00:00 Robert Parson, stay with us.
00:01 We're going to cross over to journalist Daniel Ben-Simon in Jerusalem, former Labour member
00:06 of the Israeli parliament.
00:08 Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24.
00:10 You're most welcome.
00:13 Since last Saturday where you are, there was the shock, the grief, the rage.
00:18 What's your personal mindset, if you will, when you see the calls for restraint and this
00:26 will to avenge what happened, what Hamas inflicted?
00:33 I must tell you something.
00:34 I don't remember for so many years a kind of, you know, I would say an agreement among
00:46 Israelis to go all the way against Gaza.
00:49 Gaza is not a humanitarian issue anymore after they took the civilian hostages.
00:56 So Israelis are around the government, not the government, but around the army to first
01:05 bring the hostages and then go to the political issues with Gaza.
01:10 For the time being, there's a sense of vengeance, very strong among Israelis, especially since
01:18 you're a few minutes away from a story about a family taken to Gaza, about a baby being,
01:26 you know, being beaten or just whatever.
01:29 But the issue is today Israelis are busy with themselves, with their grief, with their sorrow.
01:36 So you try to talk to them about Gaza, they say it's not the time.
01:40 First give us our people and then we talk.
01:43 We're talking about babies, kids, elderly, not the regular civilians taken to hostages.
01:51 It's, I mean, something, an ensemble of quite, you know, different people.
01:59 Daniel, what's your gut feeling?
02:02 Which is the better track if you're an Israeli and you want to get those hostages out?
02:07 Is it what's going on behind the scenes with the likes of Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, to a lesser
02:14 degree the United States even?
02:16 Or is it via just a purely military solution?
02:22 I think that first it's the military solution.
02:24 You give us our people, we'll start talking about Gaza.
02:29 And of course, President Biden, who is like a messiah here now, after the speech he's
02:35 given two days ago, he can say anything, can do anything with the Israelis and they will
02:40 go after him.
02:41 So, as I said, the Americans, the American president, of course, and the Egyptians can
02:47 play a role.
02:48 So diplomacy can come after a gesture is done on the issue of hostages.
02:55 As long as there is no hostages, the issue of hostages is not resolved, I don't think
03:00 the Israelis will go for it.
03:02 Daniel Robert Parsons here.
03:04 Just a question to put to you as well.
03:05 You've been talking about the likelihood and the desire on the part of Israelis for vengeance
03:11 and for the army to go in to get to rescue the hostages in a fight.
03:16 But my question to you is this.
03:19 It's not going to be easy, is it, to get those hostages?
03:22 And for their part, Hamas is saying we won't release them until the battle is over.
03:28 And the longer the battle goes on, the more likelihood there is that the hostages will
03:33 themselves suffer, either be killed and bombarded or perhaps be killed by their captors.
03:40 This is clearly a concern that the Israeli army has to take into account, surely.
03:45 Absolutely, absolutely.
03:46 What I'm saying is that we don't know yet how many hostages are in Gaza.
03:53 We don't know where they are.
03:54 We don't know who is there, who are the people, you know, their identity.
03:59 We know nothing.
04:00 And Hamas is playing very tough on the very delicate issues, not telling the Israelis
04:06 who are the people being held in Gaza.
04:10 And this is doing a bad service to the Hamas and to the issue of hostages, because we don't
04:17 know.
04:18 Are there 150 people?
04:19 There were 150.
04:20 And most of the hostages, especially the elderly, are people who need medicine.
04:27 Are they doing well?
04:28 Are they not doing well?
04:29 So on this issue, Israel knows nothing from the Hamas.
04:34 But given that, but given that, Daniel, is it really feasible to talk or wise even to
04:41 talk about a military solution now going into Gaza on the ground when the hostages are so
04:48 vulnerable?
04:49 As I know, as I'm trying to read the Israeli psychology today, I must tell you that first
04:59 comes the military issue and then come the hostages.
