November 2, 2023 • 25 mins
Bloomberg’s Henry Meyer and Galit Altstein join this episode with an update on the Israel-Hamas war, including the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza; calls from the US and other nations for a pause in the fighting; and the latest on negotiations to free the hundreds of hostages Hamas is holding in Gaza.
Read more: Israel’s Step-by-Step Gaza Offensive Risks Longer Deadly War
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm West Kasova today on the Big Take. Bloomberg's ghaliit
Alstein and Henry Mayer joined me from Tel Aviv for
an update on the Israel Hamas war, including the rising
number of civilian deaths in Gaza, growing international pressure on
Israel to allow in more food and aid to address
a dire humanitarian crisis, and diminishing expectations for a deal
(00:25):
to free hostages. Hamas seized when it attacked Israel in October. Ghalid,
It's been several days now since Israel began its ground
operations in Gaza. Can you tell us what is happening
right now?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
We have been seeing extensive ground operations by the Israeli
military that have started last Friday night, after earlier the
so called Swords of Iron War. The main focus earlier
was almost only on aerial attacks and very limited in
small ground rates. And that has changed over the past
time week or so. The extended ground operations, they have
(01:05):
been moving forward at a faster pace. I think it's
afe to say then anticipated even and what we're seeing
now mainly is large ground and infantry forces that are
baddling Hamas defenses. This is mainly happening now around Gaza City,
which is in the northern part of the Gaza Strip
and in the western part of the adjacent small town
(01:26):
of Jibalia, which is often, by the way, referred to
as a camp, but I think that it does resemble
more a small town in terms of the infrastructure there.
Most residents of this area have also said to have
fled the area and moved further down south, so we
don't exactly know how many people there are at the time.
Although this is thought to be a very crowded area
(01:50):
and very densely populated area, it is not surely so
at this time. We've seen intense fighting in this very
heavily built landscape.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Authorities in Gaza say more than nine thousand people in
Gaza have died due to the war, and more than
fourteen hundred Israelis were killed in the October seventh Hamas attacks,
and Israel says eighteen Israeli soldiers have died, and of
course there are two hundred and forty two people known
to be held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Henry Israel's
(02:24):
bombing of the Jibealia camp that Gulli was talking about
really galvanize the world's attention. Israel said that it conducted
this bombing because there were Hamas fighters and leaders in
the camp, and yet many civilians died. Why did Israel
decide to bomb this camp.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, Israel has been saying all along that Hamas is
using civilians as human shields. We see this again and
again that civilians are getting killed in these air strikes.
You know, we had the incident with the hospital that
happened earlier in the conflict, when the health authorities reported
(03:06):
up to five hundred deaths in what they said was
in Israeli airstrike on a hospital. Israel then came up
with evidence that in fact, this was a rocket that
was misfired by Islamic she had. You're going to have
this again and again in this conflict. You know, incidents
in which large numbers of civilians die and people, you know,
(03:28):
on either side are blaming each other for what happened.
I think with the refugee camp, it's clear that Israel
targeted Hamas operatives Hamas commander, but they did so in
an area which was full of civilians, and therefore it
was inevitable that you're going to get these kind of casualties.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
What is Israel's thinking about this problem of civilians being
in harms way.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I think that on the one hand, Israel and the
Israeli Army have made a big point of asking Gazans,
the civilians who reside in Gaza, especially in the northern parts,
to move to the south of Gaza, and they have
promised to create humanitarian zones there, both in the sense
that they will not be attacked, these areas will not
(04:15):
be attacked, and also promising that aid that is coming
through the Rafa border with Egypt and promising that this
aid will be navigated towards these humanitarian areas in the south.
So that's one thing that Israel has done and has
made a point of also telling the world about. But
I think that you know, with connection to the ground operation,
(04:37):
time is a very important question, and the so called
international community hourglass is definitely something that is on the table.
As you know, conditions in Gaza get worse for the
population and as the death arises. The question is how
longer Israel will have the legitimacy to continue in terms
(04:58):
of the international support that that it's been getting, at
least for most of its Western allies. So this might
also affect ground operations in determining how long can Israel
have an ongoing presence in Gaza rather than its force
is going in and out for specific targeted operations.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You know, from the Israeli side, we spoke to a
senior government minister and ally of Prime Minister Nathan Yahu,
and he put out this very optimistic picture that the
number of civilian casualties would start to fall. Now, of course,
the reality on the ground is that the numbers being
announced every day by the health authorities in Gaza are
(05:39):
still going up by several hundred per day. It's quite
clear that for the time being, the number of deaths
is going to increase at a very serious rate, and
until the air campaign actually ends, unfortunately, the humanitarian dimension
of this is only going to get worse.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Israel did cut off all thelectricity and water supply to
the Gaza strip as its retaliation started. I'm assuming that
a lot of places in Gaza are disconnected from electricity
unless they're using generators that need the fuel to work.
