ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
We’re now within the second week of a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, one nonetheless marked by lethal violence. Earlier this week, a video of Hamas publicly executing eight Palestinian males, accusing them of working with Israel in the course of the battle, was circulating on-line. And on Friday, Israeli forces killed 11 members of a Palestinian household. Gaza civil protection authorities stated the household, like many others, had been inspecting the ruins of their dwelling.
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JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Israeli forces fired a tank spherical at their minibus. The Israeli army stated that the household was behind the yellow line the place its troops are positioned.
LIMBONG: That is NPR’s Jane Arraf reporting on Weekend Version this morning. She’s coated the Center East for 30 years.
ARRAF: It is type of bookended by my first expertise protecting the Center East, which was within the ’90s, once I got here right here as a Reuters reporter. And it was a time when Jordan was secretly discussing a peace cope with Israel, when the Palestinians had been discussing potential peace with Israel.
LIMBONG: At practically each juncture since then, the place peace was mentioned or battle flared up once more, Jane was someplace within the area, reporting for main shops like CNN, The New York Occasions, Al Jazeera English and, for a number of years, for NPR on tales like these.
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ARRAF: They included two fighters being buried, plus an 11-year-old boy and a hospital orderly.
For hundreds of thousands of Syrians, this can be a new starting, lengthy dreamed of in the course of the years of killings and arrests and repression.
We have simply landed in Gaza – not very far into Gaza, only a few hundred ft past the fence. It is a part of the buffer zone that Israel has created. There may be not one other particular person in sight right here.
LIMBONG: And now, slightly greater than every week into the present ceasefire, she’s watching to see what is perhaps completely different.
ARRAF: And so right here we’re a long time later, and we’re nonetheless speaking about lots of the identical points, which simply drives dwelling to me how a lot of a driver of instability this all is, the truth that Palestinians haven’t got a homeland.
LIMBONG: Cautious optimism is the phrase we within the information enterprise have been utilizing to explain folks’s response to the ceasefire. After I spoke to Jane on Friday, I wished to know, is that how folks there on the bottom actually really feel? Is that how she actually feels?
ARRAF: Cautious – I imply, actually cautious. We’re very cautious. Optimism – I wrestle nowadays with the phrase optimism. I was – I swear, I was an optimistic particular person. That is sort of taken a beating in the previous few years.
LIMBONG: Yeah, I can think about. I’m wondering, what’s it wish to cowl a narrative that stretches throughout borders – proper? – ‘trigger – so that you’re primarily based in Amman, Jordan. You understand, what’s taking place now in Gaza sort of reverberates all through so many alternative nations. And the way do you type of wrap your head round all of that?
ARRAF: Just about all of the nations I am going to are within the Arab world. They’re linked. And once you journey to those nations – whether or not it is Lebanon or Syria or Iraq – you notice how interconnected they’re. And likewise although we’re speaking about historic points that created the nations on this area, it is sort of as if it was yesterday.
I used to be in South Lebanon lately, for example, and I used to be standing on the ruins of a demolished village that overlooks Israel, and it was demolished by the Israeli military after the ceasefire with Lebanon final yr as a result of they need to depopulate these border villages. However from that Lebanese village, you could possibly see into Israel. You could possibly see the a part of Israel that was once Palestinian land. Actually, among the folks we interviewed in Lebanon – their households had farmed that land.
You could possibly see into the Golan Heights in Syria. And once you’re in Jordan, for example, now once more, you will get in a taxi and you may go to Damascus for lunch, if you’d like. It is that shut. I imply, all the pieces is so interconnected right here that it makes it each simpler and extra sophisticated to determine options to issues.
LIMBONG: Once we current the information and duplicate, we at all times ensure to, like, inform the viewers how shut all the pieces is. However I used to be simply fiddling round from – like, on Google Maps this morning. I would be like, oh, that’s solely 2 hours away (laughter). You understand, that’s solely – that is…
ARRAF: It is wild…
LIMBONG: Yeah.
ARRAF: …Is not it?
LIMBONG: Yeah. And it’s like – I imply, I suppose that is an absurd query, however, like, is that scary, to be so near all of it?
