one of the women dancing had just turned 100 years old, and tweeted never too old to be happy. >> good stuff. thank you. inside story is next on al jazeera america. . >> the 72 hour cease-fire between israel and hamas fell about 70 hours short. one again the two sides blame each other for the continuing fighting and dying. it's the "inside story." >> hello, i'm ray suarez. it was thursday evening eastern time in the united states when

the news broke friday morning would begin a three-day cease-fire between israelis and palestinians fighting in gaza. during the overnight hours before americans even woke up, the cease-fire was gone. lost in a haze of mutual acrimony and continued violence. the intense diplomacy from secretary general ban ki-moon and secretary of state john kerry, and not coming to much. israel has declared they have the intention to keep fighting until all the tunnels leading into israel have been destroyed alliances and support within the region are being fractured and redrawn. >> reporter: when the cease-fire collapsed the finger pointing began. hamas blamed israel for advancing on the town of rafa on the pretext of destroying

tunnel. israel said that it was destroying a tunnel when a a bombing occurred. >> that soldier needs to be released as soon as possible. i have been very clear throughout this crisis that israel has a right to defend itself. >> reporter: secretary of state john kerry also blamed hamas, calling it an outrageous violation of the cease-fire he had helped negotiate with the help of u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon. >> they oh ask for maximum restraint and return to the 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire that tragically lasted a short period of time.

>> reporter: friday's broken cease-fire comes after an egypt deal was rejected by hamas. in that proposal almost all israel's demands were met but none from hamas. that may signify a larger middle east attitude shift. hamas is the palestinian branch of the muslim brother hood. the same group called an terrorist organization. saudi arabia, and you united emirates do not support hamas. if that isn't complicated enough. syria and iran have long been strong hamas allies but both countries have cooled their support. when syria descended into civil

war hamas sided with the rebels as they are a both sunni led groups. syria's president bashar al-assad is from a branch of shia islam and iran is the leading shia power. when hamas sided with the anti-assad rebels, iran stopped giving hamas more than $10 million a month. now israel's long-standing ally, the u.s. is reaching out to new players to help mediate a bill, qatar and turkey, both support hamas. >> we'll begin this look at hamas and shifting alliances in the wider middle east. with a member of the palestinian parliament for jericho and long-time chief negotiator for the palestinians in peace talks with israel. welcome to "inside story." >> thank you. >> it was just a few months that

it was announced that a deal has been reached and there was a new unity government once again linking up gaza with the west bank bring authority. what has this conflict done with that relationship? will it survive this battle? >> indeed, it will. the whole war being raged by israel against the palestinian people has is not just for war. there is a political objective here. number one, he wants to destroy the two-state solution once and for all. number two, he wants to keep the gaza strip separate from the west bank and under mind the government and he wants to under mind the agreement between hamas to reconcile, and this war is being waged against palestinian national project palestinian

state. what israel is doing in gaza today is not so different. they're defending occupation and their settlement and committing massacres by the full meaning of the word, and they are committing war crimes. yesterday i was in doha meeting with morning minister of qatar, and we reached the foreign minute of egypt, and we were able to reach 72-hour cease-fire. in which secretary general ban ki-moon and secretary of state john kerry. just two hours before the

cease-fire was supposed to go into force, the israeli army demolished 19 homes in rafa. using the pretext of looking for tunnels. and then between 8:00 to 9:30 another 21 homes were destroyed by the israeli army. they killed five palestinians, two israelis, and that's what happened. so what happened is that i had information from different sources that palestinians are to be blamed. if it's about finger pointing and blame assignment, then we are under cease-fire. >> let me jump in, let me jump in, i understand that you hold israel responsible for the breaking of the cease-fire. i understand your point about their intentions to break apart

the new alliance between fatah, the pa and the hamas government. but at the same time there is a growing sense in the region of the isolation of hamas. has there been any coordination between your government, the palestinian parliament, the government that sits in the west bank, and the ongoing attempts in gaza to fight against israel? snow went to wawe've been in

touch with european, africans, ations, name it. we will speak as palestinians, what is being targeted by israel is not gaza or hamas. what's being targeted are palestinians. and the solution of the palestinian state. we know egypt and qatar, this and that, i we have to stop the bloodshed. we have today 1600 palestinians

in the last 24 days there is the killing of women and children. in many areas we have total destruction of villages and so on. they cannot get the bodies from underneath the rubble. we have 8,900 wounded. okay, now those who are trying to finger point at us and blame us, i want to ask them, how many israelis have been killed? many israeli women killed? how many israeli children? none. none. what is happening, a country of f-15s, f-16s, tanks, they're destroying it.

