Israeli-Hamas Ceasefire Agreement Brings Relief, Uncertainty and Hope for the End of Brutal War
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. The first Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners have been released and Gazan exiles have begun returning to their war-ravaged communities after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal went into effect on Sunday. After 15 months of brutal war, the ceasefire has brought some relief, but also uncertainties.

Will it last? What will the terms be as time goes on? How can the Gaza Strip possibly be rebuilt? We'll get the latest on the ceasefire, talk about the next steps in the deal's structure, and hear some local reactions. That's all coming up next after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Finally, over the last 15 months, even the idea of a temporary peace in the Middle East seemed impossible.

The Israeli government brought the full force of its military to bear on Gaza with devastating consequences, killing tens of thousands and sending huge chunks of the population fleeing for some kind of safety.

Hamas refused to surrender despite the horrific conditions the war brought to Palestinians. Many hostages taken on October 7th remained separated from their loved ones. And the war brought consequences outside the Middle East, too, creating huge divisions among Americans, including many communities here in the Bay Area.

This ceasefire isn't the end of the conflict, but it was a prerequisite for greater change. And in any case, at least it's brought a reprieve from some of the suffering of the war. To discuss where things go from here, we're joined this morning by Andrew Roth, global affairs correspondent with The Guardian. Welcome, Andrew. Hi, good morning.

We're also joined by Omar Dajani, professor of law at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law and a board member of A Land for All. He's a former senior legal advisor with the PLO's Negotiation Support Unit. Welcome. Thanks so much. Great to be with you. We're also joined by Janine Zakaria, who's a lecturer at Stanford and former Jerusalem Bureau chief and Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post. Welcome, Janine. Hi.

Let's start just with the ceasefire itself. Andrew, what's happened? I mean, the way this deal is structured, there's a lot of checkpoints. There's a lot of, you know, kind of intricate steps. So what's happened over the last couple of days since the ceasefire went into effect? Yeah. So the key part of the ceasefire deal, I guess, would be that it's a hostages for ceasefire deal.

So since the ceasefire was signed last week, what we've seen is we've seen the first release from both sides of people being held as part of what's going to be rolling kind of exchanges over the coming weeks. So we've seen three of the hostages, three young women, were released from Gaza and then transferred to Syria.

Israeli forces. And we've also seen 90 Palestinians who are being held in Israel. We've seen them also be released as well. And what we're going to see over the next coming weeks is we're going to see each week something like three more of the hostages and scores more of Palestinians being released as time goes on until we get to the point where there's going to be a negotiation about sort of the second and third stages of the ceasefire deal. Yeah.

You know, we've also seen a lot of people in Gaza returning to communities that they had left while the fighting was going on. Tell us a little more about what The Guardian has reported there.

Yeah, I think that, you know, there's a duality to it. On the first side, I think that there is a lot of happiness that for the first time, you know, in more than a year and something like 15 months, there's the possibility of being Gaza and not having drones overhead, not having heavy bombs dropped on populated centers. So, you know, that's been quite an important relief from just the horrors of the war that have been carried out. But at the same time,

And people who are returning to their communities are finding that, you know, there really isn't much left there of what was there before the war. You know, bombing raids and drone raids have been carried out day after day.

Week after week in a lot of these areas, houses are unlivable, there aren't basic utilities, and it's really difficult to understand the scale of the kind of reconstruction that's going to have to take place in Gaza. And for that to happen, the ceasefire has to hold in the first place. So people, a lot of people, thousands of people are returning to their homes to find that there's nothing really left there.

And it just puts into scope the sort of enormity, you know, of this Israeli offensive on the region and also the question of what's really going to happen next and who's going to be able to foot the bill. Yeah.

You know, a lot has been made to, and it seems like both sides have wanted this to be seen, that there have been a return of Hamas armed folks in the streets, both the kind of soldiers and kind of more of a military police kind of presence. What do we know about how widespread that was and whether it was mostly for Hamas?

social media photo opportunities and how much it really indicates that Hamas is really running things in the streets.

I mean, you know, to the degree that we understand, it seems that Hamas is still, you know, is the dominant force, you know, in the region and in Gaza. And, you know, basically at this point is still has control, you know, obviously over the hostages, but also over the security situation there as well. But at the same time, they're facing one of the most difficult situations for the organization. There's a lot of pressure on them from all sides, obviously. And so they this is a kind of show of force.

