Israel raids Gaza hospitals. Plus: inside a people-smuggling network
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Anyone who's seen pictures of Jabalia has seen that it is utter devastation. Most of the buildings have been either fully or partially destroyed, and the hospital has been a focal point of clashes. They said, "He will start a war." I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. I recognize the challenges from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond. War, hunger, terrorism. I just find bombs and I find dead people, but it's a really scary thing.

I'm Venetia Rainey and this is Battle Lions. It's Monday, 6th of January 2025.

Happy New Year to all of our listeners around the world. We hope you enjoyed taking a bit of a break from the news with us over the last few weeks. In a series of special episodes, we delved into Napoleon's generals, why the Spanish beat the Aztecs and the best war movies of 2024 plus more. Do go back and have a listen if you miss them and want something a bit different on your morning commute.

But the festive period is now well and truly over, and indeed for those in conflict zones around the world there's been little to celebrate. Given the ongoing war in the Middle East, for the meantime we're going to continue to dedicate our Monday episodes to news and interviews from the region, including Israel, Gaza and Lebanon, but also beyond to Syria, Iran and the Gulf. Our Friday episodes will look at the rest of the world and we'll also occasionally ask broader questions about conflict, security and defence.

We'd love to hear what you think we should cover this year. So please do email us on battlelines at telegraph.co.uk or find Roland and I on social media. We'll include links to all of that in the show notes. But for now, on with today's episode, where we'll be covering Israel's hospital raids in northern Gaza and whispers of a new ceasefire deal that could see hostages released for the first time in well over a year.

Plus, we'll be getting the inside track on a migrant smuggling network that reaches from Afghanistan's Herat to the French port of Calais. How do these gangs actually operate on the ground and how much does it cost? We'll be getting into all of that and more with a journalist who infiltrated the network for The Telegraph. But first, let's start with a quick catch up of the latest death tolls, both civilian and military, since October 7th, 2023. Gaza's death toll is 45,854 people.

The West Bank's is 807 people. Israel's is 1,822 people. And Lebanon's is 3,961 people. And that hasn't moved in a while since the ceasefire, so we will stop including Lebanon's tally from next week unless things kick off again. I want to start this first section of the episode by talking about two stark images from the Middle East that have gone viral over the last week.

Both are from northern Gaza. Both are from late December. One shows male staff from Kamal Adwan Hospital being led, half naked and in a single line, through a rubble-strewn apocalyptic landscape towards an Israeli checkpoint after the facility was raided and shut down by the IDF on December 27th.

The other shows the back of the same hospital's director, Dr. Hossam Abu Safir, in his white coat as he walks through the ruins of the hospital towards an Israeli tank to be detained for interrogation. He has not been seen or heard from since then.

Now, Kamal Adwan Hospital was one of the three remaining hospitals in northern Gaza, although it was barely functioning. No more. The Indonesian hospital was also raided and shut just a few days afterwards. That leaves just the Al-Auda Hospital in Jabalia, also barely functioning.

It's part of a broader attempt by Israel to, in its words, crush Hamas in northern Gaza. The area has been under blockade by Israel for more than 90 days, and with little exception, no aid, no food, no medical supplies, and no humanitarian visits have been allowed into the governorate. So what's going on? To find out more, I caught up with our correspondent in Israel, Yotam Confino.

Welcome to Battlelines, Yotam. Can you start by telling us a bit about the rationale behind these raids that we've seen on the hospitals in northern Gaza over the last few weeks?

Yeah, so if we just go back in time just a little bit to the end of December, the Israeli military launched yet another raid at one of the hospitals in Jabalia, which is located in northern Gaza. And it's called the Kamel Adwan Hospital. And it's actually a hospital that Israel has raided many times before. And they've done so because they accuse Hamas of exploiting the hospital for military purposes.

So they went in again, this time around, in northern Gaza. They ordered the evacuation of more than 300 people, including medical staff and patients. And they also ordered 90 patients to be relocated to a nearby hospital called the Indonesian Hospital, another hospital which has also seen battles between Israel and Hamas. So the whole purpose of Israel going into these hospitals is to get rid of Hamas.

