The Daily - The New State of the War in Gaza

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

The accidental killing of three hostages by Israel’s military has shocked Israelis and is raising new questions about the way Israel is conducting its war against Hamas. Afterward, Israel’s defense minister appeared to announce a shift in strategy, giving the clearest indication to date that Israel may slow down its military operation in Gaza after weeks of pressure.Patrick Kingsley, Jerusalem bureau chief for The Times, and Hiba Yazbek, a reporter for The Times, discuss Israel’s military campaign and the ensuing humanitarian crisis.Guests: Patrick Kingsley, Jerusalem bureau chief for The Times, and Hiba Yazbek, a reporter for The Times.Background reading: Israel Says 3 Hostages Bore White Flag Before Being Killed by TroopsIsrael’s Allies Urge Restraint as Netanyahu Vows ‘Fight to the End’U.S. Urges Israel to Do More to Spare Civilians in Gaza and Pushes Hostage TalksWhat to Know About the Remaining Hostages Taken From IsraelFor more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. The accidental killing of three hostages by Israel's military has shocked Israelis and is raising new questions about the way that Israel is conducting its war against Hamas. about the way that Israel is conducting its war against Hamas. Today, I spoke with my colleagues Patrick Kingsley and Hiba Yazbek about whether Israel's military campaign is working and the humanitarian crisis it has left in its wake. It's Thursday, December 21st. So Patrick, Israel's war against Hamas is now in its 11th week.

And we wanted to come to you to really look closely at this question of what has Israel achieved so far in this war? Israel, of course, has pledged to destroy Hamas. How far has it come on that front? And then, late last week, something happened that seemed to make that question even more urgent. Israel's military accidentally killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza. And the interpretation was that this symbolized some of the problems with the way Israel had been conducting the war. So let's start with that. Tell me about that killing and what it means. Well, according to the military narrative, three hostages who were captured on October 7th during the Hamas-led attack on Israel escaped their captivity and tried to make a break for freedom towards the

Israeli military lines by advancing slowly, waving a white flag, having taken off their shirts so that the Israeli soldiers would see that they were not carrying guns or strapped to any suicide bombs. they were not carrying guns or strapped to any suicide bombs. And despite that, Israeli soldiers, against the rules of war and their instructions by the military, fired on the three escaped hostages, killing two. One managed to make it into a building and shouted in Hebrew. He then left the building and was shot dead upon leaving it. And in Israel, this was seen as a huge shock and a great tragedy. Let's talk about what they say, that it will take time, that it's a long war, that we need to be patient,

that the fighters have no time. That Israel would kill some of its own, in particular, the people that all Israelis have been rooting for for the past 11 weeks. I'm going to say to this government, you murdered my son twice. You let the Hamas take my son on October 7th and you killed my son on December 14th.

And it also raised questions about the Israeli military's conduct in general and invited accusations that if this is how they treat Israelis waving a white flag, how must the Israeli military outside of the public eye treat Palestinian civilians in similar situations? And how does the government see that? I mean, is this incident leading to any kind of rethinking about how it's prosecuting its war? Well, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, no. He said that it was Israel's military campaign in Gaza that had succeeded in releasing 100 or so hostages

in previous rounds of exchanges. changes. And that only further military action in Gaza would lead to the release of more, if not all, of the Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza. So according to Prime Minister Netanyahu, the strategy remains the same, and Israel will keep on pressing ahead with its invasion in Gaza, not only to dismantle Hamas, but also to get back its hostages. But two days after Netanyahu made that speech... Secretary Austin, the United States and Israel have never been more determined and aligned in our shared values, our shared interests and our shared goals.

His defence minister, Yoav Galant, stood alongside Secretary of Defence Austin and appeared to announce a shift in strategy. Soon we will be able to distinguish between different areas in Gaza. In every area where we achieve our mission, we will be able to transition gradually to the next phase and start working on bringing back local population. He said that soon Israel will transition gradually to another phase of the fighting

and would even allow parts of the Gazan population to return to their homes. Now, that statement from Minister Gallant will have to be assessed against what Israel actually does on the ground. But in terms of rhetoric, it marks a significant shift. It's the clearest indication from an Israeli minister so far in the war that following weeks of pressure, Israel is preparing to slow down its military operation in Gaza. Which, of course, would be a huge shift in strategy. And that will be something that all of us, and I'm sure you, Patrick, will be watching very closely as the weeks go on here. Let's step back for a second