You know, we saw those photos of the Israeli hostages being released. It was very carefully kind of planned to basically show that, you know, Hamas is still in charge and that it is a still dominant force there. Because there's going to be a lot of pressure, especially going into phase two of the ceasefire deal for the organization to be kind of ejected for something to replace them. And that's going to be a major political sticking point on all sides. So, you know, I

While we saw those images coming out that were really supposed to show that Hamas is dominant, it's one of the most precarious situations that it's been there since 2006. Omar, Dajani, we've checked in with you a couple times through this war. What have been your first reactions to the ceasefire? My first reaction was incredible relief. As Andrew was saying...

I think Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been living 24/7 with the anxiety that at any moment they or their loved ones would be killed by a bomb or a quadcopter drone or a sniper. And I think there's also been

uh, worry about whether folks would survive a given week. I mean, um, it's been incredible to see, uh, just this week, um, almost a thousand trucks delivering aid into the Gaza strip, but it's a huge contrast to what we were seeing two weeks ago. I mean, on January 16th, just a few days ago, there were only six trucks allowed. So there's real jubilation about, um, what this represents for folks. But, um,

But I am really worried. I mean, the task of rebuilding is going to be hugely expensive, $19 billion, according to the World Bank. And that's basically equivalent to the Palestinian territory's entire GDP in 2022.

There's already been an escalation of military activity in the West Bank with an Israeli military operation just tonight in Jenin that has killed a number of Palestinians. And so there is this constant anxiety about whether this ceasefire is actually going to endure. And President Trump's comments yesterday saying that he had no confidence that it would, I think, deepened that anxiety.

And then, you know, there's this lingering question, Alexis, that we've spoken about together about what comes next, what sort of path toward the future can come. And so I think that that, you know, also looms large over over this moment. We're going to talk about all that later in the show as well. Janine, how about for you as someone, you know, who has covered the Middle East for a long time? What was it like seeing this particular ceasefire go into effect?

Well, like Omar said, there was a sense of relief that things were going to move in a different direction now. It's very interesting to watch just how traumatic this has been, obviously for the Palestinians, but also for Israeli society, which is cleaved over this deal. I mean, you've really, you've got

You know, had a split screen the day this was going into effect where you had people opposed to the ceasefire blocking the entrance to Jerusalem, angry that this was going into effect. And then you had in Tel Aviv down the hill just outright jubilation that at the prospect of some of the hostages finally being released.

And, you know, I think it's, you know, as Omar was saying and Andrew, there is a lot of concern about whether the ceasefire will hold. At first I was, you know, hoping that at least it would hold the first six weeks. Um, and that's still may be true, but given the, the makeup of prime minister Netanyahu's coalition and his internal political concerns, I mean, he's got, as Omar pointed out, um,

You know, there's this new flare up just now in Janine in the West Bank, a town on the West Bank. And you have a minister in Bibi's government saying, you know, we have to fight. We have to fight here. And Hamas saying, you know, rise up. And so there's all these ways that the ceasefire can be torpedoed. Mm hmm.

It's interesting because, you know, when I read about what Israeli society wants, at least according to polling that's done, it seems like a majority of people do in fact want an end to the war there as well. But because of the governing coalition and its particular makeup, it's very difficult for it to happen. So, I mean, was it a surprise to you that even this ceasefire got done given that coalition?

No, it wasn't a surprise. I mean, you had the Biden administration working on this for so long. And then you had Steve Witkoff, Trump's advisor, coming in and saying whatever he said to Netanyahu. Netanyahu wants to get off on a good foot with Trump. So I'm not surprised. I think that what's

You know, what's what's interesting, I don't know if this is appreciated, you know, outside of Israel, is that you really have two takeaways in Israeli society from seeing those dozens of masked Hamas gunmen who escorted the three female hostages out and actually gave them these odd gift bags.

