Transcript of Gaza Ceasefire Deal Reached, Next Steps For TikTok, Anger Over Private Firefighters

An Israeli cabinet vote on a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal is back on.

But the stops and starts of negotiations have people in Gaza afraid to hope. We're desperate to hear that it's finally and actually over.

I'm Michelle Martin with Leila Fadel, and this is Up First from NPR News. A ban on TikTok is supposed to start in the US on Sunday under a law signed by President Biden, but it might not. Is the Supreme Court going to delay it or throw it out altogether? And what's the Trump administration going to do?

And the Los Angeles Wildfighters brought attention to a luxury enjoyed by some homeowners in fire prone areas, private firefighters. Their existence is making some people very angry. So what do they actually do Why are more insurance companies hiring them? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

After more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas, a ceasefire deal has been announced in Gaza. State of the World brings you the latest news as the deal is tested and hostages are released. Our reporters in the Middle East will provide details, context, and reaction from the region and around the world. Listen to the State of the World podcast from NPR.

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The meeting comes two days after mediators announced an agreement, and a day after some ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet renewed their calls to continue the war in Gaza. The stops and starts of negotiation says people like 21 nine-year-old Shemma Ahmed in Gaza are afraid to hope just in case the deal falls through.

We really want it to be over. We're desperate to hear that it's finally and actually over so that we can continue moving on with our life. With me now is NPR's Kat Lonsdorff in Tel Aviv to walk us through the latest. Hi, Kat.

Hey.

It was looking like things could fall through yesterday. Where do things stand on the deal now?

Yeah. So like you said, Leela, it's currently being voted on by the security cabinet. That's an inner circle of more senior members of the Israeli government. Then it still needs to get approved by the larger government, and it also might be challenged in the Supreme Court, so there are a few more steps. It's unclear when the larger government vote will happen. So all of that said, it could be several days before we see a ceasefire actually go into effect. It could be as early as Sunday, but we still don't know.

Mediators already announced this deal. What's been the holdup?

Yeah, it's been a tense time here since then. Even as the deal was announced by Egypt, Qatar, and the US, and even Hamas, Israel did not confirm it. Netanyahu's office put out a statement saying that Hamas had come back with last minute changes to the deal that still had to be worked out. Hamas denied that. So it was a little unclear what the holdup was exactly. Meanwhile, there have been disagreements within Israel's Security cabinet, particularly with two far-right ministers who have been very, very against this deal. They've both threatened to leave Netanyahu's government if the deal went through, which could collapse his coalition and throw Israel's government into a tailspin.

Now, you said the ceasefire might start Monday, might start Sunday. But if it happens, what will those first hours, first day look like, and the days after?

Yeah. So we know several Israeli hostages will be released that first day in exchange for several Palestinian detaunees. We also know that the fighting will stop in Gaza, and Israeli troops will start to withdraw. The plan is for that fighting to stop for at least six weeks. Over that At the time, 33 of the remaining 98 hostages should be released, and around a thousand Palestinian detaunees are expected to be released as well. There's also supposed to be a significant increase in the flow of much-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, and also in that time, negotiations for the next phase of this deal will also take place in the hopes of continuing the ceasefire with more releases and the withdrawal of more Israeli troops.

At this point, a pause rather than a long-term ceasefire, but it could maybe go that way. But meanwhile, the bombardments in Gaza are ongoing, right?

Yeah. Israel says it carried out around 50 airstrikes in the past day, saying it killed a Hamas fighter who participated in the 2023 attacks on Southern Israel that started this war. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the time since this deal was announced on Wednesday night, many of them children, according to Gaza's civil defense. So there are real human costs to dragging this out. Our producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, says that people there are feeling really anxious. They're worried that the fighting is going to get worse before it gets better.

That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorff in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Kat.

Thanks, Leila.

It's a stressful time for people who love or make money off the video app TikTok.

A law passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress and signed by President Biden would ban the app nationwide. That ban is set to take effect in two days. Tiktok users, backed by the company, have asked the Supreme Court to intervene, saying the ban is unconstitutional, and the court is expected to rule any time now. Meanwhile, incoming President-elect Donald Trump once supported the ban, but has now suggested he's changed his mind.

To make sense of it all, we're joined by NPR's Bobby Allen. Hi, Bobby. Morning, Leela. Okay, so it sounds like TikTok isn't just going to disappear on Sunday. Tell us about all the uncertainties here.

That's right. So TikTok actually being banned in the US depends on so much. The law requires the app to be shut down unless it splits away from its China-based parent company. By Since it hasn't done that, a nationwide ban will soon be on the books, but there are just so many what ifs here.

What are the what ifs?

The first one, what if the Supreme Court delays the start of the law? The court is weighing whether the law is constitutional. When I was there last week covering oral arguments, justices from both sides of the political spectrum seem pretty skeptical of TikTok's arguments. Tiktok has asked the court to stay the ruling until Trump enters office. We are expecting a ruling very soon. The second is, what if the Biden administration does not enforce the new law. Since 24 hours after it starts, Trump will be in the White House, and then the whole thing will then basically become Trump's problem to solve. Finally, what if TikTok hits the kill switch on the app's US servers and it goes dark? A person I talked who, directly involved in the national security discussions in Washington over TikTok's future, told me this is something TikTok has said is indeed on the table, but it's not guaranteed.

