Troops In Central Gaza, Military Detention Centers, Harvard Hearing

Summary

Up First from NPR – July 22, 2025

Hosts: Leila Fadel, Steve Inskeep, Michel Martin, A Martinez, Ayesha Rascoe, Scott Simon

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Israeli Ground Troops Advance into Central Gaza

Israeli Military Escalation

At the outset of the episode, Steve Inskeep reports at [00:02] that Israeli ground troops have entered central Gaza, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict. Sacha Pfeiffer elaborates [00:05], noting, "Previously, ground troops were not active there out of concern for hostages. Will crossing this line ramp up pressure on Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal?"

Strategic Shifts and Hostage Concerns

Emily Fang, NPR’s correspondent in Tel Aviv, provides in-depth analysis [02:35]. She explains that the Israeli military aims to intensify pressure on Hamas to agree to a ceasefire by demonstrating a willingness to take more aggressive actions. Fang highlights the shift from previous strategies where ground incursions in areas like Deir al-Balah were limited due to hostage situations following Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023.

Humanitarian Impact

Fang describes the severe humanitarian consequences [04:15], stating, "They're getting pushed even more into a smaller fragment of the Gaza Strip where these services you described have completely collapsed." Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council adds [04:40], "Our NPR producer there, Anas Baba, has been reporting that people are quite literally fainting from hunger in the streets and some people are dying." The United Nations reports that approximately 88% of Gaza is now inaccessible to civilians, funneling around 2 million people into just 12% of the area.

Ceasefire Negotiations

The discussion turns to ongoing ceasefire talks [05:03], with Qatar's mediation showing promise. However, a major obstacle remains Israel's demand to maintain a military presence in Gaza post-ceasefire. Emily Fang remarks [05:23], "Even if a ceasefire deal is reached soon, it's going to likely leave the biggest questions unanswered."

Trump Administration’s Immigration Detention Plans

Expansion of Military Detention Centers

Steve Inskeep and Sacha Pfeiffer shift focus to U.S. immigration policy [00:13], revealing that the Trump administration plans to utilize military bases in Indiana and New Jersey for detaining individuals without legal status. Jimena Bestillo, NPR’s immigration policy reporter, provides further details [06:23], explaining that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will oversee these facilities without direct military involvement.

Detention Capacity and Resources

Pfeiffer underscores the urgency [09:09], stating, "Beds are important. Last week I woke up one morning, we had less than 200 beds. We'll fill them by half a day." Bestillo discusses the logistical challenges, noting that while the administration aims to double Guantanamo Bay’s capacity, actual implementation faces delays [07:46]. Additionally, 500 troops have been approved to assist ICE in seven other states, though their deployment timing remains uncertain [08:17].

Funding and Legal Implications

The administration’s strategy is backed by significant funding from Congress, with the recent tax and spending bill allocating $45 billion for immigration detention centers and $30 billion for ICE operations [09:16]. Bestillo highlights the controversial nature of expanding detention facilities, especially at Guantanamo Bay, where capacity will increase from 200 to 400 [07:46].

Harvard vs. Trump Administration: Legal Battle Continues

Courtroom Developments

The episode covers the high-stakes legal battle between Harvard University and the Trump administration [09:52]. Alyssa Nadworny reports from Cambridge, Massachusetts [10:15], detailing how Harvard is contesting the government’s freeze on its grants and contracts, which the university claims violates its First Amendment rights.

Shifting Legal Arguments

Inside the courtroom, Harvard maintained its stance that the government's actions were retaliatory and infringed upon academic freedoms [10:34]. However, the Trump administration’s lawyer, Michael Velcik, shifted tactics [11:28], arguing that the government reserves the right to reallocate funds based on institutional alignment with its priorities. Velcik stated, "Harvard wants billions of dollars. That's the only reason we are here."

Judicial Response and Future Prospects

Judge Allison Burroughs questioned the administration’s rationale, particularly the link between cancer research and combating anti-Semitism, remarking [12:18], "Mind boggling." Despite President Trump’s backlash on Truth Social [12:18], legal experts predict that the case will likely be appealed regardless of the outcome, potentially reaching the U.S. Supreme Court [13:10].

