Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
Inside Geneva
Special episode: A year of war in the Middle East
It’s been one year since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. Twelve months of violent conflict have followed, with tens of thousands dead. We look back at our coverage over the past year.
“What we have to deal with is the immense stupidity of the wars that currently are in place. And here we are having to deal with wars of a sort that were better found in the history books devoted to the 20th century and ought not to have a place in the 21st,” said Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, former United Nations Human Rights Commissioner.
How have the aid agencies coped?
“People tend to believe we can do things that we cannot do. We have no army. We have no weapons,” said Fabrizio Carboni, regional director for the Near and Middle East at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
How do they respond to critics who believe they should do more?
“If we could release them all we would do it as soon as possible. If we could visit them we would visit them. And at the same time it takes place in an environment which is Gaza,” added Carboni.
Why are we so quick to war, and so slow to peace?
“There’s a focus on the centrality of my pain, the pain my community feels and I feel, and I want the world to stand with me whoever I may be, and I demand it as a recognition of my suffering. But then the obvious question is, but how often do we, as individuals, side with others who are experiencing pain,” said al Hussein.
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen Foulkes, and this is a production from Swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's programme….
Speaker 3:A coordinated and unexpected attack, a breach in Israel's security that it appears they simply didn't see coming.
Speaker 4:Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, now a target for Israel's attacks.
Speaker 5:The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas, and those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
Speaker 2:Palestinians in Gaza are facing the immediate possibility of starvation.
Speaker 4:the UN said today what we have to deal with is the immense stupidity of the wars that currently are in place, and here we are having to deal with wars of a sort that were better found in the history books devoted to the 20th century and ought not to have a place in the 21st.
Speaker 7:Just moments ago, a convoy of the Red Cross bearing 13 Israelis and a number of foreigners crossed out of Gaza and into Egypt on the way to Israel.
Speaker 8:If we could release them all, we would do it as soon as possible, we could visit them, we would visit them. And at the same time, it takes place in an environment which is Gaza, where, honestly, I'm not sure we take the full measure of what's happening there.
Speaker 9:The Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the October 7th Hamas massacre in Israel that triggered the war.
Speaker 4:Scenes of war in Beirut.
Speaker 2:An attack so powerful that was seen and heard across the city. Lebanon now on the brink of another war. Lebanon now on the brink of another war. Hello and welcome to this special episode of Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen Folks.
Speaker 2:One year ago, israel was brutally attacked from Gaza by Hamas. The shock, suffering and trauma were immense and, as expected, israel responded. The 12 months since have seen terrible violence. The death toll in Gaza is at least 40,000, 17,000 of them children. Almost 100 Israelis are still being held hostage. Despite repeated calls by world leaders for their release, for a ceasefire and for access to Gaza for aid agencies. The conflict continues and is now spreading to Lebanon. Over the course of the last 12 months, inside Geneva has regularly discussed this war, the role of humanitarians, the influence or otherwise of the United Nations and the growing concerns over respect for international law. In today's episode, we'll revisit some of that coverage by sharing again some of our key interviews and highlights. We'll start with an in-depth interview with former UN Human Rights Commissioner, zaid Radal Hussein, who I caught up with in late October 2023 when he was in town in a bitter irony for Geneva Peace Week.
Speaker 4:What happened on the 7th of October needs to be condemned. I mean, the actions of Hamas resemble, as Yuval Harari said, the Einsatzgruppen in 1941 in Ukraine. Willful execution of people, children and their families is something that the Israelis haven't felt, not since the days of the Holocaust, and so it strikes them very deeply. And from the Palestinian and Arab side and much of the world, the suffering of the Palestinian people has been a never-ending story. The occupation is not enforced with rose water and ice cream. The occupation has, for 56 years, been enforced by military force.
Speaker 4:The intimidation, the daily suffering and indignities of the Palestinians have gone on for so long and for them, what they're seeing happen to their fellow nationals in Gaza is horrifying. I don't think there can be any doubt that there is collective punishment, because when you switch off the water and medicines and essential foods to the people 2.4 million people how could it be otherwise? This is not targeting of a particular group, it's a targeting. It seems to be a targeting of a people, and the Secretary General was right to say what he said. It's inevitable, given the depth of the passions, that he would be attacked, but so be it. The UN has to say things as they see them.
Speaker 2:We're in Geneva. This is the home of international humanitarian law, the home of the Geneva Conventions. Surely, if there are people who can remind warring parties of what they should be doing, they're here. And yet maybe they're trying, but nobody appears to be listening. I'm just wondering if you think these standards are kind of over.
Speaker 4:Well, if they're over, then we have a world of anarchy awaiting just around the corner. We will be pitched into a world of panic and anarchy, and if that's acceptable, then that will be what we're going to pay for our inattention to the rules, if we've decided that all of this is meaningless. This is not a one-off. This is now a pattern that has developed over time possibly 20 years where there's been willful neglect of the rules and the use of the veto, which is really quite corrosive because it undermines the integrity of the very establishment that's supposed to, the very institution that's supposed to act collectively, and then, without there being any action, the organization looks absolutely helpless.
Speaker 2:You mentioned earlier this week the 1930s, with wars between China and Japan, the Spanish Civil War, and you mentioned that the League of Nations was powerless. The League of Nations didn't survive. Are we looking at the end of the United Nations?
Speaker 4:Well, if we again, if we want a world that's utterly anarchic, then I would say, well, that's, perhaps that may happen, and we'd have to suppose that we don't want that. You know, we don't want a collapsed world, because the other side of that is immensely more horrifying than where we are now. Immensely, we still have nuclear weapons about. We're at the dawn of a new revolution in AI. What does that mean? When it comes to biological weapons and other instruments of war?
Speaker 4:We have a world that's reneging on its commitments to human rights in many respects. I mean, if we want to plunge ourselves into the abyss, we can do it, of course. It doesn't take much intelligence to see, though, that we will all suffer most grievously and millions of lives will be lost, and whether we can even survive it is a question, so I don't think we have much alternative. I mean, what we have to deal with is the immense stupidity of the wars that currently are in place, and the suffering and the repression, occupation, and all of that has to be dealt with quickly, because we do deal, and we have to deal with also existential threats which face the planet in its totality, and here we are having to deal with wars of a sort that were better found in the history books devoted to the 20th century and ought not to have a place in the 21st, and diverting our attention from these much or let's say more existential questions that affect our existence on this planet.
Speaker 2:People are very divided all over the world about this Angry, upset, fearful. Do you think this polarisation is making a wider conflict more likely? This lack of understanding?
Speaker 4:Yes, I do think that's the case. The pain being felt on all sides is very real. The pain the Israelis feel for their loss on the 7th of October is very real and it's very evident, and the anger is palpable. And likewise on the Palestinian and also on the Arab side. The pain is very, almost tactile, you can almost sense it.
Speaker 4:And the sadness, I think, is that there's a focus on the centrality of my pain, the pain my community feels and I feel, and I want the world to stand with me, whoever I may be, and I demand it as a recognition of my suffering. But then the obvious question is but how often do we as individuals side with others who are experiencing pain? How often do we see massive demonstrations in the Middle East for the people of Xinjiang or you can make the argument you know people in Tigray suffer and where there are mass demonstrations in Israel for them? In other words, we've compartmentalized these issues to such an extent. And then there's a very intimate relationship we have with our own pain and the need to have others support us.
Speaker 2:Zayd Rad Al-Hussein there with a wise reminder of our shared humanity and our shared pain. Now, before we go to our next in-depth interview, here are some highlights of other Inside Geneva episodes that looked at the conflict in the Middle East. In January of this year, we discussed the case at the UN's top court, the International Court of Justice, in which South Africa claimed Israel, in its actions in Gaza, could be committing genocide.
Speaker 10:Palestinians in Gaza are subjected to relentless bombing. They are killed in their homes, in places where they seek shelter in hospitals, in schools, in mosques, in churches and as they try to find food and water for their families.
Speaker 5:What Israel seeks by operating in Gaza is not to destroy a people, but to protect a people, its people. In these circumstances, there can hardly be a charge more false and more malevolent than the allegation against Israel of genocide.
Speaker 6:This is a case about asserting humanity and, in fact, asserting law over war. The purpose of the UN is to prevent disputes from turning into armed conflict, and the ICJ, the International Court of Justice, is there to help resolve disputes and to prevent war.
Speaker 7:People feel like if you don't call it genocide, then it's not serious, and that's a mistake. Crimes against humanity are incredibly severe.
Speaker 6:There's not a UN police force running around making sure that states comply with their international law obligations.
Speaker 2:In March, we talked to humanitarian leaders, Israeli diplomats and human rights groups about the role of UNRWA, the UN's Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
Speaker 9:Amid Israeli claims, workers for the agency were involved in the October 7th attacks the only lifeline in a region full of despair, a region which now deserves that we collectively look at promoting a proper, genuine peace for political solution. I think that there have to be alternatives to UNRWA in Gaza. Israel will not continue working with.
Speaker 7:UNRWA in Gaza, we are not. A long-running complaint is that UNRWA, by its very nature and its very mandate, keeps the refugee issue alive, issues like the right of return for Palestinian refugees who left after 1948 and the founding of the State of Israel.
Speaker 3:All of the non-governmental organizations, all of the Red Cross, Red Crescent organizations, all of the UN agencies combined were not even half of what UNRWA is. We have more dead children in Gaza in these four or five months than in all other armed conflict combined worldwide in the same period for Geneva, I would say voice from Jerusalem.
Speaker 2:There's this definite feeling of anger and of abandonment by the international humanitarian community over there and in April we sat down with Chris Black, cameraman for the World Health Organization, on his return from a WHO mission to support Gaza's hospitals.
Speaker 1:That's something I really will never forget is a woman with her young child saying to me are we safe here? And I wanted to say to her you're in the grounds of a hospital. Under international humanitarian law, this is a protected space. You should be safe here. But I couldn't say to her you're safe here. People have told me oh, you must be very brave for going to Gaza. And I don't think so. I think what's brave is that the people have been doing this work since early October and who go back every day to do it again and again, and again you can find all those episodes in full wherever you get your podcasts Now.
Speaker 2:listeners who have followed this conflict over the past 12 months will know that both the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross have come in for a good deal of criticism in relation to the war in Gaza. That's one of the reasons here on Inside Geneva that we've tried to go deeper into the work of the humanitarian agencies and give them a chance to explain what they do in more detail.
Speaker 6:In.
Speaker 2:November of last year, israel and Hamas agreed complex terms for the release of dozens of Israeli hostages, and it was the ICRC who went into Gaza, retrieved them and returned them home. But despite that work, some in Israel have asked why the ICRC hasn't done more, in particular, why it hasn't managed to visit the hostages who are still in captivity. Late last year, while the hostage releases were still ongoing, I talked to Fabrizio Carboni, then the ICRC's Director for the Middle East, and, just as context, the ICRC has worked in Israel and the occupied territories for decades, so it knows the region and this long conflict very well. Fabrizio began by describing his work immediately after the attacks on October 7.
Speaker 8:If I look at the first days of this conflict, it was just. I've never experienced this intensity, the permanent state of emergency, the chaos. After a couple of hours, we knew what would happen. We knew that there would be a military reaction. We thought about the people who were taken hostages. We knew that our colleagues in Gaza would be impacted by this conflict and this is probably one of the sad things is that all the things which are happening now, we knew it after a couple of hours, after this awful attack in Israel.
Speaker 2:There's been a lot of focus on the ICRC. Could you explain to people kind of exactly what you do in an operation like this, because a lot of people have asked me? Nobody is quite clear exactly kind of how it works.
Speaker 8:I think the ICRC does a lot of things situation of conflict and we do the traditional UMITAN work, you know, providing assistance, medical help, water I mean the classic. And then there is really something very specific to the ICRC, which is our capacity to build a relationship of trust with all parties into a conflict. And this relationship of trust is based on the fact that we don't need to like them, we don't need to agree with them, we just need to agree that we're here only for a humanitarian objective and often a very humble humanitarian objective, and that we will be, in this environment, neutral. We won't comment on the political situation, we won't take sides on the reason why people are fighting. Do they have the right or not to use force? We won't go into this. And so we built this relationship, this trust, and that's what allows us, when there is a release of hostages, to be on the battlefield, to get out in the middle of the night, go to a secret place, receive hostages and at the same time, make sure that hundreds of kilometers from there, the same thing happens pretty much at the same time, and in this case with Palestinian detainees.
Speaker 8:So I would say, on one hand, it's something which from the outside might look as logistic, but actually to do that with parties who don't trust each other, who actually want to kill each other in a battlefield, in situation of conflict, and be this third party all party trust, this is extremely difficult. You don't do that overnight. You build this and you build this through your action. It's not enough to speak or to communicate, and I really understand that. From the outside it's, on one hand, not enough, but once you know the inside, once you know how difficult it is, you really value this very humble but complex and difficult work, which is the work of a neutral intermediary in a situation of extremely polarized conflict.
Speaker 2:There's been some criticism, particularly from Israel, that you didn't or couldn't actually visit these hostages.
Speaker 8:Yeah, Look when families are telling us this. I really take it. I really take it. I understand ICSE, red Cross.
Speaker 8:We have history, we're present in many conflicts, we have staff doing unbelievable jobs all around the world and in this kind of situation, where it's sometimes desperate, we're probably to some extent victim of our image, victim of a sort of success, and people tend to believe that we can do things which actually we can't. I mean, we have no army, we have no weapons, there is no even a political weight that could force parties to do something they don't want to do. The only thing we have is our capacity to be consistent, to engage with everybody, to talk to them in private, but also publicly publicly. And if we go back now to the situation of the hostages, after a couple of hours we were already very clear that it was illegal, that people needed to be released immediately, that we were available to visit people wherever they were and that we demand proof of life.
Speaker 8:Now the specificity of Gaza it's a battlefield. Normally the work we do visit detainees or collecting proof of life, red Cross messages. In my career I never did this on the battlefield. You know, often detainees or hostages are held in the back, but here it's in the battlefield, it's bombing while it's fighting and most probably, the detainees, the hostages, are there. So there is one parties don't want to give us access and two, there is the security risk.
Speaker 2:But I mean just to be clear. You did not know where they were and you didn't get permission to visit them.
Speaker 8:No, now I mean something which needs to be clear. We cover our work is covered by confidentiality, and this is part of the trust we build with parties is that whatever we would see in the place of detention, on the condition of detention, on the condition in which hostages are held, we would not share it publicly. We would do whatever we can to improve the condition, to make sure that they are well treated. We will demand that the hostages, oh detainees, all improve the condition to make sure that they are well treated. We will demand that the hostages or detainees all around the world are allowed to write messages to their loved ones, but we would not share what we see, because if we do that, we simply don't have access and it's a catch-22.
Speaker 2:When the first group of Israeli hostages were released, you put out a statement on social media. There was a lot of reaction to it. I'm just going to read you a couple of them now, from Israel, saying don't you dare take credit for this. You did nothing, you're just taxi drivers. How does that make you feel?
Speaker 8:Personally it's okay. I mean, I'm fine with this. You know, I did enjoy the ICICI to increase the number of followers on social media and we're not a communication organization. At the end of the day, you know, I think, working for the ICIC, you need to accept that not everybody will know your work, not everybody will understand your work, not everybody will appreciate your work. I think, in my experience, when people see what we do, not through television, but when they personally benefit from what we do as a detainee, as a hostage, often it changed their perspective.