You know, one side is saying, look, see, this is the proof. You're never going to eliminate Hamas with military force. You destroyed the level, the Gaza Strip, and they're still there. And the other side, the more hawkish right wing side saying, see, you stopped. You didn't finish them off. And frankly, I think that there are probably many people in Gaza. I've spoken to Palestinians myself.

who want Hamas gone as well. So I think one of the things that needs to happen going forward, and I guess we'll talk about that later, is, you know, what kind of Palestinian leadership can be constituted there in Gaza that the Israelis can accept, that would benefit Palestinians and, you know, the Arab world too would accept. Yeah.

We're talking about the ceasefire agreement in the war in Gaza and went into effect this past weekend. What the deal means, what could happen next. We're joined by Janine Zakaria, who's a lecturer at Stanford and former Jerusalem bureau chief and Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post.

We're also joined by Andrew Roth, global affairs correspondent with The Guardian, as well as Omar Dajani, who's professor of law at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law and a board member of Land for All.

Of course, we want to hear from you as well. What was your reaction to the ceasefire agreement in the war in Gaza? What gives you some hope of a lasting peace out of this deal? You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-7223.

6786. You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, etc. We're KQED Forum and there's the Discord community as well. Steve over on the Discord writes, praying that it holds and that humanitarian relief now floods the region. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about the ceasefire in the Israel Hamas war. We're joined by Andrew Roth, Global Affairs correspondent with The Guardian, University of the Pacific professor of law Omar Dajani, and Stanford University lecturer Janine Zakaria, who's former Jerusalem bureau chief and Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post.

Andrew, I wanted you to walk us through the sort of three phases of this deal as we know it. Looking at it from the outside, there's a lot of places where this can break down. It almost feels like it needs to be renegotiated like every two days.

yeah i think that you know the beginning of it and this is a three-phase ceasefire deal um you know phase one is kind of the most straightforward and the one that i think uh you know appears to be holding so far although um as omar noted you know there's been considerable rising violence in the west bank and still a lot of concerns in gaza um that this could break down

So the first day lasts 42 days. And basically on a rolling basis every week, we're going to see, you know, several of the 33 Israeli hostages, which is basically going to include everybody except military age men. So female soldiers, women, et cetera, released. And we're going to see scores, you know, hundreds, actually up to a thousand Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel also being released. You know, there's a lot of trust building in that, I think, too.

to a certain degree, and the kind of carrot, I guess, of those continuing exchanges can kind of hold that as time goes on. At the same time, Israeli forces are going to pull out of populated areas in Gaza. You know, there's also going to be an influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza that's going to be carried out as well. And the idea is that this is really going to stabilize the aid situation there.

Around day 16 of the ceasefire, they're going to be moving into the second and third stages. So stage two is going to be a permanent ceasefire. You know, right now this is temporary. At that point, there's going to be more hostage exchanges. That's going to include the remaining living male hostages, you know, potential soldiers who would be released for more Palestinian prisoners.

And there's also going to be a full withdrawal of troops from Gaza. But the issue at this stage is that the negotiation of a permanent ceasefire and the other political considerations about the future of Hamas is a sticking point. There's a lot of concern and I would say some skepticism that Benjamin Netanyahu really plans to go any further than the first stage of the ceasefire. And he said,

kind of publicly that, you know, when and if Israel decides to go back in to Gaza, you know, with military force, that he has the backing of the Trump administration. The third stage is even more long-term and even, you know, you could say blurrier. The question is about, like, the full reconstruction of Gaza. You know, who is going to foot the bill for the billions of dollars that this is going to take to restore the region, you know, after this, this

a military onslaught that's been going over the last 15 months. And the question is also who's going to govern Gaza. The Qatari PM has just said that he hopes to see that the Palestinian Authority is going to be there. Anthony Blinken had also said something similar earlier. But, you know, the question is, would Hamas let that happen? Would Benjamin Netanyahu let that happen? You know, there's a lot of sticking points. And so right now, I think that it's all still very tentative. Yeah.

Omar, do you think that's realistic that the Palestinian Authority would, given all the history here, that the Palestinian Authority would be acceptable to either side in Gaza? I think that it's not hard to imagine Hamas accepting Gaza.

a Palestinian Authority government, particularly if there's an international role accompanying it for a transitional period, a significant transitional period.

I think it's harder to imagine Israel greenlighting that in light of the positions that its current government has taken. I think one of the big questions is going to be whether international third parties like the Saudis, the Emiratis and the Egyptians and the Qataris

along with the United States, put enough pressure on the Israelis, say, hey, there's really not an alternative here to a measure of Palestinian self-government going forward during this transitional period to make it happen. Jeanine, how about your take on that? What do you think?