That Gazan zamb say is also starting to run out,
so that's on that. We have heard the Israeli armies
(06:20):
say that some of the water pipes. At least two
of the three that exist in that work were reconnected,
but they were reconnected to the southern parts of Gaza
and not to the northern parts. So we know that.
And we also know that trucks that are coming in
from the Rafa crossing with Egypt they carry medicine, water
and food. They do not carry fuel. Israel has totally
(06:43):
banned that for now, But the number of the trucks
is very low for now, just to give an idea,
before the war broke out, so I think there were
about five hundred trucks going into Gaza per day. Now
the UN says that the minimum would be one hundred
trucks of eight going in, and that is far from happening.
Now we see maybe ten twenty trucks going in each day,
(07:05):
but Israel has said over the last couple of days
that this number is going to significantly go up, and
that means that Israel is aiming to go somewhere near
one hundred trucks or a few tens of trucks each day,
and not as few as we've seen over the last
ten weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Henry, despite the intensity of the ground operations in Gaza,
he recently wrote that, in fact, this is what Israel
is thinking of as a go slow approach to this war.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yes, that's right. Obviously, Israel understands that the scale of
the task which has set itself, as it put, to
destroy Hamas is not going to be achieved quickly. It
can't be achieved quickly because that would require such an
overwhelming use of force that would cause a far far
(07:58):
greater humanitarian astrophy even than the situation we see today.
What is in their strategy is to pursue for several
weeks at least operations at the current level of intensity.
They understand that they will have to scale that back
at some point because of the level of international criticism,
(08:19):
and that's why they will need a much longer period
to actually achieve their final objective. And what i atlund
in my story was that this will prolong the amount
of time that you know, Israel is operating in Gaza,
and therefore is going to make it very difficult for
it to actually achieve those objectives. At some point it
(08:41):
may actually have to call the whole operation off because
of the extent of international criticism.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Henry, you also write that the military is trying to
avoid a situation where they're fighting building to building and
avoid the hundreds of miles of tunnels that Hamas fighters
have built.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yes, the tunnels in particular are seen as the greatest
danger for Israeli troops. They extend, according to Hamas, up
to five hundred kilometers. They're very well equipped, they have
ventilation and electricity. Some stretch as deep as thirty meters
or more. And this is really a city within a city.
(09:20):
This is where Hamas has its main military infrastructure, and
Israeli soldiers who try to enter into those tunnels, they
won't have an idea of the layout. They will be
at a major disadvantage. And that's why the tactic is
to try as much as possible to destroy the tunnels,
you know, without actually having to send people in. The
(09:41):
complicating factor here is that more than two hundred hostages
are being held in Gaza by Hamas. Many of them
are understood to be held underground, and that means that
you know, if you use overwhelming force to try and
destroy the tunnel system, you're also risking the life of
the hostages.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
This has direct connection to the fuel question, because the
reason that Israel has been insisting so hard to ban
fuel from entering the Gaza strip. They say two things.
They say, One, Ramas has fuel and if it's missing,
then you know, the complaints should be referred to Hamas.
And the second thing they say is that Tramas uses
this fuel to ventilate these tunnels, and once they don't
(10:23):
have it, or they have a lot less of it,
they can't ventilate the tunnels, and they come out, the
operatives and the commanders come out, and then Israel can
obviously attack them more easily.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
After the break, civilian deaths in Gaza spark international criticism
of Israel. Henry, the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has
certainly gotten the world's attention. We're starting to see leaders,
including allies of Israel like the US and Joe Biden,
(10:57):
starting to question Israel's military actions and tell them that
they have to do something about this. Can you tell
us what's happening with that?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
What we see is that the humanitarian situation in Gaza
has provoked major protests in London. Two weekends in a row,
you had tens of thousands of people coming out in
pro Palestinian demonstrations. In other European cities, it was very
interesting last Friday, when the You and General Assembly voted
(11:28):
on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,
only fourteen countries voted against that resolution, including the United States, Israel,
five Pacific island nations, and four smaller European countries. That
really shows you that even among countries which support Israel's
right to self defense to retaliate against Hamas, there's a
(11:53):
great deal of concern. They're very uncomfortable about the human
costs of Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And even Joe Biden, who in the beginning was firmly
on the side of Israel and had not as much
to say about what was happening in Gaza, is now
speaking more about civilian lives there.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Well, that's right, I mean his sending back his Secretary
of State Anthony Blincoln to the region. Blincoln is due
to arrive in Israel on Friday, and you see the
United States now calling for what it called humanitarian pauses,
not a full cease fire, but a period of time
which would be enough to allow aid to flow into Gaza.
