← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
Is peace any closer two years on from October 7?
00:42:07
How close is a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas? Just how badly does Donald Trump want the Nobel Peace Prize? Why has Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to this deal now? Richard and Yalda are both in Israel, two years on from the October 7 Hamas...
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- [00:00]
Richard
Hi, listeners. We love making this podcast and we're always looking at ways to make it even better. We'd really appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to fill out our short survey and you'll find the link in the episode description.
- [00:18]
Yelda
Hello, it's me, Yelda.
- [00:19]
Richard
And me, Richard. And we are both in Jerusalem here together at the American Colony in the famous Cellar Bar. And it's great to be here in person. The second anniversary of the attacks carried out by Hamas on the 7th of October, 2023. More than 1200 Israelis were killed that day. More than 250 people taken across the border into Gaza and held hostage. For years and years they've been trying to have a deal with G. Have a really good chance of making a deal.
- [01:11]
Yelda
So good to see you, Richard. I arrived here at the weekend because of course we got the sense that there was movement on this 20 point peace plan that Donald Trump announced just last week with Benjamin Netanyahu standing next to him. Donald Trump now says Hamas has agreed to a lot of things, including crucially for Israel the release of hostages. And Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to signal that things are moving in a direction that can be categorized as progress. And now today, the day that we're recording this podcast, we have both sides in Egypt meeting in what feels like quite a significant moment in this conflict that has raged for the, for the last two years.
- [01:59]
Richard
So I've been here for about a week now and I came in anticipation of this two year anniversary. We're recording on October 7th, the two year anniversary. And it wasn't that long ago from right now when this attack was taking place. Actually the attack was happening raging at this moment two years ago. We're going to talk about that and talk about some of the people involved. And now there is this 20 point peace plan on the table. We've talked about it somewhat. I think we're going to break it down in more detail, its strengths, its weaknesses and where it all goes from here.
- [02:41]
Yelda
And Richard, we mustn't forget that, you know, linked to all of this is something that Donald Trump really wants and that's the Nobel Peace Prize. It's the Nobel Peace Prize award is going to be announced on October 10, on Friday. Which makes me think, given we've had all of those conversations, Donald Trump wants there to be massive amounts of progress, if not, you know, much of the first phase of this deal announced by the weekend.
- [03:11]
Richard
Do you think he really thinks he can get the peace prize? That he's going to get it in a few days and that he's going to get that medal.
- [03:18]
Yelda
Donald Trump does things in a very unorthodox way. You know, he's talked about the seven wars that he's resolved and in the last few days has been talking about this, resolving the crisis in the Middle East, a kind of peace that we haven't seen for 3,000 years.
- [03:33]
Richard
Well, let's get started. Make sure to follow us on Spotify and Apple and subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch and listen to us at the same time. And for once, we are in the same place, which is, which is great. It's a rare treat. And as ever, please, if you have any questions, send them to us at the world@sky.uk.
- [04:04]
Yelda
Richard, you and I have covered this conflict for the last two years. You know, people have been very sensitive around the language of this, starting with October 7th, where we saw that horrific attack. You talked about being here as it was still unfolding. There was so much that wasn't clear about what was happening, you know, and it went on for, for couple of days, frankly. And what we found was that 1200 people were killed, 251 hostages were taken, dragged into Gaza. And we know that 48 hostages remain, 20 or so still alive. And the families of the hostages want the remains of all of those other hostages to also be returned. And in the course of the last two years, 67,000 Palestinians killed. So both sides have paid a huge price. There is a huge amount of pain still here in Israel. And for the Palestinians, I mean, they feel this every single day. And frankly, you know, we've talked about this before. It is a, a, an issue that is so polarizing that it has reverberated right across the world. It's been felt almost in every capital around the world.
- [05:27]
Richard
This conflict has been going on for, for decades, I wouldn't say centuries or millennia like President Trump, but certainly the modern Israeli Palestinian conflict has been raging, at least in an active political way, since Israel was, was formed in War in 1948. And there's been a constant battle over this land since then. But it comes in fits and spurts. For many years, people didn't talk about this conflict. We talked about the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan or the rise of isis. This conflict faded into the background. But what happened two years ago today and the aftermath, I think not only put this conflict back, front and center, it has changed a lot of people's opinions around the world about Palestinians, about Israel, about the idea of Zionism. Israeli Palestinian conflict was there, simmering in the background, until the pot boiled over and boiled over in a way that worse than I'd ever seen it before.
