00:00Yossi Mecklberg is an associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
00:06He joins us now. Thanks for coming on the program, Yossi.
00:09So let's start with those indirect talks in Doha, which seem to be focused on a ceasefire framework.
00:16What does a possible deal look like to you?
00:20Good afternoon.
00:22Well, the parameters of any plan or any agreement are known.
00:27It's about, at the end of the day, ending the war, ceasefire, at least for 60 days, the release of hostages, release of Palestinian prisoners, and then moving towards complete end of the war.
00:45But there was also a question, for instance, the presence of the Israeli Defense Force in some parts of Gaza, whether it's temporary or more permanent,
00:52whether Israel is maintaining some of the corridors, the Morag and Philadelphia corridors, who is providing the humanitarian aid, and whether Hamas' leadership is going into exile or not.
01:07So those are quite a few sticking points there.
01:10But the basic parameters is a ceasefire, release of hostages, and release of Palestinian prisoners.
01:17The U.S. president had seemed very confident about an early deal this week, but there's not been a breakthrough on the hostages or a ceasefire.
01:26How much clout do you think Trump has?
01:29I think, yes, clout, but the question, if he wants to put pressure mainly on Netanyahu, and at the same time, also the other mediators, the regional one, also to put pressure on Hamas.
01:42The thing is that the interest of the people, whether the Palestinians or the Israeli people, is not exactly the, or sometimes they are metrically opposite of their leadership.
01:52The leadership that both failed their people are fighting for their own survival, political survival, and at the same time, they sacrifice the interests of their own people, which is basically ending the war.
02:07Netanyahu, on the one hand, is afraid to lose its coalition in case of his sign agreement, because the ultra-nationalists say so, they leave the coalition.
02:17Hamas, they go into exile, and they don't know what's going to be their fate if the release of all the prisoners go into exile.
02:25And that's a big question, how the international community, and in this sense, Trump, especially now that Prime Minister Netanyahu visits Washington, is ready to put this pressure.
02:39I wonder what you think has changed.
02:41I mean, do you think there's a sense that the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran has created more favorable circumstances to end the Gaza war?
02:49I think it changed the dynamics, and also the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump.
02:58I think the conditions arrived for a while, but definitely now that Israel, in many ways, completed war with Hezbollah and Lebanon, almost there, the situation in Syria changed.
03:09Hamas military, as a military force, has been diminished considerably.
03:15Then the big question is, and Iran, both its ability to launch missiles, its ability to defend itself from the air, and also its nuclear capability being at least damaged to a certain extent,
03:30there are favorable conditions to reach an agreement.
03:34But the question is also, well, what kind of an agreement, when we still hear about so-called voluntary migration, when we hear about humanitarian space,
03:45those are all euphemisms of basically forcing Gazan people out of Gaza, and this will make it more difficult to accept, to have an acceptance among Palestinians, but also within the region.
03:59Yossi Merkelberg, at Chatham House, thank you very much indeed.
