Biden, Britain pile pressure on Israel's Netanyahu over Gaza

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00:00Pressure continues to mount on Israel's Prime Minister to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring

00:05hostages home. Emotions are running high in the country after the bodies of six hostages,

00:10who had recently been killed by Hamas, were retrieved from the enclave on Sunday.

00:15When the U.S. President was asked if Benjamin Netanyahu was doing enough to secure the release

00:20of hostages, Biden simply responded no. Britain's Defense Secretary, meanwhile,

00:25has come out to justify London suspending certain arms export licenses to Israel.

00:5530 out of around 350 export licenses have therefore been suspended with immediate effect.

01:04We can now bring in our chief foreign editor, Rob Parsons. Rob, good afternoon.

01:08We'll talk about the international pressure on Israel later. But firstly,

01:12the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is really digging in his heels. He spoke last night

01:17and he sort of justified his wanting to keep fighting for Israel's control of the

01:24Philadelphia corridor. And also he spoke in the face of domestic pressure that is mounting. He

01:30said, and I quote, no one will preach to me on the issue, speaking of that he is more committed

01:37than anyone else in securing the release of the hostages. He's not going to change course, is he?

01:42No, he's quite clear he's not going to change course. He survived the political pressure that

01:49built up after Israeli soldiers had found six hostages dead in a tunnel beneath Rafa,

01:56apparently executed, shot in the head. There was an enormous outpouring of anger and grief in Israel

02:04that led to the demonstrations, led to the strike. But both the demonstrations and the strike sort of

02:10petered out a little bit. That is in large part because Israeli society itself is divided.

02:18It's divided on how to proceed. A good part of Israeli society supports the approach being

02:25taken by the government that the priority should be to defeat Hamas. And Benjamin Netanyahu,

02:31I think, is able to use that. He apologized for the death of the hostages, not because he thought

02:38his strategy was wrong, but because the government hadn't been able to extricate them from the grasp

02:46of Hamas. The strategy, he says, is right. You mentioned the Philadelphia Corridor, and many

02:52people are asking why has he become so obsessed with the Philadelphia Corridor. Back in May,

02:57when Joe Biden announced his plan, the three-phase plan, which apparently originated from Israel,

03:06Benjamin Netanyahu at that point never said anything about the Philadelphia Corridor. It

03:11wasn't part of the plan. It's only subsequently that he raised the issue of the Philadelphia

03:16Corridor, and it's become the sort of the key issue in whether or not there should be a ceasefire.

03:22Now he's saying that the priorities, the four priorities for Israel are to defeat Hamas,

03:28to return the hostages, ensure Gaza does not pose a threat in the future, and return Israeli

03:34residents to the south. Of those four, he said three pass through the Philadelphia Corridor.

03:39In other words, there's no way under his leadership that Israel is going to allow the

03:45Philadelphia Corridor to fall back into Hamas's hands, which means in turn, since Hamas has said

03:51that they cannot accept that the Philadelphia Corridor will remain in Israel's hands, that the

03:56pathway to a ceasefire at the moment doesn't exist. But it's unlikely that Egypt is going to accept

04:01that either. No. It won't. No. So we're back to square one. We're back to square one. Okay,

04:06let's talk about the international pressure, because yesterday, of course, now we have the

04:10London that has stopped the arms export licenses of 30 out of 350 arms it does send to Israel.

04:18Also yesterday, we had the US President Joe Biden who responded saying, no, the Israeli Prime

04:22Minister is not doing enough to secure the release of hostages. The international pressure is mounting,

04:28but Benjamin Netanyahu remains defiant. Yeah. I mean, it's problematic for Joe Biden,

04:34for the Democratic administration at the moment, because they're cautious about how far they can go

04:40in putting pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu with the elections in the US just around the corner.

04:45So just words and no deeds, is that true? Well, we'll see. But it's very difficult

04:50for them to put really serious pressure on the Israeli government at the moment. But there was

04:55that meeting of the top leadership, Secretary of State, and also Jake Sullivan, who was also their

05:02National Security Advisor. And after that meeting, Joe Biden was asked by reporters,

05:10is Benjamin Netanyahu doing enough, in your opinion, to achieve a ceasefire? He answered

05:15with just one word, no. He couldn't make it clearer than that. And the United States apparently,

05:23according to the Washington Post, through Joe Biden, is preparing at the moment to sort of

05:28take it or leave it deal for Israel. But whether we should believe that or not, given the fact that

05:34the elections are just around the corner, and if Israel doesn't accept it, then the US is going to

05:39pull out of the search for a ceasefire deal. It seems unlikely at this stage. But to go back to

05:44the British decision to stop sending components to the Israeli military, it's a decision that's

05:54been taken after a two-month procedure. It affects 30 out of 350 contracts. The UK doesn't

06:01send an awful lot of military equipment to Israel anyway, 42 million pounds worth in 2022. But it

06:08sends a signal to the United States, because up until now, UK and US have been marching in step

06:13on this. Now the UK is pulling out and sort of exposing the US a bit. It puts pressure on the US

06:19to take similar action. We'll see if this pressure tactics work. We'll see. Because I mean,

06:27the conflict is going to now enter its 11th month quite soon. Rob, thank you very much for that. Rob

06:32Parsons there.

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