Hopes for a 'fragile' Middle East ceasefire

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1:32Hello, I'm James Reynolds. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. The week began with a presidential threat that a whole civilisation would die and it ended in peace talks. In this edition of BBC Conversations, we bring together people from across the Middle East to share their experiences of the past few days. On Tuesday, President Trump issued an ultimatum. He warns that without a deal to end the 40-day war with Iran, the US military could destroy every bridge and power plant in the country. With less than two hours to go until Trump's deadline, the Prime Minister of Pakistan announced a two-week ceasefire had been agreed and invited both the US and Iran to meet in Islamabad.

2:20We're recording this programme on Friday lunchtime. and those talks are due to get underway over the weekend. For our first conversation, we hear from Iranians living here in the UK. You might remember them from our programme just a few weeks ago. Raha has lived in this country for three years after coming here for her master's degree. Katie grew up in the US and Iran, but now lives here in London. And Reza runs a Persian restaurant in central London and has close ties with the Iranian community in this city. The day after the ceasefire began, I asked him for his reaction. It was a big relief, I think, for all of us who are following the news and couldn't sleep at the night.

2:58And we were just so worried hearing about just the rhetoric being used and, you know, the threats being made about, you know, what the outcome could be from this. And we were all fearing the worst. To hear that there's been a ceasefire and they've stopped for now, I think it's a huge relief for all of us. I was talking to a few of my Iranian friends yesterday and we were all sharing this sentiment that it feels like when you're in a movie and then there's a meteor about to hit Earth and there's nothing you can do except watch what's going to happen and that was how we felt yesterday up to the 8pm deadline that Donald Trump has given us and when they announced the ceasefire I think it was a combination of relief as Reza said but also a lot of confusion even uncertainty and fear as to what will happen now Now, I have been able to slightly speak very briefly with my family back in Iran.

3:50And the first thing that my mom told me was, I'm so glad I can hope to see you again now, which for me was very moving. Because apparently the past 40 days, apparently she didn't have that hope. So I think in a lot of sense, it is it can be a good thing, but nothing is certain now. And we have no idea what's going to happen. Not to add some doom and gloom to the picture more than there already is. But when I heard that the ceasefire was announced, I kind of immediately thought that it wasn't going to last. There have already been reports of strikes in some oil refineries, in some islands that belong to Iran.

4:25And Iran has continued to attack different sites in Kuwait. And as you say as well, Israeli attacks in Lebanon are ongoing. So I kind of have very little hope in the long lasting nature of this ceasefire, if I'm honest. and Raha do you know from your family how much damage there has been around where where they live particularly my family their house was close to a IRGC I'm not going to say base but a building that belonged to IRGC and in the shockwave of one of the explosions actually our entire windows came down there are holes in the kitchen ceiling right now the bathroom is not usable so my family had to kind of leave Tehran and basically stay with friends and family for the past 40 days.

5:11So civilians have definitely been impacted. There are some landmark streets in Tehran, which we used to love. And there are a lot of cute restaurants there, which my mom says relatives have driven by and they say, well, there's nothing left of the streets anymore. Yes. So it's not just limited to outside city sites. It's affected the entire cities. Is your family hoping to go back to the family home? Well, they have done it a few times so far because you can't leave your house and everything that belongs to you just unattended. So it's been periods of going back, fixing a few things, then again, leaving Tehran.

5:48Definitely with the sound of explosions all night, it's really difficult to live in Tehran right now. And it is very nerve wracking. But a lot of people choose that because it's their home. Potentially, if this conditional ceasefire holds, the nights might be quieter in Tehran, although, of course, as Kayleigh and our reporting teams have been pointing out, there have been breaches or indeed no ceasefire on other fronts of the conflict. But Raha, if Tehran is quieter, does that mean you will sleep better without having to have such worry for your family? Absolutely. Knowing that you don't need to follow the news by the second and just opening Google Maps and just checking how close the explosions were.

6:28Is that what you did? Yes, absolutely. We see the reports of the streets and then we go to the map and then we zoom in, Google View. And then I had friends who realized places very close to their houses have been bombed. So it's because we don't know what the targets are. There may be places that government officials live in and they move. So people don't know where to watch out for. It's just quite random. Basically every waking and non-waking hour, as Raha said, we've all done the classic Google Maps Zoom for whatever site has been attacked most recently and how far our family members are away from it.