Well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that I've heard former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad say that it would be some kind of new, not the Palestinian Authority per se, led by Mahmoud Abbas, but some kind of new coalition of Palestinian leaders,

who would basically be drawn from all the different factions. Right. I mean, I think it has to be something new precisely because of what Omar said. I mean, Netanyahu has ruled out either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. Right. And so it's got to be some new kind of Palestinian leadership. Yeah.

You know, Andrew Roth, I want to talk about I know you got to go in a few minutes. I want to talk about like why this happened now. You know, this deal has been on the table since the spring. The Biden administration put it out there. You know, lots of people looking at this might say, basically, did Trump get this done? Like what happened?

Yeah, you know, this is a deal that's been on the table since May at least and, you know, in some form or another since, you know, December maybe of the previous year. So the Biden administration and Joe Biden in particular, you know, put out this vision of what happened by saying that, you know, we employed dogged diplomacy day after day. We got the world behind us.

the military situation had to change in order for this deal to become palatable, you know, and for both sides to basically sign on to it. But a lot of people have actually seen this as a condemnation of the Biden administration's approach to the conflict and saying that they didn't put enough pressure and they didn't do enough, essentially, arm-twisting to get both sides to the table and to kind of change the situation themselves. The part, you know, both sides will say that

Both the Trump administration and the Biden administration were necessary for this to happen. The Biden administration had been working for months to get this done, but it does seem that the injection of Donald Trump as the new president and then Steve Witkoff, his envoy to the region, had a major effect in kind of getting this deal done.

the unpredictability of Trump vis-a-vis, especially Netanyahu, you know, somebody who may feel that he doesn't really know what to expect from the Trump administration and that if he irritates him, he could lose the kind of support that has been provided by the Biden administration throughout this process. So it does seem that

Biden administration officials say that, you know, Trump and Steve Witkoff added the 10 cents to the dollar to get this deal across the line. But that does seem like it was necessary for something to change. The big thing that changed in the weeks before, you know, the deal was made is that Donald Trump was elected president and that there was going to be a major change in the White House come January. Andrew Roth, Global Affairs correspondent with The Guardian. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

I wanted to follow up, Janine, with you on another factor that changed in the months between the spring and the ceasefire, which was that the Israeli military really pressed this campaign outside of Gaza, striking in Iran, Hezbollah. Do you think that was a major factor in the sort of changing proxy war with Iran?

Absolutely. I mean, this is not only like Steve Witkoff went and just closed the deal. It was essential, but the whole geopolitical landscape has changed, say, since last May, when people keep saying, oh, the contours of the deal are the same as they were in May 2024. But then subsequently, Yechia Sinwar was killed, the Israelis killed him, the architect of the October 7th

attacks in Israel. You had the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, which took down Iran's main proxy there, Hezbollah, and in spectacular fashion by killing Hassan Nasrallah and disabling, harming, injuring, killing so many scores of Hezbollah fighters.

And then, of course, the direct conflict that you had in recent months between Iran and Israel. And then, of course, Bashar al-Assad's gone. So Iran is extremely weak right now. Nobody came en masse to really... I mean, I guess the Houthis from Yemen have been firing at Israel with some regularity. But the whole geopolitical landscape has signaled to Hamas that they don't have as much support as they had hoped. So I think that made the situation ripe for the deal as well. Yeah.

Omar, I wanted to get your perspective on the change geopolitical situation. When you mentioned the list of third parties that would be involved, it did not have Iran in it. It had many of the other players in the Middle East. Do you think that makes it more likely that a deal will get struck? Yeah. I mean, I do think that the change in the strategic situation is

Means that some things that were unthinkable even a year or two ago have now become possible I mean I've been in conversations with folks about a new regional security framework we're hearing from the Saudis that they are keen to not only move forward with normalization with Israel pending

as they put it, irreversible steps toward Palestinian statehood, but also towards further normalizing and deepening their relationship with Iran. And so there is an array of positive possibilities that are out there. There is a regional security environment that could be radically improved in the coming few years.

if the Trump administration and other actors in the region commit themselves to it. And so the question to my mind is, will we see that kind of commitment at this juncture? Or can we expect the testing of the Trump administration, which will begin almost immediately, to bring us back to the status quo ante? Yeah.