Speaker 8:So coming back to this unpleasant remark, fine, I'm sad for my staff, I'm sad for the colleagues. You know the colleagues who doing this. They are the colleagues who are in gaza. You know, three days ago we had again a colleague killed with his family. All of them were displaced. They've lost many their houses. Many live in substandard shelter. Many are Palestinians. Nevertheless, they go for it every morning. If they need to do something to work for the release of hostages, for prisoners, for whoever, they'll do it. So personally, I'm okay with this kind of remarks, but deep inside I'm a bit sad for my colleagues who, regardless of the nationality, the religion, the colour of the skin, would go the extra mile, would put their own life at risk. And then I read such a comment yeah, it's a pity.
Speaker 2:What about this claim? We keep hearing all the time that hospitals are being used for military purposes.
Speaker 8:Look, I think our communication was always very clear.
Speaker 8:Medical staff and medical infrastructure need to be protected, and when we say, in the ICICI, protected, it means two things it means that it cannot be used as a military base and cannot be targeted, and if it loses its protection because used as a military base, force needs to be used with precaution and with proportionality. Now, when it comes to all the hospitals, I don't have an answer for each and every one of them. What I can guarantee you is that, within confidential dialogue we have with all parties, we've been clear about what we know and what they should do.
Speaker 2:Can I just ask you what you're hearing about conditions in northern Gaza from your colleagues?
Speaker 8:You know we send in Gaza our best staff, you know the most experienced staff, and they were really affected by what they saw. We also sent our surgical team and our surgical team is not in the north, it's still in the south and again, icrc surgeon, icrc medical staff, I mean they've seen a lot. They really have seen a lot. They've been in Afghanistan, they've been in Sudan. They've seen a lot. They really have seen a lot. They've been in Afghanistan, they've been in Sudan, they've been on the front line in Yemen. But there in Gaza it's tough, it's really tough. The number of wounded is enormous because of the nature of the violence A lot of burns, a lot of kids. I think because of the nature of Gaza, this close place, densely populated, highly urbanized. I mean the nature of the violence used, the nature of the conflict. It has a devastating impact on the civilian population.
Speaker 2:You were hoping to facilitate releases of hostages.
Speaker 8:Yes, obviously we hope If we could release them all, we would do it as soon as possible. We could visit them. We would visit them. And at the same time, it takes place in an environment which is Gaza, where, honestly, I'm not sure we take the full measure of what's happening there. Really, not it's this last round of violence, but it's 15, 16 years, but several rounds of violence. And then there is the today and, as you might tell, we can't help ourselves to say okay. And then you know, in a way or another, at one stage violence will stop. Tomorrow, after tomorrow, later, but it will happen.
Speaker 8:But what will be left? And when I say what will be left is physically and emotionally. I mean the trauma most of the people living in Gaza are going through. I don't know how you recover this. You know you can't leave this place.
Speaker 8:So it means, when they are bombing, when there is fighting, just there, hoping that your neighbor is not a target, hoping that you're not next to a military target, and then you wait. I mean I don't know if you can imagine what it means psychologically. It's really tough. And also, in this crisis crisis it's not about one is suffering more than the other, because I found it just despicable, this kind of mindset. So I can say in the same sentence that I care about the families of the people who are taken hostages, I care about the civilians who have been killed, I care about the civilians in Israel who regularly have to go in the basement, and I also care about the Palestinians. One does not exclude the other and we're not comparing, we're not doing accounting, and it's really hard to pass this message. It's really hard for us as ICRC to say you know, it's possible to care about all of them without putting a hierarchy in suffering, and it's a message which is really, really hard.
Speaker 2:CRC Director for the Middle East, reminding us that there is no hierarchy of human suffering, a thought that is, I'm sure, hard to hold on to when you have lost a loved one or a home or both, but still a thought we should keep in mind. That's it for this edition of Inside Geneva. A reminder you can hear all our coverage of the conflict in the Middle East wherever you get your podcasts, and you can review them or even send us an email with your comments to insidegeneva at swissinfoch Next week. We're back to our regular schedule with a round table on the upcoming presidential elections in the us. What could they mean for multilateralism, support for humanitarian work and respect for international law? And how much influence does does the US, whoever is in the White House actually have these days? Join us on October 14th. For that I'm Imogen Folks, thank you.
