00:00Our top story this hour. Three months after the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect, the
00:16United States now says the second phase of the agreement has begun. As part of that phase
00:22two, a 15-person Palestinian committee is to govern Gaza under the oversight of a so-called
00:28Board of Peace, which will be chaired by the US President Donald Trump. Now, for Palestinians
00:34in Gaza, the news has been met with both scepticism and some hope. Solange Moujean has our report.
00:42Be it under phase one or phase two of the Gaza peace plan, little has changed for these
00:47Palestinians. There are still strikes. They still live in tents. They can't go home. They are simply
00:53trying to survive and stay alive. Donald Trump's announcement that the second phase of the deal
00:59has begun was met here with much scepticism. What second phase or first phase are they talking
01:06about? They haven't even started the first phase yet. How can they start with the second? They've
01:10been bombing. We don't want ink on paper. We want real action on the ground. We don't want
01:15it to be like every other time, just words on paper and then things stay the same or even
01:19get worse. The Israelis are liars. We are in Gaza and we see on the ground that the war
01:25has not stopped. The bloodshed has not stopped and our suffering in the tents has not ended.
01:31Meant to end with phase one, fighting and block border crossings continue on the strip.
01:36The United Nations says that more than 100 children have been killed since the ceasefire was signed
01:41in October. We're now past 100 children killed. These children are killed from airstrikes, drone
01:47strikes, including suicide drones. They're killed from tank shelling. They're killed from live air
01:52munition. They're killed from quadcopters. With the first phase far from complete, the second phase is
01:57meant to include the disarming of Hamas and international peacekeepers arriving in Gaza.
02:03Many Palestinians hope that these promises will soon become a reality.
02:07We are happy with this news, but we ask God that it not be just empty words. We need this to be real
02:13because in the second phase, we will be able to return to our homes.
02:17A 15-member committee chaired by Ali Shah, the former deputy minister of the Palestinian Authority,
02:23will oversee what the U.S.'s special envoy calls the disarmament and reconstruction phase.
02:29And a Hamas official says the group is ready to hand over responsibilities to that Palestinian
02:34technocratic body.
02:36Solange Mujan for us there. Well, to talk a bit more then about the future of Gaza, I'm joined live
02:42on the programme by Yazid Sayyir. He is a senior fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East
02:48Centre. He joins us now from Beirut, Lebanon. Good afternoon to you. Thanks for joining us.
02:55Look, the first phase of that ceasefire, as we heard in our report, has not been fulfilled. Israeli
03:01airstrikes continue on Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. Aid access is still severely
03:07restricted by Israel. The disarmament of Hamas hasn't happened. At least one body of a hostage
03:12remains in Gaza. But despite all of those violations, the U.S. is pushing on now with phase two. Tell us
03:19why.
03:22I've lost you there.
03:24I said tell us why the U.S. is pushing on with phase two of the ceasefire.
03:27Right. Yes, of course. Well, I think from the U.S. position, it's partly a matter of maintaining
03:33political momentum. The appearance of the Trump plan is succeeding and working. U.S. Special Envoy
03:38Steve Whitcoff spoke about how the phase one had produced a ceasefire. Although, as we heard in your
03:44report, there have been hundreds of Palestinian deaths since then. Israeli forces have continued
03:49to inch forward on the separation line that runs down the middle of Gaza. There's a lot of good
03:57reason for skepticism. However, what I think we should focus on right now is that what has just
04:05happened is the formation of a so-called technocratic committee of Palestinian ministers or
04:10pseudo ministers who will actually run Gaza day to day in terms of providing basic services,
04:17repair and maintenance, all these functions of daily life. And so the critical question
04:22facing everyone, but especially, I think, facing President Trump, who, after all, chairs the
04:27so-called Board of Peace that is overseeing the entire Gaza reconstruction and Israeli withdrawal
04:34process. The challenge is, what will the Board of Peace do? What will U.S. President Trump do
04:40to empower this technocratic committee to make sure that it can go about its business on the ground
04:46without Israeli strikes and interference? And I'll just point out here that realistically, 80%, maybe
04:5490% or more of the people on the ground who will be working in schools, public health, water treatment,
05:03sanitation, garbage collection, anything to do with civilian life, all will have worked under the
05:08previous Hamas government. So let's be clear that this should not become a stumbling block that Israel
05:13uses to delay the beginning of the functioning of this technocratic committee. The other thing is,
05:19of course, to make sure that the technocratic committee, everything it does on the ground,
05:24is protected from Israeli strikes. We can't have a situation where Israel strikes, say, a power plant,
05:30an electricity generator, a water filtering plant on the grounds that there was a Hamas guy nearby.
