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Diary of a (Maybe) Retired Pastor

Tag: Gaza

  • A New Age Has Dawned

    mayberetiredpastor

    A New Age Has Dawned

    7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore.

    Revelation 20:7-8 New Testament, The Bible.

    The Millennium  is the period of the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ on earth in the book of Revelation of the Bible. It comes prior to a final explosion of Satan’s rule before the New Creation is inaugurated. Exactly how this is to be understood in actual historical time is much debated. In the New Testament, time has two forms: chronos time which corresponds to measured, chronological time, and kairos time which measures teleological significance. The Millennium seems to be this second kind of time (although the church holds a variety of understandings of it) in which there is a period of time (not necessarily 1000 chronological years)  in which the rule of Christ can be seen to be hold sway which then gives way to a period when Satan is allowed to exercise power. We seem to have entered just such a transition from the Millennial rule of Christ to the rule of Satan.

    The invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the savage war against the Palestinians by Israel are remarkable not only because of the suffering they inflict on ordinary people but because of the unashamed lying by the Russian and Israeli authorities. Even as the world can see with its own eyes through nightly news reports the unjust suffering inflicted by the Israelis and Russians so they categorically deny and lie without shame as they propagate their “truth” to the world. This leaves many open-mouthed and astonished at their sheer brazenness. The world wonders how they can get away with it.  

    The two world wars of the 20th century led to the establishment of an international framework of conventions and laws whose aim was to prevent not only war but the kinds of atrocities that were perpetrated by evil men in the name of national interest.   Institutions such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice were established so that law in the widest sense (such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions) would govern the affairs of the world and not the whims of megalomaniacs. National leaders were no longer immune from accountability but were subject to international law. But, as with all law and convention, these are only as effective as the enforcement that is applied and in the present time those with the power to enforce have no interest in doing so and, in fact, seek to undermine that international order at every turn.

    The United States is the one power in the world capable of enforcing the international order of the 20th. century but, with the election of President Trump in 2016 and then his re-election in 2024 the United States chose to turn away from that international order and usher in a new age. President Trump governs through lies and falsehood and has no interest in the international order of the preceding century. His rise to power has ushered in a new age where the truth is irrelevant and falsehood is unashamedly lauded and enables Putin and Netanyahu. It is the age when the Father of Lies – Satan himself – rules (1).

    A significant part of President Trump’s support has come from conservative Christians in the American church. It is this very part of the church that would most avidly affirm that they seek the rule of Christ and the Millennium in history, and yet it is their actions that have brought an end to the, arguably, Millennial rule of Christ of the 20th century and the freeing of Satan from his chains in the 21st. century.  The Bible is, of course, a book of hope and promise, and while Revelation predicts the resurgence of Satan it also promises the end of his power. It also promises judgment when all will be judged according to their deeds and justice will be enacted. The irony that it is conservative Christians that have enabled the unleashing of Satan’s rule is not lost in the Bible. All will be judged (2).

    1. John 8:44, New Testament, The Bible
    2. Revelation 20:7-15, New Testament, The Bible

  • Is The UK State Biased Against Palestine?

    mayberetiredpastor

    Is The UK State Biased Against Palestine?

    You shall not render an unjust judgement; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbour.

    Leviticus 19:15. Old Testament, The Bible

    The reactions of the Home Secretary (Yvette Cooper), the Prime Minister and the BBC Governors to the Gaza-related protests by Palestine Action and Bob Vylan give cause for concern. Palestine Action made the headlines by successfully breaking into an RAF Airbase and spray-painting  an Hercules aircraft engine. Yvette Cooper’s reaction was to immediately proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation (1). Shortly after, Bob Vylan, during his set at Glastonbury Festival, led the audience in chants denouncing the Israel Defence Force, an act that the Prime Minister then denounced publicly as “appalling hate speech” (2) and which led to furore in the BBC with the result that the video was removed from the BBC iPlayer and a number of senior staff suspended (3).

    As a protest group, Palestine Action appears to have conducted several high profile acts of vandalism against a number of companies and establishments whose activities they feel support the Israeli war in Gaza. Their purpose appears to be to push the UK government into reducing support of Israel’s military. They have apparently cost some companies large amounts of money to repair the damage done.   On this last occasion they have succeeded in seriously embarrassing the government and the RAF. But does this warrant their proscription as a terrorist organisation? Surely the criminal law is sufficient to address serious damage without proscribing it as terrorist activity? It does seem that their activities as a protest group have been just too effective for the government (and perhaps the targets) to stomach and so the Home Secretary has chosen to define them as a terrorist group to silence them.

