0:02

This

0:02

is Popular Front, a podcast

0:05

focused on the niche details of modern warfare

0:08

and underreported conflict with

0:11

me, Jake Hanrahan. Today

0:14

we're speaking to journalist Ari

0:16

Flandreich. He's been on the ground covering

0:19

the conflict, the new war between Israel

0:22

and Palestine. He's

0:24

going to be talking to us about the dire

0:26

situation on the ground, explaining

0:29

how and why this is happening now

0:31

and the various reactions

0:32

to the war between Israelis

0:35

and Palestinians. We will

0:38

also be running an episode speaking to

0:40

people directly on the ground in Gaza,

0:42

but as you can imagine it's quite difficult to

0:45

make that call happen right now considering they're under

0:47

daily bombings. Support

0:50

Popular Front at patreon.com

0:53

slash popular front.

1:02

Before we get into how this all

1:04

started, well it started a long time

1:07

ago before this recent war started.

1:10

Tell me, how have you been? What have you been doing? You've

1:12

been on the ground pretty much non-stop working. Where

1:15

have you been? What have you been doing? Ever

1:18

since things popped off, that was October 7th,

1:21

so that was roughly two weeks ago, I've been

1:24

basically moving, rotating between the two borders.

1:27

I spent a good amount of time at the beginning on

1:29

the Gazan border and what they call the Gazan envelope.

1:32

I

1:32

visited in Kfar Aza, which is one of the sites

1:35

of the massacre. I

1:37

was interviewing IDF soldiers. I interviewed the

1:39

commander who actually led the counterinsurgency

1:43

and his team. They were the ones who managed to

1:45

basically take control after roughly 48

1:47

hours. After

1:50

that, as things began escalating in the north,

1:53

I've been on the Lebanese border. So

1:55

there's a small town called Stoula, which has been the site

1:58

of quite a bit of anti-tank missiles.

1:59

And it was also,

2:02

this was also a big hotspot back in the 2006 war. I

2:05

mean, at that time you had, there were lots of

2:07

fears back then even of Hezbollah infiltrations.

2:10

And so in these villages and these border towns,

2:12

you had in many cases tunnels that had already

2:14

been penetrating some 60 meters into

2:17

Israeli territory. And I guess

2:19

the general sense is on the

2:21

on the Gazan end, the original, I

2:23

guess, the original target was the original

2:26

aim, which is trying to figure out what

2:28

actually happened. There's a whole

2:30

lot of confusion over how this happened,

2:32

what exactly happened, the extent

2:34

of the damage and destruction and how

2:37

the IDF managed. Well, it took them

2:39

quite a while to actually figure it out, but how they managed

2:41

eventually to take control over the situation. Those

2:44

conversations quickly turned

2:47

into questions about are they going

2:49

to invade and what does this ground invasion

2:51

look like, as it would be. This will be the first

2:53

ground invasion in just under a decade,

2:57

which is, which is pretty serious since then. It's

2:59

basically been, you know, those six to 12 day

3:01

rounds of fighting. Everyone gets what they want

3:04

and then they go back to the usual quiet.

3:08

And as you know, sorry, as

3:10

talk of a ground invasion came up, then

3:12

the Hezbollah threat became

3:15

front and center in Israeli news. And

3:17

so that's basically what I've been doing. I've been trying to go back

3:20

and forth figuring out what's

3:22

happening and what are these borders going to look like if

3:24

and when this becomes a multi front

3:27

confrontation. They've been saying they're going to go

3:29

for this ground invasion. Israel have been saying

3:31

this. They're going to do the ground invasion into Gaza for

3:33

about a week now. In the meantime,

3:36

they have just been completely pummeling Gaza.

3:38

I mean, frankly, indiscriminate

3:41

attacks on civilians many, many, many times,

3:44

like so many children dead. What

3:46

is it they're going to go into? If

3:49

they do this ground invasion, what exactly

3:51

is going to be left?

3:54

I guess

3:55

the quick answer is not a whole lot.

3:57

And you're mentioning a lot of indiscriminate

3:59

killing. And you know, I have the numbers right in

4:01

front of me. You have 4,000 Palestinians

4:03

killed roughly as of now. And

4:07

it's not accounting for however many hundreds, if not

4:09

thousands, might be still under the rubble. Of

4:11

those 4,000, 2,500 of them are women and children. And

4:16

so you can basically assume that I missed all this talk

4:19

amongst the IDF, that they've been killing

4:21

commanders. What we can really see is that

4:23

at least 90% of all of the casualties

4:26

are innocent civilians. And they

4:28

don't have a whole lot to show, to be

4:30

perfectly honest. We know that their main leadership,

4:33

people like Yahya Sinwar, for example, who runs

4:35

or heads the military wing of Gaza

4:38

and reports directly to the upper

4:40

echelons of Hamas based in Qatar, he's

4:43

in a tunnel somewhere. No one actually

4:45

knows where he is. And he's barely, much like Nasrallah,

4:47

he's barely come out for the last several years. So

4:52

basically what they've done is they completely

4:54

eliminated. They began with eliminating a

4:58

neighborhood called Il-Rimal, which

5:00

was known to house many Hamas officials, but it was

5:02

also just a generally upscale neighborhood

5:05

in Gaza with tons of shops, tons of malls. They

5:07

completely raised the entire

5:09

place. And that was meant to be both an

5:11

economic and a political hit to Hamas. They've

5:15

tried to target the family members of anyone

5:17

vaguely related to their higher officials.

5:23

To be honest, in the meantime, it doesn't look

5:25

like they've done a whole lot. But what we

5:27

do know is as of the last week, there's

5:29

been a massive effort, which began with them cutting

5:31

off the water and electricity. There's

5:34

been a massive effort to basically get up

5:37

to 1.1 million Gazans to flee the entire

5:39

northern half of the strip. And

5:42

that would presumably be to make way for

5:45

a full scale ground invasion. So

5:47

basically it would be get everyone out

5:50

of the northern part, destroy and

5:52

raise everything completely, then

5:55

get bulldozers in, move it out

5:57

of the way, and then you can make way for your ground

5:59

troops.

5:59

I was very briefly speaking

6:02

to someone whose family were in

6:04

Gaza and as is with many

6:07

people there they weren't exactly on friendly

6:09

terms with Hamas. They live in Gaza but they

6:12

don't like Hamas as is with many

6:14

people despite what the media want to present

6:16

it as. And this person was

6:19

saying that basically their family were told by

6:21

them, you don't go anywhere or

6:23

like you're in trouble because we need more people

6:26

here. Have you heard about this?