(12:36):
Until now, Israel has absolutely refused any suggestions of a
halt of fighting. Its argument is that this would only
allow hamas a breathing space time to reconstitute.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
The US involvement in this particular conflict has been unprecedented,
and Israel has always made a point of maintaining its
independence in terms of what it can and wants to
do in terms of military retaliation, and this has been
a completely different situation, not only in the sense that
the US has sent over to aircraft carriers, but also
(13:13):
in the very freak frequent visits that we've seen here,
especially from Secretary of State b Lincoln, also the US
President Biden, the ongoing reports on what they've been asking
of Israel. At first it was a certain delay in
the ground invasion in order to allow hostile negotiations, then
the requests from humanitarian aid, and we've seen the US
(13:33):
very dominant here as opposed to the past.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Gallie. We're also seeing for the first time the border
crossing with Egypt opening up, allowing wounded and sick people
from Gaza to cross over into Egypt. What is happening
with that.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So actually we're talking about two different groups of people
who are allowed to leave Gaza into Egypt, and this
is happening for the first time actually as we speak,
since the Israeli armies retaliation started in early October. The
first group we're seeing or groups of dual nationals meaning
people who are Palestinian but have another passport, or foreigners
(14:15):
who are in Gaza that belong you know, that work
for various organizations and need to leave the place. On
the other hand, we're seeing wounded Palestinians like you mentioned,
that are also allowed to leave Gaza. It remains to
be seen whether this is connected with the Israeli notion
of evacuating hospitals in Gaza as much as possible, because
Israel insists and has also shown proof that Hamas command
(14:39):
centers were built in tunnels under these hospitals, so obviously
they want the hospitals emptied so they can get to
the people who are hiding underground.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Henry, How is Israel responding to this enormous international pressure
to do something about civilians in Gaza who are in harms.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Way, Israel is agreeing to allow more aid into Gaza.
It says that the number of trucks coming in on
a daily basis will increase to one hundred, which it
has to be said, is one fifth of the pre
war level In terms of the air strikes, as we
discussed before. Their argument is that they have called on
(15:20):
Gazans to move to a safer part of that territory,
the southern part, and that they will try to avoid
targeting them. But you know, as what we have seen,
those air strikes are still continuing across the entire Gaza strip.
We'll have to see in the coming days whether the
death toll actually starts to decrease, But that is the
(15:40):
state at Israeli goal.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
You mentioned earlier, calls on Israel to pause to give
time for civilians who are still in the way to
move and to tend to sick people, to get food
and other supplies into Gaza. Do you think that Israel
would do that to stop the fighting for some length
of time.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Do you know the US is asking for humanitarian pauses
to allow more aid into Gaza, And there have been
instances in the past that Israel has responded to US pressure.
For example, after the Grand operations started last week, internet
and mobile phone communications were cut entirely to Gaza, and
(16:25):
the US demanded that Israel allow their services to resume.
So I think that is entirely possible that this is
one of the objectives of Anthony Blincoln's visit to Israel.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
When we come back, can a deal be reached to
free the hostages Ghalid? Earlier, Henry had mentioned the question
of the hostages who still remain in Gaza. There has
(16:58):
been a lot of goiations led by Katar. Do we
know exactly where that stands now?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
We were recently told by the head of Israel's National
Security Council that as of now, there's no hostage deal
in sight, that negotiations are not going anywhere, and he
actually said that Qatar has realized that Hamas was misleading them,
quote unquote, he said that at a press briefing. So
(17:25):
there's no news on that front. Over the last weekend,
just before the accelerated ground operation in Gaza started, there
was a lot of chatter about the negotiations moderated by
cut are moving forward very quickly, and we heard a
lot of Israeli officials say these reports adjustment to delay
Israel's ground invasion and also say that at this point,
(17:49):
on the contrary, what can maybe pressure Hamas to release
more hostages is more military pressure, even a ground invasion,
rather than withholding it. So that has sort of been
thedynamic over the last week or so.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
If these negotiations are stalled, does that mean hope for
these hostages ultimately being freed is now diminishing.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Hope is definitely diminishing. I've spoken to representative of the
families of the hostages, and definitely, before the ground operation began,
there was some feeling that things were starting to move
in the right direction. The position of the families of
the hostages, and that's interestingly one that gets support from
(18:35):
people in the security establishment. A former defense minister said
that he supported the idea of what is known as
all for all, in other words, swapping all the hostages
for all the Hamas prison is in Israeli prisons several thousand.
