00:00 And for more on this story I'm joined in the studio by International Affairs Editor Philip
00:04 Turrell. The overwhelming question of course, Philip, is where can these civilians actually go to?
00:10 And the answer to that is we don't know because there is really nowhere. The first thing is that
00:17 they can't go into Egypt because Egypt won't open the border. I'll come back to that in a minute.
00:21 They're stuck in Rafah down in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip which is not that far from the
00:29 Rafah crossing but Rafah is where the offensive is planned that Israel is going to undertake at
00:36 some point. We don't know when that's going to be and that's why this pressure is growing and
00:39 growing on Israel not to start that offensive. Because there are about 1.4 million Palestinians
00:45 who are living in Gaza who've moved to Rafah since the start of the troubles on the 7th of October
00:53 and they really don't have anywhere else to go. Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview on American
00:58 television has said well there's plenty of room further north in Gaza for them. We're not going to
01:04 be cavalier about all this. We want civilians out of harm's way just like Hamas wants them in harm's
01:10 way. But there are several questions that remain without answers. The first one is how are they
01:14 going to get there because the transport routes are almost destroyed. The roads are in bad condition.
01:19 Many people don't have any transport at all. Second point is when they get there what are
01:24 they going to do because a lot of the buildings, most of the buildings have been destroyed. They
01:28 can't go home to northern Gaza because practically all their houses have been destroyed by the
01:32 Israeli offensive. And on top of that the areas are dangerous because there are mines, there are
01:39 unexploded bombs and people don't want to go into those areas in case they get blown up. So all of
01:44 these questions remain without answer. That's why we've seen this pressure growing on in the United
01:48 States from the United States rather to the Israelis saying okay we need a break in this,
01:53 at least two weeks, so that you have to come up with some proper plan to evacuate all these poor
01:58 people from Rafa who were told to go there because that was a safe zone and now they're being told
02:03 well it's no longer a safe zone you're going to have to go somewhere else. So in other words you
02:07 can't really keep pushing people about by herds of cattle in the Gaza Strip. They have rights and
02:12 they have demands and there is growing pressure from the United States, from Britain, from Saudi
02:18 Arabia for a ceasefire at least for two weeks which now appears to be a little bit back on the
02:23 table but it still doesn't answer the fact where are these people going to go and what kind of safe
02:27 situation are they going to be in. So do we know what sort of form the ground invasion is going to
02:32 take and what impact is it going to have on Israel's relationship with its neighbour Egypt?
02:37 Okay I think the information coming out appears to be that it's not imminent. We don't know,
02:45 you know, this is highly unclear, we don't know what the Israelis are planning but the information
02:50 coming out appears to be it's not going to happen anytime soon because we need to sort out the
02:55 problem about where people are going to go and imagine that there would be a huge backlash
03:00 against Israel if tens of thousands of people were killed in this ground offensive which is going to
03:05 be a pretty difficult and hard ground offensive when it does begin to take place in Rafa. What
03:10 Israel is saying is there are 18 out of the 24 battalions of Hamas that we have destroyed,
03:17 we need to get to the others there in the Rafa area, that's why we're going in there,
03:20 we won't do anything but destroy Hamas, we're not going to listen to any other proposals at the
03:24 moment. That remains to be seen whether they're actually going to do that. Now there is another
03:29 problem also and that is the relationship with Egypt because at the southern tip of the Gaza
03:33 Strip you have what is called the Philadelphia Corridor which was created during the Camp David
03:40 Accords back in 1978, controlled on one side by the Palestinians, controlled on the other side by
03:45 Egypt. Now what Israel is saying is they want to go as far as the corridor to take control of it
03:53 because they say that weapons and ammunition are still being smuggled into the Gaza Strip to be
03:58 used by Hamas and they don't want that to continue. That is something that Egypt has said is not
04:02 happening and Egypt has said you if you do that are going to be breaking the Camp David Accords
04:07 and that would seriously undermine relations between Egypt and Israel. Remember Egypt and
04:12 Israel signed a peace agreement back then for which Begin and Sadat both got the Nobel Peace
04:19 Prize. So that is also putting on into jeopardy the eventuality that maybe if Israel does go as
04:26 far as trying to take control of that corridor then that is going to seriously undermine regional
04:32 stability. So all of these different elements coming together at the moment are I think pushing
04:38 the United States to become a little bit more aggressive towards Israel. Remember Joe Biden
04:43 didn't even call for a ceasefire at the beginning of all of this. Now he is doing that. He is
04:47 beginning to think that there is no longer any way that he can begin to work out a solution with
04:52 Benjamin Netanyahu. That is where we are seeing an upping of the ante due to increasing pressure
04:57 I think also within the United States.