6:28

Yeah, I have and I can tell you for a

6:30

fact that that has happened, I

6:33

wouldn't go so far as to say that there's a massive

6:35

official Hamas operation

6:38

trying to block people because you have to also imagine

6:40

that a lot of Hamas's leadership right now, they

6:42

don't have the time to be spreading out checkpoints

6:44

across Gaza. A lot of them are in hiding

6:47

and everyone's scrambling as they're getting bombarded

6:49

day and night, 24 hours a day. But

6:52

we do know for a fact that Hamas has

6:54

been trying to prevent people from leaving their homes

6:56

because they know that that will be one

6:58

of the only things that would theoretically

7:01

stop Israel. I don't think it really would

7:03

as we can see. And

7:05

there have also been talks of people trying to

7:07

organize marches so that right

7:09

before the Israeli invasion you

7:12

might have whole scores of Gazans

7:14

swarming back to the northern portion of the strip.

7:17

But I don't know how concrete all that is

7:19

and I have my doubts as to whether those

7:22

numbers will be able, I mean you're talking about a population

7:24

of up to 1.1 million. So even

7:26

if you got 50,000 of those people, it

7:28

wouldn't put a big dent in Israel's plans.

7:31

That's a good point. Also, it's kind of relevant in

7:33

my opinion. Like, well, do they support them? Okay,

7:36

then their kids should die. That's just like how

7:38

the, at least how British media is presenting this

7:40

right now, which is fucking crazy. But we should

7:42

probably go back to how this new

7:44

war started. So for

7:46

anybody that's kind of not fully engaged

7:49

with it, not remembering it, didn't really pay

7:51

attention. Maybe you can just

7:53

go into how this new round started.

7:56

And I just want to say as well to the listeners, we are planning

7:59

to do a full-time interview on

8:01

interview with someone currently

8:03

in Gaza, but as you can probably imagine,

8:06

it's very difficult for communications. But

8:08

yeah, Ari, if you can please just, how

8:10

did this start? I'll give you the broader

8:13

answer very briefly and then we can zero in on the

8:15

actual event. So I recall in our last

8:17

conversation, which must

8:19

have been in May, we were talking about the

8:21

recent round of fighting between Islamic Jihad

8:23

and Israel. And the main question

8:26

or the main topic was basically, how

8:28

did all, what broke the dam? When did the dam

8:30

break? And the answer is in 2021,

8:32

as you know, and that was the first time the West Bank popped off

8:35

Hamas after a long silence began

8:38

bombarding Israel. They sort of came

8:40

back, they jumped back into the scene. And

8:42

it was the first time the West Bank people were firing on

8:45

Israeli troops. And to everyone's surprise,

8:47

even the Arab Israeli population, some 2 million

8:49

people comprising 20% of

8:52

the Israeli population rose up mainly

8:54

in mixed cities. And it was

8:56

the first, we can say it was basically,

9:00

something snapped, a dam broke. And

9:02

since then, as of October 2022, we

9:05

found that Hamas mended ties

9:08

with Islamic Jihad and they were traditionally rivals.

9:12

And it seems to me as though Hamas understood

9:14

that if they don't jump

9:16

on the Iranian gravy train, which

9:18

means making peace with Islamic Jihad, mending

9:21

ties with the Shia Axis and starting to

9:23

meet with Nasrallah, that in another 10 years,

9:25

they're going to find themselves obsolete, which means they're

9:27

not going to have money and they're not going to have territory

9:30

and they'll eventually wither. And so as

9:32

of October or November 2022, what we see

9:35

is a whole round of

9:37

reproachments, basically. So Islamic Jihad

9:39

and Hamas get together, they announce the formation

9:42

or the restoration of this

9:44

joint room, which basically means like all these factions

9:46

were back in business with each other. And

9:49

then within a month, they're meeting Hamas

9:52

is in Moscow, Hamas is then

9:54

mending ties with Syria. They're then meeting

9:56

with Nasrallah. They're invited to Iran

9:59

for a meeting with the with the leader and

10:02

since then what we've seen is that on

10:04

a near I'd say bi-weekly if not monthly

10:06

basis Islamic Jihad Hamas

10:09

are sitting in Beirut Somewhere in the

10:11

Dahiya in Nasrallah's bunker and

10:14

I can guarantee you they're not talking about cake So

10:18

so that's the sort of broader picture

10:20

and if you want to zero in on this event I

10:23

think we should go back about a month ago.

10:25

So as you know, I don't know if you heard so Usually

10:27

when Hamas wants something they

10:30

stay they launched these balloon campaigns they

10:32

call them the marches that the return marches or

10:34

marches of return and It's basically

10:36

when a bunch of Gazans congregate on the border

10:38

the ambulance and the ambulance is in the tents are

10:40

already for casualties the

10:43

Israelis line up on their side with snipers and It's

10:46

basically them sending incendiary balloons

10:48

over the border and it's in an attempt to burn agricultural

10:51

lands in the Gazan envelope those Israeli

10:53

towns along the border and You

10:55

know, maybe once or twice a day someone will try to take a shot

10:58

an Israeli soldier or explode or use

11:00

some IED Some pretty poorly

11:02

made ID And I

11:05

remember about three to four weeks ago. It must have been four

11:07

weeks ago now I was sitting with a friend

11:09

and he asked me why I think they're

11:11

doing it and you know, I for the

11:13

life of me I couldn't figure out why they were doing it because

11:15

usually they want building materials they

11:18

want to work permits for Gazans which brings a

11:20

lot of money into their economy and it

11:23

was really unclear as to what they were doing and Eventually

11:26

it ended and the Israelis were given the sense

11:28

that you know We had a bit of a flare-up and now things are quiet

11:31

and then two weeks later Which is one week before

11:34

the October 7th massacre Islamic

11:37

Jihad decided to run a military

11:40

exercise in Gaza in which

11:42

they actually practiced this parachuting as you can

11:44

see on videos And usually

11:46

they tend to run these exercises sort

11:48

of deeper into the strip But in this case they

11:51

ran the exercise so close

11:53

to the Israeli border that it set off air Air

11:56

raid sirens or bomb alarms in

11:58

the Gaza envelope And in

12:00

retrospect, what we understand is that this might well have

12:02

been an attempt to lull the Israelis

12:05

into a kind of complacency and to give

12:07

them this false sense of, you know, things

12:09

flared up. We shot some rockets, we

12:11

threw some balloons, and now you can expect

12:14

a bit of quiet. And that is until,

12:16

that brings us up to the morning of

12:18

October 7th. I was actually

12:21

up that night. I was at a wedding and I didn't

12:23

sleep the entire night. And at about 6.29,

12:26

I went to, you know, throw my head on my pillow, and

12:28

I did a brief scan of telegram before. And

12:31

suddenly I saw a red alert. I go outside,

12:34

shirtless, and I walk into the middle of the street outside

12:36

of Tel Aviv. And bombs

12:38

are going off. Everyone's still sleeping. And

12:41

it was entirely unclear what was going

12:43

on. The entire country was taken by surprise.

12:46

And I remember thinking that this is either a rogue

12:49

group that decided, you know, occasionally

12:51

you have a group that goes rogue, and then Hamas comes out and says,

12:54

no, no, it wasn't us. Or

12:56

you have the start of something very

12:59

concerning. And within 30 minutes

13:01

on Arabic language telegram channels, you saw the

13:03

word tasallul, which in Arabic means infiltration.

