palestinians across the west bank and gaza are on strike today to show their anger against ongoing israeli airstrikes over 200 people have died in the last week nearly all of them palestinian the airstrikes against targets in gaza have continued throughout the night and into today the other way a new barrage of rockets and mortar shells by palestinian militants into southern Israel have killed two workers and injured
seven more the strike has shuttered businesses across the region and some of the strikes are on the streets in the west bank town of Bethlehem israeli police use tear gas after clashes with the protesters paul adams reports from Jerusalem gaza's punishment continues more airstrikes at dawn israel says this is not over it doesn't just want the rockets to stop it wants its opponent crippled it's been hitting the homes of hamas leaders
and destroying as much of their hardware as possible hamas still has plenty of rockets but launchers are vulnerable the directive is to continue striking terrorist targets the idf is doing this very well we will
continue to take whatever action is necessary to restore peace and security to all residents of Israel international outrage is building over the civilian cost almost 40 000 people have been displaced
the territory's only coveted testing lab partially destroyed kamal hazala says he got a call from the israeli army
telling him to get out of his home the house next door was bombed when he and his family returned this is what they found my mother was with me at home and now she is out in the streets with no
shelter and i also have no shelter for my children here the whole house is totally destroyed in the west bank palestinians are once again demonstrating over the situation in gaza there's a general strike not
just among Palestinians it's being observed by israeli arabs too but diplomatic efforts much less visible are now gathering pace international mediators are trying hard to stop the fighting and when the u.s president joe biden spoke to mr netanyahu last night he called for a ceasefire for the first time the un is heavily involved its envoy in jerusalem one of few officials actually talking to hamas with pressuremounting on Israel its window of opportunity in gaza is slowly closing paul adams bbc news Jerusalem well i've been speaking to tarek adele the egyptian ambassador to the uk i asked him what conversations egypt was having directly with hamas
over the last few days we've had many contacts with the palestinian factions in gaza and in the rest of the palestinian occupied territories also we've had discussions and contacts with with the israelis with the hope that we can broker a ceasefire agreement we have all witnessed the falling of casualties on both sides last numbers go up to more than 200 deaths on the palestinian side including uh more than 60 children and women also there has been casualties on the israeliside up to 10 so far now this should stop and we are hoping that the the rest of the international community support us on this that we need to have a priority in this conflict the priority right now is to reach a ceasefire agreement after which we can have a serious discussion on how to resume peace negotiations between the two sides so just to get get a clear ambassador you are talking directly at the moment to hamas as well we are talking to all sides uh that are party to the conflictand and when you make those contacts with hamas i mean one of the conditionsfor the israelis is this won't stop until
the rockets stop is that a message that you are reiterating and putting pressure on hamas to do so we are using all the diplomatic tools at our disposal to reach a ceasefire agreement nowif one side is going to say the other side has to stop first this is not going to get us anywhere there has to be anunderstanding on both sides that the escalation must stop and must stop now you are in a very unique uh position uh
ambassador because a few people uh can speak to hamas directly and you have been in a position back in 2014 where you were able to broker some kind of fragile ceasefire but you
did broker thatcairo is very much in the diplomatic driving seat here so you can put that pressure on hamas
country you do have leverage over the group yes we are speaking with them and uh we have indication that they would be uh willing to adhere to a ceasefire agreement if the israelis on the other side adheres to it and and again that's part of the problem of what you're saying both sides are saying well the other side has to stop first so where the where does this end well i'm seeing and i'm hearing that the Israelis are saying that they have some goals to achieve and that they are only going to uh pursue these goals which may take a day two days three days whatever it takes now uh which means that we cannot have a ceasefire agreement now
and if this is the position uh one would expect the other side not to adhere to any uh ceasefire agreement
so there has to be an understanding that things have to stop and stop now there are casualties that are falling on both sides and this is not time to uh uh uh blame uh one side or the other things have to stop now now we are uh working tirelessly uh we have envoys in both israel and the Palestinian territories and in gaza and we hope that our partners including the uk would weigh in uh on those efforts in order to bear pressure on the israelis as we are bearingpressure on the palestinian side.
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