Aya Batraoui
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-01-2025 4AM EST
One of Egypt's plans looks at how to rebuild Gaza after sustained Israeli airstrikes. Another lays out ideas for a new political landscape without Hamas and the unpopular Palestinian Authority. While another looks at the possibility of peace in the region. But all these ideas are rooted in one thing, Palestinians remaining in Gaza. Egypt's former foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, explains.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-01-2025 4AM EST
Cairo will host Arab leaders in the coming days to discuss Egypt's ideas and the region's rejection of Palestinian expulsion. Egypt's also a mediator between Hamas and Israel. Negotiators are converging in Cairo this weekend to discuss the current ceasefire. Aya Batraoui, NPR News, Cairo.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
And a lot of times it would just be venting frustrations, just like being there for each other as colleagues. Reassuring each other that what they did mattered. And then there's also just the element of like, how are you? How are you? You know, what did you eat for breakfast? Did you get food today? Did you sleep well?
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
Wait, I want you, I want you to just, like, you said the sea is on your left, the Mediterranean, the coast.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
Can you just, like, take a big breath of, like, the fresh sea air for me?
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
Now the bombs have stopped. I think now is a good time to ask him to sit and think about what it's been like.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
I still think he's in a little bit of a fight-or-flight mode, like, because he hasn't really settled in yet.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
From then on, Ea was on the phone with Anas almost every day. Trying to figure out how we tell the story together and what the story should be. It was a very intense, very intense time.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
This is the sound of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa. All of its beds are full, like all of Gaza's hospitals, clinics, and medical centers, serving its population of two million. Every functioning hospital is at full capacity. the stream of wounded and dead. So he was there interviewing staff, documenting some of the cases coming in, just getting us information of what it was like on the ground.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
I remember having this call with him and he was like, OK, this is the situation. They're telling us to evacuate to the south, all of Gaza City. It was kind of like panic mode.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
I've been talking to them all week. It's been sheer terror and trauma. They tell me the sounds of the bombs this time are different. And even Israel has said that this war is different and that the response will be harder and harsher than Hamas has ever seen. I can hear in my voice, like my voice, like quivering and going away because it had been such an intense week.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
Already had been like seven days of nonstop reporting and calls. And yeah, like I can hear in my voice that, already like a sense of exhaustion. I spoke with our producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, who also had to leave with his family.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
He told me scenes of mothers carrying their babies and walking by foot for miles, fathers walking with kids on their back, young children having to walk for miles and miles, all of them trying to head south.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
But sometimes Eya didn't hear from Anas for days. Was the phone line down because they've run out of fuel to keep their telecoms operating or something was struck? He had to use an eSIM or was there like 3G or 4G available?
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
I can't remember exactly when I came across it on Instagram, but this is like a collage by this group called Gaza Poets. And it sort of spoke to me so much because it's how I felt. It just says in big black letters in the middle, Gaza is being bombed. And all these tiny little words around it saying things like, I eat breakfast while Gaza is being bombed. I read a book while Gaza is being bombed.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
I laugh at a joke while Gaza is being bombed. I go to the gym while Gaza is being bombed. I fall asleep while Gaza is being bombed. Reporting was actually like a really important way to release some of that pressure that was building up.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
It's war. It's war, but it's also a war that was happening so quick and so fast, and one that had... the full, full backing of the United States. And also there are certain numbers that certainly have defied the history books, like Oxfam reports that more women and children were killed in one year of war in Gaza than in any other war in decades.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
The Committee to Protect Journalists says more journalists were killed in Gaza than any war on record. Same with healthcare workers, civil defense rescue workers, like the list goes on and on. I really had to think, how do you tell the story of Gaza?
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
It was live streamed every day on like every platform. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp. People saw. And had access to see everything.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
Like, why are my kids able to just bike, stub their toe, cry for an hour and get ice cream? And like, all these other kids are like, dying these very slow, painful deaths under the rubble. There's such a disconnect. That for me was a moment where I felt like, I don't know if I can keep doing this. I don't have the luxury to tap out. Like, you have to keep going. You have to keep reporting.
Up First from NPR
A Palestinian Reporter Returns Home to Gaza City
This is what you do. You have to keep documenting. It became our only way to cope with a feeling of helplessness. Because every single aspect of this conflict has been under dispute or questioned, starting with death tolls, the number of dead, who died, how they died, why they died, even just the number of aid trucks going in. You'd think that's a pretty straightforward thing to count. It's not.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
Well, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he never actually sent negotiators to hammer out the details of a second phase. And he wants a different deal now that does not permanently end the war, but frees more hostages taken in the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
So instead of proceeding with the original deal, Trump's Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, came up with a different plan in recent days that gives Netanyahu what he wants. And to pressure Hamas into this new deal, Israel's blocked all food, fuel and aid into Gaza for six days now.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
Now, countries around the world, aid organizations and several Israeli rights groups say this violates international humanitarian law.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
So the main difference is the original deal agreed to would have ended the war now. Basically an agreement to lasting truce. And then all remaining Israeli hostages still alive would be freed over the next six weeks. And Israeli troops would withdraw from Gaza and more Palestinian prisoners would be freed.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
In contrast, the Witkoff plan would have Hamas release half the remaining hostages still held in Gaza now. with only the promise to negotiate a lasting end to the war after six weeks. James has not agreed to that, and Netanyahu may decide not to end the war because of pressure from his far-right coalition.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
He's in a bind because he has vowed to return all the hostages and eliminate James, but a return to war doesn't guarantee either.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
Okay, so you may have heard Trump's idea that everyone in Gaza is going to be displaced to other countries like Egypt and Jordan, and then the U.S. takes over the Gaza Strip somehow, turning it into a world-class real estate development without Palestinians who live there now.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
Now, Israel's government has embraced this plan and is drafting up ways to implement it, but Egypt has been clear it will not be a part of Trump's plan to permanently expel Palestinians off the land. And Egypt says the plan is destabilizing to the region and would unravel its decades-old peace treaty with Israel. Hmm.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
So instead, Egypt drew up a detailed reconstruction plan for Gaza of its own, and it got the backing of all Arab states at a summit in Cairo this week. They also all rejected any displacement of Palestinians. So Israel and the U.S. immediately criticized this lengthy Egyptian plan. But then Steve Witkoff said this yesterday.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
So, Steve, the plan doesn't address every single concern that Israel or, you know, Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have about, you know, what would come next. And they'll be needed to help fund the reconstruction. But it would exclude Hamas from any governance. And Hamas says they agree to that.
Up First from NPR
Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
Thank you, Steve.