That's the accusation coming from Israel's side. Of course, Hamas is denying that they're using any of these hospitals as their military bases. But at this point in the war, I think there's little doubt that Hamas is, in fact, using hospitals all over Gaza, in fact. It's something that has been condemned by the European Union. It's something that has been testified to by doctors who've been at the hospitals, and

And also we've seen the Israeli military finding tunnels underneath some of these hospitals. So after they went into this hospital, first of all, they evacuated more than 300 people, but they also arrested 240 people, which Israel said were terror suspects. Now, this is, of course, very controversial because many of these people are medical staff.

And Israel has not yet released a list of all of their names and which branch of Hamas or Islamic Jihad they might belong to. But they've taken them into custody, arrested them, and they've taken also the director of the Kamel Adwan Hospital into custody, which has caused huge criticism among NGOs, human rights experts, etc.

accusing Israel of taking a doctor who's innocent and throwing him into a jail in Israel. What do we know about the fate of Dr. Hassan Abbas Safir? There were some very conflicting statements from the IDF, right? They were saying they had him in detention, then they didn't have him in detention, then Shin Bet had him in detention. We think he's in the Sdey Teiman detention center. Is that right? Yeah, that's according to reports. CNN reported that he was in this very controversial prison in southern Israel.

where Palestinian prisoners have been tortured and it's actually been ordered to be closed by the state. So he might be in there. We actually don't know. Israel has issued conflicting statements, like you said, about whether he wasn't arrested or he wasn't. At this stage, we can say that he's definitely arrested because he hasn't been brought back to Gaza. His family still doesn't know where he is.

And it's caused, like I said, huge criticism. A lot of NGOs in the UN, even NGOs inside Israel, have called on him to be released. Now, why has he been arrested? Israel says that he is suspected of also being a member of Haas. And that's, of course, a harsh allegation, something they need to be able to back up with more than just words. What we do know about this doctor is that he has, in fact, in the past...

shown sympathy, even celebrated the massacre on October the 7th, shown sympathy for terror groups online. But that is, of course, not the same as being a member of Hamas. This is something Israel needs to prove. And it's something that they're under a lot of pressure to provide some evidence of, simply because he's seen as a hero among many of these doctors and nurses and

There is even now a trend online for doctors and medical staff around the world who show solidarity with him. They call on Israel to release him. They see him as a hero because he's been working in one of the most difficult hospitals in all of Gaza, which is the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalian.

And anyone who's seen pictures of Jabalia has seen that it is utter devastation. Most of the buildings have been either fully or partially destroyed. And the hospital has been a focal point of clashes between terror groups and the Israeli army. So he's seen as a hero among many of these people. But in Israel, there's strong suggestions that he's not only sympathetic to Hamas, but he might also be actually a member of the terror group.

And I suppose that's sort of the point that we've got to in this war, isn't it? The sort of suspicion that someone might be part of Hamas has almost become enough for them to be detained. We haven't seen much proof being offered for a lot of people who've been detained in Gaza and are disappearing into these detention facilities or are then returned.

later to Gaza. So I suppose we'll wait to see what happens with Dr. Hassam. I just want to add that the World Health Organization's chief has urged for him to be released or at least his whereabouts to be made known and has asked for hospitals to stop being made battlegrounds. You mentioned the tunnel underneath a hospital, which was Al-Shifa. It was obviously a very big story last year.

What proof have you seen of Hamas operating in either Kamal Adwan Hospital or the other hospital in northern Gaza, which was shut down by Israel in the last few days, the Indonesian hospital? So I think the best proof probably is a Kurdish doctor, a Kurdish physician, who was in two hospitals in northern Gaza, one of which was the Kamal Adwan Hospital. He was there last year.

And he testified to the fact that Hamas is indeed using these hospitals for military purposes. They're being treated in there. They even have their own wings in some of these hospitals. And they come and go as they please, really.

But because we're not allowed, as journalists in the West, or from anywhere in the world, really, to enter Gaza, to be there and see it with our own eyes, we have very little to go by, other than, of course, testimonies from doctors who dare say this about Hamas, because it's a dangerous thing to say.

especially if you're still in Gaza. But then you have, of course, the more physical evidence of Hamas using other hospitals for military purposes, such as the al-Shifa hospital, the huge tunnel network underneath al-Shifa,

is probably the biggest smoking gun that Israel has produced so far. And then you have generally over the years, groups like Amnesty saying that Hamas used al-Shifa for military purposes, that they tortured collaborators in there.