ARRAF: No, no, it is exhilarating, significantly in case you’re a fan of historical past – proper? – as a result of in all of those locations, you might be in locations which might be deeply vital to virtually each main faith – the place figures from the Bible walked, for example, the place among the well-known poets from historical past recited poetry within the streets. All the things is right here, and it is such an outdated civilization in so many locations. I imply, consider Iraq – proper? – the cradle of civilization.
And, you realize, for me, some of the wonderful issues that even now makes me really feel so fortunate to be a journalist is that I can go to locations that I solely examine once I was a baby, like locations with magical names – like Babylon and Damascus – they usually really exist, proper?
LIMBONG: There is a Babylon in Lengthy Island, nevertheless it’s not as…
ARRAF: (Laughter) You even have numerous Lebanons (ph), proper? Aren’t there, like…
LIMBONG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s numerous that, too.
ARRAF: …Dozens of Lebanons?
LIMBONG: Yeah. Violence does do many issues. It attracts consideration. Assuming the ceasefire holds, I think about folks’s curiosity would possibly drift elsewhere, proper? Right here within the States, we have got a authorities shutdown. You understand, there’s loads of, like, elections developing and all of that. And so I am curious, as folks proceed the arduous work of determining what occurs subsequent within the area, what are you apprehensive would possibly get undercovered?
ARRAF: That is one of many pivotal questions – is not it? – that we face as journalists as a result of it is very easy to get folks’s consideration throughout a battle. I imply, it is not simple to maintain that focus, actually, even when unbelievable issues are taking place. However what I’d hope is that there is a momentum to this. And I feel that, although, sure, pursuits will certainly wane, however individuals are at all times eager about folks.
You understand, the opposite day in South Lebanon, we had been going alongside one in all these destroyed villages, and we noticed this man who was dancing on the roof of his destroyed dwelling to actually loud music. There was nobody else round for miles. So we stopped and talked to him, and you realize, his life is sort of the broader story of what is occurred in South Lebanon. However the draw is, right here is that this man who, regardless of all the pieces, is dancing, and there’ll at all times be tales like that, that I feel folks will at all times be eager about as a result of on the finish of the day, individuals are eager about folks.
LIMBONG: Having coated this story for a very long time, I feel I am questioning what may go unsuitable right here.
ARRAF: So many issues may go unsuitable. We’re now every week into the ceasefire, however all the opposite issues that should occur will not be taking place. Does not imply they will not occur – it simply means they don’t seem to be. As an illustration, famine has been spreading by Gaza. Greater than 90% of properties are broken or destroyed. Winter is coming.
Israel has restricted help for months, and as a part of the ceasefire settlement, it has agreed to dramatically enhance help, nevertheless it has not given indicators that it is going to try this. It has stored closed one of many foremost borders with Gaza that is used for help shipments. It has deregistered main worldwide help organizations.
So one of many issues folks really want to deal with, I feel, and that we have to deal with, is, how is that this all going to work? You understand, a ceasefire is great information, and it is a second of just about euphoria. However then for something to really occur takes a lot work, a lot group, a lot effort, and we aren’t but seeing that on the bottom.
LIMBONG: How are you doing?
ARRAF: How am I doing?
LIMBONG: Yeah, how are you doing?
ARRAF: Oh, such a pleasant query – thanks for asking. I feel I am doing like lots of people are doing. You understand, one of many tales I am wanting into is psychotherapists and psychiatrists who say they have been seeing a rise in, like, free-floating nervousness. Clearly, that is not a medical time period, nevertheless it’s mainly a rise in nervousness from all of the horrible issues which have been taking place on this planet and the lack to do something about it. And it is actually attention-grabbing to me that that may be a phenomenon.
Now, as journalists, I imply, a part of the explanation we go into journalism – numerous it’s that is sort of a approach to not do one thing about it, however a approach to really feel helpful to clarify what’s taking place, in order that actually retains me going.
LIMBONG: It is humorous. I requested you ways you are doing, and you then went to a factor a couple of story that you simply’re engaged on, which is a really…
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LIMBONG: …Journalism factor to do.
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ARRAF: Ah, sure. Let me simply say, once you ask anybody right here nowadays – and nowadays being the previous two years – how are you? – you immediately notice there isn’t any reply to that, proper? There isn’t any quick reply to that as a result of the world has been falling aside, basically. So once you ask folks, how are you? – lots of people discover it arduous to reply.
LIMBONG: That is NPR’s Jane Arraf. Jane, thanks a lot.
ARRAF: Thanks.
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