I'm going to bring in some other voices here. First, let's hear Sam Hindi is former mayor of Foster City and member of the Palestinian American Coalition in San Francisco. Welcome, Sam. Good to be with you, Alexis. Thank you. So, Sam, what were your reactions to the ceasefire?

Well, I mean, it's really more importantly what's the reaction of the people in Gaza. But for me personally, obviously, it was a relief to see the killing stop, to see the destruction that has been brought upon the Palestinian population. And let me stress the innocent population of Gaza. But I, for me, I was two days ago, I was glued to the TV watching live as a

the people of Gaza reacting to the ceasefire. And needless to say, it was a mixed emotions that you could see on people's faces and the way people express their reaction to the ceasefire.

On one hand, they were relieved and they were joyful that they don't have to keep ducking every minute, every second, and just to stay alive or to figure out where they're going to sleep today and being displaced from one place to another.

But then as the day wore out, those folks, especially from northern Gaza, started heading back, and a lot of them did that on foot, back to their homes and to their communities. But clearly we know that there were no homes to go back to, which really was the situation. And we have to remember that throughout the 471 days,

the innocent civilians in Gaza really did not have any time to grieve because it was all about survival day to day, minute to minute. As the day set in, people obviously went back to their communities and found the utter destruction. They found how Israel obliterated all their communities. There was nothing standing. In addition,

you know, bodies were under the rubble. Many people went to look for their families. When they had to flee northern Gaza, they lost many people. I mean, it was all about trying to get out. Some family members were left behind. And when they came back two days ago, they found them unfortunately under the rubble. Some of them weren't alive. Yeah, very tough, very, very tough scenes.

I want to bring in another local voice as well. Jacqueline Meitz-Mushin is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Tell me about how you reacted as you saw the ceasefire roll out.

I had a strong sense of cautious hope. There was a lot of relief when the first three hostages were released and watching them be reunited with their family was really quite emotional and a lot of hope that the other hostages will be coming back soon.

soon and be able to reunite with their families. I also have a lot of hope for the Palestinians living in Gaza that with this pause in the war, that they would be able to start to figure out what the next steps are going to be for them as well. I think that the devastation across the region has been terrible. And if we have a break in the ongoing fighting, that hopefully that will enable people to move forward in a positive way. Yeah.

You know, you've talked about the need for the different sides in the Bay Area to come together. How would you imagine or like to see that happen in, you know, assuming this peace can hold for a while?

I would like there to be a recognition amongst those of us who live here and who have connections there that we can be most supportive and helpful if we are trying to dialogue in a positive way here. If everybody here were to be calling for peace together, if the diaspora Jewish community and the diaspora Palestinian community together could call for peace,

a kind of a peace and a move forward and a, you know, positive way for everybody to stay safe and also to pursue livelihoods and take care of their families. I think that that could be a very, very positive message that could be very supportive of folks that are there. I think right now the calls for violence that are coming from here are only fueling more and more violence there. Sam, can you,

I'm wondering now that there is a much greater throughput of humanitarian aid, whether the community here in the Bay Area is taking other kinds of action to make sure that they can get as much aid into Gaza as possible. Yes. So the community here in the Bay Area and actually throughout the United States have been very active in helping

providing as much humanitarian aid and support to the people in Gaza throughout this conflict and throughout this war. I just want to kind of bring a little bit, to give you some numbers for some of your audience who might not be aware, really the magnitude of this genocidal war that happened in Gaza.

By numbers, there have been more than 48,000 innocent Palestinians killed in this. There's estimated of 20,000 people under rubble. There have been more than 1.9 million civilians displaced and over 120,000 injured and 1,000 more killed now by the Israeli occupation forces. To understand the amount of bombing that happened,

estimates are that over 100,000 ton of bombs were thrown at Gaza. I did some calculation. That's roughly about six and a half times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. And given the geographical area in Gaza and the size of it, it has been said that this is really the most

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that people here may not understand is like we're talking something that's closer to the size of Alameda County than it is to the Bay Area or even Northern California. I mean, I think the other...

