With Israeli forces already at the entrance to Gaza City, what do you think could happen next?
I don’t know, I don’t know what’s next. A huge struggle, I suppose, and enormous humanitarian suffering, because Gaza City still has a significant population right now. So we have people who couldn’t or didn’t want to leave. There are tens of thousands of people in the Shifa Hospital area. An offensive aimed at the city would cause immense, immense suffering.
What can you tell us about the role played by external actors, whether Qatar or Iran, in addition to the United States?
Well, it’s all very different. Iran has made it clear that it does not want a major war. But it is not clear that they can avoid it. Because I think one of the red lines for Iran and Hezbollah is that if Israel really tries to completely destroy Hamas and is close to doing so, they cannot accept it and allow it, because that would make them look weak. I think this is a red line. But it is not clear to me that Israel can, in fact, achieve that goal. In any case, this remains to be seen. As far as Qatar is concerned, Qatar obviously has a working relationship with Israel and Hamas. Therefore, it is not an ideal partner for negotiation or mediation. And she has been doing it. Whether it will succeed is another question. And that depends more on the games than on Qatar. But it is evident that they are putting all their efforts into mediation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are very concerned about the spread of war. And they are certainly trying to persuade the United States to pressure Israel not to launch a ground offensive. As for the United States, it is necessary to differentiate between public messages and private messages. We don’t really know what they say in private. But it appears that the United States is calling for some restraint in the Israeli ground operation. But in public messages they continue to insist that Israel has the right to self-defense, without sufficiently highlighting that even the right to self-defense is restricted by international humanitarian law. That’s why they mention it from time to time, but it’s clearly not a matter of emphasis. And Europeans are divided, in fact, between those who talk about the right to self-defense, apparently without restrictions, and those who say “well, you know, European values include international humanitarian law and human rights.” And, of course, these are restrictions for any belligerent, including Israel, when they conduct a campaign in an urban area.
But, in this last group, there are only Spain, Portugal, Ireland…
Yes, these are the ones who most strongly defend this perspective. But even Germany and France had to stop Ursula Von Der Leyen. Because she clearly was playing outside of her role, outside of her formal sphere of competence. But yes, there is a division in Europe and, I think, honestly, even Germany thinks Von Der Leyen has gone too far. But it was more of a technical issue than a disagreement about support for Israel, because it’s Germany, they can’t say anything about Israel, because they are very afraid of being accused of supporting another Holocaust, you know, it’s an impossible situation. And the Austrians in a bit of the same way, but everyone outside of that area can criticize Israel, but they don’t, because in the end, it is a Western country, they see it as a Western country, as an ally. They see what will happen on October 7 as something so atrocious that Israel can take any measure to counter it. And they don’t think strategically, because the fact is that if we look at the rest of the world, the rest of the world is not with Israel, it’s just the United States and the Europeans. And if they would just make a stronger call for Israel to respect international law, then, you know, they wouldn’t be so isolated…
Do you think this is already a regional conflict? With dozens of deaths and tens of thousands of people displaced in Lebanon, in addition to the bombing of military targets and Iranian interests in Syria, is this no longer, in fact, a regional conflict?
I don’t know, it depends on the definition you give, I guess. I don’t want to go in there. But I would say that, under different circumstances, what happened on the Israel-Lebanon border would have already led to a huge escalation and it didn’t happen, in the sense that, again, in the past, if they had killed a couple of Israeli soldiers, Israel would have responded in a major way and Hamas would have escalated immediately. Now we see that, in fact, there may be a certain number of victims and there may be a significant number of displaced people. And yet there is no all-out war between them.
Do you still believe that it is possible to exchange hostages for Hamas militants held in Israeli prisons?
I don’t know. Negotiations are ongoing. And I know that internally, Israel is also divided over whether the top priority should be saving as many hostages and lives as possible, of course, or destroying Hamas. And obviously if they can achieve both, that would be the best from an Israeli perspective, but I’m not sure it’s possible. Therefore, they will likely have to make a decision. And at this point, I don’t know where you stand on this. I don’t know.
Source: TSF
