Israel invades Gaza City. Will anything stop Netanyahu?

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0:41It's not merely the starvation fraud. It's a genocide fraud. If we wanted to commit genocide, we would have done it in one afternoon. We have the capacity, but we don't do that. That was the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking on a podcast about how easy it would be to commit genocide if he wanted to in Palestine and Gaza. Once upon a time, not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable that he might speak so blithely. Once upon a time, not so long ago, it might have been unthinkable that the Israeli government would launch a full-scale invasion of Gaza. Once upon a time, not so long ago, it might have been unthinkable that the Israeli government would openly suggest a settler scheme in the West Bank to make a Palestinian state impossible.

1:29Once upon a time, not so long ago, it might have been unthinkable that Israeli ministers would plan to place one million Palestinians in a camp on the ruins of a Ghazan city from which they would be unable to leave. And yet in 2025, the unthinkable finds itself entirely rethought. On Thursday morning, the Israeli government expanded its operation in a full-scale invasion of Gaza City, establishing an outpost in its outskirts. This off the back of 60 ,000 extra reservists being called up to the IDF. The Netanyahu government appears to be hunkering down instead of winding down the war. Instead, it is ramping it up.

2:13What on earth is going on now in Gaza? And what can possibly come from a full-scale invasion for the Gazans and Israelis too? Welcome to The News Agents.

2:30The News Agents. Well, let's get straight into this with Leila Milana-Allen. She's an old friend of mine. She's a special correspondent for PBS News Hour. No one knows the Middle East better than she does. Leila, let's just start. But for those who aren't familiar with Gaza, Gaza City, tell us about it. Tell us why this is such an extraordinary action from the Israeli government. Well, Gaza City is obviously the most important place in Gaza in terms of population, in terms of where previously sort of the capital industry there, where most of the businesses were, where the biggest hospitals were, where the biggest universities were.

3:02Now, of course, much of that is now gone. Nearly 90 % of housing units across Gaza have been either damaged or permanently destroyed. much of the strip is a complete wasteland but there are still many many people living in gaza city it is difficult to know exactly how many because of course there's been so much displacement over the last 21 months through the war people going south people coming back north that we don't have clear numbers but it's estimated that around half the population that's around a million people are living in and around gaza city it is also one of the places one of the only functioning hospitals al-shefa hospital is still going and it's also a site where people have been struggling extensively for months because so little aid has got in now of course not much aid has got into Gaza at all over the last few months but what has been there has been in the south so people living up in the north in Gaza City facing utterly dire conditions I speak to people in the city fairly regularly and they tell me that they for weeks now have been locked into the streets that they live on there are airstrikes happening all around so you are targeting an already incredibly vulnerable population.

4:07What is the objective at this point of the Israeli government to actually take the city? What is the point at this moment? Well, the question is, what are the stated objectives and what do some people suspect the objectives might be? The stated objective is that this is now the main place where remaining Hamas fighters are. That, of course, has been said about multiple other places. We heard that just a few weeks ago about Derabella, which was an area which for a long time had not been attacked by the IDF, hadn't really had any major military campaign against it, because it's where a lot of the NGOs that are still operating within Gaza are based.

4:44We then heard that's where most of the Hamas fighters are. Now it's being said that they're in Gaza City. So that's kind of the stated reason why Prime Minister Bin Netanyahu and the IDF say they need to go into Gaza City. Many suspect that the real reason is that actually now that Israel has declared it wants to have permanent security control over Gaza, they want to make sure firstly that they have taken the capital city, very possibly damaged it beyond repair, and certainly so that they have the power to move as many people down to the south as possible, which has long been their stated objective.

