Isaac Chotiner
The war in Gaza has been going on for almost an entire year. The Palestinian death toll has climbed to more than forty-two thousand people. More than thirteen hundred Israelis have died in the October 7th attack and the subsequent fighting. The U.S. has been pushing for a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining hostages in Gaza and some number of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, but neither Israel nor Hamas has managed to entirely agree to the proposed terms. Last week, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, said that the Israel Defense Forces would not depart the Philadelphi Corridor, an approximately nine-mile-long strip of land near the border with Egypt. For Hamas, this is almost certain to be a non-starter for any deal.
I recently spoke by phone with Robert Blecher, the director of the Future of Conflict Program at the International Crisis Group. He was previously the head of the Israel-Palestine project and deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the I.C.G. I wanted to understand the impediments to a ceasefire and the state of the population in Gaza, where people have been living in a nearly continuous state of siege since October. We also touched on the debates within Israel’s security establishment, the real reason Netanyahu wants control of the corridor, and why the status quo in Gaza could extend for years.
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