    As many have pointed out (see e.g. 4), Bob Vylan’s words must be set alongside the actual deeds of the IDF  in Gaza where appalling acts, if not actual war crimes, have clearly been committed and continue to be committed on a daily basis and yet the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary remain questionably muted about the latter while full of righteous indignation concerning the former and Palestine Action. Where is the impartiality and balance?

    It is difficult to escape the suspicion that our government institutions are infected by an entrenched bias towards Israel and against Gaza and Palestine. One wishes, as many do I’m sure, for a more genuinely even-handed, and courageous government, unafraid of the power of others – whether great or small. The Prime Minister, self-confessedly is not a person of religious faith, but I assure him that he does and will stand before a Judge who will hold great and small to account.    

    1. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-23/debates/25062337000014/PalestineActionProscription   acc. 13.7.25 14:18
    2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c33514nryy1o   acc. 13.7.25 14:35
    3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjkmlj1348o   acc. 13.7.25 14:53
    4. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BA75C8hAu/ 

  • The Promised Land Forever?

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Promised Land Forever?

    The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.

    Jeremiah 18:1-8, Old Testament, The Bible

    According to a recent poll, 82% of Israelis are in favour of expelling the Palestinians from Gaza (1). The validity of the poll is disputed but there can be no doubt that a significant fraction of Israeli opinion is in favour of not only the expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza but also from the West Bank. The reasons for this may be mixed but it is clear that for many in Israel, and especially the Israeli government, it is a theological conviction – as one Israeli woman put it in a recent BBC interview, “God gave us this land” (see e.g. 2). But they are not alone in  holding this belief, it is a view held by some Christians outside of Israel whose attitude is that Israel is justified in anything it does to “recover” the lands given to it by God.

    Such a belief is based on a profoundly faulty understanding of the Bible. The promises of God are considered, in this belief, as unilateral and unchangeable, but the relationship between God and His people is actually defined by covenant. God’s promises to His people are covenant promises. There are two sides to a covenant, on one side, God promises to uphold His obligations provided that the other side – His people – uphold theirs. Since God is faithful and does not change, the question  is will the people be faithful and uphold theirs? The whole history of the people of Israel in the Bible is that they consistently fail to do so, and as a result, they lose their privileges under the covenant. God’s graciousness is evidenced by the fact that He repeatedly offers the people a way back.

    The prophets in the Bible constantly rail against the people of God warning of their many failures and the consequences if they fail to repent and keep the covenant. The quotation above from the prophet Jeremiah is one such warning. Here, the famous example of a potter and how the potter shapes and decides the fate of a piece of pottery is used to drive home the point that God can and will punish the people if they fail to keep the provisions of the covenant. Jeremiah’s prophecy is particularly relevant to the question of the “Promised Land” because he explicitly warns that the land will be taken away from the people which is exactly what happens with the Babylonian conquest.

    For those holding a theological view of the ownership of Gaza and the West Bank, the unbridled vengeance carried out by the Israeli government since the Hamas attack and the deliberate programme of ethnic cleansing places them far outside the covenant and thus beyond the privileges of the covenant. The covenant demands better of the people of God.

    Since Jesus Christ, the only way back to the covenant is to recognise that He is the Son of God and own Him as Lord and Saviour (3).  And, in the renewed covenant, the Promised Land can now be seen as merely a pre-figuring of the true Kingdom which comes only with the new creation. There is nothing special about the patch of land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean, no special rules apply, and certainly no difference in the ethical and moral treatment of the land and its people.

    1. “Yes to Transfer”, Haaretz, 28th. May, 2025
    2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d1j3v2y3mo
    3. Gospel of John, 3:18, New Testament, The Bible

  • Judgement Comes

    mayberetiredpastor

    Judgement Comes

    13 For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. 14 They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace. 15 They acted shamefully, they committed abomination; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord.

    Jeremiah 6:13-15, Old Testament, The Bible

    37 Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

    Matthew 5:37, New Testament, The Bible.

    Apart from a few initial expressions of outrage and astonishment there seems to be little continuing outrage expressed at President Trump’s proposals for Gaza. Although many do object and deride the proposals it is in terms of what is practical and possible. The proposal to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza and turn it into a playground for the rich is being given legitimacy. Gone is the language of “ethnic cleansing”. Yet, this would be the clearest example of ethnic cleansing since World War II and it would be perpetrated by an American President with the agreement and delight of a Jewish Prime Minister and his government.  There seems to be an awful irony here.

