The Electronic Intifada Podcast 17 February 2025
A regular contributor to The Electronic Intifada, Abed has been touring Gaza to see the destruction – and the efforts to restore a semblance of normality – for himself.
He has been posting his video reports from across Gaza on his Twitter/X account.
This past week Israel fully dismantled and left the so-called Neztarim corridor, a wide-swath of land it had occupied south of Gaza City, completely severing the north of the Gaza Strip from the territory’s south.
Contributing editor Jon Elmer talked about the significance of this withdrawal – which has allowed displaced Palestinians to return en masse to their devastated neighborhoods in northern Gaza.
According to Hallel Biton Rosen on Israel’s Channel 14, some Israeli soldiers left Netzarim in tears, feeling that “everything they did for more than a year in the Gaza Strip was in vain.”
In her news brief, associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman covered developments across Palestine, including Israel’s escalating assault on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of people.Elmer also reported on how one Palestinian fighter single-handedly attacked an Israeli base in the West Bank.
And the fifth prisoner exchange, as part of the ceasefire deal, took place on 8 February. Earlier this month, Yoav Gallant, who was Israel’s defense minister on 7 October 2023, admitted that orders were given to Israeli forces to execute the Hannibal directive that day.He is the most senior Israeli official to confirm that Israel forces were ordered to intentionally kill their own citizens rather than allow them to be taken captive for use in a prisoner exchange.
Associate editor Asa Winstanley talked about his reporting on Gallant’s admission.
Meanwhile, multiple anonymous Israeli officials admitted to The New York Times that Israel has broken the ceasefire deal, while Hamas has upheld it.
We discussed how the future of Gaza may depend on Hamas being able to enforce this agreement.
You can watch the whole program in the video above.
“Hard to take the pain alone”
Abubaker Abed is a 22-year-old sports journalist in Gaza whose university studies were interrupted by genocide.
During this dangerous time, Abed has become a world-renowned journalist reporting on Israel’s atrocities, problems with aid organizations and the conditions of everyday people.
Recently, Abed toured different neighborhoods of Gaza City posting multiple videos per day to his Twitter/X account. He provides observations and sobering historical context as someone who knows Gaza well.
Associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman asked Abed his motivations for this tour. He said that it is “ really hard to take the pain alone.”“ I wanted to show the world how it feels to go around Gaza,” he added.
Abed said it is hard to comprehend the level of destruction especially in areas in the north such as Jabaliya and the Saftawi neighborhood.Abed’s home town of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza was relatively spared from the destruction of buildings by Israel.
Abed shared a video showing how Israel targeted civil defense facilities and vehicles in Gaza, hampering efforts to rescue and recover people from rubble and slowing down the restoration of basic services.
The condition of children in Gaza is especially heartbreaking. Abed said he has spoken to children who have serious trauma and mental difficulties. Some have trouble speaking.Many children are orphaned and must take care of their family including retrieving water for everyone.
People are sleeping in tents or destroyed buildings that may only have one wall standing.“They don’t know whether these buildings are going to fall upon their heads or not. This is extremely dangerous and hazardous,” Abed said.
More than once, Abed reminded viewers of the mental toll on the people in Gaza including himself: ”The buildings are gutted and I’m gutted at the same time.”Abed said many people’s dreams and memories have been “crushed under the rubble.”
“We need to build new memories until we really rehabilitate and recover,” he said.
Defense minister confirms Hannibal Directive orders
Speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 earlier this month, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister on 7 October 2023, confirmed that the Hannibal Directive order was issued that day – an instruction to Israeli forces to kill their own citizens rather than let them be taken captive.
Gallant said that “tactically, in various places it was given. And in other places it was not given, and that is a problem.”
Associate editor Asa Winstanley noted that the meaning of Gallant’s comment was unclear, “ Was he actually saying that it was a problem that Hannibal wasn’t applied everywhere?”
Winstanley has been reporting on the Hannibal Directive for over a year and noted that we may never know the exact number but most likely hundreds of Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed by the Israeli army on 7 October.Executive director Ali Abunimah noted that this news has barely been covered in mainstream Western media.
But he observed that The New York Times recently used a new terminology, stating that “Hamas led an attack from Gaza on southern Israel that ended with about 1,200 dead and about 250 people taken back to Gaza as hostages.”
That passive phrasing, Abunimah said, suggests that the Times is tacitly admitting that it was not Hamas that killed all those people.
Burying the truth
Israel has violated the ceasefire deal with Hamas hundreds of times according to Hamas.
As a result, Hamas announced on 10 February that it would not release more captives until Israel delivers more aid into Gaza.
On 11 February, The New York Times ran an article headlined: “Trump to meet Jordan’s King as Gaza truce hangs in the balance.”
Buried several paragraphs into the article, the Times reported:
“ The current standoff stems partly from Hamas’ accusation that Israel has not upheld its promises for the first phase of the ceasefire. Israel was required to send hundreds of thousands of tents into Gaza, a promise that Hamas says Israel has not kept.”
“Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, three Israeli officials and two mediators said that Hamas’s claims were accurate,” the newspaper added.
Abunimah said that should have been the headline of the article.
He also pointed out how even the Israeli army is confirming that Hamas has not violated the ceasefire agreement, a fact that is reported in Israeli media.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have made clear their goal is to ethnically cleanse Gaza.Withholding aid and keeping Gaza unlivable is essential to that plan, Abunimah argued, which is why Hamas had to draw a line by threatening that it would not proceed with the planned prisoner exchange until Israel kept its side of the deal.
That led to fears the deal could collapse altogether, amid escalating threats and ultimatums from both Trump and Netanyahu.
But after intense mediation – and promises that Israel would let in more aid – that exchange, the sixth since the ceasefire went into effect, took place as planned on 15 February.
”The future of Gaza depends on [Hamas] being able to enforce this agreement to the letter,” said Abunimah.
You can watch the program on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.
Tamara Nassar produced and directed the program. Michael F. Brown contributed pre-production assistance and this writer contributed post-production assistance.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada Livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
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