5:17They say that they want to set up essentially what they call a humanitarian camp, many in the international community say would be an internment camp in the south of Gaza, where Palestinians essentially live in gated camps where they are provided aid, but they do not have freedom of movement, so that Israel can then decide what it wants to do with the rest of the Strip, rebuild it on its own terms, and have control over both security and who governs the Strip going forward. The other thing is, of course, that we are heading towards September with the UN General Assembly, and we have heard statements from multiple Western leaders, of course, Keir Starmer in the UK, Macron in France, in Canada as well, saying that they are now going to recognize Palestinian statehood as kind of a methodology for trying to move towards a peaceful solution to empower Palestinians in that way so that there's some debate between the two different states.

6:07There is a suspicion among many that the reason this has been sped up is because essentially those on the Israeli right who want to have long running control over Gaza and are certainly against any form of two-state solution in the future want there to be no possibility for a state to exist any longer in Gaza. And of course, we'll remember a few weeks ago when Keir Starmer said that he did support Palestinian statehood in the long term, his own MPs within the Labour Party said, well, you've got to do it now, because if you wait any longer, there won't be any land left for them to make a state on.

6:39Presumably, this is going to make an already catastrophic humanitarian situation even worse. It's almost impossible at this point when we talk about Gaza to keep saying somehow it has become worse. One cannot imagine how it's becoming worse. And yet it is. So, of course, since March, since the end of the last ceasefire, when Israel pulled out of the second round of the ceasefire, which meant to move towards ending the war, there was a three month gap on any aid coming into the country at all. Then Israel created this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which was supposed to bring aid in, firstly under dire conditions that have been condemned by all international institutions, the UN, many Western governments, that essentially people were queuing up in cages to get aid and then being shot, more than a thousand people killed while trying to collect aid for their families.

7:27So you already have a horrific situation in which people on the street in Gaza regularly say, now, how shall I die? By starvation or by a bullet? Obviously, the horrific scenes that we've coming out of starvation, of people unable to get access to clean water. Most of the children in Gaza now have skin conditions because they have no clean water. They've got varying types of scabies. We're, of course, in the middle of summer, absolutely sweltering conditions. Lots of Gazans are being sent to Almawasi, which is this area on the sea in the south. It's been called a humanitarian area. This is not a humanitarian area.

8:00It's essentially sand with a very small amount of infrastructure. They are living in baking hot tents and they are not allowed to enter the sea by the Israeli military, potentially the one place of respite. If they enter the sea, they are threatened with being shot. So what they're facing already is so horrifying. Many of these people have been displaced seven, eight, nine, ten times through the war. Many are injured from having been hit by airstrikes, either on buildings they've been in or tents they've been living in. You know, when you see these master's placements, there's no petrol remembrance.

8:30People can't move up and down the strip in cars. They're walking. Sometimes if they're lucky enough to have a donkey that's still alive that they've managed to feed, they're using donkey carts, people moving around in wheelbarrows, badly injured. They don't have the medicine that they need for either injuries that come from the war or for long term medical conditions. so you really are facing every possible side of a humanitarian catastrophe and now they're being asked once again the panic that I am hearing speaking to families in Gaza City how can we move again how can we possibly do it where will we go because of course the other thing is that when they move as well they're not only being displaced once again to they don't know where they lose whatever means they might have had for knowing where the nearest aid distribution point is, if there is any, whatever systems they might have set up to try and get hold of clean water, some form of medicine, whatever community they've built to try and share those goods.

9:23Often they've built some sort of temporary stove, they'll lose that. Then they're on the move and they're moving through airstrikes, they're moving through artillery fire, through shelling. They are constantly under assault wherever they go. I think a lot of people listening to this, will be thinking, what, we're 20 months or so into this. When will it end? The Netanyahu government says that it could end if Hamas were to surrender and surrender as well the hostages that they have, the remaining hostages they have, and when they have destroyed Hamas militarily. I mean, I wonder at this point, even if they were to surrender the hostages, would Netanyahu government and the forces that propel the Netanyahu government, i.e.

