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woman: architect. bee keeper. mentor. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news". >> hello, you're watching "the context" on "bbc news." >> senior palestinian official who was in doha who was in contact with hamas, he said the talks, the negotiations are taking serious -- >> the most important thing, aid, humanitarian support to go into gaza.

>> we are providing an additional 20 million pounds of humanitarian aid to civilians in gaza. more than doubling our previous support to the palestinian people. ♪ >> a number of key developments today in the israel-nagata war. we're watching what's happening with israely hostages being held by hamas. a spokesperson for hamas says they've released two more people. the bbc has learned that negonegotiations to release more have reached a serious state. we'll hear more from our correspondents inside gaza and from the northern border with lebanon. we'll speak to an experienced negotiator about the communications behind the scenes

and hear from aid agencies about the supply lines into gaza. how much more they say is needed. so welcome to the program. a day of significant developments in gaza. according to hamas, two more hostages have been released due to poor health. it's believed they were two elderly israeli women. meanwhile, israel's intense air strikes on gaza have been continuing. take a look at these pictures of the amp math. most strikes in the north but some in the south too. some gazans are reportedly moving back to the north because of the desperate conditions in the south. which brings us to the issue of aid. 20 trucks have crossed the border. hundreds a day are needed according to the u.n. still no fuel crossing, though, which is needed for hospitals

and things like water sites but israel says it could be taken by hamas so none so far. let's get some reaction to all the day's drop. ibrahim is a non-resident scholar with the middle east think tank. thank you for coming on the program. >> thank you for having me. >> can i get your reaction to this news from a hamas spokesperson to more hostages being released, according to them. what's your reaction to that? >> the release of more hostages is an important hugh man ontario issue and at the moment, you have obviously qatar mediation involved. you have a wide range of other

actors such as turkey and egypt supporting these back channel talks and it remains to be seen how far these will progress as the ground offensive remains under concentration. >> on that ground offensive, it's been much tald about, much anticipated, hasn't yet happened. there are reports in the u.s. media saying that the biden administration is asking israel to delay any such move like that precisely to get more time to deal with this hostage issue. does that ring true to you? >> yeah, the calculus around the ground offensive is very costly obviously in terms of infrastructure, in terms of anticipated death toll but also the already dire humanitarian landscape in gaza. we've had only 24 trucks entering over the past two days and this remains below the

minimum required to support over a million gazans with the required food and medic support. so you have a wide range of stakes at the moment. the assessment regarding the ground offensive remains largely unchanged. it may be a question of time but if that could be canceled and we have instead a cease-fire, that might be a more human sort of scenario for all of those engaged, mostly civilians affected by the ongoing scale of violence, including dom bardment. lack of respect for international armed conflict, obviously. >> israel, of course, will say they are pinpointing specific hamas targets, not indiscritical that. let's go south to the rafa border. we're seeing pictures of aid and the importance of that and the numbers are quite stark. we have 50 or so aid trucks in

over the last couple of days. hundreds a day needed. given your assessment of where we are right now, can you see the numbers of trucks getting up to anywhere near what is required? >> if there is more obligation to support generally civilians and address the defear rating humanitarian needs, there's a straightforward path. lets all of this flow ason going negotiations on hostages continues. but also, there is required international moral and legal support mainly by the united states, the united kingdom and the european union to really push this guard because there's no other way around. and, of course, the flow of food and goods and medic would naacp save the people of gaza as this indiscriminality bomb bardment

continues. i think there is a way to increase that significantly into more than a human level. >> thank you very much for your perspective. >> bless you. >> we can get a unique perspective now on that news of hamas claiming two further hostages have been released. paul martin is a journalist who in 2010 was taken by hamas in gaza. paul is now the editor in chief of the online correspondent.com. thank you very much for coming on the program. can i ask for your thoughts, your reaction to this claim by hamas that two more hostages have been released. >> the very fact that we've had two americans before, that there are two being released it appears now and that there seems to be a trend developing to release hostages.