13:06

And from that point onward, you basically got photos

13:08

of the parachutes, and then you had Hamas guys

13:11

running around the Israeli towns. And what

13:13

happened was basically they staged multiple

13:16

incursions, penetrating

13:18

the fences. And we can estimate that at

13:21

the beginning, at least 100 militants

13:23

have come in, potentially more. And they

13:25

struck a few different military bases on the border.

13:30

They used drones to eliminate their comms.

13:32

You can see a video of them, you know, dropping an explosives

13:35

device on a satellite. And the

13:37

soldiers at that point were all sleeping. So they walked into

13:39

many of their rooms and massacred, you know,

13:41

large swaths of soldiers, you know,

13:43

sometimes 10 at a time. And

13:46

from there on, they proceeded

13:48

to enter and penetrate something

13:51

like 10 to 12 Israeli towns,

13:54

kibbutzim, you call them in Hebrew, along

13:56

the border. And

13:58

I...

13:59

I think we all know what happened after that. And what

14:02

the interesting point is that once that dam

14:05

broke, Gazans,

14:07

you see in the videos that there were tons of militants

14:09

that came in, but behind

14:11

them, there were a ton of regular Gazan civilians

14:14

who trailed in behind them. And

14:17

they then brought a tractor and opened up a bigger

14:19

hole in the fence. And for

14:21

the better portion of at least 24 hours,

14:23

I would say, there was just this open

14:26

highway between the

14:28

Gazan envelope, these Israeli towns and

14:31

Gaza proper. And some of these

14:34

areas were settler areas. So

14:37

the Palestinian word for them are

14:39

mustaltanin, which is settlers, but this

14:41

is Israel proper. Those don't count as settlements.

14:43

They're not illegal settlements, but of course the

14:45

Palestinians consider anything

14:48

on Israel, proper Israeli land to be

14:50

settlements, to be land that was taken and

14:53

conquered and stolen. Right. So

14:56

Hamas went in with this incredibly

14:58

well-planned attack. Many,

15:00

many civilians just killed, paraded

15:03

around, women stripped.

15:06

There's the video of the girl in the back of the truck,

15:09

people literally taking turns to spit on her

15:11

head as she's driven around. She was at this

15:13

music festival, right? I believe like something

15:16

like over 200 people were killed there, is

15:18

that correct? I think it

15:20

might've been more. And in many cases, we still

15:22

don't actually have a final number. I think there's

15:24

as many as 200 people that haven't

15:27

been accounted for. And they were just at a party, right?

15:29

It was what you call in Hebrew, Amisibat Teva, which

15:32

is like a nature party. And it's sort of

15:34

like a festival. Like there's many

15:36

different stages and there was up to, I think, a

15:38

thousand, there might've been more than a thousand people there.

15:41

And they're often held in like sort of nature-y

15:43

pastoral areas of Israel. And

15:46

it was right along the Gazan border, which

15:48

in my opinion was actually rather foolish. And

15:51

I don't know if they knew this was going to happen,

15:54

but it would have been obvious as they were preparing that there

15:56

were lights and music coming

15:59

from. this part of Nberi

16:01

that plays the site of the massacre, the festival massacre,

16:03

was part of their plan. And so I think

16:05

this was something they tacked on as

16:09

they were, as this operation unfolded.

16:12

Yeah, I mean, I understand

16:14

that the difference between right is a rebelling

16:16

force, whatever anybody thinks about them, whatever,

16:19

just that remove, if he's a rebelling force, they're

16:21

going to fight this group. But

16:24

this is a straight up massacre to go and kill

16:26

like hundreds of people at a party all unarmed

16:29

and also elderly

16:32

people just waiting for the bus were shot dead

16:34

in the streets. You know, your

16:37

average kind of like

16:40

persistently online white

16:43

communists would say, well, that's just collateral damage, but

16:45

there was no soldiers near those, those elderly

16:47

people who were just shot dead randomly like that. But

16:50

there was also soldiers

16:52

involved in this, right? So there was

16:54

outposts were overrun, I

16:56

believe like a base was stormed by Hamas.

16:59

What about that side of it? So there were multiple

17:02

bases because, you know, along the Israeli border, you

17:04

have multiple different checkpoints and bases

17:06

and several of them were stormed by

17:08

Israeli forces. They blew up numerous

17:11

jeeps. They blew up tanks.

17:13

In one case there was actually they blew

17:15

up a tank that was sitting on the border and they

17:18

pulled out several bodies. I think it was three.

17:21

One of them was alive and the other two were dead. And

17:26

to speak to so they penetrated these borders. They

17:28

went in and what ensued was just a huge

17:30

massacre. And

17:32

I think it's important to note that

17:36

afterwards when the idea finally cleared

17:38

the area, first of all, they

17:40

took and collected all of the munitions

17:43

that Hamas brought in and they put it in a room and there's

17:45

a photograph and you're looking at an obscene

17:48

amount of firepower, an

17:50

amount of firepower that would

17:52

leave anyone convinced that they were expecting

17:55

this to succeed, which is contrary to many people's

17:57

opinions. People's opinions are such that, you know,

17:59

many people get that Hamas

18:01

only intended to raid these bases

18:03

and then it just went so well that

18:05

they couldn't stop themselves. But

18:08

there's two things or three things that indicate that that

18:10

wasn't the case. The first thing is the amount

18:12

of firepower that was brought in. The second

18:14

thing is the amount of first aid and

18:17

food that the militants had brought with them, suggesting

18:19

that they were planning to stay for quite some time. And

18:22

the most important indication

18:24

is an operational playbook that

18:26

was actually found in one of the pickups.

18:30

And it basically, they released four

18:32

out of 14 pages and it shows that they'd

18:35

been planning this for a year. The document is

18:37

dated October 2022, which by

18:39

the way is exactly when this whole reproachment

18:41

with the Shia access and Hezbollah

18:43

began. And it shows that they had everything

18:46

down to the number of civilians,

18:49

the number of residents, the IDF

18:51

response times. All of this was noted.

18:54

And so this was a very well planned operation

18:58

and they were at least expecting

19:00

for this to carry on for quite some time.

19:04

So this would have been planned

19:06

months and months in advance. How

19:10

did Israel not

19:12

clock what was going on? I mean, it's kind

19:15

of projected often in the media

19:17

as if like Mossad, Israel, nowhere

19:20

to hide, we see you everywhere, this kind of thing. Well,

19:22

clearly that wasn't the case, but it's what

19:24

happened.

19:25

This is the golden question. And

19:28

I'd preface it with

19:31

a few comments, an interview that came out three

19:34

months ago. So this is about two and a half months before the massacre.

