CGTN Europe speaks to Yossi Mekelberg, Associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
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00:00Let's now go to Yossi Mechelberg, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa
00:06program at the Chatham House Think Tank in London.
00:10Pleased to have you with us, Professor Mechelberg.
00:13And we were hearing just then, so let me go to that news, that three Israeli hostages
00:18are now being transferred to the Red Cross in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
00:23How difficult was it to get to this moment?
00:27Well, it's been extremely difficult and, you know, we're talking about hostages there
00:33that were in captivity for 15 months, which probably we'll hear eventually, they'll tell
00:41their stories, but what we know from those who have been released before, it's been horrendous
00:47for them.
00:48I think generally we are talking about a great self-relief today to see that, you know, we
00:55follow the technical, logistical, which is, you know, the ceasefire, or it's too small
01:02than a ceasefire, has started and maybe we can start looking into a better future, and
01:09which, you know, the deaths and devastation and people held as hostages is about to come
01:15to an end.
01:16But we saw, you know, a very similar agreement was on the table back in May of this year
01:22and it still took around seven, eight months to reach this agreement now.
01:27It's a tough one, but we just should hope that it, you know, every stage of it, of the
01:33implementation will be respected by all the sides.
01:37Yes.
01:38How fragile do you think this agreement is then?
01:43I'm afraid it's extremely fragile and we saw it this morning, you know, that the minute
01:49that, you know, there were some doubts on one side, whether the names of the hostages
01:55will be given to Israel, the next thing we saw is the bombardment in Gaza and dozens
02:02of people killed.
02:06Some of the difficulties are practical, logistical ones, because of the situation of Gaza and
02:14you communicate within Gaza and now you release the hostages, but some of them are because,
02:21you know, there are people that really oppose this agreement and we saw that already one
02:28party left the Israeli coalition, left it with a very tiny minority, a majority, forgive
02:36me, of only two members of Knesset, and there is still the possibility that another far
02:41right would leave it and then it will throw the entire Israeli system into chaos.
02:47Yes, and if we move to the people of Gaza now, displaced families hope to return to
02:52their homes, but what's left now?
02:57I think we'll see probably now the full picture of the terrible devastation in Gaza and, I
03:07mean, what the people of Gaza have suffered over the last 15 months is horrendous.
03:15The only thing that we should hope that this is the end of the war and the two faces be
03:21respected and start rebuilding it, not only in terms of physical restructuring, but also
03:28dealing with the huge trauma that so many people, including children, have experienced
03:34over this terrible period, building the institution, looking into bringing the West back in Gaza
03:41under one governance, and this is a long process, so we need special funds to fund all of it.
03:51This will take a long time, we're just in the very, very beginning of a long process.
03:57Yes, a long process, and what does this mean for Netanyahu's government, do you think?
04:03I think at the end of the day, the Netanyahu government needs to go.
04:09This is the government, you know, obviously what Hamas committed on October 7, 2023, was
04:17a horrendous massacre, but everything in Israel's behavior before and after points in one way
04:24that this is not a government fit to govern the country.
04:27It failed to protect its people on October 7, it failed to end the war quickly, to bring
04:34the hostages back, it promised the complete elimination of Hamas, which was an objective
04:40unachievable from the beginning, it promised that the only military pressure would bring
04:45the hostages, and what we saw, that actually hostages were killed during this time, while
04:50only diplomacy can bring home the hostages, and it divides the country.
04:55So, I mean, by any criteria, by any standard of good governance and accountability, this
05:01government should go.
05:02How long it's going to take, I really don't know.
05:05I think it should take, you know, peace quite quickly.