Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: One week ago, the ceasefire in Gaza collapsed as Israel
Speaker 1: launched a series of air strikes. Since then, more than
Speaker 1: six hundred people have been killed, including children, according to
Speaker 1: Gaza's health ministry. Israel says the attacks were aimed at
Speaker 1: Hermas's surviving leadership, and just a few days ago Hamas
Speaker 1: confirmed its top political leader has been killed. As the
Speaker 1: war reignites, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing his
Speaker 1: own political survival. Today, Middle East correspondent for The Economist,
Speaker 1: Greg Carlstrom on what the end of the ceasefire means
Speaker 1: for the people of Gaza and what Trump wants out
Speaker 1: of the next stage of war is Tuesday, March twenty five, Greg,
Speaker 1: thank you for speaking of us again, my pleasure. So
Speaker 1: Israel has launched renewed attacks on Gaza over the past week.
Speaker 1: We're hearing the death toll in Gaza has now surpassed
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people since the war began. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me why it is that we've seen this attack at
Speaker 1: this moment, given that there had been a ceasefire.
Speaker 2: I think what's happened is First. The Trump administration has
Speaker 2: to some extent lost interest in trying to preserve the
Speaker 2: agreement that they pushed through in January. You know, the
Speaker 2: first phase of the deal expired a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2: What was meant to happen in early February was that
Speaker 2: Israel and Hamas were meant to start negotiations about getting
Speaker 2: to Phase two, getting to a permanent end to the
Speaker 2: war and a release of all of the Israeli hostages
Speaker 2: who were still being held in Gaza. Nathaniel never wanted
Speaker 2: to get to phase two because his far right coalition
Speaker 2: partners have made it clear that they would leave the
Speaker 2: government and collapse the coalition if the war came to
Speaker 2: a permanent end. So the Americans for a while were
Speaker 2: trying to find a way to bridge that gap between
Speaker 2: what the Israelis want and what Hamas wants. There was
Speaker 2: talk of trying to extend Phase one of the ceasefire,
Speaker 2: perhaps by another month or two, but Hamas stuck to
Speaker 2: its demand that it wants the war to end. The
Speaker 2: Israelis were not willing to do that. The Trump administration
Speaker 2: was not willing to put the kind of pressure on
Speaker 2: Israel that it would have needed to apply to convince
Speaker 2: Israel to get to phase two, and so because of
Speaker 2: Israel's refusal to even begin those negotiations, eventually we got to.
Speaker 3: A point where where the deal simply collapsed.
Speaker 1: And so since that happened, since the deal collapsed, can
Speaker 1: you tell me a bit more about what we've seen
Speaker 1: in Gaza.
Speaker 2: In some ways it almost mirrors what happened at the
Speaker 2: start of the war back in October twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: In the first days after the end, we saw Israel
Speaker 2: resume very heavy air strikes on Gaza. As you said,
Speaker 2: there have been reports of many people killed across the territory,
Speaker 2: strikes on hospitals, strikes on civilian areas, a large death toll.
Speaker 2: And then in the past couple of days, we've also
Speaker 2: seen Israeli troops going back into Gaza.
Speaker 3: On the ground.
Speaker 2: In Ruffa, for example, in the far south of Gaza,
Speaker 2: near the border with Egypt, the Israeli army is encircling
Speaker 2: the city of Ruffa. They're telling Palestinians who were living
Speaker 2: in that city to flee to the north.
Speaker 3: At the same time, Israel has also cut off.
Speaker 2: The main corridors linking between South Gaza and North Gaza,
Speaker 2: something that they did earlier in the war, and those
Speaker 2: two territories were largely separated for much of the fighting.
Speaker 2: So the idea here for the Israeli Army, as you
Speaker 2: know officers have described it in recent weeks, is to
Speaker 2: essentially kettle the entire civilian population of Gaza into what's
Speaker 2: called Elmwasi, the so called safe zone in the southern
Speaker 2: half of the Strip, and then to go in quite
Speaker 2: strongly on the ground everywhere else in Gaza.
