Already and this is this is the Daily OS. This is the Daily OS.
Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the thirteenth of November. I'm Zara, i'm emma. Katar has suspended its efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Humas and Israel until both parties show a quote willingness and seriousness to end the war. Katar has played a significant role in mediating between the two parties, but thirteen months on, it could all be changing.
All right, Zara, I feel like we need to go back a bit to explain why this story is so important. It's been thirteen months since the latest round of violence began. Can you briefly talk to me about what's happened.
Yeah. So, on October seven, twenty twenty three, Hamas, which is a terrorist organization according to Australian authorities, it launched an attack on Israel, killing at least twelve hundred people and taking two hundred and fifty one hostages. One hundred and one hostages remain captive in Gaza today. Israel responded to the attack by declaring war on Hummas and bombarding Gaza.
Data sided by the UN shows around forty three thousand, four hundred Palestinians have been killed in the past thirteen months. The UN has urged Israel to increase the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
So you've mentioned there Hamas and Israel, but Hezbola is also involved in this conflict.
It is so just a day after Hamas's attack last year, as I said on October seven, on October eight, Hesbela, which is also listed as a terrorist organization. It's based in Lebanon, but it's backed by Iran, as is Hummas and many other proxies within that region. So on October eight, Hesbela began launching rockets at Israel and had continued to do that until the current day. Since that time, Israel has launched strikes and ground attacks in Lebanon, saying that
it's targeting that Hesbala infrastructure. More than three one hundred people in Lebanon have now been killed in the conflict. That's according to UN figures as well.
So that gives us a quick up data sense of where the escalations in conflict came from a year and a month ago. But what about more.
Recently, Yeah, so in the last few days or so, there's been no sign that the violence is slowing down. Israeli air strikes in northern gars have killed more than forty people over the weekend. Their local media and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said twenty four people were killed and around thirty others were injured when the strikes destroyed a three story home. Israel's military said it eliminated dozens of terrorists and that it dismantled many terror infrastructure
sites in the Jibalia area. And then, as you said, because we go from Gaza, really then to Lebanon in northern Lebanon in Israeli airstrike on the village of almat killed twenty three people. That was according to Lebanon's health ministry. They're the IDF. The Israeli Defense Forces said the strikes were targeted at weapons storage sites and at Hesbola members. Earlier this week, a Hesbella rocket killed an Israeli teenager in the country's north Denzara.
I wanted to ask you about Syria, which we haven't really heard much out of that country in recent months, but there's been a development there too.
Yes, So at least seven people were killed and fourteen injured in strikes near Damascus, which is the capital of Syria. That was according to the UK based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The group said that one of those killed was hesbola's commander in Syria. Said the strikes were targeted at an apartment building inhabited by Lebanese families and by
HESBOLA members. It is important to note here, though, that Israel has not commented on the strike, though Siria authorities have claimed that they were responsible for it.
So clearly the conflict, which at this point is multi pronged across a large geographic area in the Middle East, isn't showing signs of slowing. Those conflicts. Those strikes that you've just mentioned, all within a matter of the last few days or in the last week. So let's turn now then to this idea of a ceasefire, and in particular the news out of Katar.
Yeah, so a few days ago Qatar announced it had suspended its efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Now, the country has been a key facilitator alongside the US and alongside Egypt in the ceasefire talks, including mediations that led to a brief pause in fighting back in the early stages of the war.
So can you remind us what that brief pause looked like. It was quite a while ago, now.
Yeah, well, so it was in November last year, so it was a year ago now, But it was a week long pause. At that point, Hamas released around one hundred and five Israeli hostages in exchange for two hundred and forty Palestinians who are being detained by Israel. Now that's the only real cease fire break we've seen at
all accepted by both sides despite these ongoing negotiations. And just before I get to what Katar has said more recently, I do think it's also important to highlight that many senior Hummas leaders have been based out of Katar since twenty twelve. So that includes people like Ismailhania, who was Hamas's political leader before his assassination in Iran in July.
And so Katar has always played quite an active role in the sort of geopolitics and the relationships between these two parties because of not just their role in these ceasefire negotiations, but also the fact that there have been Hamas leaders there for decades long.
We'll be right back with the rest of today's deep dive, But first, here's a word from our sponsors. When we talk about a mediator role, I suppose for many of us, you know, we might not have had many other examples in the news that we can think of when these kinds of situations come up. But can you talk me through kind of what the purpose of Katari negotiators would be in these discussions.
Yeah, well, I guess it's just to have a third party there who is neither Israel nor Hummas, and they are there to facilitate and to create those opportunities for a ceaspy negotiation to happen. But what's very important, and what's happened recently is that they've said they're not going to do that anymore until both parties show what they're calling a willingness and a seriousness to end the brutal war.
And not just that, but there were also these reports that came out that the Biden administration, who of course are outgoing at this point, that they had called for Humas officials to be expelled from Qatar because of those stalled negotiations. So it could all be changing there. The role that could has traditionally played, and certainly what it looks like moving forward could really be changing.
Now you mentioned there the US government, the outgoing Biden administration. I guess you know, I can't help but think about the timing of this announcement from KATAR, just days after Donald Trump's election victory in the US. Would a change of government in the United States impact these ceasefire discussions. Does that have something to do with KATAR suspending its role as mediator.
It's hard to know this early on. I guess the things that we know that are on the public record is that Donald Trump and Benjamin Natanya, who have already spoken three times in the week since Donald Trump won the election. We know that Natanya, who who is the Israeli Prime Minister, called Trump the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House. And we know just based on you know, the last Trump presidency, but also what's happened since that there is a very close relationship
there between the two leaders. We've spoken about on the podcast before that Trump has said he was going to end wars. He was speaking there not just of this war between Israel and Hummas, but also of the war between Ukraine and Russia. He said he would end the Ukraine Russia war by the time it came around to
January when he was inaugurated. We don't necessarily have a timeline for when he thinks he can end this war or how he thinks he can end this war, because you know, people haven't been confirmed in their positions, and there are rumors about who the Secretary of State might be, as Marco Rubio, but nothing's confirmed at the time of recording. So really it's a watch and wait to see what a Trump presidency means for the conflict and the region more broadly.
And in the meantime, you can certainly see the public interest around Trump's involvement with these conflicts. Just this week, lots of reports around an alleged phone call that took place between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, the Kremlin dismissing those conversations. But there are still more than two months to go of Joe Biden's presidency, so a lot can change in that time. We'll wait and see what happens. Zara, thank you so much for bringing
us up to speed on this one. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We will be back later on today with your evening headlines and another deep dive tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkaton woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.