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ASHLYNNE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ashlynne McGhee. This is 7am.

Israeli airstrikes are targeting the southernmost city in Gaza, Rafah. As we record this, tanks have been seen entering the southern outskirts of the city.

Rafah was once the last safe haven in Gaza, where people fleeing the north and centre of the strip had been told to seek refuge. And the US, along with international allies, have pushed for Israel not to invade the city.

So, are we witnessing the beginning of a ground invasion, and is a ceasefire still possible?

Today, Middle East correspondent for The Economist,Gregg Carlstrom, on Rafah and what it would take to clinch a last-ditch ceasefire deal.

It’s Wednesday, May 8.

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ASHLYNNE:

Gregg, we’re recording this early Tuesday morning local time in Gaza. Paint me a picture of how things are there right now.

GREGG:

In the early hours on Tuesday morning, there were reports that a column of Israeli tanks entered the far south of Rafah.

Audio excerpt – Tiktok user:

“All you can see and hear are their missiles. Oh my god.”

GREGG:

And it seemed like they were heading for the Rafah crossing, which has been, of course, the main entry point for humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Audio excerpt – CNN Reporter:

“The Southern Gaza city was supposed to be a safe place, where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge there after fleeing from other areas.”

GREGG:

So from the Israelis, it seemed like they were planning to seize that crossing.

Audio excerpt – CNN Reporter:

“New video this morning showing Israel Defence Forces dropping leaflets into Rafah.”

Audio excerpt – MSNBC Reporter:

“Tens of thousands of Palestinian families packed up their possessions and began to flee the city for parts north.”

GREGG:

There have also, of course, been reports of ongoing Israeli airstrikes in the city over the past 24 hours.

Audio excerpt – BBC Reporter:

“Officials in Gaza say Israeli airstrikes have targeted parts of Rafah, just hours after that evacuation order was issued.”

GREGG:

In Gaza you have, of course, the humanitarian situation is the main issue for for almost everyone. In the northern part of Gaza, the head of the World Food Program Cindy McCain, has said there is full blown famine. There is just not enough aid getting in and being distributed to the probably about 300,000 people who are still in the northern part of Gaza. So an incredibly bleak humanitarian situation there.

ASHLYNNE:

And so while those airstrikes continue, at the same time, there is this increasing push for a ceasefire. So what's the latest on the negotiations, Gregg?

GREGG:

It was a very unexpected turn of events on Monday night. On Monday morning, it seemed like the ceasefire negotiations had stalled and were close to collapse because over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made several comments about, how even if there was a ceasefire agreement, Israel was still going to go ahead with the Rafah offensive, and that seemed like it had sabotaged talks. Of course, Hamas wants to make a deal that would end the war and prevent that offensive from happening. But then, very unexpectedly on Monday night, Hamas announced that it had, in fact, accepted what it said was an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire.

Audio excerpt – BBC Reporter:

“An official Hamas source has told the BBC that it does accept a proposal for a ceasefire deal in Gaza. Now Israel...”

GREGG:

Now, we still don't know the details of what Hamas accepted. We don't know whether it was the same Egyptian proposal that Israel had already agreed to earlier in this round of negotiations or whether there were significant changes that would require further back and forth between the two sides. The Israeli War Cabinet then met later on Monday night. It agreed simultaneously to keep going with its offensive in Rafah, but also to send a delegation, a low level delegation, to Cairo, to talk about the Hamas counter offer and go through some further negotiations. I think there'll be several days of talks before we have a sense of whether or not this proposal is something that Israel might be willing to agree to, or whether it's been changed so much from the initial proposal that they'll consider it to be a non-starter.

ASHLYNNE:

So what do you think will happen next?

