One Year Since Oct. 7, How The War Shapes The Vote In Michigan

0:02One year ago today, Israelis hid from Hamas. We all were on the radio hearing them whispering to the radio people, why doesn't anyone come? And there are hostages still in Gaza. I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News. The deadliest attack in Israeli history preceded the deadliest war in Palestinian history. Funerals is nonstop. Families are waving goodbyes, the last farewell for their beloved. Death and suffering remain constant in Gaza as Israel expands the war to the north in Lebanon. And in the U.S., the Detroit metro area is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans.

0:44How is the Biden administration's support for Israel's war shaping their views on the election? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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2:10At 6.29 a.m. on this day, one year ago, Hamas launched its ambush on Israel. It was the deadliest attack in Israeli history, killing around 1 ,200 people. And Hamas forces took hostages, unleashing the deadliest war in Palestinian history. In Gaza, the health ministry says at least 41 ,000 people have been killed over the past year, more than half of them women and children. I'm joined by two NPR correspondents who've been covering the conflict for this whole year. Daniel Estrin in southern Israel and Ayah Batraoui in Dubai. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Good morning, Leva. So Daniel, I want to start with you.

2:49How are Israelis marking this day? They're holding a lot of memorials, and I attended one at 6.29 this morning. That was the minute that Hamas launched its attack a year ago. It was at the site of an outdoor music festival where more than 360 people were killed. And at this memorial, they played the very last track of the music that was played at the festival before it was attacked. And then there was a moment of silence, and someone in the crowd wailed. This is what it sounded like.

3:22The whole time we were there at the memorial, we heard Israel firing artillery across the border into Gaza.

3:33At that memorial, we met Ophir Duchovne. His close friend was killed at the festival, and I asked him, one year later, how is he feeling? Like, no time has passed. We cannot believe she's not with us. Trying to wake up from this nightmare, but we cannot. Cannot wake up from the nightmare. And many in Israel feel that way. First, because no one thought it would last this long. And even today, there were rockets fired out of Gaza towards central Israel. But also because Israelis are not able to grieve together as a nation, even to remember this worst disaster in their country's history, because the country's divided.

4:12The official state ceremony was pre-recorded to avoid heckling. It's being boycotted by many communities that were attacked. Many Israelis are angry at their government for not striking a deal to end the war and to free the hostages who are still in Gaza. So it's a nation also divided on whether to continue that war. Now, Aya, you've been following the situation in Gaza for much of the past year. With the daily realities of war, are Palestinians marking this day? So, Leila, in Gaza, there's no moment for standing in silence or reflection. This is what it sounds like on day 366 of the war in Gaza today.

4:56Now, Israel says these operations are aimed at Hamas, but Palestinians say every day and night brings terror from these advanced fighter jets and drones and that it's a collective punishment. And every day families are killed, sheltering in bombed-out schools or homes. And warplanes dropped flyers just yesterday again, ordering people in the north of Gaza to leave their cities to other parts of Gaza. But this is what they'll find if they heed those orders.

5:30More death and mourning from people killed in Israeli airstrikes. NPR's producer in Gaza, Enes Baba, recorded that just yesterday from a morgue in central Gaza. Women are struggling to find sanitary pads. There's been no running water for the past year. Kids are forgetting how to read and write. We're in a second year without schools. And people are dying in hospitals without fuel just to keep life support machines running. It feels like all of Gaza is on life support, dependent on aid and just surviving one day at a time. Just listening to Daniel and then to you, just so much pain. Daniel, how has Israel changed this year?

6:06And what's next for this traumatized and divided society, one at war on several fronts now? This really was a pivotal moment in Israeli history, October 7th. Nearly everyone in Israel knows somebody who was killed. And the basic social contract of the country was shattered. That contract is that Israel will come to protect you and aid you when you're attacked. The army failed miserably on October 7th to do that. So this past year, Israel's military has pummeled Gaza. It has tried to make up for its failures on October 7th. It has now expanded that war into Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has joined the fight with Hamas against Israel.

6:48It's also brought the war closer between Israel and Iran. And yet, despite all of that, Israelis are not feeling safer today. They do feel that their wars are just, but they feel that they don't trust the leaders waging the wars. And many Israelis I know and many know have left the country this year because they don't see hope in this country. It's a day of reflection today, Leila, but many Israelis are also looking forward and saying, what next? The leaders of Hamas and Israel are showing no rush to end the war. Questions about what happens in Lebanon now with Israel's ground invasion there. What happens with Iran as Israel vows to attack?

7:23Who wins the U.S. election will be key to especially how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu navigates the war. The biggest question for me is how do these societies in Israel and Gaza ever heal? And Aya, how has this war changed Gaza and impacted people across the region now? It's a question that's really hard to put into words. But as Daniel was talking about people able to leave Israel, you know, in Gaza, there are at least 12 ,000 people who need urgent medical evacuation and they're unable to leave. And there are countless crowdsourcing pages like looking for funding for people to be able to leave if the border ever opens again with Egypt.

8:02And one of those people is Tala Abajwa's father, Hossam. Now, the 10-year-old girl, she was wearing pink roller skates one afternoon with her brother to go outside and play in Gaza City. It was on day 332 of this war. And she was killed when shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike targeting an apartment in her building sliced through her neck as she was at the gates of that building just wearing her pink roller skates.