7:06it's hard to think about anything else. And I know there's a lot of really good work being done as well on the kind of trauma responses that are being felt in the diaspora as a result of being so far away and the doom scrolling and the inability to feel kind of any sort of joy outside of thinking about what's going on in Iran and talking about it. So it's, yeah, it's not been easy. I think everyone's just had this kind of fatigue from just monitoring everything, being able to see the news but not be able to call up family members just to see how they are that's been the most frustrating part trying not to be following it 24-7 but still ending up following it 24-7.

7:48Raha is it too early for you to think about organizing a family reunion? Absolutely. A lot of the terms of the ceasefire are yet not certain. But also something that has been missing from both recommended terms by both parties was the situation of the people in Iran. So even if the attacks stop, it doesn't necessarily mean that the people have any safety from either the external forces or their own government. So I think it would still be too soon for us to see what we can plan for the future. Yeah, I would definitely echo everything that Raha said. I think while we might feel a sense of relief at the end of the bombings, there is no sense of relief that this government has changed or gotten any more easy to deal with internally.

8:40If anything, it's gotten much more repressive. I mean, this is a government that has not built bomb shelters for its own people, that has cut off the Internet during war. So, yeah, whether or not there is bombing, there's not a lot of planning going on in my side. Iranians Kayleigh, Raha and Reza. We'll head to Lebanon next, where, if anything, the conflict escalated this week. On Wednesday, Israel launched more than 100 airstrikes across the country at what it said were Hezbollah targets. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that there is no ceasefire in Lebanon. Busy, densely populated residential areas were hit.

9:19According to the Lebanese health ministry, on that day alone, more than 300 people were killed and 1 ,000 wounded. To get a sense of what life has been like in Lebanon, we brought together two journalists in Beirut. Nada Atala is a reporter for the National News and Tasnim Chaban is deputy editor at Lorient Today. Today I got the news that in yesterday's attacks, my house was severely damaged. In addition to that, I'm actually originally from southern Lebanon, and my village has been continuously bombarded since the beginning of this war, and even during the ceasefire. During last war, my house in the south was also damaged.

10:03And in addition to all these losses, my dad actually has invested in a couple of apartments that have been totally leveled in Beirut's southern suburbs. Were you lucky not to be at home yesterday? today? Yes, thankfully. Honestly, because we know Israel's campaign is extremely indiscriminate, I know for a fact that there are zero Hezbollah operative in the apartments that I live in. I know all my neighbors for a fact are not Hezbollah operatives. Nonetheless, we knew that we're not going to be safe in the areas that we are. I am currently displaced, living in a friend's house in Hamra and even there barely a 10 minutes walk an Israeli strike struck in Manara and another one which was almost a 15 minute walk struck in Ain Mraisil completely leveling a building.

10:52The civil defense is still up until now pulling people from under their abu. And Nada I know you spent some time reporting in southern Lebanon which has a strong Hezbollah presence and where Israel has carried out strikes. What did you see there? So I was in southern Lebanon actually yesterday when the massive strikes happened. And I was, for instance, in a cafe, in a normal cafe, with people working, you know, young people working, and the strike just hit like a few hundred meters away, maybe less. So, you know, civilians are directly impacted and affected by those strikes. They don't even understand what they're striking anymore.

11:29And in southern Lebanon, I reported last week on a man who lost eight members of his family. I spoke to him for an hour. He lost eight million dollars of his family, his unborn children, his daughter, his nieces and his cousin, and they're all Swedish residents. And, you know, they're not Hezbollah. They're all Swedish residents. And they're not fighters. They're all purely civilians. They were all killed in a strike without warning. So, you know, it's very hard to understand how these people, how these leader girls, her name was Sada, how the unborn child could be a military target. You know, that's the situation in southern Lebanon.

12:03Even there, you know, the strikes feel very, undiscriminated. Also, you have to add to that that Israel has been hitting the Lebanese infrastructure. They've been hitting bridges which rely on the south to the north. Those bridges, I take them all the time to go to the south. Not just me. International aid is using those bridges to give supplies to hospitals, for instance. So Israel is accusing Hezbollah to use those bridges. But everyone is using those bridges. And by destroying them, they're essentially cutting little supply for residents. Multiple hospitals have been bombarded. Multiple care centres have been bombarded.

