Ceasefire hopes fade as Gaza fighting rages

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00:00As mediators continue to work to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel's offensive in the enclave continues.

00:05This Thursday, a strike was reported on a residential building in northern Gaza, in the town of Beit Dahiya.

00:12According to health officials, at least 11 people were killed.

00:15The latest strike comes as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain displaced.

00:24Death would be more merciful. We were displaced 20 times.

00:28People do not know where to go. Even designated safe zones aren't safe.

00:32We do not know where to go. Should we go to the sea or else?

00:36Death is truly more merciful.

00:40We can now go across to France 24's Iris Mackler in Jerusalem.

00:44Iris, good afternoon. Yesterday, a school-turned-shelter was targeted.

00:50Once again, Israel is coming under criticism for targeting a facility

00:54where the displaced are sheltering.

00:56That's right. What we've seen over the past 24 hours in Gaza is actually an expansion.

01:01We've seen Israeli tanks moving in the centre and the south of the Gaza Strip.

01:06We've seen Israel saying that, in fact, it has targeted and killed 50 Hamas militants.

01:13We've seen reports from Hamas.

01:15But since dawn today, the Hamas-run health authority

01:19says more than 20 people have died in the Gaza Strip.

01:22They don't distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, civilians.

01:28That's the situation, unchanged.

01:30We have seen some Palestinian rocket fire, so Hamas rocket fire,

01:35from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel.

01:38It doesn't go very far any longer.

01:40I think it's a sign of how much Hamas's military capabilities

01:44have been depleted over this 10 and a half month period

01:49of intense Israeli bombing and warfare.

01:53But I think what's interesting is how little interest there seems to be

01:57from Hamas in the plight of the Gazan civilians.

02:01There is a ceasefire deal on the table, and we don't hear from Hamas.

02:06We hear from the civilians.

02:07I saw footage of them being interviewed this morning,

02:10and one of them said, I've been moved seven times.

02:13I've been moved 10 times.

02:15Where is safe? We go somewhere safe.

02:17We don't know where that is.

02:18We've had enough.

02:20But that doesn't seem to resonate at the moment with Hamas's militant leaders.

02:24And what we do see is an escalation in the north as well.

02:28So that's the fight between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel,

02:32Israel's north, Lebanon's south.

02:35We've seen really an increase in rocket fire,

02:37including a targeting of a civilian village yesterday.

02:42Israel says it's a change in what Hezbollah is targeting.

02:47And Israel has been targeting more overnight, deeper and deeper into Lebanon.

02:52And I think that's where we're actually seeing the escalation.

02:56The situation in Gaza is almost, I'm sorry to say this, normal.

03:02Indeed, it's awful to say that it's normal,

03:04but it is far from normal for you and I, for everyone watching, Iris.

03:08Now, with my previous guest, we were talking, of course,

03:11about the Democratic National Convention that's underway in Chicago.

03:15And last night, we had the parents of an American hostage who spoke.

03:18Take a listen to Hirsch Poland's mother,

03:21Rachel Goldberg, speaking on the sidelines of the convention.

03:26I think that we all realize that this is now a situation that has come down

03:33to two parties and two men who hold power in those parties.

03:40And that's Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yahya Seymour.

03:47And until those two powerful men decide what the next step is,

03:53we are all very much pawns in a game that we didn't sign up for.

03:59Rachel Goldberg speaking there.

04:01Iris, she's not wrong, is she?

04:04This is whatever we can say about US pressure on the Israeli side

04:09or Iranian or Qatari pressure on the Hamas' side.

04:14It does, at the end of the day, come down to two men and what they want.

04:19So it seems, you know, that's how it's being reported in the Israeli press

04:23and from the Arab language press as well.

04:28You know, it's less, I suppose, surprising in some ways.

04:31Yahya Seymour is a militant leader.

04:34He rules by force.

04:35You know, Hamas did face an election back in 2007.

04:39That's almost 20 years ago now.

04:40There hasn't been an election since.

04:42And if you're a vocal opponent of Hamas, you know, they deal with you violently.

04:48So in one sense, I guess it's the question with Hamas is,

04:52what does Yahya Seymour want?

04:54He doesn't seem to be particularly targeting or viewing the suffering of Gazans,

05:01that is, Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

05:04That doesn't seem to be his target.

05:06What we've been hearing both in the Arab language press

05:09and from American officials right now is that he's got a bigger picture.

05:13You know, Gaza is in some ways lost to them at least for a while.

05:17So his own survival, Hamas' survival is important.

05:20But the broader region and Israel losing more broadly is very important.

05:26And what the Americans are saying about Yahya Seymour is that he wants to,

05:31but now Hamas is helping Hezbollah instead of the other way around,

05:34that they want an escalation in the war in the north.

05:37They want Israel to be fighting on two fronts.

05:39So that perhaps explains why Yahya Seymour does not support a ceasefire.

05:45Benjamin Netanyahu is more surprising

05:48because he is a democratically elected leader.

05:51But we do know from reports in the Israeli media

05:54that there are other leaders within the opposition, certainly,

05:58but even within the security and the military who say,

06:01now is the time for a hostage deal.

06:03Now is the time for a ceasefire.

06:05Let's just go with it.

06:06And he is more, he doesn't follow that path.

06:13And the reason is, he says, for security reasons,

06:16very important to Israel to keep that border with Gaza and Egypt

06:19in Israeli hands, or at least with Israeli military.

06:22But there are people here who say it's political too.

06:25He wants to ensure that this right-wing government survives

06:28and other members of this right-wing government don't want a hostage deal.

06:31So there you have it.

06:33Two men, two older men who are really dictating things for their publics

06:38and more broadly for the world.

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