The Decibel - Where the Israel-Hamas ceasefire goes from here

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

March 1 marks the official end of the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza. Phase two remains in doubt, unless all parties can start negotiations or extend the deadline for phase one.Hamida Ghafour is The Globe’s Deputy Foreign Editor. She explains what has happened during the last six weeks, how hostage handovers have caused outrage in Israel and what could happen next.Enter this Decibel survey: https://thedecibelsurvey.ca/ and share your thoughts for a chance to win $100 grocery gift cardsQuestions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

On Wednesday, Shiri Bebas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kefir, were laid to rest, all buried in one coffin. Shiri and her children were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and held as hostages. They died in captivity in Gaza. Shiri, how can it be that we won't have a picnic again on Shabbat? At their funeral, Shiri's sister-in-law mourned the future they would no longer share. She said,

Shiri, how can it be that we won't plan another picnic for Saturday? How did they steal from us a whole year of experiences and memories together? How can we imagine a future without you? How did they take you away from us? The funeral was live-streamed in a public space in Tel Aviv that is now known as Hostage Square. Thousands of people came to grieve the Bebas family, including this woman named Shire. It's just so sad. We still have hostages.

Soldiers are dying and also people in Gaza, Palestinians are dying. And it doesn't seem like there is any steps that are going towards solution. So it feels like kind of stuck. We're stuck. We're stuck. — Meanwhile, in Gaza, on Wednesday, residents continue to struggle with the cold, wet conditions, often in makeshift shelters. — This father tells a reporter that rainwater and sewage has entered the tent where he and his young children are living.

He says with the drainage system being destroyed, the cold weather and the lack of clean drinking water, viruses are spreading rapidly. He added that he had to take his daughter to the hospital and the doctor told him that dirty water and cold temperatures have caused her illness. Hamida Ghaffoor is the Globe's deputy foreign editor. She's on the show today to explain what we've learned from this fragile first phase of the seas fire in Gaza and what could be the possible paths forward from here. I'm Maynika Ramen-Welms, and this is The Decibel from the Globe and Mail.

Amita, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. So you and I are talking Wednesday, early afternoon. And this is a fast-moving situation. We're quickly approaching the end of the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza. Amita, what was supposed to happen during this phase one, during these last six weeks? So the ceasefire to catch us all up in terms of where we are, it went into effect on January

the 19th and lasts until March the 1st, so that's this weekend. And it was mediated by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar. It can be broken down into the following main areas. The ceasefire called for a full halt to the fighting between Hamas and Israel. Israeli troops were meant to leave the Netzerim Corridor, which bisects Gaza, but the troops remain on the borders, including the Philadelphia Corridor, which is in the south.

Palestinians were also expected to be allowed to return to their homes. These are Palestinians inside Gaza. They've been displaced by the fighting and they were allowed to return to some areas of the north. Aid is also important. Up to 600 trucks of aid were supposed to be going on to Gaza every day carrying essential supplies like food and medicine and tents for shelter. The key thing in this phase of the ceasefire is the hostage-prisoner swap, and that's essentially what phase one is. And what this means is that Hamas gives up hostages or the remains of hostages, and in

exchange the Israelis hand over prisoners who have been kept in jails in Israel Either detained on charges no charges or for deadly offenses Okay So there's a whole bunch of things that were supposed to happen in this phase one as you say the exchange of Hostages and prisoners is a huge part of that What actually happened did all of those things that we just listed did they actually go through in this phase one of the ceasefire? The short answer is more or less yes. We've had more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners released. It's hard to give an exact number because they vary.

And Hamas has, as of Tuesday, released 30 hostages. And tonight or tomorrow, they're expected to release another four hostages or the remains of hostages and tonight or tomorrow they're expected to release another four hostages or the remains of hostages. Eight trucks have been going in very sporadically, not nearly what was needed. And the Palestinians who were displaced, some of them have returned home. So broadly it's been very rickety, but it's unfolded more or less the way people hoped. Do we know how many hostages are still in Gaza? We believe there's around 65. And the caveat here is that some of the hostages who are in

captivity were actually taken before this war started in October 2023. And of those 65, this is kind of a grim question to ask, but do we know how many are actually alive? About half of them, probably, yeah. Okay. So, Amita, from what you're saying, the ceasefire has held as it stands at least, and some of what was set to be accomplished during phase one

has happened, but not without some friction here, right? What have been the issues, I guess, that each side has raised? So, each side has accused the other over the last few weeks of violating the terms of the deal. The Palestinians say that the Israeli defense forces have attacked civilians as they returned back to their homes. The Israelis say that they were actually targeting Hamas militants who they accuse of using civilians as shield. So that's clearly a violation of a ceasefire, which called for a halt in the fighting. Another major issue has been Hamas has been holding very humiliating and ghoulish stage ceremonies when they release the hostages or when they've been transferring the bodies.

