but as the humanitarian catastrophe deepens in gaza, so too does pressure on israel to pause, if not halt, the offensive. my guest is mustafa barghouti, a palestinian doctor and co—founder of the palestinian national initiative. when this terrible round of violence does eventually end, what then for the palestinian people? mustafa barghouti in ramallah,

welcome to hardtalk. thank you. good to be with you again, stephen. it's good to talk to you. you, of course, are a medical doctor. you have many colleagues in gaza. communication is very difficult. but does it seem to you right now that there is any semblance of a functioning medical and humanitarian system left inside gaza? no, the situation in gaza is absolutely drastic. it's a huge humanitarian crisis because not only of the israeli siege on gaza, but also of this terrible bombardment. we've lost up to now more than 10,000 people who were killed by israeli air strikes and bombardment. we've lost 6,000 children, 6,000 children, stephen. nothing can justify that. but on top of that, israel is depriving gaza from fuel, from electricity, from food, from water and from medications.

we have 17 medical teams working there around the clock. they do their best, but they tell me that the situation is intolerable. first of all, we have more than 130 children in incubators who could die at any moment because of lack of electricity. we have about 1,130 people in need for kidney dialysis, and probably some of them have already died because there is no dialysis for them. 32 children of those could die also. i was told by our teams that they had to conduct something they never thought they would ever do, which is to do surgical operations without anaesthesia. they had to operate on people on staircases because of the huge number of people injured and killed. we're talking about 37,000 people in one month between being killed or injured, and about 27,000 of them are injured who cannot receive proper treatment because of lack of oxygen,

lack of electricity. and israel continues to say it will not stop their bombardment and they will not allow a single drop of fuel to these hospitals. already, 16 of our hospitals in gaza stopped working because of lack of fuel. and what you see here is a combination of genocide, collective punishment and an act of ethnic cleansing, where1.4 million people have been forced out of their homes and were forced to evict their homes. 50%... dr barghouti, you lay out what is happening. you know very well that israel entirely refutes your characterisation of what it is doing. as far as israel is concerned, this is an act of self—defence following the murderous assault of october 7th. but there's one particular point i want to ask you again. mindful of your medical background and your appreciation of how dire the situation is in gaza today, benjamin netanyahu said a couple of days ago,

the only circumstance in which israel will contemplate a lull, a pause in its military operation in gaza is if hamas agrees to unconditionally release the more than 200 hostages it is holding. as a doctor, would you say to hamas today, release those people to give the people of gaza a chance? well, look, i don't believe netanyahu. i think netanyahu is not only a war criminal today, but also a pathological liar, and he's lying again. his real goal is not to release the prisoners. his real goal is really to ethnically cleanse all of the people in gaza, and i can prove that. but hamas has already declared that they are ready to release the 50 civilians and those with dual nationality immediately if israel stops attacking,

if there is a ceasefire. and then i think after the ceasefire, there can be exchange of prisoners because it is important for the audience to know that israel is withholding already 5,300 palestinian prisoners and they added to them, since the 7th of october, 2,000...2,200 more palestinians imprisoned, including 200 children. i think you can call these 200 palestinian children in israeli jails as also hostages. so what we need is exchange of prisoners so that all israeli prisoners can come home safely and palestinian prisoners as well can go home. and some of them have been in israeli jails for 44 years. many of them are under the so—called administrative detention, which means they are in jail without knowing why. but let me say that netanyahu, in my opinion, doesn't care

about israeli prisoners, and because of that, he continues the bombardment, which has already killed 60 israeli prisoners. why doesn't he stop? why can't we have a ceasefire so this atrocity could stop, so the killing of children would stop and the killing of women would stop? i note that you call them prisoners, not hostages. you essentially accept hamas�*s figures when it comes to the casualties, and there's no way the rest of us can check. but those are the figures that come out of the hamas—run health ministry. ijust wonder, as the co—founder of the palestinian national initiative, a man who wanted to move beyond the old politics dominated by fatah and hamas in the palestinian territories, do you reach out to hamas today? do you have any contact with them since october 7th? we don't have direct contact, but we've expressed our views and we were listened to. when...a stupid mistake was made by somebody declaring that

hostages will be killed, we immediately interacted and expressed our opinion that this is unacceptable, and they retracted from that, which is good. but more than that, we also expressed our opinion that all civilians must be released and they responded positively. they say they are ready to release all the civilian prisoners. all they need is immediate ceasefire. but ijust wonder... and i don't understand, and by the way, stephen, just to clarify about the issue of figures, mr biden, the president of the united states, in my opinion, hurt his credibility by repeating the lie of netanyahu, who said that the numbers are incorrect. the ministry of health has issued a statement with the names of every victim and their id number and their birth date. so this is... these are correct numbers, when we speak about 10,000 palestinians killed and more than six... and about 4,000 recorded palestinian...