12:42They're effectively creating a crisis very reminiscent of what we have already seen in Gaza. And I believe southern Lebanese residents in towns beyond Sur have been already for almost a week now saying that they're about to run out of foods and supplies. And Nada, when you go about a reporting job, what do you tell your family as you head off into a dangerous area? Well, that's a big problem. I actually avoid to tell my mother because she usually, she usually fix it. I just tell them after, but they know, they know, usually they know, but I tell them after once I'm safe. They're very supportive.

13:25I'm lucky enough. My mom is Lebanese as well, so she knows and she knows how important is with me. is it for me to cover this? Because it's my country, it's her country. She knows how much I care about it. And Tasneem, what do you tell your family as you head off into difficult places? I do the exact same as Nada does, actually, to be honest with you. I usually do not tell them up until I'm back home. It's like, I'll talk to you later. Usually when they call me when I'm out on an assignment, which they did yesterday as I was covering the strikes in Beirut, I just told them, I'll get back to you later.

13:57I call them as soon as I'm back home and I let them know I was doing X, Y, Z. I'm safe right now. Don't worry. Tasneem and Nada, both journalists in Beirut. I'm James Reynolds. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

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15:52Final conversation we can hear from two Israelis. During this latest conflict, people in Israel have been subjected to aerial attacks from Iran, and hundreds of missiles have been fired by Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. Avi is a property developer based near Tel Aviv, and Danny is a journalist who lives near Jerusalem. I spoke to them shortly after the ceasefire announcement and asked Avi firstly for his response. How blunt can I be on the BBC? You can say what you want. We might have to bleep you, but you can say it and we're not live and we might have to bleep you. Well, I can say it in Hebrew.

16:29Only the three of us will understand. I think the moment I heard it, I said, not again. OK, it's coming back to the same routine of being screwed again. OK, I don't know, 39 days of fighting now again or whatever. And we're back to square one. Iran, if we're not going to continue, they're going to continue. We're going to have a second and a third round. But what happened with Lebanon? OK, how come we're out of the pictures with Lebanon? You know, it drives me crazy that people think or the leaders or our main leader, the king of Israel. OK, he's saying we kill them. We destroy them. We took them back 30 years or whatever.

17:17And we're back to square one. And he's such a chicken. Sorry, you can cut it. But he he didn't have the guts to first thing in the morning today, stand up and talk to the people and explain where are we standing? Are we supposed to open our businesses tomorrow? Are we supposed to send our kids to school tomorrow? Who is going to pay us compensation to? Nothing. They disappeared. None of the Israeli politicians stood up in front of the people and told them, you know, it tells them where the hell are we. I think it's a polling. That's my opinion. Danny, how do you see it? Definitely there should be much more announcements.

18:01Let us know what's going on. That's no doubt about that. But that's not related to the situation. And I do definitely not agree with that first sentence. The situation now after almost 40 days of war is totally different. Iran is in a horrible situation economically in terms of the industries, all the industries, especially those that related to the building arms, missiles, etc. And the missile project is devastated about, I think, same as the things that related to the nuclear project. But after saying that, we have many more questions than what we know. For instance, in Lebanon, I think it was the prime minister of Pakistan said that Lebanon is included, but Israel is saying, no, it's not, and Israel is attacking.

18:48You can see now very heavy attacks on Lebanon just happening now. About Hormuz, there was some Iranian source told one of the media outlets that they're going to take money, they're going to take from the ships that are going through Hormuz. But now I just read that the Omani foreign minister said it's not true. And Americans are saying something a little bit different. So as long as we don't know the exact facts, we cannot judge exactly what the results are. And we should look at a situation that's happening now in the Gulf itself, because Iran is keep shooting on the UAE, Kuwait and others. So we do have to be patient before we are deciding who won and if the war was right or justified, etc.