GREGG:

It's very hard to say. And I think, you know, for many of us, just about every prediction that we've made lately has been wrong. But there'll be a bit of back and forth, even if the Israelis are okay in principle with what Hamas has put forward, I do think there'll be a period of of hashing out, you know, various technical details in how this ceasefire might work. And then the next question, and the really important question after that, is what Prime Minister Netanyahu decides to do. He has spent months now trying not to decide. He's on the one hand, been willing to talk about a ceasefire. On the other hand, he's been threatening to go into Rafah, and he's been reluctant to make a deal because he's worried about what that means for his right wing coalition and for some of his coalition partners, perhaps leaving and bringing down the government. So he's tried to have it both ways and avoid having to make a decision. He may now have to decide, and he might have to choose whether to go ahead with a deal that will pause the war for at least six weeks, perhaps 12 weeks. And Americans and Arab states hope that, you know, a 12 week cease fire might turn into something permanent. Netanyahu will have to decide whether to do that and secure the release of many of the remaining hostages, or whether to reject that deal and go ahead with the Rafah offensive, which the families of the hostages are very concerned might doom their family members, who are being held in captivity.

That's a choice the Prime Minister will have to make. And for him, you know, with domestic politics being his main consideration over the past seven months, I think there is a concern amongst many in Israel that he might reject the deal and he might continue with the operation in Rafah anyway.

ASHLYNNE:

After the break, what the battle inside Benjamin Netanyahu’s government means for the chances of a ceasefire.

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ASHLYNNE:

Gregg, let’s stay with Benjamin Netanyahu for a moment. How divided is his own government over this ceasefire proposal?

GREGG:

It's deeply divided. You have two levels of the government at this point. You have first, the war cabinet that was formed in October to manage the war. And I think at this point, a majority of the war cabinet is in favour of doing a deal, and that includes people like Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, both of whom are former army chiefs turned politicians, they're centrist politicians, members of the opposition. But they joined the war cabinet back in in October to help oversee the war and project unity. And they're willing to make a deal at this point, because they think at this point, Israel is not going to achieve any more strategic goals by continuing the war. And at the same time, if it continues the war, they worry it's going to doom the hostages, that the longer this goes on, the more likely these hostages are going to die, so they're willing to to make a deal now. The problem is the rest of the government, the broader cabinet, the broader coalition, which is a very right wing coalition, has the opposite view.

Audio excerpt – Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks in Hebrew.

GREGG:

And they have threatened to leave the government.

Audio excerpt – Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks in Hebrew.

GREGG:

So he has to make a choice. He has to choose between going with the war cabinet or going with the rest of his governing coalition and everything we've seen so far from him, everything we've heard so far from him over the past seven months, suggests that he's going to go with the coalition because he is worried about political survival. And not just when it comes to the Gaza war he's doing this. He's also done it with the budget that the Israeli government passed a few months ago, which gave billions of shekels worth of giveaways to his right wing coalition partners, even as it cut the budget for other basic services in Israel, it angered a great many Israelis that he did that. We see this with the decision, in recent days, to shut Al Jazeera in Israel.

Audio excerpt – Al Jazeera Reporter:

“If you're watching this pre-recorded report, then Al Jazeera has been banned in the territory of Israel.”

GREGG:

Which is a populist, authoritarian move that is obviously designed to signal something to his right wing coalition partners.

Audio excerpt – Al Jazeera Reporter:

“Also, once again, any device is used to provide content for the channel can be taken away by the Israelis. It's a wide ranging ban. We don't know how long it will be in place for.”

GREGG:

It's a way for him to appeal to or try to appease his right wing coalition partners.

Audio excerpt – Tel Aviv Protests.

We've seen a bit of protest in recent months, we've seen particularly the families of the hostages organising demonstrations in Tel Aviv. They organised the march from Tel Aviv to The Knesset in Jerusalem. They have been the source of a lot of the public pressure on the government, understandably, because they feel that the government is not doing enough to to bring the hostages home, not doing enough to prioritise their well-being.

ASHLYNNE:

What kind of pressure is there at the moment from the international community?

