The Daily - Introducing ‘The War Briefing’

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

As the Israel-Hamas war intensifies, fears are growing that the conflict could spread beyond Gaza. And with an expected Israeli ground invasion, the coming days are likely to have enormous consequences. To meet this moment, The Times has started a daily afternoon report, hosted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “The War Briefing” is available in the New York Times Audio app, which is available to Times subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber, become one: nytimes.com/audioapp.

Hey, it's Michael. As the Israeli-Hamas war intensifies, fears are escalating that the conflict could spread, with enormous consequences in the Middle East and beyond. We at The Daily have been working with Times reporters on the ground to bring you meaningful, timely coverage of the conflict. But this story is evolving quickly, so the audio team here at The Times just launched a new daily afternoon show that will update you on the latest developments. It's hosted by our colleague Lulu Garcia Navarro, who spent more than a decade reporting from the Middle East. We're sharing today's war briefing with you here on The Daily Feed. After today, you can find it on the New York Times audio app, which is available to Times subscribers.

You can download the app now at nytimes.com slash audio app. Here's today's briefing. Take a listen. From the New York Times, I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. It's Thursday, October 26th. As we're recording, it's 5.27 in New York and 12.27 a.m. in Israel and Gaza. The Israeli military has carried out another round of arrests in the West Bank as fears grow that the Israel-Hamas war could expand further into this already combustible region. In the days since October 7th, the military and armed Israeli settlers, who according to the UN and others are illegally occupying portions of the West Bank, have been increasingly clashing with Palestinian militants and residents. Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 100 Palestinians in clashes in the West Bank since the start of the war. Israel says it detained more than 60 Palestinians in the West Bank overnight, and it claims the majority of them are affiliated with Hamas. My colleague Jeffrey

Gettleman has covered conflicts for years. He spent the past week in the West Bank and joined me earlier this afternoon to talk about what he saw. So Jeffrey, you've been reporting from the West Bank. Can you tell me what's been happening there in recent days? Yes. So the West Bank is one of the most complicated pieces of territory in a really complicated region. And in the last few weeks, as Israel has waged its war on Gaza, there's been a lot of violence in the West Bank.

It's happening on many fronts. There's been protests by Palestinians against what's happening in Gaza. There's been raids by the Israeli military against who they call terrorists in the West Bank. And then there's also a lot of problems with civilians on civilians. And many of the Israelis who live in the West Bank are heavily armed. They live in these settlements surrounded by Palestinian villages and cities. And so there's been a lot of conflict between settlers and Palestinian residents, Israeli military and protesters,

gunmen firing at the Israeli military. And the bigger picture is you just have this like very combustible and tense place that's being pushed to the highest levels of tension and violence that it's seen in years. Can you tell me why the West Bank is so important? I mean, you talk about it as a complicated place in a complicated region, but where does it sit in this conflict? So the West Bank refers to the West Bank of the Jordan River, and it has been a contested piece of territory for decades. During the 1967 war, Israel took over or captured this territory and has since occupied it. What makes it really important is that it's a big chunk of what many people think should be a separate Palestinian state. It has several million

Palestinians living there, And there's some big cities like Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, some really important historic places. And it's also where the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority is. But at the same time, Israel has been steadily building settlements, which are these communities that are situated in the middle of Palestinian territory. And so the keys of the solution to the Palestine versus Israel issue are situated here. And it's just like a place where you see a lot of military, a lot of checkpoints, a lot of guard towers and barbed wire and civilians carrying guns. It just kind of oozes with this tension and dissatisfaction.