So I think at this point, there's no doubt that Hamas generally is using hospitals for military purposes. But when it comes to specifically the Kamal Adwan Hospital, there are no journalists, no Western or other journalists there who can be our ears and eyes on the ground. So it's very difficult to know what's actually going on.

Yeah, and that sort of lack of access has been really problematic, as you say. We tried to speak to someone from OCHA today for this show, but they weren't able to supply anyone. They went to the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza right at the end of December, quite rare access for the UN to get. And I just want to quote from Jonathan Whittle, who's the interim head of office at OCHA OPT for the Occupy Palestinian Territories. He went to Jabali in the north of Gaza. He said... All around us, fighting is ongoing.

We've been trying to reach the north of Gaza 140 times in the last two months. Every time has been denied. People here have no food, no water, no sanitation, nothing.

Yesterday, COVID-19 came under attack. People were brought to an Indonesian hospital where it is not a functioning hospital. WHO, together with PRCS, is referring some patients today out to Shifa hospital. But there are still people in this area. There are still people in Javalia in the north. They need access. They need us to be able to reach them. We need to be able to reach people wherever they are. It's not negotiable. We need to be able to provide the basics for survival. Food, water,

These atrocities need to end. Around me there's nothing but rubble and destruction. People don't know what to do, don't know where to go, and they don't know how to survive. Around me there's nothing but rubble and destruction. People don't know what to do, they don't know where to go, and they don't know how to survive. They're quite powerful words, and we've had to sort of rely on NGO workers on the ground to give us these sorts of accounts because journalists, as you say, are not allowed in.

I'm wondering what you or how the Israeli government is justifying the broader picture that we're seeing in northern Gaza in that they are clearly trying to get everyone out, which we've spoken about multiple times on this podcast before. And it looks like the shutting down of health care system is part of that. What's the aim behind that? And what's the discussion around that military operation in Israel like?

So for Israel's perspective, it's not so much about shutting down medical facilities. It's shutting down any facility, whether it be a UN building, a school or whatever, from serving as a playground or as a hiding place for Hamas. And from the very beginning of the war, Israel ordered everyone in northern Gaza to evacuate south. That was the first order that was given.

And since then, the majority of Palestinians from northern Gaza have indeed evacuated. But there are still around 10,000 people or so, civilians, in northern Gaza, which is a lot of people. And that area is destroyed. Most of northern Gaza is really inhabitable. So for those who are still there, they live in dire conditions, as you just mentioned. It's very difficult for aid to come in for several reasons, because Israel is very strictly

when it comes to checking these trucks, allowing them to go into this area. And once they go in, there is a big chance that they might be looted. We've heard this over and over in the past many months, both from NGOs and also from civilians on the ground, that these trucks with food and whatever, all of this aid, much of it is being looted by, they call it, gangs.

I would say that there is a high likelihood that they are connected to either Hamas or Islamic Jihad because it takes quite a lot of effort to hijack a truck. It takes a lot of people, manpower, weapons. So it is a really very, very difficult situation for civilians to be in because aid

first of all, isn't coming in the amount that it should. And second of all, it's a battleground. As I just told you, Israel is fighting Hamas everywhere, including hospitals and schools and on the streets or whatever is left in northern Gaza. Yeah, I should just quickly add that you're right about the sort of looting of aid deliveries and stuff. But obviously, for northern Gaza, that's been under blockade by the Israeli military since the 6th of October.

since this renewed military offensive. I'm wary that we're short on time and I do want to talk about the renewed ceasefire talks and the hostage list that's been circulating. What can you tell us about that? So in terms of the ceasefire negotiations, we've seen today a list of names of 34 Israeli hostages that was leaked to Saudi media and Israeli media. And apparently Hamas has finally agreed to release those 34 hostages that are on this list.

But Hamas is also saying at this moment they cannot say who is alive and who's dead on this list. Now, this is a no-go and a non-starter for Israel. Israel will not agree to enter a ceasefire if only two of those people on the list are still alive. They don't want to have corpses coming out. They want to have all the people who are alive coming out first.