- [06:38]
Yelda
Richard, you've been speaking to, like me, to hostage families, to, to people who were taken hostage. Just talk us through what, what they were telling you.
- [06:47]
Richard
So let's go back, since this is the anniversary, to that day, that horrible day. And I think the, the horror of the day is sometimes overshadowed by the horror of what happened in Gaza afterwards. But on that day, Hamas attacked and Hamas broke out of the Gaza Strip, went house to house in the communities around the Gaza Strip, the kibbutzim, and went on a killing spree. So I was down the other day in Kibbutz Be', Eri, which is small community. The whole thing has had about a thousand people living in it at the time. So very small, just a couple hundred homes. And it was the most devastated of all of the communities. Just in Bari, 102 people were killed. More than 130 homes were burned, and they kidnapped more than 30 people just from this one kibbutz. So about 15% of the whole population was killed or kidnapped. And they all knew each other, were all neighbors. So a devastated community. And I spoke to a man, Ohad Ben Ami, who was in his safe room.
- [08:03]
Ohad Ben Ami
I was sitting in the bed in the safe room, my wife on the floor with a blanket on her. And we didn't speak. And then suddenly they come in to the house. We've heard them inside here, in the, upstairs and in the, in the WhatsApp group of our neighborhood. People are saying, they are in my house, what I'm doing. They are burning my house, what I'm doing. And I said, whoa, we are, wow, we are, we are going to die here. What we supposed to do? And we asked, where is the army? Where is the army? And it's on the way, on the way, but no army. So we need to delete by ourselves. And then we get the message that we need to close that one, this one. So this with the left rig. So I called from the cell phone here and I said, I'm alone, I'm alone, don't shoot, I'm alone. And I saw younger people at the age of 15, 16, not armed with the hammers. And then they called to someone and then come Hamas with uniform, Hamas guy with a kalach like this. Look at me. I don't know what person is mine, but he took the kalach like this and took him.
- [09:39]
Yelda
There've been so many tragic moments. Over the course of the last two years. But first of all, the horror of that day, the shock and the fear that people were feeling. But secondly, listening to that, you just realize the failings of October 7th by the authorities here. We will talk in a moment about the failings of Benjamin Netanyahu. The army, the defense, the security establishment in this country. It is the most surveilled, one of the most surveilled parts of the world. I interviewed a hostage's father. Now, his son was in the idf, so he was part of a brigade. He was stationed in the area. And he said, my son was the youngest of his sort of platoon or battalion, and he was 18 years old. And he said the day before we spoke to him, his mother and I, he was feeling quite, you know, depressed and wanting to eventually leave the idf. He wasn't quite happy where he was. And we're talking him through that. And then he said, the next day, this happens. We got a message from his girlfriend saying, he's just phoned me. They've been ambushed. And, you know, they've basically been overwhelmed by the number of Hamas fighters. I asked this father, you know, he had a number on his, like a sticker with a number, 731. And he said, that is the number of days we. Since we last spoke to our son. Now, they've been told by Israeli intelligence and the IDF that their son is dead, but their parents. So they live in hope. They say that until they don't see their son or the son's body, they're not going to believe that he's dead. So they said that's what's kept them going over the course of the last, you know, however many days. And he said, we were shocked when I started to put this. This. This sticker on when we were on day two. And he said, never did I think that I would get to a day, 100 days. And then he said, when we got to 100 days, we were shocked. Then 200 days. We're now on 731 days since I last spoke to my. My son. No accountability. He said, we barely get any meetings with. With the government, with Benjamin Netanyahu, Ron Dermer. He said, whenever I go to Washington, which I've done dozens of times over, because his son was a US Israeli citizen. And he said, whenever we go to Washington, we can. We have access to the White House. He said, steve Witkoff is on speed dial. He calls us. We call him all of the time. And he said, yet I can't get a hold of my own government here in this country. Let's just have a listen. Because I asked him about the peace plan, what he thought, you know, and whether he thought that it was actually going to happen. Let's just listen. What is the sort of mood and feeling now in the coming days, knowing that negotiations are taking place currently in Sharm El Sheikh?
