Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. Two
Speaker 1: months ago, Israel and her mass agreed to the first
Speaker 1: phase of a ceasefire plan for Gaza. But since the
Speaker 1: truce began on October tenth, Gaza authorities say Israel has
Speaker 1: carried out now the eight hundred attacks, killing almost four
Speaker 1: hundred people, including a recent strike targeting as senior Hamas
Speaker 1: commander Israel. Meanwhile, his militants have reportedly violated the ceasefire,
Speaker 1: killing at least three Israeli soldiers, and as Amas refuses
Speaker 1: to disarm, Washington seems to have gone silent today. Middle
Speaker 1: East correspondent for The Economist, Greg Carlstrom, and why plans
Speaker 1: for peace have stalled and who may end up running Gaza.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, December nineteenth. Greg. There is currently on paper
Speaker 1: a ceasefire in Gaza, but people is still being killed.
Speaker 1: Tell me a bit some of the reports you're getting
Speaker 1: from paple on the ground in Gaza right now? What's
Speaker 1: the situation like?
Speaker 2: It's bleak, and particularly over the past few weeks. It's
Speaker 2: not just that there are ongoing violations of the ceasefire,
Speaker 2: both by Israel and by Hamas.
Speaker 3: It's been sixty four days since a ceasefire was struck,
Speaker 3: but the child wreckage of this car as evidence of
Speaker 3: its weakness. Indeed, there have been Israeli strikes already on
Speaker 3: fifty one of those days.
Speaker 2: It's also has a lot to do with the conditions
Speaker 2: in Gaza right now. We saw earlier this month a
Speaker 2: very strong winter storm that swept through that hit the
Speaker 2: eastern Mediterranean, and the images that came out of Gaza
Speaker 2: were really apocalyptic.
Speaker 3: On Unis medics say eight month old were half Abu
Speaker 3: Jazzar died of exposure to cold after the floodwaters inundated
Speaker 3: have family shelter on Wednesday night.
Speaker 2: Entire tent cities were flooded. People were trying to dig
Speaker 2: ditches with their bare hands to try and redirect at
Speaker 2: least some of the water away from their tents. They
Speaker 2: were standing all night holding their children in the air
Speaker 2: so that their kids wouldn't be in the freezing water.
Speaker 2: There were at least four babies that died of hypothermia.
Speaker 2: There were several other people killed when high winds knocked
Speaker 2: down walls concrete walls onto their tents or onto their
Speaker 2: shelters and crushed them to death.
Speaker 4: I don't have a tent or anything to make her warm.
Speaker 4: I fed her and there was nothing wrong with her.
Speaker 4: When we woke up, we found the rain over her
Speaker 4: and the wind on her, and the girl died of cold. Suddenly.
Speaker 2: This is what life is like in Gaza right now.
Speaker 2: Two months on from the ceasefire. There's been no progress
Speaker 2: on the sort of long term political goals, the effort
Speaker 2: at reconstruction, all of these things that were meant to
Speaker 2: happen in phase two of the sea they're just not
Speaker 2: happening yet.
Speaker 1: So what I was saying progress on the second phase,
Speaker 1: does that mean we're still stuck in phase one of disagreement?
Speaker 5: In practice? I think we are.
Speaker 2: So you go back to what was signed in October
Speaker 2: and the way everyone interpreted it.
Speaker 5: As you say, there are two main phases to it.
Speaker 2: The first was what happened immediately after the deal was signed.
Speaker 2: The fighting largely stopped in Gaza. Hamas freed the remaining
Speaker 2: Israeli hostages from captivity. The Israeli army pulled back from
Speaker 2: the main population centers in Gaza to what's known as
Speaker 2: the Yellow Line, which is a boundary now that splits
Speaker 2: the half of Gaza controlled by Israel from the half
Speaker 2: controlled by Hamas. All of that, again happened in the
Speaker 2: first few days after this agreement was implemented. Phase two
Speaker 2: is meant to play out over a longer term. What's
Speaker 2: meant to happen according to this deal is Israel carried
Speaker 2: out that first withdrawal once the hostages were freed in October.