So even though we're relatively close to a ceasefire, I'm saying relatively because we've heard this over and over in the past months that we're very close to a ceasefire, even though we're close, the main thing here is for Hamas to produce a list of names where they can verify that these people are alive. Until that happens, there won't be a ceasefire.

The United States is saying that they're hopeful that before Donald Trump takes office in two weeks, they will be able to seal a deal. I'm not quite sure why they're so optimistic, but that's at least according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

And on the Israeli side, they are also relatively optimistic. But again, it comes down to the list of the names of these people who are set to be released from captivity in Gaza. Thank you so much for joining us. That's Yotam Konfino, our correspondent in Israel. Coming up after the break, we get an inside look at a people smuggling network that stretches from Afghanistan to France. Don't go away. Welcome back.

Over the last few weeks, our correspondent Akhtar McCoy has been busy infiltrating a people smuggling network that helps Iranians and Afghans get into Europe and the UK illegally. It's almost impossible for people from Iran or Afghanistan to get a visa to the UK through official routes, so instead they rely on smugglers.

In total, it costs around £10,000 and takes several months to get from Herat to Dover. The process includes bribing the Taliban with opium, bribing Iranian forces with Scottish whiskey, evading Greek coast guards and cramming people into a Peugeot 405. I started by asking Akhtar what the route looked like. It starts from western Afghanistan and ends in Calais.

And the journey has seven legs and in each leg is either corruption or government inaction which makes smugglers to operate freely and do their smuggling business. It starts in Afghanistan, in Western Afghanistan, a town called Herat which shares a border with Iran.

In Herat, there are some hotels. I mean, they're just claimed to be hotels. They are not real. They're smugglers centers where people from across Afghanistan would go to Herat and finding those hotels is not a very difficult job. You just need to go to this place, Darwaza Malik Square, and you will find one of these hotels.

And along the journey, the next step, you would be sent to the border with Iran and then from Iran to Turkey and then from Turkey to Italy and then from Italy to Calais. And how did you go about infiltrating this smuggling network? How did you get people to speak to you? Yeah, in each leg, I spoke with some of them as a journalist and I just introduced myself with a few of them. But for most of them, I just introduced myself

For example, in Iran, I introduced myself like as an Afghan or as an Iranian. I spoke with lots of smugglers and who wish to go to Turkey. So I talked to people who had previously done this journey and they smuggled themselves to Turkey to find those phone numbers of these smugglers.

So after finding the smugglers, I would just message them, "Okay, this is me. I'm in Iran. I'm an Iranian national and I'm an Afghan national. I have, I don't know, like two children and a wife, and we are wishing to go to Turkey, for example." And then they would give us a list of options from Afghanistan to Iran. That's a pretty much easy job. These smugglers, when they run into a problem with the Taliban, they just pay them in opium, which works all the time. I'm from Iran to Turkey.

So these smugglers would offer me like, I mean, two options, both depending on how much distance I need to walk for reaching Turkey, which would range from 2,000 pounds to 2,500 pounds. And if I had children with myself, it would be more expensive, but the children price, like it was like between 2,000 pounds, 2,500 pounds for each person. Children would be half-priced.

So then they would tell me, OK, don't worry, everything is OK. You just need to come to Tehran to this Azadiye squad. There are cars waiting for you and then they will be taking you to the northwestern city of Urmia on the border with Turkey. And then I would ask, OK, I have children with myself. Should I be worried being arrested or what?

And then that was striking. They told me, OK, don't worry, we will bribe the Iranian security forces with Scottish whiskey for you. So, I mean, drinking and production of alcoholic stuff is...

banned under Islamic Sharia law in Iran. And this itself is the smuggle in from Iraqi Kurdistan. And after arriving, for example, now I'm in Turkey, for example. So after talking with those people in Iran and then taking me to Turkey, so then I need to find more smugglers. Pretty much easy. You just need to talk to some of those people who had previously done it.