There's a stage that they've set up in Gaza. There's a backdrop of flags, loud music, images of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's shown dripping in blood. Armed militants are crowded around and the hostages have been marched across the stage holding certificates and having to kiss these armed fighters in some cases. Many of them have looked very emaciated and it reminded people of the images that came out of the Nazi concentration camp of the survivors.

So understandably, this has caused a lot of anguish among the families. It has angered the Israeli government and the Red Cross has also expressed concern too. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about this situation here because this handover of hostages, as you said, has really caught people's attention, especially in the last week.

Because last Thursday, February 20, there was a particular handover. This is when Hamas was handing over the bodies of hostages for the first time. And this included those of Shiri B. Bass and her two children, four-year-old Ariel and infant Kefir. So these are two of the youngest hostages that were taken on October 7th. Hamida, can you tell me about that handover?

So once again, Hamas held a ceremony. The coffins of the children and what was understood to be shiri, and we'll come to that in a minute, the coffins were draped in black. They were displayed in front of the crowds. They were surrounded by Hamas fighters. It caused a lot of shock and revulsion in Israel and many media outlets didn't show the footage at all. After the bodies were transferred to these really authorities, forensic tests were conducted. Kithir and Ariel were identified, but the body of the woman turned out not to be Shiri at all, but a Palestinian woman. We don't know who she is.

Hamas said it was a mix-up in the confusion, and a day later they handed over the remains of Shiri Bibas, and the forensic tests were done, and it was indeed Shiri. The boys and their mother were buried together in a private ceremony and what makes this also very shocking as well is that the Israelis say that Hamas killed the children with their bare hands, that's a quote from them. Hamas denies that and says that the family were killed in air strikes, Israeli air strikes. Can we talk a little bit more about this family Hamida Because I think they

really came to symbolize a lot for a number of Israelis throughout this past, you know, almost a year and a half now. What do we know about them? Yes, it's such a good point. The Bebas family have become symbols of this conflict. Shiree, her husband Yarden, and Ariel and Kefirir, the youngest hostage to be taken, they were kidnapped by Hamas on October the 7th from the kibbutz where they were living. Yarden was released, he's alive, and of course Sheree and the children, they remained in captivity and they were killed. And the notion of a family, a young family, starting out their lives together, these innocent children, you

know, there were more than 250 hostages who were taken, but I think for many, the family taken together really symbolized the horrors of the conflict. And many people in Israel and also outside Israel really felt it deeply and very personally, I think. Can you, I guess, help me understand, because we talked about the scenes of Hamas handing over the hostages and these bodies that we were just talking about as well. Why would

Hamas stage the exchange in such a way? There's two ways of looking at it. One, these ceremonies have a propaganda value. Israel's main aim in this war was to get rid of Hamas forever. The staged events send a message, Hamas is still here and we're not going anywhere. We have not been destroyed. Remember, the footage we see of armed militants, heavily armed militants wandering around the stage and it's a show of force. And I think there's a second reason as well. It's psychological warfare. Hamas is very aware that the pressure the Israeli government is under by the hostages families to get the hostages home at all costs. And a drawn out ritualized handover taunts the families and it taunts the Israeli government

as well. Yeah, these stories have really sparked a lot of anger in Israel the way that these scenes have played out. What has Israel done in response? So this gets to the sticking point of where we are in the ceasefire. So Israel was supposed to release last weekend about 600 Palestinians, but they refused to let them go unless Hamas stopped holding these ceremonies. So at this point, the ceasefire reached a standstill,

and there were a lot of concerns that the fighting would resume. As it stands today, what might happen is that Hamas releases the remains of the four hostages to Egypt. Remember, Egypt is a mediator in this conflict and these handovers would be private and therefore the victims would be given more dignity. We've talked about the exchange of hostages coming home from Gaza. Let's also just touch on the release of Palestinian prisoners.