You know, the government ruled that out and it's now
(18:55):
taking what it seemed to be a very hard line,
and that has created a great deal of anxiety. And
the issue is that the Israeli public has been very supportive,
of course, of the military operation and has considered the
hostage issue to be a secondary one. We'll have to
see whether that changes.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Gully, A lot of attention is on the fighting in Gaza,
but that is not the only place where Israel is fighting.
There is also conflict in its border to the north
with Lebanon and Hezbollah. Can you tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
What we've been seeing there for a few weeks now
is a sort of constant back and forth fire exchanges
between Chrisbela and by the way, not only Chrisbellah, but
also some Palestinian groups who are positioned in Lebanon. So
we've seen back and forth fire between them in Israeli forces.
We've seen them trying to target Israeli military posts along
(19:51):
the border. We've seen them trying to fire mortar shells
at Israeli settlements that have mostly been evacuated along the
northern border. And we've seen Israel retal to these shooting attempts,
firing back at the sources of fire. And we've also
seen some attacks that took place not in Lebanon but
in Syria, because some of the shooting came from there.
(20:13):
Azuel is not publicly admitted responsibility for these Syria attacks,
but they've definitely taken place. Israel at this point, I
would say, is retaliating to Chrisbella and other groups shooting
into Israeli territory and making a strong point of at
this time only retaliating and at the same time using
(20:34):
very aggressive rhetoric and saying that it is very well prepared,
both on the offensive and defensive side, to do anything
it needs to do to protect Israel's security and its
security interest. A lot of eyes are looking at that
and looking at how that plays.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Out, Henry. All of this raises the question of the
possibility of this war spreading and becoming a more regional conflict.
Is there a feeling that the chances of that happening
are rising or falling as a result of recent days.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I think that the risks of a spillover of a conflict,
of an escalation are definitely significant. That is one of
the main reasons why the Americans are so involved trying
to ensure that Israel limits the scope of its offensive.
It hasn't actually been that successful in that, and I
think this is what is concerning people. Ultimately, whether it
(21:29):
spreads to Lebanon and pez Bola get sucked into the
conflict also depends very largely on Iran's calculations and whether
they're willing to wage that kind of more or less
a direct conflict. You know, we do see a lot
of attacks on US military interests on basis in Iraq
and in Syria. For the moment, it seems to be containable,
(21:52):
but something unexpected can happen. It can light a spark
that can make this conflict spread, and it's very hard
to anticipate how that might happen.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Khalide. Obviously, things are changing very quickly and there's a
lot to keep track of. What are you watching as
you continue to report?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
We mentioned this, but I will mention it again. Also,
what happens on the northern front is Grisbela is considered
to be a much more powerful enemy for Israel than
Ramas in the sense that it has a very large
missile arsenalit. It can be a much bigger threat to
Israel's home front. And of course, what will happen in
(22:32):
Gaza the day after Israel says or declares you know,
it has possibly won the war. Who is going on
to rule the Gaza strip? If Ramas is brought down
and cannot rule there anymore as far as Israel is concerned,
who will take over? This is a very complicated question
that is already being discussed. But I think the answer,
at least at this stage is very far from being clear.
(22:54):
In Israel, there has been chatter, and I would call
a chatter at this stage about perhaps after Israel pulls
out of Gaza, maybe a professional government, a technocrat government
is put into place to rule Gaza for something like
two years ahead, and then after that there will be
general elections both in Gaza and the West Bank, and
(23:18):
that will determine who will rule both Gaza and the
West Bank. So that's one thing that is being talked about.
In terms of a military threat to Israel, there's a
lot of talk about setting a perimeter, maybe a kilometer
or two kilometers into the Gaza strip where no one
is able to enter under any circumstance, in order to
(23:39):
protect the southern vicinities of Israel.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
The really bigger picture here is how this is going
to affect the US efforts to try and remake the
Middle East. It's been pushing for a peace agreement to
establish diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and at
the US has said openly that it believes that Hamas's
attack was aimed at sabotaging this. So you know how
(24:06):
the Israeli campaign goes exactly how much criticism, international criticism
is generated, whether it's able to achieve its objectives is
going to be critical to determining how this plays out.
You know, the US, as I said before, it's making
every effort to try and prevent this from spinning out
of control. I do sense still among Israeli officials they
(24:30):
are confident that they can pull it off, that they
can degrade Hamas sufficiently, perhaps not destroy them entirely, but
make sure that they do not represent a military threat
anymore to Israel, and at the same time maintain the
diplomatic relations they have with Arab nations and even find
the possibility to reach an agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Henry Galie, thanks for taking the time to speak with me.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.
