Israeli strike on a tent camp in Gaza safe zone killed at least 19 people
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00:00Well let's bring in our Jerusalem correspondent Iris Mackler live on the program now. Iris,
00:04what is your understanding of what happened this morning?
00:08We have two, as usual or as often is the case, two competing narratives. We hear from the
00:14Palestinian side, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza saying now 19, initially 40 people it
00:21thought were dead, now 19 bodies have been recovered from that area and it makes no
00:26distinction between civilians and combatants, so we are not able to tell how many of each
00:32were killed in this strike. In al-Mawassi, which is an area near the beach, which has
00:38been designated by Israel a safe zone, so basically it's an attack against tents,
00:43you know, not buildings as such. From the Israeli side, we hear that there were Hamas
00:49militants who actually placed themselves inside the safe zone in order to fire at Israeli troops
00:55and fire rockets into Israel. So that is what we have heard so often before, Nadia,
01:02these two different versions of events, Hamas hiding itself in a safe zone or Israel attacking
01:08the safe zone without much reason. Israel says that it did target and it believes it did
01:14assassinate three Hamas operatives, high-ranking militants who were in the safe zone along with
01:19the civilians. Iris, take us at the same time to what's happening in Israel, where you are,
01:27because there have been some recordings released which detail a rather angry conversation between
01:34Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and the father of a hostage whose body was recovered
01:40in Gaza last week. Just tell us a bit about this story. That's right, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu
01:46has been trying to see the families of the hostages. Not all of them have agreed to see him.
01:51This family did agree to see him, a religious family, you could even say a right-wing family,
01:57and the recording was released of a very angry exchange in which the family is saying to
02:02Benjamin Netanyahu, you have been Prime Minister for 15 years, you didn't take care of Hamas when
02:08they were a small organisation, they turned into a large organisation. We saw October the 7th,
02:14you built the tunnel, said the distraught father, you built the tunnel that my son was murdered in.
02:20So that kind of exchange, plus the fact that we have seen that kind of exchange is putting
02:26pressure on the Prime Minister. Israel's military released footage of the size of that tunnel that
02:33those particular, those six hostages were held in in their last days before they were executed there.
02:39You couldn't sit, you couldn't stand, there was no running water of any kind,
02:43they peed in bottles for the sake of their own health and safety. One of the girls weighed 36
02:50kilos at her death. It was very, very tough conditions and I think this is being put
02:55to the government, that exchange with the father is being broadcast on Israeli television
03:00as pressure on this government to reach some kind of deal with Hamas in Gaza because at the same
03:07time, the other areas, the conflict is escalating on the border with Lebanon, inside the West Bank
03:15and two days ago we saw an attack which turned out to be a suicide attack in effect
03:23on the border with Jordan in a place that is usually incredibly quiet. So all of that escalation
03:29is another reason or another impetus for a ceasefire deal and a hostage deal in Gaza.
03:34Iris Mackler live in Jerusalem, thank you.