10:00not just Netanyahu himself, but the far right elements of his government that see this moment as perhaps a historic opportunity to achieve everything they always wanted to achieve. Full settlement at the West Bank, removal of the Gaza population, would they stop even then, do you think? Well, that's the question, isn't it? Many people for a long time within Israel itself have been saying this hasn't been about the hostages for a long time. We're, of course, seeing protests spreading on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, both from the hostage families, furious that yet another offensive is very unlikely to bring the remaining hostages who are alive home alive.

10:34It poses the biggest risk possible to them. And secondly, we're seeing many Israeli civilians standing up with pictures of dead guards and children saying, not in our name, we cannot kill any more people. We don't want this done for us. And there is this huge divide now between the far right government and those who support them, and many everyday Israelis who are desperate for this to end for multiple reasons. Now, of course, we know that for years, the way that Ben-Mirah has kept his government going is with this far right coalition. Several leading members of it regularly threaten to leave the coalition, which would of course collapse the government if he agrees to a ceasefire, if he doesn't continue with the war on Gaza, if he doesn't declare the all-out destruction of Gaza as we know it.

11:16So that's the first thing is it does seem now that really he has decided, stuck between this rock and a hard place, between civilians in Israel, many of them asking him to stop, and his government that he's going to agree with the far right, he's going to push, he's going to try and keep going. And one thing I do always remember when I'm thinking about this is I remember sitting in a room with him at a press conference, about a week after October 7th. And we asked him, you know, this level of killing, is this the way to go about this? Is this going to actually fix the problem? And he responded, people will think I'm wrong, but I know this war is going to make everyone realize that I'm the guy to keep everyone safe.

11:57I'm the only leader who can keep Israel safe. And once I win it, everyone will understand that I'm a hero of Israel. And that's how he's continued for the last two years. he is completely one-minded in that. And that's becoming increasingly clear, even as he turns his back on all his allies, essentially, other than the US, who are desperately pleading with him to stop this. Now, of course, the most recent evidence that we've got of that is this ceasefire deal. So as I said, in March, Israel pulled out of what was supposed to be the next stage of the deal, which moved towards the release of the rest of the hostages, and importantly, moved towards the end of the war.

12:30They changed the terms. Trump's released envoy, Steve Wyckoff, has gone back and forth and proposed new and different deals and consistently is brought back and said they will not agree to a full pull out of troops they will not agree to a deal that does not completely dismantle Hamas and remove them entirely from Gaza that's almost impossible people say partly because Hamas won't agree to that and that traps Palestinian civilians within that and secondly because Hamas is an ideology it's not just a group now what we've seen in the past couple of days is that finally Hamas has really turned around having consistently said no we won't agree to these new terms that are only a temporary ceasefire.

13:05And they've said, actually, we will. So they've now, the day before yesterday, agreed to essentially 98%, so the Americans say, of the deal that Israel and Wyckoff came up with. There are about 50 hostages left inside Gaza, 20 we think are alive. This would release 10 of the living hostages in return for 150 Palestinian prisoners, and it would start moving towards the eventual end of the war. Now, it's been 48 hours since Hamas agreed to that. There has currently been no response from the Israeli government to that yet. They doubled down yesterday saying, yes, we absolutely want a ceasefire. We want an end to the war, but we have other goals that we need to achieve as well.

13:43So currently, the ball is in their court whether they want that ceasefire. And the key negotiators, Egypt and Qatar in this, are saying that they're concerned that essentially, they're sort of peddling out time to be able to have this mass offensive in Gaza City and not agree to that ceasefire until afterwards so that they can potentially flatten the city. Bezalas Martyrs, the finance minister, came out the other day saying, you know, the only answer now is for us to entirely bulldoze Gaza City, make it unrecognisable. Nobody should be able to live there anymore. And just a reminder that that is a war crime.

