Mahmoud Khalil: From Palestine to Columbia, and the Cost of Speaking Out

The leading international authority on food crises—the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—on Tuesday said that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” warning that the situation has reached “an alarming and deadly turning point” and predicting “widespread death” without immediate action.The finding comes as Palestinians in Gaza have begun to collapse in the streets from hunger and the number of deaths related to hunger and malnutrition has grown exponentially as a result of Israel’s deliberate campaign of mass starvation.Meanwhile, Columbia University has agreed to pay a $200 million settlement to the Trump administration, which accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza. The settlement was announced a day after Columbia informed nearly 80 students that they had been suspended for one to three years—or expelled—for taking part in protests against the war on Gaza.On this week’s Drop Site News livestream, Ryan Grim and Meghnad Bose speak to Mahmoud Khalil, the former Palestinian student at Columbia University who was a lead negotiator for the student protests and was imprisoned by ICE for 104 days in a Louisiana detention center before being released on bail last month by a federal judge. Khalil discusses the latest in Gaza, the role of protest movements, Columbia University, and more in an interview with Drop Site in lieu of our weekly broadcast. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe