Global News Podcast - Israel-Gaza War: Your Questions Answered

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

We've teamed up with The Conflict podcast to answer your questions. These include Russia's role, the reaction from Israel, and what we can all do to be part of the solution.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the third Global News Podcast special edition on Israel and Gaza from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard in London,

and we are once again getting together with our colleagues from the Conflict Podcast to put your questions to our expert correspondents. We're recording this podcast at 13 hours GMT on Friday the 27th of October. Joining us from Jerusalem is the BBC's chief international correspondent Lise Doucette and here in the studio with me in London is Frank Gardner, our security correspondent. And you, our audience, have sent us a lot of questions to pick apart. So let's get started. At the point we are recording this on Friday, the aid situation is desperate. You will remember that Israel ordered a complete siege of Gaza on October the 9th in response to the Hamas attacks of October

the 7th. And almost a week ago, some aid trucks started crossing into Gaza from Egypt. Even then though, there were far fewer than had been getting in before, and aid agencies have described it as a drop in the ocean of what's needed. So on the subject of aid, here's our first question. This is Camille from Australia. And my question's about all the aid trucks, because I know just before this conflict started, there was a lot of discussion about US funding and aid to Ukraine. And now there's a lot of trucks amassed at the Egypt border.

Was this aid that was already destined to go into Gaza? Because I've also heard reports that there was aid going in already, but not as much as now. So just a note on how this manoeuvring had happened, and if one affects the other. So, Lise, if you could start with that one. Yes, thank you very much for the question. It's very important.

The UN and other agencies tell us that before this war erupted between Israel and Gaza, that as many as 500 trucks a day were getting into Gaza with all kinds of goods. And that includes commercial supplies as well. The United Nations on its own was sometimes 100 trucks a day, sometimes 200 trucks a day. If you compare that to now, since the trucks started rolling across the border from Egypt through the Rafah crossing into southern Gaza, there was only about, at the time that I'm speaking, about 74 trucks, which is over the past few weeks since this siege was imposed by Israel. So that is why the UN says it is a drop in an ocean of needs. And it doesn't include fuel, which we're hearing from the United Nations today means that the aid operations they are able to still maintain in the Gaza Strip are collapsing.

And Greg in the US also draws comparisons with Ukraine. This one is for you, Frank. My name is Greg and I live in Logan, Utah. My question has to do with European countries' response to war versus the Middle Eastern countries' response. When war broke out in Ukraine, the European countries opened their arms to the women and children who needed safety. Why are the countries in the Middle East not doing the same

for the women and children in Gaza who are in a similar situation? And why is this question not being asked by both media and by the U.S. in communication with these countries? The emphasis is on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, but that seems like a very poor solution. It seems like the humanitarian thing to do would be to get the women and children out of Gaza and into a safe location similar to what took place in Europe. Thank you. transit, human passage, Gaza is effectively sealed off from the outside world. Israel, which controls Gaza's borders on three out of four borders, and Egypt controls the last one between the two of them. There is no passage of people allowed in or out. The second reason

is that Arab countries and Palestinians are very wary of what's called a repetition of the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948. That's what the Palestinians refer to, the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their families out of areas that they'd lived in for, in some cases, centuries to make way for the new state of Israel. And they ended up as refugees in neighboring countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. And Egypt, there's a third reason here is that Egypt does not want to allow in large numbers of Palestinians, which could well include Hamas fighters into northern Sinai, which joins on with Gaza. Why? Because that's already a pretty precarious area. There's been an ISIS-led insurgency there for some years. There have been some horrific attacks on Bedouin and on Egyptian government soldiers. They don't want to see that area

unsettled any further. So Egypt is wary of the mass transfer of Palestinians. But primarily, it's that Arab countries fear that if they moved out of those out of Gaza, they'd never be allowed back in, and that Israel would simply recolonize it. Now, we've talked a bit before about the US response to what's going on. It has pledged its unwavering support to Israel and backed that up with military aid. Here's a question on Washington's military strategy. My name is Jonathan Paulman from Dallas, Texas. What if the US deterrence measures aren't working? We've seen that they have moved carriers from the eastern Mediterranean into the Middle East as a deterrence, yet threats and violence are rising, even with F-16s, F-15s and B-52s flying into the region. What if this deterrence doesn't work? What are the next steps the US can

take rationally in this conflict? Frank? Okay, so we're referring here, particularly, I think you're referring to the presence of a massive US naval and air force just offshore in the eastern Mediterranean. That was deployed there, led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, as an immediate response by the US Department of Defense to the attacks of October the 7th. The US said to Israel, we've got your back. And that's been joined by a second carrier group. It's meant to be a deterrence primarily to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and by extension to Iran to basically say, look, don't think that while Israel is preoccupied fighting a war in Gaza, you can take advantage

of that and start a second front on the Lebanese border. Because if you do, and you declare and you start a major war there, then we, the United States, will help Israel out. And the implication is, although they've not said so specifically, the implication is that the US would deploy that massive air power and missile power with all these cruise missiles and so on, to devastate Hezbollah's positions in southern Lebanon. It would also cause a lot of damage in Lebanon itself. So that, I think, is causing Hezbollah second thoughts about whether they really want to get involved in this. They are skirmishing with the Israeli forces on that northern border.

There are constant exchanges of fire each day. It's fairly low level. It's nothing like the intensity of the 2006 war that Hezbollah fought with Israel, which ended inconclusively with neither side winning ready. And you mentioned there Iran's role. That brings us to this question. My name is Jimmy Vilembera. I live in Washington, D.C., but I'm from the Democratic Republic of Congo. My question is that when someone does a quick search on Hamas online, one of the first

things that comes up is that Hamas is a Sunni organization. However, for the last three weeks or so, news coverage from many news organizations has highlighted that Hamas gets funding and other type of support from Iran. Now, how did the Shia regime in Iran become a sponsor of a Sunni organization? And Lise, we'll turn to you first with that one. Good question. Iran's relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, with the Houthis in Yemen, with proxies and militias in Iraq and in Syria, is part of what Iran would say an axis of resistance, resistance groups who are willing to take on the might of the United States, of imperial forces. And this does mark a change. If you go back to, for example, the establishment of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hezbollah means party of God.

It was established in 1982 in the midst of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which went right into Beirut. And when it was established, it was established by Lebanese clerics who very much tried to model Hezbollah on Iran, on Iran's Islamic system. That relationship is absolutely a symbiotic relationship. Very, very important coordination between these two groups. But in recent years, as so many Arab states moved away from the Palestinian file, Iran had been providing support for Islamic Jihad, but it also started providing more support for Hamas because it was standing up to Israel and Iran saw an opportunity that it could have an

ally in Gaza in its fight against the Jewish state. So this is why we, I think this is why it has reached the point in which it is now where Iran seems to have a hand in, not just with the Shia militias, with which it has very, very, very, very strong ties for religious, historical and other reasons, but also Sunni groups like Hamas. And I think we should also mention that one of Hamas's other backers, or at least where many of the Hamas political leaders are based, is the Gulf state of Qatar. And Qatar also has very strong ties with Iran. Sorry, do you want to chip in? Yeah, I mean,

I think the big takeaway from this really is that land trumps religion when it comes to this, because people have essentially put aside the differences between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, because for Iran and for Hamas, the most important thing, in their view, is what they would call the liberation of the land of Palestine. So remember that neither of those two, neither Iran nor Hamas, accept the right of Israel to even exist at all as a state, let alone the West Bank and so on. There are a number of Sunni rulers, governments in the region who don't like Hamas. So Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, they don't like Hamas

because Hamas, yes, it's Sunni, but it's tied to what's called political Islam. It has links to something called the Muslim Brotherhood. In Egypt, the government there overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood president, the elected Muslim Brotherhood president of Mohammed Morsi 10 years ago. And the UAE is extremely suspicious that political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood represent an existential threat to their way of ruling through tribal dynastic sheikhs handing on power from father to son and so on. And shifting the focus of questions from Iran, what about