19:38But the clerical regime, which has been in power since 1979, Danny, is still in power. It was not disloved. It is. Let me talk about what happened in the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu at the end of December. The meeting talked exactly about what to do and what will be the goals when launching an attack on Iran, Toppling the government, toppling the Iranian regime is, of course, the very strategic goal that will bring relief to the whole area, to the Iranians themselves, and will make the terror go back years back. But since it was a very unlikely or at least very, very hard to achieve, they decided that weakening the regime will be the real goal, the strategic goal, as long as, of course, with the other goals, which is the missiles and, of course, the uranium, etc.

20:37Now, we don't know what's going on with those targets, but there is no doubt that the regime is very, very weak now, especially if you compare it to the beginning of the war. I don't think it's going to be toppled so easy, if at all, but still, it's much weaker than it was. Avi, are you as an Israeli more or less safe than you were on the 28th of February when this war began? It's very difficult to say. I mean, you know, I, myself, Avi, and the people around me, and I belong to a WhatsApp group of 27 friends, and we asked the same thing this afternoon. You know, someone asked, do we feel safe?

21:23No one said yes. No one. Okay. Do I feel safe? I feel, you know, today I said to my wife, let's go out and have coffee. Okay. and we were still worried, is it a safe thing to do? Because no one, again, the question is, it's not us, me, Danny and George and Moshe. How come, I mean, we live in a country and we, I think, I think that we lost confidence in our leaders. Somebody has to tell me, is it safe? What's going to be tomorrow morning? I mean, do I feel safe? It's not important if Abbie Brown feels safe. I mean, are we as a country, we feel, I have a lot of friends, I'm from the north, I live in the center of Israel, but basically, I mean, I was raised in the north.

22:14I'm asking my family up north, do you feel safe? No. No, they don't. So what did we achieve? 20 days of a ceasefire? And what next? I feel very, very insecure. This is my reply. Danny, do you feel more or less safe? Much more, of course, much more. And I'll explain why. We live in the Middle East. This is an area which terror organizations are working, are very strong in the countries around us. And it's not only Gaza and Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. It's many, many others. And there are some countries, and the head of them is Iran, that one of their first goals is to demolish Israel.

23:02So, of course, that's the main, the basic situation. But now, if I'm looking at strategically, the world is different. The area is different. There's one word that the Israelis use from time to time, and it's called deterrence. I think that now, after the June War and after this war, the Iranians, the Iranian regime knows and understands that Israel can do whatever it wants, when it wants to attack Iran, and it can, and it did twice, make the Americans join us. And that's one huge deterrent action that can cause cautious, especially in Iran. But isn't there a different way of looking at it that perhaps people in Israel might have learned that two rounds of war, of intense war, have not succeeded in that great aim of dismantling the Islamic Republic and potentially returning to the 1970s friendship between Israel and Iran.

24:01That hasn't been successful at all. If you look at it as a goal that was supposed to be achieved, you're right, but I don't think it was. I mean, it was a hope. It was a vision. What's the difference between a goal and a hope? A hope is that we have a world peace, okay? A hope is, a vision is something that we hope that the whole area will have, will join the Abraham Accords and will have relations with Israel and will find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc., etc. That's a hope and a vision. But as a goal of the wars that happened in June and now, it was the hope that they will achieve it later, achieve it as one aspect of the world that will be achieved probably months after but for now we definitely achieved the goals of weakening the government in Iran the regime and made it much more cautious about what you're going to do in terms of Israel in terms of the US now we have to wait to see what the negotiations going to bring Americans are saying excuse me Danny What was the goal the day they started the second round?

25:12Wasn't there any goals? There were goals. Okay. Did we achieve them? Four or five of them. But the main goal was weakening the government, the regime, dealing with the nuclear program, meaning dismantling it totally. Three, the missiles program. Four, the support that Iran gives the terror organizations around that was called the proxies. Those are the main goals. The fifth one is the deterrence. The deterrence definitely happened, definitely there. All the others, we still have to wait to the negotiation and see what's going on with it. I mean, do you feel safe, Danny? As safe as I can be, yes, in Israel, yes.

25:52Much safer than two months ago? Much safer, definitely, much safer. The missile maybe might come into my area, but first of all, I'm going to the shelter. And second, I think that in the long run, definitely much, much more safer. When Iran is weak, Israel is much safer. Differing views there on the ceasefire from Avi and Danny in Israel. Our thanks to them and to all of our guests for sharing their experiences. I'm James Reynolds. You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

26:43We'll be right back.

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