they're simply destroying it. that's the truth. now we want--we understand people interest's. we understand nation's interests. but this cannot be fueled by palestinian children's blood. >> also with us for this edition of the program joining us for our conversation. what do you make of hamas' position in the wider region now after three weeks of this war. >> we think see things have been

going exactly wrong direction for them. the government in gaza was not impressive. we want to talk about the isolation hamas. in this war netanyahu may have brought a god given gift to hamas politically speaking. hamas is i being weakened in power and political leverage. we have seen before the war a maplebecause rise of hamas, and the palestinian authorities, the

plo itself, they take hamas demands and reproduce them as palestinian demands. this is the case on israel and netanyahu policies. coming back to isolation, one would ask, in fact, after this war who would be isolated really? if you think of the players in this game who is playing it was italy tacitly, and blaming the distance in gaza as the man responsible for this war, this is a green light for israel to continue its war against gaza and the palestinians. >> let me turn it over here to washington.

there is an interesting point. weakened in the eyes of whom? perhaps there is a gap between leaders and officers who fly on national jets back and forth between capitals and the people who make up the populations of these countries. >> i agree completely. hamas has actually gained considerably from this conflict. a month ago they were isolated in the region as well as alienated from the rest of palestinian public. partly because of their began against, and partly because the mood has changed. they're still isolated in the region but they have great support in the palestinian public. their bread and butter, as they say, all politics is local.

their future rests on the palestinian public, and less on egypt and saudi arabia. so hamas has made that gamble, and they have-i agree. the israeli approach has been very short sited and only strengthens hamas at the expense of the two-state solution. at the expense of even american credibility. >> ear' going to take a short break. when we come back we'll take a look at the solution of hamas and it's future in the region. this is inside story. stay with us.

>> welcome back to "inside story" on al jazeera america. i'm ray suarez. we're continuing our converse on the fault lines of the middle

east as fighting continues between israel and hamas in gaza. there has been a lot of nervous watching of the west bank in communities there. what is going on there, your hometown in jericho, for example, while the fighting has been going on in the gaza strip? >> the situation, there are clashes all over the west bank, jericho, jerusalem. as a matter of fact, we have four kids aged 16 to 18. today palestinians were killed.

since the beginning in the last 24 days to about 1,000 palestinians wounded with gashes. it's a pressure cooker situation. we don't see ourselves any more here with all due respect to what i hear. we believe that this is being waged against all palestinians. we don't feel we can go to cairo tomorrow, but because of the factions, we name a palestinian negotiation. and with fatah, hamas and all factions of the state, we're all palestinians, and we are being targeted by the israeli war machine, and i should note that

hamas did not begin this war. it was netanyahu that began this war using the israeli abduction, and then they started bombarding the gaza strip. it should be noted mr. netanyahu, he suspended the negotiations. he said, i will not continue negotiations. either you choose hamas and you choose us. of course it would be palestinians. we would choose palestinians any time. we go back to balance. that's the whole idea of the consolation. >> that's a fascinating insight. if they're no longer differentiating between fatah and hamas delegation does that make it harder for governments

like egypt who are terribly opposed to hamas to pay that game with the two locusts of palestinian thought and power and influence? >> it does. at least it creates a bit of a safety net for hamas, and it's most secure place is in its own domestic context regardless of what the egyptians or saudis or americans think of hamas. but that's in theory. the egyptian calculation, the israeli calculations and the american calculations are largely indifferent to palestinian unity. they are much more concerned with particularly the egyptians and israelis they're more concerned with hurting hamas than helping the palestinians and maintaining palestinian

