← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
BONUS EPISODE: Bombs in Doha and drones in Poland
00:18:41
How significant is Israel’s airstrike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar? And, with Russian military drones being shot down in Polish airspace, what will NATO do? Richard and Yalda debrief on the international reaction to the latest from the Middle...
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- [00:05]
A
What happened yesterday was unprecedented. Israel bringing its war with Hamas to the streets of Qatar, shattering the sense.
- [00:12]
B
Of safety here, went after the terrorist masterminds who committed the October 7th massacre. And we did so in Qatar, which gives safe haven. It harbors terrorists, it finances Hamas.
- [00:29]
A
Hello, it's me, Yalda, in London.
- [00:32]
C
And me, Richard Engel, and I am still in Jerusalem, where things seem to be happening fast and furious.
- [00:39]
A
Welcome to our listeners to this extra episode of the World podcast. We just wanted to bring you this episode following that huge news that Israel launched strikes in Qatar's capital, Doha, against Hamas. That that was our original plan. And then we woke up this morning and found news coming out of Poland that they had shot down Russian drones in its airspace with the help of NATO allies. So we're going to update you on all of these developments that are taking place at the moment in the Middle east, in Europe, Richard, another slow week in news.
- [01:12]
C
Can you believe this? We just did. This was it yesterday. We had a real full show. It's not like we were so searching for things. And then this unprecedented strike by Israel against the senior leaders of Hamas, which apparently didn't kill any of them, but has caused enormous controversy, condemnations against the strike coming from all of the United States, key allies in the Middle East.
- [01:40]
A
I really want to hear more about your interview with the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and get your thoughts on that. I've also been speaking to the NATO Secretary General. In fact, I spoke to Mark Rutter before this attack on Poland. But I will give you a sense of the confidence in which he was speaking about security guarantees to Ukraine and bringing this war to an end, which, frankly, now we're seeing drones flying into NATO airspace. But I've also been working my contacts on the ground in the Middle east, both in Doha as well as in Israel. So I want to share my thoughts with you.
- [02:19]
C
So please, as always, subscribe. More and more people are doing it. Write whenever you want. We do go through the questions. They help influence our conversations. The worldatsky.uk.
- [02:39]
A
So let me put it all into context. So what happened yesterday, late afternoon in Doha, was that suddenly large explosions were heard in this residential area, an area that, frankly, a lot of ambassadors live in. It's just a stone throw away from the British Embassy. It is a diplomatic area. Right. And this particular office of Hamas, they have a number of offices. I haven't been to this particular office. I don't know if you have, Richard. I've been to a couple of their other spaces. So this particular office is an office that, frankly, Tony Blair has frequented. Other diplomats have been in there to meet with Hamas. American officials could have been there at the time. Journalists often go there. So, you know, the fact is that this strike took place targeting one of Hamas's chiefs, Khalil Al Haya, and four others. They were the chief negotiators sitting there discussing this proposal by the Americans to try and bring about a ceasefire in Gaza. So they had come together to discuss the latest ceasefire agreement. That was the reason they were there at the time. Now, it turns out that nine bombs were dropped on this particular building. And within perhaps an hour or so of the strikes, we learned that, in fact, none of those five Hamas leaders had been killed. The son of Khalil Al Haya has been killed, and an office manager and a couple of Qatari police officers. So the question is, who knew? Were the Americans made aware? Did they assist them? The Americans? The White House say we knew nothing about this, only in the last few minutes. But I just want to hear more from you about what the ambassador was actually telling you.
- [04:35]
C
Couple of days ago, there was this mass shooting attack in Jerusalem. The next day, Hamas military wing, the Qassam Brigades issued a statement saying these two militants, these two heroes, martyrs as they describe them, they were ours, and that there will be more attacks to come, that this is just the beginning, we're going to keep going, and that the campaign in Gaza hasn't stopped us. As I'm going through this statement, suddenly there are reports that there are explosions in Doha. I thought maybe it was an industrial accident or something like that. Quite soon it became clear that this was no industrial accident, that this was an Israeli military strike targeting this residential comp compound where Hamas has some office space and where these leaders were meeting at the request of the Trump administration. President Trump had been issuing threats against Hamas. You better come up with an answer to our ceasefire proposal and we want that answer now. So there'd been pressure on Hamas and on Qatar to come up with a response to President Trump's own ceasefire initiative to stop the fighting in Gaza. The attack happens, and then there's all this speculation. So I went to the ambassador today and had the first interview with the US Ambassador after this attack happened. And I asked him, first of all, did it work from Israel's perspective, did they kill any of these guys? And he said, well, it's too early to know. We're still carrying out assessments. But Hamas says, as you say, that they didn't kill any of the top leaders. And you're hearing from your own sources, Yalda, correctly, that that that's the case, that they didn't kill any of the top leaders. But what shocked me most was the ambassador didn't seem bothered by the fact that the United States wasn't informed. He said, yeah, you know, we have differences of opinions. They do their policy, we have our policy. And, you know, yeah, they didn't inform us, but now it's okay. We were busy with delayed Fourth of July celebrations.