and look at the broader question. What has Israel achieved so far militarily? Their stated goal is to destroy Hamas. Where is Israel in terms of achieving that goal? Israel has made some headway. They have captured large parts of northern Gaza, preventing Hamas from accessing many of its military installations and rocket launchers in those areas that they would otherwise be using to fire on Israel. They've also begun to do the same thing in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has also said that it's killed several high-ranking Hamas commanders, including the commander of its rocket division and the commander of Hamas's so-called naval commandos, all of which we are told were

involved in some way in the attack on Israel on October 7th. What Israel has not done is establish control over all of Gaza City, which was, until the invasion at least, the main administrative hub for Hamas in the territory, and which therefore still retains huge symbolic value. And they have not captured all of Khan Yunus, the big city in southern Gaza, where we understand most of the Hamas leadership has fled to. And they have not killed, as they have threatened to, the top, top leadership of Hamas, including Yahya Sinwa, the head of Hamas in Gaza, his brother Mohammed, another powerful figure, Mohammed Daif, the military commander of Hamas in Gaza, and his deputy Marwan Issa. All four of those men and many other senior leaders in the Gaza Strip remain at large.

And while they remain alive, one of the key goals that Israel's set out remains unfulfilled. But what about the foot soldiers? What about the broader population of Hamas combatants? That is a subject of debate. Hamas and the guards and health authorities, which are overseen by Hamas, have not released a number for the number of fighters from Hamas and other armed groups who have been killed during this war. fighters from Hamas and other armed groups who have been killed during this war.

Israel has. It says that 7,000 militants have been killed by the Israeli army since October 7th. If that is true, it accounts for roughly a quarter of the estimated 25,000 Hamas fighters that were thought to have been in Gaza at the start of the war. We have no way of verifying the number. We also don't know how much it overlaps, if at all, with the roughly 20,000 Gazans who the Gazan health ministry says have died during this war. Okay, so it looks like the record so far is pretty mixed in terms of getting senior leadership of Hamas. What has that meant in terms of how Hamas is able to operate? It means that Hamas can still fire some rockets into Israeli airspace, still showing that they retain some military capabilities. over the weekend in Jerusalem.

We went to our bombshells after a barrage was fired into the skies above Jerusalem, which is quite a long way from Gaza and suggests that Hamas or its allies still retain some long-range rocket capabilities. And in Gaza itself, Hamas seemed still very able to mount a dogged defense of its strongholds. Every day, or even several times a day, Hamas posts video, propaganda videos of what it says are its fighters ambushing Israeli tanks and Israeli troops. And there was certainly one incident in recent days

And there was certainly one incident in recent days in which Hamas managed to ambush nine Israeli soldiers, killing two very senior commanders in the field, which again just shows that Hamas remains a potent military force in Gaza. Do we know, Patrick, on the point of the ambushes, what's the toll that this urban warfare is taking on the IDF, the Israeli military? Well, since the ground invasion began in late October, more than 120 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza, making it one of the deadliest military operations for the Israeli army itself in years. And what's extraordinary about that number is that according to our reporting, roughly 20% of the Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza during this war were killed by members of their own team. 20% were killed by members of their own team, meaning killed

accidentally by other military personnel, by the military itself. That is a very high number and very unusual for a modern military. Like I'm thinking of the U.S. and Iraq. It was nowhere near that. It seems to kind of be speaking to something going wrong on the ground, right? Like extreme chaos or just things have gotten out of control. That's certainly one interpretation. We understand that the soldiers have been killed through a variety of accidental gunfire, shelling, perhaps even some airstrikes,

a mix of causes that nevertheless add up to a broader picture, which is that a lot of mistakes are being made by the Israeli military. I've been talking to our colleague, Renan Bergman, who specializes in the Israeli security services. His analysis is that a lot of the troops on the ground in Gaza are actually reservists. So they're not necessarily up to speed with all the latest tactics or skills, despite several weeks of intense training at the start of the war before the invasion formally began. And now these reservist soldiers are entering a very complex battlefield with Hamas fighters popping out of tunnels, and mistakes are therefore happening at a staggeringly high rate. So Patrick, putting all of this together, on the one side we have the Israeli military,

which despite making some big mistakes on the battlefield, seems to have also gained some territory and taken out at least some key Hamas fighters. But on the other side, we have Hamas, which is still a force that's able to ambush Israelis even in the north and fire rockets into Israel still. and fire rockets into Israel still. So I guess going back to my original question, which was, is Israel's military campaign working? It sounds like there's just not a super clear-cut answer to that. That's exactly it. In some senses, Israel has had military success. But because Israel set the bar for its victory so high at the start of the war in October,

remember they said they wanted to dismantle Hamas, that means anything short of that makes it harder for Israel to declare victory. If Hamas's leaders are still at large, if Hamas still controls part of the territory, if they still have some rocket launching capabilities, as they clearly do at the moment, that then stops short of the goals that Israel set itself at the start of its counterattack. And Hamas will be able to claim that it is in fact the victor in this war because it is still standing. And Palestinian civilians will be caught in the middle of this fight for however long it goes on.