It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more
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Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg
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(25:23):
produced this episode. Kilde Garcia is our engineer. Our original
music was composed by Leo Sidron. I'm West Kasova. We'll
be back on Monday with another big take.
I'm West Kasova today on the Big Take. Bloomberg's ghaliit
Alstein and Henry Mayer joined me from Tel Aviv for
an update on the Israel Hamas war, including the rising
number of civilian deaths in Gaza, growing international pressure on
Israel to allow in more food and aid to address
a dire humanitarian crisis, and diminishing expectations for a deal
(00:25):
to free hostages. Hamas seized when it attacked Israel in October. Ghalid,
It's been several days now since Israel began its ground
operations in Gaza. Can you tell us what is happening
right now?
Speaker 2 (00:42):
We have been seeing extensive ground operations by the Israeli
military that have started last Friday night, after earlier the
so called Swords of Iron War. The main focus earlier
was almost only on aerial attacks and very limited in
small ground rates. And that has changed over the past
time week or so. The extended ground operations, they have
(01:05):
been moving forward at a faster pace. I think it's
afe to say then anticipated even and what we're seeing
now mainly is large ground and infantry forces that are
baddling Hamas defenses. This is mainly happening now around Gaza City,
which is in the northern part of the Gaza Strip
and in the western part of the adjacent small town
(01:26):
of Jibalia, which is often, by the way, referred to
as a camp, but I think that it does resemble
more a small town in terms of the infrastructure there.
Most residents of this area have also said to have
fled the area and moved further down south, so we
don't exactly know how many people there are at the time.
Although this is thought to be a very crowded area
(01:50):
and very densely populated area, it is not surely so
at this time. We've seen intense fighting in this very
heavily built landscape.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Authorities in Gaza say more than nine thousand people in
Gaza have died due to the war, and more than
fourteen hundred Israelis were killed in the October seventh Hamas attacks,
and Israel says eighteen Israeli soldiers have died, and of
course there are two hundred and forty two people known
to be held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Henry Israel's
(02:24):
bombing of the Jibealia camp that Gulli was talking about
really galvanize the world's attention. Israel said that it conducted
this bombing because there were Hamas fighters and leaders in
the camp, and yet many civilians died. Why did Israel
decide to bomb this camp.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, Israel has been saying all along that Hamas is
using civilians as human shields. We see this again and
again that civilians are getting killed in these air strikes.
You know, we had the incident with the hospital that
happened earlier in the conflict, when the health authorities reported
(03:06):
up to five hundred deaths in what they said was
in Israeli airstrike on a hospital. Israel then came up
with evidence that in fact, this was a rocket that
was misfired by Islamic she had. You're going to have
this again and again in this conflict. You know, incidents
in which large numbers of civilians die and people, you know,
(03:28):
on either side are blaming each other for what happened.
I think with the refugee camp, it's clear that Israel
targeted Hamas operatives Hamas commander, but they did so in
an area which was full of civilians, and therefore it
was inevitable that you're going to get these kind of casualties.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
What is Israel's thinking about this problem of civilians being
in harms way.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I think that on the one hand, Israel and the
Israeli Army have made a big point of asking Gazans,
the civilians who reside in Gaza, especially in the northern parts,
to move to the south of Gaza, and they have
promised to create humanitarian zones there, both in the sense
that they will not be attacked, these areas will not
(04:15):
be attacked, and also promising that aid that is coming
through the Rafa border with Egypt and promising that this
aid will be navigated towards these humanitarian areas in the south.
So that's one thing that Israel has done and has
made a point of also telling the world about. But
I think that you know, with connection to the ground operation,
(04:37):
time is a very important question, and the so called
international community hourglass is definitely something that is on the table.
As you know, conditions in Gaza get worse for the
population and as the death arises. The question is how
longer Israel will have the legitimacy to continue in terms
(04:58):
of the international support that that it's been getting, at
least for most of its Western allies. So this might
also affect ground operations in determining how long can Israel
have an ongoing presence in Gaza rather than its force
is going in and out for specific targeted operations.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You know, from the Israeli side, we spoke to a
senior government minister and ally of Prime Minister Nathan Yahu,
and he put out this very optimistic picture that the
number of civilian casualties would start to fall. Now, of course,
the reality on the ground is that the numbers being
announced every day by the health authorities in Gaza are
(05:39):
still going up by several hundred per day. It's quite
clear that for the time being, the number of deaths
is going to increase at a very serious rate, and
until the air campaign actually ends, unfortunately, the humanitarian dimension
of this is only going to get worse.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Israel did cut off all thelectricity and water supply to
the Gaza strip as its retaliation started. I'm assuming that
a lot of places in Gaza are disconnected from electricity
unless they're using generators that need the fuel to work.