- [12:35]
Hostage's Father
I think that, you know, we saw the initial Israeli team leave today. We understand the negotiations that are more technical at the moment, so it feels different. But, you know, we need to make sure that everyone is eyes on the ball and remember that what comes out first is the 48 hostages. And then we could talk about all the implementation questions. Hopefully that brings also an end to the suffering of the people in Gaza that have been used as human shields for over two years. I do not think that we are in some sort of competition who is in more pain. I think that we, at the end, the normal people, the simple people, we are collateral damage for politicians. Just, you know, let us have our peace and get to a place where there's no more killing.
- [13:26]
Richard
So you mentioned the security failings of October 7th. I thought when the attack happened, I wasn't in Israel at the time, that it was going to be quick, that the Hamas militants broke through the fence and maybe some flew and some did fly over and they would go on a killing, kidnapping spree and that the whole thing would be over in, I don't know, an hour, half an hour. It lasted, in some cases, 10, 12 hours before security forces arrived, which is shocking in a small militarized country with helicopters, vehicles. I mean, how is that possible? And even two years on, I haven't heard a good explanation. And many of the hostage families I've been speaking to say they haven't heard a good explanation of why it took so long. And you mentioned the, the psychological approach that that family member is taking, how he's putting on the numbers and each time he has to update the number on his, on his, on his shirt from 2 to 100 to 200 to 700, how he himself is, is shocked, but he's still doing it, holding out hope that maybe his son is still alive. So the, the man that I spoke to that we heard his clip earlier, Ohad. So as we heard, he was, you know, in that, in the house, he goes to try and push a button to send the, the blinds down. He's spotted. He runs back into the safe room with his wife. His wife is hiding under a blanket. And then kids basically show up, normal kids, because it Wasn't all just Hamas. Once they broke down the fence, other people from, from Gaza just came in and sort of joined in. Kids were banging down his door. And then a Hamas militant took him away. He was then held for 491 days in a tunnel, most of it, and starved. I spoke to him at length and he described the situation, and he was initially there with just another few hostages. He said it was about 30 meters below ground, tiny little room. He said he's claustrophobic, so even just being there was difficult. He lost an enormous amount of his body weight. He's not a big guy. He probably weighs in pounds, 180 pounds. Now. He lost about 70 pounds while he was in captivity. So he was just skin and bones. He said the other hostages would sometimes pass out from hunger and malnutrition and they would have to slap each other and wake each other up. And he said that the key thing, he was the oldest of the, of the other hostages that he was held with. He was down there with other men. He was the oldest of the men. And he said the key thing was they never could fight. They had to work out the delicate politics of captivity. Even though there was a tiny amount of food, one piece of bread per day per men, and sometimes a spoonful of cheese which they would have to share. They were being lied to. They were being manipulated. But they, they had to go to the bathroom right there. You can imagine the stench, the no air for. For almost 500 days. But he said they always had to keep in their mind, it's us against them. It can't be us against us. And he got out in a, in a previous peace deal, and he said he was very nervous because he was a bit of the leader, the oldest of the group. He didn't tell the others what to do, but just by being a little bit more mature. And he's quite a calm kind of personality. He said he helped maintain this balance and he was very worried what was going to happen to the group when he left. And I asked him, I said, what was it like when they tapped you on the shoulder and said, you get, you get to go home? How did you say goodbye to these people? Were they, were they angry? Were they upset? Were they distraught, suicidal? What was it like? He said, you know, they, they thanked, you know, they, they thanked him for what he had done. They were appreciative. They gave him a lot of messages. Tell my mother this, tell my wife this, tell me, my brother, X, Y and Z. And they, they said, just please don't forget us. Advocate for us. And he did. And he actually spoke with President Trump a few weeks ago, and he described the conversation. And I got the impression from him that his conversation was quite influential because he told me how President Trump looked him sort of in the eyes and said, I'm going to help you. I'm going to get these guys out. They're all going to come out.
