewarded but it's excruciating it's it's a nightmare that has been going on for more than a year and a half now there's never been a relief i know the news channels move past every moment and go on to the next news cycle but for my family it just keeps happening we've had over 40 people killed so far many people dismembered in my family the youngest wasn't even a year old um my uncles have been killed and my cousins people who have just been married it's affecting every facet of life and it is a complete and utter failure of the world to to stop this my cousin was giving birth to a baby with no uh epidural on the side of a street um you're talking about limbs being missing and no surgery available or if the surgery is there there's no anesthesia it's just cutting right into the flesh i want I want I want the folks at home to know that this is very real this is this is happening and it's happening to humans just like you and I um it's a it's a dire situation that you're describing i wonder Sammy um what you make of then comments that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said last night which was that and this is a quote Israel would only end the war if Hamas surrenders Gaza is demilitarized and we implement the Trump plan um and I believe he was referring to what President Trump had laid out back in February which included uh expelling Palestinians from the territory what's your reaction to that that's what that's what that's what the plan has been it's an ethnic cleansing it's a it's a it's an expulsion of an indigenous people from their lands it is you can listen to Netanyahu's other quotes and his and his senior members in his office that have said "We want to be cleared of all the Palestinians we want to take it."

Our own president saying "We want to make it the Riviera of of of the Middle East and just kick out all of those people."

Where do the Palestinians go in that case president Trump has since walked back but how much faith do you have um in the US's ability in this administration's ability to um intervene in a more meaningful way than we've seen at this point the United States has the ability to do a huge intervention if it's so pleased right now they've only made some steps towards that i have faith that our government will make that turn people are now seeing the genocide for what it is and they are starting the public pressure is starting to mount but I do think that it's going to take a little bit more time for us to to get there and that's time that my family doesn't have sammy Siobhan thank you so much for your time i appreciate it thank you Briana