'Critical question': Will there be 'full-scale' UN aid for Gaza, 'deployment of int'l peacekeepers'?

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00:00Well, let's go to New York. Let's bring in Yezid Saeed, Palestinian historian,

00:03former peace negotiator, and now senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Centre think tank in

00:08Beirut. Great to have you on the programme tonight, Yezid. First of all, I know you've

00:12been looking at the pitfalls, the pros, the cons of the 20-point peace plan. Give me your

00:19immediate thoughts. What sticks out for you in the hours and days ahead?

00:24I think the single most important thing right now is that we all proceed beyond the ceasefire

00:33that's been in place for the past 48 hours or so through the release of Israeli hostages from Gaza

00:39tomorrow and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. The critical question is, do we

00:46then move on from there to the full-scale resumption of aid, food, etc., supply across

00:55Gaza under the auspices of the United Nations, as detailed in the Trump plan, and to the deployment

01:01of international peace monitors or peacekeepers in Gaza, continuing Israeli withdrawal to the

01:07perimeter and the construction of a governing body for Gaza. That, to me, is the single most

01:15important part of the plan, because what it does, if it's achieved, is to take Gaza out

01:20of complete or total Israeli control for the first time in 57 years. And my big fear is

01:28that we get the ceasefire, but we never move past that to the remaining steps, not Palestinian

01:34statehood. That's too much to expect out of this plan, but just to the next step of establishing

01:39an international presence, a meaningful one, in Gaza that actually literally prevents further

01:45violence in Gaza. If we don't get there, Gaza is going to be stuck in misery, possibly with Israeli

01:52strikes anytime they see that there's a supposed threat. And we have a no war, no peace situation

01:57in Gaza that could go on for years again.

02:01And to each of those, well, at least 18 of those 20 points, you could probably find at least 18 problems

02:07and more with each individual point. If we talk about kind of the immediacy of step-by-step, the next few

02:14hours, from your reading of the agreement so far, from the last-minute problems we've just been talking

02:20about, do you see this going plain sailing? Do you see last-minute hitches? I think there's been

02:27some consternation amongst some Israelis. Could one, two hostages be retained if the prisoners, like

02:33Mawam Barghouti, for example, isn't released from Israeli prisons?

02:39Well, as your correspondent Israel said earlier on the programme, I agree that both sides are trying to

02:47extract what they can in these last hours before they, you know, fulfil their side of the deal

02:54tomorrow, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. I think that it's all

03:00going to go through with however many hitches. I think this will happen. And I don't think that,

03:06for one thing, I wouldn't expect Hamas to hold back any hostages, because that's not something they can

03:11hide. And that has no point. There's no leverage in having hostages no one knows about. I mean,

03:16so anything like that would be such a gross violation, that I think they wouldn't take

03:21that risk. Israel is in a much more powerful position. And the only reason Israel has signed

03:25up to this deal, which, by the way, Hamas had accepted a whole year ago. The difference being

03:30that then-President Joe Biden refused to leverage his power with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to

03:38force him to accept a deal, which he's been forced to this time by President Trump's very direct style of

03:43politics. So I think both sides, at the end of the day, are going to go through with this,

03:47no matter how painfully or how much distress it gives them. The real question is going to be

03:53immediately after whether, you know, we see the ceasefire deepening, the arrival of aid deepening,

03:59the withdrawal of forces deepening. Those are going to be the crucial moments where,

04:04if that extends into weeks and months with nothing further happening,

04:08that is where things could unravel and where Prime Minister Netanyahu could find various

04:13justifications to sabotage the entire deal. Because I don't think the idea that there's going to be

04:19basically a liberated Gaza that is finally free of Israeli control, that, with increasing recognition

04:26of the state of Palestine around the world, could be the thin edge of the wedge that he and the far

04:31right in Israel just cannot accept. If we look at what the leaders in Egypt will be talking about

04:37in the next 24 hours after President Trump leaves Israel, goes to Egypt, to Sharm el-Sheikh, where

04:41we'll see President Macron there, 20 other leaders, Sakiya Starmer from France and the UK. There's kind of

04:47three broad areas at least, aren't there? After the release, the exchange, you have the security for

04:52Gaza, stabilisation of Gaza, governance of Gaza. You have, within stabilisation, just heard recently from

04:59Tom Patterkin, who's on France 24 a lot. He's a surgeon, worked in Gaza City, worked at the Europe

05:05hospital as well, saying on healthcare, 18 of the 36 hospitals are only partially functioning,

05:10the others don't work at all. Most of them are buried, but he said, quote, billions of tonnes

05:14of rubble. So that's a huge healthcare system, complete revamp. You have security, and I'm sure you,

05:20like me, have seen these images of, and reports of Hamas trying to, since it's re-initilating 7,000

05:28fighters, and it's getting involved with other armed groups, kind of a battle for seizing the

05:33vacuum. What are you making of the security situation? Again, looking ahead.

