Beyond the Headlines

Over the past year, reporters, photographers and even children have documented the atrocities in Gaza through their phones, using social media to show the world the horrors they endured.

People all around the world erupted in protests against the war, demanding a ceasefire and later an arms embargo to Israel. But negotiations between the warring parties failed and failed again. UN Security Council resolutions also failed, with the US using its veto power to reject almost every one.

Despite strong warnings from the international community, the war has spilt over across the region. So-called “axis of resistance” groups periodically launch attacks on Israel. Israel has assassinated key Hamas and Hezbollah figures, each time heightening tensions both in the region and around the world.

And now, almost exactly one year after October 7, Israel has expanded its war into Lebanon, hitting the heart of Beirut for the first time in recent history. It has also struck Yemen and Syria. Its air bombing campaign in Lebanon killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and soon afterwards it began a ground invasion into the country’s south. Iran has since launched a barrage of missiles and drones towards Israel, as both continue to threaten one another with more retaliation.

As the situation in the Middle East escalates, where are we today and where do we go from here? In the third and final episode of our series covering one year of war since October 7, host Nada AlTaher looks at the fading attempts to end the war. She also picks at old wounds to understand why, decades later, all efforts for a diplomatic solution to establish a Palestinian state have failed. She speaks to Palestinian ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot, and to political analysts, and asks the difficult question: what future prospects for peace can there be, if it’s not already too late?

Around 6.30 on the morning of October 7, 2023 thousands of rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel. About an hour later, in daylight, Hamas’s armed wing and other armed groups broke through the wire fence along the northern border of the enclave, launching an attack that became the biggest security breach in Israel’s history.

The scenes were violent, bloody, barbaric. People were running for their lives as chaos, panic and fear took over. The fighters infiltrated several Israeli towns near the border, entering homes and taking families captive. By the time the Israeli military intervened, it was too late. About 1,200 people were killed and at least 250 taken as hostages into Gaza.

As the scenes unfolded in Israel, they did so on screens around the world. In those moments one question loomed: How will Israel retaliate?

It has been a year since the war in Gaza began. It has been a year of bombs, destruction, pain and bloodshed. So far, more than 41,500 Palestinians have been killed and 96,000 injured, with thousands more still missing under rubble.

This is the first episode in a Beyond the Headlines limited series covering the October 7 attack and consequent war. In this episode, host Nada AlTaher speaks to Palestinian, Israeli and American political experts, in addition to The National’s Gaza correspondents, to unpack what happened on that fateful day.

They also look at the dire conditions in Gaza before October 7, where 17 years of siege and four previous wars had brought the strip to the brink. And they discuss the ideology and motivations behind Hamas’s decision to conduct its deadly attack, knowing full well Israel would retaliate and that Gazans would pay the heaviest price.

Thousands in Lebanon were injured and at least 32 people were killed this week in a double attack believed to have been conducted by Israel. On Tuesday, thousands of pagers in the possession of Hezbollah members simultaneously detonated across the country, causing serious injuries. At least two children were killed.

What nobody expected is that it would happen again, the very next day. A second wave of explosions went off at the same time of day – in this case walkie-talkies and other electronic devices were detonated.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attacks, but Israel has not publicly claimed them yet. It wouldn’t be the first time Israel has conducted a deadly operation on Lebanese soil. In January it was accused of killing Hamas’s Saleh Al-Arouri in a drone strike on Beirut. In July, it assassinated Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr.

This attack is the latest in a series of escalations of the war in Gaza despite repeated warnings by the international community to contain the fighting before it gets out of hand. But how can a large-scale operation of this nature not make a bad situation worse?

In this episode of Beyond the Headlines, host Nada AlTaher speaks to The National’s Beirut correspondent Nada Homsi, who has been reporting on the story on the ground, and discusses the implications of this attack for the future of Lebanon and the region.

It is back to school for children all around the world, but not in Gaza.

Eleven months of war in the strip have devastated lives, homes, hospitals and infrastructure. Education has been virtually erased for hundreds of thousands of pupils. The classrooms in which they once learnt and played are now being used as shelters for displaced families, turning them into spaces they fear.

About 186 schools have been severely damaged or completely destroyed. More than 92 per cent have sustained some damage, with a third of UN-run schools having been directly hit. Children have been without education for 12 months and they’re now about to miss a second year.

More than 10,000 pupils and at least 400 teachers have been killed since October last year, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Education. Higher education has not been spared either, with all of Gaza’s universities destroyed or damaged. But it’s not just about the sheer scale of it. Many of Gaza’s intellectuals and academics have been killed. Notable educational landmarks have been completely erased as well.

