The US-Backed Plan To End The War In Gaza

0:07It's been two years since Hamas fighters killed 1 ,200 people and seized more than 250 hostages from inside Israel. More than 67 ,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory war, at least half of those deaths being women and children, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office. On Monday, Israeli and Hamas negotiators kicked off meetings in Egypt to discuss President Donald Trump's 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza. Thousands of Israeli citizens took to the streets in Tel Aviv over the weekend in support of a deal to release the remaining hostages and end the war. Moshe Lavi is the brother-in-law of Israeli hostage Omrim Miran, who's been held captive by Hamas since October 7, 2023.

0:49He spoke to Fox News on Saturday. We've encountered so many disappointments in the past few years, and we want to ensure that this time it's going to happen. We believe President Trump can deliver it. He has done an incredible job. His administration has been so supportive of us, families of hostages, but we still need to pressure Hamas. What do we know about the U.S.-backed plan to end the war in Gaza? And what does the plan mean for Israelis and Palestinians two years into this conflict? We get into it after the break. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast, back with more in a moment.

1:30We start today in Tel Aviv with Daniel Estrin. He's an international correspondent at NPR. Daniel, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me, Jen. Daniel, negotiations between Israel and Hamas and Egypt are expected to last a few days. What came out of the talks? Well, they began in Egypt's resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea. An Israeli delegation is there. A Hamas delegation is there. There are mediators from Egypt and Qatar. There are not that many leaks out of the talk so far. One thing that we've all been wondering is what exactly will be negotiated during these days. Israel wants to negotiate a hostage prisoner exchange and not much more.

2:10Hamas and Arab mediators want guarantees that if hostages are released and Palestinian prisoners are released, that they want guarantees this will end the war. Egypt's foreign minister spoke today, gave us a little bit more of an indication of the parameters of what these talks are all about. He said the aim here is to negotiate the first phase of the deal, which he says is an Israeli troop redeployment to allow for the release of hostages, delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the release of Palestinian prisoners. Those are just the very first points of a very, very long plan that Trump has summarized in 20 points.

2:56But tomorrow, Trump's envoy Steve Whitcoff is arriving in Egypt to join these talks. And so that indicates just how committed the U.S. is to this process succeeding. This isn't the first attempt to end this war. What makes this plan different from other attempts at ending the war in Gaza? This really is the first time in two years of war that there's a real likelihood of ending it, which is really an astonishing thing to think about. Today is October 7th, 2025. Two years ago was October 7th, the Hamas attack on Israel, and two years of anguish for Israelis and for Palestinians. And now they are both allowing themselves to feel a little bit of hope.

3:41We have seen many negotiations fail over the last two years and people are conditioned to be skeptical here. But there really is a change in the mood. We spoke with a person in the region who is close to the talks who assesses there's a high chance for a breakthrough within one or two weeks. I think you can credit Israel's failed attack on Hamas officials in Qatar with really being a pivotal moment and turning the tide. That united Arab countries. It angered Qatar's ally, Trump. So it got Trump and Arab countries all on board with a plan to end the war. And Netanyahu couldn't say no to Trump. And also Hamas couldn't say no to its Arab allies.

4:24So that's where we are now. Well, there were also protests in Tel Aviv this past Saturday. What were the biggest grievances from Israelis who protested over the weekend? Well, we've seen sustained protests every Saturday night for much of the last year by hostage families, families whose loved ones are still held in Gaza and their supporters. You know, polls show that most Israelis want this deal that Trump has put on the table. They want it to succeed. A recent poll found 66 percent of Israelis want that. Now, there are some ultra-nationalist Israelis who have seen this war as a golden opportunity for Israel to expand its territorial gains in the West Bank, even in Gaza.

5:10They're going to be disappointed with parts of this plan, and they are disappointed, we've heard. For instance, Trump had initially floated at the beginning of his presidency this year an idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza. This plan does not allow for Palestinian permanent displacement from Gaza. Netanyahu is framing this deal as a win against Hamas, which Hamas is agreeing to terms of the deal that used to be red lines for Hamas. Netanyahu is framing these last two years as Israel regaining its military might after Israel's worst day in history. And Israel really has changed the region with its military strikes, hitting its enemies hard from Lebanon across the Middle East to Iran and others.

