What's Next For Gaza?, Trump Return From Middle East Trip, ICE Tactics

0:02The ceasefire is holding and aid has started flowing into Gaza but Hamas fighters are on the streets and violence is breaking out with rival groups. The deal calls for Hamas to disarm, but how will that happen while clashes continue? I'm Aimee Martinez, that is Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News.

0:20President Trump is back from his trip to Israel and Egypt, where he celebrated the ceasefire and claimed the war in Gaza is over. We have confronted evil together and we have waged war together and perhaps, most beautifully of all, we have made peace together. Now the focus shifts to the next steps in Trump's deal and how the U.S. plans to help enforce it. And in Chicago, immigration arrests are raising concerns about how federal agents are using force in American cities. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

0:55Support comes from our 2025 lead sponsor of Up First, Amazon Business. How can you grow your business from idea to industry leader? Bring your vision to life with smart business buying tools and technology from Amazon Business. From fast, free shipping to in-depth buying insights and automated purchase approvals, they deliver everything you need to achieve your goals. It's not easy to stand out from the crowd. Simplify how you stock up to get ahead. Go to AmazonBusiness.com for support. This message comes from Cozy Earth. Their bubble cuddle blanket is plush, textured, and feels like a cloud hug.

1:31And when it's time for bed, their temperature-regulating bamboo sheets are silky smooth and breathable to help you sleep cooler. Try them risk-free with a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty. Upgrade the place you spend the most time—your bed. Visit CozyEarth.com and use code UPFIRST for 20 % off. That's CozyEarth.com, code UPFIRST. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the University at Buffalo, where researchers have developed an imaging system that uses radar and AI to assess wounds without removing bandages. More at buffalo.edu slash NPR. People in Israel and the Palestinian territories are waking up to very different realities now that the war in Gaza is over after more than two years.

2:17The last 20 surviving Israeli hostages were freed by Hamas, and nearly 2 ,000 Palestinian prisoners were leased by Israel. Joining us to talk about all this and the many challenges ahead is NPR international correspondent Aya Bertrawa. Aya, good morning. Good morning, Michelle. So we heard the celebrations in Tel Aviv yesterday when the hostages were released. So tell us about the release of Palestinians later in the day. Well, more than 1 ,700 of those nearly 2 ,000 Palestinians were people from Gaza who were sent back. Some of them were journalists, doctors, first responders who were taken by soldiers from hospitals and off the streets.

2:50And they were sent to prison, held incommunicado. and now after the release they were showing signs of torture and abuse on their bodies, of severe malnutrition. Others were struggling to walk. NPR reporter Anas Baba was there to witness their return to Gaza. Have a listen. It's a mix of joy and at the same time it's a mix of survival for those who survived this war. It all blends with tears here. We can see the prisoners and also the families. They are just embracing each other with at the same time big smiles smiles, and at the same time, tears all over their cheeks. And those tears are also because some of these men have no homes to return to.

3:29They'll be sleeping in tents, that's for most of them. And others came out of captivity to find out their families are gone, like this man captured in a video shared by journalists in Gaza.

3:46Michelle, he's keeling over with his forehead on the ground, weeping for his kids that he just found out were killed in an Israeli airstrike while he was in captivity. He says one of them was eight, another one was five, another one was just about to turn two in a few days. They're among the more than 20 ,000 Palestinian kids the health ministry in Gaza says were killed in Israeli attacks in this war. And President Trump was in Israel yesterday, as we all saw. He also met with world leaders in Egypt, where he made promises that his plan to end the war marks the start of peace in the Middle East.

4:14So can you tell us what you can about what comes next. Well, currently, Israeli troops are still occupying and holding a little more than half of Gaza's territory, and they will not be withdrawing from that until Hamas disarms. But there are questions about whether the group will agree to storing their offensive weapons or handing them over. Will it be Egypt that oversees that process? So we still have a lot of questions unanswered about that. There are still at least 11 ,000 Palestinians also being held in Israeli prisons right now, and an unknown number of people from Gaza still being held. There are also families in Israel who want the 24 bodies of their loved ones who were killed in captivity in Gaza returned for proper burial.