19:37

And there's a guy named General Yitzhak

19:39

Brek. He's a pretty well known

19:41

IDF general. And he has

19:43

been in the army for some maybe 60 or

19:46

several decades. And sometime

19:48

over the last few years, he was tasked by

19:51

the IDF with running an internal audit

19:54

of the IDF, which meant that for a period

19:56

of maybe a month or two, if not more, he

19:58

rotated between. every front

20:01

from the West Bank to the Gaza envelope to the Egyptian

20:03

border all the way through to Lebanon. Basically

20:06

trying to get a sense of like, are we ready? What

20:08

is our preparedness as an army? And

20:12

he came to the conclusion and released a report

20:15

to this effect that the IDF, while

20:18

we had been given the impression that they had over the course

20:20

of this nine year silence, thrusted

20:23

themselves 50 years into the future,

20:26

technologically and tactically and operationally,

20:28

logistically. In fact,

20:31

it became evident that they'd gone 30 years back that

20:33

they'd regressed. And he noticed things

20:35

like the rusty trucks, no

20:38

one had night vision goggles at posts, you

20:41

know, outposts were poorly protected. They

20:44

had cut 50% of many troop squadrons

20:46

such that you had, you

20:49

know, what should have been an eight person unit wound

20:52

up being a four person unit. And while those

20:54

eight people were meant to cover maybe eight kilometers,

20:57

you had less people or half the people covering

20:59

double the territory. And he came to

21:01

the conclusion and he says it in an interview that

21:04

a massacre is going to happen here. Those

21:06

are his words. And this brings

21:08

us to the next question, which is how in the world did

21:10

Hamas manage to penetrate what was meant to be one

21:12

of the most secure borders, both

21:14

above and underground in the world. And

21:18

what we see is, well,

21:21

first and foremost, we know

21:23

there's at least pretty solid rumors, reports

21:26

that the Egyptians had notified Israel, that

21:29

there was suspicious activity and that something was brewing.

21:32

The Americans apparently notified Israel.

21:35

And Sakhya Negbih, the head of the

21:37

chief of Homeland Security, as you'd call it in Israel,

21:40

he actually admitted last week that two

21:43

hours before this happened, so

21:45

at roughly 4.30 in the morning, intelligence

21:48

officials or Israeli security officials

21:50

had come to the border and

21:52

they had determined that everything was fine.

21:55

There was nothing unusual happening. And

21:59

now, as of the last two weeks, days, there's been

22:01

interviews with what

22:03

you'd call people who man the observation

22:05

posts, so regular soldiers. There's

22:08

one girl who was recorded saying that,

22:10

I saw people walking around with

22:12

maps in the days leading up to the attack. I

22:15

reported it and I was laughed at. So why

22:17

was

22:18

no one

22:20

paying attention?

22:23

This doesn't make sense to me. It

22:25

doesn't make any sense whatsoever and the Israelis

22:27

have, as of the last two weeks, you

22:29

know, they've come up with a very convenient line

22:32

which is right now we're at war and we're

22:35

not going to talk about this. This is no time to cast

22:37

doubts upon the security establishment.

22:40

You know, we're not perfect. A real

22:42

mistake happened and

22:44

this will all be investigated thoroughly once this is

22:46

all over. And the Israelis somehow

22:49

seem satisfied with that answer. I know this

22:51

has basically ceased to appear on main

22:54

headlines.

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23:18

popular front. Really?

23:23

So even the news is just like that's

23:25

okay, forget about it.

23:27

Basically, I mean, they're

23:30

just saying, you know, this isn't the time. We're

23:32

at war. This isn't a time for internal

23:34

disputes and they're always hearkening back.

23:36

They're referencing the whole judicial reform

23:39

schism that took place. Like, you know, they're saying,

23:41

you know, they're basically suggesting or gesturing

23:43

at this schism that happened

23:45

right before weakened us internally

23:47

and we don't have time for another schism.

23:51

Well, yeah, we could speculate

23:54

on that all day but I won't. Something

23:56

I think we have to talk about now is the kind

23:59

of reaction

23:59

on the Israel side. Now obviously

24:02

I understand Hamas come over killing

24:04

lots of civilians, horrible

24:07

you know footage coming out and

24:10

then now Gaza is

24:12

under its own massacre as well from the other side

24:14

you know and so like it's two massacres

24:17

don't make a right if you ask me but

24:19

it seems now that the whole

24:21

world not the whole world but a lot of the world especially

24:24

my clown country that I'm from

24:27

is kind of not even

24:30

condemning anymore the fact that

24:32

the majority of people dying in Gaza now

24:34

as civilians, babies are being killed

24:36

literally daily and

24:39

everyone's just kind of like well Hamas shouldn't

24:41

have done that it's like okay well two things

24:43

can be bad I really

24:46

cannot believe the callousness

24:48

that I've seen in even mainstream kind

24:51

of legacy press over here and

24:53

also extreme levels of censorship

24:56

internally to always present

24:58

things in the favor of Israel which is

25:01

not a conspiracy is happening I've heard from

25:03

people at very big newspapers that

25:05

this is happening and it's just

25:07

got very odd but I would like to

25:09

know what is the perspective from

25:11

the ground there you've been on the Israeli side obviously

25:13

you can't get into Gaza but what's the perspective

25:16

from like soldiers that kind of thing do they

25:18

I imagine they don't give a shit but like I

25:20

just think it would be interesting

25:21

to know you know locally what's

25:24

the idea is it fuck it we just have to kill everybody

25:26

it doesn't matter or they trying to make excuses

25:28

no we're not actually you know what's going on

25:30

it's a great question and

25:33

I've actually I've been interviewing a ton of soldiers

25:35

and the one word

25:37

that's continuously brought up is

25:40

revenge and I think

25:42

people are forgetting that we have not

25:44

seen despite all the crimes

25:46

committed in the West Bank and all the brutality that

25:48

we see on a daily basis we have not

25:50

yet seen an IDF that

25:53

is basically overcome

25:55

with revenge and that's a

25:57

very dangerous prospect and what we're

25:59

seeing seeing is I was on the

26:01

border about a week ago when I

26:04

spoke to a soldier, a reservist, who's

26:06

actually a settler as well. And

26:09

he said the following, well, I told him, I

26:11

said, what are we going to do? What's going to happen

26:13

now? You have one front, you might have another front.

26:16

How does this end? And he says, I'll

26:18

be totally honest with you. What we really

26:20

got to do is we got to finish them off quickly. He

26:24

said, we have to go in, we have to flatten

26:26

Gaza. We have to send all

26:28

of them running to the sea. Whoever we don't kill, we have

26:30

to send them running to the sea. And he was basically promoting

26:34

the notion of a large

26:36

scale massacre. And he and

26:38

in the caveat was that he said, you know, we're

26:40

not murderers, but this is just something we have

26:43

to do. And I heard this comment

26:45

over and over again. I heard it the other day also

26:47

on the north, on the northern deep in the northern front in a

26:49

place called Kiriachimunal, where a guy told me we

26:52

have to turn Gaza into a parking lot. And

26:55

this is something and you know, you can say

26:57

that these are isolated cases or individual

26:59

soldiers, but basically the same, at least a

27:01

synonymous narrative is being propagated by

27:03

the Israeli government and the mainstream media.