unity. here in lies a very fundamental american policy failure. the united states has failed in peace making, but we've seen the flip side of that. they failed miserably at conflict prevention. both sides of the mediation role the united states simply has not shown itself to be a credible actor. and to echo something that the doctor said when he said they were cost free. yes, they are cost free whether they're hamas, fatah or palestinian children in refugee camps, they are basically cost free. that's a realization that the palestinian leadership needs to internalize. >> you just heard the talk about heading to kay row for a delegation made of palestinian, not made up of factions or political parties. yet the world looks at hamas in

different ways. if you're in doha it's one thing. if you're in cairo or in aman it's something else all together. is the world ready for this new united front that you just heard them talking about? >> i think the unity is one tart in this war but is not the main target. i think this is to break the unity government and to go back to the status quo, the status quo approved by israel before the war. it has three pillars. one the security in the west bank, and this is to be

maintained. if they come together this means they have to do all this to keep them with the justification from peace talks or negotiation whatsoever. and then to say that hamas is responsible for the continuation of the conflict. netanyahu don't want to see hamas. they want to see hamas go back because again this gives them the pre-ticket. every time they come together for the sake of mowing the lawn, as they say, which is to reduce the military capability of hamas they end up exactly with the opposite with a growing distance and growing military capability

of hamas. >> we have to take a break right there. we will we'll take a short break and we'll close our conversation on hamas and the conflict between israel and gaza after this. this is inside story. stay with us.

>> you're watching "inside

story" on al jazeera america. today the president of the united states blamed hamas for the collapse of the cease-fire and said a peace deal was impossible without the release of the captured israeli soldier. we just have a few minutes left. as you head to cairo, i know it's in the nature of being a negotiator that you have a certain amount of built-in optimism can you defeat that pessimism that you heard from barack obama this afternoon? he sounded very dubious that a cease-fire can be put back together. >> our delegation is going to cairo tomorrow. we want to show the world the side that wants to make a cease-fire and the side that continues the war. since the israelis broke the cease-fire we have 51 palestinians killed. we need to stop this aggression.

there are children being killed every two hours, and every two hours there is a palestinian child between ages 5 and 8 being killed every day. what we need is to put an end to the aggression, and then we're open, we hope that the international community and president obama will force israelis to show up. >> this presents everyone with a nasty political democrat ma. --dilemma, how do you see this ending? are we at the beginning of a very long conflict? >> there is no credible third party that can intervene and actually insert some rationality into this back and forth escalation. traditionally that was the role of egypt backed up by the united states. right now egypt is, in fact, a party to the conflict. it would like to see hamas

destroyed as much as benjamin netanyahu would. and that's where american leadership comes in. the united states should be above the fray. i'm afraid that i think there are certain things the united states can do. it would require a major reversal in how the united states has approached this conflict in the past, the separation of gaza in the west bank cannot continue. the division of palestinians which was essentially a prerequisite for american policies cannot continue. there are new realities that the united states need to come to terms with, and in a way bring the israelis along. if they can't then i'm afraid we are in for not just a long period of death and destruction in gaza, but there is actually no hope for a long-term peace. we're likely to see this cycle repeated over and over again until there are serious reversals in how the u.s.

approaches this. >> here in washington, we didn't get a chance to come back to you. we will have you back on again. i'm afraid this conflict is not over and there is still more of this story to tell. thanks for being with us from the united kingdom and a pleasure to talk to you again. thank you. >> that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." thanks for being with us. in washington, i'm ray suarez.

what's the difference between gay marriage and straight marriage? i said, well, there really isn't a difference. >> in 2008, voters in california approved proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in the state. two couples challenge the law in a case that went to the u.s. supreme court. half of the plaintiff team is chris perry and sandy steer. >> you grow up believing you are a second-class citizen from the moment you recognize you are gay or lesbian. and until recently, you didn't think you ever would be equal. >> the other couple involved in