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Did Israel just change its battle plan? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. To Unclair Harvey,
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, May twenty, twenty twenty five. Children as young
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  Speaker 1: as six appear to be accessing pornography online. That's according
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  Speaker 1: to school principles, who say the evidence shows up in
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  Speaker 1: their schoolwork and in the notes they pass. And New
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  Speaker 1: South Wales parliamentary inquiry is investigating the harmful effects of
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  Speaker 1: pawn on mental, physical and emotional health. In Ukraine, Australia
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  Speaker 1: is desperately trying to get school teacher Oscar Jenkins swapped
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  Speaker 1: for Russian prisoners of war, the Australians reporting today. There's
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  Speaker 1: also speculation Russia will want the alleged Russian born spies
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  Speaker 1: Kira and Igor Korlev, who are in custody accused of
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  Speaker 1: espionage here in Australia. The war in Gaza changing Israel's
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  Speaker 1: tactics and maybe also its goals, with suggestions it might
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  Speaker 1: settle for disarmament rather than the destruction of Hermas. Today
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  Speaker 1: Chief International Correspondent Cameron Stewart on whether this nineteen month
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  Speaker 1: old war could finally be inching towards some kind of resolution.
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  Speaker 1: Ever since October seven, twenty twenty three, when Hermas massacred
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  Speaker 1: and took hostage civilians, including children in Israel. Israel's Prime
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  Speaker 1: Minister Benjamin Netanyah, who has been crystal clear about his
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  Speaker 1: goals in.
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  Speaker 2: The face of pure evil, free societies have no choice
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  Speaker 2: but to fight.
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  Speaker 1: As recently as March Nettanna who said Israel would never budge.
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  Speaker 2: So I want to sure all our friends around the world,
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  Speaker 2: Israel will fight, and Israel will win. We will bring
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  Speaker 2: our people home and we will destroy Hamas.
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  Speaker 1: We are nineteen months on and Hamas still exists, as
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  Speaker 1: the government of Gaza and israelis are still awaiting the
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  Speaker 1: return of more than fifty five hostages, including some dead bodies. Now,
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  Speaker 1: as the United States, led by Special ENVOYE. Stephen Witkoff,
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  Speaker 1: attempts to get the two sides to agree on something,
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  Speaker 1: there's a new idea surfacing. What if Hamas were not
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  Speaker 1: destroyed but just disarmed. What if its fighters were forced
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  Speaker 1: to leave Gaza. Here's what Prime Minister Netanyah his office
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  Speaker 1: is saying. We've used an Ai voice to read the
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  Speaker 1: pam's officer's statement.
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  Speaker 3: The negotiating team in Doha is working to exhaust every
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  Speaker 3: possibility for a deal, whether according to the Whitkov outline,
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  Speaker 3: or within the framework of ending the war, which would
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  Speaker 3: include the release of all hostages, the exile of Kamas terrorists,
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  Speaker 3: and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip.
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  Speaker 1: And at the same time Israel is pursuing a new
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  Speaker 1: type of war in Gaza itself.
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  Speaker 4: Prime Minister Netan Yahoo had promised his military would ender
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  Speaker 4: the strip with full force. It marks the largest ground
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  Speaker 4: assault on northern Gaza. Since Israel resumed its offensive in March.
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  Speaker 1: The Israeli military has been relentless in its attacks across
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  Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip.
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  Speaker 4: The IDEA says it struck what it called more than
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  Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip.
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  Speaker 5: Israel had defeated Hamas effectively as o coherent military force,
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  Speaker 5: but not as a terrorist force, not as a sort
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  Speaker 5: of pop up force that could attack Israeli soldiers at
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  Speaker 5: any one point two time.
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  Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is the Australian's chief international correspondent.
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  Speaker 5: And so they were kind of playing whack a mole
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  Speaker 5: where they just basically would defeat them in one part
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  Speaker 5: of Gaza and not in the other. And this new
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  Speaker 5: offensive from Netnia, who is designed to stop that. He's
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  Speaker 5: going to send troops in to various parts of Gaz,
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  Speaker 5: who is divided, according to leak documents, into about four zones,
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  Speaker 5: and Israeli troops will go into certain zones and they
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  Speaker 5: will stay there and stay and occupy those zones. So
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  Speaker 5: it's a different type of conflict that Netnya who has
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  Speaker 5: launched this time around.
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  Speaker 1: Can There've been two conflicting ideas in Israel's response to
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  Speaker 1: the October seven terrorist attack. One is the elimination of
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  Speaker 1: Hamas and its command structure in Gaza, and the other
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  Speaker 1: is the total destruction of Gaza itself, including the great
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  Speaker 1: loss of civilian life. Those two things have so far
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  Speaker 1: gone together. Now there's talk about an idea of demilitarizer
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  Speaker 1: of Hamas and the exile of its militants. That would
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  Speaker 1: require some sort of authority in Gaza certifying that that
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  Speaker 1: has been done and handing over militants. What do you
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  Speaker 1: think about the idea, firstly, that Hamas could disarm.
