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00:00We can go across to France 24's Iris Mackler standing by in Jerusalem. Iris, good afternoon
00:05to you. Is there any point of these talks resuming if Hamas has not been at the table?
00:11There is a great point to these talks resuming, which is that this is a fateful week.
00:17You're deciding, in effect, between a ceasefire and a regional conflagration. And I think that's
00:23why the US has put so much energy and commitment into this, so have the two other negotiators,
00:32mediators, sorry. And I think it's very important to look at this as the last chance, maybe,
00:40at this moment, for something that could really change things. So it's a turning point.
00:46Will that happen without Hamas there, with certain statements from Israeli leaders
00:51that show that perhaps Israel's negotiating position is equivocal? I think it's always
00:57worth talking. It's particularly worth talking now when we've heard, for example, it's not just
01:01Washington. We've heard from Tehran, officials in Tehran telling Reuters that if there were to be
01:08a ceasefire, then it would not attack Israel. So they've given themselves a ladder to climb down,
01:14if you like. And the question is, can these two parties take this ladder and make a difference
01:20to people who have suffered so much inside Gaza and inside Israel for what is now 10 months of
01:26this conflict? Exactly, Iris. You mentioned this conflict has gone on for 10 months now. Israeli
01:31hostages remain inside the enclave, according to officials in Gaza. The death toll stands at,
01:38what, nearly 40,000 now. Just this week, we had a father who went to pick up the birth certificate
01:46of his newborn twins, and he got news that his twins had died and his wife had died. Take a look.
02:07So, Iris, wherever you stand on this conflict, this is a human tragedy, isn't it?
02:12It sure is. And I want to say to you, as someone who's been covering it since October the 7th,
02:16since that terrible morning of the Hamas attack, more than 10 months ago now,
02:23there's been so much sorrow, Delano. I can't recall ever covering, for my many years of
02:29covering this conflict, ever experiencing so much sorrow on both sides. You see that man
02:34whose wife, mother-in-law and four-day-old twins have died, and it's something you don't forget.
02:42You hear hostages talking about what they experienced, that's Israeli hostages, what
02:46they experienced when they were being held. You know that part of their families are still being
02:51held there inside the Gaza Strip, with no knowledge of whether they're alive or dead.
02:56The sorrow level here, it's off the charts. And it's a human tragedy, as well as being,
03:02you know, a military war and so forth. And all wars are tragic. But because of the focus on this,
03:08and because of the media, its availability to the media in a way that other conflicts don't have,
03:14every tragic story somehow seems to enter your heart. So yes, you know, I think the significance
03:20of this ceasefire is that hopefully there would be, you know, it would stop this level of death.
03:27There is so many diseases now rife in the Gaza Strip, they might be able to deal with those.
03:32It would just give people on both sides a chance to breathe again. And I think for that reason,
03:37the possibility of a ceasefire should be pursued.
03:40Let's see what happens. One can hope. Iris, thank you very much for that.
03:44Iris Mackler reporting live from Jerusalem.