    It gives us a clear insight into the moral framework of Trump and his administration: the world is seen entirely through the lens of the real estate developer and a rather shady one at that! Everything is up for grabs to the one who has enough market muscle to make it their own. Hence, Putin will have his way and annexe a huge portion of Eastern Ukraine and Ukraine will have no say in the matter, in fact, Ukraine will have to give up its mineral wealth to the US as well or face obliteration!

    Returning to Gaza, it is noticeable that the proposal for removing the Palestinians does not include an offer by the US to give refuge in the US, rather they are to be taken-in by Egypt and Jordan. Thankfully, Egypt and Jordan have refused to take part in this charade.

    With the ascendancy of Trump we have truly entered into a great moral darkness. It is more important than ever that truth be spoken so that the light can shine in the darkness. The proposal to remove all the Palestinians from Gaza must be named and condemned for what it is – ethnic cleansing – and it must not be sanitised and legitimised by describing it as anything else. There is a judgement that is coming and it will not deal lightly with those who oppress the widow and the orphan or who teach that good is bad and bad is good.

  • Rachel Wept

    mayberetiredpastor

    Rachel Wept

    When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

    18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
        wailing and loud lamentation,
    Rachel weeping for her children;
        she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

    Matthew 2:16-18 New Testament, The Bible.

    Matthew’s Nativity account contains the harrowing account of the massacre of the innocents, the result of the actions of a ruthless political leader. Mary and Joseph had to flee with Jesus to escape Herod’s persecution and, as many a sermon has pointed out, Jesus began life as a refugee.

    Herod the Great, the politician in question, was a ruthless and uncompromising Jewish ruler. The killing of unnumbered young children mattered not the least to him in  the pursuit of his political objectives. That was twenty centuries ago. Today, the land is again ruled by a ruthless and uncompromising Jewish ruler whose actions are orders of magnitude greater in ruthlessness than Herod’s. And once again the words of the prophet Jeremiah can be aptly quoted – Rachel indeed weeps once more for her children as Prime Minister Netanyahu pursues his political objectives with little, if any, regard for the price paid by thousands of innocent families.

    His excuse is that it is a matter of self-defence, and in this he has been supported by many we would have hoped would judge better, arguing that the right to self-defence trumps all other concerns. Others do not see it in the same way and are appalled at the tragedy and loss inflicted on innocent families. Regardless, whatever human courts might say there is one court which no ruler, no government can avoid. Against the rulings of this court there is no appeal.

    The Bible declares that vengeance must be limited to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Exodus 21:23-25) a limit that has been contemptuously breached by the Netanyahu government. More critically, it is clear that, by making His Son share in the tragedy of the massacre of the innocents, God has declared in favour of the innocent and the persecuted.

    Jeremiah’s prophecy is simultaneously a word of comfort and promise to those who have suffered, and, a divine judgement against those whose deeds have poured out tragedy on the lives of those who weep. While Netanyahu’s government may hold human courts in contempt they will be held accountable to the one court that matters: they will each, individually and corporately, have to give account before God Himself.   

    As for you mothers who weep, your cries have been heard; the Lord God Almighty Himself will hold your persecutors to account.

  • The Statue of Ozymandias

    mayberetiredpastor

    The Statue of Ozymandias

    4 I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. 5 The Lord your God will push them back before you, and drive them out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God promised you.

    Joshua 23:4-5

    The last year has made it evident that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is driven by the belief that the rightful borders of modern Israel are the borders of ancient Israel (variously defined in the Old Testament). They consider it not merely a matter of historical inheritance but the promise of God Himself. It is theirs by divine right. Consequently, ceasefire negotiations have merely been a smokescreen behind which the Israeli government can complete its effective annexation of Gaza. It is the reason why the return of the hostages has never been a major priority and why Israeli settlers in the West Bank are brazenly encroaching on Palestinian lands. It is the reason why the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has been able to operate a ruthless campaign of mass civilian casualties even while claiming it is minimising civilian casualties (an essentially meaningless claim). The ethical framework of divine right provides the moral justification and moral imperative – what they are doing is not only justifiable, it is holy.

    The UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has urged the UN Security Council this week to insist on a ceasefire by Israel, but western leaders, in particular, have not understood that conventional international responses will be ineffective because the Israeli government is no longer operating within the same political framework. Even if not stated in so many words, Netanyahu and his government are engaged in an holy enterprise.

