Gaza ceasefire enters 'new phase' with new round of negotiations poised to begin

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00:00Douglas Herbert, our international affairs commentator, joins me on set. Hi, Doug.

00:03How are you?

00:05I'm good. Now, so this was the fourth such exchanges since the ceasefire took effect

00:10just under two weeks ago. And today, it seemed to go a lot more smoothly than last Thursday,

00:18didn't it?

00:18Look, a stark contrast with those chaotic scenes where the hostages were paraded,

00:23in many cases, in front of, you know, masked armed Hamas fighters and crowds of civilian

00:30Palestinians watching them as objects being, you know, being traded. And Netanyahu and other

00:36Israelis raised a lot of objections, what they called, you know, the severity, the propaganda,

00:40the use of the hostages as weaponized propaganda tools for Hamas, as they saw it.

00:45Look, we're entering a new phase here. Yeah, it was a smoother transfer. To date now,

00:50you've said there have been four separate batches of hostages released in the first phase. That's

00:54what it called for regular intervals of hostage releases. 33 are to be released altogether in

01:00this first 42 day phase. So far, we have seen 13 hostages released altogether, which means

01:06technically 20 remaining. It's important to note these are Israeli and Israeli foreign hostages as

01:13well, but not the Thai nationals. They're not included in this count. They were not included

01:16in the terms of this ceasefire agreement.

01:18It was on schedule.

01:19So yeah, so these are basically 20 now Israeli hostages remaining. Now, according to Hamas,

01:25eight of those are presumed dead, or they told the Israelis, eight of those are dead. So they

01:29would be bodies being returned, not living hostages. And Israel has, you know, basically

01:34not disputed that number. It believes also eight of them would be dead. So until now, we've had

01:39Israeli forces, we've had a ceasefire, but not a permanent one. We've had Israeli forces withdrawing

01:44from populated areas to border areas, but they aren't gone from Gaza by any means. And we have

01:52had a surge in aid into Gaza, flowing into Gaza, the number of trucks. What we haven't had, and

01:58this is where it's going to get tricky now, right? In the next few days, on the 16th day of this

02:03first phase, you're going to have the start of negotiations on the second phase, right? And the

02:07second phase is going to be perhaps the much heavier lift. It's going to call for not just a

02:11complete ceasefire, but a permanent ceasefire, an enduring ceasefire, unended, limitless. And it's

02:18also going to call for the remaining, all of the remaining living hostages to be returned, as well

02:25as, and here's where you could say it gets really tricky, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces,

02:30remaining ones from Gaza, right? They've already with, they will have withdrawn from the Philadelphia

02:34corridor in the south, but Netzerim, the Netzerim corridor is the one that from which they're,

02:38they've already withdrawn, but they'd have to withdraw from everywhere, back into Israel. So a

02:44lot of tricky steps ahead. I will note that early in the negotiations, remember Biden, Joe Biden put

02:50this deal last May, late last May, began negotiating it and originally had called for, or at least

02:55Hamas would have wanted all the hostages released in one fell swoop, in one stage, in return for,

03:01you know, up to 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, all at once, one phase. The reports are, and those

03:07Netanyahu's detractors say the reason we're seeing it spread out over three phases is that Netanyahu

03:12himself pressed for this phased solution because he knew that the longer you drew it out, the longer

03:17he could remain in power, the longer he could remain in power. Remember, this is what his

03:22critics would say of Netanyahu. He obviously is going to vehemently deny that that was any such

03:26plan. But in other words, the longer he remains in power, the more time until he has to so-called

03:30in quotes, face the music, whether it's, you know, his judicial trials are also investigations over

03:35what many consider, many Israelis consider his signal failings for on October 7th, 2023,

03:41letting this happen in a sense and letting his guard down. So delaying that process of having

03:47to reckon with a lot of criticism about his handling of October 7th and also affairs well

03:53beyond in his government in general. Now, turning our eyes back to Gaza, we've seen thousands of

03:58displaced Gazans being allowed to return to the Strip. Many want to rebuild Gaza, of course,

04:05but Donald Trump, for instance, recently called on Jordan and Egypt to take them in en masse. How

04:11do we interpret his comments? Yeah, this was a suggestion what Trump did. Let's put first what

04:15he said, what Trump said. He floated the idea last month. Remember, there's about estimated 2.3

04:20million pre-war population of Gaza, right? Most of them are largely homeless right now. You know,

04:26hundreds of thousands, perhaps upwards of 2 million, 90, 95% of the population homeless,

04:32left without homes because they were destroyed, displaced, uprooted, all of that. Donald Trump

04:36has basically said he's called Gaza a demolition site. And he has said, you know, we should just

04:42basically clean out the whole thing. That was those were his words, just clean out the whole

04:46thing. So basically, considering Gaza, essentially a garbage dump of homeless human beings, and

04:53saying, get them out, push them out, and ask Egypt and Jordan to go. Now, Egypt and Jordan,

04:59but not just. We've had powerful Arab nations, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Palestinian

05:07Authority, and the Arab League all saying, absolutely not. This is where they live. This is

05:11where they're staying. If they were to leave, it would put peace and stability and the hopes of

05:15coexistence and a two-state solution at risk. We are not taking any Palestinians, Mr. Trump. Now,

05:20he's holding by the plan, but we'll see what happens going ahead. He's gotten a lot of pushback

05:23in the region, not just pushback, outright rejection from the countries he wants to take

05:27Palestinians, saying that that is not going to happen. So watch this space.

05:31Of course, a rejection from the Palestinian people.

05:34And the Palestinian Authority, of course, the Palestinians themselves. They're saying,

05:36we are staying here. This is our home, our land. This is where we are.

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