And in the last few weeks, that's been violently stirred. You talk about the settlements, these islands in the middle of Palestinian land that Palestinians want for their future state. Where do they sit, especially in relation to the hard right-wing government that is in place now in Israel of Bibi Netanyahu? So this is a very controversial subject. Many Israelis believe they have an equal claim to this land. And there are sites that go back to the Old Testament, the Torah, that are situated in this same territory. And during the past few decades, there's been this slow growth of these settlements

as a way to frustrate Palestinian ambitions to have their own state, and also as a way to create new communities for Israel, cheaper places to live, subdivisions that have, you know, new housing and roads and community centers. And they're populated by the civilians you were talking about, right? Exactly. And these civilians are Jewish Israelis. They are Israeli settlers that are expanding the state of Israel into this territory that many people say does not belong to Israel. Now, as you asked, it's a really good question. Like what's happened in recent months as this right-wing government has, you know, taken power and the right-wing side of Israeli politics is really expansionist. They believe they have a claim to this land. They believe that this is Jewish

territory. I want to ask you about the divisions within Palestinian society. It's this kind of patchwork. And some Palestinian areas there are controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Some areas have settlements and other areas are controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Some areas have settlements and other areas are controlled by the Israeli military. But I want to understand this relationship between the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, because they're two very different Palestinian groups. The Palestinian Authority is at odds with Hamas. And several years ago, there was an election and the people of Gaza chose to elect Hamas for their leadership. So you have these two enclaves of Palestinian territory,

a really small, densely populated one in Gaza, and then this bigger one across the valleys and the rocky hills of the West Bank. They don't really get along. They don't interact much, but they're both Palestinian. Now, one thing to remember and which helps explain why we're seeing all these problems now in the West Bank is there are different factions in the West Bank. There's the Palestinian Authority that's in control, but you also have Hamas cells and supporters in the West Bank. And so there's this constant tension across Palestine, just as in many different places, including Israel, between the right wing, the left wing, the moderates. And in Palestine, the Palestinian authority is considered relatively moderate. They work with the

Israeli government. They're trying to coexist with Israel, whereas Hamas's agenda is they want to wipe Israel out. And so some people in the West Bank who are really frustrated and feel oppressed and abused by the Israeli occupation, they support Hamas. They want something more radical, where other people are like, no, we'd rather there be peace. Let's just sort of take it step by step. And those people would be more inclined to support the Palestinian authority. What is everyday life for Palestinians like in the West Bank? I mean, what does it feel like for them under the occupation? It depends. One guy that I spent time with is a Palestinian tour guide,

and he works in Bethlehem and Nazareth and Jericho. He even goes into Jordan. And he makes a great living and has like a beautiful house that he welcomed me into. And the occupation is something he deals with, obviously. Sometimes there are road closures. Sometimes there are protests. He worries about his kids getting involved in protests, but that hasn't stopped him from building a decent life. Some other people I talked to were victims of the occupation.

They were attacked by settlers from, you know, Jewish settlers who are armed that live on these settlements. They also were just like almost in a prison. A lot of these roads get closed by the Israeli military at short notice and nobody can move around and you can't ask for any exception. It's just shut and there's no explanation. I think everybody in these areas, you know, chafes at the occupation, but some people have designed a way to still live a productive life and a decent life with their families and make money and get their kids educated and, you know, have some comfort. So I saw both. When the Israeli military talks about its recent operations in the West Bank and the hundreds of arrests it says are a necessary part of its effort to wipe out Hamas. Can you tell me what it is that they're up to in the West Bank?

So in the last few weeks, a couple things have happened, obviously. One is Israel's like really on edge and they are very worried about more attacks and they are trying to root out all their enemies in Palestinian territory, very intensely in Gaza, obviously, but also in the West Bank. So they're staging all these raids, but they often cause their own cycle of bloodshed because people fight back, and then they fight harder. They've even called in some airstrikes, and civilians get killed. That leads to protests. Then people start attacking Israeli troops with stones or maybe shooting at them. They respond. It creates these just endless cycles of violence. So we've seen some of that, but we've also at the same time

seen protests where Palestinians who aren't armed are just so outraged about what's happening in Gaza. They're pouring into the streets and they sometimes confront Israeli troops, maybe with just stones. Then the Israelis fire back. And you just, it's just really like stunning and depressing to see like both sides locked into this conflict and the emotions just get higher

