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00:00After two months of relative calm, Palestinians are once more fleeing for their lives in Gaza
00:05after Israel effectively abandoned the territory's fragile ceasefire, launching a fresh all-out
00:11air and ground campaign against the militant group Hamas.
00:15At least 91 people have been killed and dozens more wounded across the enclave this Thursday.
00:22Israeli aircraft also dropped leaflets on residential neighbourhoods, ordering people
00:26out of several areas in the north, south and also in Gaza City.
00:31Hamas, which had not retaliated during the first 48 hours of the renewed assault, said
00:37its fighters have since fired rockets into Israel.
00:41For more, we're joined now by Dr H.A. Elier, Senior Fellow in Geopolitics and International
00:48Security at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
00:52Thanks so much for being with us on the programme this evening, Dr Elier.
00:57So is this essentially it then for the already fragile ceasefire that's been in place in
01:02Gaza since January?
01:06Thank you for having me on your programme.
01:07So the ceasefire agreement, which never became obviously a permanent ceasefire, was already
01:14being violated quite regularly, pretty much as soon as it was signed.
01:19You had around 100 Palestinians being killed in Gaza during the ceasefire period.
01:25This is before the latest round of escalation over the last few days.
01:32So there were quite a few violations of the ceasefire already.
01:35The Philadelphia corridor, which is on the border with Egypt, was supposed to have been
01:39evacuated by the Israelis.
01:41It hadn't been.
01:42There was another one.
01:44Different types of material coming in, different amounts of tents and other types of materials
01:50that were supposed to make life for people in Gaza a little bit more bearable.
01:55And that also was interfered with.
01:58So I think that what you've seen over the last couple of days is an Israeli decision
02:04to end this particular pause and to really roll the clock back.
02:11Over the course of the past couple of months, for example, the Israelis did leave the Netzerim
02:16corridor, which essentially split Gaza in two, and allowed for Palestinians to go from
02:22the south back to the north.
02:23Of course, they went to the north.
02:24There was nothing there because it had been destroyed overall, this bombardment.
02:29That's all being rolled back.
02:30The Netzerim corridor is being re-militarized and recaptured by the Israelis as we speak.
02:36It started happening very quickly.
02:38And the Israelis have made it clear that they will not be allowing people to go back up
02:43north.
02:44And frankly, I suspect that they will try to force Palestinians in the north to go south
02:50as quickly as possible and really go back to the situation as it was before the ceasefire
02:57agreement had been put in place.
02:59And we've been hearing that Israeli and US officials are going to have talks next week.
03:03Is there any hope at this point?
03:04Do you believe that Washington will be applying pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to put an end
03:10to this renewed conflict, or is he effectively acting at this point with impunity?
03:17So I would love to think that the United States would use any number of the points of leverage
03:22that it has on the Israelis, and they have many different points that they could use.
03:27But no, I don't think that's particularly likely.
03:30On the contrary, what we've seen is an empowering of the Israeli position and an empowering
03:34of the most hard right wing element of the Israeli position.
03:38The Riviera plan, I think, was really welcomed by the Israeli far right and the right wing
03:44in Israel.
03:45Of course, it was welcomed across the board more generally as well.
03:49But no, I think that really the Israelis are acting with a sense of impunity because they
03:54recognize that Washington is not going to interfere.
03:57And it's really Washington that has the ability to do so.
04:00That's the case when it comes to upholding the terms of the ceasefire in Lebanon, where
04:05the Israelis have yet to evacuate from the positions that they were supposed to in Lebanon.
04:11It's the case when it comes to Gaza.
04:13It's the case when it comes to Syria, where the Israelis have occupied more territory
04:18in the south of Syria and have been bombing it quite regularly since the downfall of the
04:22Assad regime.
04:24So what we see at the moment is an Israeli government that has decided that this is the
04:30way forward for its security paradigm.
04:33And unless they are forced to change that perception, then they'll keep on doing it.
04:39And really the only ones who can force them at this stage is the United States.
04:44Why do you believe that this particular campaign is happening now?
04:48Is it due to the domestic pressure that's being applied on the Israeli prime minister
04:53at home?
04:54Is it because the eyes of the world are focused elsewhere, particularly on Ukraine, as we've
04:58been seeing in recent weeks?
05:01So there's a few things really.
05:02First, I don't think that the Israelis ever wanted the ceasefire proposal to go forward
05:06in the first place.
05:07I think that the United States really pushed and pressured for it to happen because Donald
05:14Trump was coming into office and wanted there to be a deal and be able to present that deal
05:21as being an accomplishment that his administration had achieved before even coming into office.
05:27But even at the time that the deal was signed, the Israeli press were reporting that Netanyahu
05:33had gotten guarantees from both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration
05:39that if he wanted to return to war at any point, that he would have their support in
05:44doing so.
05:45So I don't think that there was any real desire to move from phase one of the deal to phase
05:50two, let alone phase three of the deal.
05:52Keep in mind, phase one is when they were going to get a bunch of hostages and prisoner
05:55exchanges.
05:56But phase two was going to be when they'd have to actually withdraw from the Gaza Strip
06:01and then an actual ceasefire would come into place.
06:04Phase three, of course, is about reconstruction.
06:06So I could see how the Israeli establishment would go through phase one, even if they didn't
06:13go through it completely, because it meant that they got something out of it.
06:16They got some of the hostages back.
06:19But when it came to phase two, it would be quite a bitter pill, I think, for them to
06:23swallow in terms of doing those sorts of withdrawals.
06:26And you see even the withdrawal that was supposed to take place in phase one, which had to do
06:30with the Philadelphia corridor, they did not go through with.
06:33So I don't think that they ever really wanted to go into phase two at all.
06:36And I think they were going to.
06:38It was always, you know, a real long shot if they were going to.
06:42Definitely the domestic situation in Israel is a factor here.
06:48That's what the Israelis themselves are saying.
06:50You see it all across the Israeli press.
06:52And there's a lot of opposition to this particular resumption of the war because of the fact
06:59that there are still all of these hostages that are still in Gaza.
07:02And the accusation that has been levied at the government is that this is really about
07:07Netanyahu's own domestic woes.
07:10But even without those, even without those woes, I think that the reality is that they
07:14never really wanted to go into phase two in the first place.
07:17Dr. Heller, we'll have to leave it there for now.
07:19Thank you so much for being with us, though, on the programme this evening.
07:23That's Dr. H. Heller from the Royal United Services Institute in London.
07:28In other world news...