- [06:38]
A
Let's have a listen to your interview with Mike Huckabee.
- [06:42]
C
One of the things that stood out to me the most is that the United States, the White House, found out about this operation not from Israel, but from the US Military. How could that possibly be? The US Military and the Israeli military work closely together. How could the US Military be the last to know and not get a heads up?
- [07:05]
D
I don't know because I wasn't privy to what the timeline was, when the decisions were made and how they were executed. So I don't know what the sequence was yesterday, when everything went down and who notified who when they notified him. I simply have never been told those pieces of information again.
- [07:29]
C
How can that be when you have such a close relationship with Israel? Do you think that this was disrespectful, taking the US for granted, taking President Trump's support for granted?
- [07:39]
D
I don't see it that way. I just see it as that countries make decisions based on what they think their best interests are. And that doesn't mean everyone agrees. Sometimes we do, sometimes we may not.
- [07:53]
C
Do you think what Israel did in Qatar helps move the peace process along, moves toward a ceasefire to get those hostages out or sets the process back?
- [08:05]
D
I think the honest answer is we don't know. We'll know in the coming days, but we don't know today what the result is in terms of the hostages. Let's hope that it moves forward, getting them back.
- [08:18]
A
The fact is that the reason why Israel is on a rampage and the reason why they can do all of this seemingly with impunity, is because Donald Trump over and over again has said very blatantly that Benjamin Nehemiah Netanyahu will do what he has to do. And this falls into the he will do what he has to do category. You know, the reason why they're all sort of fence sitting, whether it's Caroline Levitt or whether it's Mike Huckabee or Donald Trump. No one is saying we condemn this attack from the American side, nor did.
- [08:51]
C
They take any actions. Did they stop funding? Did they stop sending weapons? Did they do any kind of punitive action? If anything? There was a. Yeah, we, you know, we, we're, we're disappointed. Like, you know, if you upset your parents and they, you know, they don't want to punish you, they're like, we're very disappointed in you. And then you move on. You know, it's a slap on the wrist kind of thing, if that. Let's take a break right now. And on the other side, when we come back, let's shift gears and talk about NATO, Poland, and your interviews that you've been conducting.
- [09:25]
A
So, Richard, we were just talking about the situation in the Middle east, and of course, we woke up to find that, in fact, NATO airspace had been violated by the Russians, that Russian drones had been shot out of the sky, basically by Poland. The Polish prime Minister has said this is the closest that they have come to, frankly, a conflict with a neighboring state since World War II. So the situation has escalated. Just give a bit of a breakdown of what happened in the early hours of this morning.
- [10:02]
C
So this isn't the first time that Russian drones have kind of ventured into Polish airspace. But this was a lot of. This was a big number. And Russia, you've heard them say, oh, it was an accident. This is no accident. This is far away from the Russian border. If you know the geography of Ukraine, and both the two of us know quite well there's Russia far in the east, then you have to cross all of the territory of Ukraine, which is enormous, until you get to the Polish border. And the closer you get to the Polish border, the more peaceful it is, the further and further away from the front lines you are. So to send Russian drones over there in an area that is far from the conflict zone, into a NATO country in large numbers is no accident. So what happened is these drones crossed in large numbers. They were shot down. And it seems like this was a clear message from Vladimir Putin to NATO, don't mess with me. It's on the heels of this, this meeting that he had that we've talked about with, with Modi, with Xi. And I think this was Putin showing his strength because European countries, NATO countries are increasingly talking about sending troops into Ukraine to be peacekeepers. And I think this was Vladimir Putin, now that he's got this backing that he showed off so publicly in China, saying, oh, yeah, you want to pick a fight? Let's give you a little taste of how it might look. We're not afraid of you. And I think this was a major show of force. Not that it was tanks rumbling on the border, but you're crossing the border right on the heels of this meeting. This is Putin sending a message, don't mess with us and we don't want your troops in Ukraine.