    Israel is no longer talking the same language as the US or the West.  As a result, Israel is deaf to the blandishments of the West, which leaves only coercive actions – refusing to supply military equipment to Israel, economic sanctions – or hand-wringing. Netanyahu’s government has, probably rightly, judged that the latter is what will happen.

    Those who are religiously inclined in the West (and many western leaders, especially in the US, profess to be so inclined) may well struggle with what appears to be clearly stated in the Christian Bible concerning the borders of Israel. But the Christian Bible is not just the Old Testament, it is also, and primarily, the New Testament, and with the New Testament there came a hermeneutical shift of tectonic proportions initiated by Jesus Himself. Jesus read the Old Testament so differently from His contemporaries that it caused huge tension between Himself and the Jewish authorities. For the New Testament, Israel is so much more than borders on a map. Indeed, political borders are irrelevant. The Israel of the New Testament is a people knowing no borders, it is unbounded, encompassing peoples from every nation and language having no geographical limit. The promise of God in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament in an astonishing way beyond any mortal anticipation, and just as the Old Testament states, God does it Himself. The borders that Netanyahu and his government are pursuing are a mirage in the sands of history, no more holy than the statue of Ozymandias.  

  • Interesting Times

    mayberetiredpastor

    Interesting Times

    20 “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. 21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

    Mark 13:20-22, The New Testament

    We, unfortunately, live in interesting times as the apocryphal Chinese curse goes (1). For all their appeal to a mythical  “Great Britain” that used to be, the far right of contemporary politics is steadily eroding the ethical and moral underpinnings of the post-World War II  consensus that never again should the horrors of Belsen and Auschwitz, and the ideologies and policies leading to them, be seen. Out of that conviction the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, closely followed by the European Declaration of Human Rights, was born. Giving effect to these declarations the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) were established. But we see senior Conservative politicians openly campaigning to repudiate the ECHR so that we can treat desperate migrants in any way we wish, unconstrained by the very laws that Britain itself helped to establish after the war. The cry is that we as a nation should be able to determine what is right and what is wrong without interference by an outside body (the irony is completely lost on the Far Right!). Two generations on from those who marched in horror into Belsen this generation of politicians has forgotten that countries can go badly wrong and bodies such as the ECHR were established to prevent that from happening.

    This drifting away from the ethical and moral anchors of the post-War years is no more clearly illustrated than by the decision of the Prime Minister to absent himself from the main D-Day Landings event for world leaders.  I feel sure it wasn’t deliberately intended as a signal that Britain was now distancing itself from those anchors, but it demonstrates the relative importance in his mind, and of the advisors around him, of that post-War consensus.

    Why does this matter? If one of the major architects of the post-War consensus is seen to be now walking away from that consensus and detaching itself from the moral and ethical anchors of that consensus then others will feel able to do the same. The result is that Putin felt able to invade Ukraine and once again wage war on European soil after decades of peace. It means that Israel has been able to inflict huge suffering on civilians in Gaza with impunity in its pursuit of the destruction of Hamas. It means that the moral force of the EHCR and the ICC is necessarily weakened. Nations and their governments feel free to behave as they please without accountability of any kind.

    It is the greatest irony that the nation that had a central role in overturning the worldwide norm that slavery was simply a regrettable fact of life, and which was a major architect of the system that holds governments and nations to account for their actions  should be turning its back on the latter. These two are the diamonds in the history of Britain that could justify the epithet “Great” as the politicians of the right like to use it, and yet they are seeking to consign at least one of them to the rubbish heap of history!

    Britain has not yet broken entirely with the consensus it helped to establish after the Second World War, but one wonders if, after this General Election, the new government will seek to repair Britain’s commitment to that consensus or whether the rot which has set-in under the outgoing Conservative government will be allowed to continue. Will we hold to the ethical and moral anchors of the post-War years or will we yield to the Siren calls of those who would unleash our baser instincts?

    1. The supposed Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times” appears to have no basis in fact, or, at least, there is no record of such a curse that has been found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times acc. 27 Jun 2024 16:04

  • I believe the IDF

    mayberetiredpastor

    I believe the IDF

    I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but when the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) needs to put up a spokesman to respond to the latest criticisms of its actions they put up a senior officer (I think he’s a colonel, but I may be wrong) who is very suave, urbane, and, well, elegant!  His voice is cultured, steady and measured. He is persuasive. And when he says that any particular action has been very carefully considered and meticulously planned to minimise civilian losses, I believe him!

