--:-- Noel King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noel King.
--:-- [Discussion continues with a brief introduction to the topic]
--:-- Noel King: Gaza City is one of the most densely populated areas in the densely populated Gaza Strip, the city's home now to more than a million people. Last week, Israel launched a new ground offensive into Gaza City. Israeli officials say the long-expected operation started early Tuesday and will proceed gradually, with the expectation of fighting up to 3,000 Hamas militants still believed to be there.
--:-- Amir Tibon: We spoke to one person. He'd been pulling a cart loaded with all his family's possessions for more than 12 hours, pushing through these horrendous conditions. We are seeing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster that could be easily avoided. It's not feasible to move one million people from Gaza City to the south. Civilians there are faced with a choice. Stay or go. Either call can be deadly.
--:-- Noel King: The incursion could also be deadly for the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, at least some of whom are believed to be in Gaza City. So why did Israel make this choice? Coming up on Today Explained. means together. Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash today explained.
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--:-- Noel King: I'm Amir Tibon. I'm a journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and author of the book The Gates of Gaza, which was published exactly a year ago and details my own family's story of October 7 and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
--:-- Amir Tibon: If the ground incursion in Gaza City is deadly for both civilians and potentially the hostages, why is the IDF undertaking it? What's the objective in Gaza City? That's a great question because the leadership of the IDF was against this decision. This was a decision ordered by the prime minister against the very strong objections of the chief of staff of the Israeli military, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir.
--:-- Amir Tibon: He warned that what we're going to do there is endanger the hostages, lose many of our soldiers, get Israel entangled in very problematic actions from the international legal point of view, and at the end of the day, not fully defeat Hamas. So this ground offensive, not a clear answer to what the objective is. It puts the hostages, as you've said, in danger.
--:-- Amir Tibon: What does it mean for Palestinian civilians living in Gaza City? I would say that until now, about half of the population in Gaza City has left. But I'll share with you a story that I heard from a friend who used to live in Gaza and still has family there. And she contacted me last week and she said, look, my family is there. Every day, they and their neighbors are receiving messages from the Israeli military that they have to evacuate.
--:-- Amir Tibon: And what they're telling the Israeli officers who are contacting them is, we don't have anywhere to go. We can't find any apartment anywhere to stay in the southern parts of Gaza. Gaza City, just to be clear, is more in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. And so they're saying we don't have anywhere to go. It's either take a risk, stay at home and maybe die in your home or go and live in the street, sleep in a tent somewhere, which carries its own risks at this point.
--:-- Amir Tibon: And even the question of safety is not clear if you go and do that, because there have also been bombardments and fighting episodes in areas where you have many of those refugees. So for them, they're looking at this like a nothing left to lose kind of situation. And as far as I know, the family of this friend of mine, so far, they have remained in Gaza City simply because they don't see anywhere else they can go.
--:-- Noel King: How do the families of the remaining hostages feel about this incursion, knowing what is at stake for their loved ones? First of all, when we talk about the hostages and their families, for me, it's very personal because a good friend of mine, Omri Miran from my community, from Kibbutz Nachal Oz, a small Israeli kibbutz right next to the Gaza Strip, he was kidnapped on October 7 in front of the eyes of his two young daughters, who are the same age as my daughters.
--:-- Amir Tibon: They saw their father taken away by armed terrorists. And we know that he is alive. He's been able to survive everything that happened over the last 23 months. But now the military told his family in very clear words, we can't say 100% that this will not endanger him, this expansion of the war.
--:-- Amir Tibon: And the same message has been passed to all of the families of the 20 remaining living hostages in Gaza and there are also about 28 hostages who are believed to be dead but their families are still fighting to get their bodies back so they can be buried properly in Israel and they have also received a message that nobody knows what could happen as the war is now expanded.
--:-- Amir Tibon: Their biggest fear is that their loved ones will be buried forever under the rubble and never to be found. And so what you're seeing right now is many of the families of the hostages protesting against this expansion of the war, against the Gaza City operation.
