We're coming on the air right now with breaking news from the Middle East. Hamas has just released thirteen Israeli hostages, including two Israeli Americans.
They have agreed to a two day extension. This is coming from the Katari Minister of Foreign Affairs.
I'm your host Roslin Matheson today on the Big Take, Bloomberg's Israel Bureau chief Ethan Bronner and journalist Vadwa Hodali join me for an update on the Israel Hamas war, including the temporary truce, the release of hostages and prisoners, and what the international community thinks about the conflict. Almost two months on. Ethan and Fadwah, thank you for joining me for this conversation. It comes almost eight weeks into the war between Israel and Hamason, of course, with a
short lived truce coming into effect. Ethan, could you just bring our listeners up to day in terms of what's been happening in the past few days.
The Americans, the Egyptians, and the Kantries organized a truce between Israel and Hamas last week, which originally was to last for four days, and there was to be an exchange of hostages that had been taken by Hamas into Gaza for Palestinian prisoners that Israel holds. In all cases,
these are women, children, and elderly people. There were no men involved in this deal, and part of the deal also included a huge increase in the number of aid trucks coming in to Gaza, where people are beginning to suffer from hunger and disease after, as you said, nearly eight weeks of war.
It was obviously a very really delicate deal to get done, as you say, involving mediation between Katar officials from the US Egypt essentially passing notes between Hamas and Israel in very circumstances. Was it surprising to you, Ethan that the truce actually has had throughout It does seem like it's been largely respected.
There was many, many reasons to imagine that it would fall apart.
But I guess what's driving it is that both sides are desperate for a deal, as are the sponsors.
So Israel is desperate for.
A deal because it really wants to bring back its hostages, at least as many as it can. There has developed in Israel an exceptional campaign of pressure to put the hostages at the front of the agenda. Ahead of victory, and also to assert that it doesn't make victory difficult or harder.
It's both things are equally important.
On Hamasa's side, the desire for some kind of a pause that would allow it to reorganize its troops and also bring in some supplies for itself as well as.
For the people of Gaza also is huge.
And for the Americans, who are the major sponsor of Israel internationally, there was a sense that Israel was going about this war in a way that was art sensitive to the needs of civilians, that it was way too many people, ordinary people being killed, and by creating the conditions for this truce, there would be time to rethink its battle plan going forward.
So there was a lot of desire on all sides for it.
Outside Gaza Fadua, we did see some skirmishes continuing. We know that the Voice of Palestine radio station reported that Palestinians were killed in a missile attack by Israeli forces on the occupied West Bank. You know, there's also reports that Israeli missiles we're hitting targets inside Syria. Can you talk a little bit about what's been going on outside Gaza throughout this Ceaspi outside Gaza.
West Bank has been living allsort theence moments since the aggression on Gaza continue was raised by the Israeli different forces. The West Bank has been on a lockdown since Ako over seventh. This has put a lot of strain on the Palestinian movement, Palestinian economy on their daily basis. The West Bank since October seventh have seen an increased number of Palestinians being killed. We're talking about close to three
hundred people that have been killed since October seventh. That puts a lot of pressure on the Palestinian authority in regards to what's going on on continuous raid. They're not able to be in areas where the IDEF is conducting those raids. Schools have been put onto a course of going into a zoom and on a lot of places, especially on the north area of the West Bank like Ganine, Tulkaram, Nebulus, and that's where most of the IDEA of operations are concentrated.
And of course the IDF is the Israeli defense forced work. Has the pause in fighting did that allow us to assess any more clearly the damage of the impact inside Gaza itself of the war. Has it enabled any clearer assessments of what's been the impact inside Gaza so far of this conflict.
I think the people in Gaza got a time to breathe, and the assessment is huge. The damage is huge. The amount of destruction that took place there is huge. So these days of ceasefire gave people time to go check their homes they were destroyed, restock on goods. The humanitarian
situation is devastating. Most of the hospitals are not working, a couple of hospitals only in the south, two hospitals in the north are only functioning with severe severe damage to the infrastructure, and the humanitarian aid is not enough
to reach into the Gaza strip. The UN has been working constantly to kind provide the facilitation or humanitarian aid to go into most of the Gaza strip, but as we know that reaching the north is a bit difficult and this need requires coordination by the Israeli defense forces and the humanitarian aid agencies in there.
It was interesting just in the immediate aftermath of the truth beginning, I remember there were reports that people in Gaza were trying to move back to the north from the south to possibly check on their homes, to check on their loved ones, and we're being very much blocked in that effort and told to stay in the south. But Ethan, I was interested in something you were talking about, which is the motivation on both sides to have this CESPI, this pause in the fighting, and why it was to
the benefit of both Israel but also Hamas. I'm curious has this break though, hardened any of the pressure on the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin net and Yahu from other nations, for example, to now stop the war entirely.
