The Debate

Is the off ramp in sight, or did Binyamin Netanyahu’s government deliberately blow past it? If achieving the stated aim of killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar offers Israel a reason to relent in Gaza and Lebanon, that has yet to happen. The days since have been particularly lethal: air strikes near Beirut targeted Hezbollah’s financial assets just as US envoy Amos Hochstein was touching down to talk ceasefire conditions.

We ask if we are witnessing the storm before the calm, or if there is no plan to de-escalate.

With the US Secretary of State following Hochstein, Israel is mindful of growing pressure from its allies and is organising press tours for journalists to show renewed aid deliveries to Gaza. But the UN accuses Israeli authorities of continuing to obstruct delivery of critical aid. 

On that score, France’s president is suggesting Sinwar’s death “must be an opportunity to begin a new phase of negotiation”. We get the panel’s take on Emmanuel Macron’s latest pronouncements and the verbal jousting with Netanyahu that preceded it. 

Produced by Théophile Vareille, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip. 

He masterminded the bloodiest day in Israel's history. One year and one week later comes news that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed. Before October 7, much of the planet knew only the names and faces of Hamas's political leadership in exile, but that all changed when the 62-year-old native of Khan Younis launched the devastating attacks from Gaza. We ask if Sinwar's demise is a turning point for the war and if it will bring any hope of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Produced by Andrew Hilliar, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Hapip. 

Can Europe compete? Part of the answer is on display in Hall 5 of the Paris Motor Show, which opened its doors to the public on Tuesday. Chinese maker BYD is signalling its play for the French market with affordable – albeit subsidised – fully electric models. We ask about EU pushback against those subsidies, and how the homegrown competition is faring.

 

Governments invested massively in the switch away from gas guzzlers, in what seemed like a masterstroke for a continent in need of both tackling climate change and a fresh start coming out of the pandemic. But now, public money is running dry. The most glaring example: France has been forced to slash its subsidy to EV buyers. We will ask if a burgeoning electric vehicle market could cave.

As we recently saw when looking at the US presidential race, we see how here too the green transition has become a battleground in bitter culture wars. So where's the middle of the road?

How porous are sanctions? The war in Ukraine has familiarised this show with the concept of dual-use products, like the washing machine whose computer chip can power a lethal drone. FRANCE 24's investigative news website The Observers got reports from citizen journalists in Iran during the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests about shotgun cartridges made in France and used in the crackdown on peaceful protesters. We track their journey from the factory to the streets.

 

Speaking of sanctions, we ask about an Iran that's been living under them for years, that's holding its breath ahead of Israel's forthcoming response to its missile salvos and to a US election with possible consequences on the scale of pressure and isolation.

Watch our investigation in fullRepression in Iran, ammunition made in France

They are called peacekeepers, but what is their mission when they cannot keep the peace? The United Nations, along with the 40 nations that contribute UNIFIL blue helmets to monitor the buffer zone in south Lebanon, is condemning the growing standoffs with Israel's invading army that have culminated in a tank ramming the gates of an observation post on Sunday. We hear about the fallout and comment on the counterargument.

Israeli forces are releasing drone footage purporting to show a Hezbollah position that is literally a stone's throw away from a UNIFIL base. What is the UN's job when Hezbollah fires rockets for 11-plus months out of a zone that is supposed to be the reserve of the Lebanese army? What does the world body do when Israel asks the peacekeepers to get out of the way?

There is a broader issue: UN bashing is a pretty safe sport, particularly when a permanent Security Council member like the United States has your back, but what is the alternative? Binyamin Netanyahu may score political points at home for slapping a travel ban on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, but what are the actual consequences?

Produced by Andrew Hilliar, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip. 

Time is not on Volodymyr Zelensky's side. Ukraine's president is on a tour of five European cities in two days as he seeks the green light for longer-range missile strikes inside Russia from NATO allies. In a week that has seen his side lose two key towns in the Donbas region, fate seems to be conspiring against Zelensky as Hurricane Milton keeps Joe Biden away from a now-scrapped summit of Kyiv's allies in Germany.