4,800, actually, recorded palestinian children killed. and there are 1,200 missing. yes. so the figures are absolutely correct. i'm interested, you will have seen, just as i did, that a few days ago, ghazi hamad, a very important spokesman for hamas in lebanon, he said this, referring to october 7th and what hamas calls the "al—aqsa flood" operation. he said, "that was just the first. "we know we're going to have to pay a price. "we're ready to pay it. we are a nation of martyrs. "we're proud to sacrifice martyrs." he said, "we are the victims of occupation "and therefore nobody can blame us for the things we do, "whether it be october 7th, october 10th, "or 0ctober1 million. "everything we do is justified." what do you...? you're not hamas. what do you make of statements like that made many days after the barbaric acts we saw on october 7th? stephen, you know me.

you know me as an advocate of nonviolence. i believe that nonviolence is the best way of achieving our goals. but i believe in our right to resist and struggle for our rights to be free from occupation, to be free from the system of apartheid. this history... but with respect, this is not resistance. iam responding... this is war crimes. this is... if you allow me to continue, please. look, i don't want any palestinian or israeli killed, but the facts are the facts today. the facts are that history did not start on october 7th, and everything we've seen is a result of a continuous israeli military occupation of palestinian lands since 56 years. 70% of the people of gaza are refugees who were ethnically cleansed by israel in 1948, and these refugees were attacked one time after the other.

six wars, israel has conducted... actually, seven wars on these refugees in gaza. for how long and what would the war bring us? it's there because the palestinian issue was never resolved. we thought we will have a palestinian state, and the world turned their back to us. we thought that peaceful negotiations will bring us to a solution, and the world did not do anything. they allowed israel to be impunitive. to be above international law. they allowed israel to conduct not only the longest military occupation in human his... in modern history, but also to establish a system of apartheid. and now palestinians are attacked not only in gaza, but also in the west bank. in the west bank... i, yeah... ..we already had 154 palestinians killed by israeli settlers and israeli army. this is an attack... dr barghouti, i want to talk to you more about the west bank, because you're sitting in the west bank. butjust to finish on this thought about gaza, because gaza is where hundreds of thousands of civilians are suffering right now, i want one more time to ask you what you can say to me

about hamas — an organisation which, of course, in countries like the uk is proscribed as a terrorist organisation — but what you can say about a group which, according to gershon baskin, who i believe you know, he's a long—time peace activist in israel who has over years developed a dialogue with hamas, which is something in israel hugely controversial, he has said in an open letterjust a couple of days ago, he said he can no longer contemplate talking to his former contacts in hamas. and he said directly to them, he said, "you built tunnels "and bunkers for your own people, "but not one single shelter for the ordinary people of gaza. "you and your friends in hamas "have brought the palestinian cause back 75 years. "you and your friends are directly responsible "for the tragedy, the tragedy "that is happening to your people today." would you quarrel with any of that?

that is absolutely incorrect. well, mr baskin, i think, is totally wrong. he'sjust simply blaming the victims. you always blame the victims. the palestinians, are we to be... are we responsible for the fact that israel ethnically cleansed us in 1948, forcing 70% of the palestinian population out of palestine? are we responsible for the fact that because of the balfour declaration, israel initiated a system of colonial settler... of a settler colonial system, displacing palestinians? are we responsible for the fact that israel has occupied us? we are responsible for the fact that israeli army and israeli troops have killed up to now 120,000 palestinians? are we responsible for the fact that israel has put... has conducted 1 million arrests against the palestinian population, which is no more than 5 million people?

look, stephen, today what is happening is three war crimes — genocide, collective punishment and ethnic cleansing. anybody who supports the continuation of this war and does not support immediate ceasefire for the sake of both palestinians and israelis is simply not only complicit with the war crimes, but a participant in them. that is the real truth. you know that there is...was a child, the youngest child killed in gaza was one day old. his death certificate was issued before his birth certificate. let me tell you one more thing. the families now in gaza write the names of their children on their bodies, because in case they will be killed, they will be recognised. do you know that families now in gaza exchange their children? 0ne family gives a child to another family and they exchange them, just in case the whole family would be eliminated by israeli air strikes.