27:06

It's now been it's now an accepted

27:08

line to say we have to wipe

27:11

them out and we can no longer discriminate

27:13

between civilian and soldier

27:16

because they did the same thing to us. And

27:19

so it brings me back to the main point, which is that Israel

27:21

now has a license

27:23

to kill the likes of which they haven't

27:25

had perhaps ever. And

27:28

that's a very dangerous prospect.

27:30

That is a very dangerous prospect. And

27:34

I just cannot get my head around

27:36

people genuinely

27:40

barefaced saying, yeah, democratic Western

27:42

values was then being like

27:44

ban pro-Palestine protests.

27:47

It's OK when babies and children are killed

27:49

because they did

27:51

something awful. I just can't

27:53

get my head around it. I mean, maybe I'm being naive. I've been doing this

27:55

10 years now, but this seems so vicious

27:59

at this thing. How is it the

28:01

little baby's fault? You know what

28:03

I'm saying? I guess it's not, I don't know, I guess there's

28:05

no point in going on, right? We know how it is. But

28:08

it just seems like there's gonna be no

28:11

attempt at anything until literally

28:14

Gaza's gonna be uninhabitable. That's

28:16

the mission plan, right? That, so

28:19

the objectives, this just came

28:21

out as the last few days, and I think it's a very interesting

28:23

point, and it might let us segue

28:26

into either the West Bank or Lebanon, which

28:28

is as of in recent days, the Israelis

28:30

basically have said, or they formalized a plan,

28:33

and it is to go in to destroy

28:36

all of Hamas's infrastructure, which

28:38

includes their tunnel systems, which they've developed,

28:40

been developing for 10 years now. So

28:42

you can only imagine how sophisticated they are. And

28:45

to replace Hamas with,

28:48

this is the quote, which is very vague,

28:50

dangerously vague. We're going to replace

28:53

Hamas with a new security

28:56

regime. And just

28:58

to go back to your point where you say, how is it

29:00

possible that people are ignoring what's happening in Gaza,

29:03

and the fact that obviously two million Gazans did

29:05

not have anything to do with a

29:07

mission that was kept secret for at least

29:09

a year? And it's that the Israelis

29:11

and the Western world has the sense that

29:14

this all came out of a vacuum. I

29:17

mean, people have basically just ignored, which

29:19

is not to justify what happened. What

29:22

happened is absolutely horrendous. And

29:24

must be without a doubt, which must

29:26

be denounced. But

29:28

on the other hand, it didn't happen out of nowhere. And

29:31

I think the West is inclined to just see

29:34

this as people who one day woke

29:36

up, popped out of their house and decided they're going to butcher 1,000

29:38

to 1,500 Jews. And

29:42

that's not exactly the case. And

29:44

beyond that, Hamas has

29:47

to a large extent been propped up by the Israelis.

29:51

Between 2005 and 2007, when the PA had control after

29:55

Israel's withdrawal of Gaza, Israel

29:59

knew that Hamas was not a terrorist.

29:59

Hamas existed there.

30:01

And Israel knew that Gaza was Hamas's

30:03

stronghold. And my sense is that they

30:05

allowed them to exist in order to create

30:08

some schism within the Gazan population.

30:10

Better that they fight each other than unite

30:12

against us. And

30:15

then one day they woke up and PA

30:17

officials were being thrown off roots. And

30:19

ever since then, Hamas has been the convenient enemy

30:21

of Israel. Throw a few punches, take

30:24

a few punches. They get to say they're nitty

30:26

gritty resistance fighters and we get to say that we're

30:28

protecting our security.

30:30

Or safeguarding our security. I think

30:32

that's a good point. But it's funny because

30:35

up until this war, that

30:37

would be a very legitimate

30:39

thing to say. No one would question it. It's like, yeah,

30:42

that makes sense. Like it's kind of, even

30:45

pro Israeli writers have said such

30:47

things. But now everything's been turned on its

30:49

head. Just us having

30:51

this conversation will no doubt be called everything

30:53

you can think of. And it's very

30:56

weird, like the media landscape, I don't want to go on about it

30:58

too much because there's

31:00

nothing more annoying than journalists talking about journalism. But

31:02

the media landscape very, very quickly got

31:04

very dark. And I actually never

31:07

seen it this level.

31:09

As a rapport working out

31:11

there, how are you finding it? I

31:13

can't speak too much to my reporting because as

31:15

you know, I'm reporting with a publication and

31:19

I don't want to speak out of line. But

31:21

what I can definitely tell you is that it's

31:24

very difficult because ultimately the

31:26

bigger outlets have an agenda. And

31:29

they're also working within Israel, which

31:31

means that they're working with IDF spokespeople and

31:34

they're looking at every single article you put

31:36

out. And it's gotten to the point where, you know, in certain cases

31:38

they've come to us asking,

31:40

where did you get this line? We

31:42

want to make sure that this line is actually real. Al

31:45

Jazeera was recently kicked out of Israel,

31:47

I believe. Or in the meantime, they've

31:49

been prevented from filming and

31:52

reporting. It's

31:56

definitely difficult because Israel obviously doesn't

31:58

want anyone to get in the way of... what they see

32:00

as their get out of jail free

32:02

card. Yeah,

32:05

I don't really know what to say on that. It's

32:08

always been difficult, but it's very difficult

32:10

right now. And

32:13

my sense is that the Western outlets definitely

32:15

prioritize the Israeli

32:17

side. Because

32:19

I don't see a whole lot of

32:21

talk about Palestinian deaths, or

32:23

even individual stories that are simply zeroing

32:26

in and focusing exclusively

32:28

on the conditions or the circumstances,

32:31

the last year, the last two years. It's

32:34

all, as I said, it's the vacuum.

32:37

The reporting begins on October 7th. Right,

32:40

that's the issue. And we don't need to go over

32:42

it again. We've actually done

32:44

many, many reports on the various

32:46

histories and whatever. But it

32:49

feels very strange to be literally

32:52

kind of frowned at as a reporter

32:54

to be like, hey, I think it's really bad that babies

32:57

are being indiscriminately killed. And

32:59

for someone to be like, well, what about

33:01

the Hamas massacre? Like, yeah, that

33:04

was really fucking bad. And so

33:06

is killing babies. And it's like, oh,

33:08

God. Oh, it's like, I just

33:10

I cannot believe that that is like even

33:13

kind of an acceptable way to be. I've

33:16

just never seen people

33:18

so callously just cast aside

33:20

the idea that children's brains are being

33:22

blown to pieces. And well, that's

33:24

OK, because something bad really bad happened

33:26

two weeks ago. And it's like, like, we're meant

33:28

to relay information. And surely

33:31

if you're a war reporter, when when civilians

33:33

are being killed, you should really focus

33:35

on that. Now, I don't know. I

33:38

don't want to go on about it. It's depressing. But you

33:40

know, and we've been getting called everything. I mean,

33:42

we've already given shit like we whatever. You just move past

33:44

it and ignore it. But it is it is

33:46

strange to think that that's probably going to have a big

33:48

problem when we actually want to head over and report effort

33:50

documentary. You know, it's just like just

33:53

going, hey, this is bad. Or

33:55

even just not even saying that or going like here's what happened

33:59

is enough to be like, well, you know, you're

34:01

out, you're not in the group, whichever side

34:03

as well, you know, people are very angry from all directions

34:05

that it's just going, hey, this happened. But

34:08

anyway, let's talk

34:10

about the West Bank. What's happening in the rest

34:13

of Palestine right now? So

34:15

the West Bank has been, as you probably

34:17

know, relatively quiet.

