LEILA FADEL, HOST:
So as we heard there, a lot still to be worked out, a really delicate time. So we wanted to go a little deeper on the challenges in the first phase of this deal. Diana Buttu has been thinking about this. She's a Palestinian Canadian human rights attorney and a former peace talks negotiator who joins me now from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Good morning, and thank you for being on the program.
DIANA BUTTU: Thank you, Leila. It's nice to have a - nice to be back.
FADEL: So, Diana, I just wanted to start with how you're feeling right now knowing that the airstrikes have stopped, this ceasefire has started and the plan begins.
BUTTU: Well, I'm both relieved and worried. I'm relieved because we can finally breathe. We can finally start collecting and burying our dead. And nobody wanted a ceasefire more than Palestinians. We've been living through a genocide over the course of the past two years, so nobody wanted this more to end than us. But I'm also very worried because so much of it is vague. And as we've seen in the past, Israel's never abided by any ceasefire, by any U.N. resolution, by any agreement. And so I'm worried that this is going to be a repeat of the past. In particular, I don't see that there are any guarantees that it's not going to resume. And more than that, I don't see that this is going to actually end Israel's military rule.
But even when you get down into the specifics, we're looking at a place now where - it used to be the most densely populated place on Earth before October of 2023, with being 40 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide at its widest point. Now 80% of Gaza's population is confined to 18% of that territory. It will expand to - they'll be in 47% in the coming days. But it just - you can see that there's - that they're going to be in half of the size of the Gaza Strip. And every indicator is that Israel's still going to be able to control what goes into Gaza, who gets into Gaza, whether construction supplies, food and so on.
FADEL: Diana, I want to also ask about leadership going forward, I mean, 'cause that is a big question. There are so many questions even before that. Who rebuilds? How do you get to people under the rubble and whatever else is under the rubble? I mean, the plan, though, calls for Hamas to step aside and for Gaza to be governed by a temporary committee of technocrats and, quote, "qualified Palestinians and international experts." This is to be supervised by a new international body and headed and chaired by President Trump. Does this sound feasible to you?
BUTTU: Well, you know, Hamas a long time ago said that they didn't want to govern any longer, so that's not an issue. But the bigger question is, why is it that everybody else is choosing Palestinian - Palestine's leaders rather than Palestinians themselves? And that's the problem, is that the way in which everybody's looking at this is that everybody else decides, especially Israel, and not Palestinians themselves.
So the idea that we've had to sit and negotiate an end to famine with the very people who've been starving us or that we've had to negotiate an end to genocide with the very people who've been killing us, and now we have to negotiate who's going to rule over us with the very people who've been occupying us - all of that is really repugnant. And there's - it's just such short-term thinking. I really would hope that there would be long-term thinking and that in this day and age, 2025, the world would be looking and saying, it's time for Palestinians to finally be free. And let's let them be free, rather than let's repackage the occupation.
FADEL: And just for context here, you mentioned genocide a couple times. Top human rights organizations, Israeli and international, conclude the same thing. A U.N. (ph) Commission of Inquiry also made that conclusion, a growing body of genocide scholars, but Israel and the U.S. deny this. I want to ask about - how do you get to a credible pathway? That's also mentioned in the plan - a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.
BUTTU: Well, one of the problems has been that once we go down the path of everything being bilateral, the world starts ignoring us, and killing becomes the new normal. And so I'm hoping that with all that we've seen over the course of the past two years, that the world doesn't take their eyes off of Gaza, and instead of just coming up with a scheme and a new scheme and another scheme, that there are finally sanctions put on Israel for continuing to militarily occupy Gaza and the West Bank. This is not even controversial any longer, given that we have an ICJ - International Court of Justice - ruling. We have so many states that have recognized Palestine as a state. This is the next step.
FADEL: And you want to see sanctions from who?
BUTTU: From countries around the world who have continued to maintain ties with Israel. It's about time that we look past this idea of normalizing settlements, normalizing occupation and instead start saying, when do Palestinians get to be free? You know, we've been talking all of this time about the Israelis that were in Gaza. There are now over 11,000 Palestinians. More than 10,000 of them are being held hostage in Israeli prisons. These are people that were picked up.
FADEL: And you're referring to the detainees and prisoners that may be released as part of this deal, the 2,000?
BUTTU: No, no. I'm talking about - there were thousands that were picked up in the aftermath of October 7...
FADEL: Oh.
BUTTU: ...Who have not been charged or tried.
FADEL: Yeah.
BUTTU: And so when do these people get to come home? And - you know, so all of this focus has been on just one side, but nobody ever focuses on the Palestinians and how it is that we're going to secure the release of these thousands of people.
FADEL: When you look at this 20-point plan, is there anything that you looked at and said, this is hopeful, this is something that I think is a path forward towards more of what you want to see for the future of Palestinians?
BUTTU: The part that was hopeful for me was that it's going to end the bombing campaign. And that part is hopeful because, as I said, nobody's more - nobody wants to see this more than any - than Palestinians themselves. But the rest of it - remember, Leila, that this entire plan was devised without any Palestinian input. He went around. He spoke to leaders from the Arab world. He didn't even let President Mahmoud Abbas go to the U.N. to speak there. So it's been a plan that's been devised without any Palestinian input for Palestinians. And that's why it's so problematic.
FADEL: Diana Buttu is a human rights attorney and a former peace talks negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Thank you for your time.
BUTTU: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF AGNES OBEL SONG, "IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN")
FADEL: Elsewhere in the show, we will speak with a longtime Israeli hostage negotiator and peace activist about his perspective on this deal.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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