this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. israel has been waging a relentless war in gaza since hamas�*s assault on southern israel on october the 7th. the result: 2a,000 palestinians killed, including more than 10,000 children — that according to the hamas—run health ministry — and a humanitarian catastrophe engulfing the entire territory. my guest today is mark regev, chief spokesman for israel's prime minister. amid all the accusations of war

crimes and a charge of genocide, is israel's response to the trauma of october 7 serving its own best interests? mark regev injerusalem, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me, stephen. it's a pleasure to have you on the programme. as i said, we are more than 100 days into this war. you are inside the israeli government. is there any discussion inside your government as to whether the current strategy

you're pursuing in gaza is working? so, the overall strategy, the goal remains what it was at the beginning, to destroy hamas�*s military machine, to have our hostages released, returned home, and to end this terror enclave, to end hamas�*s rule in the gaza strip. now, the way to achieve that is obviously flexible and depending on battlefield conditions and other conditions, as well. so the tactics in achieving that goal can be fluid, but the goal remains the same — destroy hamas�*s military machine, end their rule of gaza, and get all the hostages home. do you think it's working? we've had great successes up until now. we did in november, as you know... what are those successes? in november, we got 110 hostages out. no—one at the beginning thought that would be possible, but the military pressure on hamas did facilitate, in the end,

a deal that got those people out. we're very thankful, of course, to the united states, to the egyptians, to the qatari government for helping mediate that deal. it was an important deal and those lives were saved because of that. we've also won the battleground. we've fundamentally destroyed hamas�*s military operations in the north. they can still operate, unfortunately, but we've destroyed their ability to organise, to operate in an organised manner. their brigades, their battalions have been obliterated. there are, of course, hamas fighters who remain who can still cause problems. but as an organised military structure, they have ceased to exist in the north and we will soon have the same successes in the centre and in the south. all right. well, we'll discuss what might happen next in a moment, but, just, you made a point there when i asked about whether the strategy

is working, turning first to the situation of the hostages, israelis and others taken into the gaza strip after october 7. as you say, some have been released. 130 or so have not been released. what we saw yesterday was the release of hamas video — it was hard to watch, it was deeply unpleasant — but what we saw was one israeli telling us that two other israelis had been killed by an idf air strike. it was clearly recorded under duress. nonetheless, the fact is those two hostages are now dead and many hostage families are saying to you and your government that the current strategy is entirely unhelpful and wrong when it comes to bringing those remaining people home. well, the first thing that has to be said is we all have to feel for the families of the hostages. i mean, their loved ones have been abducted and are being held now for, as you've said, more than 100 days, and we know what sort of violence hamas is capable of. we saw that on october

7th when they beheaded, when they burnt people alive, when they shot children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, where they raped and then murdered the women they raped, terrible crimes against humanity. and so, obviously, for the families of the hostages, it's terrible to think their loved ones are under these people, are being held by these murderers. you add to that the stories we heard from the hostages. if i may say so, and it's a difficult thing for you to have to acknowledge, but your government is ignoring the wishes of many hostage families. i'm just looking at the words of naama weinberg, who is a cousin of itay svirsky, who we now know is one of the two who died within the last 48 hours or so — at least, we now know of their deaths within the last 48 hours — and she has said this: "some of israel's military action "is directly endangering the hostages." she says, "hostages�* families inside israel feel "frustrated and suffocated."

