Day 785 - Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Hamas iron grip restores order, but Gazans aim to throw off shackles
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
This summer, Alkhatib flew over Gaza as part of the last days of the United Arab Emirates's aid drop missions. It was the first time since he had seen his former home since leaving the enclave in 2005 for what was meant to have been a high school year abroad. To begin the program, Alkhatib relates how he felt viewing the swaths of destruction two years of war had left in its wake.
An outspoken anti-Hamas voice, Alkhatib promotes what he calls “radical pragmatism” through his work with the Atlantic Council and his speaking engagements around the world. No short on considered criticism for Israel's prosecution of the war sparked by Hamas's murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, we learn of concrete steps that could be taken to drive out the terrorist organization.
We hear how Hamas is re-rooting itself into all aspects of the Strip's governance. Now that the terror regime has been reestablished, so has law and order, says Alkhatib, leaving Gazans stuck in a "safe-ish," but abusive relationship.
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: A tent camp for displaced Palestinians stand amid the destruction left by Israeli strikes north of Gaza City, November 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Times of Israel's What Matters now, a weekly podcast delving into one issue facing Israel and the Jewish world right now. |
| 0:10.5 | I'm your host, Deputy Editor Amanda Barshald Dan, here with Ahmed Fuad al-Khattib. |
| 0:16.5 | Thank you so much for joining me again, Ahmed. |
| 0:19.7 | Thanks for talking to me. It's always a pleasure. |
| 0:22.1 | The pleasure is mine, and we all know that, so let's stop pretending. |
| 0:25.5 | But before we dive in, I just want to refresh our listeners' memory about you. |
| 0:30.6 | And you grew up in Gaza, but left the strip in 2005 as a teenager to go study in the U.S. as a high school pupil, and you have not been |
| 0:40.5 | inside the strip since, but you did fly over it this summer, which I'm going to ask you about. |
| 0:46.8 | You head up the realign for Palestine, which is an Atlantic Council project that challenges |
| 0:53.0 | entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. |
| 0:57.6 | I have a lot of questions for you, Ahmed, about life in Gaza right now and, of course, the |
| 1:03.4 | re-rooting of Hamas in Gaza. But first of all, I do want to ask you about the flyover this summer where you were part of an A-Drop, a United Arab Emirates aid drop, and saw your home for the first time in what, 20 years, right? |
| 1:21.3 | Precisely. That was quite a mission. I was really grateful to the United Arab Emirates for allowing me to take part in |
| 1:29.1 | actually what turned out to be the last two days of airdrops that have occurred over the Gaza Strip. |
| 1:37.0 | And so I was flying two successive missions two days in a row. |
| 1:42.0 | And I really wanted to both see Gaza from above, survey the damage, |
| 1:48.1 | connect with the place, get a sense of what's really unfolding on the ground. But also, |
| 1:54.9 | I wanted to kind of prove a point, if you will, which is that the airdrofts were an example of when you |
| 2:04.0 | acknowledge and address Israel's legitimate security concerns when it comes to aid, when it |
| 2:10.6 | comes to access to Gaza, virtually, virtually nothing is impossible. Nothing is off limits. |
| 2:17.1 | And so when you have a trusted third party, Gaza's airspace over the past year and a half, |
| 2:24.6 | if you will, of the war went from being under the sole domain of the Israeli Air Force |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times of Israel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Times of Israel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.