do you know that 966 palestinian families have already been erased completely from the civil record? what is happening is genocide. nobody should support that. you have... yet, dr barghouti, you... and you cannot blame palestinians for being oppressed by israelis. you've characterised what you believe is happening in gaza, and the statistics on the death toll are, to any mind, horrifying. but let us just talk about what is likely to be the end result here — a gaza which has been reduced to rubble, a huge death toll, and a gaza where hamas�*s capacity has been... well, the israelis say will be eliminated, it will certainly be massively degraded. what then? who is going to run gaza after the fighting finally stops? it's possible israel will keep its troops there. biden said reoccupation

would be "a big mistake." others in the us administration have said they want "an effective, revitalised palestinian authority "to have governance in gaza." you know... but many people don't regard the palestinian authority as credible. so i'm asking you as a third party politician, not tied to hamas, not tied to the pa or to fatah, what do you believe can be the outcome for gaza? very simple. first of all, gaza cannot be separated from the west bank. the whole world talks about a two—state solution. so, naturally, gaza should be part of the palestinian state, if the israelis, of course, agree to remove all their settlements and settlers from the west bank, which are illegal by international law. but let me also tell you, what is the real goal of netanyahu? i mean, what does he prepare for gaza? netanyahu had one plan, which is to evict everybody to egypt. he couldn't do that

because the egyptians said no, and the palestinians said, "we will not become refugees again, "and we will stay on our land." now, he is conducting a different kind, plan b, which is to evict everybody from the northern part of gaza and gaza city and then reoccupy them. he wanted to reoccupy gaza completely, but without the palestinian people there. this is the israeli... that's what many israeli officials are saying. this is the israeli solution, the final solution to gaza problem. what does netanyahu do? he knows that the number of palestinians today in gaza, west bank and in the 1948 areas are equal, if not a little bit more than israeli jewish people. his formula is to change this demographic situation by ethnic cleansing of all the population of gaza. so he cannot reoccupy gaza and keep the people there. he knows that. that's why his real plan is ethnic cleansing. and he doesn't want to bring neither the palestinian authority nor any other authority. and the israeli spokesperson

yesterday said... you've made the charges about ethnic cleansing several times, dr barghouti. i can assure you, we talk to israelis, we press israelisjust as we press palestinians on what comes next. so perhaps we need to move on, and i need to ask you about the west bank. you said earlier the violence in the west bank since october 7th spiralled. we've seen more than 100 palestinians killed since october 7th. ghassan khatib, who i'm sure you know, a former pa official, says that right now he believes that if there were to be an election tomorrow across the palestinian territories, including the west bank, hamas would sweep to power. i don't agree with that. now, you are a man of nonviolence. does it worry you that in the palestinian communities of the west bank right now, it seems that those who advocate violence are in the ascendant? no, you have to...

i don't agree with this estimation, by the way, because i know the polls and i've seen them and we had elections in 2021. we spoke about that before. we would have had a situation where neither hamas nor fatah would have had an absolute majority. we would have had a pluralistic, democratic system, and that's what we can have now... well, with the greatest of respect, if you read the polls like i do, you'll know that the credibility of the palestinian authority amongst the palestinian people who live in communities like yours in ramallah is at rock bottom. and we've seen the crowds on the streets in recent days criticising mahmoud abbas and the palestinian authority and demanding resistance in the style of hamas. and rightly, rightly so, because of his passivity. really? because of the passivity... excuse me. because of the passivity of the palestinian authority, which should have played a different kind of role, unifying all palestinians and insisting on our right of a democratic system. but let me tell you, don't mix up between people's support to their demand of freedom

and independence and to get rid of occupation and the system of apartheid, and the right to resist that in every possible way, and supporting a particular faction or another. people are fed up with occupation, fed up with oppression. even in the west bank, which is not governed by israel, as you know, what do we see? israeli settlers attacking us, terrorising us, shooting people and killing them. in one village called qusra, near nablus, the settlers came to the village, killed three people. then the israeli army came and killed a fourth person. next morning, when the people were having a funeral of these four people, the israeli settlers attacked again and killed two more people, a father and a son. the settlers there has already evicted 35 palestinian communities in the west bank from their villages. that's what we face. but i am sure...