- [18:36]
Yelda
Which I think is quite extraordinary, actually, Richard, is that whether it was the image of the hundreds of thousands. They were saying there was 200,000 people in Tel Aviv a few nights ago, and an image, an aerial shot was taken of them. They were sending clear messages to Donald Trump, you know, we love you, Donald Trump. Help us, you know, get our hostages home. At every twist and turn in the last eight or nine months, these hostage families have known that speaking directly to Trump, at some point, he might pay attention. And I said this to Ruby Chen, who you just heard a few moments ago, speaking there about his son Atay, who is, you know, his remains are still in Gaza, and he's working with the hostage families. He also is hoping to get his son back. He said, we did everything in our power to make sure certain messages were reached. You know, that President Trump saw certain things, including that image. I asked him about that and he said, oh, we made sure that he saw that and he was aware, and he tweeted it out. What I find extraordinary about that is that many Israelis, certainly the hostage families, have been so frustrated with their own government, so angry with their own government, because they've almost tried to shield themselves. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of not going to kibbutz Berry. The anger is palpable in some of these because they're saying, these guys never showed up. We are not their base. We are not their constituents. So therefore, they never came to us. They never came to grieve with us. So there's a lot of anger. There's also a lot of Israelis that want this war over now. You know, there's been polling done over the weekend. But I thought what was so comforting speaking to Ruby Chen was that when I asked him about this peace plan and what he wants, he said, at the end of the day, we are all children of God, the Palestinians, Israelis, and we are collateral damage. We are used as political pawns by our leaders, whether it's the Palestinians and Hamas using them or whether the way that we've been used by our politicians, we want peace. We want them to live in some kind of, you know, peace, safety and Security. And we want to live in safety and security as well. We don't want something like October 7th to happen again.
- [21:01]
Richard
You can learn a lot about human nature, about psychology, I certainly have, by talking to people who've gone through tremendous stress, not just in this conflict, in many conflicts. It's actually one of the main reasons why I do this job, because wars and terrible circumstances can be so revealing. And many, many of the hostage families I've spoken to, not just Doha, who we just heard from, but several others. And I asked them how they're feeling right now, and some said, well, you know, I'm optimistic, but I don't want to go too far. I don't want to get myself, you know, set up for failure. I don't want my heart to be broken. So let's wait, let's wait. Let's wait to see what actually happens. And I can understand that. But just to finish on his story, he had a different approach, and he said it was an approach he learned when he was down there with these other. He was, it was with five other, other, other young men. And sometimes they would get a little bit of news, or sometimes the Hamas militants, their captives, would, would tell them something. Sometimes it was good news, sometimes it was bad news, sometimes it was a lie. They, they could never, they could never know. And initially they would get excited and then be disappointed and then get excited and disappointed. And he said they had this discussion among themselves. Should they allow themselves to get happy or be happy when they got what seemed to be good news? And you know what he told me in the end, he and the others decided, do it, be happy. If there is good news, take it. Even if you're only happy for a few hours, even if you're only happy for that one day, because the rest of the situation was so miserable. If you have some good news, enjoy it, celebrate it as if it's true. And then if you're disappointed tomorrow, you'll be disappointed tomorrow. But at least you had one good day. And I thought that was an interesting way even. Even just to live our own lives.
- [23:12]
Yelda
Yeah, absolutely. It's been quite extraordinary, actually, seeing the resilience of both sides and the way they've. They've suffered and tried to overcome the pain. Richard, we'll go to a quick break now, and when we come back, let's talk about this peace plan.
- [23:26]
Richard
Sounds good.
- [23:46]
Yelda
Welcome back, Richard. Let's talk about the peace plan because, of course, we've got both teams now in Egypt, and they are trying to iron out the details of, of Trump's 20 point peace plan. But do you know what else is happening this week? And we alluded to it a little bit earlier, the Nobel Peace Prize award is going to be announced.
- [24:08]
Richard
President Trump's obsession.
