The NPR Politics Podcast - Israel and Hamas Agree to Temporary Cease-fire and Hostage Release

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

After six weeks of war, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a four-day pause in hostilities. As part of the agreement, 50 hostages currently held by Hamas and 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel will be released.The deal is the result of weeks of negotiations, but a long-term solution remains elusive. This episode: White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and national security correspondent Greg Myre. This episode was edited by Lexie Schapitl. It was produced by Lexie Schapitl and Jeongyoon Han. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Katie Ruth from Decatur, Georgia. I'm finishing up packing for a road trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan with my two toddler boys. This podcast was recorded at 1039 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will probably still be in the car driving to Michigan. I would rather travel to Decatur because I actually have a lot of friends in Decatur, Georgia. Oh, that would be fun. You should join in on the road trip. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security.

Israel and Hamas have reached a deal for a short-term ceasefire in their ongoing war. And as part of the agreement, Hamas will release 50 hostages currently being held in Gaza. And this news comes after six weeks of fighting following Hamas's deadly attacks on October 7th. Greg, after a really long night, you're joining us from Tel Aviv. Talk us through the details here. What is in this deal? Yeah, it's a deal that came after weeks and weeks of very difficult negotiations that involved Israel and Hamas, obviously, but the country of Qatar was also deeply involved. This was the U.S. and Egypt. It was announced in the early hours of Wednesday

morning, and it's basically along this line. It's fairly complicated. It's a four-day temporary ceasefire, and so starting tomorrow, Thursday, Hamas is supposed to release 50 Israeli hostages over the space of four days. These are women and children, one of them less than a year old. And then Israel, in turn, will release up to 150 Palestinian prisoners over the next four days. Again, women and children. So that's sort of the swap of people that are being held on both sides. And it's not all of them by any stretch. There's also a humanitarian component.

We'll see more aid going into Gaza, much more than we've had previously, up to 300 trucks a day. And again, this pause for four days, but it can be extended for up to 10 days. But after that, Israel says that's as long as it's going to go. Okay, so a little bit of a wiggle room, I guess, in terms of how long this short-term ceasefire could last. It could extend up to 10 days on what condition? Is that if more hostages are released? That's right, Deepa. So after four days, if 50 Israelis are released and 150 Palestinians are freed, then we continue at roughly the same pace. The ceasefire will be extended for one more day if maybe a dozen more Israelis hostages are released and another 35 or 40 Palestinians. And after that and after that, up to a maximum of 10 days, according to Israel. Okay, so up to 10 days,

but then again, still important to point out that this would be a short-term ceasefire. It still seems like, you know, chances are conflict returns. Is that correct? Oh, absolutely. The Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said at the cabinet meeting last night, we are at war, we will continue the war. And Hamas, in its statement, said it welcomed this agreement, but it also said our hands will remain on the trigger. So pretty clear on both sides. Yeah, pretty clear there. And Franco who are expected to be released in that first group. So two women and a three-year-old toddler, Abigail Eden. Her parents were killed in the attack. Her father, the October 7th attack, her father was a photojournalist.

Actually, her older sister and brother survived by hiding in a closet. And I'll just note that Abigail turns four on Friday. You know, the administration says there are a total of 10 Americans who are unaccounted for after the raids, which includes these three. They can't say for sure that all of them are hostages, though. They just, you know, don't know if they all survived, you know, the attack or if they all survived, you know, the attack or if they're still alive. Yeah, that term unaccounted for is something we've been hearing a lot from the White House. Greg, I want to turn back to you because this is something you mentioned a little bit earlier. This pause allows for the movement of hostages like we've been talking about,

but as you mentioned, also provides time for more aid to get into Gaza. We know water, food, fuel, all of these things have been extremely scarce. What kind of additional aid is coming and how much of it do we know? Yeah, the plan calls for up to 300 trucks a day to be allowed into Gaza. Israel has allowed very limited aid to come in and particularly fuel, which has been a huge problem. It's meant that there's been no electricity for most of the time. Most hospitals are no longer functioning. We've seen the creation of a terrible humanitarian crisis there. And the Palestinians, many of them in the northern part of Gaza, were told to go to the south by Israel for their safety. So almost perhaps up to 90 percent of the Palestinian population of Gaza, which is more than two million, are squeezed into the southern half. They're taking shelter

