 Israel and Hamas have agreed on a deal mediated by Qatar, what are the terms and what does it mean for the people of Gaza? Health facilities and health workers in Gaza have not only been attacked but also demonised. What is their response to this multi-pronged offensive? This is the daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button. Israel and Hamas have agreed on a deal whereby Israel will stop its brutal offensive for four days. Hamas will ensure the release of 50 Israeli hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners will be released in return. Now, to be clear, this is just a pause. There is very little anticipation of this turning into a full-fledged ceasefire. We go to Abdul for the details. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. Over the past few days, we've been hearing reports of a true some kind of a deal. Of course, nowhere close to a ceasefire, which Gaza desperately needs. But could you maybe first tell us about what are the details of this agreement? Well, as per the reports, the Qatar government announced that there will be a ceasefire for four days, starting in the next 24 hours. The Hamas representative said that it may start on Thursday afternoon, and that is the deadline. Basically, it is related to, since both Israelis and Hamas have approved the deal, they are waiting for a legal period, which is mandatory in Israeli law, that if the Israeli parliament wants, it can basically go to court questioning the legitimacy of the deal. And that's why they are waiting for the 24 hours to get over so that they can go ahead with it. As for the deals, whatever details are available in media, Hamas has agreed to release 50 Israeli captives. Most of them are basically, some of them will be the foreign citizens, Israeli foreign citizens, and some of them will be the Israeli citizens. Mostly in return of 150 Palestinians being basically released from different Israeli prisons, most of these 150 would be women and children. According to the latest report, there are 8,000 Palestinians, more than 8,000 Palestinians in different Israeli jails, and around 97 or 100 of them are women, 150 people are children. So some of them will be released in exchange of this particular deal. It also said that Israel claims that it is only for four days and if Hamas wants it to be extended for any days further to it, it has to release 10 hostages every day. So if it releases 10 hostages, additional 10 hostages every day, there will be one day extension in the ceasefire. Otherwise, after the expiration of the fourth day, Israel will resume. These military operations inside Gaza, which includes bombing and ground offensive as well. I think this is the major details of the ceasefire deal, which is there in the public. I believe there will also be an increase in humanitarian as well, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, that is part of it, that Israel has agreed to allow more trucks through the Jaffa border. It has also basically, it also would mean that though the details are not out, it would mean the fuel and other medical supplies which are required to run the basic facilities inside Gaza will also be increased. It is not restricted to the food aid only. Abdul of course, while even one day's reduction might provide relief to people who are really suffering, I think this also throws into focus the fact that the international community especially has failed massively in ensuring a larger ceasefire, which has been the demand at least of people's movements across the streets. And Israel has also been quite defined in refusing to heed any of the UN resolutions. Exactly, the UN Security Council after kind of failing for many, in many attempts since October 7th, finally kind of agreed to a kind of truncated humanitarian pauses. Even that Israel did not agree and of course, it has basically refused to agree to the larger resolution passed by the General Assembly earlier. And despite the fact that the US different diplomats, including the US officials, claimed that there is an urgent need for humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, Israel never bothered about responding to those appeals and those demands made by different set of countries including some of its closer lies. And that shows that Israel does not bother about the opinion of the larger world community and it's only basically trying, it's guided by its larger attempts to kind of ethnically clean Gaza and if you see the statements made by some of the Israeli foreign Israeli ministers, including some ex-ministers on Israeli TV, they're still talking about cleansing in Gaza. In fact, when the decision was proposed, when the deal was proposed in the meeting by Netanyahu, some of the ministers, three of them including Ben Guir, the extremist right-wing minister refused to kind of agree with it and in fact, they made a public statement that such kind of pauses will ultimately lead to the strengthening of Palestinians or it can basically, it will be harmful for the Israeli interest. Nobody knows what that Israeli interest is except for the fact that it seems that they want to kind of completely wipe out Palestinian population from Gaza. Petul, but do you also see this four-day pause in fighting as providing the grounds for some kind of a further discussion, the possibility of expanding this or especially will Israel look at this as an opportunity to sort of mobilize its forces further and continue attacks? Well, it depends on how strong the pressure on Israel is. If the US is willing to extend, basically it is up on the US and other world powers, if they are willing to continue with it, they can force Israel to do so, but it is very unlikely at this moment given the fact that Israel, the domestic politics in Israel is such where Netanyahu would like to continue the offensive. So it is not sure whether the US, even US is trying, it will be able to kind of pressurize Netanyahu to kind of ignore the its own domestic calculations in Israel. So that is one, of course, apart from the fact that this four-day pause may give some kind of relief to Palestinians, one should not kind of think that this may ultimately lead to peace because, as I said before, Israel is at this moment has not agreed to any long-term pause, any long-term ceasefire. And this is practically a deal related to the hostages because there was a very strong pressure put by the families of those Israeli citizens who are being taken hostage and they have been able to pressurize the Israeli government enough to basically look for a way out to exchange the hostages with the Palestinian prisoners or with the ceasefire, even if it is temporary. So nothing beyond that looks a possibility at this moment, but one does not know if the diplomatic pressures will work or not. We should wait and watch. Well, Abdul, thank you so much for that analysis. We will get back to you as this pause progresses and we see how some of these details are being executed. Since the beginning of Israel's brutal assault on Gaza, the enclave's health system has been especially the focus of attacks. The case of Al-Shifa and Indonesian hospitals have hit the headlines, but the attacks have affected every aspect of healthcare in Gaza. Added to this is the constant demonization of health workers. On Tuesday, health activists spoke of the impact of this attack and what needs to be done urgently and our Rachaar of the People's Health movement joins us with the details. Thank you so much for joining us. The health impact of this very brutal war has been something we've been