AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

As we continue our coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, we go now to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by the Iranian Israeli journalist and activist Orly Noy. Earlier today, Israel launched a wave of new strikes targeting Iran and Lebanon. Meanwhile, retaliatory Iranian missile attacks hit central Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports the strikes killed two people, seriously wounding a third.

In a recent article, our guest Orly Noy wrote, quote, “Only eight months ago, following the ceasefire with Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that 'in the 12 days of Operation Rising Lion, we achieved a historic victory, which will stand for generations.' It turns out this 'historic victory' did not last even a single year, let alone generations,” Orly Noy writes. She is the editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call and the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board, B’Tselem the Israeli human rights group.

Orly Noy, if you can respond to what’s happening now on the ground, the attacks by Iran in response to Israel and U.S. strike on Iran?

ORLY NOY: Hi, Amy. Thank you so much for having me.

Yes, I mean, I think it was well expected that as the war continues, there will be escalation also in the price that the Israeli society will need to pay for this completely lawless, unnecessary, criminal war that Israel and the United States wage against Iran. Strangely enough, this still does not translate into any substantial opposition to the war among the Israeli society. The Israeli society is well known for its almost automatic support of any war, no matter how senseless it is. And we see it once again, not only by the supporters of Netanyahu and his government, but also by the entire Zionist Jewish opposition, by the Israeli mainstream media, of course, and by the public.

AMY GOODMAN: And let me point out, you are Jewish. You were raised in Iran.

ORLY NOY: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: You live in Israel. In your recent piece, it’s headlined “We are at war, therefore we are,” as you describe what you call “the ritual erasure of political dissent” in Israel right now, noting Israeli opposition leaders have “eagerly and reflexively rallied behind Netanyahu in support” of war.

ORLY NOY: Yes, in some cases, they are even more extreme in their terminology than Netanyahu himself. Only a couple of days ago, the head of the opposition, Yair Lapid, tweeted that this war cannot end with anything less than the complete destruction of all the Iranian infrastructure, etc., etc. And this is the man whose sole political goal right now should be, and as declared to be, replacing Netanyahu, or at least bringing Netanyahu down in the next elections.

It is astonishing, the fact that Lapid, as Yair Golan, as Bennett, and the other heads of the Jewish coalition do not understand that by supporting, without question, this very strange and unnecessary war, they’re not just committing a moral crime, but also making it for themselves incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to replace Netanyahu in the next elections, because he’s just gaining more and more popularity with each war, with each unnecessary war, that he wages upon neighboring countries and countries in the region.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of attacking Lebanon again and intensifying boots on the ground in Lebanon on Israel’s part?

ORLY NOY: Yeah, we are — I mean, look, we’ve seen it happening in the two-and-a-half years of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and we see it yet again now. Whenever the public, locally and internationally, attention is drawn, if it’s to Gaza or to Iran, Israel is making really extreme changes on the ground. Now it’s in Lebanon, which is being conquered, or at least part of it, with troops on the ground in the West Bank.

I think it’s really important to speak about what’s going on these days in the West Bank, with Palestinians being simply executed by settlers, with the support of the Israeli army. And it just goes by without any serious repercussions, without any serious — you know, nothing. It just — now it’s not just ethnic cleansing. They’re executing Palestinians in the West Bank. And you don’t hear the world speaking about it. You don’t, because, again, Israel is using the fact that the public attention is someplace else right now.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Agnès Callamard back into this conversation around what’s happening in the Occupied Territories, in the West Bank and in Gaza. Monday marks — that’s today — five months since the so-called ceasefire. But as you say, Israel has maintained its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. And as an organization, Amnesty International, if you could comment on Israel’s deregistration of 37 international aid groups coming into effect last week, and what that means?

AGNÈS CALLAMARD: Well, it’s part of the continuing genocide. The infliction of measures and policies meant to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians means curtailing and controlling humanitarian aid. Right now, as a result of the attacks against Iran, the Rafah crossing has been closed. So it’s coming on top of the deregistration of the 37 humanitarian organizations, which means that the humanitarian condition, that was already pretty bad after five months of so-called ceasefire, is worsening.

The control over humanitarian organization is very clear. It is meant to control those who dare speak up, those who are on the ground and are witnesses to the ongoing genocide. They are being replaced by lackeys, I will say, so far pretty incompetent ones, according to their past record. And it is all part of the blockade that is being imposed in terms of people’s movement, in terms of food, in terms of medicine and in terms of information.

AMY GOODMAN: On the issue of blockade, I want to end with Orly Noy talking about a blockade of information. We hear inside Israel the, you know, bomb shelters that Palestinians, who are speaking Arabic, are told not to come in by other Israelis, and, of course, the lack of protection on the West Bank, bomb shelters at all. If you could comment on that, on the blockade of information, military censorship in Israel, relatively little coming out about the damage from the Iranian attacks, Orly?

ORLY NOY: Yes. Well, I mean, this is — when you have a regime that is fundamentally based on the foundations of racism and supremacy, you shouldn’t be surprised to find that these notions of racism and supremacy are being expressed also in, or maybe even particularly in, times of war.

It is true that there is a — it’s not that Palestinians, in many cases, are not being allowed into public shelters, against the law, needless to say, by the public. The more fundamental problem is that the Palestinian neighborhoods, neighborhoods and towns and cities, in many cases, are lacking the fundamental, you know, needs for protection, no shelters. Here in Jerusalem, the Palestinian neighborhoods, even though being annexed and supposedly are part of the state of Israel, as far as Israel is concerned, the Jewish neighborhoods are well protected by shelters; you cannot find a single — almost single — shelter in the Palestinian neighborhoods. And it goes to the extent that they are now waiting for the schools to open, because the schools are the only places in East Jerusalem that actually do have shelters. So, right now it would be safer for a Palestinian family to send their children to school in the middle of wartime than having them stay at home, where they do not have any shelters. This is the meaning of a supremacist, racist regime.

AMY GOODMAN: Orly Noy, I want to thank you for being with us, Iranian Israeli political activist, editor of the Hebrew language news site Local Call, also chair of the board of B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group. We’ll link to your latest piece for +972 headlined “We are at war, therefore we are.” And Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, I’d like to continue the conversation after the broadcast with you — we’ll post it online at democracynow.org — on this weekend of International Women’s Day, and talk particularly about one woman who just recently died returning to Iraq, Yanar Mohammed.

Coming up, U.S. military commanders have been framing the attack on Iran as a holy war, with one commander telling troops that Trump has been “anointed by Jesus” to wage war on Iran. Back in 15 seconds.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Mazel” by Emel Mathlouthi.