its ally Russia? We've got a couple of listeners with similar questions. This is Jared living in Berlin. My question is, what role has Russia played in this conflict? Russia has long been a supporter of the Palestinian movement and under the Soviet Union provided support during the wars of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War. Given that Russia has formed closer ties with Iran, and Iran is the main supporter of Hamas, is there a connection? Hi, my name is Rizk from the Blue Mountains in Australia. Would it be a far-fetched idea to think that Russia would get Iran, its staunch ally, to stoke the Middle East scene by having them support Hamas in planning and executing the barrage of the Aksa, in order to a. drain the US and the West by getting them involved in another war and spend billions on two different fronts,

and b. distract the world from the Ukraine war that has been going on for almost two years, by getting them involved in another war and spend billions on two different fronts? And B, distract the world from the Ukraine war that has been going on for almost two years? Frank? Okay, these are really interesting and good questions. Thank you, both of you. I think it would be unfair to say that Russia had a hand in the October 7th raid by Hamas into southern Israel. But it has certainly benefited from it because, as Rezek rightly points out, it has proved a massive distraction from the Ukraine war, which hasn't finished, is still ongoing. Ukraine is still, large parts of it are occupied by Russian invading troops, and it's coming still under constant attack from Russian drones. But it's just not

on the news because all the attention globally is on the plight of those caught up in this Israel-Hamas conflict. Now, in the last couple of days, there has been a meeting in Moscow with Russian officials, together with Iranian officials and Hamas. I don't think Russia will want to get involved in this, but they are certainly saying, well, all of this is America's fault for being such a useless peace broker in the Middle East. And America, I think, has largely up until now lost interest in the Middle East. It was even under the previous President Obama, it was talking about pivoting to Asia that and certainly with a huge presidential election coming up in about a year's time, attention in the US is focusing or was focusing increasingly on East Asia and China,

and whether Taiwan was going to get invaded in the South China Sea, and so on. And this, I think, will have temporarily refocused people on the Middle East. But Russia has become a very important figure in the Middle East. It's embedded militarily in Syria. And it's now an important diplomatic player in the region where it wasn't 10 years ago. Now, as we record, Israel has not yet moved its ground troops fully into Gaza. Israeli airstrikes are continuing, large numbers of people are getting killed every day. Meanwhile, four hostages have been freed by Hamas, but Israel says more than 200 are still being held. We got this email from a listener who didn't want to be identified, so we voiced it up. I am curious about what Hamas and other Palestinian groups are doing at the moment,

besides holding hostages. Are they also bombing and fighting back? Are many or any Israelis dying? Lise, this one's for you. Well, I can certainly say that Hamas hasn't stopped its firing rockets into Israel since this war began. I've spent most of the first two weeks of this war in southern Israel, where the air raid sirens went off constantly, when we were in the southern community of Sderot, less than a mile from the Gaza border, where on some days rockets kept landing very close to us. And it was Hamas making the point that for all of the nonstop bombardment by Israeli warplanes, they still had the capacity and indeed the determination

to keep firing. And just before we started recording today, we heard that the air raid sirens were sounding in the coastal city of Tel Aviv as well. Now, of course, what we don't know is where this vast network of Hamas, where are they now? Are they taking refuge inside that network of tunnels? Have some of them managed to escape? One Hamas, Where are they now? Are they taking refuge inside that network of tunnels? Have some of them managed to escape? One Hamas, a leading political figure, has turned up in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. But from the beginning, it's been said that in the same way that Hamas put so much preparation, so much resources into this attack, this really unprecedented and very brutal attack against Israel on October the 7th, it would know there would be an unprecedented retaliation by Israel

so that it would have made preparations to fight back when Israel does, as is widely expected, goes in on the ground. So we just don't know how many missiles it has in store. It has been firing many more missiles than it thought it had and that it had fired in previous conflagrations with Israel. But I think it's fair to say that even though we don't know everything, what we do know is that they do still have quite an arsenal and Israel is now trying to destroy it. Well, several listeners have written in on the subject of accountability and Israel's alleged war crimes. And I do need to point out here that of all the messages that we received on this subject, they were all about Israel.