Speaker 2: There are meant to be several subsequent withdrawals once international
Speaker 2: peacekeepers go into Gaza, and then once they certify that
Speaker 2: Hamas has gone through some process of disarmament. But Hamas,
Speaker 2: of course, refuses to disarm. It's been very clear about
Speaker 2: that throughout two years of war. It has stuck to
Speaker 2: that position since the ceasefire took effect. And if they
Speaker 2: don't disarm, then that will preclude further is rarely withdrawal,
Speaker 2: or probably preclude any serious effort at reconstruction. And so
Speaker 2: that yellow line, which is meant to be again a
Speaker 2: temporary interim boundary between the two halves of Gaza, is
Speaker 2: looking more and more like it might become permanent. And
Speaker 2: we've heard the Israeli Army chief among other senior officials
Speaker 2: start to talk about it that way, start to talk
Speaker 2: about the possibility that Israel will not withdraw any further
Speaker 2: from Gaza, and this is just going to become formalized.
Speaker 1: So it seems like we're essentially at a stand off here.
Speaker 1: Israel and Trump say that they want her mass disarming,
Speaker 1: and that's non negotiable. Her mass wants to see Israel
Speaker 1: withdraw first. So is that where things are at greg
Speaker 1: a stale.
Speaker 5: Might more or less.
Speaker 2: And if you look at what the Americans are doing
Speaker 2: right now, I think it's very telling. The plan that
Speaker 2: some of Donald Trump's allies have been pushing in recent weeks.
Speaker 2: They have different euphemisms for it. They call it alternative
Speaker 2: safe communities, or model communities, or there's various terms of art.
Speaker 2: But the idea is to start doing small scale reconstruction
Speaker 2: on the Israeli controlled side of this yellow line, So
Speaker 2: in Israeli occupied Gaza, to build small villages or hamlets
Speaker 2: that can each house a few thousand Palestinians. The idea
Speaker 2: is they would have a school, a clinic, other basic services,
Speaker 2: and this would serve as a model for reconstruction. If
Speaker 2: you listen to the way Trump's allies are selling it,
Speaker 2: there's a number of problems with this plan, starting with
Speaker 2: the fact that almost no Palestinians live in the.
Speaker 5: Israeli occupied half of Gaza.
Speaker 2: Almost the entire two million population is to the west
Speaker 2: of the Yellow line. So you would have to convince
Speaker 2: people to move into Israeli occupied territory. No doubt Hamas
Speaker 2: would try to dissuade them from doing that, perhaps it
Speaker 2: would even threaten their relatives who remained in the controlled.
Speaker 5: Half of Gaza.
Speaker 2: Then once they get there, it's not at all clear
Speaker 2: will they have any freedom of movement or will they
Speaker 2: essentially be locked in these towns which are again surrounded
Speaker 2: by Israeli controlled territory. It seems like a very unworkable
Speaker 2: scheme in a lot of ways. But the fact that
Speaker 2: that is the focus for some of Donald Trump's advisors,
Speaker 2: I think it's almost a tacit admission that the rest
Speaker 2: of the ceasefire plan is not moving forward, that talk
Speaker 2: of new governance and reconstruction in the whole of Gaza
Speaker 2: is just not happening right now, and so they are
Speaker 2: looking for these small scale initiatives that they can show off,
Speaker 2: even though again it seems they're very unworkable.
Speaker 1: Coming up one, no one wants to join Trump's peacekeeping
Speaker 1: force Greg, I want to talk about how the ceasefire
Speaker 1: is supposed to be being enforced at the moment. Who
Speaker 1: is responsible for shippeting things to the next phase.
Speaker 2: Well, we're waiting for announcements on that. What is meant
Speaker 2: to happen according to the deal in theory is there's
Speaker 2: something called the Board of Peace. Donald Trump is the
Speaker 2: chairman of that board, and then there will be other
Speaker 2: world leaders and grandees appointed to the board.
Speaker 6: The leaders of the Arab world, Israel and everybody involved
Speaker 6: asked me to do this, so it would be headed
Speaker 6: by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump of
Speaker 6: the United States.