..as a medical doctor, as a long—time humanitarian, as an advocate in politics of nonviolence, you do not want to see the west bank become another war front after gaza. and i'm just, on a personal level... unfortunately... hang on, i'm just going to ask you a very simple question. i'm going to quote you from a young man who is in the lions�* den armed militia in the west bank, who said after october 7th, this was part of a lions�* den statement, he said, "we call for a mass mobilisation in support "of the al—aqsa flood." that is the hamas operation. "we want people to take up arms immediately, prepare molotov "cocktails, knives and explosive devices. "don't wait for settlers to attack your village. "stand up as one man and attack them." that's. .. if you were faced with a young man like that today... yes, i understand... ..you, as a man of nonviolence and a medical doctor, how would you try to persuade that young man that violence was not the right answer?

i would be easily capable of convincing him with that, if i convince him that this... that nonviolence is another form of resistance. you see, the question here is that these young people are told you don't have the right to resist in principle. you have to submit to israeli occupation and submit to israeli oppression. and that's what they refuse, and i refuse. these young people have been deprived of any possibility of looking into the future. these young people have been left unemployed, oppressed, occupied. they've seen their fathers and uncles and grandfathers shot and killed by the israeli army in different occasions. they've seen the israeli settlers stealing their land and preventing them even from harvesting their olive trees. they've seen oppression after oppression. every country in the world that was colonised and was oppressed had the right to resist occupation

and resist apartheid. that's why the south african people... we're almost out of time, dr barghouti. i just want to ask you one more simple question. ..had the right to be free. honestly, it's important, and it's the last one i'm going to ask you. after everything that has happened since october 7th and everything you have described to me, can you, in all honesty, imagine a time when you and your children and your grandchildren will live in peaceful coexistence side by side withjewish israelis in either a one—state or a two—state solution? can you imagine it? absolutely, and i don't only imagine it. i believe in it, and i work for it. and i'll tell you again, as i said before, many times, israel has one of two options, either to evacuate their settlers from the west bank and allow palestinians to have a state of their own, including west bank, gaza and eastjerusalem,

and arrange for the return of the palestinian refugees, or we should live in one democratic state, we will have... where we all have equal rights thejewish and palestinian people. but what they want is to ethnically cleanse us and have palestine all by themselves. and that's the law that israel passed in the parliament... well... ..which says that the right of self—determination in the so—called eretz israel, meaning all of historical palestine, is exclusive forjewish people. we... that's the root problem which we have to deal with. if we remove that racism, we can easily live and coexist with each other as we did before the rise of the zionist movement. and with that, we have to end. dr mustafa barghouti, i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you so much.

hello there. after a day of sunshine and showers to start the week, it's not been quite so colourful overnight hasn't been as much solar activity. we have seen the northern lights earlier in the night though, across northern most parts of scotland and with clear skies by the morning in the north east of scotland, temperatures will be close to freezing. it will be a chilly start in the clearer skies in southeastern parts of england as well. tuesday, though, is going to be a day where we see some sunny spells. we see a scattering of mostly light showers in scotland, most of the showers in the far west. once again, there may be fewer showers than monday in northern ireland. and though showers will get blown eastwards across england and wales, very few are reaching east anglia and the south east of england on that westerly breeze

and temperatures very similar to monday. so 11 to 13 and that's near normal for the time of year. so leave the showers aside, though, i want to take you back into the atlantic. this was a satellite picture from earlier. this massive cloud really looming large there. and that's a band of cloud and rain and that's going to whittle its way eastwards overnight in time for wednesday morning. we're all getting the rain overnight and it may well have cleared away from northern ireland by wednesday morning. windy first thing through the irish sea. the heaviest rain is going to be over the hills of wales and western scotland, but the rain soon moves away from here in the morning following that band of rain as it chases away eastwards, we'll see plenty of sunshine, but then the showers come rattling in on that westerly wind and temperatures may be a bit lower actually in scotland, eight or nine degrees. now, there may not be too much rain in the south east of england, but the rain could linger into the afternoon. and we have seen quite a number of flood warnings across southern parts of england,

but river levels have been dropping. the number of flood warnings has been reducing as well. and after that spell of rain on wednesday, we'll get back into sunshine and showers really through the rest of the week as the weather front is out of the way and the rain band out of the way. we see the low pressure areas that are driving it, drifting down from the north west, bringing the showers, probably bringing some stronger winds as well on thursday, as you can see, the bulk of the showers in the west, but also driving through the english channel and some of those showers will move into eastern areas during the day. the showers could be heavy and there may well be some hail and thunder in there as well. and those temperatures as we head into thursday

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm mariko 0i. the headlines... the un secretary—general has warned that gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. hamas says more than 10,000 people have been killed, sparks fly as donald trump repeatedly clashes with a judge — while testifying in a new york fraud trial that threatens his property empire. australia's prime minister hails "significant progress"

in relations with china — after talks with president xi in beijing. and the lengths thailand is going to — to try and attract back their lost chinese tourists. welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. we begin with the war in gaza where the health ministry, which is run by hamas, is now reporting that more than 10,000 people have been killed in israeli strikes in the last four weeks. israel says it's targeting members of hamas, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by the uk and us, which is responsible for killing more than 1,400 people in southern israel, and seizing over 200 hostages,

on the 7th of october.