On October 7, Hamas launched a series of attacks on Israel of unprecedented scale and savagery. Israel responded by massively bombing Gaza. This podcast is the story of a new and unprecedented war, with Radio France teams deployed in the Middle East.
“It’s war Fred”. For four years, I was permanent correspondent for Radio France in Jerusalem. A few weeks after my return to France, the news caught up with me, Saturday October 7, with this message written on WhatsApp at 7:39 a.m. This message is the start of a long series. “Woke up by our daughter who said to me: ‘Mom alert, an alert!’ that I heard in my sleep. And then I see the news. IDF completely surprised. Disaster. Nobody speaks to the public. Neither army nor government.” On this day, Hamas launched the largest terrorist attack in its history against Israel.
My friend Emmanuelle, journalist in Tel Aviv for the Israeli media Relevant and the author of these messages is not the type to exaggerate. So, I look at the Israeli media and social networks and I come across a video like I had never seen during my four years there: in the streets of Sderot, an Israeli town stuck to Gaza, terrorists from Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, mounted on pick-ups, patrols in uniform and shoots down all the inhabitants they come across.
“Citizens of Israel, we are at war”
In southern Israel, in Tel Aviv and even in Jerusalem, residents are awakened by sirens as Hamas fires thousands of rockets into Israel. The war has begun, the media around the world are switching to special editions. Thibault Lefèvre, current permanent correspondent for Radio France in Jerusalem, speaks in the 8 o’clock news on France Inter, franceinfo and France Culture while the Israeli television channels are already all in special edition. He says that before going on air, he had to shelter his family from rockets. Faced with the profusion of images on social networks that are not always authenticated, he speaks of “pieces of a puzzle that must be assembled over time”. In Sderot where he arrived on Saturday evening, the testimony of a father looking for his missing son allows him to realize the horror of the situation, much more than the flood of images broadcast on television or on the networks social.
The Israelis also became aware of the scale of the terrorist attack: the wall encircling Gaza – a billion euros of concrete, wire mesh and ultra-sensitive technology – was gutted. Even in the Israeli series Fauda, which I sometimes found too warlike, we had not imagined such a scenario. In Tel Aviv, my friend Emmanuelle is stunned in front of her television and continues to write to me: “The news is the relay of citizens who call the televisions and beg the army to come and help against the terrorists who are in their kibbutz for example. I see images passing by. It’s incomprehensible, how were they able to take bases ? And there are fifty hostages in a kibbutz. Since this morning they have had control of entire localities.”
Six hours after the attacks began, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke his silence: “Citizens of Israel, we are at war. This is not an operation, it is not training, but it is war. This morning Hamas launched a deadly surprise attack against the State of Israel and against its citizens. I have ordered an extensive mobilization of reservists for a response of a magnitude the enemy has never experienced…The enemy will pay a price never seen before.”
The “Flood of Al Aqsa”
Hamas named this war “Al Aqsa Flood” after the mosque built on the Mosque Esplanade in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. For Jews, it is the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism. For Frédéric Encel, doctor in geopolitics and lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, “Hamas wanted to deal a very hard blow to the State of Israel which, as a result, was obviously going to react in such a strong manner, causing civilian losses in Gaza which were going to give rise to terrible images preventing Saudi Arabia from recognizing Israel . We must understand that for Hamas, if the guardian of the holy places of Mecca and Medina recognizes Israel, it is unacceptable.”
Indeed, another deluge then fell on Gaza: the Israeli army bombed the Palestinian enclave under Hamas control. Joined with difficulty because the internet, telephone and electricity are regularly cut off, Gazans bear witness to the destruction and their fear like Rami, a Gazan who has seen others. This Saturday, October 7, he knows that this war is going to be different: “The ten-story Palestine Tower was bombed. 44 families found themselves homeless. I also live in a tower but I asked my wife to prepare a small suitcase with passports, papers, a little money and the baby’s things. Each time we think that it couldn’t be worse and the worst happens.” On both sides, the toll continues to rise: in May 2021, I covered a war between Hamas and Israel. In ten days of conflict, 232 Palestinians and 12 Israelis were killed. Gaza is partially razed and is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe. Thousands of Gazans march towards the south of the enclave, hands in the air with white flags. Horrified, the Israelis learned that nearly 250 civilians and soldiers were taken to Gaza, children, babies, adults, old people with their caregivers, whose capture Hamas filmed and broadcast on social networks. Dozens of revelers were also machine-gunned in a rave party, kibbutz residents are massacred in a sadistic and methodical manner. Our special correspondent Farida Nouar went to the Tel Aviv morgue where the bodies are identified and autopsied. Back from a grueling report, she tells how she worked.
Testimony of our special correspondent Farida Nouar in Tel Aviv
An armed conflict coupled with a communication conflict
The permanent correspondent of Radio France Thibault Lefevre underlines that the armed conflict is coupled with a communication conflict. On the one hand, the Israeli army organizes very supervised visits to the sites of the massacres. After screening a grueling and very crude film of the terrorist attacks, he recounts that an Israeli officer attacked foreign correspondents accused of being only interested in the suffering of the Gazans. On the other hand, due to not being able to enter the Gaza Strip surrounded by the Israeli army, international journalists must be very careful with the information provided by Hamas and by social networks. Thibault Lefevre explains that it is preferable to ask well-known and well-identified Gazan people from the Radio France teams to find out what is happening there. Our colleague summarizes: we must always be wary of the information that reaches us and prefer the information we seek.
For Frédéric Encel, the stated Israeli objective of “destroy Hamas” is not a resolution to this endless conflict: “Destroying an ideology with weapons is absolutely ridiculous. I am one of those who consider that there is no alternative to the two-state solution.”
While diplomatic efforts are in vain for the moment, more than 1,400 Israelis and 10,000 Gazans have already died, according to reports provided by both camps. Among them, Roshdi Sarraj who was the fixer for Radio France in Gaza. He accompanied and guided me in all my reporting there. Died on October 22 after an Israeli bombing, he was 31 years old, with a young wife and a one-year-old baby. We think of him, of them and of all the innocent victims of this new War in the Middle East.
In this episode: Farida Nouar, Thibault Lefèvre, Alice Froussard, Frédéric Encel
On air: Assia Veber
Production: Frédéric Métézeau