That Gazan zamb say is also starting to run out,
so that's on that. We have heard the Israeli armies
(06:20):
say that some of the water pipes. At least two
of the three that exist in that work were reconnected,
but they were reconnected to the southern parts of Gaza
and not to the northern parts. So we know that.
And we also know that trucks that are coming in
from the Rafa crossing with Egypt they carry medicine, water
and food. They do not carry fuel. Israel has totally
(06:43):
banned that for now, But the number of the trucks
is very low for now, just to give an idea,
before the war broke out, so I think there were
about five hundred trucks going into Gaza per day. Now
the UN says that the minimum would be one hundred
trucks of eight going in, and that is far from happening.
Now we see maybe ten twenty trucks going in each day,
(07:05):
but Israel has said over the last couple of days
that this number is going to significantly go up, and
that means that Israel is aiming to go somewhere near
one hundred trucks or a few tens of trucks each day,
and not as few as we've seen over the last
ten weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Henry, despite the intensity of the ground operations in Gaza,
he recently wrote that, in fact, this is what Israel
is thinking of as a go slow approach to this war.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yes, that's right. Obviously, Israel understands that the scale of
the task which has set itself, as it put, to
destroy Hamas is not going to be achieved quickly. It
can't be achieved quickly because that would require such an
overwhelming use of force that would cause a far far
(07:58):
greater humanitarian astrophy even than the situation we see today.
What is in their strategy is to pursue for several
weeks at least operations at the current level of intensity.
They understand that they will have to scale that back
at some point because of the level of international criticism,
(08:19):
and that's why they will need a much longer period
to actually achieve their final objective. And what i atlund
in my story was that this will prolong the amount
of time that you know, Israel is operating in Gaza,
and therefore is going to make it very difficult for
it to actually achieve those objectives. At some point it
(08:41):
may actually have to call the whole operation off because
of the extent of international criticism.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Henry, you also write that the military is trying to
avoid a situation where they're fighting building to building and
avoid the hundreds of miles of tunnels that Hamas fighters
have built.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yes, the tunnels in particular are seen as the greatest
danger for Israeli troops. They extend, according to Hamas, up
to five hundred kilometers. They're very well equipped, they have
ventilation and electricity. Some stretch as deep as thirty meters
or more. And this is really a city within a city.
(09:20):
This is where Hamas has its main military infrastructure, and
Israeli soldiers who try to enter into those tunnels, they
won't have an idea of the layout. They will be
at a major disadvantage. And that's why the tactic is
to try as much as possible to destroy the tunnels,
you know, without actually having to send people in. The
(09:41):
complicating factor here is that more than two hundred hostages
are being held in Gaza by Hamas. Many of them
are understood to be held underground, and that means that
you know, if you use overwhelming force to try and
destroy the tunnel system, you're also risking the life of
the hostages.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
This has direct connection to the fuel question, because the
reason that Israel has been insisting so hard to ban
fuel from entering the Gaza strip. They say two things.
They say, One, Ramas has fuel and if it's missing,
then you know, the complaints should be referred to Hamas.
And the second thing they say is that Tramas uses
this fuel to ventilate these tunnels, and once they don't
(10:23):
have it, or they have a lot less of it,
they can't ventilate the tunnels, and they come out, the
operatives and the commanders come out, and then Israel can
obviously attack them more easily.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
After the break, civilian deaths in Gaza spark international criticism
of Israel. Henry, the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has
certainly gotten the world's attention. We're starting to see leaders,
including allies of Israel like the US and Joe Biden,
(10:57):
starting to question Israel's military actions and tell them that
they have to do something about this. Can you tell
us what's happening with that?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
What we see is that the humanitarian situation in Gaza
has provoked major protests in London. Two weekends in a row,
you had tens of thousands of people coming out in
pro Palestinian demonstrations. In other European cities, it was very
interesting last Friday, when the You and General Assembly voted
(11:28):
on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,
only fourteen countries voted against that resolution, including the United States, Israel,
five Pacific island nations, and four smaller European countries. That
really shows you that even among countries which support Israel's
right to self defense to retaliate against Hamas, there's a
(11:53):
great deal of concern. They're very uncomfortable about the human
costs of Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And even Joe Biden, who in the beginning was firmly
on the side of Israel and had not as much
to say about what was happening in Gaza, is now
speaking more about civilian lives there.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Well, that's right, I mean his sending back his Secretary
of State Anthony Blincoln to the region. Blincoln is due
to arrive in Israel on Friday, and you see the
United States now calling for what it called humanitarian pauses,
not a full cease fire, but a period of time
which would be enough to allow aid to flow into Gaza.