5:58But what's driving the protests and what's driving Israeli public sentiment is war fatigue about Gaza. Israelis have paid a lot in the last two years. This has been the longest war in their history. There's a national mental health crisis, a rise in anti-anxiety medicines. that people are taking. There's a lot of trauma among soldiers. So many young Israelis in their 20s and their 30s, even more, even older, who are serving in reserves again and again in Gaza. There's unprecedented division at wartime. There's global isolation of Israel. There are attacks on Israelis and Jews abroad, accusations of genocide and war crimes.

6:43So even if this war does end soon. For Israelis, this will reverberate for years to come. What does this mean for Benjamin Netanyahu? Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich criticized this plan on social media, calling it, quote, a tragic case of leadership abstaining from any vision. So some division, as you said, there in his far-right government. What is his political future if this plan goes through? Yeah, this is Netanyahu's biggest issue. His far-right coalition partners who have wanted the war to continue. You mentioned the far-right finance minister. He even said that he hoped Hamas would reject this plan to allow Israel to return to war, hopefully with broad international support.

7:31That didn't happen. And one of Netanyahu's far-right allies is saying, if after hostages are released, if Hamas is not done with, he'll be quitting the government. So Netanyahu knows this deal, this peace deal, threatens his ability to stay in power. Elections are scheduled anyway in Israel for late next year. And so analysts in Israel think Netanyahu's far-right partners may quit the government earlier, seeing that if elections are anyway down the line, they'll try to show their displeasure with this deal and hope for better chances in the next election. Another option is that Netanyahu could dissolve the government himself if he manages to get the hostages back, which is something that Israelis have wanted for so long.

8:25He could dissolve the government. He could say, I'm now running for re-election from a place of strength, having brought Israel back from the brink from two years of war and bringing back the hostages. We're going to have to see. We got this email from Aliyah who says, I have concerns about the sincerity behind Trump and Netanyahu's agreement to peace beyond this current conflict. From what I've read, the 20-point plan includes very vague language about how Israel will look into reconstruction of Gaza and a peaceful Palestinian future. Given Israel's history of ignoring past treaties, the language seems engineered to give them easy ways out of doing anything substantial to repair the damage they have caused and give Palestinians any real relief.

9:08What are you hearing about the perspective on this 20-point plan from Hamas' viewpoint and from the viewpoint of Palestinian people? I think it's right to be skeptical about this 20-point plan in terms of will all of its points actually be carried out. So the first points are what are being negotiated now, the release of hostages, Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli troops. Although Israel is agreeing only to a gradual withdrawal, and that's going to be a major sticking point. How far will Israel be willing to go in withdrawing its troops from Gaza? But there are big points here on this plan.

9:50It calls for a process where international peacekeeping forces would enter Gaza and Hamas would disarm. and Israeli troops would retreat from Gaza further. It calls for a technocratic government of Palestinians, supervised by a board, including President Trump and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. It even calls at the very end of the plan for talks about a pathway toward a Palestinian state after a lot of reforms among Palestinian leadership. Of course, Netanyahu is adamant against a Palestinian state. There's a lot here. And just negotiating the first part, the hostage prisoner exchange, is going to be very tricky.

10:30We'll take a quick pause here. Coming up, the war in Gaza has been the deadliest for journalists, health workers, and aid workers in history. That's according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the UN British Medical Journal. What are the consequences of failing to come to an agreement for peace? Back with more in a moment.

10:51We're discussing the most recent round of negotiations to end the two-year-long war in Gaza. Ali Sharabi was taken hostage by Hamas from Kibbutz Be 'eri on Israel's southern border on October 7, 2023. For the next 491 days, he was held captive in a tunnel beneath Gaza. He says he was sustained by the thought that if he could survive, he'd be reunited with his family. He made it, but they did not. His wife and two daughters were killed in their home on October 7th. Here he is speaking to the UK media outlet The Telegraph. We were chained to each other. You ask permission to speak, you ask permission to go to the bathroom.

