Beyond the Headlines

The eight-month war in Gaza has caused a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. Over 37 thousand Palestinians have been killed in this period, and over 80 thousand have been injured in the conflict.    A robust coordination between government bodies, international institutions and NGOs is needed to provide relief to the Palestinian people left in Gaza. However, with around 60% of Gaza's buildings and 80% of commercial facilities damaged by the Israeli bombardment. So, there’s a lot to be done to provide shelter and it's been estimated it could take up to 20 years to rebuild.   In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, Nada AlTaher hosts from Jordan, after attending an emergency humanitarian conference for Gaza on the shores of the Dead Sea. She speaks to the newly-appointed Palestinian minister of relief affairs, the head of advocacy and communications for the MENA region at the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Middle East regional director for Handicap International.

Eight months into the war in Gaza, as two million people there struggle for survival and more than 36,600 have lost their lives, the fate of Israel and Hamas themselves also hangs in the balance. Israel has said it will not stop the war until it eradicates Hamas, but it is also struggling internally as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fights for power – and what his army can realistically achieve on the ground as pressure mounts for him to stick to the rules of military combat and international humanitarian law. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden outlined a ceasefire plan to move from a limited exchange of hostages for detainees to broader discussions about a permanent end to the war. The plan includes ending hostilities, releasing hostages and reconstructing Gaza in the long term. Mr Biden has acknowledged this transition will be challenging, as a point of contention is that Mr Netanyahu wants the hostages released first before a ceasefire begins and Hamas wants the opposite. In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, host Nada AlTaher looks into the dynamics that influence the prospects of ending the war, why previous attempts at negotiation have failed and how much internal and external pressures can influence Israel.

A series of deadly Israeli strikes launched on May 26 at a camp for displaced people in Rafah, targeting two senior Hamas members, caused a fire and killed 45 people. It came only days after global leaders urged Israel to adhere to a ruling by the International Court of Justice ordering it to halt its military operations in the city. This incident has prompted an international outcry and widespread condemnation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “tragic mishap” that would be investigated. In related developments this week, three European countries - Spain, Norway and Ireland - formally recognised the state of Palestine, in a symbolic move meant to show a way out of the war in the Middle East. In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, host Nada AlTaher looks at May 26, why Rafah has become the main focus of military operations in Gaza, and the reaction in Israel to the ICJ order and the moves to recognise Palestine.

The sudden death of a president and his Foreign Minister could send any country into disarray and chaos. But that’s not exactly what happened in Iran after a helicopter crash killed President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian on Sunday. Raisi, a 63-year-old ultraconservative cleric, had once been seen as a potential successor to current supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, after being groomed for the presidency for years. He won in the 2021 elections but with a record-low turnout. In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, host Nada AlTaher looks into who’s currently in charge of Iran, who will be the successor of Raisi, and what impact could have on the foreign policy of the country.

Israel’s latest attacks on the city of Rafah have intensified criticism of its war on Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been forced to flee Rafah amid warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe if a full-scale assault goes ahead. So how has the world responded? Last week, the US suspended a shipment of bombs to Israel due to concerns about civilian casualties (although this week, the White House informed Congress of its intention to send a $1 billion arms package). Meanwhile, Arab foreign ministers met in Bahrain for the 33rd annual Arab League summit to formulate an action plan to end the conflict. This week on Beyond The Headlines, host Nada AlTaher looks at international and regional reaction to the intensification of military operations in Rafah, and the diplomatic options available to Arab countries to put an end to this conflict.

Over the past few weeks, many college campuses around the world have become focal points for anti-war protests, with thousands of students and faculty members showing solidarity with Palestinians. There have been different responses, from massive support on social media to swift actions from some college administration in the US who requested police help to clear encampments, leading to the arrest of hundreds of students and staff members. Similar protests took place at major universities in the UK, Canada, Australia and across Europe. So where is this movement heading? What are the responses of faculty administrators? And which universities have agreed to student demands? In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, host Tom Watkins, The National’s Washington bureau chief, looks into all of this with the co-director of the Centre for Palestine studies at Columbia University, Nadia Abu El-Haj, and The National’s senior US correspondent Willy Lowry.

Israeli military leaflets dropped into Gaza on Monday instructed Palestinians to leave eastern Rafah before “targeted airstrikes” hit the city, forcing thousands to evacuate the area. On the same day, and after negotiations over the weekend, Hamas announced its acceptance of the ceasefire deal, brokered by the Egyptians and the Qataris, prompting celebrations across Gaza, after seven months of war. Israel, however, said it could not agree to the proposal, but was willing to negotiate. In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, host Nada AlTaher talks to Israeli political analyst Gershon Baskin and Kobi Michael, senior research fellow at The Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, about the Israeli incursion into Rafah and the prospects for a ceasefire.

More than 34,000 Palestinians have died in Israel's onslaught on Gaza since October. But there's another grim figure that tells the story of the Gaza conflict: 77,000. That's the number of people who have suffered horrific burns, blast injuries, lacerations and crushed bones. A small number have managed to leave the under-siege strip for medical treatment. The UAE is one of a small number of countries taking patients in and treating them at its hospitals for free. To date, it has operated 16 flights on commercial airliners refitted with hospital beds and medical equipment. About 1,000 injured Gazans, plus another 1,000 cancer patients, have been flown to the Emirati capital. This week on Beyond the Headlines, Nada AlTaher, who was on board a recent medical flight, speaks to the people behind this extraordinary humanitarian effort - and hears from the Gazan patients who want to return home to war-torn strip - despite the dangers.

What a normal life is like for the rest of the world does not apply in Gaza, and it almost never has. Even before October 7, electricity only came on for an average of four to six hours a day and nearly 98 per cent of water was undrinkable. Transportation options were always limited and housing was a challenge in one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Now, after more than six months of war, around 50 to 70 percent of housing has been destroyed. The cost of damage between October and January alone is estimated by the World Bank at $18.5 billion. In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, host Nada AlTaher explores whether life in Gaza can ever go back to any kind of normality, looking at the path to rebuilding the strip and the mammoth task at hand. She speaks to Rami Al Azzeh, economist with the Assistance to the Palestinian People Unit at UNCTAD, and Amira Aker, a postdoctoral fellow at Canada’s Universite Laval who specialises in epidemiology and environmental health.

Air-raid alerts going off in Israel, many airports in the Middle East closed, flights delayed, the airspace over Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon shut down. That was Saturday night in the region as Iran launched its first major attack on Israel with around 300 drones and missiles. Most of the projectiles - launched in response to the April 1 strike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus that killed two general from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - were shot down before they even reached their targets. But Israel’s top general said immediately after the attack that the country will respond. In this week’s Beyond The Headlines, host Nada AlTaher breaks down the current stand-off between Israel and Iran with senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, Hussein Ibish, and looks at the prospects for Israel’s retaliation.