wherever they can. There's not enough food, water, medicine, electricity. People are cooking out on the street in many cases. So this could play a key role in alleviating at least some of the humanitarian crisis that we're seeing, but by no means will it resolve it. And zooming out for a second here, I want to get into this. How did this deal come about? It took weeks to put together, but I'm curious to hear from both of you, what were the negotiations like and what role specifically did the U.S. play and U.S. officials play here? Well, I can tell you that the U.S. played a big role right from the start. I mean, according to U.S. officials, the Qataris reached out to the White House soon after October 7th attack. You know, they talked about creating a channel between Israel and the Hamas and,

you know, to negotiate some type of deal. U.S. officials told us that, told us reporters that they were kind of shuttling between the Israelis and the Qataris. And it was a very intense next five weeks. One official described the negotiations as being extremely excruciating. They said the president was very involved, kind of enforcing, you know, essentially issuing ultimatums that progress be made. The Qataris actually thanked the U.S. in their statement after this. And Deep, I'll just make one more point in that, you know, this channel that was created between, you know, front with the Qataris was actually the same channel that led to the release of the first U.S. hostages last month, Judith Rannon and her daughter, Natalie. And it was their release that American officials told us gave them some confidence that the channel would work,

but also that the Qataris could deliver on the assurances they made. And I'll just add a note there and say, why Qatar? Why would they be the negotiator, this small nation in the Gulf? And really, the reason has been that the Israelis and Hamas don't talk to each other. Hamas has been around since the 1980s. But whenever one of these battles flares up over Gaza, the Israelis and Hamas don't speak directly to each other. So they need a mediator. And Qatar has played this role, not only in this conflict, but in a number of others where it sort of is willing to talk to all sides. And in fact, some of the Hamas leaders in exile do live in

Qatar, and therefore it was well placed to be the go-between between the two sides. Yeah, that's really interesting context. There's so many moving parts here, and we still have a lot to talk about, but we're going to take a quick break, and we'll talk more all about this when we get back. And we're back. I want to ask how this news has been received, what the reaction has been like, both in the region where you are, Greg, and here in the U.S. Obviously obviously still early as all of this is unfolding. But Greg, what has the response been from both Israelis and Palestinians to this deal? In a word, positive. On the Israeli side, they've announced two main goals in this war. One is to destroy Hamas. The other is to get hostages back. And as this has gone on,

certainly the public pressure on the Israeli government has been building to get some hostages back. We see regular demonstrations. There was a march recently from Tel Aviv to the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, a five-day march calling for the release of the hostages. So Prime Minister Netanyahu has faced a lot of this public pressure, and certainly there was support for this deal. If anything, the only criticism is, why couldn't you get more than 50 hostages released? So that's certainly been a positive on the Israeli side. Same is true from the Palestinians. They're getting a small number of their prisoners back. But I think perhaps maybe even more important, especially for the residents of Gaza, is it's just a break from what has been more than six weeks of nonstop Israeli airstrikes.

And the past three weeks or so, the Israeli forces have been in northern Gaza. Just absolute devastation that we've seen, more than 12,000 deaths, most of them women and children. So any sort of break is certainly welcomed by the Palestinians in Gaza. Yeah. And I'll just add that the United States is very pleased. I mean, I wouldn't call this a victory lap. These are issues that are way too sensitive. But the administration is very happy with being able to facilitate, help facilitate the release of these hostages and stop the fighting, albeit temporarily. I mean, President Biden has been talking for weeks about the need to get a pause in the fighting in order to get these hostages out. He has said it over and over that it was his first priority, particularly the American hostages. He released a statement, you know, late last night,

you know, a somewhat emotional statement about hostages returning home, you know, thanking the leaders of Qatar and Egypt for their help. You know, we're going to hear from him again in the near future about this. I mean, this is a significant deal, especially considering the pressure that he has been under around the world, but particularly in the United States, to take action and try to, you know, help civilians and help the innocent, you know, in this conflict. Yeah, I mean, speaking of that pressure, it's been really intense, particularly from people in Biden's own party. A lot of Democrats are really critical of the way that Biden has been handling this whole conflict. There's been a lot of calls calling for a ceasefire from a growing number of Democrats.