05:37It's very fragile, very volatile. And let's remember, it's not just Hamas and allied Palestinian

05:44factions that have weapons. Israel has been arming local clans for the past year. And just the other

05:51day, I was in a program, there's an Israeli general in Tel Aviv claiming that these clans controlled 80%

05:58of Gaza. So there's a lot of manoeuvring here going on. Now, whether those numbers are true or not,

06:03the point is that the Israeli army has been pumping guns into the Palestinian side with allied

06:10militias. And so whether it's Hamas asserting some kind of law and order on the streets,

06:18or it's an international peacekeeping force that does that, which has yet to show up,

06:22we don't even know who's going to contribute to that, what its mandate will be, whether it'll have

06:26the power, the right, the authority, both to deal with armed clans and to block Israeli forces from

06:32reinvading or reentering. I mean, none of this is known so far. So the security situation could be

06:38very volatile. And ironically, basically, the only power, the only party that could claim to be able

06:45to bring some form of law and order to the streets of Gaza is likely to be Hamas. But again, this is why

06:52I say that if nothing moves on the political front, in terms of reconstruction, opening up Gaza for free

06:58movement of people and of goods, as Donald Trump has promised, if we get stuck in a situation of no

07:04war, no peace, then of course, we should accept that Hamas will try and fill the vacuum. Armed clans

07:10still backed by Israel will, of course, be pushed and promoted to collide with Hamas. And that's why I

07:16think it's great that Donald Trump is going to Cairo, that other leaders are meeting there to put, I think,

07:23more flesh on the bones of this, this agreement, and to basically say, what is the very next step

07:29that has to happen here? Yeah. So I think it's great that the momentum is being kept up.

07:34And that's a security situation to be seen for itself. Shomal Sheik is one of the smallest airports

07:38I think I've ever been to. That will be a site tomorrow. Let me ask you about something you said

07:42right at the start, which is fascinating, that for the first time in 60 years, since 67, we could see,

07:48your thought is, we may see a possibility, a chink, a window for Gaza to be controlled

07:53without Israeli influence. And when we look at the potential government governance,

07:59we saw the Observer article yesterday, headline was Tony of Arabia, you know,

08:03Tony Blair being potentially on this board of peace, a key figure in that. How do you see that

08:08manifesting? Is that a move that you think could work?

08:12Well, if you're talking about international governance, then I think it's, personally,

08:18it was something I anticipated on the 7th of October, as I tried to, you know, as I heard the

08:23first reports of what had happened in southern Israel, and I tried to work out what Hamas could

08:29possibly want out of this, and to then project where we could end up. I thought that some kind

08:34of Arab or international mandate over Gaza was the only logical outcome, because Israel would need

08:40security guarantees. It wouldn't relinquish control of Gaza without that, and that would have to take

08:46some form of Arab or international trusteeship. Now, my point really here is that if an international

08:54stabilization force deploys on the ground and takes over from the Israeli troops that withdraw to the

08:58perimeter of Gaza, and if an international governing body takes form, whether this is truly representative

09:05or is a colonial structure, frankly, I think what's crucial here is that this means that along with

09:12opening Gaza borders for the free movement of people and goods, as the Trump plan insists in several

09:20articles, then the reality is one where Israel does not control Gaza's borders anymore. It doesn't control

09:29access in and out anymore. It might have a say, but it won't have the kind of control where for 18 years

09:36it allowed the entry of food based on a calorific calculation of how many calories each person in

09:43Gaza was entitled to receive. I mean, it's a mind-boggling, horrifying thing to think of, that this

09:50is how Israel controlled Gaza for so long. So if we exit that, then Gaza is under some sort of international

09:59mandate or protection, even if it's not UN mandate. And with governments like France, UK, and others

10:06recognizing the state of Palestine without, interestingly, objection from the Trump administration,

10:12I mean, that was very noticeable. These governments could turn around and say, well, for the first time,

10:18we have a territorial base of the state of Palestine in Gaza, and we should now focus our attention on

10:25adding the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the territory of this state. And that is why I believe

10:30the far-right in Israel and Netanyahu will do everything they can to block the further development

10:36and progress of the Trump plan.

10:38Words of caution. Okay, great to talk to you tonight, Yezid. Yezid Saeed, Palestinian historian,

10:43former peace negotiator and senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Centre. Thank you for your time.

10:47I'm going to go.

10:55Be quiet.

11:00Get started.

11:01People love you.

11:02People love you.

11:06I know you're only a few people.

11:08I know you're even a few people.

11:10We don't have to go.

11:11We don't have.

11:12We don't have to go.

11:14Let's get started.

11:14We don't have to go.

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