00:00So, Sarah, what can we expect from these talks? We know Hamas leaders from Gaza are travelling to Cairo. They are hoping for some sort of movement. Any hope?
00:12Well, you've got the Hamas leaders travelling to Cairo, as you said, Leanne. The aim here is really to see if there is a chance of reviving that U.S. proposal for a ceasefire. And that's a 60-day pause in the fighting, a 60-day ceasefire and the hostage release.
00:31We saw the talks back in, I think it was July, in June. They ended in June in a deadlock and it wasn't pushed forward. And I think the difficulty here is when you speak to sources who are very knowledgeable about what's happening behind the scenes in those talks, is that the sides are still very, very far apart.
00:51And remember, these are indirect talks, right? But they're very far apart on some of the key issues. And those remain that Hamas has said. Any talk of it disarming, which Israel has insisted on, would only come, that sort of transfer of governance of Gaza would only happen if there were a Palestinian state in place, if they had the leadership agreed.
01:14Indeed, that's not something we know that Israel is willing to accept. And there's also a big question mark over the Israeli military presence inside Gaza, whether there would be a complete withdrawal.
01:27We know right now, of course, Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled that there is going to now be this full-scale offensive across Gaza.
01:36It's expected that that will be launched in October, unless the indirect talks that will be taking place in Cairo, brokered by Qatar as well, can make some progress this time.
01:49I mean, certainly the calculation will have changed for Hamas somewhat, given the scale of the Israeli push over the last couple of weeks and the announcement that that's set to be expanded even further very soon.
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