This, of course, is a temporary ceasefire. But generally, Franco, I mean, how has the White House been navigating this pressure? They're clearly, you know, taking maybe this moment as a win here, but there's still a long road ahead. And so what kind of comes next for the politics of this? I think as you've seen conditions in Gaza worsen, you've really seen President Biden and the White House kind of calibrate their party, to take action and to call for a ceasefire, demanding for a ceasefire. President Biden has kind of resisted those calls. But, you know, this should take some of the pressure off, at least temporarily. You know, there's going to be, you know, the four-day pause, as Greg was pointing out. You know, hostages are going to get out.

And also aid is going to get in. But, youages are going to get out and also aid is going to get in. But, you know, the war is not over. This is going to continue. Right. It is also, I think, important to point out that Biden himself has been very open about saying that he doesn't support a permanent ceasefire. He has said recently that that is not the same thing as peace. And it really is a pretty large difference at this point with some people in his party who are calling for that. It is temporary what this deal is right now for four days, up to 10 days, as we talked about. And we've been saying that the violence is likely to continue based on both what Israel has said and Hamas has said. So, Greg, is there room for a longer term solution here? I mean, what does this look like past these four

to 10 days and going forward? Yeah, I'd make two points, which sound a little contradictory. The first is both sides have an incentive to make this swap, this hostage and prisoner exchange work, because it's a positive thing for their side. So I think there's a reasonable chance, not 100% chance by any means, but a decent chance that we will see some calm for a few days and an easing of the humanitarian crisis. But the Israelis are clearly intent on pressing this campaign. They've captured a lot of the territory or control it in the north. There are Israeli tanks and armored vehicles all over the place, but they are taking a lot of fire from Hamas, or they have been until

we hit this pause that's supposed to start tomorrow. But Israel has not gone into the southern half of Gaza, at least not on the ground. They are bombing it and have done so pretty intensively from the air, but they haven't gone in on the ground. The general sense is the Israelis reached a point in the north where they have pretty solid control, not complete control, but pretty solid control. They're willing to take a bit of a pause right now, but will then start operations in southern Gaza when this pause ends in 10 days or so. incredibly messy because you have so much of the Gaza civilian population squeezed into that southern half of Gaza, and you've still got a lot of Hamas fighters left. So if the ground fighting picks up in the south, that could be extremely bloody. Yeah, and a lot of people in Gaza had moved to the south at Israel's warning, if I understand that correctly. So it definitely sounds like that would be an even increased conflict should that move forward. Franco, you touched on this a little bit, but simply,

what does Biden do next? This is coming at a time, obviously, where politics are really fraught. Congress, of course, has not been able to pass the supplemental aid that Biden has requested. What kind of happens here in Washington going forward? Yeah, I mean, I was kind of asked of U.S. officials last night when we were talking about this deal and kind of the U.S. perspective. You know, they're clear in stating that this is the first phase of what they hope is a longer deal. This is for women and children, but they certainly hope that it extends to other groups, elderly men. You know, what they tell us is that this is a work in progress and that they see this channel as an avenue to do it.

They were posed, you know, and asking, hey, is this also an opportunity to, you know, continue further goals of a two state solution, which is something that President Biden has brought up in recent weeks. But I think they're a little hesitant to go too far yet. I think they're just looking more in the near future as opposed to further down the road, though a two-state solution is what they are talking about more. All right. We're going to leave it there for today. Greg, thank you so much for joining us in the middle of all of this news. Sure thing, Deepa. And happy Thanksgiving to all of our listeners in the U.S. We will have episodes in your feeds tomorrow and Friday, so you'll have something to listen to during your holiday travels. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House.

I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the White House. And I'm Greg Myrie. I cover national security. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.