- [24:09]
Yelda
Correct. He wants to see that on the mantelpiece and therefore many are saying he's trying to push to get this deal out of the way this week at least to see the hostages come out for, for the bombs to know falling over the skies of Gaza, for there to be aid and food for the desperate people, the desperate Palestinians. So, you know, he's got his eye on this Nobel Peace Prize and let's talk about that a little bit because he keeps talking about resolving these seven wars and people were saying, you know, that's fine that you're sort of dealing with, you know, Armenian, Azerbaijan or you've had talks with the Pakistanis and the Indians. But, you know, the big two conflicts of the last two years has been Ukraine, Russia and the one between Israel and Hamas. So he, he's really trying to push this over the line. And if we think about some of the other people who have been nominated, so you've got the likes of Sudan's emergency response rooms and they've been suffering in a massive way for the past three years, the war in Sudan, which we've talked about a number of times on this podcast. Yulia Navalny, the widow of, of Navalny and unrwa, the Palestinian aid agency, the UN Aid agency much vilified, vilified by the US President Zelensky has also been nominated. And interestingly, Greta Thunberg, who was on this flotilla, deported from Israel twice. Twice. And obviously President Trump, not a huge fan. So I feel like he will have a total meltdown.
- [25:49]
Richard
The reaction will be, will be strong and emotional, I would assume, if he's not nominated or win the prize. But I think the time has come. Should we unpack this peace plan that's developing?
- [26:05]
Yelda
Let's talk about it.
- [26:06]
Richard
Because he wants the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war and for this 20 point peace plan that he's put forward. It's not quite that simple, is it? Would you want to. Do you want to start walking through? Because there's easy parts to it and there's some really hard parts to it. There are parts that I think can be carried out immediately and then other parts of the plan that are still completely vague and open to interpretation.
- [26:30]
Yelda
So Richard, for me, I think that we can look at it in sort of, you know, break it up into two parts and it does feel like Hamas is viewing it in that way as well, because they've almost split their delegation into two. The first focused on what's currently happening and that is the hostages being released, ensuring that there's some kind of lasting ceasefire which can lead to peace, and trying to get the much needed aid into Gaza. Many are saying they've sort of somewhat agreed to about seven of the points. It's the 13 others, which is sort of the future of Gaza. Who governs it? Is Hamas the governing party, which the Israelis and the Americans are saying? Absolutely not. Does Hamas disarm? You know, and we've talked about this previously, that their arms is linked to their resistance, which is linked to the occupation. So, you know, they've split this kind of thing into two parts. What's currently happening, what's likely to happen in the future. And I think, you know, in many ways the people I've spoken to have said if we achieve that first bit where hostages are released, the cease fire is achieved and there is aid in Gaza, that is a win for now. But it's whether we can actually have some kind of arrangement, the lasting peace that everyone so desperately wants, you know, for Gaza, for the Palestinian people, whether that can actually be achieved, 100%.
- [28:05]
Richard
I couldn't agree more with your summary that it's really, I think you can see it as two parts. The one part, releasing the hostages, the 48 hostages, 20 of them presumed, presumed to be still alive, getting them out of hell and getting them and their remains back to their family. Okay, Hamas has agreed to do that. They're trying to work out the logistics on how to get that done. And in the past the Red Cross has been involved and we've seen the vans will come up, they'll pass each other, they'll hand over people and they'll, they'll do that exchange. But they have to figure out the roads and which routes they're going to take and where the helicopters are going to take them. And those are, I would say, logistical problems, relatively easy on the grand scale of things. And if that happens, and hopefully it's going to happen soon, for everyone's sake, it could stop the bombing, lead to positive develops, create even more momentum and the world would take a little bit of a deep breath and smile. Okay, second part, Hamas has said openly they will give up power and they will hand over their weapons, sort of. They said they'll give up power to a non political, technocratic group of Palestinians and that they will give their weapons to those future Palestinian leaders and Israel said, well, when that happens, we'll pull back. But all of those details are totally up in the air. Hamas is supposed to give up power and hand over security responsibility to foreign, international peacekeepers. Well, who are they and where are they? Indonesia has been a country that has been mentioned, but I haven't seen 20,000 Indonesian troops armed, ready in uniforms with guns, who've all learned Arabic, who have bases ready to go in and deal with Gaza. That's just, it's just not there. That could take years to put together. So those big questions are totally up in the air. So, okay, maybe we can get there, we can get the hostages and the remains out quickly, stop the bombing campaign and continue to build momentum. But the Israeli troops don't pull back. Hamas pulls back in a way, but it's not necessarily going to give up its weapons. Who's the new government? Who's going to be in charge of Gaza? Question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark. And those issues aren't ones that are going to be resolved by a couple of meetings in Egypt or in Qatar or anywhere else. I think it's going to take years.