Speaker 7: It's what I want is some extra work to do,
Speaker 7: but it's so important that I'm willing to do it,
Speaker 7: and we'll do it right. And we're going to put
Speaker 7: leaders from other countries on and leaders that are very
Speaker 7: distinguished leaders.
Speaker 2: And then there will be a transitional authority it's called
Speaker 2: a government that will have Palestinian representation that will be
Speaker 2: in charge of running the day to day affairs of Gaza. Again,
Speaker 2: we're two plus months into the ceasefire. Now no one
Speaker 2: has been appointed to either of those bodies. Trump has
Speaker 2: been teasing big announcements for weeks. He keeps saying that
Speaker 2: he's about to announce members of the board, but those
Speaker 2: announcements haven't come, and my understanding is they may not
Speaker 2: happen until after the new year.
Speaker 1: Now, what's the delight great with nancying the board?
Speaker 2: I think some of it is the usual Donald Trump chaos.
Speaker 2: I think he was very engaged in September and October
Speaker 2: in trying to push the ceasefire forward, and then once
Speaker 2: the deal was signed, you know, it seems as if
Speaker 2: he thinks everything is fixed in Gaza. Now we have
Speaker 2: peace in the Middle East and everything is wonderful. And
Speaker 2: I was speaking to an official from a country in
Speaker 2: the region last week and I asked this person, when
Speaker 2: was the last time your government heard from Donald Trump
Speaker 2: personally about Gaza? And the response was in October when
Speaker 2: the deal was signed. So it's been two months where
Speaker 2: Trump has not personally reached out to one of the
Speaker 2: countries in the region that is supposed to play a
Speaker 2: big role in post war Gaza. That's one issue, and
Speaker 2: then I think there's just been a lot of as
Speaker 2: always in the Middle East, a lot of jockeying for
Speaker 2: power amongst countries in the region. Everybody wants to have
Speaker 2: a say in post war Gaza, but not everyone can
Speaker 2: agree on who should have a say. So Turkey wants
Speaker 2: to play a major role in reconstruction. Israel as opposed
Speaker 2: to that because it thinks Turkey is too sympathetic to Hamas.
Speaker 2: There's been similar criticism directed at Katar and the Persian Gulf.
Speaker 2: Other Gulf states are all jockeying for power within this
Speaker 2: transitional authority, and so they just can't agree even amongst
Speaker 2: themselves on who they want to lead this effort.
Speaker 1: US officials have talked about deploying an international stabilization force
Speaker 1: to calling it as early as January. So what details
Speaker 1: do need to be figured out for that to happen?
Speaker 2: Very minor detail, which is who's going to join it,
Speaker 2: where the troops are going to come from. There's still
Speaker 2: no answer to that question yet. The Americans have been
Speaker 2: shopping this idea around, not only since the ceasefire was
Speaker 2: signed in October, but for months before that. It's been clear,
Speaker 2: I think to everyone that you would need some sort
Speaker 2: of international force to go into Gauza because the alternative
Speaker 2: is open ended Israeli occupation. This is going to be
Speaker 2: an American led initiative. Trump is talking about appointing a
Speaker 2: two star American general who would oversee.
Speaker 5: This future stabilization force.
Speaker 2: None of the Arab countries really want to take part
Speaker 2: because they don't want the image of Arab troops policing Palestinians.
Speaker 2: That's going to be very unpopular with their domestic constituencies
Speaker 2: at home. The White House has been talking to other
Speaker 2: countries Muslim majority but non Arab countries, Azerbaijan, Indonesia.
Speaker 5: There has been some outreach.
Speaker 2: To Pakistan, I think as well, but no firm commitments
Speaker 2: from any of these countries. If you talk to advisors
Speaker 2: to the President of Azerbaijan, for example, they'll say, we're
Speaker 2: willing to send a contingent to Gaza, but it has
Speaker 2: to be part of a broader multinational force, and we
Speaker 2: don't want our troops to be policing in Gaza city,
Speaker 2: or in Rufa or in the populated.