In Memoriam: Malcolm Jamal Warner

Honoring Malcolm Jamal Warner

The episode concludes with the sad news of the passing of Malcolm Jamal Warner [13:23], best known for his role as Theo Huxtable on "The Cosby Show." NPR reflects on Warner’s career, highlighting his diverse roles in "Malcolm and Eddie" and "The Resident" [13:43]. Warner was also passionate about music and poetry, which he pursued as additional avenues of creative expression [13:58]. Sacha Pfeiffer shares, "Malcolm Jamal Warner was 54 years old," mourning his untimely death due to a drowning accident in Costa Rica.

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Conclusion

Today's episode of Up First provided a comprehensive overview of critical international and national issues, including the intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza, the Trump administration's controversial immigration detention strategies, the ongoing legal struggles between Harvard University and the federal government, and a heartfelt remembrance of a beloved actor. This detailed coverage ensures listeners are well-informed to start their day with a clear understanding of these pivotal topics.

Transcript

[Steve Inskeep]

Israeli ground troops have pushed into central Gaza.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Previously, ground troops were not active there out of concern for hostages. Will crossing this line ramp up pressure on Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal?

[Steve Inskeep]

I'm Steve Inskeep with Sacha Pfeiffer, and this is up first from NPR News. The Trump administration is planning to use military bases in Indiana and New Jersey to detain people accused of lacking legal status.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Beds are important. Last week I woke up one morning, we had less than 200 beds. We'll fill them by half a day.

[Steve Inskeep]

Are there risks to using military resources for immigration enforcement?

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

And Harvard University appeared in federal court to ask a judge to reverse the government's freeze on its grants and contracts. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

[Michael Hosmar]

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[Steve Inskeep]

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[Emily Fang]

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[Sacha Pfeiffer]

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[Steve Inskeep]

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[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Time in 21 months of war, Israeli ground troops have pushed into central Gaza. Israeli's military Rad reported that a ground operation began yesterday.

[Steve Inskeep]

Palestinians staying in several areas there have been ordered to evacuate. Central Gaza is also where many international aid organizations are, including the World Health Organization.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

With U.S. now is NPR's Emily Fang, who is in Tel Aviv. Good morning, Emily.

[Emily Fang]

Good morning and thanks for having me on.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Why is the Israeli military entering central Gaza now and why is that noteworthy?

[Emily Fang]

It's noteworthy because the military wants to ramp up pressure on Hamas. They want Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal by showing it. It's now willing to cross lines it had not been willing to do before. Previously, Israeli ground troops were not really active in this area, called Deir al Balakh because they were concerned about endangering hostages kidnapped by Hamas in its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. But now Israel and Hamas have been negotiating this ceasefire. There's international pressure building from not only US President Trump, but ministers from more than 25 countries that issued a statement yesterday to end the war. And in this grand offensive, the director of United nations offices says its premises in central Gaza have been hit already. This was a house, they say, for staff with the World Health Organization. The WHO says its male staff were handcuffed, stripped and screened at gunpoint and one of their staff remains detained. We've reached out to the Israeli military. We're still waiting for their comment on this. But of course, WHO this ground offensive impacts the most are the tens of thousands of Palestinians who've been living in in the way of this ground offensive. The United nations says with this latest order, about 88% of Gaza is not accessible to civilians anymore. It's now in these Israeli militarized zones and that means about 2 million civilians have been squeezed into just about 12% of the area of the Gaza Strip.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Emily, NPR has been doing a lot of reporting about limited access in Gaza to food, housing, basic necessities. How is that squeeze you described affecting people's daily lives?

[Emily Fang]

Well, they're getting pushed even more into a smaller fragment of the Gaza Strip where these services you described have completely collapsed. I spoke to Jan Egeland about this. He is Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. He has, he says, about 70 colleagues in Gaza and they've been told by the Israeli military over the months to first move south in the Gaza Strip now to central Gaza. And most recently we now have to.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Leave Tayrballa with the population. Our aid workers are herded around like.

[Emily Fang]

Catt and with barely any food now allowed into Gaza. Our NPR producer there, Anas Baba, has been reporting that people are quite literally fainting from hunger in the streets and some people are dying. Eglin says the Norwegian Refugee Council has food ready to go into Gaza.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

My organization has now had trucks, relief supplies, life saving relief supply ready to go across the border crossings for 145 days and we've been blocked every single day. Emily, you mentioned ceasefire negotiations. How likely is a ceasefire at this point?

[Emily Fang]

These talks are continuing and Qatar hopes are higher than they've been in recent weeks. But one main sticking point is that Israel wants to keep a military presence in Gaza. And even if a ceasefire deal is reached soon, it's going to likely leave the biggest questions unanswered. Questions like who is going to administer Gaza in the future and how can the Gaza Strip be rebuilt and made livable for the people there?

