Aya Batraoui
speaker
1,564 appearances
188 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 3d ago
Aya Batraoui’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 151 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 37.
Appearances
Thanks, Michelle.
Yeah, there are these two fenced-in areas that were created for people to walk to several miles and pick up parcels of food. And so this comes after nearly three months of total blockade by Israel with no food entering the territory and experts saying hundreds of thousands of people are now facing starvation. So what happened on the first day of this new distribution system backed by the U.S.,
is that thousands of hungry people overran one of these fenced-in areas where American contractors were standing guard to distribute boxes of food. Witnesses say the contractors fled, and the crowds just took everything they could, even scrap metal. The contractors in a statement say they fell back, according to protocol.
Witnesses say an Israeli helicopter then opened fire in the area, dispersing the crowd. Israel says its troops fired warning shots. Hospital officials tell NPR nearly 50 people were wounded and three were killed as a result of the gunfire.
Well, in a statement, Hamas says this incident reflects Israel's failure to manage the humanitarian crisis that it deliberately created. Israel says its aim is to keep aid from Hamas. But we spoke to witnesses on the ground who were at this scene who said there was no screening at all. Anyone could just take the boxes of food.
Abu Mahmoud Abaza, who was at the site to get food, told NPR about the scene, and he says it was chaotic. He says there was no distribution system. It was chaos. He says nobody asked for IDs or anything. He says people are hungry and there has to be a better way to get food.
So again, unlike how the UN distributes food or used to distribute food in centers across Gaza with IDs and lists of families in need, the system had none of that. There were no screenings or lists and no clarity on who decides who gets the aid and who doesn't.
Well, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the system. He says it's working.
But one thing to note, too, Michelle, is that he says the aim is not just to keep aid from Hamas, but to push the entire population south. And Israel says from there, people can be relocated out of Gaza.
Most people in Gaza are living off just one meal a day. It's mostly just lentil soup. Aid groups are being blocked by Israel from bringing aid in at scale. And these aid organizations like the UN and others are refusing to take part in this new plan, saying it's politicizing aid.
The Trump administration, though, says it supports the plan and says the UN and other aid groups are wrong to criticize it. They say 8000 boxes of food were distributed yesterday, although it's unclear how much of that was actually just taken in the mayhem. You know, each box feeds around five to six people for just three and a half days.
But again, people have to walk for miles south to get this food. No food also has reached Gaza City. None of these distribution sites are in the north. And so, you know, you have several trucks of food just yesterday night carrying food intended for Gaza City for the first time in months, taken by hungry crowds in central Gaza right off the trucks. That is NPR's Aya Batraoui. Aya, thank you.
Thank you, Michelle.
Trump's Mideast visit began just after Hamas released the last living American-Israeli hostage held in Gaza. Hamas says it did so on the understanding the U.S. would call for a permanent ceasefire and push for aid to enter Gaza. Instead, while in the region, Trump appeared to double down on his idea that Palestinians in Gaza should be permanently relocated outside the territory. saying the U.S.
should get involved there and make it a, quote, freedom zone. He then said his administration's looking at people starving in Gaza under Israel's total blockade, saying we've got to get that taken care of without elaborating. His comments come as Israel says it struck more than 100 Hamas sites in recent days and attacks that have killed hundreds, including entire families.
Aya Batrawi, NPR News, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Michelle, this could transform the region, not just Syria. And to get a sense of how big this decision is, have a listen to the reaction in the room when Trump announced this. He was at an investment forum in Riyadh in front of the Saudi crown prince when he said this.
So this brought Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the entire room to their feet in a standing ovation. And it matters because Syria is a pillar of the Middle East. It's a beacon of culture and intellect. But for more than a decade, it was crumbling and it was impoverished from civil war. This destabilized parts of the region. And throughout, those sanctions were really hurting average Syrians.
You know, hospitals were struggling to get spare parts to keep machines or even elevators running. But now Trump says that was then and this is now. And this new Syria, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, says it's ready to build a relationship with the United States. Now, Trump's meeting with him today lasted half an hour. It included the Saudi crown prince and Turkey's president joined over the phone.
They touched on security concerns that the U.S. has with some extremist groups still in Syria. Another reason this reset matters, though, Michelle, is that Arab states don't want Iran to have a foothold in Syria anymore, and the U.S. doesn't want Russia building back its bases there.
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