Okay, so you're saying there's a chance that come Sunday when this TikTok ban is the law of the land, that actually nothing happens.

That is possible, yeah. But again, it's hard to say for sure. Now, Apple and Google, which control the app stores, will then be under a federal law, forcing them to yank TikTok off of app stores. The same is true of web hosting companies. And look, if you're the general counsel for one of these companies, you might be thinking about it this way. The financial penalties for violating this law are $5,000 per user. Tiktok has 170 million users in the US, so that's billions of dollars in fines. And the law has a statute of limitations of five years, meaning it could, in theory, be enforced even after Trump leaves office, or maybe even sooner. Say Trump gets mad at Apple or Google and wants to crack down on them. This could be used against them. I've been told that even if the message is clear, Leila, that the law won't be enforced, that just might not be enough assurance for some companies. And TikTok's infrastructure then could soon collapse as a result of all the tech companies supporting TikTok starting to pull out, and it's going to be a real problem for the company.

And what might Trump do?

He has promised to save TikTok. He has a number of ways he can do that, including pushing off the band's start date and cutting a deal for the app to be sold off, or just telling his administration to, Hey, back off. Don't enforce this thing. But the important point here, Leila, is as President Trump will have a lot of power over TikTok's future.

And what about people on TikTok? How are they reacting right now?

I've watched hundreds of TikTok videos of people reacting, and many are having fun with it. Lots are mocking the government for passing the law. Some are pretending to be a Chinese spy on the app. And then there are some talking about ways to avoid the ban, including virtual private networks. Then there are TikTokers discussing No. Where should we go if this thing goes away? The app RedNo is being discussed. So is Instagram and YouTube. Again, lots of uncertainty, Leila. We shall see what happens.

And PR is Bobby Allen. Thank you, Bobby.

Thanks.

Amid the devastation in Los Angeles, a little known industry has come into the spotlight, private firefighting.

It's just what it sounds like, firefighters who work for private clients, not the public. The idea has drawn a lot of scorn online, and it's raising ethics questions. But we wanted to know more about how private firefighting actually works.

Here to tell us more about this is NPR's Laurel Wamsley. Hi, Laurel. Hey, Leela. Well, Laura, the only time I'd ever heard about private firefighters, if you remember a wildfire a few years ago in the Los Angeles area where Kim Kardashian and her husband at the time, Kanye West, hired private firefighters to save their homes, and it sounded like something only for the most wealthy. Right.

So these are back in the news here in Los Angeles, and a lot of the attention is stemming from this single tweet that's now been deleted. Last week, a resident of the wealthy Pacific Palisades area posted on X asking if anyone had access to private firefighters who could protect his home as his neighbor's homes were burning. He said he would, Pay any amount. And of course, there was a lot of blowback to that idea. It struck a lot of folks as unfair and just crummy. And so there have been media reports of billionaires hiring private firefighters to protect their homes and businesses services. But of course, many wealthy people did lose their homes in these fires. I found that a much bigger part of this story is actually not the individual's hiring extra fire protection, but that insurers are hiring them as part of people's homeowners' policies. Oh, okay.

That's something I didn't know. Insuring companies were doing this? What exactly do these services do?

I spoke with David Torgerson. He's executive chairman of Wildfire Defense Companies, and they work on behalf of nearly three dozen insurers, and they're regulated under California law. When there's a wildfire endangering homes insured by these companies. His crews arrive loaded with water, but most of what they provide is labor.

We clean, we sweep, we clear gutters, we take away the places where the embers can ignite on the property or take away the access that the embers have to get in the buildings.

Embers can get into a house through the dryer vent, so his crews will tape those shut. They'll also come back after the fire passes to make sure there isn't a bush or a fence that's burning that could still ignite the house.

For the insurance companies, they are paying for these firefighters, but is this about limiting their losses by the much larger expense of properties burning down in the first place?

It's about prevention rather than having to pay for replacing all those lost homes. More and more, insurers are including this as a standard part of their homeowners' policies in wildfire prone states.

How does this work? Does a truck full of trained firefighters in water just show up to protect homes that have these specific insurers and then just ignore everybody who doesn't have those insurers?

Well, it's obviously hard to know exactly what happens in the field. When I asked a spokesperson at the Insurer USAA that question. She said the providers that they work with don't just drive on by a house that's on fire, that they're staffed with a lot of retired fire chiefs, and it's just embedded in them to help the community. But still, private companies obviously might have different priorities and firefighters who work for the public.

Okay, so stepping back, does this just mean that rich people or people with the right coverage get a separate lane from the rest of people?

Yeah. I asked an ethics expert about this, and he said there are a whole host of ethical questions here. For instance, which firefighters get access to limited water supplies? It can be really divisive in society when it feels like even in a crisis, the rich and powerful get insulated from what's happening. I asked Torgerson about this, who runs that company that works for the insurers, and he said, Well, in a crisis, we need all the help we can get, and it's better to have more structures survive. They're helping to keep insurance in the marketplace, he says, which has been a huge problem in California in recent years. These are big questions, and there are no easy answers.

I'm PR's Laura Leslie. Thank you, Laura.

You're welcome.

That's Up First for Friday, January 17th. I'm Leila Fauden.

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