11:30All your life and destiny, depending on how much food they want to give you. It's the worst thing in captivity. You don't mind about humiliation. You don't mind to be chained. You don't mind that they use violence against you. It was one time they broke my ribs, and I said, okay, you can break my ribs another two weeks again. Just give me food. Daniel, there are 48 hostages still being held in Gaza. 20 are still believed to be alive. How much do we know about their status and what they're experiencing? There is a lot of concern about how they're doing. Videos in recent months that Hamas has put out have shown hostages emaciated, just as Palestinian civilians in Gaza have faced starvation and famine.

12:18Based on testimony of former hostages like Elisarabi, who we just heard, we know how they're treated, how they have been treated in the past. So there's been a lot of concern about their mental health, their physical health, as they are enduring even more time and even worse conditions than those who had been previously released. One of the biggest concerns throughout the war had been, especially with Israel's offensive on Gaza City that is now frozen with the negotiations happening in Egypt, but the fate of the hostages from Israeli strikes has been a huge concern. Those military strikes in Gaza are still happening now, but somewhat reduced.

13:04But there are enormous concerns about the fate of the hostages now. President Trump says that if Hamas does not accept the terms of this plan to end the war, the U.S. will continue to support Israel's bombardment of Gaza. What human toll could that take considering the huge loss of life we've already seen? I think the toll is very hard to describe. We've already seen 67 ,000 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza health officials, a third of them children. We've seen around 2 ,000 Israelis killed since October 7th until today, including soldiers and civilians. A return to war, if this deal falls through, would mean Israeli airstrikes and ground defensives in Gaza, more Palestinian civilians killed, more soldiers killed.

14:00The fate of the hostages, they could be at high risk in that scenario. Gaza is already mostly destroyed. Almost all of its 2 million Palestinians are displaced. The hospital system is barely functioning. There's been famine. We could see more disease, mass death, destruction. So it's a scenario that no party at the table negotiating in Egypt wants to see. But there are fears that a deal could fall through. And I think the question is, will President Trump then be as invested as he is now? We haven't seen him be as invested in pushing a deal forward as we have now. in his entire presidency since the beginning of the year?

14:48Could he move on to other large issues and other wars and conflicts and domestic conflicts? A lot is riding on his ability to keep Netanyahu's feet to the fire, to keep all of the Arab mediators on board with the process. And we will see in these next several days, these are fateful days for the war. You've been covering this war for the last two years, Daniel. And as you know, it's been one of the deadliest for journalists, aid workers. We'll speak more about that later. But I'm really interested in hearing your reflections as a journalist covering this. You've spent a lot of time in Tel Aviv.

15:38you have a perspective a lot of people outside don't have. What are you thinking about these days? Thank you for asking that question because I think a lot of people don't understand what it takes to report on this war day in and day out. I work with a mighty team of journalists across the region. We are Palestinian, Israeli. We have a reporter in Gaza, NPR's Anas Baba, who has reported throughout this entire war while he's also faced the conditions of the people he's reporting on. And whether that's been starvation, whether that's been displacement, just the struggle for him to get electricity, drinking water, internet connection in order to bring his firsthand reporting to us.

16:37He's working under the most unbelievable conditions. And we are all a large team. And so that means that we have not only people who are from here, but they're from places that Israelis and Palestinians and Lebanese and Egyptians and others usually don't work together and don't talk to each other. And this war has seen radicalization on all sides. But the task is to get up every day and to deliver the news on all sides, to go out, to put ourselves and our listeners in the shoes of those, whether they're in Gaza, whether they're in Israel, who have lost the most, and ask our listeners to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes.

17:31It's been a harrowing two years, and I think all of us are finally hoping that this process and this war can finally end. And as you've covered this war and paid attention to the coverage from other outlets, what do you think we have perhaps missed? Or what do you think has been under-discussed or not understood as deeply as it should have been? Especially now that you have two years to reflect on that coverage. I think it's very, very difficult to understand the motivations of every side at any point. And I think that we are subject to a lot of spin at all times. And it's very, very difficult to parse when we see military operations, when we see Israeli threats to enhance operations and bombardment in Gaza, when we see Hamas statements.

