00:00Elijah J. Manier is a veteran war correspondent and political risk analyst.
00:05Elijah, welcome back. Good to see you.
00:07Now that the Israeli Defense Force has formally declared Gaza a combat zone,
00:12would you talk us through what Israel's endgame might look like?
00:16Is the objective here solely defeating Hamas, or is there perhaps a broader strategic aim?
00:24Thank you for having me.
00:25For several weeks now, the Israeli Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, has been warning the Israeli society
00:33that the objectives foreborded by the Israeli government to dismantle Hamas military and politically
00:42and destroy its urban infrastructure in the Gaza city with the aim to liberate the 20 Israeli hostages
00:53still alive and the other 30 bodies is not achievable.
00:58And that created a real struggle between the government and the army,
01:04that the army doesn't want to assume a responsibility of the objectives set by the government
01:11that are not possible to meet.
01:14Can you give us an idea, perhaps, of what the likely timescale might be for this campaign?
01:23On the time scale of this campaign, the army is saying at least four to five months,
01:31but the government is saying only a few weeks.
01:34So there is a huge contradiction between what the politicians are saying
01:40and what the army, effective on the ground, understand the cost of clearing the tunnel,
01:46occupy district by district, Gaza City, host almost between 800,000 to 1 million inhabitants.
01:56This is really a dead trap for the Israeli army behind every building and every corner.
02:03You know the area well, as you've just suggested, there's a dense civilian population there.
02:11How might casualties rise if this military operation continues for some time?
02:19The Israelis are careless about the Palestinian casualties
02:23because mostly they consider that there are no civilians in Gaza
02:29and therefore anyone killed is good for a grab.
02:35So therefore this is not a concern.
02:37However, the concern of the Israeli army is about its own soldiers
02:43and this is why the chief of staff is raising this concern,
02:48warning that there will be many soldiers that will fall in such a very dense urban city
02:55like the Gaza City.
02:57With hostages, as we've been reporting, still unaccounted for in Gaza,
03:04how realistic is their survival now that this area is actively designated a combat zone?
03:13Well, I don't think there is any hope for the hostages
03:16because Hamas warned many months ago that if the Israeli army come close to the location
03:23of any of the Israeli hostages, then they will be immediately executed.
03:29This is what the Israeli chief of staff is aware of
03:32and he is telling the population in Israel,
03:36don't think of recovering any Israeli hostages in this operation,
03:41that this is not going to be his fault, but Benjamin Netanyahu's fault.
03:46Is Israel listening to anyone in the international community who calls for restraint?
03:53The only people the Israelis are listening to are the Americans
03:58who are encouraging the Israelis to continue in their operation
04:03because they want to transform Gaza into a big Riviera of the Middle East,
04:10which is something that President Donald Trump said
04:13and something that is extremely well welcomed by Benjamin Netanyahu
04:18and his far-right ministers
04:20and his votes by the finance minister, Bezaliz-Motrich, yesterday
04:26when he said,
04:27every day we grab more land and this is going to be our land
04:32and we're going to build 20 settlements in Gaza
04:35and force all the Palestinians to leave.
04:38That is another NACBA ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in Gaza.
04:44Elijah, thank you.
04:45Elijah J. Manier, the veteran war correspondent
04:47and political risk analyst.
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