Speaker 1: And in Phase one we saw this transfer of hostages
Speaker 1: and release of Palestinian prisoners who were able to return.
Speaker 1: So after that, how many hostages are left?
Speaker 2: There are still fifty nine hostages remaining in Gaza. Most
Speaker 2: of them are thought to have either been killed on
Speaker 2: October seventh and their bodies were taken to the Strip
Speaker 2: by Hamas or subsequently died either from Israeli airstrikes on
Speaker 2: the Strip, from hunger, from disease, from abuse by their captors.
Speaker 2: So most of these hostages are unfortunately dead bodies.
Speaker 3: But the goal when.
Speaker 2: They were talking about extending Phase one of the agreement
Speaker 2: was to secure the release of at least some of
Speaker 2: the living hostages who were still being held in Gaza,
Speaker 2: who are only about a quarter or so of the total.
Speaker 2: And obviously there's a tremendous amount of anger in Israel
Speaker 2: right now. Poll after pol of Israeli has showed that
Speaker 2: a majority of the public wanted to get to Phase two.
Speaker 2: They didn't want the government to forsake these remaining hostages
Speaker 2: in Gaza and.
Speaker 3: Sort of leave them to their fate.
Speaker 2: But the view in Israel is that Mettaniell has done
Speaker 2: exactly that now by resuming the war.
Speaker 1: And can you talk to me a little more about
Speaker 1: the position domestically speaking for Netnahu right now, because we
Speaker 1: have seen mass protests across Israel. Tell me about what
Speaker 1: people are demanding and how sequen Nenya who feels at
Speaker 1: this moment there's a.
Speaker 2: Huge amount of popular anger directed at Nataniel but not
Speaker 2: only now over this issue, also over what he is
Speaker 2: doing to Israeli democracy. In the past week, has tried
Speaker 2: to dismiss the head of the shin Bet, the domestic
Speaker 2: security service in Israel. The also yesterday passed a no
Speaker 2: confidence motion against the Attorney General. Natanielle is seeking to
Speaker 2: remove the Attorney General. Both of these people are seen
Speaker 2: as critics of the Prime minister. He sees them as
Speaker 2: his domestic political enemies. Of course, the Attorney General is
Speaker 2: also overseeing the corruption cases against Prime Minister Nathanielle that
Speaker 2: have been working their way through the courts for years.
Speaker 2: He's been accused of in three different cases, accused of
Speaker 2: acts of corruption. The problem is, despite all of this anger,
Speaker 2: what do you do with that politically? For the moment,
Speaker 2: he seems secure in his coalition. Restarting the Gualsa war
Speaker 2: has reinforced his support on the far right amongst those
Speaker 2: parties that had threatened to leave.
Speaker 3: If the war ended.
Speaker 2: So the coalition I think is going to close ranks
Speaker 2: right now and try to hold together. And so even
Speaker 2: though most Israelis walk that coalition out of power, it's
Speaker 2: hard to see how they translate that I anger into
Speaker 2: political change.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break Trump Netanyahu and the latest
Speaker 1: on America's plans to take over Gaza greg the White
Speaker 1: House confirmed that they were aware that the air strikes
Speaker 1: were going to begin again. At the same time, we've
Speaker 1: heard Trump claiming to want peace in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: So you said that the administration has lost interest in
Speaker 1: the agreement that they pushed for. Why do you think
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 2: I think one issue is Steve Witkoff, who is the
Speaker 2: administration's Middle East envoy. You know, by all accounts, is
Speaker 2: said to care personally about the plate of the hostages
Speaker 2: and to care personally about trying to bring the war
Speaker 2: in Gaza to an end. But Steve Witkoff is very
Speaker 2: distracted right now. He also is handling some of these
Speaker 2: negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. He's looking to pass the
Speaker 2: negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran as well in the
Speaker 2: coming months. So he has an enormous portfolio. He doesn't
Speaker 2: have many people working for him. He is simply overstretched.