    I am quite sure that the IDF really does plan carefully and meticulously, especially with regard to minimising civilian casualties. But, of course, that is essentially meaningless! How many is “minimal”? It could be any number you want, it just depends on what you find acceptable.  So, an IDF planning session, having received intelligence that there is an Hamas militant living in an apartment on the 6th floor  of a 12 story apartment block, will, presumably, be asking how can that operative be eliminated and at what cost? Primary concern after elimination of target is minimising IDF losses – simple, drop a bomb. What about civilian casualties? Well, to ensure 100% elimination we need to destroy the whole block resulting in 100% civilian casualties, but we can ensure 90% success of elimination and cut civilian casualties to 60%, that’s a 40% reduction in civilian casualties!

    That’s all made-up , of course, but I’m quite sure that the IDF carefully plans and estimates success and casualties in this kind of way so that the very impressive IDF spokesperson can speak with, for him, a clear conscience. But we can measure what the IDF means by minimising civilian casualties and other collateral damage by simply looking at the overall numbers. Since the IDF offensive began, around 30,000 civilians have been killed, 80% (1.7 million) of the population has been displaced, and half of all buildings in Gaza’s cities have been reduced to rubble1 . To the IDF, this represents minimal civilian casualties and collateral damage! To many of the rest of us, it is a massacre. Full marks to David Cameron for being one of the few senior Western leaders to condemn it explicitly as “too many”2 .

    1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68006607 acc. 26/2/24

    2 https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/78/foreign-affairs-committee/news/199981/foreign-secretary-writes-to-fac-on-the-planned-israeli-offensive-in-rafah-and-uk-arms-exports-to-israel/ acc. 26/2/24

  • What on Earth is Israel Up to?

    mayberetiredpastor

    What on Earth is Israel Up to?

    I don’t understand what the Israeli government is up to. Last week, IDF Special Forces triumphantly trumpeted the rescue of two Israeli hostages. That is, indeed, good news for the hostages and their families.  But, in the process, an entire hospital was put out of action for the foreseeable future and hundreds of patients had to be evacuated. The total number of hostages rescued by the IDF is 3. If I remember correctly, in the whole of this period since the Hamas atrocity, the IDF has managed to kill 3 Israeli hostages by accident, and 2 others (if we believe Hamas sources) died as collateral damage from one of their own bombing attacks (apparently, a total of 11 bodies have been returned1) . Rather crudely put, that seems like a score line of 3 rescues and 16 killed (at worst) or 3 rescues and 5 killed (at best) by IDF action. Regardless, it seems that we are dealing with bottom line negative numbers in terms of freeing hostages! And that’s after reducing most of Gaza to rubble and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians. In contrast, negotiation has managed to repatriate a total of 78 Israelis, 23 Thais and 1 Filipino2 – 102 people. It seems that further negotiations in Paris are close to seeing a further 30 – 40 hostages being released3. The IDF appears to be hopelessly inefficient at repatriating hostages, so why bother?

    Of course, the Israeli government has never stated (I think) that the deployment of the IDF was to rescue the hostages – a fact that the hostage families seemed to have quickly realised when they marched on the Knesset to demand the rescue of their loved ones. The deployment was to ensure the eradication of Hamas. Even so, comprehension struggles. How, exactly, does reducing most of Gaza to rubble, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and generating worldwide opprobrium against Israel eradicate something as nebulous as Hamas? As I understand it, its main organs lie outside of Gaza in any case! And even if the IDF were able to kill every single Hamas “operative” currently in Gaza, the actions of the IDF has already sown the seeds of the next generation of Hamas fighters. In the next generation, there will still be no peace for Israel.

    But there is one explanation that makes a kind of sense. In an early BBC interview4, a member of the Israeli Knesset candidly affirmed that the aim was to “encourage” the Palestinians to leave Gaza. This makes sense of the mass destruction, the mass killing, the throttling of energy and supplies, and the forced migration within Gaza. If the aim is that the Palestinians leave Gaza en masse so that it can be occupied by Israel then the IDF appear to be doing an effective job. Of course, they would be committing  a few war crimes and, perhaps, genocide along the way, but no one really cares about that, do they?

    1 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-february-24-2024/#liveblog-entry-3231521 acc. 15.40 24/2/24

    2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67477240 acc. 15:49 24/2/24

    3 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-source-deal-sees-6-week-truce-200-300-prisoners-in-exchange-for-35-40-hostages/ acc. 15:55 24/2/24

    4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001t18r/hardtalk-simcha-rothman-member-of-the-israeli-knesset-religious-zionism-party +13:23 mins ;  acc. 17:41 24/2/24