Human rights groups are calling it scholasticide or educide - the complete wipeout of education.

On this week’s Beyond the Headlines, host Nada AlTaher hears from Asma Mustafa, a teacher in Gaza who is providing informal schooling to displaced children. She also speaks to Randa Ghazy, Mena media manager at Save the Children, about the long-term consequences of Gaza’s decimated education sector.

The cycle of Gaza ceasefire talks has started to become predictable. Headlines initially spark hope with announcements of progress, only for other regional incidents to derail negotiations, leading to yet another collapse.

Last Sunday, Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched 320 drones and rockets towards Israel in response to the assassination of its commander Fouad Shukr. This was the group’s biggest escalation since the Israel-Gaza war began. Shortly before, Israel had launched a pre-emptive attack on Lebanon’s south, killing at least three.

This all happened against the backdrop of yet another ceasefire proposal that the US was strongly advocating for. But once again, it fell apart. Hamas rejected it, saying it was skewed too heavily in Israel’s favour and contradicted a version the group had agreed to in July. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it had delayed its retaliatory attack to give this round of ceasefire talks a chance.

With the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza exceeding 40,600 and the war approaching its one-year mark, the prospects for a ceasefire are diminishing.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host Nada AlTaher looks at how events on the ground could be sabotaging a ceasefire deal. She speaks to The National’s correspondents Nada Atallah and Hamza Hendawi and asks if talks still hold any weight.

Children’s lives in Gaza are riddled with uncertainty. They don’t know when the next bomb will fall, where their next meal will come from or even if their families and friends are still alive.

Now, another variable poses a grave risk to Gaza’s children: polio. The first case was confirmed after a 10-month-old baby tested positive for the virus in mid-August. At least two others are suspected to have been infected.

Poliovirus can be extremely dangerous, affecting nerve function and causing irreversible paralysis. Since the war began last October, inoculations have fallen in Gaza, leaving thousands of children unvaccinated. Doctors and aid workers have been warning for months that the catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the enclave would fuel the spread of disease. Now, 25 years after the virus was eradicated in Palestine, unheeded warnings are proving true.

The World Health Organisation, along with the UN children’s fund, Unicef and other aid groups, has called for a ceasefire or at least a pause in the fighting to be able to administer at least 1.2 million vaccines.

But will it happen?

On Beyond the Headlines this week, host Nada AlTaher discusses the gravity of Gaza’s looming polio outbreak with Dr Zaher Sahloul, president of the medical NGO MedGlobal, and speaks to Unicef’s Jonathan Crickx about vaccine co-ordination efforts.

In recent weeks, human rights organisations and media investigations have documented the worsening conditions in Israeli prisons over the past 10 months. They reveal beatings and other forms of brutal physical and psychological abuse of Palestinian detainees have become common practice since October 7.

A UN report on the ill-treatment of detainees was published at the end of July, detailing patterns of abuse. Within a week, a report titled Welcome to Hell was released by leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, containing testimonies from 55 released Palestinians. Widespread use of violence including sexual assault, tactics that may amount to torture, and accounts of humiliation and degradation is described.

The Israel Prison Service rejects all of these allegations.

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Headlines, host Nada AlTaher delves into the experiences of two former Palestinian detainees who share their harrowing accounts of life in Israeli detention centres. The episode also features insights from Shai Parnes, representative for B’Tselem.

Olympic fanfare has swept across Paris in recent weeks, but there is an elephant in the room that’s difficult to ignore – the glaring disparity between France hosting one of the most multicultural events in the world, while at the same time cracking down on diversity.

Only weeks before the Games started, the far right gained huge momentum in a tense parliamentary election in France, reigniting xenophobic sentiment and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The country has been the subject of criticism over its hardline policies for some time. Last year, it introduced a contested immigration bill, parts of which were deemed unconstitutional. And now, even though it says it has hosted the “first gender-equal” Olympics in the history of the event, some of its own Muslim athletes were forced to remove their hijab merely to compete.

Researchers say these policies have bred a mainstream culture of racism, so much so that more ethnic minorities of North African origins and French Muslims are opting to emigrate.

In this episode of Beyond the Headlines, against the backdrop of the Olympics host Fethi Benaissa looks at the contrast between France’s multi-ethnic fabric and rising xenophobia. He asks what the tipping point will be for those who want to leave their country amid a growing racial divide.