Speaker 1: Joining me now with more is a former senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council and associate professor at the University of Michigan, Javed Ali. Javed, thanks for taking the time. This is such a fragile ceasefire to begin with. What's at stake here, outside of the end of the ceasefire, if both sides don't hold up their end of the deal?

Speaker 2: So, Phil, nice to be with you. And based on Brit's reporting and other information that's coming out, certainly another precarious moment over the past now week plus with the ceasefire. One would hope that Hamas will release this latest hostage or captive and relieve the suffering of the thousands, if not more, of Palestinians who are trying to get back into the northern part of the Gaza Strip. But, again, we're at another one of these moments where there's an impasse. And now this is having an effect on so many people's lives trying to return. So that's certainly a major issue. And then, as Brit mentioned, too, President Trump's statement about having the remaining people from the Gaza Strip be relocated to or moved to Jordan or Egypt. And it sounds like neither government, at least the Jordanian government, isn't in favor of that. So that would be another really, really contentious aspect of what happens moving forward.

Speaker 1: I want to follow up, Javed, if you will, a little bit on both of the points you just made. First, how does preventing Palestinians from going back to the north impact the already dire humanitarian crisis? In other words, technically, what's going to happen to those people?

Speaker 2: Well, we can all see from the video that it already looks like a very difficult humanitarian situation for those people. I mean, they're sitting out in the open in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. It looks like the weather is not too bad right now, but it's going to get colder. What if it starts to rain or snow? I mean, there's all these things that could happen. And then who will provide them aid and relief? And I don't think anyone knows the answer to that right now. And so hopefully this is just only going to last for another few hours. But I would have to think that no one wants to see images of that many people being out in the open and then having Mother Nature sort of work against them. So it just remains to be seen how the relief efforts will start there. And then there's all the relief efforts that have to start in reconstruction once they actually go back to the Gaza Strip and how much of their homes or their residences or buildings are restored. And Javed, you mentioned

Speaker 1: that President Trump suggested that most of Gaza's population could be temporarily at least resettled somewhere else, including Egypt and Jordan were mentioned. Is that a viable solution? And if so, what does that do to the two-state solution that is talked about so much?

Speaker 2: I mean, it's certainly a dramatic statement from President Trump. Whether it's viable or not is another question. Now, already Jordan over the decades has accepted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians because of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. So Jordan's own population already has a significant percentage of Palestinians. Most estimates are at least 50 to 60 to perhaps even 70 percent of Jordan's population is already Palestinian. Egypt, less so. But again, Egypt, in my memory, has not received large numbers of Palestinian refugees, at least perhaps not in recent memory. So this would be something for both governments to think through. And how much pressure will President Trump put on his partners, King Abdullah in Jordan and President el-Sisi in Egypt, to actually deliver on this statement? And I would have to think this is going to be very, very controversial in the region if President Trump truly is intent on making this happen.

Speaker 1: All right, Javed Ali, thanks for the expertise in the conversation as always. All right. Thanks, Phil.