“It’s Just an Impossible Situation”: Tragedy in Israel and Gaza
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2023
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
On Saturday morning, Ruth Margalit, a contributor to The New Yorker who lives in Tel Aviv, awoke to air-raid sirens. It was a familiar sound, but as the day unfolded, it became apparent that Hamas’s latest attack on Israel was more severe than she had realized. “I mean, I’ve certainly never seen anything like this. My entire generation hasn’t,” Margalit says. Since then, she has been reporting on the incursion from Gaza—including a massacre of civilians at a music festival—and on its aftermath. She joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the political backdrop, both global and regional, to this catastrophe; the history of hostage negotiations in Israel; and the response that the Israeli public expects from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the coming days and weeks.
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| 0:47.8 | Ruth, you live in Tel Aviv. |
| 0:49.5 | What is it like there right now, just a few days out from the beginning of Hamas' ground incursion into Israel? |
| 0:56.0 | So actually, right now, as I'm talking to you, for the past two hours, there's just |
| 1:01.4 | been this constant rocket barrage. |
| 1:05.1 | Apparently, Hamas, they announced that they were targeting the Israeli airport as retaliation for the civilian casualties of the past day. |
| 1:16.1 | You know, even just now before coming here, which is why I might sound out of breath. |
| 1:20.2 | I had to run because there was an air raid siren. |
| 1:24.3 | So right now it's quiet and let's hope it stays that way. |
| 1:29.1 | And, I mean, |
| 1:33.9 | are you mostly just staying inside of your apartment? Like I assume that people are trying not to go outside that much. The streets are pretty empty, but actually, you know, we're four days out. |
| 1:41.1 | So you see people sort of itching to get out more. It's a bit like sort of COVID early days, |
| 1:48.9 | weirdly enough, you know, where people are sort of advised to stay home and generally they are, |
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