05:36This has all got to stop. And the technocratic committee has to be able to import the machinery,
05:44the fuel, the supplies needed to have functioning hospitals, schools, municipalities, and so on. And
05:50that all falls back in the lap of the Board of Peace. It either has to put its politics where its
05:56mouth is or admit that it is unwilling or unable to deal with Israel on this matter.
06:02And look, as you say, it is Donald Trump himself who will be the chairman of this so-called Board
06:07of Peace that will oversee the work of the Palestinian Technocratic Governing Committee.
06:13With that in mind, then, given that it is still Israel that will control the borders of Gaza,
06:19who comes in, who goes out, where the aid comes in, how much power does this transitional
06:25administration really have? And can we say, actually, arguably, it's President Trump himself
06:29who is kind of de facto in control of what happens in Gaza?
06:35De facto, for sure. He is the single most powerful political player here and the only one
06:40who's got both the political muscle and potentially the reason to bring real pressure to bear on the
06:47Israeli government to abide by phase one, let alone phase two of the ceasefire agreement.
06:52Here, there are two important things that have not been implemented from phase one, which have to go
06:59hand in hand with a technocratic committee taking over day-to-day governance inside Gaza. And the first
07:05of those is the International Stabilization Force, which was supposed to be deployed immediately upon
07:10agreement of the ceasefire. That's back in October. That still hasn't shown up. And secondly,
07:16that Gazans should immediately be free to leave the territory and to return to the territory.
07:21And so far, Israel has continued to block that. So those two issues are critical as, you know,
07:27coming to your question, these two angles or dimensions are critical. And if President Trump
07:33doesn't work to pursue them, to get them done on the ground, then he's creating a technocratic
07:40committee that will effectively be unable to operate on the ground, not so much because of Hamas,
07:46but because of what Israel is doing and limiting. There's just no way to function
07:50technocratically under these kinds of conditions.
07:54And another element of this second phase is the gradual, we're told, withdrawal of Israeli
08:01troops from Gaza. A thought then on Israel's perspective on all of this. Is that something
08:07Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, might want? Do you think that that might happen? Or are we
08:13looking more like a sort of ongoing occupation, perhaps using other words, by Israel in Gaza?
08:22Well, I think there's a big part of the Israeli political spectrum centered on the prime minister,
08:29Netanyahu, and others who want to retain Gaza, all of Gaza, maybe start resettling Gaza with Jewish
08:36settlements and so on. But I think right now what's uppermost in Netanyahu's mind has been uppermost for
08:43two years and more. And that is his political calculations of how to remain in power, in office
08:50inside Israel, how to retain his far right allies while dealing with the US and the international
08:55community that are demanding meaningful change on the ground in Gaza. And I think with elections coming
09:00up anytime between now and October in Israel, Netanyahu is going to be loathe to make any
09:07significant concessions or appear to make significant concessions in Gaza, even if these are things that
09:13his government has already signed on to. And that's why I think that pushing forward on the deployment of
09:19international peacekeeping troops, pushing forward and opening up the border for the free movement of
09:23people and goods are critical measures. And we can't end up in a situation where the US administration
09:30basically turns a blind eye, allows Netanyahu to prolong things, keep his forces in the middle of
09:36Gaza, partly on the pretext that the international peacekeeping forces haven't deployed because they're
09:42the people who are meant to take over from Israeli forces as they withdraw. So we have to start moving on
09:48these other aspects of phase two in parallel with the setting up of the technocratic committee. These
09:54are, you know, integrally intertwined and the one will fail without the other.
09:59Just a final question for you. We haven't had the full names of who's on this Palestinian
10:03technocratic committee yet. We also haven't heard who's actually going to be on the board of peace,
10:08as I understand it, apart from Donald Trump himself and potentially one member of the United
10:12Nations. And the name Tony Blair was floated for a while in association with this, with this board
10:18of peace. And that certainly hasn't been confirmed yet. But what would you think about the idea of
10:22Tony Blair playing a role possibly now in the future of Gaza? I was asked this right on the day of
10:29when this was announced, three months ago or so, and I thought Blair would be a disaster. And I'll be,
10:35you know, technocratic about this. People appointed to the board should, you know,
10:41we should be able to assess them on merit and performance. Tony Blair has been the special
10:45envoy of the so-called Quartet to Palestine and Israel for getting on for 18 years, I think.
10:52And I can't think of a single achievement he delivered in that time. So if we go on merit,
10:59you know, performance based criteria, I don't think Tony Blair cuts it.
11:05All right. Really good to hear from you. Thank you very much indeed for your analysis.
11:08Yazid Sayeh talking to us there live from from Beirut. Thank you.
