Tia Goldenberg
Appearances
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Israel and the U.S. are trying to get a new aid system off the ground. Throughout the war, you've had traditional aid groups like the U.N. and other charities providing aid to Gazans where they are in the Gaza Strip. And Israel for the entirety of the war has accused Hamas of siphoning off that aid and using it to bolster its rule in Gaza.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Aid groups say there's been no significant diversion. But Israel's been looking for a way to get aid away from the UN and aid groups. It also obviously has lots of years-long skepticism and tensions between Israel and the UN. So what we've seen over the past couple of days is this new aid mechanism get off the ground.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
The linchpin of this aid mechanism is a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Now, what we've also seen over the past couple of days is the chaos that surrounds this attempt to kind of arrest aid from the traditional aid groups delivering it.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Now, this came hours after the organization's executive director said that he was resigning even before the foundation began working.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
The effort itself is really controversial because the UN and aid groups say they're not going to work with the GHF. They think that if they do, it'll violate their core humanitarian principles because Palestinians have to essentially be displaced. They have to move to reach these aid centers. And they don't want to be part of that. They see that aid is being politicized or even weaponized.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
And what we've seen over the past few months since March 2nd is Israel blocking aid from entering Gaza entirely. That ended about a week ago when Israel decided it would let in a limited amount of aid. And so during these few weeks or nearly three months, actually, no aid was being let into Gaza, no food, no medicine, no fuel whatsoever.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
And you had a situation where food experts were warning that nearly one million Palestinians barely had enough access to food. And nearly half a million Palestinians were at the risk of possible starvation.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
So the situation is incredibly dire, and it remains so, even though Israel has begun letting a limited amount of aid into Gaza.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
I mean, I can't tell you what the designs of the Israeli government are. Israel is accused of aid groups and world courts of using starvation as a weapon of war. But Israel says that it has legitimate concerns that this aid is being used to fuel Hamas's rule in Gaza. At the end of the day, Palestinians on the ground are the ones that are suffering and suffering dramatically.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
October 7th, 2023, Hamas's attacks were a huge, huge shock for Israelis, and they're still traumatized. This also falls in the context of an ongoing war where there are still 58 hostages, about a third of them believed to be alive, being held in Gaza. And so Israelis believe that soldiers are not just fighting in Gaza, they're fighting to free these hostages.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
So throughout the war, it's important to note that Israeli media has also limited the type of coverage that it has shown to Israelis.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Some of the harshest images that you see in international media just don't find a place in Israeli media. They tend to promote the Israeli narrative that Hamas is solely to blame for what's happening to civilians in Gaza. And so there hasn't been too much of a discussion about the humanitarian crisis. crisis in the public discourse.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
That said, there has been somewhat of a shift in recent days or weeks. We're seeing there's a protest movement, an anti-war protest movement that has a very small but growing contingent of protesters who hold up pictures of Palestinian children who have been killed throughout the war.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
A leading opposition politician the other day made some of the harshest comments against Israel's conduct and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Which sparked an uproar and there was lots of condemnations across the political spectrum, but It also sparked a discussion about Israel's conduct and what it is doing and the toll of the war on civilians. So, I mean, it's not a wave yet of discussion, but there is kind of sparks looking into or beginning to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza among Israelis.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Israel and Hamas were engaged in a ceasefire earlier this year, which Israel ended up shattering about eight weeks in. And the ceasefire led to hostages being freed. It led to a lull in fighting. And then after Israel resumed fighting, it decided it was going to ramp up the pressure on Hamas. Part of that tactic was to block the aid going into Gaza.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
And it also said it would ratchet up its offensive on the territory with the aim of defeating Hamas and freeing the hostages. That's been its war aims throughout. So in the past couple of weeks, since this new offensive began, there's been an intensification of strikes. Israel says that as part of this plan, it wants to seize all of Gaza.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
It wants to hold on to territory. It wants to move the population of Gaza to the south.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
And that aid plan we discussed earlier is part of this, of moving the population south. So, I mean, it's trying all these new tactics to try to reach its war aims. So far, it's still unclear how different this intensification of its offensive, how it'll manage to do anything different than the last nearly 20 months of fighting did.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
You know, this war has been going on for so long, and Israel still has not reached its aim of dismantling Hamas and freeing the hostages. And in fact, an overwhelming amount of hostages who have been freed have been freed through ceasefire deals and not through military pressure that Israel is now ramping up.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Israel and Hamas stand very far apart on how they see the end of this war playing out. Hamas says it's prepared to free all the hostages immediately for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. Israel obviously wants its hostages freed, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's not prepared to end the war unless Hamas is dismantled.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
And so this has been a key sticking point throughout the war. And neither side is relenting. You know, no matter how much military pressure Israel puts on Hamas, you know, it's killed its leaders. It's devastated the territory. It's just been an intense, intense conflict. And yet that hasn't dislodged Hamas from its position.
Today, Explained
All eyes back on Gaza
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is under a lot of political pressure from his governing coalition to continue the war. It's hard to see how the sides reconcile and come to an agreement that ends this war.