US Blinken says Israel should not 'reoccupy' Gaza

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00:00 We can now bring in our international affairs editor,

00:02 Angela D'Effili.

00:03 Angela, what's the end of this war going to look like for Gaza?

00:09 That is still very unclear.

00:13 It's true that after Benjamin Netanyahu told American

00:16 television on Monday that Israel was likely to be responsible

00:20 for the security situation in Gaza for an indefinite period,

00:25 there was some confusion.

00:27 The Israelis appear to be moving to clarify

00:29 that they say they have no plans to reoccupy

00:33 Gabor or to govern Gaza, but they will be

00:36 responsible for its security.

00:40 That, in a sense, is a statement of the obvious.

00:44 The Israelis have no wish to reoccupy Gaza.

00:49 It was extremely costly before and unworkable.

00:53 And whilst they will want security guarantees,

00:56 they do not favor, it is thought, occupation

01:00 as a solution to what's happening.

01:05 Antony Blinken was talking after the G7 summit.

01:09 The Americans do not favor Israel occupying Gaza either.

01:13 He talked about what a transitional period

01:17 might look like, because between any future solution

01:21 and the end of the war, there will inevitably

01:24 be a transition period.

01:26 He said, obviously, there will be no Hamas,

01:29 that the Palestinian people, he said,

01:32 cannot be hijacked by terrorists.

01:35 He also said that there will be no displacement

01:39 of the Palestinian population in Gaza.

01:43 That also, in a sense, is a statement of the obvious.

01:46 Egypt has made it very clear that it does not

01:49 wish to shoulder the problem of Palestinians in Egypt.

01:55 And the third red line appeared to be no Israeli occupation

02:01 of Gaza, which, again, the Israelis are not keen to do.

02:05 From there, ideally, more and more,

02:09 the world is moving towards the idea

02:12 that the idea of a two-state solution, a Palestinian state

02:16 alongside the state of Israel, is the only way forward.

02:21 There must be more work towards that.

02:24 And that, of course, would include security guarantees

02:27 for Israel as well, before Israel

02:31 would sign up to anything.

02:32 And Angela, let's talk about the next stage in this war,

02:35 because Israel's ground operation

02:38 seems to have begun.

02:40 Airstrikes, fighting door to door

02:43 seems to have intensified over the last 24 hours.

02:47 Yes.

02:49 The Israelis have said, they've made clear,

02:51 they say we intend to try to destroy the network of tunnels

02:57 in Gaza City.

02:59 It's going to be a very difficult job for the Israelis.

03:02 Because the hostages remain in Gaza, the 240--

03:06 I don't think anyone is clear exactly where the hostages are.

03:10 But they intend to-- their intention

03:12 is to try to destroy the network of tunnels.

03:15 They cannot destroy Hamas, which is their stated aim,

03:19 unless they do.

03:22 Hamas are very well prepared for this sort of fighting.

03:26 The buildings are very tightly packed in Gaza.

03:28 They have tunnels.

03:29 They can emerge unexpectedly from a tunnel

03:32 and ambush Israeli soldiers.

03:34 They have rocket-propelled grenades.

03:37 They have anti-tank missiles.

03:38 And the Israelis are, it is said,

03:41 a little out of practice at this kind of warfare.

03:43 They had been preparing for much more distant threats,

03:46 such as Iran or Hezbollah up in the north,

03:50 not this sort of packed fighting.

03:53 The Israelis say that there is a major Hamas headquarters

03:58 under the Al-Shifa Hospital, which

04:00 is Gaza's biggest hospital.

04:02 They say that they intend to try and capture that.

04:06 That would be symbolically a victory if, as they say,

04:10 that is the case.

04:12 Against that, they have pledged to try and get

04:15 their hostages back.

04:16 That complicates things even further.

04:18 There are still a number of civilians.

04:21 We don't know how many still left in Gaza City, people

04:25 who, for whatever reason, could not move south

04:28 or chose not to move south.

04:30 They are running out of food and water

04:32 themselves in northern Gaza.

04:36 And so the situation is extremely complicated

04:39 for the Israelis in trying to achieve their stated aims.

04:44 Thank you very much for that, Angela.

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