Gaza ceasefire negotiations 'doomed to fail', experts says
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00:00We're joined now by Gilbert Ashgar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations
00:05at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Thank you so much
00:12for being with us on the programme this morning, Gilbert. So, talks set to resume again in Doha
00:18this Friday. The fact that they are being convened for a second day, does that bode well, do you
00:24think, for hopes of a breakthrough?
00:27Good morning. I think these negotiations have been almost doomed to fail from the start,
00:36for the very reason that the Israeli government doesn't, I mean, the government of Mr Netanyahu
00:41doesn't really have an intention to conclude a new agreement. And the gap between what
00:52Hamas requires and what the Israeli government wants is too big for these negotiations to lead
01:03anywhere. And that's why they have been stalled for so long. So, what exactly then do we know
01:08about what is on the table? All sides warning that a lot of work remains given the complexity
01:14of this agreement. Well, basically, the captives or the hostages that Hamas is holding in the Gaza
01:27Strip are the last and only practically card that Hamas has. And they want to get something in
01:38exchange. And that something is basically what they need, which is a real and permanent ceasefire,
01:46an end to hostilities, and what they have requested, the withdrawal of Israeli troops
01:52from the Gaza Strip. But that is a non-starter for the Israeli government. And that's why it's
02:00almost, I mean, one could say, unfortunately, that these negotiations seem very much to have
02:06been a kind of waste of time and a way for the US administration to say that it is doing something,
02:13whereas it is not really doing what it takes for any kind of negotiation to reach a real ceasefire,
02:27which is exert pressure on the Israeli ally. As long as the United States is just covering
02:34everything Israel does, providing what President Biden, US President Biden, called the ironclad
02:42commitment by Israel to defend the Israeli state, and that is very clearly unconditional, as we can
02:49see, then, I mean, the Netanyahu government feels free to carry on stalling and, I mean, pursuing
02:58their own goal, which is a permanent presence of Israeli troops in control of parts of the
03:06Gaza Strip. And that's what the other side cannot accept.
03:14Because the talks are having no impact on Israeli forces operations. They've targeted
03:18more than 30 different installations across Gaza over the past 24 hours.
03:24And if there is a ceasefire agreed, do you think that it's going to do anything to end
03:30fears that this conflict may escalate beyond Gaza?
03:36No, unfortunately, I can't see. I mean, you will get a ceasefire when the Israeli Armed Forces will
03:46decide that the time has come for them to stop most of their military operations.
03:53I don't know when this will happen. I mean, that was supposed to happen several months ago.
03:58But very clearly, their goal, which has been described from the start as impossible to reach,
04:05the total destruction of Hamas, as they said, is not reached. And I mean, you can't see the end of
04:13the tunnel, if you want, from that angle. We're already speaking of something like 5,000 people,
04:2150,000 people dead, 40,000 in the count of the Hamas health, the Gaza health services, plus
04:33an estimate of 10,000 people under the rubbles. That's 50,000 people killed. That's a huge,
04:39absolutely huge massacre. And it's carrying on. That's a huge tragedy.
04:45And Professor, what kind of influence does Doha have here? The Prime Minister of Qatar
04:50reportedly speaking with Iranian leaders after Thursday's talks.
04:57I mean, the idea that Iran is really any centre of decision on this, I think is very far-fetched and
05:08untrue. Iran has clearly showed that it is actually eager for this to stop because it fears
05:18an escalation into a regional conflict. It's not in the interest of the Iranian regime nor of its
05:28Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, to go for a full-scale confrontation. They don't want that. That's
05:35why Hezbollah has kept the confrontation limited with Israel. That's also why Iran has kept it
05:44limited despite all the provocations and assassinations that Israel has implemented.
05:52And now we can see that after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran,
06:01Iran has waited for this new negotiation meeting in Doha to take place. They are
06:10clearly leaving some room for a possible ceasefire, which is obviously what they would
06:18prefer. So the ball is really in Israel's camp. And the fact that the Netanyahu government took
06:26this decision to assassinate the main interlocutor of the US administration and the man who was
06:32considered to be the relatively moderate figure of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, the fact of assassinating
06:40Ismail Haniyeh and the result having been his replacement with Yahya Sinwar, who was regarded as
06:47a relatively hardline figure within Hamas, I mean, this is very clearly a sign that the Israeli
06:57government is not really serious about getting into any kind of negotiated ceasefire. As I said,
07:05they will stop the fire when they will believe that they can do it, but they will keep in control
07:14of key parts of the Gaza Strip as they are doing presently, have been doing in the West Bank
07:24ever since the Oslo Agreement. Gilbert, we'll have to leave it there for now. Thank you so
07:29much for your time on the programme. That is Gilbert Ashkar, Professor of Development Studies
07:33and International Relations at the University of London. Thank you.