18:52To what extent are those empty threats? A lot of times this is a war that is fought in terms of pictures of victory. This is a phrase that we hear all the time. What image of victory can Israel present to its people? Can Hamas present? And so, I mean, just in the last several days as Netanyahu pivoted incredibly from a strike trying to target the very Hamas negotiators sitting down and trying to determine whether to get on board with an American initiative for a ceasefire, from targeting the negotiators to getting on board with Trump for a peace plan with Hamas. Netanyahu right now is framing that as a win, as a win against Hamas, as turning the tables.

19:49Israel was isolated before, now Hamas is isolated, is the catchphrase that he's used. And I think what's important to understand is the terms of this deal have, in many different permutations, been on the table for many, many months. And in the end, it's about whether the leaders on both sides, whether Hamas officials, whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can create a story, can create an image of victory that they can present as their own victories. This is a war where there are no winners, Jen, and yet each side will want to declare themselves a winner. That's Daniel Estrin. He's an international correspondent at NPR in Tel Aviv.

20:44Daniel, we deeply appreciate the reporting and the reporting of your colleagues there. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Back with more in a moment.

20:58Let's turn now to the ongoing humanitarian crisis resulting from Israel's continued bombardment of Gaza. Only 14 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are functioning even partially. That analysis is from the World Health Organization. We noted more than 67 ,000 Palestinians have been killed. Nearly 42 ,000 people in Gaza are living with life-changing injuries from the ongoing conflict, including more than 10 ,000 children. We spoke to Ayyad Mawahi on Monday. He's an NGO coordinator in Gaza. Ayyad and his family have been displaced four times since Israel's attacks began. He spoke to us from Deir al-Bala about the medical needs in Gaza.

22:02A lot of our children injured and under the trauma, under the psychological pressure all of the time. I touched that as a father, as NGO's coordinator. So the basic need for me and all of my people to stop completely the bumping, the explosion, it's a horrible time. That was Ayad Amawi speaking with us. He's an NGO coordinator in Gaza. Let's turn now to Juliet Tuma. She's the director of communications at the UNRWA headquarters in Jordan. and that's the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Juliette, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me on, Jen. So I want to talk about what aid workers are experiencing in Gaza.

22:42According to Gaza's health ministry, almost 1 ,800 health workers have been killed and at least 543 aid workers killed since October 2023. The UN Human Rights Office also estimates at least 247 journalists have been killed. What protections currently exist for humanitarian workers in Gaza? Gaza has become very early on in the war the most dangerous place for humanitarian workers. I mean, only at UNRWA we had 370 colleagues killed since the war began. That's the highest death toll in the history of the United Nations. And that says something beyond these figures and numbers. There are people and there are people who have jobs.

23:33So the loss is beyond the death toll. It's also the nurses that we lost, the doctors, the teachers, the humanitarian frontline workers, the logisticians, etc. And very early on as well, Gaza in general has become the most dangerous place for human beings. It is not just a gimmick that we said the first few weeks, no place is safe. And we continue to say that because no place is safe in Gaza. No one has been spared and nothing has been spared. That includes UN facilities, hospitals, clinics, schools, people's houses, markets, places of worship, you name it. The UN said on Monday that A-teams are ready to go immediately after a ceasefire agreement is reached.

24:23How much aid is being allowed into Gaza right now? Look, the UN has not stopped, just to be accurate, Jen. The UN has not stopped for one day since the war started. And the UN was present, including UNRWA, for many decades before this war started because of the humanitarian needs in Gaza that haven't started on the 7th of October and with this war. In fact, Gaza has been one of the poorest areas in the Middle East and North Africa. The poverty rates were very, very high and employment rates are high. What we were saying with this agreement, should there be an agreement following the announcement by President Trump, is we are ready to go in with our humanitarian supply.