There is an enormous amount of international pressure on Israel. The view from abroad is that this is an inexcusable number of civilian casualties and deaths, that Israel's rule over Gaza in the past has created the conditions for it ought to be handling the situation far differently.
At the same time, there is support.
By the United States for the goal that Israel has set, which is to dismantle Hamas, and it must be said that there appears to be support for that goal in some European capitals and indeed in the Arab golf as well. I think the problem is, you know at what costs and how quickly can they do it. The other thing is it's a rather abstract goal because Hamas is something that was born from within the Palestinian people. It is
a religious, political, social cultural movement. The idea of actually stripping it from the people seems, you know, an ambition that may not be meetable. So there's a lot of pressure to answer your question, on the Prime Minister of Israel and on the Israeli government, But it must be said, there is a huge amount of pressure inside Israel to complete the task.
As it has been laid out.
There is a surprising amount of unity in this country to do what is possible to destroy Hamas. And that's partly because the events of October seventh were so traumatic for this country.
And it's interesting to hear you talking Ethan about the question of domestic unity political unity, and we want to talk about that in a bit also. But I want to pick up a point that you made about Hamas being sort of really part of the fabric for many people, Palestinian people, in that question of the goal of eradicating Hamas being the ad goal in this conflict. For Israel, we know that they've lost a bunch of senior commanders, We know that the air strikes from Israel have been
very widespread and highly damaging. Is there a sense that Hamas has had a chance to regreep in.
All of this?
That is absolutely the sense that Israeli have, that the military has. There's concern, of course that Hamas it's now based, one assumes in the tunnels of the southern part of the Gaza strip, and they may be able to in fact run around, escape, bring in some kind of reinforcements and so forth.
So, yes, the whole idea.
Was that you have to put enormous pressure on them and only then will they yield in any way. So you had these two competing goals for the war, which was to put pressure on Hamas and destroy it and bring back the hostages. They really are not easy to reconcile the two because.
One kind of obviates the other.
But the way the Israelis have handled it is to say, well, actually, the best thing we can do is put enormous pressure on the Hamas leadership to force them to cut a deal on hostages. I'm not sure that's what happened, but that's the narrative that's been presented here. And so we
have had this series of hostages getting out. I mean, it also must be said, I think that from Hamas's point of view, to beholding babies, children and the elderly ladies has not been particularly a good look, and so I think they're not that upset about letting some of.
Them go.
After the break. How did the world respond to the temporary truth? We were talking initially about the cespar itself between Israel and har mass the exchanges of prisoners, and what's been the impact of that so far. Let's talk a little bit about some of the other players in all of this, because Fadwah the truce was broken by Qatar,
Egypt and officials in the US. What kind of role, particularly did Katar play in all of this, and what does that tell you about sort of the growing place of Qatar in the region.
As we know, Qatar has been funding the Gaza Strip since the division of the Palestinians the year cool that Hamas has imposed on the Gaza Strip in two thousand and seven. Since then, we've seen a growing interest from the Katari to invest into Gaza and also because of the relationship that they hold with the Hamas leadership. Their Hamas leadership is stationed in Qatar, so that puts them
in a closer relationship. Katar has been funding the Gaza Strip, paying for needy family infrastructure for years, and they're been brokering a couple of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. So it played really a major role into that in regards to the Egyptians. Also, the Egyptians have always all along played a very intensive role in regards to that.
Hamas has kept a really good relationship with the Katari kept a really good relationship with the Egyptians, and also need to take into consideration that Egypt does not want
any unrest into its borders. Also, we need to take into consideration that the Palestinian authority is in a very close contact with the Egyptians and they want to make sure that none of the Palestinians that live in in Gaza, especially in this war, since there were a lot of talks about people being displaced and moved to Egypt, they wanted to make sure that the Egyptians are on the same line as all the Arab countries supporting the Palestinian issue,
none of those people to be displaced or be taken out of Gaza. They wanted to make sure none of these people are being transferred and sent across the border from Raffa. And of course Egypt has been playing a major role in facilitating the aid going into Gaza, so they had to maintain a really good relationship with Hamas in regards to that.
And of course, as you say, Egypt's been very clear throughout that it doesn't want an exodus of people out of Gaza through that Rafa crossing, and noting, of course Egypt has an election coming up also in a matter of weeks. But what's been the overall reaction by Arab states to the prospect of the war resuming again. Ethan was making clear that as far as Israel's concerned, there's a strong desire to see this war through no matter
what in terms of temporary truces and whatnot. How are Arab states responding to that?