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

That's NPR's Emily Fang. Thank you.

[Emily Fang]

Thanks, Sasha.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

The Trump administration is putting more military resources toward immigration enforcement.

[Steve Inskeep]

Yeah. The Pentagon is making space at two military bases to detain immigrants who are suspected of being in the United States without legal status. The administration also plans to expand Guantanamo Bay, the the base there to house more migrants.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

NPR immigration policy reporter Jimena Bestillo has reviewed internal memos spelling all of this out, and she's with us in the studio this morning. Hi, Jimena.

[Jimena Bestillo]

Good morning, Sasha.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

This is not the first time that military resources are being used for immigration enforcement under President Trump. So what exactly is being added?

[Jimena Bestillo]

The Homeland Security Department is adding one military base in Indiana and one in New Jersey to a list of places to detain migrants. These bases will be available through September. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ice, will use their personnel and contracts and be completely responsible for the care of the people who are detained there, as well as the transportation and security at the locations. No military personnel will be involved here. We reached out to the Pentagon and there was no immediate response to a comment on these plans. But the military has been a big resource for dhs. They are able to do this because the Trump administration declared a national emergency at the southern border. The emergency declaration allows for the administration to shuffle around resources, such as by taking defense resources and giving them to dhs. Pentagon memos from last week say that these two military facilities will be used on a temporary basis to house what it calls, quote, single adult, non high threat illegal aliens who have links to transnational crime organizations or criminal drug activity.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

The memo, as we noted, also says that detention space at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base will be expanded. But we heard that back in January. So what's been approved, that's new.

[Jimena Bestillo]

Guantanamo, as you know, can currently hold about 200 people at a time, and that will now double to 400. Still, this continues to be a controversial use of the base. And as you noted, when Trump first announced that migrants would be going to Guantanamo, he said he wanted tens of thousands of beds. And we're still very far from that.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Right. They said 30,000. Experts at the time said that seems unlikely. It seems that it's still a struggle to get to that number. So that space, this obviously will take personnel. What about adding people to help with this.

[Jimena Bestillo]

You know, there's about 700 service members that have been tapped for detention duty in places like Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has now approved 500 troops to assist ICE in seven other states. So that's a separate initiative. There's no timing on when those additional troops will be called up or when they will serve.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Why does the administration want to use these bases?

[Jimena Bestillo]

The request to use additional military bases and the expansion of Guantanamo comes as the Trump administration has continued to to push to arrest and detain more people in the country without legal status. DHS has nearly 57,000 people in immigration detention, though it only has about 41,000 beds. Here's Border czar Tom Homan talking to reporters outside the White House last week.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Beds are important. Last week I woke up one morning, we had less than 200 beds.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

We'll fill them by half the day.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

So we're constantly having to change flight arrangements and move deportations as quick as we can empty beds. We shouldn't be in that position.

[Jimena Bestillo]

The department has sought out contracts with the federal Bureau of Prisons, local jurisdictions and military bases to detain migrants. And more is to come. The Trump administration is expected to be able to scale up its detention capacity due to an influx of funding from Congress. The recent tax and spending bill set aside $45 billion for immigration detention centers and $30 billion for more ICE personnel, transportation costs and to maintain existing ice facilities.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

That's NPR's Jimena Bustillo. Thank you.

[Jimena Bestillo]

Thanks.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

The case of Harvard versus the Trump administration is now in the hands of a federal judge.

[Steve Inskeep]

Lawyers from both sides made their arguments in court in Boston, while supporters of Harvard rallied outside.

[Jimena Bestillo]

Veritas.

[Emily Fang]

Veritas.

[Steve Inskeep]

Veritas is a Latin word meaning truth, and it's the motto of Harvard University.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

NPR's Alyssa Nadworny was outside the courthouse yesterday and joins us this morning from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Good morning, Alyssa.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

Good morning.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

What was it like at the courthouse?