Statistic two is just how what percentage of buildings have been damaged, which of course complicates so many of the efforts to do anything when people don't have a home. I think the only other thing I wanted to say before we take a quick break is that the number of people killed, at least my understanding, is it doesn't actually differentiate between civilians and people who were fighting in the conflict.

We're talking about the ceasefire agreement for the war in Gaza. We're joined by Sam Hindi, former mayor of Foster City and member of the Palestinian American Coalition in San Francisco. Thanks so much for joining us, Sam. Also been joined by Jacqueline Maidsmushen, who is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland.

Joined by Omar Dajani, professor of law at the University of the Pacific, and Janine Zakaria, lecturer at Stanford University and former Jerusalem bureau chief for The Washington Post. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break. Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about the ceasefire agreement in the war in Gaza. It went into effect this past weekend.

Talking about what the deal means, what could happen, how it works. We're joined by Janine Sicari, a lecturer at Stanford University and former Jerusalem Bureau chief for The Washington Post. Also joined by Omar Dajani, professor of law at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law and a board member at Aland Publications.

for all. Earlier, we were joined by Andrew Roth, Global Affairs correspondent with The Guardian and Sam Hindi, former mayor of Foster City and member of the Palestinian American Coalition of San Francisco, as well as Jacqueline Mates-Mouchen, who is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland. We're going to take a couple of back-to-back calls here with differing viewpoints. Let's first bring in Susan in San Francisco. Welcome, Susan.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, sure can. Go ahead. Yeah.

Okay, so I would just like to make a few points here. First of all, I think the current deal is a really crappy deal for the Israelis, once again, for the ratio of the hostage to Palestinian terrorists that have been released from the Israeli jails. The second point I'd like to make is that as long as the hostages

Highly incentivized terrorist pay for slay program continues. The Israelis will never stop seeing terrorist attacks from the Palestinians. It offers huge amounts of money for any terrorist or any terrorist.

any Arab who commits a terrorist act against the Israelis or anybody in Israel, which results in a prison time. And the longer the prison time that they get, the more money that their family is allotted. They get continuous payments even once they're released and also free health care, free university education. The pay for slave program has been going on for a long time. And most people are very unaware of that. But that is in place continuously.

continues to be in place. And also the... Susan, let's stick with a couple of other... Let's take those two points. I'm going to go to another caller and then we're going to take these in combination. Let's go to Libby in Menlo Park.

Hello. This is a little bit different from the previous caller. Thank you so much for your panel. Thank you for acknowledging the situation of what's happening there and the need to rebuild. I just wanted to comment on how...

We see the names and faces of the hostages that are being released, so grateful that they're being released. We see the names and faces of their being released, but we are not seeing the names and faces of the people who are being released from Israeli prisoners, from, I'm sorry, Israeli prisons. And a lot of them are children who are 12 who have been abused. So I want the...

I would like to address the bias in mainstream media about a dehumanization of a population that is human. And that's something that we're seeing to this day. And I appreciate this panel and you. Thank you. Hey, thanks, Libby. And I appreciate Susan and Libby and lots of

intensely strong feelings on these topics. One thing I'll just note is the Guardian's coverage has covered individual folks being released from Israeli prisons. I know, Omar, also you've heard about some people. How do you make sense of the asymmetrical nature of these dual releases?

I think one of the things that accounts for it is the scale of arrests and imprisonment that's occurred, particularly over the last year and a half by Israel. So if we look at the numbers, part of what accounts for this is the fact that we've got thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention inside Israel.

If we take into consideration just the prisoner release that was undertaken yesterday, only eight of the 90 prisoners who were released yesterday were actually arrested before October 7th, 2023. And of those, you know, 69 of them were women. And I think it's useful sort of just to say

in response to the point that Susan raised, to also highlight who these people are. I mean, one of them is

One of the people released yesterday is a prominent Palestinian activist named Khalida Jarrah. And Khalida Jarrah was never convicted of any violent acts at all. She's an activist who was initially placed under administrative detention because of political activities like giving speeches and participating in public events. And she's been in prison since.

on and off for years on account of her political activities. So I think we have to really bear in mind the fact that, uh, we've got a huge number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. And then I think the other piece of the puzzle is of course, that, um, the, uh, uh, the Israeli government has, um,

incentive to try to get these get the hostages out of the Gaza Strip and is

using prisoners in a sense as a bargaining chip to achieve that goal. So I'm really happy that Israeli hostages are beginning to be released and I hope that not a single one is taken in the future. But what we have to also address really seriously, as Libby was suggesting, is the massive levels of incarceration of Palestinians, including not only terrorists.

