Kat Lonsdorf
speaker
695 appearances
75 recordings
5 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 25 Aug
Kat Lonsdorf’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 — 60 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 13.
Appearances
Yeah, last night I met Adil Abu Majd. He's a chef in Ramallah. He's originally from Jenin, where the Israeli military is focused right now. He left a couple months ago. And he told me he's paying close attention to what Trump is saying.
He said what Trump said about Gaza empowers Israel to do whatever they want, to take the land that they want. And he thinks annexation could be a real possibility here in the West Bank. After Trump was elected last November, several far right Israeli ministers commented that this might now be the time for Israel to move on West Bank annexation.
You know, I should point out that all of this would be illegal under international law. But Trump also appointed key people in his administration who have said that they would support Israeli annexation. So given Trump's Gaza statements and his planned announcement about the West Bank in the future, all of this has people here pretty nervous.
Thank you.
The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) · Day 34: The Passover Instituted (2025) · 3 Feb 2025
podcast
Good morning, Michelle.
Yeah, Trump and Netanyahu have a lot to discuss, some of which is left over from Trump's first term. Things like the Abraham Accords and the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia. Also, how to deal with Iran. That's Israel's big enemy, but also a country that Trump has focused on a lot, too. But more immediately, there's Gaza.
Just in the last week or so, Trump has been adamant about the very controversial idea of relocating Palestinians in Gaza out to neighboring Egypt or Jordan, he says, in order to allow for rebuilding. Both Egypt and Jordan have rejected that idea. Palestinians in Gaza also don't want that.
And then there's the ceasefire deal, which is now in the middle of the first six-week phase, but talks of the next phase are supposed to start today. So they will most certainly be discussing that as well. What can you tell us about this next phase of the deal? What do we know? Yeah, details are still being hammered out. That's what the talks starting today are for.
The talks will look a lot like they have in the past with the U.S., Qatar and Egypt acting as mediators between Hamas and Israel. We know that the second phase is crucial to ending the war. President Biden, who helped create the framework for this deal, did outline some of it in the second phase. Male Israeli soldiers who are being held hostage in Gaza will be released.
We haven't seen that so far. In exchange, more Palestinian prisoners and detainees are expected to be released. And the remaining Israeli forces in Gaza will withdraw, which will lead to a permanent ceasefire.
Yeah, Netanyahu is meeting with U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff today in Washington. Witkoff has been instrumental in getting this agreement implemented, and he and Netanyahu are expected to talk about phase two. Witkoff's been talking with other countries ahead of today's talks. He spoke with Egyptian negotiators yesterday, for example.
What we don't know is what demands each side might make that could derail the deal. For example, Netanyahu has a lot of pressure from key far-right members in his government to demand the elimination of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas still appears to control Gaza very much so, even after more than a year of intense fighting with Israel attempting to eliminate the militant group.
Netanyahu is in a really tricky political situation here, where those far right members have threatened to leave his government and collapse his coalition if he doesn't secure this as part of the deal. On the other hand, President Trump has been fairly clear about wanting the deal to go forward and continuing the ceasefire.
So there are some areas of potential disagreement, and it's something we're going to be keeping a close eye on. That is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv. Kat, thank you. Thank you.
Empire's Kat Lonsdorf has more. The detainees are being sent to different places, depending on where they're from and the severity of their crimes, according to Israel. Around half were released to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Association. But anyone serving a life sentence for murder or other serious crimes is being exiled to Arab countries.
Among those deported was 70-year-old Mohamed Al-Tous, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, sentenced to life in 1985 for carrying out attacks against Israel. NPR spoke to his son Thayer by phone. I cannot describe my happiness that he is free, he said. But there is also sadness that he can't be with us. Fa'ir said it was unclear to which country his father would be sent.
Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. And you're listening to NPR News from Washington.
Yeah, so this is a place where Palestinians have lived for many generations. It's not tents like you might think of when you hear refugee camp. It's basically a city where lots of Palestinian families and kids live with houses and schools. You know, Janine has also long been a militant stronghold. Attacks that have killed Israelis have been launched from there.
Right now, it's hard to get information on what's happening on the ground there because it's essentially become a closed military zone in the past few days. We do know that an airstrike, an Israeli airstrike there killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded many more, according to Palestinian health officials.
Israel says this is a counterterrorism operation aimed at strengthening security in the West Bank. Palestinian forces have also clashed with these fighters. And there also have been Israeli military operations there in the past. I went into the Janine refugee camp after the last major one in the fall, and that operation lasted weeks and was very, very destructive.
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