Speaker 2: I think Trump himself. I was in DC a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago, and the sense that I got talking
Speaker 2: to people close to the administration is that Trump cared
Speaker 2: about getting the cease fire in place during the transition
Speaker 2: before he took office in January, because it was something
Speaker 2: that he could say he accomplished where Joe Biden failed.
Speaker 2: But after two months of subsequent impasse over getting to
Speaker 2: phase two, Trump is just getting bored of this and
Speaker 2: he has other things he wants to focus on, and
Speaker 2: so there's not a high level presidential attention on this.
Speaker 3: And then the.
Speaker 2: Rest of the administration is deeply understaffed. So you put
Speaker 2: all of those things together, and then you add some
Speaker 2: very intense lobbying, particularly by Ron Dermer, who is Nathaniel's
Speaker 2: right hand man, who has been to America a number
Speaker 2: of times in recent months, who has been telling Republicans,
Speaker 2: you know, listen, we have a plan for how to
Speaker 2: win this war. Now, we couldn't win it before because
Speaker 2: Joe Biden put restrictions on our conduct in Gaza.
Speaker 3: But if you give us a free hand, then we
Speaker 3: can win this thing in a couple of months.
Speaker 1: And so what does that actually look like for Gaza?
Speaker 2: So last year during the war, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about something called the General's Plan, which was
Speaker 2: a proposal written by a number of retired Israeli.
Speaker 4: Generals in Israel, there are alarming signs that the Israeli
Speaker 4: military is beginning to quietly implement the General's Plan. Now
Speaker 4: that's a dramatic strategy to force anybody left in the
Speaker 4: north to evacuate, to surrender, or starve.
Speaker 2: The idea they had for how they wanted to prosecute
Speaker 2: the war was to cut off humanitarian aid entirely into
Speaker 2: the northern half of Gaza, even in the south of Gaza,
Speaker 2: to greatly restrict the flow of aid outside of al
Speaker 2: mowassee this designated humanitarian area. The idea was not to
Speaker 2: allow NGOs or other groups to distribute aid in other
Speaker 2: parts of Gaza. I think to some extent, what we're
Speaker 2: seeing now is that plan being implemented. So they are
Speaker 2: going to lay waste to the territory. They are going
Speaker 2: to destroy even more of the north that has already
Speaker 2: been destroyed. They are going to try and tightly restrict
Speaker 2: the movement of people, the movement of aid.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's not clear how long any of
Speaker 3: this is going to last.
Speaker 2: The Israelis have been saying it might only need a
Speaker 2: couple of months, but they were also saying that in
Speaker 2: October twenty twenty three, and the war wound up lasting
Speaker 2: for more than a year.
Speaker 1: And you said earlier it seems that Trump has lost
Speaker 1: interest in a ceasefire. Has he also lost interest in
Speaker 1: a takeover of Gaza and this idea of developing it
Speaker 1: into the riviera of the Middle East. That was what
Speaker 1: he said the last time that we spoke, And I
Speaker 1: think that often his statements get reported on and then dropped.
Speaker 1: But I just wonder what your thoughts are now and
Speaker 1: whether there's any actual strength behind those intentions.
Speaker 2: Well, and with the caveat that, no one is entirely
Speaker 2: sure what is in Donald Trump's mind. I think there
Speaker 2: are two parts to that plan, right. One of them
Speaker 2: is removing the population of Gaza, depopulating the territory, sending two.
Speaker 3: Million people elsewhere.