What kind of scenes have we seen when this is happening? The Israelis have released the Palestinian prisoners. They have been taken to the West Bank, to Ramallah usually, which is the capital. They're very emotional scenes. We see buses coming in. The prisoners have been taken off the buses. Emotional scenes of fathers, mothers, children hugging each other. In many cases, they haven't seen each other for years. They've had very little information.

And so there's been a lot of emotion on the other side as well. Yeah. So Hamida, when you step back and I guess look at what has happened around these exchanges, what is your overall impression maybe of how this is all unfolding? So in any peace talk, whether it's this conflict or any conflict, the general idea is that you begin with the easier stuff, if we can put it that way. You begin with the easier stuff to lay the groundwork for tackling the more difficult issues later on. They're called confidence building measures, and they build goodwill among enemies to continue talking and eventually stop fighting for good. So the release of women, children, the elderly,

the remains of hostages in phase one, in exchange for Palestinians who've been jailed in some cases for no apparent reason. They're meant to be confidence building. So in that sense, the ceasefire has gone okay. But I think that the ceasefire has also revealed something deeper and terrible, which has been apparent for a long time, but I think it's really come to the fore. I think that it's very evident that each side struggles to see the other as human beings. Gaza has been destroyed by Israel. It's been reduced to a rubble. The bodies of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children are decaying beneath the rubble and they're being dug out by their families in some cases by hand. Hamas meanwhile is staging these appalling ceremonies and it seems like each side can't

see the humanity and dignity of the other. And so what are the prospects that you have two people who can ever live side by side. We'll be right back. Okay. So Hamida, now that we're nearing the end of the first phase of this ceasefire, do we have a sense of what's going to happen next year? So a big part of phase one was supposed to be talks about phase two was supposed to start in phase one. And both sides have to agree to end the war in order for this temporary truce to continue.

Essentially the truce has to roll on. But we've seen no evidence, at least in public, that any phase two talks have started. And Mr. Nanyahu apparently has refused to start the negotiations. What we're looking at at the moment is there's a possibility to extend phase one and what that would mean is continuing this steady exchange of hostages for prisoners. Mr. Netanyahu is under pressure from the hostages' families to extend phase one. But it's very complicated. Egypt is reluctant.

The Egyptians want to see talks on phase two starting as part of any agreement to extend phase one. I think the idea is that there's a concern that otherwise phase one just kind of continues indefinitely without any real resolution to the conflict as a whole. Okay. So it sounds like Israel is maybe considering an extension then of this phase one. Is Hamas amenable to that? Do we know? I think we can safely say at this stage, it's unclear to what extent Hamas would be supportive of an extension. Okay, so if we're talking about the negotiation around phase

two, what are the details that still would need to be discussed in order to move to that stage? So phase two is meant to be a permanent ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Israeli forces are supposed to withdraw completely from Gaza and any other hostages that remain in custody exchange for more Palestinian prisoners. And finally, the big thing around phase two is a decision made around who governs Gaza. And this is the big sticking point. Yeah, let's talk about that because it sounds like this is something that needs to be discussed eventually, right?

So what are the possible options? I think it's important to remember that the question of who governs Gaza is an issue for this war. It's also an issue for the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been going on since 1948. But let's focus on what the question of who governs Gaza means within this conflict. There are several options. The first is the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is the entity.

It's internationally recognized. They're moderate, they're based in the West Bank, and their purpose, broadly speaking, is to lead the Palestinians to statehood, to a sovereign state of their own. But the Palestinian Authority is quite weak. They've been accused of corruption, and it's not clear whether they have the ability to govern Gaza. This is in no particular order. The second option is Hamas. Hamas insists on being part of any future settlement of Gaza. Israel says this is not possible and they've ruled it out for the moment.