(12:36):
Until now, Israel has absolutely refused any suggestions of a
halt of fighting. Its argument is that this would only
allow hamas a breathing space time to reconstitute.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
The US involvement in this particular conflict has been unprecedented,
and Israel has always made a point of maintaining its
independence in terms of what it can and wants to
do in terms of military retaliation, and this has been
a completely different situation, not only in the sense that
the US has sent over to aircraft carriers, but also
(13:13):
in the very freak frequent visits that we've seen here,
especially from Secretary of State b Lincoln, also the US
President Biden, the ongoing reports on what they've been asking
of Israel. At first it was a certain delay in
the ground invasion in order to allow hostile negotiations, then
the requests from humanitarian aid, and we've seen the US
(13:33):
very dominant here as opposed to the past.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Gallie. We're also seeing for the first time the border
crossing with Egypt opening up, allowing wounded and sick people
from Gaza to cross over into Egypt. What is happening
with that.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So actually we're talking about two different groups of people
who are allowed to leave Gaza into Egypt, and this
is happening for the first time actually as we speak,
since the Israeli armies retaliation started in early October. The
first group we're seeing or groups of dual nationals meaning
people who are Palestinian but have another passport, or foreigners
(14:15):
who are in Gaza that belong you know, that work
for various organizations and need to leave the place. On
the other hand, we're seeing wounded Palestinians like you mentioned,
that are also allowed to leave Gaza. It remains to
be seen whether this is connected with the Israeli notion
of evacuating hospitals in Gaza as much as possible, because
Israel insists and has also shown proof that Hamas command
(14:39):
centers were built in tunnels under these hospitals, so obviously
they want the hospitals emptied so they can get to
the people who are hiding underground.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Henry, How is Israel responding to this enormous international pressure
to do something about civilians in Gaza who are in harms.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Way, Israel is agreeing to allow more aid into Gaza.
It says that the number of trucks coming in on
a daily basis will increase to one hundred, which it
has to be said, is one fifth of the pre
war level In terms of the air strikes, as we
discussed before. Their argument is that they have called on
(15:20):
Gazans to move to a safer part of that territory,
the southern part, and that they will try to avoid
targeting them. But you know, as what we have seen,
those air strikes are still continuing across the entire Gaza strip.
We'll have to see in the coming days whether the
death toll actually starts to decrease, But that is the
(15:40):
state at Israeli goal.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
You mentioned earlier, calls on Israel to pause to give
time for civilians who are still in the way to
move and to tend to sick people, to get food
and other supplies into Gaza. Do you think that Israel
would do that to stop the fighting for some length
of time.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Do you know the US is asking for humanitarian pauses
to allow more aid into Gaza, And there have been
instances in the past that Israel has responded to US pressure.
For example, after the Grand operations started last week, internet
and mobile phone communications were cut entirely to Gaza, and
(16:25):
the US demanded that Israel allow their services to resume.
So I think that is entirely possible that this is
one of the objectives of Anthony Blincoln's visit to Israel.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
When we come back, can a deal be reached to
free the hostages Ghalid? Earlier, Henry had mentioned the question
of the hostages who still remain in Gaza. There has
(16:58):
been a lot of goiations led by Katar. Do we
know exactly where that stands now?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
We were recently told by the head of Israel's National
Security Council that as of now, there's no hostage deal
in sight, that negotiations are not going anywhere, and he
actually said that Qatar has realized that Hamas was misleading them,
quote unquote, he said that at a press briefing. So
(17:25):
there's no news on that front. Over the last weekend,
just before the accelerated ground operation in Gaza started, there
was a lot of chatter about the negotiations moderated by
cut are moving forward very quickly, and we heard a
lot of Israeli officials say these reports adjustment to delay
Israel's ground invasion and also say that at this point,
(17:49):
on the contrary, what can maybe pressure Hamas to release
more hostages is more military pressure, even a ground invasion,
rather than withholding it. So that has sort of been
thedynamic over the last week or so.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
If these negotiations are stalled, does that mean hope for
these hostages ultimately being freed is now diminishing.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Hope is definitely diminishing. I've spoken to representative of the
families of the hostages, and definitely, before the ground operation began,
there was some feeling that things were starting to move
in the right direction. The position of the families of
the hostages, and that's interestingly one that gets support from
(18:35):
people in the security establishment. A former defense minister said
that he supported the idea of what is known as
all for all, in other words, swapping all the hostages
for all the Hamas prison is in Israeli prisons several thousand.
