Gaza War 2024, Gaza Hospital Shutdown, Biden's Complicated Legacy
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A year of ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas ends without a ceasefire. I think Netanyahu is waiting for Trump. What will stop the war in Gaza and free the hostages held by Hamas? I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News.

The last major hospital in North Gaza is no longer operating. Israeli forces raided and detained doctors and nurses, saying the hospital was being used by Hamas. Aid workers contend a lifeline is severed. Plus, as President Biden's political career ends, how will history judge his four years in the White House? Biden went from the dragon slayer to the one who brought the dragon back. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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People in the Middle East have spent this whole year waiting on a ceasefire, from combatants to civilians under fire in tents to hostages at locations unknown. And so as the year ends, we have a review of efforts to stop the war in Gaza. Talks were on again, off again. Moments of optimism were followed by weeks of no talks at all. NPR's Emily Fang is joining us from Tel Aviv to take us through this year of rocky negotiations as the war continues. Hi, Emily. Hi.

Hi, Leila. Okay, so earlier this month, we were hearing a lot of optimism that a deal was close before the end of the year and like so many times before a deal didn't come. What are the major roadblocks? The biggest roadblock is disagreement over how long this ceasefire could be. Hamas wants a permanent one. Israel has been insisting on a temporary truce first. And a Hamas official familiar with the negotiations told NPR late last week they just didn't see this as a real ceasefire proposal.

There's also disagreement over even how many Israeli hostages, dead or alive, Hamas would release, and then again, which Palestinian prisoners and detainees Israel would release, and also exactly where Israeli troops would withdraw from after that. The concern among Hamas is once they hand over Israeli hostages, Israel would just go back to war. And so this lack of trust on both sides is further hamstringing negotiations.

I spoke with Jamal Zahaka. He's a former member of Israel's parliament, and he used to work really closely with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And Zahaka told me he thinks the prime minister is now in no rush for a ceasefire, especially before a new U.S. administration takes over. I think Netanyahu is waiting for Trump, and if Trump make pressure on him or ask him to

Or put pressure on him to make a deal. And Zahaka says Netanyahu believes he can get more concessions if he waits for Trump to become president again because he sees Trump as a closer political ally than Biden. Okay, so let's say a ceasefire happens, if it were to happen. Is there any plan for what happens to Gaza then?

Right. Israel's stated goal in Gaza was to topple Hamas. And Hamas has been greatly crippled, but not totally destroyed. And now the big question is, who takes Hamas's place? Israel has never stated a plan for the day after war. The United Nations just said last month that 95 percent of schools in Gaza have been destroyed. The economy is gone. It's going to be a huge job to rebuild Gaza. So there's another Palestinian group, the Palestinian Authority, or PA. It's a rival to Hamas.

They want to govern Gaza. They already govern parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and they actually used to govern Gaza until they lost out to Hamas. So there's that. And then within Israel, there's another debate going on on whether maybe Israel should physically occupy and rule Gaza again. Is that something Israel is considering?

This is not yet the official position of Israel, and polls show there are lots more Israelis who also tell us they want to cease fire of any sort right now just to free the Israeli hostages held in Gaza. But there is another extreme proposal that's coming from what's called the settler movement, these right-wing Jewish activists who want to take land from Gaza and settle Jewish communities there. One of the founding members of this movement is Daniela Weiss, and I spoke to her earlier this month right outside the Gaza Strip.

When we take from the Gaza people, from the Gazans, land, soil, part of the Gaza Strip, this will be the attack price, the real punishment. As in punishment for the October 7th Hamas attack, she told me. And Weiss's idea is to kick out two million Palestinians from Gaza and end the war that way, though this is illegal by international law. So when I look back at the year, it's been a roller coaster. There's been tons of political maneuvering.

And in the end, as we end the year, the death toll in Gaza keeps ticking higher. That's NPR's Emily Fang in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Emily. Thanks, Leila.

With no ceasefire in sight, the last major hospital in northern Gaza is now shut down. Israeli forces raided it and detained many of its doctors and nurses. This hospital has treated patients during all the past several months, as Israeli forces conducted an offensive around Gaza's northern edge. Israel explains the raid by insisting the hospital was used as a Hamas stronghold. NPR international correspondent Ayyaba Chawi has been following the story closely.

Hi, Aya. Hi, Leila. So before we get to the raid, just describe the situation in this part of Gaza where this hospital was operating. Yeah.

Yeah. So this war has been dragging on for almost 15 months now. But about three months ago, Israel launched a very focused offensive on the north of Gaza, and they brought in a lot of firepower to do this. And they said this was aimed at Hamas fighters who were trying to regroup in this area. So they essentially laid siege to around 200,000 people. They had no access to water, food, any aid.

Many saw this as a starve or leave policy aimed at permanently expelling them from the territory. And a lot of them had to leave. The airstrikes were so severe and they were starving. But, you know, with no ambulances able to work, no rescue services able to operate and pull people from the rubble, this hospital, Kameda Adwen, became people's only lifeline. And so how did this hospital then become the focus of Israel's offensive on Hamas?

