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00:00know that in Khan Yunis, this is in the south of the Gaza Strip, people received orders to move
00:06from a safe humanitarian zone, that's a safe zone that Israel told them they should go to
00:12because of fighting in another area of the Strip. So this is a pattern that we see repeated.
00:17You might remember Khan Yunis, if you think you do, you're right. There were fierce clashes there
00:22earlier, months ago, until Israel said that it had defeated the battalions, the Hamas battalions,
00:29who were there, and it withdrew its troops. That's its policy. It doesn't stay around,
00:33waiting to be attacked from under the ground. What that means is, though, that as civilians return,
00:39the militants return and place themselves among them. Israel says it had precise intelligence
00:44that there were Hamas and Hezbollah and, sorry, Islamic Jihad militants in that area.
00:50And so what you see is a process of continuous displacement. These are people who are taking
00:55their children, the few bags they have, less and less each time, their old folk,
01:00their grandparents, their parents, and just moving in this summer heat continuously.
01:05And that's why I think we've seen so much pressure for a ceasefire. The head of UNRWA,
01:10the UN Refugee Organization, said that these people have lost everything and they need
01:16everything. And that, I think, is an accurate summary, despite many criticisms that are
01:22levelled at UNRWA, that's an accurate summary of the situation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
01:27You know, some of them support Hamas, others don't, and they have no say.
01:33And where do we stand in terms of these ceasefire talks then? Because there's growing calls to
01:38get that moving along, but it's also a very volatile time with Israel still bracing for
01:43retaliation from Iran and its allies. That's right. It is a very volatile time.
01:48People are calling this a fateful week, and the reason is there's a conference, a summit,
01:55I think you'd call it, with the US, the two mediators, Egypt and Qatar, and the two parties,
02:03or representatives of the two parties, Israel and Hamas, who are going to be there at a nominated
02:10spot to have it out, to reach a decision. If they do, you could be going to a ceasefire.
02:16If they don't, you could be going to a regional war. And that's why I feel it is such a significant
02:21week. That's why we've heard from the German Chancellor. That's why we've heard from Kamala
02:26Harris, the US Vice President. She said that there is, you know, Israel does have the right
02:31to defend itself against Hamas, but it also has an obligation to protect civilians. And I think
02:36that's why we're seeing the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas going to Egypt, from the Palestinian
02:44capital, from Ramallah, going to Moscow to talk to the Russian leader. So it's a massive diplomatic
02:51push, one last diplomatic push perhaps, to avoid a regional war, because really if the war in Gaza
02:56is solved, it solves a lot of other issues in the region.