talking about quite often on this show and of course the instances of Al-Shifa and Indonesian hospitals are staring us right in the face, but also at so many levels, the destruction has taken a toll. Before we go into some of the discussions that took place by people's movements from activists across the world, maybe could you give us an overview of how the health situation right now is, what has been the impact of this kind of this attack? Well, essentially what we've seen over the past five weeks or so is very related to how the health system in Palestine has been treated and has been attacked by Israel over the past 75 years plus of occupation, of course. When we talk about the attacks on the hospitals, when we talk about the killings of the health workers, when we talk about the obstructions of the ambulances, we're not talking only about what has happened since October 7th. We also have to consider how the situation has been before that. And what we know, even from very recent examples, only months ago, people were still reporting the WHO was reporting, so UN agencies were reporting that health care in Palestine was suffering severe attacks, so we know that ranges from people being stopped while they're driving patients from one place to another. Their ambulances are being searched, sometimes they are attacked, they are attacked with tear gas, they are attacked with weapons, some of them in previous years they were shot. So it's kind of what has happened is that there was a health system which was repeatedly undermined and which was put into question by these Israeli actions and essentially it's easy to imagine that it weakens the health systems a lot when we're talking about the physical and the material conditions that people are working in. So another thing that we've been hearing a lot about for the past five weeks, which is of course something that has to be stressed over and over again, is the shortage of materials, but it also has to be said that there was a shortage of medical supplies in Gaza even before October 7th, so you know, they were nowhere near having all the essential medicines and all the essential medical supplies that a hospital and a health center needs to actually provide the care that people require. So in this kind of context, of course it makes it even worse when we see that over the past days, again, hospitals and health centers have been bombed, they have been attacked, they have been, there have been seizures on hospitals essentially, so you know that's not something that's acceptable at any point, that should be acceptable at any point and it is essentially what Israel has done. It has put medical workers at gunpoint and forced them to either march, leave their patients or stay behind and provide care and work in very, very unsecure conditions. Right, and of course, like you said, one of the key aspects has been the very deliberate targeting of health facilities and health workers on the one hand and also I think in terms of propaganda, the demonization of health workers, you know, and health facilities basically conflating them with, in the Israel from the Israeli propaganda methodology, conflating them basically with terrorists, calling them terrorists endlessly and making it seem like every medical facility is basically out to, is at war with Israel. That's really the kind of picture they're sort of painted. But in this context, maybe talk a bit about how health workers have been responding, some of the voices that came out in the discussions yesterday, what has been the kind of pushback for the response by health workers? Well, of course, you know, the first thing to say is that the voices that we are hearing from Gaza and from other parts of Palestine is that health workers are still there. So they're very committed to stay with their patients. Many of them have reaffirmed over and over again that they would not leave while there are patients, while there are displaced people in the hospitals, taking refuge in the hospitals, and that they would stay independently of what the Israeli occupying forces do. So that's, you know, the strongest voice that we've heard from coming from the Palestinian participants in this discussion yesterday. What has to be said also, and that's something that I think should be highlighted more these days, is that people have been working nonstop for five weeks. So at this point, they're tired. It's essential that additional medical teams are led into Gaza to alleviate the burden that's currently being shouldered by the health workers who have, who have remained behind. And of course, you know, it's not, it's not also only about the physical stress, but we're also talking about the emotional toll, about the physical toll that people are now facing. You know, just hours before the discussion yesterday, we heard news of Alavda Hospital in Gaza being one of the latest one in the, of the health facilities attacked. And unfortunately, three doctors were killed during that attack. So, you know, it's, it's something that people that health workers, nurses and doctors and ambulance drivers and technicians are living with every day. So they essentially don't know if it's going to be their last day on the job or not. And in spite of all that, there's showing a tremendous strength in how they're coping and how they're working. I think that's also, that's an additional thing that came out of the discussion yesterday. And that's, you know, how much respect and how much solidarity these health workers have been inspiring for the past weeks, because again, they have shown that health can look in a very different way from what we manage, imagine. I think that for it would be fair to assume that for most health workers in the global north, but also, you know, all over the world, it's quite unimaginable to work in the conditions that the health workers of Gaza have worked for in the past five weeks. And still they managed to provide at least a glimpse of care that people need. And they're still, you know, they're still there. So what's important at this time is of course, you know, to reaffirm this call for a permanency fire for adequate amounts of supplies to come in, of adequate supplies of fuel to get in, to reassess what's, you know, what kind, what rate of destruction we're talking about. It's what from what's been seen in the last few days, it's something that's, you know, it's not quite imaginable because we're talking about hospitals that have been, that have caved in under bombs. They have been in, essentially, you know, we're talking about a very large scale reconstruction that needs to happen as soon as possible. This of course cannot happen while there's a war raging on. And of course, it cannot happen until it's clear from where the, from where the money and the budget is coming from. So that's one of the things that yesterday was discussed. It was stable at least. And it's definitely going to become a priority in the future days. So how do we reconstruct the health healthcare sector in Gaza? So it's adequate to the people's needs. And it's also done in solidarity instead of something pushed on by the global north. Right. Thank you, Anna, so much for that analysis of both the health situation and also equally importantly, what really urgently needs to be done to provide some kind of relief to the people of Gaza at this point of time. That's all we have in this episode of Daily Deep Brief. We'll be back tomorrow with another episode. In the meanwhile, do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on all the social media platforms.