14:17One of the methods of ethnic cleansing is to make somewhere unlivable. You remove food, you remove water, you remove access to healthcare, and you remove any buildings that are there that makes the land unlivable. And basically, by driving people out because they can't survive there, you are conducting ethnic cleansing. Just one more thing is really important on this as well. We, of course, saw a couple of weeks ago, the murder of Anant al-Sherif, the rest of his Al Jazeera team. Now, for two years, Israel has been systematically targeting journalists, more than 200 Palestinian journalists killed, delegitimizing them, and then retrospectively saying they were Hamas in some way.

14:58For a long time, there were often questions over whether it was intentional, whether they were killed by accident. In this case, they were killed sitting in a media tent outside El Chippah Hospital that was a clearly designated media tent. The IDF wiped out Al Jazeera's entire Gaza City operation. And of course, Al Jazeera is one of the only broadcasters that are continuously broadcast still from Gaza. Now, firstly, that, of course, was a clear attack against journalists. The IDF came out and confirmed that they had intended to target Hamas and kill him. They accused him of being a Hamas rocket launch commander, essentially.

15:34There's really no evidence of that. And secondly, he's been broadcasting live for 15 to 20 hours every single day for the last 20 months. So when would he have done that? And there weren't even any accusations against the other four members of his team. They were just there. Many people inside Gaza, including the entire staff of the hospital, believe that the reason that that team was targeted is because the IDF is determined to carry out its operation in Gaza City, essentially with people blind, so that there's no broadcasting of it and no one is able to see what's happening. That is an increasing accusation in terms of taking out Palestinian journalists.

16:07Anas was the most high profile journalist in Gaza so many believe that he was spared for a while but the committee journalists said in July that they are convinced that for months the Israeli government and the IDF have been targeting him and creating premeditated evidence to try and justify his killing in advance basically concocting a case so that they could target him when they wanted to. So not only are we essentially seeing prevarication where on the one side the government says, oh, we're still interested in the ceasefire, but let us just do this first. But secondly, many believe that they are trying to essentially remove any of the eyes and voices that could monitor what's happening.

16:47And of course, once again, still no international media allowed in to report and do their jobs after 22 months. Leila, thanks so much. Thanks so much for your insight. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. Right, we'll of course keep an eye on this story which as Leila says, somehow gets darker by the day. Now you may have noticed that I've been on my tod so far but when we come back, John will actually earn his money for the day, for once. He's been speaking to an historian whose new book on Prince Andrew is shaking royal circles. If you thought that you couldn't be shocked by anything Prince Andrew might have done well think again.

17:19Stay with us.

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18:09I mean, I've gone through this in my mind so many times. At the end of the day, with the benefit of all the hindsight that one could have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do. You probably don't need a reminder. That was the moment Prince Andrew's life in the public eye came to a crashing, humiliating end. That interview with Emily in 2019 was described as the worst PR crisis for the royal family since the death of Princess Diana. The aftermath seemed to cement the public's perception of Andrew as boorish, abhor, arrogant, out of touch and lacking in judgment. Well, there's a new book out by the historian Andrew Lowney, which puts, frankly, rocket boosters on all of that.

18:59Whatever your impression was before, it will be ten times more having read this book. It's called Entitled, The Rise and Fall of the House of York. And I sat down with him recently about some of the remarkable, jaw-dropping stories he's uncovered in his research to uncover the real Prince Andrew.

19:24Well, we're joined now by Andrew Lowney. I've read the book and I am struck by the efforts you went to and the detail you got on the finances, where some of the money was coming from, some of the dodgy dealing that you uncovered, but also how much you failed to uncover. why couldn't you get to the truth of it? Well I agree this is the tip of the iceberg and I've only uncovered things that were perhaps reported in the press or were legal cases where things emerged or legal depositions I mean if we hadn't had Virginia Giffray quite a lot of the stuff wouldn't have happened and you're absolutely right I mean there have been obstacles from the beginning and there continue to be obstacles so one of the most important things which I've been working on for four years now is to get access to the archives and the files of Andrew as special trade envoy between 2001 and 2011.

