ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
We are now in the second week of a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which continues to be marked by deadly violence. Earlier this week, a video circulated online showing Hamas publicly executing eight Palestinians, accusing them of collaborating with Israel during the war. And on Friday, Israeli forces killed 11 members of a Palestinian family. Gaza civil defense authorities said the family, like many others, were examining the ruins of their home.
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JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Israeli forces fired at their minibus with a tank. The Israeli military said the family was behind the yellow line where its troops are stationed.
LIMBONG: This is NPR's Jane Arraf reporting on Weekend Edition this morning. She has been covering the Middle East for 30 years.
ARRAF: It's kind of a book because of my first experience covering the Middle East, which was in the '90s when I came here as a reporter for Reuters. And this was a time when Jordan was secretly discussing a peace agreement with Israel, when the Palestinians were discussing a possible peace with Israel.
LIMBONG: Since then, almost every time peace was discussed or war flared up again, Jane was somewhere in the region, reporting for major outlets like CNN, The New York Times, Al Jazeera English and, for several years, NPR on similar stories.
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ARRAF: Two militants were buried among them, as well as an 11-year-old boy and a hospital orderly.
For millions of Syrians, this is the new beginning they have long dreamed of during years of killings, arrests and repression.
We had just landed in Gaza—not very far from Gaza, just a few hundred feet beyond the fence. This is part of the buffer zone created by Israel. There's no one else in sight here.
LIMBONG: And now, a little more than a week into the current ceasefire, she's watching for what might change.
ARRAF: And now, decades later, we're still talking about many of the same issues, and it clearly shows me how important a factor in instability is the fact that the Palestinians have no homeland.
LIMBONG: Cautious optimism is a phrase we in the news business use to describe people's reaction to the ceasefire. When I spoke to Jane on Friday, I wanted to know if people on the ground really felt the same way? Is this really how she feels?
ARRAF: Careful – I mean, of course, carefully. We are very careful. Optimism. I'm currently struggling with the word “optimism.” I used to be – I swear I was an optimistic person. Over the last few years this has kind of eroded.
LIMBONG: Yes, I can imagine. I wonder what it's like to cover a story that crosses boundaries, right? – because – so you live in Amman, Jordan. You know, what is happening now in the Gaza Strip is affecting many countries. And how do you even fit into all this?
ARRAF: Almost all the countries I travel to are in the Arab world. They are connected. And when you travel through these countries – be it Lebanon, Syria or Iraq – you realize how interconnected they are. And although we talk about the historical problems that countries in this region have created, it is as if it were yesterday.
For example, I was recently in South Lebanon and stood on the ruins of a destroyed village overlooking Israel, and it was destroyed by the Israeli army after the ceasefire with Lebanon last year because they want to depopulate these border villages. But from this Lebanese village you could see Israel. You could see the part of Israel that used to be Palestinian land. In fact, some of the people we spoke to in Lebanon, their families farmed the land.
You could see the Golan Heights in Syria. And when you're back in Jordan now, for example, you can get in a taxi and go to Damascus for lunch if you want. It's so close. That is, everything here is so interconnected that finding solutions to things is both easier and more difficult.
LIMBONG: When we present news and texts, we always try to tell the audience how close everything is. But this morning I was just messing around with Google Maps. I would think, oh, it's only 2 hours away (laughter). You know, it's just… it's…
ARRAF: This is a child…
LIMBONG: Yes.
ARRAF: …Isn't that right?
LIMBONG: Yes. And it's like… I mean, I think it's an absurd question, but is it scary to be so close to all this?
ARRAF: No, no, it's exciting, especially if you're a history buff, right? – because in all of these places you are in places that are deeply important to almost every major religion – where, for example, biblical figures walked, where some of history's famous poets read poetry in the streets. It has everything, and in many places there is such an old civilization. I mean, think about Iraq, right? – the cradle of civilization.
And, you know, for me, one of the most amazing things that even now makes me feel such a happy journalist is that I get to go to places that I only read about when I was a kid, like places with magical names – like Babylon and Damascus – and they actually exist, right?
LIMBONG: There's a Babylon on Long Island, but it's not like…
ARRAF: (Laughter) You also have a lot of Lebanese (ph), right? Isn't there, like…
LIMBONG: Yes, yes, yes. This is also a lot.
ARRAF: …Dozens of Lebanese?
LIMBONG: Yes. Violence does do many things. It attracts attention. Assuming the ceasefire holds, I imagine people's interest might be diverted elsewhere, right? Here in the States we have a government shutdown. You know, there's a lot of elections coming up and all that. And so I'm curious: As people continue the hard work of figuring out what's going to happen next in the region, what do you fear might be hidden?
ARRAF: That's one of the key questions, isn't it? – what we face as journalists, because during war it is very easy to attract people's attention. I mean, it's not easy to maintain that kind of focus, even when incredible things happen. But I hope there is momentum behind it. And I think that although yes, interests will definitely fade, but people are always interested in people.
You know, the other day in Southern Lebanon we were walking through one of these destroyed villages and we saw a man dancing on the roof of his destroyed house to very loud music. There was no one else around for miles. So we stopped and talked to him, and you know, his life is kind of the broader story of what happened in South Lebanon. But the trick is that here is this person who, despite everything, dances, and there will always be these stories that I think people will always be interested in, because, in the end, people are interested in people.
LIMBONG: I've been talking about this story for a long time and I think I'm wondering what could go wrong here.
ARRAF: A lot can go wrong. A week has passed since the ceasefire, but everything else that should happen is not happening. This doesn't mean they won't happen – it just means they won't happen. For example, famine is spreading across the Gaza Strip. More than 90% of houses are damaged or destroyed. Winter is coming.
Israel has been restricting aid for months and, as part of a ceasefire agreement, it agreed to dramatically increase aid but has given no indication it intends to do so. He kept one of the main borders with the Gaza Strip closed, which is used for humanitarian aid deliveries. He deregistered major international aid organizations.
I think one of the things that people really need to focus on and that we need to focus on is how is this all going to work? You know, a ceasefire is great news, it's a moment of almost euphoria. But for something to actually happen, it takes so much work, so much organization, so much effort, and we're not seeing that on the ground yet.
LIMBONG: How are you doing?
ARRAF: How am I doing?
LIMBONG: Yes, how are you?
ARRAF: Oh, such a good question, thanks for asking. I think I do the same thing as a lot of people. You know, one of the stories that I'm studying is about psychotherapists and psychiatrists who say they're seeing an increase in, like, free-floating anxiety. Obviously this is not a clinical term, but is essentially an increase in anxiety from all the terrible things happening in the world and the inability to do anything about it. And I'm really interested in what this phenomenon is.
I mean, as journalists, one of the reasons we do journalism is in many ways as a way of not doing something about it, but a way of feeling useful in explaining what's going on, and that certainly keeps me going.
LIMBONG: It's funny. I asked you how you were doing, and then you moved on to the story you're working on, and it's very…
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LIMBONG: …That's journalism.
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ARRAF: Oh, yes. Let me just say: when you ask anyone here these days – and this is the last two years – how are you doing? – you immediately understand that there is no answer to this question, right? There is no short answer to this question because the world is essentially falling apart. So when you ask people how are you doing? – many find it difficult to answer.
LIMBONG: This is NPR's Jane Arraf. Jane, thank you very much.
ARRAF: Thank you.
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