Speaker 5: Areas of Gaza.
Speaker 2: They're willing to serve as maybe a monitoring force and
Speaker 2: a border security force along the Yellow Line and along
Speaker 2: Gaza's border with Egypt, but they don't want to be
Speaker 2: in a literal peacekeeping role where they are going neighborhood
Speaker 2: by neighborhood trying to disarm Hamas. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of opposition from not just Arab countries, but anyone who's
Speaker 2: been approached about joining this force.
Speaker 1: So as we approach the end of twenty twenty five, GREG,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to watch out for what the Stabilization
Speaker 1: Force may look like and what its mandate might be,
Speaker 1: as well as the Board of Peace that will act
Speaker 1: as a temporary government. So where does this leave Palestinians
Speaker 1: in terms of determining Gaza's future and their own future?
Speaker 2: I think with a very limited role, unfortunately, in determining that.
Speaker 2: I mean again, there is meant to be Palestinian representation
Speaker 2: on this transitional government, but we don't know who these
Speaker 2: Palestinians will be. We don't know if they will be
Speaker 2: people from Gaza or from the West Bank or from
Speaker 2: the Palestinian diaspora. So how much say the Palestinians of
Speaker 2: Gaza will have over their future is really unclear. And
Speaker 2: I think the longer it goes on like this, the
Speaker 2: longer we don't have any progress on Phase two of
Speaker 2: the deal, the more pressure there is going to be
Speaker 2: on people to try and leave Gaza, which of course
Speaker 2: has been the dream of the Israeli far right throughout
Speaker 2: the war. They wanted to expel huge numbers of Palestinians
Speaker 2: and then reoccupy and resettle Gaza. They weren't able to
Speaker 2: do that during the war. But something I keep hearing
Speaker 2: when I speak to Palestinians is maybe Israel will achieve
Speaker 2: that through peace. What they couldn't achieve through war, maybe
Speaker 2: they will achieve through peace. I don't think imminently they're
Speaker 2: going to start building settlements and moving Israeli civilians into Gaza,
Speaker 2: but I do think that yellow line is going to
Speaker 2: become a more and more formal boundary. And if you
Speaker 2: go back and look at the history of how the
Speaker 2: occupation started in the West Bank, I mean before there
Speaker 2: were civilian settlements there. It began with the military setting
Speaker 2: up outposts in the West Bank, and years went by
Speaker 2: and eventually you had what has become.
Speaker 5: A large settler population now.
Speaker 2: So even if that isn't the intent in the beginning,
Speaker 2: I think long term Israeli control of half of Gaza,
Speaker 2: it at least opens the possibility that at some point
Speaker 2: the right wing will get its wishes.
Speaker 1: Greg, thank you so much. For your reporting this year.
Speaker 1: It's been really great and thank you once again for
Speaker 1: coming on the show.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me, it's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Also in the use as in the Alberanezi has announced
Speaker 1: new laws to crack down on anti Semitism, including Tophane
Speaker 1: hate speech laws. The Prime Minister's five point plan also
Speaker 1: gives new powers to the Home Affairs Minister to cancel
Speaker 1: or reject visas for people who spread hate, and there
Speaker 1: will be an Education task Force led by David Gonski.
Speaker 1: His job will be to work with the anti Semitism
Speaker 1: Envoid Gillian Siegel on her recommendations to reform the curriculum
Speaker 1: to better educate students on the Holocaust. We'll have a
Speaker 1: full reporting the government's response to the Bondai massacre with
Speaker 1: Paul bon Jordo tomorrow. And the funeral for the youngest
Speaker 1: victim of the Bondai attacks has been held in Sydney.
Speaker 1: Crowds gathered yesterday afternoon to commemorate the life of ten
Speaker 1: year old Matilda, who was killed by a government on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I met A Lahmed, the man who disarmed one of
Speaker 1: the government is still in the hospital and is suspected
Speaker 1: to want to go a third surgery today. I'm Daniel James.
Speaker 1: This is seven am. Thanks for listening.