00:00But for more, I'm joined on set by our International Affairs Editor, Philip Turrell.
00:04Hi, Philip.
00:04Hi, Jenny.
00:05Can you give us some details then behind the most recent strike in Gaza
00:09and who was targeted by Israel?
00:11Right. Well, Israel's security forces have come out with a statement saying that they were
00:17targeting two people. One was Mohammed Daif, who is the Hamas military commander.
00:23He's the man who's thought to be behind the October the 7th attacks in Israel,
00:28the one who masterminded it. He's also believed to be the man who's responsible for
00:34all the labyrinths of tunnels under the Gaza Strip as well.
00:37He's been in Israel's target for a very long time since the first intifada back in the 1980s.
00:43There are very few details about him, very few pictures about
00:46who he is, what he actually looked like today.
00:49He was one of the main targets. The other one was
00:52Rafat Salama, who is a military commander from Hamas in Han Yunis.
00:57What we know is that the attack was pinpointing both of them from what Israel's been saying.
01:04They were in a building surrounded by militants and this was not an attack against civilians.
01:10Of course, we've had the news since then that many civilians, 71 have been killed and 289
01:16injured. But that's the statement coming out from the Israeli authorities.
01:21We don't know if the two men were killed, but I think it's probably safe to say that as
01:27Mohammed Daif has been in Israel's sights for so long, if he had been killed in this
01:31raid and they had confirmation of that, we would have been told pretty quickly that that was the
01:34case. There's no news whether or not they were targeting a third member of Hamas who's also on
01:40the most wanted list. His name is Yair Sinwar. We don't know whether or not he was included in that.
01:46It doesn't appear so at the moment that he was also included in this raid today.
01:50And what have the reactions been so far from not only Israel, but from around the world?
01:55Well, they've been pretty swift in condemning what has happened. I'll give you a couple of
02:00them. First of all, from the Palestinians, they've dismissed what the Israelis are saying.
02:05They were saying this was just a cold-blooded attack against civilians in Gaza. Remember that
02:10these civilians were in an area called al-Mawasi, a humanitarian zone. They've been told to go there
02:15once Israel had started its raids against the southern part of the Gaza Strip. They were told
02:24to move further northwards. That's why there were so many of them in this area. And there was also
02:28a time when food supplies were being handed out. Many people were trying to obtain water just to
02:34live on as much as a normal basis as they possibly can. So that explains also, I think, why the
02:40number of casualties in this raid was so high. There's been a reaction also from Francesca
02:46Albanese, who's the human rights, the UN human rights reporter for the Palestinian territory.
02:52She just says the area there has now become hell on earth and has accused the Israeli Prime
02:57Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of really wanting to destroy Hamas and not changing at all in his
03:04perspective that that's what he wants to do, backed up by his far-right government in Israel.
03:08And there's little or no possibility that he wants to move towards a peace deal with Hamas
03:15to try to find a way out of the conflict in Gaza. Then there's also been a reaction from
03:22the United States. This is slightly before what happened today, but they are saying that basically
03:29there is some hope that this peace deal is being worked towards and there has been some progress.
03:36Seeing what happened today, it's pretty hard to understand that that is the case.
03:40But President Biden in the last few days has remained pretty optimistic about it,
03:43saying that the peace process, peace proposal that he put forward a couple of months ago has been
03:48looked at by Hamas. Hamas have put up some counter-proposals which are currently under
03:56discussion. This has been going on in Qatar over the past few days and there is progress
04:00towards that peace proposal. It remains to be seen now whether or not Israel wants to move
04:04forward. Israel, of course, has always said that the peace proposals don't go far enough and that's
04:08why it's not willing to agree to them. Judging from what's happened today, it doesn't look as
04:13though there's going to be any peace on the horizon anytime soon.
04:16Thank you very much for that analysis, our International Affairs Editor Philip Turrell.