and more people get hurt and killed. And it just goes on day after day. So can you just tell me what you heard from people there on the ground? Because you're describing a tinderbox where it seems like everyone is on edge. So the settlers feel very scared. They feel very exposed. They saw what happened to the communities near Gaza, where these terrorists came running out of Gaza, heavily armed, and just massacred people in these kibbutzes and other areas around Gaza. And they think that could happen to them. They're fortifying their

communities. Then you go into these Palestinian towns, and the Palestinians are just full of grief and sorrow and worry that the occupation is going to get worse. There's going to be more killings, more abuse, whatever little rights they had before are going to be shredded. And so you had these two very different communities that are at odds about just about everything, but they're united by one thing right now, and that's fear. We started this conversation by talking about how important the West Bank is. And President Biden said in comments yesterday that after this war, Israel and the Palestinians are going to have to seriously negotiate for peace, something that hasn't happened for a long time.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is ruled by an 87-year-old, Mahmoud Abbas. It's seen as corrupt and ineffective. And Netanyahu's government has been riven by these divisions and is widely blamed by Israelis for being unprepared for the Hamas attack. widely blamed by Israelis for being unprepared for the Hamas attack. So I guess I'm wondering, is anyone other than Biden talking about the idea of a two-state solution right now, a sovereign Israeli and Palestinian state living side by side? I think it's the most important question that anybody can ask. I think there is a sense among many Israelis that they can't kill their way out of this problem. They can't just kill Hamas terrorists and then all of a sudden have peace break out across the region.

That Hamas is a military strategic problem at the moment, but there's a bigger overarching problem, which is how to coexist peacefully with this large Palestinian population that feels equally attached to the same territory. So I think people are talking about this and a lot of people are aching for some solution, but the overwhelming consensus is that right now there's a very clear and present danger in Gaza with Hamas. And that's the mission. The mission is to eviscerate them so that threat never comes back. That's what everybody's talking about. The bigger picture of like why this happened and how do you move forward, many Israelis aren't comfortable at the moment talking about that.

At the same time, a lot of Palestinians feel abandoned and they feel that the world supports Israel. And they feel like there's not much empathy for what they've suffered and what they're going through right now. They see, you know, these horrible images on TV of people being killed and buildings falling down on top of children and, you know, the most vulnerable in society in Gaza. And they just, you know, ask like, why is the world allowing this to happen? They're losing hope that there's going to be any end to this violence. And with the Palestinians that you spoke to in the west bank how do they see hamas now i mean has it changed their view after they launched that attack on israel so i was asking that very

question i was asking people what did you think when you saw the images on saturday morning october 7th of hamas slaughtering these innocent people. And the people I was speaking to, most of them were moderates and they said we were horrified by it. But they also would add there was a context. There was a reason why Hamas did this. And that's like something Israelis will not accept. They say there's absolutely no justification

for such brutality. Finally, Jeffrey, you've covered the Middle East for a long time. You've been in and out of the region for many, many years. Could you just tell me how you see it right now in comparison to other moments when you've been there? I see it as like this is the most polarizing moment I've ever witnessed. I've worked in Iraq. I've worked in Egypt. I've worked in Israel before, but I never felt like I'm in the middle of something so big and uncertain and just violent. Every night, I would turn on the TV in Jerusalem where I was staying and I'd watch the Arab

channels and they'd show images of Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinians. And then I would go to the Israeli TV stations and they'd show images from October 7th of civilians being slaughtered by Hamas. All sides are just locked into this cycle of violence and nobody's really trying to pull them out of it. Jeffrey Gettleman, thank you very much. Thank you. Meanwhile, the Israeli military today released video of what it describes as a limited ground raid into Gaza, with tanks briefly entering the northern part of the Strip. The military said it was in preparation for what it called the next stages of combat.

And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that a ground invasion was still likely, but did not give specifics. That's the latest. We'll be back tomorrow.