--:-- Amir Tibon: We just had here in Israel, one of our most important holidays, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. And on the eve of this holiday, you had hundreds of people including families of the hostages and by the way including my own family who chose to I not going to say celebrate because there was nothing to celebrate there but chose to commemorate this holiday in a dinner in front of the prime minister residence in Jerusalem, pleading with him to reverse this disastrous decision and not to risk their loved ones and to stop this before it's too late.
--:-- Amir Tibon: And that's very unusual. You know, Israel has protests all the time and demonstrations, and we pride ourselves on being the only democracy in the region. But I don't remember a huge protest like this on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, which is such a holy and religious kind of day.
--:-- Noel King: You've covered diplomacy, and I want to ask you about what we're seeing in the U.S. President Trump, as you know, was at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York yesterday. He said two things of note. We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to stop it. We have to get it done. We have to negotiate. Immediately have to negotiate peace. We've got to get the hostages back.
--:-- Amir Tibon: What is your thinking on what matters to Trump at this point? And what role does the U.S. have to play at this point? President Trump is the only man in the world who can stop this war. and all it takes is one phone call from him to Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is that simple. Until he does that, I'm very pessimistic that anything will change.
--:-- Amir Tibon: And I'll explain why, but it will require two minutes from the listeners. Sure. In January 2025, right around the time that President Trump entered the White House, a deal was signed to basically end the war in Gaza. It was a deal with two phases. Phase number one included the release of 33 Israeli hostages from the hands of Hamas in return for a gradual but not full Israeli withdrawal from parts of Gaza and the release of about a thousand Palestinian prisoners.
--:-- Amir Tibon: And this was executed by both sides, implemented successfully. And while the deal was signed in President Biden's last days in the White House, everybody gave most of the credit to President Trump because what motivated Netanyahu to accept that agreement back then in January was fear of angering and alienating Trump before the new president's entry into the White House.
--:-- Amir Tibon: Now, once the first phase was completed, we were supposed to enter the second phase of the deal. And that included the release of all the remaining hostages and a completion of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. Instead of continuing into the second phase, Netanyahu chose on March 18 to renew the war.
--:-- Amir Tibon: And at the time, he told President Trump he needs just a few more weeks. just a few more weeks to finish off Hamas and force them to sign a better deal from his point of view. What exactly that better deal looked like, we don't know. But he said, if I apply military pressure on them, we can get a better deal than the one signed in January.
--:-- Amir Tibon: Noel, those several weeks have now turned into more than six months. During this period, And I'm speaking now from an Israeli point of view. Six months, we've lost more than 60 Israeli soldiers. Our country has become isolated on the world stage like never before. And only one hostage, only one living hostage returned during this entire time.
--:-- Amir Tibon: So what many Israelis are asking themselves is, when will President Trump realize that the promise of just a few more weeks was delusional at best? and that meanwhile things are only deteriorating and getting worse and that with one phone call he can tell Netanyahu, let's go back to March. Let's go back to the deal that was on the table that you already signed and begin implementing phase two. All the hostages come home and the war ends.
--:-- Noel King: Amir Tibon, he writes for Haaretz. The Gates of Gaza is his book. Coming up, a cascade of Western nations have said in the last week or so that they will recognize Palestinian statehood. This is Raising Again, the prospect of a two-state solution. Stay tuned.
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--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King. In the last week or so, the UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal, and others have joined France in recognizing a Palestinian state. Josh Keating has been writing about this. He covers foreign policy and national security for Vox.
--:-- Josh Keating: Yeah, I mean, it's been a remarkable wave, about 10 countries. This is why I declare that today France recognizes the state of Palestine. The United Kingdom formally recognizes the state of Palestine. Canada recognizes the state of Palestine.
--:-- Josh Keating: In terms of what it actually does for the people on the ground in Palestine, or in Israel for that matter, it doesn't change much. You know, these territories are still under Israeli military occupation. Palestine is not going to be a UN member so long as the U.S. has a veto on the Security Council.