Well, the Arab states are clear and actually joining forces and trying to get a complete halt of the war and get a completely permanent cease fire. There is an opportunity, a seized opportunity that they believe that this is the time to look into the Palestinian Israeli conflict and finally solve it once and for all, and after the October seventh there needs to be a deeper look into the Palestinian cause because this affects also the other Arab countries
like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. So they joined forces and on a daily basis, there are talks efforts to open up a path where negotiations based on sexty seven borders resume and ending the Israeli Palestinian conflict because this also brings stability to the whole Middle East region, Ethan.
One other delicate relationship in this obviously is also involving Iran, which backs not only Hamas but also the Lebanon based Hezbollah and Houthi rebels based in Yemen who've been keeping up some of their attacks in the region throughout the TRUS farring missiles and so on, and that's risking during in US forces in the region. Ethan. Can you talk a little bit about how this is being seen at
the moment by Iran. It does seem as though Hesbela has been staying largely quiet in attacking Israel throughout this process. Is Iran keen to also see tensions de escalate somewhat.
I don't think we have real transparency into the thinking at the highest levels of Iran. There's no doubt that Iran can cos his Belah and Hamas as useful tools to go after Israel. There is a long standing and deep shadow war between Iran and Israel. There's a deep ideological divide over it and Iran the best of our understanding, funds by about a billion dollars a year and Hamas
by about one hundred million dollars a year. Those missiles that are able to be GPS directed to Tel Aviv from southern Lebanon and from Gaza are paid for by Iran.
So there's no doubt.
That there is a huge focus on Israel from Iran. Now at this particular moment, it doesn't seem that they are urging his Balla to get involved in a big way. It's also possible that his Bela is not willing to get involved in a big way. It's hard for us
to know what that conversation is like. The Israelis have moved up a large part of their air force to the north and have said to his Belah, if you do start to raining down thousands of missiles on Israel, we will destroy Beirut and there are, of course two US led carrier groups in the Mediterranean to reinforce that message.
So I think that the message has been received.
I don't know that that tells us anything about what ultimate intentions are. I think that Israel is very nervous about a group closing in on it from all sides Syria, Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza, and the sense that it is ran behind most of those movements.
So I don't think we've seen the end of the situation.
Ron coming up. What can we expect next in the conflict? We were talking earlier about the truth itself and the determination of Israel to continue with the war either way, given its skull is to eradicate Hamas, and it says its goal is not yet achieved ethan, What does does it mean that the ceasepy has been extended? What are the ramifications of that extension?
Well baked into the original deal was that after the four day ceasefire there was a possibility of another day for h ten hostages released again women, children and elderly.
And so that has now happened.
They've been able to extend it by this period in exchange for these hostages. What does it mean in theory, it means that there's a greater humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, that the likelihood of severe disease and starvation is declined. And then the question is what does it mean for Israel's assertion that is going to continue to come after
Hamas in the same way it did before. All along, some military planners have said, if you allow a long term truce, long term meeting some days or weeks, then the ability.
Of the military to kind of pick up where it left off is reduced.
The desire of the nation to move forward could be reduced, and this poses a threat to your ongoing task. Now we'll see whether the Israelis in fact are able to pick up where they left off. There's the other question of you know, whether abroad the pressure will grow. Inside the United States, there is concern that that aid to Israel military aid ought to be conditioned on certain kinds of behavior.
This is something that has arisen lately.
So all of these things are sort of in play as the extension goes forward.
And Fadua with the decision to extend this SPA. You talked earlier in the conversation about the breathing space for the people of Gaza obviously either way that the humanitarian situation there remains pretty dire.
Yes, it is. The humanitarian situation is really devastating. We have over one point seven million people displaced, people without homes, living intents, Families have been displaced from each other. We are in the wintertime, is going to put a much more strain onto the people. They're tired of the situation. They want to have some time to go back relocate
to their homes. We've seen footage of people going back for the last three or four days, living in their destroyed home, taking shelter in there, trying to pick up their belongings. So before the sea is fire, hets they can go back and hit down South and the shelter places, whether it's in the schools, whether it's in homes of families, whether it's most of them in fens. You see people
living in their cars. This is devastating. You'll see lines and lines of people standing to refill water, refill gas, and restock their food and they don't know if this is going to continue. If the seas fire were last.
Ethan. It was also interesting hearing you talk earlier about the internal dynamic inside Israel that there are a lot of questions over Netnyahu initially and his long term future after the surprise attack Bajamas inside Israel or October seven, but it sounds as though there is a sense of unity still inside Israel, both politically and amongst the public.