Speaker 2: The other part of it is this crazy plan to
Speaker 2: turn it into an American riviera, sort of Atlantic city
Speaker 2: on the Mediterranean. I think on that latter piece, certainly,
Speaker 2: the view in Washington, amongst both Republicans and Democrats, is
Speaker 2: that Trump is not actually serious about building a riviera there,
Speaker 2: that this is a negotiating tactic, that this is something
Speaker 2: that he became fixated on as a way to pressure
Speaker 2: Arab states into presenting their own plan for Gaza. On
Speaker 2: the first part of that, though, on the idea of
Speaker 2: removing Gaza's population, the view is that he is serious
Speaker 2: about that, and the genesis of that was a phone
Speaker 2: call with Steve Witcoff, his middle envoy, who visited Gaza
Speaker 2: back in January, who saw how destroyed the territory was,
Speaker 2: and who subsequently called Trump and said you know, there's
Speaker 2: no way this is going to be rebuilt if the
Speaker 2: people are still here. There needs to be some solution
Speaker 2: that moves them elsewhere. That phone call happened, and shortly
Speaker 2: afterwards Trump started talking about depopulating the territory. But the
Speaker 2: administration is sort of going around the world trying to
Speaker 2: find countries that might be willing to accept some financial
Speaker 2: benefits in exchange for taking in large numbers of people.
Speaker 2: So I do think he is serious about pursuing that
Speaker 2: part of the plan.
Speaker 1: Okay, And what about short term? What should we expect.
Speaker 1: It's been a week since the ceasefive fell apart. I
Speaker 1: think just over six hundred people have died in that time.
Speaker 1: So what should we be expecting to see over the
Speaker 1: next few weeks in Gaza?
Speaker 3: I think in terms of Gaza itself.
Speaker 2: Remember, even before Israel restarted the war, it had cut
Speaker 2: off all aid going into Gaza for about two weeks
Speaker 2: before it resumed fighting. So the un AID agencies were
Speaker 2: already saying that some supplies were either running low. Bakeries
Speaker 2: for example, we're running out of cooking gas to fire
Speaker 2: their ovens, and so some of the very very few
Speaker 2: bakeries that are still operating in Gaza were forced to
Speaker 2: shut down, hospitals were reporting shortages. That was already a problem,
Speaker 2: That problem is going to get much much bigger now
Speaker 2: because aid is not going in, and because what aid
Speaker 2: is still in Gaza, it's getting very hard to distribute that.
Speaker 2: Many AID groups have suspended the movement of their personnel
Speaker 2: around Gaza because they're just not sure right now where
Speaker 2: it's safe to go, where people can deliver aid without
Speaker 2: taking too much personal risks. So the humanitarian situation I think,
Speaker 2: is going to get much worse very quickly. The question
Speaker 2: then becomes is there some effort on the part of
Speaker 2: the Americans to go back to this idea of a
Speaker 2: bridging proposal of extending phase one of the agreement, convincing
Speaker 2: Hamas to release a few more hostages in exchange for
Speaker 2: a few more weeks of calm. But it's hard to
Speaker 2: see how that's going to be successful in Lttagnelle for
Speaker 2: political reasons, may not want to do that to pause
Speaker 2: the war again, and Hamas at this point, I think,
Speaker 2: is going to be very reluctant to make another short
Speaker 2: term deal where they have no guarantee that it's going
Speaker 2: to bring a permanent end to the fighting.
Speaker 1: Greg, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, both the Abeneze government and
Speaker 1: the opposition are sprooking their economic policies ahead of the
Speaker 1: delivery of the federal budget tonight. The government is promising
Speaker 1: cost of living relief, including a one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars energy bill rebate divided across the final two quarters
Speaker 1: of this year. The opposition says it supports the rebate,
Speaker 1: while also claiming that a coalition government would bring down
Speaker 1: energy prices by increasing Australia's domestic gas supply. And Queensland
Speaker 1: has joined other states in signing a deal with the
Speaker 1: federal government to fully fund public schools by twenty thirty four.
Speaker 1: The deal will see the Commonwealth lift its share of
Speaker 1: public school funding from twenty to twenty five percent, requiring
Speaker 1: states to increase funding of public schools to seventy five
Speaker 1: percent of the minimum amount recommended by the twenty twelve
Speaker 1: Gonski Review. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See
Speaker 1: you tomorrow.