00:00 For more, we can speak to Dr. Robert Geist-Pinfeld, a lecturer in peace and security at Durham
00:05 University. Thank you for speaking to the program. Not sure if you're able to follow
00:09 along with that last report, but we saw images provided by the Israeli military
00:14 from al-Shifa Hospital. Given what they alleged to have found there, do you think other hospitals
00:20 will follow? Well, Israel has been saying for some time now that Hamas has been using
00:27 hospitals as kind of safe zones for them to store weapons, to store munitions, and indeed to even
00:35 store hostages and host command and control centres. Now, that was the key accusation here
00:41 against the Shifa Hospital. Israel even released a video once of a Hamas bunker and a huge complex
00:48 underneath the facility. This was verified by US intelligence as well. But so far, Israel,
00:54 as that Human Rights Watch report noted, Israel has found limited evidence of any of those things
01:02 that it's looking for. Yes, it's found some weapons. Yes, it's found a tunnel. But it
01:06 originally went to Shifa to find this complex, to find the hostages. And so far, we have,
01:12 unfortunately, the bodies of two deceased hostages in a building next to the hospital.
01:16 But Israel has to tread very, very carefully here, because anything that it does like this
01:23 is obviously perceived as an escalation. It's obviously perceived as something that
01:26 is undesirable, that creates bad press for it. And if that escalates to the point where Israel
01:32 can't justify this incursion and its incursion into other hospitals, like the Al-Rantezi Hospital
01:37 not long ago, then it's going to face increasing pressure for a ceasefire, including from its
01:43 traditional partners, for example, the US. So Israel is on a race against time here to find
01:48 enough evidence to justify this operation. Because otherwise, if it doesn't, this operation
01:54 could risk compromising its entire operational plans for the Gaza Strip.
01:59 And some would say it already has trouble justifying this current operation. The question
02:04 11,400 people killed, two thirds of those women and children. At what point does Israel
02:10 have the right to self-defense in Gaza?
02:15 Well, this is something that the international community has been grappling with. Obviously,
02:19 the key precipitant that started Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip was the killing of
02:27 around 1,200 Israelis within Israel on October the 7th, the vast majority of them civilians,
02:33 and the abduction of those 240 hostages from Israel into the Gaza Strip. Now, this
02:42 really illustrates here Israel's conflicting war aims and its desire to defend itself and
02:48 to project deterrence. On the one hand, there is an overwhelming public support in Israel for it to
02:54 destroy Hamas, to dismantle Hamas in the Gaza Strip and make sure that that group no longer
03:00 poses a strategic threat to Israel, therefore defending itself. On the other hand, Israel's
03:06 public also want to see the immediate release of those 240 hostages. And those goals can actually
03:13 be conflicting because the Biden administration has been negotiating behind the scenes with Qatar,
03:17 with other actors to basically try and engineer a ceasefire that would see the return of the
03:22 hostages. Now, Israel, as I said, the government is under pressure to get those hostages back,
03:27 but it also wants to have time to complete its grand operation to neutralize Hamas,
03:32 to remove it from power and therefore to project deterrence and indeed to argue that it has
03:38 successfully defended itself and stop this from ever happening again. So there's a clear
03:41 contradiction in Israel's war aims and again, a tight balancing act for them to pursue in the
03:48 near future. Yeah. And on that last note, if it does neutralize Hamas and remove them from power,
03:53 what would happen? What would be next? What's the exit strategy?
03:58 So this is a key source of tension between Israel and the Biden administration. The Biden
04:03 administration, don't forget this is the US, they've had long occupations of Afghanistan
04:08 and Iraq where they didn't have a sort of day after plan. And they've learned from that. And
04:13 the US was saying to the Israelis for a long time, including before the grand invasion,
04:17 you need to tell us what happens next. Our support for your operation is conditional on you
04:22 demonstrating a plan for the day after Hamas, you know, what's going to happen. And this is a
04:28 continuing source of friction because the US has backed the Palestinian Authority coming into Gaza
04:34 to take control of those urban areas in the power vacuum that removing Hamas would create.
04:39 There's been some talk of a multinational Arab coalition helping prop up the Palestinian
04:44 Authority. Israel has categorically rejected both of those options. Nonetheless, Israel's government
04:51 and Israeli policy for decades has sought to remove itself from the day to day bureaucracy
04:59 and control of civilian affairs within the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Israel does not like
05:04 controlling education, health care, policing, for example. So someone needs to do this that
05:10 is not Israel, but Israel at the same time is rejecting some of the offers put forward by
05:15 and suggestions put forward by the United States. The key risk here is that we end up with a kind
05:21 of return to the status quo before October the 7th of Israel establishing some kind of a buffer
05:26 zone within the Gaza Strip that it feels helps protect itself, but the potential return of Hamas
05:31 in those areas if a power vacuum is indeed created that isn't filled very quickly.
05:37 Rob, thank you very much for your time. Dr. Rob Geist-Pinfeld speaking to us from Durham.
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