This is a reflection of what listeners are discussing rather than any bias from our end. Two listeners with similar questions. I am Sachin Narana, working as an English teacher. I am from India. My question, is it justified to use a disproportionate force against innocent civilian population because of the presence of a few thousand militants who are lurking among them? And that is my question to the international community.

Hello, my name is Nana. I'm calling from Japan. There are a number of alleged war crimes by Israel, including collective punishment, restricting basic necessities to civilians like food and water and fuel, bombing areas like schools and hospitals. How are governments and leaders held accountable for alleged war crimes? Frank? Okay, well, first of all, to answer the first question there, it is never justified to use disproportionate force against civilians on any side. There's no question about that. But where I think the Israelis would

disagree with you is that they would say what they're doing in Gaza is not disproportionate. Much of the world may disagree with them. But they say, look, what happened on October the 7th was so appalling, so reminiscent of pogroms and of the Holocaust. It was the worst single attack on Israelis in their entire history since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, that they said, we have got to do whatever it takes to remove the military threat to our people. And that means destroying Hamas. And at the time, a lot of Western leaders said, yep, we've got your back, Israel, do whatever it takes, Israel right or wrong, effectively. People are having second thoughts now because certainly UN workers

and from pretty much the entire rest of the Middle East are saying what is going on in Gaza now is disproportionate. Now, in terms of war crimes and bringing people to account for this, this is phenomenally difficult because there is a precedent here. In March of this year, the International Criminal Court in The Hague brought charges against both President Putin of Russia and his Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Povova. So there are international arrest warrants out for both of them. And it hasn't stopped President Putin from traveling to Kazakhstan and to China. And I'm sure in due course, he'll go to North Korea.

It did make him think twice about going to South Africa for a BRICS summit there. He didn't go to that. But I don't think that we're going to see big figures like him or, I mean, for that matter, I mean, what some people would like to see Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, facing a criminal court for alleged war crimes. He's already got a corruption scandal of his own to deal with in his own country. But just to come back to it, it is very, very hard to bring people to justice for these things. But in the case of Ukraine, just to go back to that, which is what I've been covering for the last 20 months,

there are war crimes prosecution-ready files being assembled against alleged perpetrators of war crimes there. Similar things have been done in Syria, but it takes time and it's very difficult. Do you want to chip in? Yeah. The Geneva Conventions were the rules of war. It's interesting how in this war everyone is mentioning the rules of war,

but they're absolutely clear that civilians cannot be targeted. And one of the areas that has been focused on is the siege of Gaza, which is effectively denying a whole population electricity, water, fuel, and that this is not consistent with the obligations of warring parties under the Geneva Conventions. Now, Israel will say that it is denying these services to Hamas because Hamas will divert these life-saving goods and services in order to carry out its military operations. This has been mentioned here in this war, to pick up where Frank said. This has also been mentioned in Ukraine, where Russia was targeting the energy infrastructure,

the civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Many voices, particularly among Western leaders, were raised at that time. Many are now raising them again, but some have criticized not as loudly as they did in the Ukraine war. But I think there will one day be a reckoning. And let's bear in mind too that Hamas, in targeting civilians in its operations of October the 7th, these are also potential war crimes. One of the political leaders from Hamas told our colleague yesterday in an interview in Beirut that they were not, there was no command to target civilians, they didn't want to take civilians hostage. But the evidence is there that civilians were killed and civilians were harmed and taken hostage. On to the next question. Israel is one of around 85 countries

that have military service conscription. This listener has a question about it. Hello, everyone. My name is Porik Sweeney, an Irishman living in Bogota, Colombia. And so one of my old Israeli friends, who I guess could be described as being a bit more critical of the Israeli government, explained to me one day that he felt that the Israeli government uses military service as a tool to brainwash the Israeli youth against Palestinians and Arabs in general. So my question for your experts is,

what role does the obligatory Israeli military service play in perpetuating the conflicts and in fomenting anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis? And if it does do this, how intentional is it? Lise? I've never done military service in Israel. I'm not Israeli, so I don't know what they're taught in classes. What I do know from having lived here for several years and having been here for many decades is that a large percentage of Israelis do carry out military service, but there are many exemptions. Ultra-Orthodox Jews can get exemptions because they're studying at the yeshivas and therefore they have a higher, more noble task. Israeli