20:19And these files should actually, some of them, be in the National Archives anyway. But there's a very strong public interest here. He was paid for by the taxpayer. And there are suspicions, and indeed I found, that he was taking people with him who he shouldn't be taking. His two daughters, Epstein, David and Jonathan Rowlands, who are his business partners, and others. And this, of course, has all been covered up. The Foreign Office told people not to talk to me. The Yorks themselves forbade people from talking to me. I'd hoped that at least they would have some of their friends talk to me and help shape the narrative in quite a positive way for them.

20:54You use the word cover-up, and cover-up is always a strong word. What do you mean by it? How can you justify that suggestion? Well, because I think my experience in the last four years with the information rights departments of both the Foreign Office and Business and Trade is they've led me a very dance. So I'll ask for files and they'll say there's so much there, the cost compliance thing comes into it. So you need to narrow it. When I narrow it, they say we've got nothing or it's health and safety or it's personal data. I mean, they use every or national security or whatever. Then I come back and I ask another question and they'll say you're just being vexatious.

21:33You've asked two questions in the last three months and that's not allowed. So, you know, every excuse is used not to provide this material when actually under FOI rules, They should be giving me some assistance to help me focus what I need to uncover. So what I want to understand in that is that you talk about you've been trying to uncover this in the past four years. Those are four years since Andrew has stepped back from royal duties. Are you saying that they're still protecting him? Yes. You know, for example, the Department of Trade internal computer has been wiped of all references to him.

22:08And I think this is what Andrew realised, that he was protected. I mean, first of all, he had the protection of the Queen. You know, any time anyone raised any objections about either his financial dealings or basically what a mess he was making of being special representative, she gave him a curt sort of acknowledgement and that was it. You know, I had the head of the Foreign Office say that they put in representations and they were ignored. And Chris Bryant is on the record, a Labour minister, who put in complaints to Number 10 and they just sort of shrugged their shoulders. I've got intelligence officials reporting quite serious criminal acts, being told, you know, forget it.

22:46There's no point in pursuing this. So, yes, you know, and Andrew just could operate with impunity, knowing that nothing would happen. And part of that is the deference that we still show to the royal family. There's no parliamentary scrutiny in terms of asking questions. They're not part of the Freedom of Information Act. Ambassadors clearly feel that they are Her Majesty's ambassador, and they therefore can't speak out of turn about what they've done. And pressure was put on people. So, for example, ambassadors who did say that there had been problems found that their careers were curtailed. I talked to a protection officer and said, why didn't you report this?

23:21And he said, I was told, if you did so, you had a choice. You have a nice job with first-class travel, or you can go back on the beat in Brixton. And so this pressure was put on lots and lots of people. And we have, of course, the famous case of Amy Roback at ABC Television, who had the story, had interviewed Virginia Giffray. And the palace heard about it and they threatened ABC with basically withholding access to any member of the royal family for interviews. And ABC backed off. One of the interesting things is now the book is out, members of the media are saying, we knew a lot of this stuff, but we didn't feel we could report it.

23:59So I hope it may allow things to be slightly more transparent about what has happened. Why? Why do you think it is that even though, you know, the disgrace came most notably when my news agent colleague, Emily Maitlis, did the interview with Prince Andrew, why the need to still protect him? Surely the smart thing to do if you're the royal family would be to absolutely hang him out to dry and say he was a wrong one from the start. But they're not doing that. They've said you've got to stand back from royal duties. But institutionally, they're still, as your book argues, are still protecting him.

24:36Yeah. I mean, you know, in some ways they need to cut off this infected limb. Otherwise it'll infect the body politic. And King Charles knew about his brother. I mean, he was one of the people who argued against him being appointed a special trade representative. He knew it was going to be a disaster. So I think the feeling is that, you know, this is just a summer thing. It'll pass over. So what? We've been here before. But I agree. I think they need to take this seriously because it undermines the good work that the rest of the family do. And I speak as a monarchist, slightly disappointed one sometimes, because, you know, I think monarchy is our best form, is the best system.