Janine, would you agree with that characterization of sort of the basic groups of people held? Listen, I think, look, there was a lot of Israeli censorship of the images as the first number of Palestinians, rather, I think the first 90 were being moved to what's called Ofer prison. You had...

you know, you had like this split screen where it wasn't even split screen, but in Israel, they were covering the release of the three Israeli women hostages like OJ, you know, with the, with the Bronco every step of it. And you had to be, and if you switched over to Al Jazeera or whatever, you had a very distant camera view of the, of the prisoners being released from Ofer prison. The Israelis actually didn't want to highlight that some of the prisoners who are being released actually were involved in terror attacks. Yes, there are,

thousands of administrative detainees and I agree we need to take a deeper look at that and that should get more attention as the caller said but this is serious trauma that some of these people who carried out bus bombing planned bus bombings during the second intifada some people who actually have literal blood on their hands are going to be released in exchange for hostages that were taken from the music festival or from their homes

So if there's any kind of bargaining going on, I think it may be also in the other direction. Let's talk a little bit about the future focus of kind of the day after plans. We've touched on a little bit the difficulty of it. Janine, like how given that the Netanyahu administration has refused to talk about day after plans basically since the very beginning, how

What could you see, you know, shaping up in Israeli political or civil society that would say, like, this sort of is the direction?

All right, listen, let me be very blunt. I do not believe that there's going to be any positive day after in Gaza if Prime Minister Netanyahu with this coalition remains intact. It's just impossible. I just do not see how it will happen given the makeup of this coalition, given the political pressures, given his own attempts to stay out of jail for his own corruption trial. So the only thing I could see happening for a positive day after in that regard is if

he is forced to resign or if the coalition collapses because the second phase moves forward. One thing we didn't mention was earlier today, the IDF chief of staff resigned because of the failure to protect Israel on October 7th, the head of Israel Southern command, uh, in the military resigned and there are intense calls, you know, among half the country for BB to go. So if he goes and there's a new coalition government that could accept, um,

a reformed Palestinian leadership in Gaza and the Saudis and the Qataris and the international partners begin to fund rebuilding, then there could be potentially a positive outcome here. I also don't see a positive outcome, though, if Hamas remains in power. And whether those images were just propaganda with those fighters, with the

the masks releasing the women the other day, or if that was a true show of force, that's something that we need to figure out. It would be nice if the Palestinians in Gaza also rejected Hamas, if they were able and could welcome a new Palestinian leadership that could lead to a brighter, safer future for them as well. Yeah. You know, Omar, you obviously have been a land for all, has been putting out a vision for, you know, a future, you know,

Middle East, I would say. Do you feel like there is a there's a route towards self-governance for Palestinians? There's a route towards, you know, kind of a more lasting demilitarization of the area?

Well, I first of all completely agree with the point that Janine made about the challenge of moving forward from the present moment if the current Israeli coalition remains in place and also if we see Hamas remaining in power in the Gaza Strip in the ways that it has in the past.

So I think that we've got a lot of work to do to create a transitional framework for the next few years that can begin the task of rebuilding not only devastated homes in the Gaza Strip, but also government institutions for Palestinians and to create the kind of robust framework for governance that can see us forward. Now, A Land for All operates on the understanding that

the way in which the ultimate solution, a two-state solution, has previously been imagined, which is built upon the idea of ethnic separation, Israeli Jews on one side, Palestinians on the other, that that kind of vision is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to implement in light of all that has happened over the last 25 years, particularly the scale of Israeli settlement construction.