4:49A search team will be assembled for that. And as we've all seen, the destruction of Gaza is immense. It's going to take a lot of money and a lot of time to rebuild. Do we have any sense of what's immediately next for Gaza? Well, at a base level, humanitarian aid and commercial goods are finally flowing back into Gaza with hundreds of trucks cleared to enter every day now to bring in far more food, medicine, tents and even cooking gas finally. But who's going to govern Gaza now after Hamas? Trump's plan says he will oversee a board of peace chaired by the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

5:21But it's unclear what role they'll have, who else will be on that board or how Gaza will be built, what it'll look like. And as I speak to you, there's an open street war in parts of Gaza City between Hamas security forces and militias and clans that have been publicly backed by Israel. So that vacuum of power will need to be filled by Arab forces and a retrained Palestinian police force. And Trump's plan also, Michelle, does not address the West Bank or the creation of a Palestinian state. So the root of the conflict remains unresolved. That is NPR international correspondent Aya Bertrawi. Aya, thank you.

5:49Thank you, Michelle. President Trump is just back from a whirlwind trip to the Middle East, where he personally marked the start of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. His first stop was Israel, as we've just said, where there was much to celebrate as the last 20 surviving hostages kidnapped on October 7th were freed. We have confronted evil together and we have waged war together. And perhaps most beautifully of all, we have made peace together. And this week, against all odds, we have done the impossible and brought our hostages home. Then it was on to Egypt for a separate celebration with other world leaders, including the leaders of Arab nations, key to cementing the deal that stopped the fighting.

6:28Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited but did not attend. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith joins us now. So, Tam, President Trump landed in Israel to jubilation. So what was his role in getting this deal to the finish line? Trump pushed this ceasefire agreement over the finish line through sheer force of will. It was a combination of Trump pressuring his close ally, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and countries like Qatar and Egypt putting pressure on Hamas to take the deal that made it come together. And Trump is now getting a lot of credit here in the U.S., even as critics are celebrating the deal.

7:03But a reminder that this is only the first phase of a multi-phase peace plan for Gaza, And there are significant areas of disagreement that haven't been worked out. The fact that Trump had to go to both Israel and Egypt to mark the moment is a sign of just how tenuous this deal remains. Now, the war between Israel and Hamas started on October 7, two years ago. President Joe Biden also tried to end it. You traveled with Biden on his Israel trip shortly after Hamas attack. What strikes you between the two president styles here? Yeah, that trip took place less than two weeks after the attack and emotions were still incredibly raw.

7:37Before October 7th, Biden had had a long and often tense relationship with Netanyahu. But when we landed in Tel Aviv, he immediately embraced Netanyahu on the tarmac. And then after a day of very difficult meetings with the Israeli war cabinet and survivors and others, Biden delivered remarks that contained both love and support for Israel and its people, but also a warning comparing what had happened to Israel to 9-11 in the U.S. But I caution this while you feel that rage. Don't be consumed by it. After 9-11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.

8:17Biden was basically warning Netanyahu to be careful not to get Israel pulled into an extended conflict that would have a high toll in civilian lives. But of course, that is exactly what happened. There have been other brief ceasefires before. What will you be watching for in this one? A big question now is whether this time is different. A lot of people think it is. Israel has gotten all the hostages out and Hamas is now thoroughly depleted. And by making this trip to the Middle East, Trump has invested significant political capital in this peace being a lasting one. But for this to hold, President Trump can't just take the win and move on.

8:51He's going to have to stay engaged and keep applying pressure. And that is something he hasn't always done. And then he returns to a government shutdown with really what? No end in sight. As you say, it is not clear where the exit ramps are for this government shutdown. The White House amped up the pressure on Democrats by announcing widespread layoffs. But if that was meant to get Democrats to cry uncle, it failed. Instead, it's hardened positions. Presidents having difficulty at home often look overseas for relief. And Trump certainly got to enjoy being exalted in the Middle East. Now at home, he's proceeding as if there's no shutdown at all.