05:04 It sounds very bad.
05:05 It sounds very hard.
05:06 But the amount of, you know, vengeance, I mean, it's really pure vengeance that the
05:14 way that they handled the Israeli operation, I mean, the Israeli operation against Israel
05:24 has left so many Israelis so angry that anything is possible.
05:31 What the Israelis want today is that to give back, to pay back to Hamas by all means.
05:36 Now, of course, a hostage can die during the operation or three or four.
05:42 I think in my mind, in the mind of the Israeli army, they are ready to go for it.
05:47 First, we teach the Hamas a big lesson and then we talk about the hostages.
05:53 Daniel Ben-Simon, please stay with us because we're going to cross over to Tel Aviv, France
05:56 24.
05:58 Luke Schrago is there.
05:59 We're talking about hostages, Luke, and a lot of them are dual nationals of many countries.
06:06 There are 12 French people who've been killed and 17 who are missing.
06:11 We don't know how many of those 17 are in fact hostages.
06:16 You earlier attended a press conference from the community, the families of some of those
06:22 who are believed to be hostages.
06:29 That's correct, Francois.
06:31 Four families of dual French Israeli nationality held a press conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday
06:37 afternoon.
06:38 Now, this was a private initiative and an individual initiative and they were telling
06:44 collected journalists that they'd had zero contact, in their own words, from the Israeli
06:50 authorities and even when they contacted the French embassy, they were told very little
06:54 indeed.
06:55 They've had no word of their missing family members since Hamas' attack on Saturday morning.
07:01 Now, they were all in visible distress.
07:03 This sense of incomprehension reigned across.
07:07 They told us their stories of their experiences, what had happened.
07:12 Some of them had been attending the music festival that was close to Gaza when attacked.
07:16 Others were attacked on their kibbutz.
07:21 One of those families told us that they thought initially that it was just a rocket attack,
07:25 something that they were sadly have been quite used to in the area.
07:30 However, it was when they heard the cries and the shouts of Allah Akbar that they understood
07:35 what was happening and just how bad the situation was.
07:39 Some of those who managed to escape spoke of seeing hundreds of Hamas militants pouring
07:43 out of Gaza.
07:44 They told us they had come to destroy and to pillage.
07:48 One thing that will stay with me is that they said that they had lived next to Gaza.
07:53 They wanted peace, but they now understand just how lucky they were, especially when
07:57 they heard word of the massacres in kibbutzim like Be'eri or Kfar Afar.
08:04 This sense of incomprehension again.
08:07 They were saying how could people so young be taken?
08:10 Speaking of the children that have been kidnapped, they have no place in war.
08:14 They've been requesting, even begging France for its help now.
08:19 One grandmother stood up and addressed the room.
08:21 She said she believed in France's humanitarian character.
08:26 Others had a direct message for President Emmanuel Macron.
08:30 They said that he needs to react as if Paris itself had been attacked by Hamas, as if Hamas
08:36 had kidnapped children from Paris.
08:38 Now the question for these families now may be the hardest part, this sense of not knowing
08:43 whether they may indeed receive some kind of proof.
08:45 And Luc, there's that quandary that we've been discussing with Daniel Ben Simon in Jerusalem,
08:52 which is at this point in time, are they rooting for negotiations or for the military to come
08:59 in and rescue those hostages?
09:05 Well at this point it has to be said that the sense in Israel is one of overwhelming
09:11 anger.
09:12 We've been speaking to soldiers in the Israeli Defence Force.
09:15 Certainly when we went to visit the kibbutz of Be'eri previously, there was this sense
09:21 of quiet and cold determination to not so much take revenge, but one soldier had to
09:30 say to me, he said that we need to go in, we need to leave our feelings and our hearts
09:36 behind and those who hate Israel will learn to fear it again.
09:41 That is something that is going to remain with me for quite some time.
09:46 Luc Schrager reporting live from Tel Aviv.