8:31So that's Talal's father, Hassam, telling me every time he goes in and out of this bombed out building, he sees his daughter where she was last playing and where she died. And for the sake of his family and his other three kids, he's one of the many people now ready to leave Gaza altogether. You know, the social fabric of the entire society has been decimated, just like its buildings and its streets. UNICEF has called Gaza a graveyard for children. The health ministry has identified at least 11 ,000 children who've been killed, 700 of them, babies under a year old, thousands of orphans, kids who've lost limbs.

9:03There's just no vision for the future of Gaza now. Who's going to lead it? How do you clear the rubble? How does life even resume there for people? And all that's now being overshadowed by the war in Lebanon, where over a million people are displaced and sleeping on the streets and in schools. So the real question, I think we go back to the beginning and how it started. Where does this lead to, if not two states, where Palestinians and Israelis are able to live in security? That's NPR's Aya Batrawi in Dubai and Daniel Estrin in southern Israel. Thank you both so much for this past year of reporting and the reporting you continue to bring us every day.

9:34Thank you so much, Leila. Thanks, Leila.

9:44The Middle East war is personal for people across this country. And, Leila, that must be especially true where you are this morning. I would think that of all the swing states, Michigan must be an especially powerful place to be on this October 7th. Yeah, it is. It's because, as Daniel and I explained, Israel's war has expanded beyond Gaza into Lebanon. And not only is it the largest Arab American population, it's the largest Lebanese American population in the country here in Michigan. And so you really feel the human cost of that conflict here. Many people have families that hail from the very places being bombed right now.

10:22And when we hear that number from A, about a million people displaced, there must be a lot of people getting calls in Michigan. Is this group large enough to swing the election, though? I mean, it's possible. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by something like 10 ,000 votes back in 2016. And polls show Harris and Trump neck and neck. So for many voters here, the Biden administration's inability to secure a ceasefire, the weapons the U.S. government sends Israel to use in Gaza, and the expansion of Israel's offensive into Lebanon for voters that are Arab American and Muslim American, it's turned many of them away from the Democrats.

10:58And that became starkly clear when I met Samra Lookman in a coffee shop in Dearborn. She's a Yemeni-American community organizer. I have endorsed Trump, yes. And this is coming from somebody who wrote in Bernie Sanders in 2020. That's how far left I was. That's how far left I was, she says, as she says she's supporting Trump. How does she square that with some of Trump's record? Just to pick an example, a travel ban, which was initially advertised as a Muslim ban and ultimately targeted a number of majority Muslim countries. Yeah, I mean, he has actually promised to bring that back. And he's also said things like Israel should, quote, finish the job in Gaza.

11:36But many people here, Lebanese, Palestinian, Yemeni, have family members displaced or killed. And they see Harris and Biden as one in the same. And some, like Lukman, are determined to punish the Democrats for what they see as unconditional support of Israel. She says whether Trump limits rights, whether it's travel or reproductive rights, it didn't bring with it a year's worth of death and destruction. So she's doing whatever she can to rally her community to get out and vote against the Democrats, even though she still identifies as a Democrat. Now, of course, not everyone is going that way.

12:10Actually, most Arab Americans I spoke to said they're either backing the third party candidate, Jill Stein, or maybe not voting at all because they say they don't think the candidates value their lives or their families' lives. Not voting at all is not good if you're Kamala Harris. So what's the Harris campaign doing about that? I mean, they've made some overtures, met with some Arab American and Muslim leaders in Michigan, and about 25 imams around the country endorsed her in an open letter along with a few groups. But she's running out of time to win them over, and it's just not clear how many voters these leaders and groups really represent.

12:42Okay, so that's what you're hearing around Detroit. What happens when you get a little outside the city? Yeah, my team and I spent some time in some of Michigan's smaller towns, and there's quite a bit of anxiety around how Election Day may play out after what happened in 2020. I mean, Steve, we've been talking about this for a long time, the way people were really convinced the election was stolen despite a lack of evidence. And some people still do not accept it was a fair election. We attended a meeting for a group known as America First in a town outside of Detroit about an hour and a half away.

13:18And it's a right wing offshoot of the Republican Party. And a representative from the Trump campaign's election integrity team dropped by to encourage people there to be poll watchers and report any suspicious activity. What I need are people on the ground. I need troops in the trenches. I need poll challengers. I need poll workers. We're going to do our bit to make sure that everything goes according to plan without a hitch. And it's making some poll workers kind of nervous. And they're thinking about, if something goes wrong, how do I get out of the polling station? Oh, interesting. And we've been hearing from poll workers and election workers on NPR over the past many days.

13:56So what else is coming this week as you report from Michigan, Layla? I mean, you'll hear from pretty much every demographic in the state. Young voters, black voters, white voters, Jewish voters, all voting groups that could determine selection for one candidate or the other. OK, eager to hear it. Leila, thanks so much. Thank you. Now you can hear many stories of lives changed in the past year on NPR's State of the World podcast, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts or on the NPR app.

14:28And that's up first for Monday, October 7th. I'm Leila Faldin. And I'm Steve Inskey. Up First gives you the three big stories of the day. Our colleagues at NPRs consider this. Dive into a single news story for 15 minutes or so. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Vincent Nee, Arzu Razvani, Ali Schweitzer, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Paige Waterhouse, Nia Dumas, and Ana Perez. We get engineering support from Carly Strange, and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Join us again tomorrow.

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