Right. The key takeaway here is the absolutely astronomical loss of civilian life in Gaza and disruption to anything like normal living inside the Gaza Strip. The UN says that 85% of Gazans have been displaced from their homes. That's approaching 2 million people. And even if the war was to end tomorrow, it isn't clear where many of them would be able to live. And it's unclear where all these people are supposed to go. and it's unclear where all these people are supposed to go.

To many Israelis, this is a painful but justified response to a Hamas attack on October 7th and that they need to go to these great extents in Gaza in order to prevent a repeat in the future. But to Palestinians and to many observers outside, this is an unmitigated disaster that seems to have no end. Patrick, thank you. Thank you, Sabrina. We'll be right back. Hiba, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. So, Hiba, we just talked to our colleague Patrick Kingsley about where things stand with Israel's military campaign. And, you know, this question of how far Israel has or has not come toward its goal of eliminating Hamas. And he told me that has led to around 85% of the population of Gaza being displaced. So I wanted to ask you, Hba, what does that look like in Gaza? So what's been happening over the last two weeks is that just as the truce between Israel and Hamas ended, the Israeli military began issuing orders for Gazans in the middle and southern areas of the Strip to evacuate. So people started fleeing to Rafah on the border with Egypt,

where hundreds of thousands of others had already fled during the beginning of the war. And in the nearly three weeks since more people started fleeing there, Rafah saw a 400% increase in its population density, according to the United Nations, which also said that it's now the most densely populated area in Gaza. So huge number of people descending on this tiny patch of land. Right. And as the displacement crisis grows, conditions there are becoming increasingly worse. The South was already overcrowded, and UN shelters shelters where most of the people that have fled to the South are staying in and are mostly schools are now operating four times over their capacity. An average of 12,000 people are staying in one UN school turned shelter. Wow.

As of now. 12,000 people in a school? Mm-hmm. Sharing only a few bathrooms with no running water or access to cleaning products. So shelter has become a really dire problem in this trip, but it's also not the only dire problem. Food shortages are leading people to go hungry. The UN recently found that 50% of displaced families in Gaza reported having members who go to sleep hungry at night. And on top of the hunger, access to clean water has been a major issue in Gaza. People have struggled to find clean drinking water and have resulted to drinking salty water, sea water,

water that hasn't been filtered. And speaking to people over the last few weeks, they've told me that a lot of them have went days with only drinking one cup of water. And now what we're seeing amid all of these horrible conditions is that cases of infectious diseases are being reported. The World Health Organization said last week that at least 369,000 cases of infectious diseases have been reported in Gaza since the war began.

Cases of infectious diseases have been reported in Gaza since the war began. And all of these numbers are estimated to be very underreported because many people who are sick are unable to reach a hospital or a clinic to get diagnosed. So we don't really know the real number. But the more people are crowded together and sharing bathrooms and drinking contaminated water, the more we're going to see people getting sick. And the truth is that I've been reporting on Gaza since the start of the fighting. And I've spoken to dozens of people from across the strip. But, you know, me and other reporters, we're not there.

We're not on the ground. I am personally based in Jerusalem and we're not able to go in and report from there. So we start most of our days, you know, my colleagues and I, with basically scrambling to reach anyone on the ground. Sometimes we would call people all day and reach one person. Some days we would reach no one. And, you know, often I would call someone to ask about something specific and they would immediately start telling me about their desperate situation. start telling me about their desperate situation. Without me even asking, they would tell me how they're staying in overcrowded shelters and they're with people they don't even know, that their kids are sick, that they are hungry and thirsty, that they can't even go to the

bathroom. And when they do, they have to queue for hours to get in. And it's not even clean. So it's been almost like every story has had those themes running through it. But one woman's story really stuck with me. And my colleague, Amira Harouda, spoke to her a week ago over the phone. Her name is Samah Al-Farra. Samah is a 46-year-old mother of 10. Her oldest son is 24 and her youngest daughter is 6. And they fled from the north during the first few weeks of fighting.

