The Excerpt podcast: Israel and Hamas announce cease-fire deal

On today's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Israel and Hamas have announced a deal for a temporary cease-fire. USA TODAY World Affairs Correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard talks about Palestinian views on Hamas. Migrants are falling off the southern border wall. Media literacy is now required in California schools. A mysterious respiratory dog illness has been detected.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, November 22nd. This is The Excerpt. Today, Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement for a temporary ceasefire, plus migrants are falling off the southern border wall, and California schools have a new requirement, how to spot fake news.

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Israel and Hamas have reached a deal for a four-day ceasefire to the war in Gaza, along with the release of dozens of hostages in a prisoner swap between the two sides. Under the deal, Hamas would release 50 of the roughly 240 hostages it's holding. Israel said it would extend the truce an additional day for every 10 hostages released. Most of those initially freed will be women and children, and hostages will be released in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was adamant that the deal was temporary, saying, quote, "We are at war and we will continue the war. We will continue until we achieve all our goals," unquote. Hamas has confirmed the ceasefire and the terms, but also said in a statement, quote, "While we announced the arrival of a truce agreement, we affirm that our hands will remain on the trigger, and our victorious battalions will remain on the lookout to defend our people and defeat the occupation and aggression," unquote.

The ceasefire announcement comes after weeks of indirect negotiations, led by the nation of Qatar, between Israel and Hamas. The US and Egypt were also involved in talks. Hamas militants attacked Israel last month killing at least 1,200 people and capturing hostages. Israel in the week since has slammed Gaza with airstrikes and followed up with a ground invasion. They've killed at least 11,000 Palestinians according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

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While it's still not clear what the next stage of the Israel-Hamas war might look like, it's clear many Palestinians have a complicated relationship and view when it comes to Hamas. I spoke with USA Today world affairs correspondent, Kim Hjelmgaard, for more. Kim, thanks for hopping on The Excerpt.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Kim, in talking with Palestinians, what were some of the common things you heard about Hamas and how did people's opinions differ?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Talking about Hamas for Palestinians is a fraught exercise, is what I learned. Hamas, according to the US and European governments, is a terrorist organization. It also governs the Gaza Strip, so it is active in running schools, in running hospitals, and so Palestinians interact with it in many different ways. As a group, certainly the militant side of it, has a reputation for repressing Palestinians. These include things like enforced disappearances, not allowing protests, torture, corruption. This is a big part of how many Palestinians, I guess we can say, engage with Hamas on a day-to-day level, certainly before the October 7th attacks.

At the same time, in the aftermath of these attacks in Israel, Israel's retaliatory military campaign, Palestinians have been killed. And so it's very difficult, and I found in this reporting, for Palestinians to figure out what they want to say about Hamas. On the one hand, it's a group that they don't believe in in terms of the opportunities that it's brought for the Gaza Strip, but on the other hand, it's also a group that they are struggling to really publicly condemn at a time when so many civilians are being killed. And in fact, this phrase, "Will you condemn Hamas?", is one of the phrases that Palestinians have been confronted with over and over for the last seven weeks.

Taylor Wilson:

Kim, I want to talk about Hamas in an electoral context in Gaza. Did Palestinians vote them into power in the first place?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

They did vote them into power in 2006, but they voted them into power on a platform that was essentially like a protest vote against the other party, which is Fatah, which still runs the West Bank. This vote was really an expression of frustration with Fatah, who was widely seen to be corrupt, inept. And this vote was in 2006, and it was the last time that there was any kind of election there.

But it's important to point out that after this election, Fatah bureaucrats, officials, were still kind of quite entrenched in Gaza. And in fact, there still are some Fatah people there even now. So after this election, there was kind of a short civil war between Hamas and Fatah for who should control the Gaza Strip.