is itjust the case that the netanyahu government is ignoring these words and the mass demonstrations that we've seen in tel aviv demanding that netanyahu prioritise the release of hostages and get to a truce, a ceasefire, to enable that to happen? we want to see the hostages come home and we're doing what we can to expedite that. and the only way to do that is to keep the military pressure on hamas. that's what worked in november. that can work injanuary. hamas is not going to suddenly release the people it's abducted because hamas has decided to become a humanitarian organisation that observes, you know, the rules of armed conflict. 0n the contrary, they are brutal murderers. they are killers, they are rapists. they are not concerned about humanitarian behaviour. and therefore, as president biden has said, they understand pressure. we believe that by beefing up the military pressure on hamas, that will expedite the release

of our people. any other plan willjust leave them in hostage...you know, abducted in gaza for i don't know how long. let me turn the focus to what is happening to the palestinian population in gaza. the hamas—run health ministry there now says the death toll has gone beyond 24,000, more than 10,000 children killed. foryou, as a human being, what does that mean to you? so, i don't want to see a single innocent civilian killed in gaza. but those numbers, as you correctly say, they came out of the hamas—controlled ministry of health and they don't...aren't independently verified. and hamas would have you believe that there are a lot of casualties, that there are civilians, that israel is killing children. that's the story that hamas wants. those figures, we have to presume they're exaggerated. but it's notjust the story that the hamas health

ministry is telling. it's a story that un agencies are telling, hospital doctors who've gone into gaza from outside are telling. this is a story which we see represented on video. we know this is happening. we know thousands and thousands of children have died. if you were to put this into an israeli context, that number, 24,000, in the same ratios, it would represent almost 100,000 israelis. do you ever think about that? i know that we're making a maximum effort to avoid seeing civilians get caught up in the crossfire. we want to hit and hit hamas hard. that's our goal. and i would think that a large proportion of that number, which i think is obviously inflated, but a large proportion are hamas terrorists that we want to hit and of the other terrorist groups. and when hamas wants you to believe they're all civilians or they're

predominantly civilians, that is, of course, fits in with their narrative. once again, the international organisations, theyjust pick up these hamas numbers... let me quote to you, if i may... ..parroting hamas�*s numbers. ..people who are not hamas... there is no independent verification. ..important in this context. jan egeland, i know you know him. he's been a long—time visitor to both israel and the occupied territories. he's the head of the norwegian refugee council now. he says this — "the israeli bombardment is indiscriminate. "there is no escape for civilians, "no real access for aid. "the hospitals have virtually collapsed, "civilians are being starved, "and the hostages, the israeli hostages, "are still not released." that is a pretty accurate summation of where we are today, is it not? no, it is not. why not? well, which part of the question would you like me to tackle first? i'd like you to tell me why notjust jan egeland,

but antonio guterres, philippe lazzarini — head of the unrwa organisation in gaza — are all saying that this is a catastrophe. to use lazzarini's phrase, "it is a man—made disaster "compounded by dehumanising language..." and, of course, there he's talking about israel. "..and the use of food, water and fuel "as instruments of war." i don't know how many quotes i need to put to you before you explain to me why all of these people are wrong. are they all lying? well, i'll tell you why they're wrong. if i'm not mistaken, it was in early november that the secretary—general first called, of the united nations, first called for a humanitarian ceasefire, he called it. and had we agreed to his proposal, we'd still have all the hostages in gaza there. we wouldn't have got the 110 out, because only through our military pressure at the end of november did we see the hostage release. so it's very good that we didn't hear...heed the advice

of the secretary—general. and here i want to say something that i think needs to be said. the un has been irresponsible. they've shown consistent anti—israel bias, that the un as an organisation is unfortunately hostile to israel. that was notjust said by mark regev and the spokespeople of the state of israel. two consecutive secretary—generals of the united nations, both kofi annan and ban ki—moon publicly addressed the issue of anti—israel bias in the un structure. this current secretary—general... hang on. ..instead of challenging his bureaucracy, instead of challenging that institutional bias, unfortunately embraces it. once again, had we agreed to his advice in early november to an unconditional ceasefire, those 110 hostages, women and children that were released would never have been released. forgive me, this isn'tjust about the un, however much you choose to target them. and of course they would refute your charges against them.