- [11:54]
A
As many as 24 drones could have been in the airspace. So it's the volume, as you say, because in the course of the last couple of years, drones have crossed into NATO. Moldova has often complained that they see drones, Russian drones, in their airspace, and there's nothing that they can frankly do about it. But this situation has escalated. We've seen European leaders come out and condemn the situation. In fact, the Polish government has asked to invoke NATO Article 4 because they are insisting Poland needs more than expressions of solidarity. They need for NATO, the sort of decision making body, to come together and decide what to do. So it's not Article 5, which basically means an attack on one is an attack on all. What it appears to me, you know, what this indicates, Richard, is that Vladimir Putin, Putin wants to normalize this. He wants to normalize the fact that he can just send drones into NATO airspace and there's frankly nothing they can do about it. Why this is so audacious, apart from the fact that he is sending these drones into NATO but also sovereign airspace, is in fact two things. One, sending that sort of clear message that you talked about. Two, the fact that it came from the Belarusian side and they're also conducting some operations there. The Russians and the Belarusians, well, they.
- [13:20]
C
Work very closely together. The initial invasion, also part of the invasion force came down from Belarus because it is closer to Kyiv and closer to that Polish border.
- [13:29]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And just in the last couple of days, I sat down with the NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, and it was quite extraordinary how confident he was. He talked about security guarantees to Ukraine. He talked about once some kind of peace deal is on the table, that there will be European troops on the ground, there will be boots on the ground with or without the Americans. And he said, this has got nothing to do with the Russians. Ukraine is a sovereign state. It will decide what boots are on its territory.
- [14:03]
C
I think this was Putin saying, this has everything to do with Russia and we're going to show you.
- [14:07]
A
Absolutely. Let's just have a little listen to what Mark Rutte had to say.
- [14:12]
B
NATO, having now committed to the 5% spending, is a clear signal to Russia. We are serious. NATO and the US Together now making sure that there is a weapon flow into Ukraine, including American weapons, lethal weapons, is a clear signal to Putin we are serious. The fact that the Americans put secondary sanctions on India is a clear signal we are serious. So we are all trying to put maximum pressure on the Russians to come to the table.
- [14:37]
A
It's not maximum pressure, though, because Vladimir Putin just in the last few days in Beijing said, pointed the finger of blame at the west and said it was the west who provoked the war in Ukraine, it wasn't Russia. And he said, we can try and do this peacefully or we can continue to do this military militarily to bring this to a war to an end.
- [14:57]
B
I think you and I, when we would have made this huge mistake by invading another country, and luckily you and I didn't, probably you would say the same. But we know in what situation he is in. The economy is doing very badly in Russia. The Ukrainians, he thought he would capture the whole of Ukraine within a month. He had his victory celebration already planned in Moscow in late February, March 2022, and now it's 2025. The Ukrainians staunchly have defended themselves. So what we have to make sure is that they have what they need to continue the fight if necessary. And at the same time, we have to do everything to make sure that we bring Putin to the table. Zelenskyy is willing to sit down, play ball, but then, of course, Putin has to show up. And, and Zelenskyy knows that when there is a deal that there will be security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent Russia from ever again attacking Ukraine.
- [15:49]
C
Russia may have a small economy, but Russia now has friends. And Russia just showed it off. You know, Ian Bremmer, he's a mutual friend of ours. I think he's a brilliant political analyst. Not sure how well known he is to our listeners. If not, look him up. He's great. He wrote that the world used to be governed by the G7, the group of seven. He said now it's the Xi3. And the Xi3 would be Xi, Putin and Modi.
- [16:18]
A
Yeah. And I think just as Israel is taking advantage of this moment, launching an attack on Hamas, but you know, Hamas is the political office, is in Doha and completely ignoring international law. They're taking advantage of the fact that they know that Donald Trump will not come out and can condemn them in the strongest terms, it seems that Vladimir Putin too knows that Donald Trump is not going to necessarily come out in support of his NATO allies and say, this is absolutely unacceptable.
- [16:53]
C
This was a bad week for President Trump. President Trump said Ukraine peace deal is going to be easy, that Vladimir Putin wants to make a peace deal that. That he's going to make a peace deal in Gaza that he has such great relationships with Netanyahu, although in the past, the two of them have fought and fought publicly. But the Israelis just carried out this strike with or without the US Full awareness or compliance or advanced notice, but carried it out nonetheless, which is not working toward a ceasefire. It is working in the opposite direction because the negotiations are not being carried out at the moment. They've been suspended. Israel is pushing ahead with an offensive against Gaza City and has ordered a mass evacuation and is dropping buildings in and around Gaza City left and right. And Putin is clearly not heading toward a ceasefire and is heading in the opposite direction. So for President Trump, who doesn't like to be disrespected and says he wants the Nobel Peace Prize and says he's gonna make America great again and respected again on the world stage, it was not, it was not a great week for him.
- [18:01]
A
And Richard, he's heading this way to the UK next week for his second state visit, so we'll have to see what happen. A week seems to be a long time in geopolitics and the events in the Middle east, in Europe, you know, I'm not going to predict anything because God knows what's going to happen next. But really good to talk to you again and thank you to our listeners for listening to this special episode of the World because of the events that have unfolded. And we'll see you again next week.