And in Turkey, we found out that most of the operation is done by three Afghan nationals who are smuggling people from Istanbul to Italy. And it will take six days, an average six days of travel on a boat. And they would charge me for 6,000 euros for each person. Again, children would be half price. And in Italy, then there is this guy I need to find out called Kamanda. His nickname was Kamanda. I don't know what was his real name.

So then he would arrange the rest of the journey for me to arrive in Calais. And why is the journey from Turkey to Italy? Because we don't hear about that route very often. Normally we hear about people going by boat to Greece. People I spoke with, they say the Greek coast guard are preventing them from arriving. They chase them violently. They will chase these boats violently. And one of the people I talked to, he said that their boat was chased by Greek coast guards very violently. And then the Greeks...

were sure that, okay, this boat is not coming to Greece, then they let them go. It's mostly about how the Greek forces and now Turkish forces and now like Italian forces are behaving with this boat's arrival. And so once they get to Calais, what happens next? In Calais, they told me that's the easiest job. And I talked to people who said like, you just need to hang around in Calais train station, and then you will find a smuggler, they would come and approach you.

I talked to a smuggler in Calais who is running his business on a small telegram group. I introduced myself as someone with a wife and a three-year-old child in Germany. He told me even if I need any help from traveling between Germany and Calais, he would help me. And in Calais, this smuggler would offer me options. I mean, when I talked with him, he had a special Christmas offer.

And he would say like, okay, for children are still half price. And for me and my imaginary wife, it would be 2,500 euros.

And when the story, like we had that another story about the offer and then when that story went out, he saw it and then he sort of threatened us on his Telegram group. And he said, OK, if my job was illegal, the French police would have arrested me so far. And when I was talking with him as a as a migrant in Germany, he would tell me, even if we run into trouble or your boat is in problem, we would just leave.

call the French Coast Guard and they will be escorting you before you arrive in Dover. And so this sounds like quite a fragmented affair. You're dealing with different people on every single leg of the route, is that right? Yeah, different people, but most of them are connected with each other. And when it starts in Herat, in West and Afghanistan, these hotel owners, they get just a commission from handing me over to smugglers on the border between Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

and then there would be more people. I mean, there, migrants would need to travel on a day-long journey on these Toyota pickup trucks along the desert between Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And then from there, they would be handed over to another Iranian smugglers of the network. Then they would pack, I don't know, like more than 14, 15 people in a Peugeot 405. And then along the way, if migrants have drugs with themselves, especially between Iran and Afghanistan,

they would need to pay less than what others without drugs would be paying. And in Iran itself, these smugglers, I talked with the new people in Istanbul that they would introduce me to them. And then in Istanbul, they would introduce me to this Afghan national named Commander in Italy. Then he would help me sort of to escape from this camp in Italy to reach to Milan. And then he would take me a train to the Switzerland border.

And then on the Swiss border, I was told that there are some Swiss students. No one knew the name of the town, but they said it's like heaven, like beautiful town on Swiss border. Whereas these Swiss students would be charging 400 euros for each person to cross them from the border to Germany. And the rest of them, the others would be also receiving helps from the same guy, commander or any other person to go to France and then Calais.

And throughout the journey, I was told no one has ever checked their ID or if they are legal or illegal, they just needed to buy a train ticket. Talking about it like this,

in the space of a few minutes, makes it sound quite easy, quite simple. Is that the fact of it? Or is it dangerous? And how long does this total journey take? I mean, it is very dangerous, especially if the two legs of it between Iran and Afghanistan and Iran and Turkey. For an average person, I mean, I saw some questions of our readers,

they were asking so where are they getting this money from so they would be most of them they would be traveling uh leg by leg so they would come to iran they would work in iran for a few months to collect money and then pay the smugglers for the next leg and then they would be working in istanbul for a while to collect money for the next leg that's how it generally works and without if they don't need to work if everything is sorted out and they have their smugglers it just takes 20 days to arrive from western afghanistan to do it

But usually that takes, I mean, on average it would take two to three months because they need to work in each step. And most of the people I talk with, they are university graduates or university students who are escaping Taliban repression in Afghanistan or the Islamic Republic repression in Iran. And a big part of these migrants who are arriving in Dover

are just driven by desperation in the Iran country because mostly if they had jobs in, if Taliban provided them with jobs in Afghanistan, they wouldn't be leaving. If Iran was providing them with jobs, they wouldn't be leaving. Do they mostly classify themselves as economic migrants then or political refugees? Have any of them been subject to physical abuse or detention or anything like that?