joe biden, president of the united states, i don't think you regard him as consistently anti—israel. joe biden has referred to indiscriminate israeli bombing. the secretary of state, antony blinken, has said, "far, far too many palestinian civilians have been killed," and david cameron, the foreign secretary in the united kingdom, says the situation now is so desperate, he's talked about nine out of ten palestinians in northern gaza having less than one meal a day, and he's saying the situation can get even worse. these, i think you would say, are friends of israel, and these are the statements they are making now. but we agree. we agree that, unfortunately, too many innocent people have been caught up in the crossfire between the israeli defense forces and hamas. and we would argue that from day one, we'd been making a maximum effort to keep civilians out of harm's way, while hamas, on the other hand, has had

a deliberate policy of implanting itself inside civilian structures in neighbourhoods, in schools, in hospitals, in mosques, even in un facilities, embedding its military machine, using gazan civilians as a human shield. if israel sees civilian casualties as a tragedy, for hamas, it's strategy. that's the way they fight this war, a double war crime. on one hand, they deliberately target israeli civilians, as we saw on october 7th, and we've seen in the indiscriminate shooting of rockets into israel since. and of course, they use their own civilians as a shield, a second war crime. this is the...the travesty. this is the abomination that is hamas. and this is why we have to destroy them. interesting you talk about hamas and war crimes, and hamas will have to answer in the long run for its actions on october 7th, which nobody would dispute were murderous, and which to the face of it,

before any formal investigation by an international court, look like, certainly many people's view, of what would be crimes against humanity or war crimes. but you represent israel in this conversation and i'm interested in talking about israel. and since you've turned to legal venues, let's talk about the international court ofjustice at the hague, the south african case that israel is prosecuting a form of genocide in gaza. they pointed to the facts, which i've alluded to, about the massive, massive loss of life and humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, and they've matched those facts to words that have come from the mouths of senior israeli officials, like president herzog, who said, "it's an entire nation "that is responsible for october 7th. "the rhetoric about civilians not being aware, "not involved, is absolutely untrue. " the deputy knesset speaker

saying, "there are no innocents there," in gaza, "burn gaza, nothing less." the idf general ghassan alian, saying, "there'll be no water, no electricity. "there will only be destruction in gaza." and finally, just to give you one more quote, your own finance minister, mr smotrich, saying, "there are 2 million nazis sitting in gaza." those quotes are a powerful representation of a case for genocide. i strongly disagree. i think you've got to remember that israel was brutally attacked by hamas and of course, there was a lot of emotion in israel. but if you look at our government policy, the decisions that have been taken, we've made a maximum effort to avoid hurting innocent civilians. and the south africans have been irresponsible and have been hypocritical. they claim to represent, i don't

know, some sort of moral voice. it's the same government that has been, as has been reported by yourself, refused, refused to arrest someone that the icc was charging with crimes against humanity and mass murder, bashirfrom sudan. they let that go, and they have a very cosy relationship with hamas. you know that they hosted in south africa a hamas delegation after october 7th. they called it a solidarity visit. hama... south africa is not being moral here. south africa is actually showing itself to be, unfortunately, a very negative actor in this field. their charge... is that the best you've got, mr regev, just to turn your fire on south africa, rather than address the powerful substance of their case? is that the best israel can do right now? no, i can...i can address the. . .the substances... well, you chose... it's interesting, i guess, that you chose not to.

if israel... if israel was really interested in genocide, you wouldn't have seen the situation that we've seen. so, that's an interesting point. this war could have been over very, very quickly if israel was interested. how many tens of thousands of palestinians killed would it take for you to acknowledge there might be a case for genocide? no, there's a difference. this is war. the south african case presented it that israel had come into gaza and was indiscriminately killing people. that's just not true. israel is fighting a difficult war against a brutal terrorist organisation. now, have there been civilian casualties? of course there have been. there hasn't been a war in modern history without civilian casualties. but in the framework of fighting a brutal, horrific enemy, who is capable of the most gruesome violence, israel has tried to be as surgical as is humanly possible in a very difficult combat situation. as i said, for us, every unintended casualty... this isn't actually,

