Israel-Gaza

Comedian Bassem Youssef talks about his view that Israel should be held accountable for the war in Gaza, how the Egyptian revolution was a turning point in his life, and why he feels disillusioned with the West’s “lecturing” on human rights and international law, in this episode of Ways to Change the World.

Families with relatives still being held in Gaza say they don’t care about the Israeli government’s declared aim of eliminating Hamas, and that they just want the hostages back, and peace.

The truce between Israel and Hamas has continued for a fifth day, but it’s looking increasingly fragile after both sides accused each other of violations. 

We’re joined by Moty Cristal, a crisis negotiator and former member of the Israeli government.

We’re joined by Rotem Akav in Tel Aviv, whose cousin Omer Wenkert was taken as a hostage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting his cabinet amid hopes that a deal to release some of the nearly 240 people being held hostage in Gaza could be imminent.

We spoke earlier to Relik Shafir, a former Israeli Brigadier General.

Our foreign affairs correspondent Secunder Kermani was in Tel Aviv and had this update.

Israeli soldiers are continuing to search the al Shifa hospital in Gaza City – where they say Hamas has based its command centre deep underground. Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by the UK – has denied the claim. 

The Israeli Defence Forces have said this evening that they are continuing their operation in Gaza’s biggest hospital, after entering Al Shifa in the early hours this morning. 

In the United States, President Biden has been speaking about the situation in Israel.

We spoke to Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner of the Israel Defence Forces. We began by asking him for his response to criticisms by Israelis of the IDF’s slow response time – in some cases up to ten hours – following Saturday’s attacks.

We’ve been speaking to the American-Israeli family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of those who’s been taken.

We spoke to Osama Hamdan, he is a spokesman based in Beirut for Hamas, which is a designated terrorist organisation according to the UK government.

We spoke to British-Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who is currently working at a hospital in Gaza.