Israelis, Palestinians need 'forward-oriented diplomatic initiatives' to address underlying conflict
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00:00 Well, let's talk a bit more then about that hostage aid deal for Gaza. John
00:05 Linden joins me live on the programme. He's the Executive Director of the
00:09 Alliance for Middle East Peace. Good to talk to you, sir. Thanks for making the
00:13 time. Good to be with you. Now listen, in recent weeks we haven't heard a whole lot
00:19 about the hostages who are stuck in Gaza, but this deal does suggest to me that
00:25 not only do international actors know they are alive, but perhaps
00:31 organisations like the ICRC know where these people are being held. I'm not as
00:38 confident that's necessarily the case. It was supposed to have been a condition
00:41 of the previous hostage deal that was brokered before the end of last year
00:45 that the ICRC would gain access to be able to check on the health and
00:49 condition of hostages, but to my knowledge that hasn't taken place
00:52 certainly at scale. And as a reminder, what was agreed today, and it is important
00:56 and a very good thing that it's happened, it is the base requirement under
01:00 international humanitarian law that Israel should be providing access
01:04 for medicine and Hamas should be allowing access for the ICRC to check
01:08 on the condition of hostages or prisoners of war. And in that sense I
01:13 hope that we do in this exercise that's taking place now get some sort of sense
01:17 of the physical condition of the hostages, many of whom as you said are
01:20 old and infirm that have now been held captive for over 100 days.
01:23 And what's your understanding of logistically how this is to work today?
01:28 The ICRC will physically bring the medicines into Gaza will they, and it's
01:33 those individuals who will go check on the hostages? I mean the whole
01:37 logistical operation from what I can gather is odd, in that the medicines
01:42 themselves are being dispatched from a crisis centre in France via diplomatic
01:45 packet, then they arrived in Qatar to be flown under with a ship, a plane rather,
01:50 with a Qatari flag to El Arish Airport and then to cross Rafah into Gaza. And my
01:56 understanding is that, and again I don't know if this is confirmed, I've seen
01:59 reporting, that the ICRC themselves will likely not be delivering the medicines
02:03 and there may not be a way to ensure that they actually reach the hostages.
02:06 And again I don't know if that's confirmed or not, but I haven't seen
02:09 confirmation that the ICRC themselves will gain access to the hostages and
02:13 that's really really important because they're medical professionals who can
02:16 check on their condition in addition to giving this life-saving aid. And then
02:20 in addition the medication being brought into Gaza, we have fewer than 50%
02:25 of the hospitals in Gaza operational right now, we need to make sure those
02:28 medicines are speeded as quickly as possible to the people that need them
02:32 most acutely and that this shipment is followed by more sustained entry for
02:37 medicines day on day, week on week. This can't be a one-off deal.
02:41 And is that your hope now then, that this deal being brokered by France and
02:47 Qatar is just the first step in aid being let in in a far bigger way?
02:52 Clearly as you say Palestinians in Gaza in huge need right now.
02:55 Yes, I mean it's very frustrating. We were having these conversations back in
02:59 November, I remember, very similar terms as well. In fact France was playing a
03:02 leading role then and here we are, you know, months afterwards still negotiating
03:08 over things that should be the baseline requirements rather than things that
03:11 require many hours of the engagement from heads of government in order to
03:15 broker. We want that same diplomatic attention and bandwidth to actually be
03:19 focused upon the other more difficult forward-looking issues around
03:22 de-escalating this conflict and bringing a ceasefire into place, around the full
03:26 release of all of the hostages and obviously then about addressing the
03:29 underlying conditions that brought us to this terrible, terrible place. And for all
03:33 the diplomats are focused on these transactional, difficult no doubt, but
03:37 ultimately as I said baseline requirements around medication and food
03:41 as important as they are, they're not then looking at these more sort of
03:45 forward-oriented diplomatic initiatives that can actually end the violence and
03:49 begin to address the underlying conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.
03:52 And if I could just ask you a broader final question, the Israeli government
03:57 has been suggesting that it's entering a sort of third phase of the war where
04:02 more of its troops will pull out of the north and of the south of Gaza but as
04:07 we've been reporting on France 24, Israeli bombardments of Gaza remain
04:12 intense. What's your understanding as to what is actually happening on the ground
04:18 and what Israel's strategy is for the moment? You're right, I mean there's
04:23 been acute violence over the last 48 hours in particular in the southern Gaza
04:27 Strip so that doesn't necessarily square up what we're hearing about this new
04:30 phase which will see less intense violence than has come beforehand. Now we
04:35 have seen the removal of a battalion from the Gaza Strip who have been
04:39 brought up I believe to the north of Israel and also an elite commando unit
04:43 that were removed this week from Gaza to the West Bank I believe. So you are
04:47 seeing some troop redeployment and hopefully then you will begin to see
04:49 reduction in violence but at the moment the rhetoric around that doesn't
04:53 necessarily match up with what we're seeing on the ground and I think again
04:57 we do need to try and ensure that the level of violence is being brought down
05:01 to the absolute minimum and then none at all so that diplomacy can begin to be
05:05 engaged and again we can begin to address these underlying issues as well
05:09 as the reconstruction effort that will be required in Gaza and deconfliction. As
05:13 great as it is to be getting medicines and foods into Gaza and we hope more and
05:16 more gets in, whilst there is active violence of the level that we're seeing
05:20 it's very difficult for those food and medicines to be able to reach the people
05:23 that need them because convoys are very often in danger themselves of loss of
05:28 life or injury so that reduction in violence if it comes this other phase
05:32 we're talking about needs to be matched with a huge infusion of aid and
05:36 medicines to take advantage of whatever relative calm we get.
05:39 John Linden from the Alliance of Middle East Peace, it's good to talk to you sir, thank you very much.