Arabs also don't serve. They're not obliged to do the military service, although some can ask to serve. The Druze also do serve. And for a very long time, Israel's military was described as the people's army. If you look at the statistics now, it doesn't cross all of the residents of the Jewish state, but it is a rite of passage here. It's a very formative experience for the youth. What I would say is that it is such a formative experience that what you're seeing now is that we've met, we've spoken to Israeli reservists arriving here from around the world saying, my country is under threat and I want to serve. This is my war too. So it helped bring the nation together,

whatever differences they may have on other issues, when the country feels a threat. But I cannot answer directly whether that contributes to an anti-Arab sentiment. I know many Israeli members of the peace movement who also did their military service. So to finish then, this email from a listener who asked to be anonymous. We've voiced it up. I've heard about several protests supporting either Israelis or Palestinians. In the current polarised climate, how can we create a space for a humanitarian approach that supports a peaceful resolution to the conflict? And what can I do as an individual to be part of a solution?

It's such a huge question, one for you, Liz. It is such an important question. And the answer to that question is the answer to whether or not this region can ever see peace, can ever share the land, and allow, in this case, both Israelis and Palestinians, to live side by side, a Palestinian state side by side to a Jewish state. But at this particular moment in time, anger, anger is running very, very high. Anger is boiling over. Passions are inflamed. Around the world, we have seen streets filled with either anti-Israeli protests or anti-Palestinian protest. And there is nothing in between. It is a zero sum game at the moment. I think perhaps the only glimmer of hope that I can see that is blinking away, buried amongst all this awful news coming out of this conflict,

is that there is, I think, an acceptance around the world that the problem in the Middle East of a just solution for Israelis and Palestinians cannot be ignored, because it was being ignored. A number of Arab countries, UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and potentially Saudi Arabia, they had made peace with Israel, they had normalised their ties, Saudi Arabia was poised to do the same. And this would have certainly sidelined both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, with a view, an idea, well, let's just get on with life normally. There is no such thing as normal life for Palestinians, and many cases for Israelis who've come under constant fire from Gaza. So it can't

go on unnoticed. You can't keep kettling 2.3 million people into this tiny real estate, tiny strip of the Gaza Strip, not able to get in or out in most cases, and denying the Palestinians a homeland, according to UN resolutions and so on. So until that is resolved, sadly, I think the cycle of violence is going to continue. There may be ceasefires, there may be pauses, there may be lulls, but ultimately it's going to grind on until there is a fair solution for both sides. And yet in the midst of this bonfire, you still hear those voices. And it's very, very touching to hear that even some of the family members of hostages, Israelis whose family members are now being held hostage by Hamas,

they are saying we need to find a way forward. More violence is not the answer to this solution. We have to find ways to live together. Neither of us is going to go away. There's voices in the midst of a much larger roar in a very polarized situation. And if I would give you advice about how you can be part of the solution, and I think both Frank and I, this is the job we try to do, try to listen to both sides, try to understand why they're angry,

what is the root of their anger, what is it that is fueling these emotions for them. And I think we have to not just listen, but we have to really hear what people are saying. But unfortunately, now people are talking past each other. And it's not surprising given the intensity of this war. And there we must end this special edition of the Global News Podcast. Thank you to Lise Doucette, our Chief International Correspondent in Jerusalem, and our Security Correspondent Frank Gardner here in the studio in London.

And thank you if you sent in a question. We do plan to keep doing these question and answer specials as long as they're useful. So if you have anything that you would like discussed or explained, please record it or just write it an email, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Global News Pod. And do subscribe to The Conflict wherever you found this podcast. This edition was mixed by Mike Regard. The producers were Anna Murphy and Judy Frankel. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard. Until next time, goodbye. Goodbye. Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

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