[Alyssa Nadworny]

Well, outside the courthouse, about 100 students, staff, faculty members and alumni gathered to show their support for Harvard. I Talked with James McCaffrey, a Harvard senior studying government. He co founded Students for Freedom, a group that advocates for university leaders to stand up to the Trump administration.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

I'm from Oklahoma, a very red state. I'm a very proud American. I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in the American dream. When you're starting to attack freedom of speech, that's anti American. When you're starting to say we're going to cut your funding, that's un American.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

The Federal grants that were frozen impact about 900 research studies at Harvard, from national security to cancer treatments to children's mental health.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

And what about inside the courtroom? Tell us what played out there.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

So inside the courtroom was packed. There was actually a long line to get in for arguments. Harvard really stuck with what they had filed in court documents, that the White House violated the university's First Amendment rights and acted in retaliation when it demanded control over the school's viewpoint diversity policies. Now, the more surprising pivot was on the side of the Trump administration in.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Terms of their legal argument. Did they adjust what they're arguing?

[Alyssa Nadworny]

Yeah. So in court filings, the administration said these grants were canceled because Harvard violated civil rights law by allegedly fostering anti Semitism on campus. But in court on Monday, the lone lawyer representing the Trump administration, Michael Velcik, seemed to pivot, arguing that the administration has the right to cancel government grants at any time if it decides that an institution doesn't align with its priorities. He essentially framed the issue as one about finances and told the judge that the government has the ability to simply give the research funding to another institution. He actually singled out Howard University, a historically black College in Washington, D.C. and Velchyk is actually a Harvard alum himself, and he told the court, quote, harvard wants billions of dollars. That's the only reason we are here. They want the government to write a check.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Alyssa, any indication of what the judge is thinking?

[Alyssa Nadworny]

While in court, Judge Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee, appeared to push back on the administration's argument. She asked about the relationship between cancer research and combating anti Semitism. At one point, she even called the government's arguments, quote, mind boggling. And after arguments wrapped up, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that Burroughs was, quote, a total disaster and that when she rules against us, we will immediately appeal and win.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

And what's the sense in the legal community of whether that is likely to be how this turns out?

[Alyssa Nadworny]

Well, both sides have asked for a summary judgment in court. Burrow said that she would issue her ruling as fast as possible. Now, that opinion could come after several days or even weeks. But, yeah, legal scholars have told us, you know, whoever loses is likely going to appeal. And that means that this case could eventually land at the U.S. supreme Court.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

That is NPR's Alyssa Nadworny in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Thanks for your reporting.

[Alyssa Nadworny]

You bet.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

And finally today, actor Malcolm Jamal Warner, best known for his role as the sweet and rebellious teenager Theo Huxtable on the Cosby show, has died in. He drowned Sunday in an accident in Costa rica.

[Steve Inskeep]

Millions of TV viewers in the 1980s enjoyed Warner's role as the only son of Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Is this my shirt?

[Jimena Bestillo]

Is this a shirt I paid $30 for? Is this a shirt they are supposed.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

To think as a Portman?

[Steve Inskeep]

Bartrell after the Cosby show, he had starring roles on the comedy Malcolm and Eddie and the medical drama the Resident.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

He spoke to all things considered in 2023 about discovering other avenues of creative expression. Later in I found music. I became a bass player because through the music and poetry, there are ways.

[Jimena Bestillo]

That I can express myself that I.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Can'T as an actor or a director. Malcolm Jamal Warner was 54 years old. And that's up first for Tuesday, July 22nd. I'm Sascha Pfeiffer.

[Steve Inskeep]

And I'm Steve Inskeep. The NPR app lets you keep public radio in your pocket. You'll find a mix of local, national and international news, plus the best podcasts from the NPR network. Download the NPR app in the App Store today.

[Sacha Pfeiffer]

Today's episode of up first was edited by Hannah Block, Anna Yukoninov, Steve Drummond, Janaya Williams and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Buch, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We got engineering support from Stacey Abbott and our technical director is Carly Strange. Please join us again tomorrow.

[Steve Inskeep]

What's she said?

[Michael Hosmar]

This message comes from Warby Parker. What makes a great pair of glasses at Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost, like free adjustments for life. Find your [e-mail] or visit one of their hundreds of stores around the country. Support for NPR and the following message come from Rosetta Stone. The perfect app to achieve your language learning goals no matter how busy your schedule gets. It's designed to maximize study time with immersive 10 minute lessons and audio practice for your commute. Plus tailor your learning plan for specific objectives like travel. Get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off and unlimited access to 25 language courses. Learn more at rosettastone.com NPR this message comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right. They offer premium wireless plans for less and all. Plans include high speed data, unlimited talk and text and nationwide coverage. See for [e-mail] Switch.