--:-- Josh Keating: The Security Council has to approve any new members. But what I think it does show is just how the politics around this issue are really shifting. You know, I'd invite listeners to sort of look at, you can find a map on Wikipedia or other sites that show which countries currently recognize Palestine.
--:-- Josh Keating: And there used to be a big blank spot over Western Europe. That was a holdout. Those were countries that, like the U.S., did not recognize Palestine. And now that map's being increasingly filled in. So it's not only that Israel is getting more isolated on the world stage.
--:-- Josh Keating: I say it's the U.S. that's also getting isolated on the world stage. And I think that that's really an indication of where the politics on this issue are headed. Why is recognition happening now, like this week? Well, I think it's clearly a response to the scenes we're seeing out of Gaza and a frustration in the international community that, you know, this war is still happening and they haven't been able to end it.
--:-- Josh Keating: Recognizing a Palestinian state today is the only way to provide a political solution to a situation which has to stop. And I think that, you know, particularly the governments in Western Europe, you know, of places like Britain, France, you know, and earlier we saw places like Norway and Ireland.
--:-- Josh Keating: Like they are, those governments are under heavy pressure from their populations to do more, to take a step. pro-Palestine protesters declared a global day of civil disobedience and blocked traffic on O'Connell Bridge. A sea of people from all of Belgium and neighbouring countries flooded the main streets of Brussels as far as the eyes could see.
--:-- Josh Keating: Some protesters said they blamed Western governments for complicity in war crimes against Palestinians. Message to Mr Macron, you are complicit of these massacres. And so, you know, I think that, you know, I have heard, you know, experts on the UN call this fantasy diplomacy.
--:-- Josh Keating: People have called it virtue signaling that, you know, this is something that's not actually going to put much real pressure on Israel, but it's a way of showing that they're doing something. You know, I think from what I've heard from French officials, they see it as a way to, you know, sketch out a future vision for what a resolution to this conflict will look like.
--:-- Josh Keating: From what they say, that there's no way out of this conflict without presenting some kind of alternative, some kind of light at the end of the tunnel for the Palestinian people. The government of Israel and the Trump administration would counter that they see this as just a reward for Hamas, saying that this is basically giving a reward for the October 7th attacks.
--:-- Josh Keating: Now, as if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities. This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities.
--:-- Noel King: How is Israel responding to these recognitions of statehood? Well, negatively. I would say that we're hearing more calls in Israel to formally annex Palestinian territory in response to these recognitions.
--:-- Josh Keating: You know, you have some members of the Netanyahu government talking openly about annexing parts of Gaza now. But I think, you know, really actually the place to watch is the West Bank. There's been an active debate in Israel for years about annexing at least parts of the West Bank.
--:-- Josh Keating: And like the more extreme ends, is they could annex all of what's called Area C, which is the 60% of the West Bank that's currently under Israeli military control. And, you know, I think the thing of doing that is it would basically, it's the only contiguous part of the West Bank.
--:-- Josh Keating: And so it would reduce Palestinian territory to a few little sort of islands. You know, people call them Bantu stands going back to apartheid South Africa. And so, you know, this would be basically a way of kind of burying the prospect of Palestinian statehood permanently doing this.
--:-- Noel King: How is the U.S. responding? The U is opposed to unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. And that I should say is not just the Trump administration position. That been a consistent U position from Democratic and Republican administrations.
--:-- Josh Keating: You know, when it comes to annexation, things are a little less clear. You have members of the Trump administration, including the Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who are sort of open annexationists, who say they should never be a Palestinian state, that, you know, this is rightfully Israeli territory.
--:-- Josh Keating: I think the question is, what does that Palestinian state look like? Where is it? Where is it gonna be? Well, what does it have to be in Judea and Samaria? Does it need to be somewhere different? Does it need...
--:-- Josh Keating: I think President Trump's been a little more vague on this view. He said he's not wedded to the idea of a two-state solution. He's certainly not as committed to it as Republican and Democratic administrations have been, at least rhetorically in the past.
