Dale talks about the Israel / Gaza ceasefire announcement with assistant editor, Jane Bradley
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Thursday.
00:04My name is Dale Miller.
00:05I'm deputy editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by assistant editor,
00:09Jane Bradley.
00:10Jane, well, we're going to talk about the front page of today's Scotsman
00:14effectively, which was a big story that developed from just before 5pm
00:20yesterday and overnight.
00:22This is a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas involving the Gaza
00:29Strip. We know that this deadly, devastating war has dragged on for 15
00:34months now.
00:35It was linked back to an event on October 7th, 2023, and it's had
00:41innumerable impact on the people there.
00:43But also there have been British citizens who have lost their lives as part of this
00:48conflict as well, which Sir Keir Starmer addressed in his own statement.
00:53Jane, you, over the past couple of years, had covered this conflict a fair
00:57bit. Can you just talk us through how significant this is and also how
01:04tenuous it may be?
01:06Do we think the ceasefire will actually hold or not?
01:09Yeah, I mean, absolutely.
01:10That's the key.
01:11We don't even know whether it is absolutely going to be agreed.
01:15I mean, obviously, at the point that we put that front page together last
01:18night, it was looking like it was agreed.
01:21Everyone was saying Hamas and Israel have agreed the ceasefire.
01:25But this morning, there has been a bit of a hiccup in that Benjamin Netanyahu
01:30has said that the Israeli cabinet is not yet going to agree it because it's
01:35accused Hamas of going back on parts of the agreement in an attempt to, what
01:39it says, extort last minute concessions.
01:41It's not said what those concessions are, but the finer detail of this does
01:45not seem to have been agreed yet.
01:47Hopefully, this will just be a blip and we will be looking at the ceasefire
01:50beginning on Sunday as planned.
01:53And we're hoping that that will be announced later today.
01:55But yes, it's been such a long time coming.
01:57I think so many people can't believe that it is potentially actually going to happen.
02:02The problem with the ceasefire is it is starting on Sunday, but fighting is
02:06still going on as we speak.
02:08You know, a number of people, I think it's about 40, have already been killed
02:11in the last 24 hours.
02:12So, you know, it's a very strange situation to be in.
02:15We're talking about a ceasefire about to happen when there is still conflict
02:19going on.
02:20So for the people of Gaza, it must feel like something that is very, very welcome,
02:24but it must feel like they cannot count the chickens yet.
02:27Jane, the human toll on the ground has been pretty horrific in the amount of
02:31people displaced from charities.
02:33It was interesting to hear charities saying, OK, the ceasefire is going through.
02:39You know, it only just starts.
02:40We've had so much trouble getting aid to these people.
02:43But now the ceasefire goes through, we'll need a lot more aid than we've been
02:47providing. That really stood out for me.
02:49Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can just look at the pictures of Gaza over the last
02:53year and a half. I mean, the devastation is huge.
02:57I mean, there is almost no infrastructure left.
03:00The vast, vast majority of the population are living in refugee camps.
03:03They're living in temporary structures.
03:05This is not something where a ceasefire is going to start on Sunday and life is
03:07going to get back to normal at all.
03:09It just can't. There is going to be years, if not decades, of rebuilding that needs
03:14to be done, even if the ceasefire holds.
03:16And Jane, it should be a side note, it's probably not going to be, but two men in
03:21the US, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, they both seem to be, I won't use the word
03:26bickering, but positioning themselves as the ones that helped broker this deal.
03:30Biden says it follows a framework that he outlined in late May.
03:34And Donald Trump, whose envoy, I think, or an envoy attached to him, was involved in
03:39some late negotiations, he's claiming this is all because of him.
03:43He's obviously inaugurated on Monday.
03:46How important do you think this is to the Trump administration that they can claim an
03:50early win in the global front?
03:53I mean, for Trump, this is absolutely, absolutely key.
03:57I mean, he wants to be seen as the man that has not even actually come into power yet.
04:00As you say, his inauguration is on Monday.
04:02So we're a few days away from that.
04:03But he is the president-elect.
04:04He sent his Middle Eastern envoy over to Israel and into the Middle East to negotiate
04:11this deal or to be involved in negotiating the deal.
04:13How much involvement either Biden's team or Trump's team have had, you know, compared
04:18to each other, we don't know, you know, unless you're there inside the negotiations, you
04:22can't tell.
04:23But yes, he wants to be able to say, even before I became president, I sorted out peace
04:28in the Middle East.
04:30But it is, I mean, it's difficult to tell exactly who's been involved in this and who
04:36has actually got the deal brokered.
04:38Obviously, talks have been going on off and on over the past 15 months.
04:43And there's been times when it's looked like there might be an agreement reached and then
04:46that's gone back.
04:47But this is looking like it's the closest we've been so far.
04:50And Jane, another conflict.
04:52It seems funny to say that we seem to even have partially forgotten about it a bit in
04:56the context of Israel, but Ukraine and Russia.
04:59Sir Keith Starmer in Kyiv today, likely it was pre-planned.
05:04These things don't just get arranged overnight.
05:07So he's there, like Boris Johnson, he's been a semi-regular visitor.
05:13What do you think any outcome in Israel actually means for the war in Ukraine?
05:18Does it help the situation?
05:19Does it hinder or make no difference whatsoever?
05:22I mean, it's difficult to say.
05:24I mean, both are very different conflicts.
05:26They are happening for very different reasons, but, well, similar reasons in some ways, you
05:32could argue.
05:33But it's difficult to say what difference it'll make.
05:35I mean, obviously, the more conflicts that are going on, the more people's attention
05:40is diluted, essentially.
05:41I mean, focus was hugely on Ukraine.
05:44And then when the Gaza situation began, everybody had to turn their attentions away to a certain
05:49extent and look at the absolute devastation that was going on there.
05:52I suppose if things start to improve in Gaza, as I say, that's going to be actual improvements
05:57for people in Gaza.
05:58It's going to take a very, very long time.
06:00But as things start to improve, people may turn their attention back to Ukraine again.
06:04I know Vladimir Zelensky said people have forgotten about Ukraine.
06:08People are not as focused on it as they were.
06:12We're talking nearly three years into the conflict there.
06:14So it's a difficult one to keep in the headlines, to keep on people's radar.
06:19But, yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, what
06:23that does mean for the public perception of Ukraine and the situation for people there.
06:28I mean, I expect the situation in both areas to continue to have an influence on UK and
06:34Scottish politics and what our politicians have to say around the issues.
06:37We know that it has been a major focus over the past couple of years.
06:42You can read all the latest by visiting Scotsman.com or picking up a copy of the paper tomorrow.
06:49Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, ex Blue Sky.
06:53And Jane, thank you to you and thank you to everyone for joining us.