With November 5 fast approaching and US voters' enthusiasm for backing Ukraine waning, how does Kyiv handle the prospect of an eventual return of Donald Trump to the White House?

A new book by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward purports to shed more light on the cosy relationship between the Republican candidate and the master of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, who Trump has referenced more than ever in upbeat terms on the campaign trail.

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

Here in France, the flood waters are rising as the remnants of Storm Kirk dump biblical amounts of rain. But that's just a drop in the bucket compared with what the southeastern United States faces. Hurricane Milton is forcing the evacuation of 5.5 million Florida residents, with President Joe Biden warning this could become the storm of the century.

Even more dramatic is that Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and beyond are still reeling from the US's deadliest storm since 2005, with Hurricane Helene killing at least 230 people and causing billions in destruction.

Now is not the time for partisan politics, or is it? Democrats accuse Republicans of a mass disinformation campaign about the rescue and cleanup effort from Helene, while Donald Trump doubles down on accusations that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris funnelled money to charities that help migrants.

Just how much will Mother Nature be on the ballot on November 5? More broadly, there is a populist backlash on both sides of the Atlantic against carbon-cutting policies. According to Hungary's Viktor Orban, France's Marine Le Pen and Germany's far right, those policies punish the pocketbooks of the middle classes while taking away individual freedoms.

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

When does escalation morph into overreach? On October 8, the one-year anniversary of the first Hezbollah rockets fired on Israel, the IDF is announcing the killing of another top-ranking Hezbollah commander – the heir apparent to Hassan Nasrallah – and the deployment of a fourth division to southern Lebanon.

Militarily, the Israelis have so far been wildly successful, neutralising much of the enemy's leadership and thereby cashing in on years of painstaking intelligence work. But what is the precise objective of it all?

After flattening Gaza for a year, Israel has already forced an estimated 1.2 million Lebanese to flee their homes. To what end? Israelis employ the adage that to make peace, you first need war. We ask our panel if that makes sense, as the world waits for Israel's response to direct rocket attacks by Hezbollah's patron Iran.

And does this escalation serve the interests of Israel's allies? In the United States, talk of brokering a truce alongside France has gone quiet. Is Joe Biden or Binyamin Netanyahu driving policy in Washington?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

It was an unspeakable terror attack that succeeded: succeeded in shock value, succeeded in triggering a massive overreaction that has appalled the planet, succeeded in stoking an escalation that's drawn in the whole region. Fortunately, not everyone is hell-bent on an all-out clash of civilisations in the Middle East.

On the anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, at a time when public opinion in Israel supports the widening of the campaign into Lebanon and retaliation against Iran, we put some simple questions to a panel that instead wants to find the path to peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Where to start? How to address and process the genuine fear felt by both sides? And what can the international community do? 

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habip and Annarosa Zampaglione.

Watch moreOctober 7 attacks: Israel's intelligence failures

 

As Israel ponders its response to Iran, as allies urge restraint, as battles targeting Tehran proxies rage in Lebanon, let's begin with a simple fact of geography: Iran and Israel don’t share a common border. Since October 8, Tehran has been touting a so-called axis of resistance; what Israelis brand a ring of fire, with Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Syria ... to which the US would add Iraq.

With the past two weeks of military successes, are we seeing a short run that restores a measure of aura for Israeli might, or something more profound that could deal a blow to these non-state actors and upend the region's balance in ways unseen since the 1979 Iranian revolution? 

One can look at Middle East rivalries and alliances through the prism of Israel's relations with its neighbours, but also through the up-and-down Sunni-Shia divide.

In the middle are the likes of Jordan, whose military shot down Iranian missiles on Tuesday night. Its own population sees no good outcome in the current spike in tensions. With the US and Europe ineffective in stopping this spiral the past 12 months, is there any bold initiative that can turn the current nightmare into a positive dynamic?