9:27He'll be posthumously awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Charlie Kirk today. All right, that's NPR's Tamara Keith. Tam, thanks a lot. You're welcome.

9:43By now, you might have seen videos on the news or on social media of federal immigration officers detaining immigrants using what look to be increasingly aggressive tactics. A recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College finds that while a majority of voters support deporting people who entered the country illegally, 51 percent say the Trump administration's tactics have gone too far. NPR criminal justice reporter Meg Anderson has this report on the tactics immigration and customs enforcement agents are using. A video from Hyattsville, Maryland shows a man pinned to the ground by two ICE officers.

10:17He pleads in Spanish and English for someone to help him.

10:23One officer drops his gun during the exchange and fumbles for it. Then he appears to point it at bystanders. Put the gun down. Put the gun down. Emily Covington, an assistant director of ICE Public Affairs, told NPR in a statement that drawing a weapon can be used to stop a situation from escalating. Another video, this one from the Chicago area, appears to show a man getting shot in the head with a ball containing chemical irritants outside an ICE facility. That man has sued the Trump administration. These are just the tip of the iceberg. You know, I've seen worse. Fred Tsao is the senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

11:06People being tackled, people getting pepper sprayed or tear gassed. We've seen people getting threatened and we've seen at least two incidents involving gunfire. Last month, federal officers killed a man in a suburb of Chicago and recently they shot a woman in the city. After both shootings, officials at the Department of Homeland Security said the victims threatened officers. The woman's attorney says officer body camera footage contradicts that narrative. On Thursday, a special grand jury indicted her and another man involved. In court filings, the government says the two impeded, intimidated, and interfered with federal officers carrying out their duties.

11:47In her statement, Covington said ICE officers are, quote, highly trained and act accordingly with law and policy. But Gil Kurlikowski is a former police chief and former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration. He says federal immigration officers are not prepared for these situations. They do not have the training or skill set or experience to police an urban environment. Good policing in cities, he says, relies on de-escalation, trust, and public cooperation. He says the show of force federal officers are using in Chicago and elsewhere is unnecessary. These are tactics and strategies that are clearly not needed to be able to do their job.

12:33And I couldn't be more disappointed. Courts have weighed in on what's legal and determined that any use of force must be, quote, objectively reasonable. DHS, which includes ICE, uses that standard. The agency's most recent use-of-force policy notes that officers should only use force when, quote, no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist. Among the agency's principles are de-escalation and respect for human life. Seth Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who often trains police, says he likes to play a game with officers on the topic of objective reasonableness.

13:14I'll say, OK, we're going to play a game. Everybody pair up. So here are the rules of the game. Ready, everybody write this down. The rules of the game are be objectively reasonable. Go. What does that mean? The fact is much of this is open to interpretation. For instance, for a use of force to be constitutional, there has to be a valid threat. But threats can range from someone with a gun to someone resisting arrest to all kinds of things in between. So how police respond also has to be proportional to the danger. There's a lot for officers to consider. Many uses of force can be legally justified.

13:55But Stoughton says just because officers can do something doesn't mean they should. That's a different question than whether the officer can lawfully do what they're doing. The ACLU of Illinois and other immigrant advocate groups in the Chicago area say federal agents are violating the law by using violent force against protesters and others. And because of that, they say it's important for bystanders to document everything they see. That could help make these questions of force a little less open for interpretation. Meg Anderson, NPR News.

14:36And that's Up First for Tuesday, October 14th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm me, Martinez. The news does not end here. You can find more in-depth coverage on the stories we talked about today and a lot more on NPR's Morning Edition. You can find it on your local NPR station or in the NPR app. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Anna Yukoninov, Gigi Dubin, Mohamed Elbardisi, and Martha Ann Overland. It was produced by Zia Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.

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