00:00Well, Trump is to push for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza next week when he hosts Israeli Prime
00:04Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli airstrikes and shootings killed 94 Palestinians in Gaza
00:10late Wednesday and Thursday. 45 of those who died were attempting to get much-needed humanitarian
00:16aid. Violence raging as Hamas is seeking guarantees that a new U.S.-backed ceasefire
00:21proposal for Gaza would lead to the war's end. Joining us from our news desk is journalist
00:27Shirley Sitbon. Hello to you. Shirley, let's begin with this ceasefire proposal. What more do we know
00:34about it? There are still many unknowns here. We know that it will start, if it's accepted, with a 60-day
00:42truce or ceasefire and the release of hostages. Hostages will be freed 10 of the 20 who are
00:50believed to be alive and also the bodies of 18 others who are believed to be dead. In exchange,
00:56Palestinian prisoners will be released, but we don't know how many and we don't know who. Also,
01:02the Israeli army will have to leave certain areas of the Gaza Strip. Again, another unknown. We don't
01:09know which areas when exactly. Not all of it, apparently, not in the first phase. And also,
01:17humanitarian aid will be brought in massively, not the amounts that are brought in now and in a different
01:23system with international organizations. What we also know is Hamas saying it wants guarantees that,
01:29in the end, the war will end. Because during those 60 days of ceasefire, there's supposed to be a
01:35negotiation on how to end the war. And Hamas really wants to get there because last time, when there was
01:40this type of ceasefire, it was also supposed to bring to the end of the war. And this did not happen.
01:45Israel left the plan earlier. Meanwhile, when we talk about what the Americans want, the goal
01:51is for them to end the war and then to end Hamas, to bring Hamas out of Gaza with the help of Arab
01:57countries in the Middle East, who said they have a plan to rebuild Gaza and to get Hamas out of there,
02:03bring back the Palestinian Authority, a revamped way of Palestinians managing the Gaza Strip and getting
02:10the Israelis out of there. And you remember that Donald Trump had these statements about what
02:15amounts to ethnic cleansing, having the Gazans leaving Gaza. Well, yesterday, an Israeli journalist
02:21asked the U.S. ambassador if this is still Donald Trump's opinion. And he said, no, no, no. Nobody
02:27will be forced to leave the Gaza Strip. Only people who want to leave will leave.
02:30What more can you tell us about the humanitarian situation?
02:33Yeah. Well, the idea is to bring back international organizations and hundreds and hundreds of trucks
02:39every day. Today, there's this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is a group managed by U.S.
02:46contractors, Israel together. And they say that they brought 52 million meals since they were put
02:52in place. But we saw the images of there were just a few sites, a few distribution centers. And we saw
02:58all the Palestinians, 2,200,000 Palestinians living in Gaza, desperately trying to get food there with all
03:06these lines and all this violence. And they have to cross through a war zone to get access to those sites.
03:13Absolutely. And hundreds have been killed in the violence there. And what we know, yes, it was
03:20managed. When you look at the accounts, there are no journalists there. So it's difficult to know what
03:24exactly is happening. We know that there are many victims. We know the Israeli soldiers, and we can
03:30also hear, see in some of the videos, that they've been using shooting to exchange information with the
03:36people, to communicate with the people, saying, oh, the center, you have to, you can't go into this zone,
03:42firing, supposed to fire in the air to tell people to leave the area, or say there's no more food,
03:48extremely brutal way of communicating. And this has led, now we can see this image. This was filmed by
03:55people working, contractors working for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And when we listen to the sound,
04:01there is shooting, we can hear shooting. Maybe we can hear it now. And they say, of course, that the
04:09communication with the Gazans was through shooting. But also, in this video, they say that somebody's
04:16heard saying, oh, you hit one. And another man says, oh boy. And this was filmed in secret, and was then
04:24given to the Associated Press and various media outlets, saying that they're accusing, the people think
04:29this worked for subcontractors there, U.S. citizens working there, saying that they saw colleagues
04:36firing at Palestinians. Now, we don't see that in the footage, but that's their testimony. So yes,
04:41a lot of investigating into this, and this system, everybody wants it to stop. They say that it's to,
04:48you know, to block Hamas from getting the food, but international organizations have been saying that,
04:52yes, Hamas has been getting some of the food, but not, most of it was getting to the people
04:57with the old system. So they want this to be back, you know, in place.
05:00This isn't the first time Israel and Hamas have been close to a deal.
05:04We've said that many times before. But still, a lot of people are saying this time
05:08seems different.
05:09Yes, we see different things. We see a lot of pressure from Donald Trump.
05:14And we also, if we want to make this short, just seeing some of the images from yesterday,
05:18Benjamin Netanyahu visiting a kibbutz there, which was hit on October 7th at the time in 2023.
05:27And he never made it there until now. A quarter of the population was either killed or taken hostage.
05:32And he just went there yesterday. And people from there have been protesting against him
05:36for a year now, many of them saying there must be more. And you can see this lady,
05:40her son is one of those held in Gaza. She's been protesting every, every week.
05:45And she held the prime minister. She's been protesting against him for a long time,
05:53but basically saying that she wants this to end, believing that there is a change.
05:57And of course, she doesn't want her son to remain behind. Only 10 of the hostages who are living
06:03will be released. And also, you can see that Benjamin Netanyahu, by going there, basically moving,
06:10you know, pushing to another phase of his situation, probably wanting to end this war,
06:15and perhaps going to elections was a bit of speculation. But with what happened with Iran,
06:20his popularity ratings are a bit higher. And for him, it's ideal to go to, to an election.
06:25And then the people on the far right who blocked any deal until now, tried to block every deal.
06:31Well, they don't, they're not as important now. He doesn't really need them as much as he used to.
06:34All right, sure.
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