if i may say so... ..every civilian that is killed, that is a failure. the evidence suggests, and again, i am turning both to the south african case and to other quotes coming from senior figures in your government, this isn'tjust about taking on hamas. there is quite clearly an explicit agenda at the top of the israeli government to try to get palestinians out of that tiny territory we know as the gaza strip. the intelligence minister in your government told a news website on the 3rd ofjanuary, quote, "voluntary migration," as she euphemistically puts it, "is the best and most realistic "programme for the day after the fighting ends." and according to the times of israel, mr netanyahu, your boss, just weeks ago, told a likud faction meeting that he is working to facilitate the "voluntary migration of gazans to other countries." there's an agenda here, you want... we have 120 members of the knesset. you want them out. we have a0 ministers, almost a0 ministers, in our government. and you can hear a whole wide

spectrum of opinion. but why don't you quote what my prime minister publicly said last week when he said there is no such policy? there is no such policy to expel palestinians from gaza, to forcibly displace... with the greatest of respect... there's no evidence of such a policy. ..he said that after the opening day of the genocide case at the international court ofjustice. he's under enormous pressure, not least from your very staunchest best friends in the united states. i don't believe that netanyahu has had a single conversation withjoe biden in the last three weeks because the americans are so deeply frustrated with your government and its agenda. i can only say there is no such agenda. it's almost a blood libel. to say that israel wants to forcibly push out of gaza its palestinian population is simply not true. why do so many ministers in your government keep talking about getting the population in gaza out of gaza?

you tell me. so, once again, we have a situation where politicians can speak their minds, but there is a senior war cabinet that is in charge of policy, and those ministers who spoke that way, some of them were publicly reprimanded by the prime minister and they are not reflecting the policy of the government in israel. you know israel, stephen. everyone is speaking their mind on every issue every day. oh, come on. i know israel well enough to know that if a prime minister really disapproves of something a minister says, he fires them. well, he actually threatened to fire one minister... 0h! ..and said if he repeated himself, he would be fired. let's talk about, very briefly, that relationship with the united states. joe biden, even now, does his very best to avoid too much open criticism of israel. but we hear from sources inside the white house there is deep frustration with neta nyahu. and to quote a democrat congressperson who's pretty close to the biden administration, he says this...

this is senator chris van hollen. he says, "at everyjunction, netanyahu has given biden the finger, "and this," he says, "is what the us president has to face." there is growing frustration. how is netanyahu going to get through this if he can't even talk any more to biden? so, i think you might be overstating the situation when you say he can't even talk. the communication between the white house and the top level of the israeli government is daily. we've never had, i don't think, such close cooperation and close communication between washington and jerusalem. and you see that in the words of the white house, every time they speak publicly, they speak about their support for israel's right to defend itself and that hamas must be defeated. we've seen strong diplomatic support, as you know, at the united nations

and of course, tangible support. their support for munitions to give us the tools to do this job, to defeat hamas, and to end this... sadly, we're almost out of time, but your characterisation that the biden administration understands you, it's wearing thin. this is whatjoe biden said just last month. he said, "we have to make sure that netanyahu understands "he has to make moves. "you cannot say no to a palestinian state." now, whether it be in the white house, whether it be in europe, whether it be in those countries in the arab world that you've made peace with or would like to make peace with, like saudi arabia, there is one simple message. the only pathway out of this current massive crisis is for israel to change course and accept that the only lasting solution is territorial compromise, a two—state solution. you've stood against it in the past. are you prepared to change? so first of all, the lasting solution is "defeat hamas."