A third option is Israeli settlements that are backed by the Israeli Defense Forces. Until 2005 actually, Gaza had communities of these settlements and they left. So it is possible that those settlements could return. Another option is US President Donald Trump's idea to give Gaza to the United States so that it could be redeveloped into resorts, which would involve the residents of Gaza being forcibly relocated to Egypt or Jordan. Lastly, another option is some kind of international force that's backed by regional Arab governments

that manage Gaza or provide security. This is quite hazy. The Israeli opposition leader was in Washington this week and he proposed that Egypt manages Gaza for the next 15 years and in exchange Egypt's debt would be wiped out. This could be tempting to Egypt. Its debt is around $155 billion. So there's a few different options it sounds like that are being talked about here, Hamidah. That's right. I do want to ask you about this one proposal by US President Donald Trump that you mentioned

because I think a lot of people have heard about this. He's floating the idea that the US could be involved in the reconstruction, but only if Palestinians were removed from the land. Can we just touch on that a little bit more? Where does that proposal stand at this point? So the US president a couple of weeks ago said relocate the people of Gaza into Jordan or into Egypt and instead the US would take over the territory, it's not really clear what that would mean, rebuild resorts, housing and turn it into like a Riviera. It's been derided by the international

community. It's considered illegal under international law because you're forcibly removing people from their land and it's considered ethnic cleansing. Egypt and Jordan have flatly said no, it's a non-starter for them. And for many people who follow the conflict very closely will very quietly say and have said for many years that the two-state solution is dead. And President Donald Trump essentially said that out loud. He's made these hugely disruptive comments. And essentially, it's like he's forcing the Israelis, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the people who

have a stake in this conflict, to perhaps come up with an alternative. I certainly can't speak to Donald Trump's motives on this, but that certainly has been a consequence of it. So the Egyptians are coming up with their own plan for Gaza. The Israelis have seemed to be proposing something else. So that seems to be something that, yeah, President Trump has achieved. Amita, I also want to ask you about politics within Israel, because throughout the situation,

that has been certainly a pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and how Israel makes decisions here. Do we know how those politics are I guess affecting these negotiations? Mr. Netanyahu has a lot of pressures from within Israel. There's two big ones at the moment. His governing coalition has very powerful and vocal representatives from the settler movement. Some of them want to continue the war with Hamas at all costs. And they want to do this because they want to build settlements in Gaza. They see Gaza as part of a greater

Israel. There's also opposing forces within Israel too, to extend the ceasefire and the war in order to bring home the hostages and even if that means accepting that Hamas remains in Gaza. AMT – And I wonder, when we're talking about these political dynamics, does this have a connection to what's been happening recently in the occupied West Bank? Because just last weekend we saw tanks actually headed into one of the refugee camps there. So is this kind of playing into that? KS – Yeah.

So it's like the fate of Gaza and the fate of the West Bank are very closely linked. Both these territories are meant to be the lands which form a future sovereign Palestinian state. And since October 2023, the Israelis have been stepping up a campaign of violence in the West Bank against Palestinians. The Jenin refugee camp has been attacked by helicopters. Palestinians have been killed. Homes have been destroyed. The Israelis say that they're targeting Hamas terrorists, and undoubtedly there are some, but there is a broader pattern of targeting Palestinians in order to harass, intimidate, or remove

them from the West Bank. It also should be said that there are a lot of settlements in the West Bank which are considered illegal under international law. Again, this is meant to be land for the Palestinians, a state for the Palestinians in the future. These are Israeli settlers then in the West Bank? These are Israeli settlers who come and they build homes, communities, and they're populated by Jewish families. And the settler movement wants to continue building and encroaching on this land, which would really make it impossible for this to be a Palestinian state. Just lastly here Hamida, you mentioned earlier that the two-state solution appears to be dead in the eyes of many people.

So is there any viable path forward here for lasting peace in Gaza? It's very difficult to see any viability for lasting peace from where we are today. The two-state solution has been around for many decades. Its parameters are very clear, very well known, and they're generally accepted. Sovereign state for the Israelis, a sovereign state for the Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza, and the Palestinians have their capital in East Jerusalem and the Israelis have their capital in West Jerusalem. The problem has been and continues to be a lack of political will. You know, both sides accuse the other of not really being serious about this two-state

solution. It's very acrimonious. It's difficult to see with this latest war how the conditions could be laid down in order to bring that two-state solution back to the table. Amita, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Thank you for having me on the show. That's it for today.

I'm Maynika Ramon-Wilms. Our producers are Madeleine White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our host. And we're going to be talking about the show in a few minutes. So stay tuned.

I'm going to be talking about the show in a few minutes. So stay tuned. I'm going to be talking about the show in a few minutes. So stay tuned. I'm going to be talking about the show in a few minutes. So stay tuned. I'm going to be talking about the showWilms. Our producers are Madeleine White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. You can subscribe to The Globe and Mail at globeandmail.com slash subscribe. Thanks so much for listening.