And after moving around a few times, they ended up all sharing one tent at a UN shelter on the beach in Rafah. And from what she was describing, it is a horrible situation. They're sleeping on the sand that she says was not clean because people were dumping dirty water there, because the rains were causing the sand to become muddy, and because there's no sanitation or sewage systems. There's also no garbage collecting services in Gaza. And what we're seeing is that garbage is piling up nearly everywhere. And the beach is no exception. And now that it's winter and the temperatures are dropping,

you know, it's getting cold and it's a tent. It doesn't protect them. And at one point during the interview, my colleague Amira asked her if she feels safe. And she immediately said no. She said that they can hear the sound of Israeli airstrikes above them at night. They're not able to sleep because of the anxiety and the fear, knowing that bombs are being dropped around them. And when we asked her, what are they eating?

She said nothing. They don't have anything to eat. And she told us that her six-year-old was so hungry that she would always ask for food. She would say, Mama, I want food. Mama, I want food. But she had nothing to give her. She told us that she's been going around her area, knocking on people's doors and asking if they could spare some clean water for her to give to her children. So she's actually begging for clean water? Right. And what about water to wash and bathe her children in? Well, they're using contaminated water that she told us smells really bad. And they're using that to drink and to wash. And she was telling us how when she washed her hands in this water,

she felt dirtier and not cleaner, that her hands smelled worse after she washed them. And the lack of clean water meant that they haven't been able to shower or clean themselves. And she told us that two of her daughters, her youngest, have lice. And she can't even brush their hair or wash it because she can't afford shampoo. So she was considering cutting their hair just to avoid that altogether. They've also got skin rashes and have been itching uncontrollably. But the most striking fact about this family is that only days after arriving at this UN shelter on the beach, the entire family began feeling sick.

or on the beach, the entire family began feeling sick. She was telling us how all of her children, as well as herself, have had high fever and have been vomiting and having diarrhea, and they haven't been able to go to a hospital or to see a doctor for several reasons. or to see a doctor for several reasons. One being that hospitals are completely overwhelmed and there won't be anyone available to help them there. And they're new to the area. They don't know Rafah, so they don't know which clinics exist and if they're even open or operational.

And even if they did find the clinic, she told us that they were too weak to walk there. So they have nothing to do except wait it out. So she hasn't actually had a diagnosis then because she actually can't get to the hospital. Exactly. She was telling us that her nine-year-old son was having seizures from what she assumed was the high fever, but she couldn't know for sure. And she was telling us how her six-year-old daughter, Hala, is so weak that she's sleeping all day. She's lying down and she is too tired to even scratch her own skin. So she's been asking her mom to scratch it for her. And she is now too weak to ask for food.

So she's no longer begging for food. Right. She cannot eat. she feels really helpless and there are not many options for her to help her kids and she told us that although they've been there for only a week at the shelter, but it feels like 60 years for her. Because every day has been so difficult on its own. And have you been in touch with Samah since then? No, my colleague Amira and I have been trying to reach her for days, but we don't know what Samah and her family are going through now. We don't know if they've gotten better or if they've gotten worse.

We don't know if Samah and her children are still alive. So, Heba, you've watched this change over the last few weeks in Gaza, this real breakdown in conditions on the ground. What are you going to be watching for in the next few weeks in Gaza, this real breakdown in conditions on the ground. What are you going to be watching for in the next few weeks? The next few weeks in Gaza are probably going to be very difficult. The World Health Organization said that they estimate that more people could die at the end of all of this from infectious diseases and hunger than from airstrikes. And we're going to start seeing more and more dire conditions in the south, specifically in Rafah, as more people flee there and as supplies continue to dwindle and as hospitals continue to go out of service. So the next couple of weeks in Gaza

are going to be very difficult. And I don't really know what will happen, but I keep thinking back to all the people I've spoken to over the last few weeks. And what they told me is that all they want is to be able to sleep for a full night uninterrupted. Even sleep in their own beds, go back to their homes that they've left. To share a meal with family members or even see family members that they haven't been able to see for weeks. And to take a warm shower. Just simple daily things that we take for granted, but that feel impossible for people in Gaza. Hiba, thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On Wednesday, European countries struck a major deal to overhaul their migration system in an effort to address surging anti-immigrant sentiment that is fueling the rise of far-right political parties across the continent. The agreement will make it easier to deport failed asylum seekers and to limit entry of migrants into the European Union. It seeks to give governments a greater sense of control over their borders while bolstering the

EU's role in migration, treating it as a European issue, not just a national one. migration, treating it as a European issue, not just a national one. The agreement has been in the works for years, but negotiators were under pressure to finalize it ahead of elections this summer across the bloc's 27 nations. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja, Ricky Nowetzki, Sydney Harper, and Diana Wynn. It was edited by Mark George and Lindsay Garrison, with help from Lisa Chow. Fact-Checked by Susan Lee contains original music by Dan Powell and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Amira Haruda.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.