34:19

It's a bit of a curious quiet

34:22

in the West Bank. What

34:24

we do know is that up until this

34:26

point, from October 7th up until now, you have 1000

34:29

terrorists in the West Bank. And

34:32

basically, as far as I understand, there's

34:34

massive Hamas roundups. Anyone

34:36

related, however loosely to Hamas is being

34:38

rounded up. And there's

34:40

roughly 80 to 90 people who have been killed

34:43

in the West Bank, which is, you know, it's

34:46

a noteworthy number. There's quite

34:48

a bit of death. And places

34:50

like Hawara, which is right outside of Nablus,

34:53

and has been the site of numerous terrorist attacks, is under

34:55

a complete siege. And

34:58

Tulkaram and Janine have also,

35:00

you know, they've had some clashes. The IDF

35:02

has been raiding Tulkaram quite a bit lately.

35:05

And there's also been scattered clashes between

35:07

Janine factions and the IDF. But by and

35:09

large, the situation seems to be contained.

35:13

And I think there is at least one question

35:15

in there, which is, I

35:17

mean, is it the PA or is

35:19

it the IDF? Or is there coordination

35:22

between the two? And we know is

35:24

that these 1000 arrests are not being done

35:26

by the PA. Despite the fact that,

35:28

you know, in the months leading up to this attack,

35:30

this massacre, the

35:33

PA was actually rounding up tons

35:35

of people. As of the Janine,

35:38

the last Janine operation, the PA began

35:40

to take greater control and

35:43

began to, you know, you know, exhibit

35:45

a degree of like, we're making a comeback now,

35:48

as if the Israelis had opened up a space for them to

35:50

operate. And this came alongside talks

35:54

of, you know, weapons having been brought to the PA

35:56

via Jordan in America. It

35:58

came alongside talks of Saudi normal. which

36:00

would have had to include

36:03

Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. And

36:07

I think we can assume that

36:09

right now there are backroom

36:12

talks between Jordan,

36:14

Egypt, the US and Israel, and

36:17

the PA, about bolstering the

36:19

PA and giving them a lot of incentive

36:21

to keep things quiet. And I think it probably goes something like

36:23

this. You guys keep the West Bank quiet because

36:25

we cannot afford to have ourselves spread thin. And

36:28

we can also not afford to have our scattered settlements

36:31

overrun by thousands, up to 3

36:34

million Palestinians. It's

36:36

a massive security risk. And

36:38

the number of settlers actually in the

36:40

West Bank are lower than what people think. You

36:43

have maybe 700,000 to 800,000 settlers, but a lot of the biggest settlements,

36:47

Ma'alayadhumim, which is like 120,000 people, it's

36:49

right on the border. A

36:53

lot of the big ones straddle the border such

36:55

that they might be facing the West

36:57

Bank, but their backs are to Israel,

37:00

which means if things ever pop off, people are just going to

37:02

turn around and flee inward. And so

37:04

what you have actually is not 3 million Palestinians

37:07

against 700,000 or 800,000. What

37:09

you have is 3 million Palestinians against

37:11

maybe 200,000. And those

37:13

aren't exact numbers, but it gives you a sense of how

37:16

big the security risk is in the

37:18

West Bank. And that's in

37:20

addition to the fact that some 60, I believe 60

37:23

to 70 percent of Israel's active army

37:26

is generally operating

37:28

in the West Bank. And so the question

37:30

is what happens when two other fronts

37:33

open up? And the last

37:35

point I'll make going back to the PA is

37:37

that we can't forget that the PA back in the day, they

37:39

had Gaza. And they have since

37:42

been rivals.

37:45

The rivalry between Hamas and the PA has

37:47

never ended. And

37:49

there's a lot of talk. I mentioned

37:51

one of the objectives of the Israelis now is to

37:54

implement a new security regime. No

37:57

one knows how that's going to happen, but I can tell you that The

38:00

Israelis are not going to take administrative control

38:02

of the Gaza Strip again, because it's an economic

38:04

and tactical nightmare. And the

38:06

only viable option seems to be the PA.

38:09

And so behind closed doors, I wouldn't

38:11

be surprised that I know many journalists, Palestinian

38:13

journalists as well, who are convinced that,

38:16

you know, the PA is being courted.

38:18

That's a really good point.

38:20

I hadn't even thought about. I yeah, that

38:23

sounds exactly right. What

38:26

a bad situation for the Palestinians

38:29

looking for some solidarity anywhere.

38:32

The Hezbollah have been

38:34

like really active as well on the border, right?

38:36

And they've been saying

38:38

a lot online like they're going to go in. They're going to go in. I

38:41

don't believe they actually have yet. You

38:43

were reporting near there, right? Can

38:45

you give us some idea what's going on with the

38:47

Hezbollah front? Yeah. So

38:50

as we said over the last year, Hamas

38:53

and Islamic Jihad have been meeting

38:55

on a regular basis with Hezbollah. And

38:58

it came to the point where I think they thought the

39:01

relationships were the relations were

39:03

comfy enough or secure enough

39:05

that Hezbollah actually declared that they'd given

39:08

Hamas free reign

39:10

to operate in southern Lebanon. Which

39:13

is a very interesting development that happened a

39:15

few months back. And what we've seen

39:17

since October 7th is

39:19

first of all, has an assarallah hasn't spoken. Which

39:22

is very rare. Usually has an assarallah

39:24

the moment something happens, he comes out and he speaks,

39:26

but he's kept his silence. And I know

39:29

many analysts who are saying that there's nothing worse than

39:31

a silent nazarallah. And

39:33

so over the last week,

39:35

especially you've had an escalation of several

39:37

of several escalations on the northern border.

39:40

You have, I think something

39:43

between 10 and 20 IDF soldiers

39:45

have been killed. Hezbollah,

39:48

they've also begun to count corpses over

39:50

the last few weeks. And you've had

39:52

a lot of anti-tank missile fire.