09:48 Daniel Ben Simon, you listened to Luc recounting the tales he heard there, targeting a kibbutz,
09:55 targeting that music festival.
09:58 This is more the secular pro-peace camp that Hamas targeted.
10:05 The irony here is, does it mean that Hamas in a way gets a win because that's the end
10:10 of peace for a long, long time?
10:13 I must tell you, they chose the wrong people to take to Gaza.
10:19 I mean, these are the peace camp, you know, who was venting the whole night in Gaza, near
10:25 Gaza, and most of them are from, identified with the peace camp, and they are known to
10:32 be peace activists.
10:34 And these very people were taken to Gaza as hostages.
10:38 So you can think about this, the irony of life, that those who are pro-peace are being
10:48 punished for taking hostages.
10:52 And I must say that the chief of staff spoke two hours ago and he said, he talked to, he
10:59 spoke to Yahya Senwar, the head of the Hamas, and he said, I mean, that his days are numbered.
11:06 Not only him, but all his people.
11:09 It seems to me that Israeli army is going for a very strong answer to the Hamas.
11:17 It's already destroying Gaza, the city.
11:20 And I don't remember a sense of rage like now.
11:24 It's amazing how angry Israeli officers are, and they're ready to go the whole way to show
11:30 the Hamas who's running this area.
11:34 So in a way, as long as they don't get the list of the, of the, of the hostages, there's
11:41 nothing you can do.
11:42 They will attack.
11:43 And they need the list.
11:44 I mean, the list would give a sense that the Hamas is ready to talk.
11:49 So the timing, they are not cooperating at all.
11:52 And in a way, it gives, it leads the way to an Israeli military attack.
11:58 One final question for you.
12:00 We're going to be hearing shortly from the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
12:06 He has been, as we said earlier, standing by Israel in his remarks.
12:12 He was a bit of emotion in his voice when he spoke earlier.
12:15 He's going to be meeting with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
12:20 Israel's government, the most right wing government in the country's history, had been doing all
12:25 it could to impose its might on the West Bank, leading up to the surprise attack coming from
12:32 the Gaza Strip.
12:35 How should Antony Blinken handle Mahmoud Abbas, who for the first time has denounced the killing
12:41 of civilians on both sides since last Saturday?
12:45 You know, as a pro-peace guy, I feel, I feel some pity for Mahmoud Abbas, because he has
12:51 not made any difference in the last 10 years.
12:54 I mean, he's the president of the Palestinian entity, authority, sorry.
13:00 And it seems to me that he's not strong enough to face Israeli policy of Netanyahu and others.
13:09 So maybe we need a change of mind and a change of action.
13:15 How in order to move a bit.
13:17 But how does Israel handle the Palestinian Authority now?
13:21 There's no handling of it.
13:22 There's no talk at all.
13:23 There's no, I mean, there are, there is some coordination with the Palestinian Army.
13:30 Should they be reopening dialogue?
13:34 Should the Israelis be reopening dialogue with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah?
13:39 Absolutely.
13:40 Absolutely.
13:41 But somebody has to be, to push for this kind of thing.
13:44 And as I said, I mean, the Americans are not very present.
13:47 Unfortunately, there's no force to push the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority to
13:54 open a dialogue for the time being, the Hamas and Israeli government, Netanyahu government,
13:59 which as you said, we have never had such a thing, such a radical government.
14:06 And so the time is not good for peace, is not good for the pro-peace parties, is not
14:12 good for peace dialogue, is not good for dialogue.
14:16 And something has to be done.
14:17 And as I said, the boss is President Biden.
14:20 If in case he talk, he asks the Israelis or he makes a request to talk with the, you know,
14:28 with the Palestinians, it can be done.
14:30 For the time being, I'm sorry, for the last few years, nothing has been done on this issue.
14:36 Daniel Ben-Simon, so many thanks for speaking with us from Jerusalem.
