By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Dan Sagalyn Dan Sagalyn Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/pentagon-presents-alternative-to-israels-plan-to-assault-rafah Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio At the Pentagon Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin presented an alternative vision to Israel’s stated plan to assault Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where more than one million Gazans have fled. The discussion between Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant came as negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release hit an apparent impasse. Nick Schifrin reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. William Brangham: Today, at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin presented an alternative vision to Israel stated assault plan on the Southern Gazan city of Rafah.More than one million Gazans have fled their homes and are now sheltering there. Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met today as negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release seemed to hit an impasse.Nick Schifrin is following it all, and he joins me now.Nick, so how did this meeting today between Austin and Gallant go? Nick Schifrin: As you said, William, Austin laid out an alternative vision that the U.S. sees that Israel should use in order to go into Rafah to Gallant, who's here on a prescheduled visit separate from that delegation we spoke about last night that Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, had canceled.The U.S. agrees with Israel that Israel needs to go after Hamas' final four battalions that are hiding among the population in Rafah. It just disagrees with how to go about doing that. And according to a senior defense official, Austin laid out a U.S. vision that includes precision targeting of senior Hamas leaders, securing the border with Egypt, and ensuring that humanitarian assistance goes into Rafah and civilians leave Rafah in the right sequence.The senior defense official who spoke to us earlier pointed out that Rafah is not only home to 1.5 million displaced Gazans, many of whom have been displaced twice. It's also strategically important for aid. Rafah City is right next to Rafah, the border crossing, and the Kerem Shalom crossing, through which aid needs to arrive into Gaza.And U.S. officials are imploring Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said today.Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense: Protecting Palestinian civilians from harm is both a moral necessity and a strategic imperative.In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low. Gaza is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe, and the situation is getting even worse. Nick Schifrin: So, those are some of Austin's strongest words about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.Israeli officials continue to blame the U.N. for a lack of distribution capacity. And, William, Israeli officials are telling the U.S. tonight that they will have a humanitarian plan before they assault Rafah. William Brangham: Nick, part of these negotiations over the cease-fire and over the release of hostages is also this conversation about how to move those Gazans trapped in Rafah to the north in advance of this assault.What is the state of those negotiations? Nick Schifrin: The talks appear to be at an impasse after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withdrew his negotiators from Doha, where these negotiations take place.And there appears to be two major disagreements, William. One is exactly what you just — we were just talking about, the movement of Gazans from the south to the north. Israeli officials want to continue to go after Hamas in the north, and they don't want to have to deal with thousands of civilians.Number two is whether Israeli forces have to withdraw either from the cities or from Gaza itself after the cease-fire. But the framework of the cease-fire remains. About 40 hostages would be released in exchange for about 700 Palestinian detainees that Israel has agreed to. So, the framework still remains, but Netanyahu is calling Hamas' demands delusional.But, bottom line, U.S. officials tell me these negotiations continue. William Brangham: All right, Nick Schifrin, thank you so much. Nick Schifrin: Thank you. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Mar 26, 2024 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Dan Sagalyn Dan Sagalyn As the deputy senior producer for foreign affairs and defense at the PBS NewsHour, Dan plays a key role in helping oversee and produce the program’s foreign affairs and defense stories. His pieces have broken new ground on an array of military issues, exposing debates simmering outside the public eye. @DanSagalyn