And so what we have undertaken to do is to set forward an alternative vision, one that is built on genuine interethnic partnership and freedom of movement for Palestinians and Israeli Jews across our common homeland. And the one thing I'd say about it is that that kind of vision is not only, to my mind, one that enables a two-state solution to work in the future,

It's also one that we have to begin building towards in the present. And so as we think about the different schemes for the day after that are being put forward by different actors, Americans, folks in the region, including Palestinians and Israelis, what we have to ask is, is this charting a path toward a scenario in which Palestinians and Israelis can live in

in two states inequality in the future or is this bringing us right back to conflict and that political horizon needs to be constantly in front of our eyes as we think about what to do next and

You know, Janine, as someone who has observed the attempts at a peace process and many of the other things that have happened in this conflict over the years, maybe you could reflect on kind of the long arc of this conflict and where we are in it. I think for a lot of people, it has felt like the very low point of the last decades. Do you feel that way? And do you think we're coming off of it?

You know, it's a really interesting question. I just want, maybe I'll go back to, you know, just October 7th, 2023 itself. And my first immediate reaction as I was watching this unfold, the attack on Israel, I said,

Israel is never going to recover from this. And when I shared that with people, you know, people said, well, what do you mean by that? And I just, you know, I had a vision of Israel leveling Gaza, right? I kind of had a feeling like all the things that we saw on my own campus and other campuses around the world, the isolation. And with that, when Israel is forced into a corner like that,

It's very hard to imagine how they would get on backtrack with the peace process. I mean, I love what Omar is working on and what he's trying to do. And myself, when I reported from there and was able to go to Ramallah and Gaza and all these things, and it's so doable, right? If you don't have the radical extremists on both sides undermining it. And so I don't know. I mean, I don't see...

the Trump administration necessarily having the focus that it will take to get us there. I don't see the willingness on the Israeli side and I don't, you know, and certainly after what the Palestinians have been through in Gaza, it's hard to imagine. Mahmoud Abbas is very old and when he goes, I don't know what's going to happen. So I think, you know, it's very hard to say where are we in this. We are definitely at an extremely low point though. There's no doubt about it. Yeah.

Omar, when it comes to the idea of Palestinian leadership,

How does that recover? Like, have you been studying how other places that essentially militarized in a conflict were able to come to some more administrative understanding of governing or like, or is that because of the one of the consequences of this war is that probably, as we've seen in other places around the world, there are more people who've been radicalized. So what are the early steps there?

Well, I mean, I don't think that the problems with Palestinian governance are primarily a consequence of radicalization. I think that the real difficulty that's been faced by Palestinian government for at least the last decade is this sense that the international community said, listen, if you build it, if you reform your institutions, as George Bush Jr. demanded, then

If you build robust internal systems of transparency and accountability, then the international community will support the establishment of a Palestinian state. And we haven't followed through. The international community has not followed through. And as a result...

I think the Palestinian leadership, folks like Mahmoud Abbas, who has a lot of flaws as a leader, but who again and again has expressed his firm commitment to peace. People like that get weakened as a consequence of our policies.

I do think, Alexis, that there are a lot of models in place with regard to how you accomplish security sector reform, how you reform the civil service and the Palestinian Authority, how you ensure that you've got systems of accountability.

I think all of those things can be achieved with hard work. And I think, honestly, there is a will to achieve them among many Palestinians. I think the question is, are we, the international community, and are the Israelis going to give the Palestinians the space that they need politically to succeed? And that means also really confronting head-on the fact that

That, you know, this is a more than 50 year military occupation that continues, that five million Palestinians in Israel-Palestine lack basic political rights. And if we fail to address that basic fact, I think we're simply not going to see an end to radicalization in Palestine.

We've been talking about the ceasefire agreement and the war in Gaza and the future of the region. Been joined by Omar Dajani, professor of law at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law and a board member at A Land for All. Thanks so much, Omar. Thank you. We've also been joined by Janine Zakaria, who is a lecturer at Stanford University and former Jerusalem Bureau chief and Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post. Thank you so much for joining us, Janine. My pleasure.

Earlier, we were joined by Andrew Roth, global affairs correspondent with The Guardian, as well as Sam Hindi, former mayor of Foster City and a member of the Palestinian American Coalition, San Francisco, as well as Jacqueline Mates-Mushen, who is senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Hey, have you heard of On Air Fest? It's a premier festival for sound and storytelling taking place in Brooklyn from February 19th through 21st. I'm Morgan Sung, host of KQED's new tech and culture show, Close All Taps, and I'll be there at the fest to give a sneak preview of the show, along with an

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