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  Speaker 5: I think it's a fairly unrealistic idea that Israel has
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  Speaker 5: her musk will disarm. I mean, I must has not
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  Speaker 5: been defeated as a military force. Certainly they've been hugely degraded.
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  Speaker 5: Let's not pretend that they're in any way a coherent force.
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  Speaker 5: But what Israel wants to do is remove them entirely
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  Speaker 5: as a militant force in Gaza. I don't see how
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  Speaker 5: that's possible. I don't see how they go to exile,
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  Speaker 5: because obviously if they left Garza, they'd be very traceable.
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  Speaker 5: I wouldn't imagine those fights would want to do that.
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  Speaker 5: I think the question here that Israel is probably grappling
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  Speaker 5: with is that to actually get Harmas to disarm is very,
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  Speaker 5: very difficult. They might have to accept a real politic
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  Speaker 5: decision here at some point and say they want Hamas
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  Speaker 5: out of power. In other words, they don't want Hamas
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  Speaker 5: to administer the Gaza Strip anymore, but they would have
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  Speaker 5: to accept Hamas would still exist to some degree in
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  Speaker 5: Gaza as a minor military force. That's probably the sort
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  Speaker 5: of middle ground that Israel may have to work towards,
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  Speaker 5: because it doesn't seem realistic to expect that Hamas will
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  Speaker 5: suddenly put down its weapons and leave the Gaza Strip.
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  Speaker 5: I don't see that that's a feasible concept.
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  Speaker 1: We've been here before, haven't we, cam where Israel has
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  Speaker 1: attempted to deal with the international approbrium over Gaza by
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  Speaker 1: withdrawing and hoping that that's the end of it. It's
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  Speaker 1: never the end, is it. No, it's not.
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  Speaker 5: In fact, Israel's now created buffer zones, which actually takes
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  Speaker 5: a reasonable amount of the Gaza territory and calls it
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  Speaker 5: a buffer zone where they try to obviously protect Israeli
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  Speaker 5: citizens from Hamas militants. And so that looks like it
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  Speaker 5: might be quite a permanent thing. I don't think Gaza
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  Speaker 5: as we know it will be in exactly the same
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  Speaker 5: at all at the end of this conflict. I think
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  Speaker 5: it'll be a smaller enclave. And it's really hard to
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  Speaker 5: imagine that Israeli military forces will not have the major
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  Speaker 5: say in Gaza in the foreseeable future, even under a
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  Speaker 5: peace plan.
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  Speaker 1: We're looking at Gaza and we've got to get that
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  Speaker 1: taken care of.
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  Speaker 5: A lot of people are starving, a lot of people
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  Speaker 5: are there's a lot of bad things going on.
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  Speaker 1: What's the Trump factor? Do you think he can We
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  Speaker 1: saw the release of a hostage last week air Dan Alexander,
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  Speaker 1: and it didn't turn into the kind of horror show
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  Speaker 1: propaganda moment that Hamas had created with the release of
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  Speaker 1: the other hostages, there was not a public handover in
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  Speaker 1: a square where the hostage was paraded. Has Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: got something to do with that?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 5: I think the Trump factor is incredibly important at the
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  Speaker 5: moment and very very unknown. I think netnyar Who's trying
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  Speaker 5: to second guest Donald Trump, he doesn't really know how
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  Speaker 5: much support Trump has for what netnar Who is actually doing,
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  Speaker 5: especially this new campaign of sending troops into Gaza to
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  Speaker 5: stay there indefinitely. Trump has certainly distanced himself somewhat from
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  Speaker 5: netna Who in the last two weeks. Of course, he
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  Speaker 5: went to the Middle East and pointedly did not visit Israel.
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  Speaker 5: The US has been talking directly to Hamas and that's
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  Speaker 5: what led to the release of the last US hostage
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  Speaker 5: last week, and they did things like they unilaterally stopped
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  Speaker 5: the bombing of the who is in Yemen again without
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  Speaker 5: consulting Israel. So Israel is really scratching their heads and
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  Speaker 5: working out how much Trump is with them, even though
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  Speaker 5: rhetorically Trump has been very strong as far as Israel's
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  Speaker 5: attack on Harmas has gone, but we really haven't heard
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  Speaker 5: from Trump about whether or not he supports this latest
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  Speaker 5: move by Netna to actually send a big ground force
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  Speaker 5: into Gaza. It's been a bit of a deafening silence.
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  Speaker 5: So that is a huge question hanging over this whole operation.