- [31:00]
Yelda
Yeah. And I think it's critical in these moments, you know, when you're writing your victory speech, someone said to me, you should be able to write the other person's victory speech as well. And the problem here is that we've known that's existed for, for decades is the objectives on both sides are completely different. You know, sometimes when the, the, the two sides have sat across the table, they've sort of agreed on things that, that, you know, the, the Americans or the Europeans have tried to make them do and they haven't wanted to do. That's the only time they've agreed to something. The objectives for this particular ending of this conflict is the Israelis want the hostages out, the Palestinians want an end to decades long occupation. These are two very different things. And so winning at the end of all of this, what does victory look like? And has Benjamin Netanyahu achieved the kind of victory that he has talked about and the reason behind the kind of violence that we've seen in Gaza? He has said for him, total victory is the eradication of Hamas. Has Hamas been eradicated? No. Is Hamas likely to disarm? Unlikely. So are they going to get their objectives? I mean, when you look at it on paper, you know, the tunnels have been blown up, Hamas is, we are seeing guerrilla warfare, but Hamas is more or less, you know, their leadership has been decapitated, they've been targeted in whether it's been in Iran or in Qatar or, you know, the likes of Sinwar killed, who was the Mastermind behind the October 7th attacks, killed in Gaza. So on paper, sure, that looks like victory. But the fact that over the course of the last couple of years, Israel has increasingly become isolated on European streets, in Western capitals. And just in the last couple of weeks, the fact that Israel's staunchest allies have recognized Palestinian statehood for, for the Israeli government, for Israelis, that has felt like a slap in the face. But we also, Richard, have a listener question here that I wanted to bring in and get us to sort of discuss. So this listener question, it's from Sarah via email. And Sarah says, dear Richard and Yelda, please could you answer this question that has been bothering me for a few days? Why, after drawing things out for so long, do you think that Benjamin Netanyahu is finally agreeing to a peace deal? Richard?
- [33:31]
Richard
I think he came under a lot of pressure from President Trump, and I think he came under pressure directly, a kind of pressure that he hadn't seen before. And my opinion, I think that attack by Israel on Qatar was a turning point. Let's not forget that the reason the Hamas office was in Doha and is still in Doha is because the United States and Israel asked Qatar to host this office so that it could serve as a, as a, as a place and as a central location to Harry to carry out negotiations, the same way they asked the Qataris to host a Taliban office. And that office proved very useful in negotiating the withdrawal of American and NATO forces from Afghanistan. So when Netanyahu bombed the diplomatic office of Hamas while they were discussing President Trump's peace plan and bombed a US Ally right next to an American military base. And then the response from Netanyahu and others around him was not apology, we're going to do it again and again. And Qatar is responsible because they're hosting terrorists and sort of giving their thumbing their nose at the world and the U.S. i think President Trump made it very difficult for Netanyahu to say no. I think at this stage, he was, to use a mafia analogy. He was given an offer he couldn't refuse.
- [35:06]
Yelda
Yeah. And, you know, I agree with you, Richard. And we know that Arab leaders met and Muslim majority leaders met with President Trump in New York at the UN General assembly in the last couple, couple of weeks. And many say that that in itself was a turning point because finally the penny dropped and Donald Trump understood what was at stake. Things like the Abraham Accords, something that Donald Trump is incredibly proud of. You know, this, this sort of normalization.
- [35:33]
Richard
Of get that Nobel Peace Prize, if the Abraham courts go away, right?