--:-- Josh Keating: But I think his views on that are a little less clear. And I think what's interesting to me is one of the signature foreign policy accomplishments of the first Trump administration was the Abraham Accords.
--:-- Josh Keating: Together, these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region, something which nobody thought was possible, certainly not in this day and age, maybe in many decades. These are normalization deals between Israel and several Arab countries, notably the United Arab Emirates, and Trump had expressed hopes that Saudi Arabia, kind of the big kahuna in the neighborhood, could be brought into these accords as well.
--:-- Josh Keating: I think annexation would put any hope of that out of reach, and we've even seen the UAE government saying they might even suspend their membership or the participation in the Abraham Accords if Israel went ahead with this.
--:-- Noel King: Let's talk a little bit more about the two-state solution. So we've got lots of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week. And the idea of a two-state solution is coming back up. Who's discussing it and what would this mean?
--:-- Josh Keating: Right. So the longstanding kind of consensus position, both in the U.S. government and most Western governments, is that a two-state solution would come as a result of a negotiated settlement between the Israeli and Palestinian governments.
--:-- Josh Keating: So that's been the position. What's different now is these governments are unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state in the absence of a negotiated solution. And I think that that's a response to the fact that, you know, there just doesn't seem to be any realistic prospect in the near term of, you know, a negotiated two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
--:-- Josh Keating: The idea, frankly, looks fanciful at the moment. So I think that's why we're seeing this move from several countries to kind of unilaterally recognize the Palestinian state now.
--:-- Noel King: And I should say there's a bill in the Senate, a resolution urging the Trump administration to recognize Palestine. Trump obviously is not going to do that. And I think you would have had a hard time getting even that prior to the war in Gaza.
--:-- Noel King: Where does all of this leave Palestine and Israel? You know, so it was interesting to hear a speech Netanyahu gave last week where he said basically that Israel is just going to have to get used to being isolated on the world stage.
--:-- Josh Keating: He said, you know, that they're going to have to be super Sparta in addition to Athens. And he said they might have to have an economy with autarkic characteristics, so self-sufficient basically. And so this doesn't sound like a government that is interested in caving to international pressure.
--:-- Josh Keating: And I think what we're seeing is the price of cooperation with Israel is just getting like so high for some of these countries, both because of the furious public reaction to the images we're seeing out of Gaza and because, you know, the airstrikes that Israel has carried out in places like Yemen, Lebanon, and even more consequently, you know, a few weeks ago in Qatar, which is a major regional economy, a place that hosts a U.S. military base.
--:-- Josh Keating: I think Israel is just seen as sort of destabilizing in the region. So I think if they continue on this course, it is kind of precluding this sort of deeper path toward deeper regional integration, toward a more friendly, peaceful coexistence with its neighbors, which they seemed to be on a few years ago.
--:-- Josh Keating: And I think Netanyahu has shown that's a sacrifice he's willing to make. If the price of better relations with their neighbors is a negotiated end to the war in Gaza if it's tangible steps towards the two-state solution, that's not a price he's willing to pay.
--:-- Noel King: That was Vox's Josh Keating. You can find more analysis from Josh in his piece Turning Point or Political Theater, The Big Push for Palestinian Statehood Explained. That's at Vox.com.
--:-- Noel King: Today's show was produced by Kelly Wessinger and Denise Guerra with an assist from Ariana Espuru. Amina El-Sadi is our editor. Laura Bullard and Avishai Artsy checked the facts. Adrienne Lilly and Patrick Boyd engineered. And I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noel King: If you like Today Explained, you should consider becoming a Vox member. Vox members get perks, including ad-free versions of this show. Who could ask for anything more, really? But there is more. Unlimited reading at Vox.com. a member-exclusive newsletter, and I'm told, so much more.
--:-- Noel King: You'll also be supporting our work. We cannot make Today Explained without Vox members. Sign up now, and you'll get more than 30% off an annual membership. This is a sale, folks. Go to vox.com slash members to join. Thank you.