everything depends on that. because you have to understand, stephen, there is a coalition of countries, israel, the moderate arab states, the west, that wants to see hamas defeated. and there is a rival axis of iran, the houthis, hamas, hezbollah, all these organisations want to see chaos, want to see violence, want to return the middle east back to a dark age. it's not by accident that the americans, the brits, the germans, the austrians, the czechs and others have been strong in their support of israel because they understand that a victory for hamas, and it won't happen, we'll win this, but a theoretical victory for hamas would empower all the most negative elements in the middle east, and yet a victory for israel will strengthen the coalition for peace and for cooperation here in the region. now, as to the specifics of your question, the position of the prime minister, and it has been publicly said and said again, is that he believes in a solution that gives the palestinians

all the power, all the powers to rule themselves and none of the powers to threaten israel. now, the second part of that formula, none of the powers to harm israel, to threaten israel, that is crucial today. remember what we've gone through on october 7th. we can never once again allow that sort of threat to re—emerge. and that's why we say, when this is over, gaza will no longer be a terror enclave on our southern border, where israelis who live in the frontier communities have to live in constant fear of terrorists crossing the frontier in the middle of the night and butchering their children. that is a reality that we frankly refuse to go back to. sadly, mark regev, we're out of time. i do have to end you there, but thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thanks. thanks for having me. let's take a brief look at the weather for the week ahead. now it's all change weatherwise

as we go into this weekend. but on thursday, it was the coldest morning so far this winter for england, wales and northern ireland. weak winter, sunshine for most, a lot of dry weather, but some blizzard like conditions with brisk northerly winds across northern areas of scotland. the wind turns more westerly, so the focus of the showers is changing on friday, but still some more snow still going to be very cold and then it turns milder, wetter and windier as we head through saturday and sunday. so if we just take a brief look at the pressure chart, you can see the high pressure pulling away, allowing all of these atlantic systems to flow in from the west. so we're looking at heavy downpours of rain, tight squeeze on the east of us. so strong, gusty winds, particularly through the day on sunday. already met office weather warnings in place for that and some milder air coming through on that. south—westerly wind to temperatures back up into double figures, but still a very cold start to the day on friday. temperatures widely below freezing, a sharp frost and some icy stretches. also some patches of freezing fog. the snow levels will gradually rise across western scotland. still some shows snow showers

here through the morning, snow still some snow showers here through the morning, snow confined to the hills through the afternoon. the snow turning back to sleet and rain to low levels, southwesterly winds, so some slightly less cold feeling. air temperatures will more widely get up to four to six degrees celsius as we head through friday night. still the risk of some icy stretches across northern scotland. there will be some snow melt as well as that milder air starts to move in from the west. some heavy rain towards western coast, but it's still a cold night with a touch of frost, i think out towards eastern areas, particularly south east england. now, as we head through saturday, this series of weather fronts will be pushing eastwards. the high pressure moves away towards the near continent and there are plenty of fronts to come through. so still a lot of detail to add on this. but there will be some heavy rain across the pennines as we head through the morning. and for western coast, particularly the north west of scotland, some heavy downpours here could be some localised flooding from the added snowmelt, but largely dry still across the far south and the east, but certainly clouding over and starting to see that milder air filter through temperatures back up into double

figures for western spots. and then this series of fronts will push through on sunday into monday. tight squeeze on the ice. ——isobars of course, there will be gales or severe gales potentially towards western coast, particularly for north western scotland. still possibly a bit of snow over the hills here. there's heavy rain piling through across northern ireland and into north west england as well. temperatures though, across much of england and wales will rise up to 12 or 13 degrees celsius as we head through sunday. so we swap that cold air for something an awful lot modern. it's a day of sunshine and showers. i suspect on monday there will be a lot of dry weather around the showers gradually clearing further eastwards. so not quite as wet or as windy as on sunday and feeling even milder, still seven to 1a degrees celsius. now the same theme continues as we head through next week, certainly mild with temperatures well above the seasonal average and staying unsettled, really very changeable day on day, another deep area of low pressure pushes eastwards, bringing strong winds,

heavy downpours of rain through tuesday, but then something a little dry, a little more settled, perhaps with a ridge of high pressure as we go through wednesday and thursday before the next frontal system arrives from the west. as we head through friday and into the weekend, the details still likely to change, of course. but here's the outlook for our capital cities generally mild, changeable, wet and windy at times. bye—bye for now.

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