39:55

Exchanges of light gunfire and anti-tank missiles

39:58

across the border. And it

40:00

seems to be that everyone's

40:02

trying to maintain some

40:05

degree of composure. No one wants

40:07

to, as they say in Hebrew, break the dishes. But

40:11

there's a few things we should probably know, which is

40:13

there's also been two rocket barrages, but

40:16

interestingly, Hamas has taken responsibility

40:19

for those rocket barrages. Even though they were

40:21

done, they

40:23

were executed on Hezbollah territory, which means

40:25

they got full permission from Hezbollah, but

40:28

it allowed Hezbollah to evade accountability.

40:31

And it allowed Israel to basically

40:33

keep themselves composed because if Hezbollah

40:36

comes out and starts barraging Northern

40:39

Israel, Israel will have to respond. So

40:43

there's a few things we should know, which is what happened

40:46

in the South, which

40:48

is an infiltration, a large scale infiltration,

40:51

an occupation of Israeli border towns. That

40:54

has been the main fear

40:56

of Northern residents for many years

40:58

now. The people in the South never had

41:00

that fear. The people in the South understood

41:03

that, there's

41:05

a big barrier, there's tons of

41:08

monitoring systems, you got cameras, you got sensors,

41:10

you have an underground barrier. They

41:13

assumed that they were fine, but the Northern

41:15

border has always been

41:18

overcome by this kind of fear that any day they can

41:20

come in. And Hezbollah has made that clear. So

41:24

all in all, they're estimated to have 50,000 soldiers.

41:27

And of those 50,000, they have 8,000 to 100, which

41:30

is called the Redwan. And these are their

41:32

elite forces. And

41:35

they have the best equipment, they have the

41:37

best training. And these are guys who have also

41:39

been battle-worn. Like they've been

41:41

operating in Syria for upwards of a decade while

41:44

Israeli soldiers have been running around chasing kids with pocket

41:46

knives in the West Bank. Right, that's

41:48

something I was really thinking about. Like in terms

41:51

of, okay, now you're fighting a force like

41:53

this, it's a lot different to various

41:56

skirmishes on the border or

41:58

inside the West Bank. This is completely different.

41:59

Like you said, Hezbollah,

42:01

they're very bad now. Like you said,

42:03

they've been fighting on the side of Assad for

42:05

like a long time now, like a decade. And

42:08

they also, Hezbollah runs. First of

42:10

all, they have unlimited access to weapons. In

42:13

order for Hamas to get weapons, they have to have tunnels

42:15

under the Rafah border, they have to like smuggle

42:17

stuff and bribe people and it can't be in large

42:19

quantities. It's a huge mess. But

42:22

Hezbollah, they have tunnel systems running from,

42:24

I believe, the Syrian side into

42:26

Lebanon. And they just have free

42:28

flowing. It's a train of weapons

42:31

coming in all the time. And

42:33

the numbers tell us that, you know, over the course

42:35

of 51 days in 2006, Hezbollah reportedly

42:39

fired 3790 rockets. They're

42:43

now estimated to be able to fire

42:46

anywhere between four to six thousand

42:48

a day. Why then is Iron

42:51

Dome

42:52

not deflecting all of these? Now,

42:55

I know I know that the perception

42:57

of Iron Dome is that it's like ironclad, like

42:59

no one can get in. But from the outside

43:01

looking in, it seems like a lot got in. But

43:03

I know from when we were speaking, you said it's not quite that right.

43:06

Yeah. So in terms of the first few

43:08

days when, you know, October

43:11

7th to 10th, when you had quite a few bombs

43:13

that, you know, direct hits,

43:16

that was probably because usually Israel, usually

43:19

we have some sort of prelude to

43:22

flare ups. So Israel usually has like

43:24

a week where they can get their troops ready

43:26

and they position their Iron Dome. They make sure there's

43:28

enough stock, but they weren't ready. They were caught their pants

43:30

down. And so I think that's one reason

43:32

why it might have been less effective. And

43:34

the fears in the north is basically

43:37

that Hezbollah

43:39

has the ability to fire huge

43:41

amounts of rockets in a concentrated area

43:44

such that they could probably overwhelm

43:46

the Iron Dome in some cases. Interesting.

43:50

What do you think is going to go on with Iran? I know they're

43:52

saying a lot, they're talking a lot.

43:54

Do you think they're actually going to get properly

43:56

involved or they're just going to run it all through

43:58

Hezbollah? I can't see

44:01

them actually personally like you know really digging

44:03

in but I don't know as much as you

44:05

I highly doubt it. I mean

44:07

the Iranians are you know they're quite

44:09

they're pretty they're wimps

44:12

if we're gonna put it straight like they're pretty wimpy

44:14

you're on a hit list right now yep

44:16

definitely they're

44:19

wimps I think and I think

44:21

you can see as much in the way they manage

44:24

their proxies across the middle east right Hezbollah

44:26

basically is the middleman between

44:29

Iran and all of their operations the Iranians

44:31

have commanders and they have sort

44:33

of top guys who are going out mapping

44:35

up the strategy but the people who do

44:38

the work are

44:41

Hezbollah and then they have all kinds of Afghani,

44:43

Pakistani and and you know they have the Houthis

44:45

in Yemen but Iran

44:48

tries to keep themselves at a distance

44:50

and I think we know why and it's probably because

44:52

their interior

44:54

is pretty fragile. I

44:57

don't know if Iran could handle you know

45:00

a massive rocket barrage and troops

45:02

you know or maybe an American air raid I think that

45:04

would be a lot because there's a lot of elements in Iranian

45:06

society that you

45:08

know will be ready to jump on any opportunity.