- [35:38]
Yelda
But if we have a moment and think about this in quite a cynical way, right. Someone from the Israeli security establishment said to me, I don't know, I don't know if this has been as dramatic a U turn for Benjamin Netanyahu as it appears. He said, I know Ron Dermer very well and I would not be surprised if these sort of leaks that we're seeing in the press about conversations that Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump are having. Donald Trump saying to Benjamin Netanyahu, stop being so negative. You know, this is a victory, take it. He said, I don't know if this isn't coordinated, if they're not working together, because frankly, Benjamin Netanyahu needs to get out of this war and he needs pressure to come from somewhere to make his right wing coalition, his far right coalition made up of the likes of, you know, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, who have been pushing for, frankly, ethnic cleansing of Gaza and have been pushing for this war not to end. He said, I don't know if they want the US President to put this kind of pressure because Benjamin Netanyahu now needs to prepare for the next election and he needs a win. And if he comes out of this looking like a statesman, you know, his government wasn't supposed to last. Some pessimists were saying days after October 7, when there have been major security failings in the past in this country, heads have rolled. There have been all sorts of inquiries. You know, after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Prime Minister was completely cleared of any kind of wrongdoing. She won the next election. But she said, I can't stand, I can't be the leader of this nation because of the failings of, of, you know, the Yom Kippur war. So she stood down and didn't take up that post. But Benjamin Netanyahu is not that leader. And he survived over the course of the last two years and he worked incredibly hard to ensure the survival of his government, his own political survival, and frankly, to win the next election.
- [37:52]
Richard
Don't ever count him out. He's a survivor, he's smart, he understands power. I wouldn't discount him.
- [37:58]
Yelda
Yeah, absolutely. And I do want to take a moment, you know, to highlight that the ongoing assault and the violence in Gaza continues. Donald Trump has said, stop the bombing so that we can start these negotiations and we can, they can start to recover the bodies of the hostages and we can start to move the hostages out of Gaza. And, and I've been speaking to UNICEF on the ground in Gaza. I've been speaking to people who are there terrified because the bombing continues. You know, UNICEF told me about these families who come to the hospital by day because of, you know, shrapnel wounds, and then they go back into their tents when the Bombing starts at 2 o' clock in the morning, just in 48 hours after Donald Trump said stop the bombs, something like 50 children were killed in Gaza. And this is an ongoing reality for the people of Gaza. And I think what is haunting is it's not just the 67, 000, which many people are saying is a conservative number. Once we are given access, because don't forget, we haven't been given access the last couple of years. Once the access is allowed and given into Gaza, the bodies that will be found under the rubble, that death toll will move very quickly from 67,000 to perhaps 87, 97. You know, it will be hard to fully comprehend how devastated Gaza is and just how apocalyptic the situation is there on the ground.
- [39:29]
Richard
And those stories are eventually going to come out the same way as time passes. We're hearing more about the horrors that the hostages went through, Ohad, what we've been talking about in some detail today. In the beginning of the war, it was almost impossible to talk to the actual hostages themselves because as soon as they were they were brought out, understandably, they were given medical treatment, they were given psychological treatment, but then they were also kept isolated. The Israeli government didn't want journalists to talk to them. And when I tried to interview them in the past at, and I'm sure you did as well, there was always some sort of minder in the room. I interviewed a former hostage and every other sentence I was interrupted by a representative of the government, someone there saying, no, no, don't ask this and don't ask that and don't ask this under the excuse that it was going to be too upsetting or that it was going to put other hostages in danger. The hostage families themselves were annoyed by this. They thought it was just the state trying to control the message. But that system is more or less broken down. So as time goes on, we're hearing more. So I can now have a much clearer picture of what it was like for the people who were held in these tombs underground in Gaza. The same thing is going to happen. The same thing is going to happen. When we do eventually get access to Gaza. We will learn firsthand, even in much greater detail what happened there from the people themselves when that's going to be, however, I still don't know.
- [41:14]
Yelda
Yeah, grim, grim situation. And we are going to keep our listeners up to date on the situation as it develops. Donald Trump has said it cannot take weeks, it cannot take days. He wants this done as soon as possible.
- [41:27]
Richard
Festival until next time. It's been such a pleasure to be with you here in the I don't call it legendary but it is kind of a legendary bar in Jerusalem. Everybody knows the, the Cellar Bar. We are not the the first journalists here to talk about this issue and we will not be the last.
- [41:44]
Yelda
Good to see you Richard and thank you to our listeners for listening.
- [41:47]
Richard
Thank you all very much and please keep writing us, keep your comments, follow us, subscribe, subscribe, do all of that good stuff. It helps and great to see you. Until next time.