25:21So UNRWA, as an example, we've been banned from bringing in anything for more than seven months now. You see, we have food and medicine and hygiene supplies, including soap and sanitary pads for women and girls that have been waiting in places like Jordan, where I am in Egypt, since the 2nd of March. And they could provide food for the entire population for three months. And this is happening as famine has been confirmed in Gaza City, as we keep warning of famine spreading to other parts of the Gaza Strip. If a ceasefire agreement is reached, you say you have the supplies, how much time would it take to set up the infrastructure to distribute those supplies to people who need them?

26:15No time. No time at all is needed because we have the infrastructure. We have at UNRWA 12 ,000 of my colleagues who continue to be in Gaza. They keep our clinics open, our health points open, our shelters for the displaced families. They give whatever they can. Also psychological support to children and to adults alike because everyone is traumatized. All we need is a green light from the government of Israel so that those trucks of ours cross from a place like Jordan. It would take three hours for us to get to the borders of Gaza and then get them in, and then our teams will know exactly what to do with them.

26:56They will sift and sort and distribute to people who are in desperate need, including for food. Let's bring another voice to the conversation. Andy Vaughn is a registered nurse who recently traveled to Al-Quds Hospital at the southern edge of Gaza City to work as a volunteer medic. She joins us now. Andy, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. So you volunteered in Gaza for over three months. You left just a week ago. How would you describe the state of Gaza's health care system? It's completely demolished. It's absolutely been forcibly demolished. We lack medication. We don't have vaccines.

27:40we can barely do wound care on a daily basis to even the most basic wounds but we're dealing with mass casualty after mass casualty bullet wounds to the head many explosive injuries to all the extremities brain bleeds bleeding out I mean there were days when we didn't have gauze availability so we had to get creative in the emergency department with what we were able to use to help patients on a daily basis. Can you walk us through just an average day for you? How did that day begin and how did it end? My average day began around 4 a.m. with the first call to prayer because all the mosques have been completely annihilated in Gaza City.

28:27You don't hear the call to prayer anymore, but you know what time it is because that's when the targeted missiles and bombs start dropping. And usually during the daytime, you have at least two mass casualties within a two-hour period. And I am a registered nurse, an emergency trauma nurse, and I worked in the emergency department there. And on average, within a 12-hour period in our small ER, we had at least two mass casualty incidents. And that could range from like five to 30 patients. And And that could range from one death to upwards of 15. We saw about 300 to 700 patients a day in our ER.

29:10We had wound care clinic about five days a week in the morning for about four to six hours. And then I usually worked overnight until about three o 'clock in the morning. And for the entire three months I was there, it was just 24 hours of bombing, quadcopter shooting, small arms drops by quadcopter, explosive devices that were in these machines that were targeting buildings to just completely be dilapidated around the hospital. It never stopped. It was awful. How are medical professionals faring under these conditions, both Palestinians and international volunteers like yourself? uh we have all lost a tremendous amount of weight because we are also malnourished um i ate what the locals ate um which for most of the time that i was there consisted of a package of rice and lentils per day and that was my meal we were lucky if we could find whatever was growing locally at the time.

30:25So we were in the, you know, harvesting potatoes and eggplant. So we were able to get some oil and make some extra sustenance with that. But most of the nurses that I work with are volunteers. Hardly anybody is getting paid. So, you know, it kind of begs a question, like, where are they getting an income for their families? Many of the nurses that I worked with would eat a piece of pita bread with some oil. Like they don't even have access to olive oil anymore. So it'd be cooking oil and then this like powdery like spread called za 'atar and they would dip their bread in that. And that was usually what they would eat because they would save whatever else they could get, which was usually rice for their children at home.

31:12My colleagues were passing out from malnutrition. Many of them were sick with fevers or some sort of an infection. I myself had giardia and gastroenteritis for pretty much the entire three months. I was on antibiotics, lopiramide for diarrhea. Many of my colleagues have just lost a significant amount of weight. Many of them are so tremendously scared by what's happening because they can't be with their families. Like right now, they're not allowed to leave some of the places that they're staying in because if they go near the windows or the doors, they get shot at by the Israelis. This is not a war.