Al Jazeera Podcasts.

Today, he was the first official to leave the U.S. government over the war in Gaza.

I didn't think that over a year and a half later, we would still see the bombs dropping.

We're so much changing in the State Department. We talked to Josh Paul about U.S. policy

towards Israel-Palestine and what he's doing to influence it from the outside.

I'm Natasha D'Altoro, and this is The Take.

My name is Josh Paul.

I am a director and co-founder of an organization called A New Policy, which is an American

lobbying organization focused on U.S. politics

and policy towards Palestine and Israel. I previously served in the State Department for over a

decade in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs.

It's really great to have you on the show. Let's talk about what's happening in Gaza right now.

I mean, Israel and Hamas are having ceasefire

talks in Doha. At the same time, Israel's expanding its ground offensive. You know, they're

escalating, not scaling back. So how do you see what's happening there?

So obviously what is happening is an absolute tragedy.

What we see now with Israel's escalation, it's hard to describe it with any terms other than ethnic cleansing.

Israel has been very clear that it is trying to move people certainly out of the north of Gaza.

I believe there are only about 100,000 left there now.

All of the hospitals in the north of Gaza have been struck, damaged or destroyed in the last few days. This is obviously

deeply concerning and perhaps the start of a continuing operation to drive the people of Gaza

as far south as Israel can as part of an effort to permanently occupy

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