Episodes
In the face of growing international pressure, the Biden administration has continued to double down on a policy of blanket support for Israel, even as it presses ahead with a possible military offensive against the town of Rafah that many observers have warned could trigger the largest humanitarian crisis of the war so far. This week on Intercepted, co-hosts Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain discuss the Biden administration's approach to the conflict with Thanassis Cambanis, director of the...
Published 04/24/24
Published 04/24/24
The war in Gaza has been among the deadliest for civilians, including children, of any war in the 21st century. After spending five weeks volunteering and administering at a field hospital in Rafah, Mohammad Subeh, an American doctor, describes what he saw to Intercepted co-hosts Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain. Subeh spent weeks treating wounded Palestinian children, many of them orphaned by Israeli attacks. He also described treating those who survived the aftermath of “mass casualty...
Published 04/17/24
The conflict in Gaza has galvanized a new generation of young anti-war activists, in the same way that opposition to the Vietnam War and apartheid South Africa did in decades past. A backlash is now building in the United States, led by right-wing activist and pro-Israel groups aimed at eliminating any public dissent over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. As the death toll of Palestinians rises, a new authoritarian climate is sweeping across the U.S. — particularly on college campuses,...
Published 04/10/24
Unlike any other point in history, hackers, whistleblowers, and archivists now routinely make off with terabytes of data from governments, corporations, and extremist groups. These datasets often contain gold mines of revelations in the public interest and in many cases are freely available for anyone to download. Revelations based on leaked datasets can change the course of history.Yet these digital tomes can prove extremely difficult to analyze or interpret, and few people today have the...
Published 04/08/24
The Israeli military assault on Gaza has continued for nearly six months, with word of an impending attack on the densely populated town of Rafah. Against this backdrop, a shadow war has continued to play out between Iran and a network of militant groups on one side, and the U.S. and Israel on the other. Iran today supports and arms not just Hamas, but also groups like Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various Syrian and Iraqi militia groups. Aside from the U.S. itself, Iran today is...
Published 03/27/24
Warning: This interview contains graphic descriptions of violence and death. Throughout the past five and a half months, Israel has waged a full-spectrum war against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The United States and other Western nations have supplied not only the weapons for this war of annihilation against the Palestinians, but also key political and diplomatic support. The results of the actions of this coalition of the killing have been devastating. Conservative estimates...
Published 03/23/24
As the official death toll in Gaza passes 31,000 people, including more than 13,000 children, the Israeli state is continuing its mass-killing operations in the besieged strip. The U.N. secretary-general is warning that famine is spreading in Gaza, and Tel Aviv remains defiantly committed to its distinctly offensive war of collective punishment. While the Biden administration is growing more vocal in its public calls for a pause in Israeli military actions, it has also made clear it has...
Published 03/20/24
After six months of a sustained U.S.-backed Israeli war of annihilation against the Palestinians of Gaza, President Joe Biden says he now has a “red line.” Asked about Israel’s threatened full-scale invasion of Rafah, Biden said, “You can't have another 30,000 Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after [Hamas],” Biden told MSNBC. “There are other ways to deal with Hamas.” The White House has taken no action to halt the transfer of arms and other support to Israel’s war and Israeli...
Published 03/13/24
The U.S. State Department this week congratulated Pakistan's new prime minister on assuming power, following elections that were marred by widespread allegations of rigging, voter suppression, and violence targeting supporters of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan. On a special crossover episode of Intercepted and Deconstructed, hosts Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim discuss the aftermath of Pakistan's February 8 election, as well as growing calls inside the U.S. to hold Pakistan's...
Published 03/06/24
The Israeli government is on the brink of a long-feared military offensive against the town of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinian civilians have taken shelter from the Israeli campaign in Gaza. An attack on Rafah could trigger the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the war so far, including a potential ethnic cleansing of Gaza as Palestinians are pushed into Egypt. This week on Intercepted, hosts Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain discuss the current state of the war as well as the...
Published 02/28/24
On Friday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans for a ground invasion of Rafah, where at least 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering; the vast majority are refugees who have fled their homes. Israel’s most recent bombardments on Rafah have killed at least 14 people in a set of strikes on Thursday and upward of 100 on Monday. This week on Intercepted, guest host Sharif Abdel Kouddous — a contributing writer for The Intercept — and Tareq Baconi discuss Israel’s latest...
Published 02/14/24
The U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza is entering its fifth month. As the brutal siege and bombing continues, the United Nations and other international organizations are warning of famine and the outbreak of diseases. Powerful nations around the world, led by the U.S., are not just supplying weapons and political support for Israel, but also have now joined in the campaign to further restrict vital humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Biden administration has led the charge to suspend funding to the...
Published 02/07/24
The killing of three U.S. soldiers at a remote military outpost in Jordan, claimed by Iraqi militia groups to be retaliation for U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza, has set the stage for a response by the Biden administration that has blamed Iran for helping support the attack. After years of attempting to pivot away from the region, the Biden administration now looks set to deepen its military involvement in the Middle East as it fights the Houthis in Yemen and squares off in an...
Published 01/31/24
With his airstrikes this month ordered in response to attacks on Red Sea shipping, Joe Biden has become the fourth consecutive U.S. president to bomb Yemen. The strikes targeted against the Houthi militant group are aimed at preventing further attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea. Biden himself has said that the strikes carried out so far have been ineffective but that they would continue on nonetheless.  This week on Intercepted, Shireen Al-Adeimi, an assistant professor of language and...
Published 01/24/24
A panel of judges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague has entered deliberations in the preliminary phase of South Africa’s historic suit against Israel, charging it with carrying out a genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. While a final ruling in the case could take years, the judges will rule on whether to order a halt to continued Israeli military actions pending a trial. This week on Intercepted, Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for...
Published 01/17/24
As Israel’s war of annihilation in Gaza enters its fourth month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears intent on pulling the U.S. deeper into a wider regional war. In recent weeks, Israel has intensified its military operations inside Lebanon, killing several mid-level Hezbollah commanders in what appear to be targeted assassination strikes. Israel is also widely believed to have been responsible for the January 2 drone strike in a Beirut suburb that killed a senior Hamas official, Saleh...
Published 01/10/24
Today, we’re sharing an episode of our sister podcast, Deconstructed, hosted by Ryan Grim. More than 18,600 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s latest wave of attacks began just over two months ago, following the October 7 Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 Israelis. While the Biden administration continues to support Israel in its devastation, politicians and heads of state around the world are calling for a ceasefire. The last extended war on Gaza, in 2021, would reshape the...
Published 12/15/23
For more than two months, the Israeli military has waged a scorched-earth campaign against Gaza, and the death toll has risen to over 18,000 Palestinians, including more than 7,000 children. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, violent Israeli government-armed and funded settlers continue their violent campaign to purge Palestinians from their homes as the Israel Defense Forces lay siege to Jenin and other cities.  This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill discusses the dystopian game show...
Published 12/13/23
On Friday morning, Israel resumed its bombing campaign against Gaza, and the civilian death toll is once again rising. Both Hamas and Israel accused the other of violating the temporary truce. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has promised, “We will fight in the entire [Gaza] Strip.” Despite meekly worded suggestions from Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel make an effort to reduce civilian deaths, the U.S. position remains one of full-throttled support for a military campaign...
Published 12/02/23
Despite a temporary pause in Israel’s massive bombardment and ground operations in Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe continues to worsen. With more than 15,000 dead Palestinians and whole neighborhoods and towns left in ruin, Israel’s defense minister has defiantly vowed to dramatically escalate the attacks inside Gaza the moment the truce ends. This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain discuss the state of the war as well as the propaganda campaigns being waged by each...
Published 11/29/23
The civilian death toll wrought by Israel’s siege of Gaza is staggering. More than 14,000 Palestinians have been killed, nearly half of them children. More than 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced from their homes. And President Joe Biden has presided over an open spigot of U.S. weapons and support for the war of annihilation being waged by the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu. This week on Intercepted, the esteemed historian Rashid Khalidi joins Jeremy Scahill and...
Published 11/22/23
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said recently on CNN, “It’s not only our war, it’s your war too.” He was right: The Biden administration has armed, funded, and supported Netanyahu every step of the way as Israel wages a campaign of terror bombings against Gaza. In five weeks of sustained Israeli airstrikes and ground operations, one in 200 residents of Gaza has been killed. Of the more than 11,000 deaths, 4,600 of them are children. President Joe Biden remains entrenched in his...
Published 11/15/23
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reject international calls for a ceasefire and says Israel will oversee security in Gaza indefinitely. This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain discuss Israel's monthlong scorched-earth campaign in Gaza and the U.S. government's complicity. Then Mairav Zonszein, an Israeli American journalist and a senior analyst on Israel–Palestine at the International Crisis Group, joins to discuss developments in Israel and Gaza. Zonszein,...
Published 11/08/23
More than 3,000 children have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombarding the enclave three weeks ago. The number of children reportedly killed in the conflict has surpassed the annual number of children killed in conflicts around the world since 2019, according to Save the Children.  This week on Intercepted, Murtaza Hussain is joined by Khaled Elgindy, the director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute and author of “Blind Spot:...
Published 10/31/23