You know, the government ruled that out and it's now
(18:55):
taking what it seemed to be a very hard line,
and that has created a great deal of anxiety. And
the issue is that the Israeli public has been very supportive,
of course, of the military operation and has considered the
hostage issue to be a secondary one. We'll have to
see whether that changes.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Gully, A lot of attention is on the fighting in Gaza,
but that is not the only place where Israel is fighting.
There is also conflict in its border to the north
with Lebanon and Hezbollah. Can you tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
What we've been seeing there for a few weeks now
is a sort of constant back and forth fire exchanges
between Chrisbela and by the way, not only Chrisbellah, but
also some Palestinian groups who are positioned in Lebanon. So
we've seen back and forth fire between them in Israeli forces.
We've seen them trying to target Israeli military posts along
(19:51):
the border. We've seen them trying to fire mortar shells
at Israeli settlements that have mostly been evacuated along the
northern border. And we've seen Israel retal to these shooting attempts,
firing back at the sources of fire. And we've also
seen some attacks that took place not in Lebanon but
in Syria, because some of the shooting came from there.
(20:13):
Azuel is not publicly admitted responsibility for these Syria attacks,
but they've definitely taken place. Israel at this point, I
would say, is retaliating to Chrisbella and other groups shooting
into Israeli territory and making a strong point of at
this time only retaliating and at the same time using
(20:34):
very aggressive rhetoric and saying that it is very well prepared,
both on the offensive and defensive side, to do anything
it needs to do to protect Israel's security and its
security interest. A lot of eyes are looking at that
and looking at how that plays.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Out, Henry. All of this raises the question of the
possibility of this war spreading and becoming a more regional conflict.
Is there a feeling that the chances of that happening
are rising or falling as a result of recent days.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
I think that the risks of a spillover of a conflict,
of an escalation are definitely significant. That is one of
the main reasons why the Americans are so involved trying
to ensure that Israel limits the scope of its offensive.
It hasn't actually been that successful in that, and I
think this is what is concerning people. Ultimately, whether it
(21:29):
spreads to Lebanon and pez Bola get sucked into the
conflict also depends very largely on Iran's calculations and whether
they're willing to wage that kind of more or less
a direct conflict. You know, we do see a lot
of attacks on US military interests on basis in Iraq
and in Syria. For the moment, it seems to be containable,
(21:52):
but something unexpected can happen. It can light a spark
that can make this conflict spread, and it's very hard
to anticipate how that might happen.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Khalide. Obviously, things are changing very quickly and there's a
lot to keep track of. What are you watching as
you continue to report?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
We mentioned this, but I will mention it again. Also,
what happens on the northern front is Grisbela is considered
to be a much more powerful enemy for Israel than
Ramas in the sense that it has a very large
missile arsenalit. It can be a much bigger threat to
Israel's home front. And of course, what will happen in
(22:32):
Gaza the day after Israel says or declares you know,
it has possibly won the war. Who is going on
to rule the Gaza strip? If Ramas is brought down
and cannot rule there anymore as far as Israel is concerned,
who will take over? This is a very complicated question
that is already being discussed. But I think the answer,
at least at this stage is very far from being clear.
(22:54):
In Israel, there has been chatter, and I would call
a chatter at this stage about perhaps after Israel pulls
out of Gaza, maybe a professional government, a technocrat government
is put into place to rule Gaza for something like
two years ahead, and then after that there will be
general elections both in Gaza and the West Bank, and
(23:18):
that will determine who will rule both Gaza and the
West Bank. So that's one thing that is being talked about.
In terms of a military threat to Israel, there's a
lot of talk about setting a perimeter, maybe a kilometer
or two kilometers into the Gaza strip where no one
is able to enter under any circumstance, in order to
(23:39):
protect the southern vicinities of Israel.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
The really bigger picture here is how this is going
to affect the US efforts to try and remake the
Middle East. It's been pushing for a peace agreement to
establish diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and at
the US has said openly that it believes that Hamas's
attack was aimed at sabotaging this. So you know how
(24:06):
the Israeli campaign goes exactly how much criticism, international criticism
is generated, whether it's able to achieve its objectives is
going to be critical to determining how this plays out.
You know, the US, as I said before, it's making
every effort to try and prevent this from spinning out
of control. I do sense still among Israeli officials they
(24:30):
are confident that they can pull it off, that they
can degrade Hamas sufficiently, perhaps not destroy them entirely, but
make sure that they do not represent a military threat
anymore to Israel, and at the same time maintain the
diplomatic relations they have with Arab nations and even find
the possibility to reach an agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Henry Galie, thanks for taking the time to speak with me.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
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 Virgolino. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Frederica Romaniello
(25:23):
produced this episode. Kilde Garcia is our engineer. Our original
music was composed by Leo Sidron. I'm West Kasova. We'll
be back on Monday with another big take.
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Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
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