Taylor Wilson:

Kim, what did we learn from surveys before this latest war broke out?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

What a research firm called Arab Barometer did surveys right up until the end of the first week of October. When they went in there, they found that most Gazans are really just interested in the sort of bread and butter issues. They want food for their family, they want to be able to pay their rent or their mortgage, they want to have time off. What can Hamas do for Palestinians in terms of making sure that kids can go to school and that the hospitals run and all that? And on these points, Palestinians, at least before the war, did not have much faith in Hamas as an entity, but essentially these surveys revealed that Gazans didn't really feel they had any way to protest Hamas. They didn't feel they had any way to improve their own situations. They certainly couldn't express a political will. These surveys have conflicting, competing signals as well.

They're also largely supportive of Palestinians' right to arm resistance against Israel. There's been another poll that's taken place after the attacks on October 7th that shows pretty clearly, that of those surveyed, that there's a lot of strong support for these attacks that were carried out by Hamas, by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Put that in context, a lot of political analysts often point out that when an oppressed minority group is under threat, they often kind of rally around the flags. And so at least what I've been told by these analysts, is that it's entirely keeping with past patterns and trajectories for a Palestinian population that is being relentlessly bombed by Israel as a reaction to sort of express support when they feel under threat.

Taylor Wilson:

What sense do you get in your conversations with Palestinians, both in and outside of Gaza, about what they want for the future of Hamas and also just Palestine and Israel writ large?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

I think that so many Palestinians that I've engaged with, inside and outside the country, diaspora, they are so consumed with watching friends, relatives, colleagues die, that it's been very hard for them to focus on anything else but that. They have not been able to think about political outcomes. They have not been able to think about whether they're using the right language to deconstruct a group that a lot of Western governments consider a terrorist organization, that also has a civilian side that runs their schools and hospitals.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Kim Hjelmgaard is USA Today's world affairs correspondent. Thank you so much, Kim.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

Migrants are falling off the wall on the southern US-Mexico border. Emerging public health data affirms what hospital trauma surgeons along the border have been suspecting since the US government began raising the height of the wall, that the 30-foot fence causes more injuries and is deadlier than any barrier before it.

Medical professionals say the falls and fatalities are a public health crisis at a time when the Biden administration and the state of Texas are investing in new border fencing, amid record apprehensions of migrants.

At county hospitals in El Paso and San Diego, doctors are seeing patients with injuries related to falling off the wall at a rate of one per day this year, according to their chief trauma surgeons. Injuries range from complex leg breaks, to life altering spinal and head injuries. Dr. Susan McLean, surgical ICU medical director at University Medical Center in El Paso said that, "Border wall falls carry a higher mortality rate than COVID in the general population."

When the Department of Homeland Security constructed a 30-foot fence in Southern California in 2019, then President Donald Trump said, "The wall could not be climbed," but its clear migrants regularly attempt to do so. And some injured people have said they did not realize they'd be forced to climb the wall or that there wouldn't be a way down on the US side. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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California schools are now required to teach students how to spot fake news by incorporating media literacy into lessons in English, science, math, and history classes at every grade level. The bill expands on previous laws mandating that the state's Department of Education post resources and instructional materials on media literacy on its website for school districts to access.

States including New Jersey, Illinois, and Delaware also require media literacy lessons for students, according to California State Assembly member, Marc Berman, who introduced the bill. Berman and other lawmakers argued that many young people can't tell the difference between ads and news stories. Citing a study out of Stanford in the bill's text, Berman said that, "82% of middle schoolers could not tell the difference."

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Veterinary laboratories are warning pet owners about an infectious respiratory disease first detected among dogs a few months ago. Cases have spread to at least five states from New Hampshire to Oregon, and experts are still working to figure out the cause of the illnesses, according to a news release from the American Veterinary Medical Association. Vets say the illness can cause coughing, sneezing, and lethargy, and they say it can sometimes lead to pneumonia and does not respond to antibiotics.

David Needle, senior veterinary pathologist at the University of New Hampshire's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory said, "That it's most likely spread through close contact and breathing in the same air as an infected animal. Similar to the spread of COVID-19." Experts do not expect this illness to transfer to humans.

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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. If you use a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA today.