Look there is definitely unity to the plan to take a very tough response line to what happened on the seventh of October and to send a message both to Hamas and Rizbolah to his sponsors in Iran that this is a country that is going to stand together militarily and from a security perspective as long as necessary.
That is true, that.
Does not mean that people are embracing Benjamin tanya Who's future as Prime minister. There was until the seventh of October, nine months of street weekly demonstrations calling for his removal because of issues of populist policies having to do with this Supreme Court and also a cases against him of fraud and bribery. There was some problem to begin with
once this happened. After all, Natanyau had put himself forward as mister Security, and on the day of the seventh of October there was no sign of any security that was a clearly enormous failure, and the buck does stop with him. So I would say that when this war ends, it's very unlikely that he will be able to be prime minister for much longer. All the polls show many gods, the more centrist, a member of his war cabinet, an opposition leader as a way out ahead to become the
next prime minister. That said, I think we have to remember that what happened on October seventh actually did not drive the country to the center or the left.
It drove it to the right. To some extent.
Abroad, people look at what happened on October seventh and say, well, desperate people do desperate things. Now it's time for you to finally deal with your Polace than an issue inside Israel, the view of what happened was, listen, we are dealing with an inherently violent group that wants to kill us no matter what happens, and therefore we need to be more protective, not less.
We need to put our army.
In a stronger position, not weaker, and we are not in any way interested in a two state solution. That is, I would say the majority view in this country, not the overwhelming, but the majority view. So the idea that there'll be a sort of peaceful solution when this is all over is hard to see at this stage in this country.
It's interesting you talk about that contrast domestically and internationally, and we are seeing increasing countries around the world with their concern around the situation inside Garza and calling for a more prolonged cease fire to take effect. But Ethan, you say, when the war is over and the idea of what happens next, are we still talking months possibly years for this war itself Israel to rich its goal on Hamas, what's the timeline on that, and then what comes after?
I don't think it's years.
Weeks or months seem to make the most sense at this stage, just because the pressure to stop the deaths of innocence is going to grow, and also the question of as you say, what next will start to impose itself.
So what next.
Let's say the war goes for two or three more months, So much depends on whether they have successfully killed a number of top people in Hamas, whether they in the second phase of the war are able to actually uproot the infrastructure. At the same time, you have two million people crowded above ground there.
It's hard to imagine how that can happen.
One of the reasons that there's been all this focus on a ceasefires because the Americans have been saying to the Israelis, you must have a plan that makes sense going forward.
You can't just.
Say we're going to destroy them. You need to explain to us how you're going to do it. So I don't know that they've come up with a very particularly appropriate plan, but we'll have to see what happens next.
Domestically, politically, I think that.
All the leaders of everyone involved is likely to change in the coming year. It's not clear to me, as I said, the Prime Minister in Natanya, how will be in power. It's not clear to me that Mahmura Bash will for very much longer be the president of the Palestinian Authority. It's not clear to me that Yachi sin War will be able to be the leader of.
Hamas in Gaza.
And it's not clear that President Biden will be the president in the year.
Fardware from Jerusalem also, I'm curious your perspective on what next, not just for Israel, but also for Gaza and for the West Bank. Ethan mentioned Abas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, whose name has been thrown about a bit as a solution, But there are so many ideas being bandied about and no one seems to have a real solution to what is a very deeply protracted, long running and challenging problem. But what do you see as the things to watch for next?
Well, I think what's next and what the Palestinian Authority is trying to do is to make sure that they are the ones who take control of the Gaza after the war is over, because actually they have been in Gaza even when Hamas is running the Gaza strip. The PA has been paying a lot of money since the Hamas takeover to Gaza. They've been paying salaries for their several servants, they've been paying for water, they've been paying
for electricity. So the PA already existed, but you can maybe call it like a shadow government that it's been paying for expenses that actually Hamas couldn't pay. Then they believe that you cannot leave your people, you cannot differentiate between Gaza and the West Bank. They're all one entity and one people, and they trying to make sure with all their diplomatic efforts that they're being exerted since the
war started. That the PA is the only entity and it's the only entity that recognized by the international community. The you owned resolutions is the one that needs to run gazas in regards to that. So this is where the efforts also not only of the Palestinian authority, but European countries. The Americans have stated their position in regards to that, the Arab countries. So this is where the effort is being exerted. Is forty PA to go back and run Gaza.
Ethan in Fatworth. Thank you very much for your time today. Thank you Rod, Thank you thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Viergalina. Our senior producer
is Katherine Fink. Federica Romaniello is our producer. Raphael mcilly is our engineer original music by Leo Sidron. I'm Rosad Matheson. We'll be back tomorrow with another big take.