GREGG:

There's a lot of rhetorical pressure from the international community. It hasn't amounted to much more than that. I mean, you have the United Nations that has for months now, in the General Assembly, been calling for a ceasefire. And Israel is always happy to ignore the United Nations. You have criticism from countries in Europe, countries in the Arab world, really most of the world has been demanding an end to the war. But the country that actually matters for the Israelis is the United States, the country that supplies them with military aid, with weapons, with diplomatic support. And for all of the increasing criticism that we've heard from the Biden administration, for all of their growing frustration with Netanyahu and his refusal to get more aid into Gaza, do more to protect civilians in Gaza, talk about who's going to run Gaza after the war. The White House is very frustrated with Netanyahu on all of these issues, but they have not in any meaningful way, impose consequences on Israel. They're not threatening to withhold military aid. In fact, they just signed a big new aid package into law a couple of weeks ago. They're not threatening to stop giving Israel diplomatic support. There's been talk at the International Criminal Court in recent weeks handing down arrest warrants against Israeli officials, along with Hamas officials.

Audio excerpt – Benjamin Netanyahu:

“You have to hear this to believe this. The International Criminal Court in The Hague is contemplating issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli government and military officials as war criminals. This would be an outrage of historic proportions.”

GREGG:

And the Americans have been pressuring the ICC, quietly pressuring the ICC, not to indict Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. So they're still giving almost ironclad support to Israel. Now, when you talk to American officials right now, they say the breaking point will be, we're at this moment now where either there's going to be a hostage deal that they hope could turn into a longer term ceasefire. That could happen, or on the other hand, no deal could happen and the Israelis could go ahead with this long planned offensive in Rafah, which the Americans and many other countries are worried about because they think it's going to to have an atrocious civilian death toll. And if Israel does the latter, if it goes ahead in Rafah, then I think we're at a point where everything the Biden administration has tried in terms of gently, privately putting pressure on the Israelis has not worked and they really will need to consider a new approach to how they handle the Netanyahu government.

ASHLYNNE:

So as we speak, Gregg, airstrikes are hitting Rafah and people are being told to evacuate. Does that mean an actual ground invasion of Rafah is pretty much inevitable at this point?

GREGG:

I think it's a near certainty. The past couple of weeks, we have seen more of an effort to get ready for an offensive. So they haven't gone too far yet because there are these ongoing efforts to to reach a ceasefire deal. And also, I think the talk of ICC warrants has unnerved Netanyahu a little bit, and it's caused him to hold back. I think there is great concern, at least in some parts of the Israeli government, and certainly on the part of the Israeli army, that this is going to, again, be a breaking point for relations with the United States. The Americans could say, if there is not a permanent ceasefire, we are going to cut off the flow of arms to Israel. And that would force the Israeli government, at some point, to agree to one, because they can't continue fighting a war without American military support. But it's almost impossible to see this president or any American president - I mean, Biden, won’t do it, but also Donald Trump is not going to do it - it's hard to see any American president making such a threat to the Israelis. So I think for the time being, for the foreseeable future, we are in this this, sort of, forever war.

The Israelis are not going to achieve their goals. They are not going to completely vanquish Hamas, they are not going to get back all the hostages equally. Nothing is going to improve in Gaza. We're not going to see a serious effort towards reconstruction and rebuilding there as long as there is this ongoing state of hostilities. And so, 2 million people, they're going to live in intolerable conditions and the political leaders on both sides are going to continue holding out for this very elusive victory.

ASHLYNNE:

Gregg, thanks so much for your time today.

GREGG:

Thank you. My pleasure.

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ASHLYNNE:

Also in the news today…

The Reserve Bank has held interest rates for the fourth consecutive board meeting with the cash rate remaining at 4.35 percent.

The hold comes amid growing speculation more rate rises will be required, with the RBA governor Michelle Bullock saying the fight against inflation isn’t over.

And,

Erin Patterson, who is facing charges of murder, over an alleged mushroom poisoning that claimed three lives, has plead not guilty.

Patterson appeared via video link at a hearing of the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court, and accepted a fast-tracking of her hearing through the Victorian Supreme Court. That will mean a trial begins this year.

I’m Ashlynne McGhee, this is 7am. Thanks for listening. We will see you again tomorrow.

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