Well, this hospital, like others, has been raided previously in the war. But as Israel began issuing these blanket evacuation orders for all of North Gaza, this hospital and its director, Dr. Hossam Abou Safaya, refused to abide. And he started posting videos online of why. This is all that's left. This is the only one left.

So in this one, for example, you can hear severely wounded children connected to life support. He says he couldn't leave them behind and they couldn't be transported. He also told NPR earlier this month that the collapse of this hospital would mean the end of life itself in Gaza. And here you can hear him say that. But there was fighting around the hospital, which is located in the heart of Bitlahia in northern Gaza.

And Kumail Adwin suddenly found itself on the front lines of this war. It's water tanks, generators, ICU and other departments directly hit by Israeli fire. Even a young patient inside was wounded in the operating room. Staff and patients were among those killed and wounded at and around the hospital. You can hear the hospital here under fire.

And Dr. Abel Safiya was also among those wounded in these strikes, and his son was killed at the hospital's gates. And why does Israel say it needed to shut down this hospital? Israel says this hospital was being used by Hamas, and that in this operation and raid that shut down the hospital, they arrested 240 people they're accusing of being militants in the area, some of whom they say, they believe, were involved in the October 7th attack last year on Israel that sparked this war.

Now, Israel describes this raid as swift and covert, but among those detained is the director of the hospital, Dr. Abel Safaya. They say they're holding him for potential involvement with Hamas. But groups like the U.N.'s World Health Organization, Amnesty International and others are calling for his immediate release and the release of hundreds of medics detained in this war, saying they're really concerned about their safety and treatment in detention.

Now, it's also important to note that NPR has reached out to staff at the hospital in past weeks and months of this offensive, and they told us Hamas was not using the hospital for cover or operations. In fact, Dr. Abel Sofaya and others had been sheltering with their families in the hospital for safety. But the hospital also says that they treated whoever came, and Israel says that it detained some patients they suspect of being militants. That's NPR's international correspondent, Aya Batraoui. Thank you, Aya.

Thank you, Leila. Thank you.

President Biden will soon finish his term in a way that almost no other president ever has. Biden will be replaced by the president that he once replaced. And that is a big factor for any assessment of Biden's legacy. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith covered Biden's whole term and joins me now. Hi, Tam. Good morning. So at this moment, the focus is on how Biden's political career is ending. So remind us what Biden promised when he launched his bid in 2019.

He was explicit in the video announcing his campaign. He wanted to make Donald Trump a one-term president. I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.

Biden won the election in 2020 in the midst of the COVID pandemic, promising stability and competence at home and abroad. And in his first two years, Democrats also controlled Congress and they passed significant legislation. White House communications director Ben LeBolt points to the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Chips and Science Act.

and the Inflation Reduction Act. But many of these things will take years to come to fruition. The semiconductor factories opening, the transition to clean energy, and all the jobs that come with that. And so there will be a lasting impact here long past the moment that the president leaves office in January.

And that delay may mean that Biden's single term in office will be perceived more positively in the future than it is now. But it certainly didn't help his bid for reelection in his own self-assessment. Biden now argues that he's leaving the country in better shape than it was when he started. The unemployment rate is much lower than it was when Biden took office.

Crime is down. Wages are up, but so are prices. And globally, alliances may be stronger, but war is raging in the Middle East and Ukraine. Yeah. And to that point, Biden had a poor approval rating, but he still insisted on running for a second term until a terrible debate performance and pressure from his party forced him to drop out of the race.

Right. And I don't think you can overstate just how pivotal that debate against Trump was over the summer. Biden showed his age and froze in a way that shocked even his close allies. And by the time he dropped out and endorsed Vice President Harris, there were only about 100 days left to go. Presidential historian Tevi Troy told me that on Election Day, Biden's legacy flipped from the guy who defeated Trump to the one who enabled his return.

Biden went from the dragon slayer to the one who brought the dragon back.

Another historian told me Biden's legacy is now very much tied up with Trump's, which Biden policies Trump is able to reverse and whether Trump's second term is seen as a success. You know, we've been talking this week, of course, about the legacy of former President Jimmy Carter, the late Jimmy Carter. Now he passed away recently. He also was a one term president, but had decades post presidency to shape his impact on the country and the world. Biden just doesn't have that. How will that affect how he's going to be remembered?

Well, Biden's allies are looking to a different president, hoping that he will be more in the mold of LBJ, who history books look back on more fondly than when he left office. And Paris Tamerke, thank you. You're welcome.

And that's a first for Tuesday, December 31st. I'm Layla Fauden. And I'm Steve Inskeep. Your next listen is Consider This from NPR News. Up first, gives you three big stories of the day. And then our Consider This colleagues take a different approach, diving into a single news story and finding out what it means to you. And like this podcast, it's, you know, around 15 minutes or less. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Didi Skanky, Carrie Kahn, Dana Farrington, Jan Johnson, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Katie Klein, Ben Abrams, and Julie Deppenbrock. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

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