I mean, in terms of Afghanistan, Afghans who are coming to Iran, like a big part of them are just for economic reasons. There is no, they're not escaping for repression. In Afghanistan, like people who are escaping Taliban's persecution or anything, they would be going to Pakistan and from Pakistan to Iran.

to wherever they go. In Iran, most of them, again, a big part of them is for economic reasons, but there is also some people who are escaping the Islamic Republic for their activism. For example, many of them are leaving for Turkey, but recently Turkey is deporting them back to Iran. And Iran is also deporting lots of Afghans back to Afghanistan. They are planning to deport two million Afghans by March back to Afghanistan.

And what about the smugglers themselves? What did you learn about them? It sounds like they were mostly Afghans from what you're saying on this route. Yeah, on this route, because I was pretending to be someone in Afghanistan and trying to reach Dover. They were mostly Afghans, but it depends from where, on which leg of the journey we are talking. On the Iranian-Afghan border, they are mostly Afghans and Baluch citizens. There are other living in Afghanistan's Baluchistan or Iran's Baluchistan or Pakistan's Baluchistan. They are doing the business.

But inside Iran, people who would be taking migrants from the Afghan border to Tehran, the capital, they are mostly Iranian citizens but have contacts with the Afghans. And on the Turkish border, some of the smugglers are Iranians. But when you get into Turkey, there would be Turkish smugglers who would be transferring people from the city of Van on the border to Istanbul. And then in Italy,

We know there is only one guy we could find out, and we are sure there are many, this guy called, nicknamed the commander, Afghan national. And in Switzerland's border, there are Swiss students who are doing it just for fun. And yeah, I'd love to know more about their motivations, if you were able to get any sense of that. And also, it sounds like it's quite a professional operation now. You were talking about a Christmas deal. Does it feel like it's a very slick operation?

Yeah, the smuggler we talked to in Calais, he was offering us this Christmas deal. And then he said, OK, if you travel with us now, we will not be packing more than 15 people in your boat. But if you are going to travel with us after Christmas, we cannot guarantee how many people would be in the boat, probably 60 or 70. The people I talked to, they said these smugglers are not very trustworthy.

You cannot trust them because they would offer you a route which would require less walking. But when you are in action, when you are there, they would just change their mind while you're already charged for a less challenging route.

So on the face of it professional, but actually once you're dealing with them, you're completely at their mercy. Yeah, yeah. But just in case of just each migrants, but in case of like the total network, they are very sophisticated, very organized. You just need to phone them and then they would just phone you back, give you lots of details, would try to look polite just to get you as their next client.

But how they are treating each migrant individually, that's a different story. And I'm wondering whether either the people who were being smuggled or the smugglers themselves gave any hint to you of the impact of Britain's crackdown on the gangs. We saw that last year there was a record number of deaths of people trying to cross the channel, 69 men, women and children. That's more than the 59 that we had between 2009 and

and 2023. Some of that has been put down to the fact that Britain and France have been working together more to crack down on these gangs and they're using flimsier boats, packing more people on to try and get people across. Did you see any nods to that work?

I didn't see any crackdown or any sort of pressure on these smuggling networks. They are just operating freely and it doesn't matter if they are in Calais or if they are in a desert between Iran and Afghanistan. I didn't notice any crackdown. They are freely working. And in Calais, I was told that if their business was illegal, the French government or the British government, one of them would have arrested them by now. Thank you so much for joining us on Battle Lines. Akhtar Makoy, foreign correspondent for The Telegraph.

That's all for this episode of Battlelines. We'll see you again on Friday. Until then, goodbye. Battlelines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles. The producer is Jolene Goffin.

To stay on top of all of our news, analysis and dispatches from the ground in Israel and Gaza, subscribe to The Telegraph or sign up to Dispatches, which brings stories from our award-winning foreign correspondents straight to your inbox. We also have a live blog on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day, including insights from contributors to this podcast. If you appreciated the show, please consider following Battlelines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave a review as it helps others find the show.

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