45:11

What do you think? Well I think that

45:14

you're right and we've already seen it in Iraq

45:16

as well like Iran affiliated groups

45:19

Hashd al-Shaabi they were already

45:21

doing stuff like they bombed an American

45:24

position some

45:26

reports that some soldiers actually died but I don't

45:28

know if that's true I haven't looked at it properly and

45:31

yeah I just see it happening like that but what I do think is

45:33

when this is all over it

45:35

won't be over for Iran I can just see

45:37

Israel being like right now we get them

45:39

however that works out I don't know but

45:42

I'm pretty sure that the Americans will be

45:44

quite instrumental in that as well and

45:46

that's probably the reason why they're they're being so explicitly

45:49

supportive like I think Biden

45:51

making a wartime visit that's probably the first

45:53

time an American president has ever made such a

45:55

visit in the history of Israel and

45:58

I think yeah that's what I've seen And

46:00

I think it has a lot less to do with their love

46:02

of Israel I think this is

46:04

a huge strategic move because

46:07

they know that Israel is basically their last

46:09

hope in the Middle East and in a way Israel

46:11

much like Hamas for Iran or Hezbollah for Iran

46:13

They're also to some extent doing America's

46:15

dirty work. The Americans are like, you know, we're

46:17

gonna give you whatever you want And

46:20

you're gonna put your necks on the line Because

46:23

that's what we need because we don't want to get sucked back into

46:25

Iraq or Afghanistan, right? So

46:29

I think that's that's a pretty important point and

46:34

You know I think we're also forgetting

46:36

and in terms of the pace of all this because he mentioned

46:38

earlier on that, you know Everyone I've

46:41

seen a lot of people talking now and

46:43

and they're saying after one or two weeks,

46:45

you know They're like are they even gonna invade Gaza? Is

46:48

Hezbollah even gonna you know infiltrate

46:51

and I think the silence is very misleading

46:53

And I think we also have to remember that we're now on a different

46:56

clock just as we're now in a new era We're

46:58

also with that new era comes a new clock and

47:01

no one's rushing Hezbollah

47:03

knows they have time and you can see that they're

47:06

moving huge amounts of forces from

47:08

West Syria Which is dead as or which is usually

47:10

the American hotspot, right where they have their bases

47:13

and they're moving huge amounts of forces to South them

47:15

South Damascus and the Golan border

47:18

and that could be anywhere that could be you

47:20

know up to 100,000 people the

47:23

Houthis two days ago fired rockets

47:25

across the Red Sea That's where

47:27

Iran has some of their biggest missile factories and

47:30

basically a whole a whole a national militia

47:32

ready to die for them

47:34

Yeah, that was crazy. They had a huge

47:36

protest there as well.

47:38

Yeah, they got it some crazy That was probably

47:40

the biggest protests in the entire Middle East I mean,

47:43

they was crazier there than in Jordan, which is basically

47:45

I think 50 60 percent Palestinian

47:48

And so I think the conclusion we can draw

47:51

is that it's far from over And

47:54

I think at the very least and the last

47:56

point being that why would

47:59

Hamas which is, you know, they might

48:01

be terrorists and they might be butchers, but

48:03

they're a rational organization. They've

48:05

run a basically, they've basically

48:08

run a puppet state for the better

48:10

part of almost two decades. They

48:12

have a leadership that, you know, lives it up.

48:15

They're living in luxury in Qatar and in

48:17

Turkey. They're on private jets. They're eating nice food.

48:20

Why would they commit suicide if

48:22

they weren't given guarantees by

48:25

Hezbollah, that at some point they're going to open

48:27

up the second front and bail them out? That's

48:30

a question that I, that's the

48:32

question that's been lingering for me. I

48:35

think at the same time, though, those kind of alliances

48:37

can change in seconds. Yeah.

48:40

And the other one of the possibilities is that Hezbollah

48:43

is going to say, you know what, this isn't

48:45

worth it and we're going to feed you to the wolves.

48:47

And that might well happen. It's been quite funny.

48:50

One of our guys was like reading the

48:53

telegrams, one

48:55

of the like pro-Hezbollah ones and like loads

48:57

of the comments were just like, like in

48:59

Arabic, just like, why haven't you gone in

49:01

yet, you fucking pussies, which

49:04

was quite interesting to see. But

49:06

yeah, maybe I think you're right that this isn't going to be over

49:09

quick. Like definitely not. And we're not

49:11

going to know anything until the ground invasion

49:13

happens because I think the whole point, the

49:15

whole point is that they want Israel to get bogged down. They

49:18

want to see how they behave, how they operate in Gaza.

49:21

And they're also hoping that the West Bank pops off.

49:23

They want to spread them as thin

49:25

as they can before moving a finger.

49:27

Yeah, I think you're right.

49:29

Last year's one asked, what

49:31

about aid? How is aid for

49:34

people in Gaza? Obviously, they shot off the

49:36

electric, they shot off the water,

49:39

which I think is an international war crime.

49:42

But my country was like, oh, cool,

49:45

because that's yeah, honestly, it's just fucking

49:48

embarrassing. But

49:51

yeah, what's the situation now,

49:53

like trying to get aid or anything in

49:55

there? How are Palestinians even living

49:57

at this point in Gaza? It's...

49:59

It's not looking great. I

50:02

know, I'm almost certain, to be honest,

50:04

I have to admit, I haven't followed this as much as

50:07

I can. I've been on the move and sort of roaming

50:09

around the field quite a bit. But what I do know

50:12

is that two hostages were released last

50:14

night. I'm pretty sure that

50:16

aid is either on the border or has actually

50:18

been brought into Gaza. Do

50:20

you know if the aid has actually been brought in or is it

50:22

still waiting on the border? I don't know. I

50:25

heard that one of the routes

50:27

was bombed recently, so then

50:30

it was ready to go and then it couldn't go. There

50:32

were a lot. I know for a fact that it was bombed once.

50:34

There's also rumors about a day or two ago that they

50:36

bombed the same route after they repaired

50:38

it for the second time and that the

50:40

Israelis had a ton of concerns that

50:43

Hamas would use this to have things smuggled. They

50:45

didn't want the Egyptians checking

50:49

the aid supplies. They wanted to make sure that,

50:52

I think they wanted to keep half of the aid until

50:54

they could be certain that the aid got to the people,

50:57

innocent civilians who needed. As

51:01

for the water, I mean, you've got to give them credit.

51:03

They did turn the water back on in

51:05

half of Gaza, only in the

51:07

south. Having turned it all the way? Well, they turned off all the

51:09

water and people were like, well, we

51:11

don't have water. And then they're like, you know what? We're going to

51:13

give you water in the south. So maybe you should go there.

51:17

And that was obviously creating incentive to

51:20

expedite this evacuation. But

51:24

the situation isn't great. I know that hospitals

51:26

are also under threat

51:29

of bombing. Israel has notified numerous hospitals

51:31

that they're going to bomb them. And they've told

51:34

hospitals where you have a combination of

51:36

dying patients and their families and

51:38

civilians looking to take cover. And

51:40

they're like, you have a day to get everyone out.

51:43

And they're

51:45

just like, we can't. That just can't happen.

51:50

The situation is dire. And I don't

51:52

see it getting much better. But I think I

51:54

think they're going to have to get all of their aid before

51:57

Israel stages this ground invasion. And

52:00

I think this will be what allows

52:02

for more progress on hostage

52:04

exchanges. Hamas

52:07

is looking for some kind of lull

52:10

before the invasion.

52:12

And I think the aid and

52:14

the hostage, this whole saga will

52:17

be at the center of that lull.

52:18

But I might be wrong. All right, bro. Well,

52:21

we'll speak again soon. Thanks so much

52:23

for taking the time to do this and stay cautious

52:25

out there. I think you're one of the most

52:27

level-headed reporters out there as well. Don't

52:30

worry. We'll both get called everything under

52:32

the sun for this. But it's OK. Stay

52:34

cautious out there, man. And I hope things work

52:37

out. Take it easy. Thanks for having

52:38

me. Thanks, man. If people want to follow your work, where

52:41

can they do that? Direct them. R-E-A-R-I,

52:43

FlandsRage. S-L-A-N-Z-R-A-I-C-H. I guess Instagram.

52:46

Is that the best way, yeah? Yeah, I think so. All

52:48

right, mate. Cool.

52:50

All right, man. Speak soon. Take

52:52

it easy.

53:04

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