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  Speaker 5: The only person in the world I think who can
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  Speaker 5: really influence Netaho is Trump.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. There are growing fears of famine in Gaza.
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  Speaker 1: How does that change the calculus for Israel. There's a
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  Speaker 1: proposal now that Israel would lift the food or humanitarian
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  Speaker 1: ban and allowed food trucks into Gaza in return for
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  Speaker 1: the release of nine hostages by Hamas. How much has
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  Speaker 1: Israel do you think been affected by international concern over
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  Speaker 1: the prospect of a famine in Gaza.
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  Speaker 5: Well, they only seem to have reacted to it very
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  Speaker 5: recently in the last forty eight hours. Of course, this
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  Speaker 5: embargo on eight ins of Gaza has been going on
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  Speaker 5: for a long time now, and so I think Israel
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  Speaker 5: has certainly under Netnya who's been very reluctant to be
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  Speaker 5: influenced by international opinion in this respect. But it looks
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  Speaker 5: like they have been at this point in time. But
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  Speaker 5: that's because there have really been some quite acute reports
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  Speaker 5: coming out of mass famine in Gaza. Very hard for
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  Speaker 5: israel I think to justify that in an ongoing sense,
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  Speaker 5: and there may, of course well have been pressure on
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  Speaker 5: Israel from the US to try and do something here,
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  Speaker 5: because Trump in fact pointedly said, very bad things are
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  Speaker 5: happening in Gaza. Terrible things are happening there. We're going
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  Speaker 5: to have to do something about it. Now, that's unusual
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  Speaker 5: for Trump to say that, so I suspect the US
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  Speaker 5: has been behind the scenes pressuring it in Yahoo to
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  Speaker 5: do something to end this.
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  Speaker 1: In fury, Israel has moved a big step closer to
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  Speaker 1: its goal of eliminating Hamasa's leadership. Mohammed Sinwa, one of
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  Speaker 1: Israel's most wanted figures, was reportedly killed inside one of
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  Speaker 1: her Massa's tunnels inside Gaza. Israel believed he was one
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  Speaker 1: of the masterminds of the October seven attacks, and it
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  Speaker 1: says he was hiding in a tunnel under the European
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  Speaker 1: Hospital in han Uness.
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  Speaker 6: The Israeli military said it struck an underground command center
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  Speaker 6: beneath the hospital. One hospital official tallt CNN it was
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  Speaker 6: a quote catastrophe with people buried under the rubble.
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  Speaker 5: Look, it's definitely a big blow. Mohammed Simoi is of
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  Speaker 5: course the brother of the former leader Semowa, who was
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  Speaker 5: assassinated in October last year, and so those two brothers
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  Speaker 5: are very important in Hamas's leadership structure. Also, Mohammed Simwa's psidekick,
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  Speaker 5: who was going to replace him, was actually also killed
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  Speaker 5: in that blast. So look, Hamas have lost all of
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  Speaker 5: their top leaders. They really have. They've been decapitated. But
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  Speaker 5: the trouble for the West here is that Hamas does rejuvenate.
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  Speaker 5: They've got a very dispersed leadership structure. There's always new
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  Speaker 5: recruits coming on. I think that by decapitating their leadership
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  Speaker 5: it makes it very difficult for Hamas, but it certainly
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  Speaker 5: doesn't destroy them as a coherent force.
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  Speaker 1: In this conflict. Can you see a path to victory
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  Speaker 1: for Israel now that it has so significantly degraded, for example,
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  Speaker 1: Hesbellah and Iran's ability to support organizations like Hamas.
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  Speaker 5: Israel has won a huge strategic victory out of the
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  Speaker 5: tragedy of the October seventh in the sense that they
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  Speaker 5: have really crushed Hesbelah in Lebanon. They've really bought Iran
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  Speaker 5: to its knees as far as a country that's able
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  Speaker 5: to threaten Israel and of course Hamas has been largely
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  Speaker 5: crippled in Gaza, but the real problem here for Israel
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  Speaker 5: is just how to finish off the conflict in Gaza.
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  Speaker 5: To try and get Hamas to give up power in
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  Speaker 5: Gaza has been such a challenge. There are limits to
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  Speaker 5: how far Israel can continue to pume all Gaza, given
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  Speaker 5: the horrific, truly horrific civilian casualties that are occurring and
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  Speaker 5: the fact that Hamas just keeps surviving. So the problem
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  Speaker 5: for Israel really is the endgame. They just can't work
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  Speaker 5: out exactly how to finish this conflict, even though ironically,
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  Speaker 5: as far as militarily go, they've actually won it.
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  Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is the Australian's chief international correspondent. That story
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  Speaker 1: is developing quickly and you can read the latest twenty
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  Speaker 1: four to seven at the Australian dot com dot au