it's obviously all going through qatar. qatar has always been the center of hostage negotiation, even during the era of isis. in fact, i met a hostage who had been held by isis for probably more than a year and in that case, interestingly enough, qatar has of had given $8 million -- it was handed over by various intermediateries to isis. now, i don't think this is a financial negotiation going on. it's obviously a strategic one and qatar likes and wants to be at the center of these negotiations and also has the advantage of having the headquartersf hamas and the leader and deputy leader of hamas all in qatar at the moment. >> interesting, and can i ask you about your experience? just tell us briefly happened what happened. my situation was ramp

different from the current captives because i was a foreign correspondent making a film about a young man who had stopped firing rockets into civilian israeli areas, thought this was wrong because he happened started to become friendly with an israeli on the internet and they had become friends. so he didn't know what to do. but what he did contributed israeli lines. it's a traitorous thing to do. so he was arrested, put in jail and put on a military trial. i decided it was my responsibility, at least to tell that military court, that this man making a film was hardly likely to be the thing establishing him as a spy, which they were cruising him of. so i suddenly find myself arrested and accused of being

his spy master, which was quite ludicrous but nevertheless extremely dangerous and i was held in very day, conditions for 26 days. >> you said very difficult conditions. if you can at all, elaborate slightly. >> yes, first night a man walked into my cell where i was handcuffed and picked up a gun, put in six bullets into the magazine and started to point the gun at my head, for example and as he got closer, he squeezed the trigger. i thought that was the end. it turned out after 30 seconds, he he would the trigger original halfway. he laughed, pointed the gun in the sky and smashed the barrel on my knee which relatively was a good outcome. so that was the first of my 26 days. i had a couple of occasions where i thought i was seconds away from depth but during that

entire period they tried to make me sign confessions of being a spy, which was totally ludacris. i refused to do so but i didn't know whether i would receive the same st of treatment those around me had. i assume i would have signed some sort of confession of some sort eventually. but eventually i was freed, largely, i think,hanks to intervention from people like arch bishop desmond tutu. so i had some international support and some support from the british government so in the end i was released. not quite the same situation as these current hostages, who over 200 are still there, men, women, and children. >> paul, that was an extraordinary, extraordinary story. thank you very much for sharing it with us. i want to ask just on the -- of

course, you have repeatedly highlighted the situations are very different and i appreciate you underlining that. one thing i wanted to ask you, though, is about the idea of israel trying to discover things like the locations of where these hostages are being head and attempts to free them. given your knowledge, how challenging is that? >> it's extremely challenging because i do not believe that they'll be in the same place i was in. for one thing, i went want back to gaza. they apologized to me in effect and allowed me back for a couple of days to report from gaza in 2014 and they showed me the place i'd been head and it had been destroyed by the israelis in the previous clash. so if they're in the same place they would have had to rebuild it. it was on sit the national security headquarters. but there are so ma locations they could be hiding people. for example, the israeli song

who'd been held entirely separately from me was held more to the south and in a totally different situation and he was eventually swapped for over 1,000 hamas prisoners. that's what the israelis are trying to avoid. they do not want to get into a situation where they are bar gang some hostages -- bargaining some hostages, most civilians for some convicted of mostly terrorist crimes. so that begs the question, what is the deal? and the answer is i don't know. >> ok, unfortunately we must leave it there. paul martin, thank you very much for sharing your story and your analysis of what's going on. a reminder of why we're talking about this particular issue, because in the last hour or so, hamas on social media have claimed that they have released

two female captain tavius for humanitarian reasons and in a response to qatar, equipment immediate jason. we -- mediation. we decided to release them for humanitarian and poor health grounds. apparently they are stealer israeli but we are awaiting more details. this is "bbc news." let's look at other stories making the news now. ministers have set out plans to tackle the rise in shoplifting afterfficial figures showed a 25% annual increase in offenses in engine planned and wales. the proposals include a police commitment to attend crime scenes, pursue for evidence and use facial recognition. a man has been arrested in connection with a huge fire that

caused the partial collapse of a multistory car park this month. the 30-year-old was detained on suspicion of criminal measure as a precautionary measure. investigations have so far suggested the fire was started accidentally. he's since been released on bail. a charity that helps victims of modern slavery says it's received a steep rise for help in the care sector, you seen u.k., many reporting paying large sums of people who would -- who had brought them to the u.k. in some cases their passports had been taken. we've been reporting, two further hostages have reportedly been released this evening, according to hamas. those individuals we have not at the moment received any independent verification on that but those details have been coming through in the last hour

19 minutes or so. we're going to talk now with someone who has extensive experience with trying to negotiate the release of hostages from gaza. co-founder of the conflict mediation group forward thinking. thank you very much for coming on the program. >> thank you for the invitation. >> so since we invited you, this developing news in the last 90 minutes, as i mentioned, two more hostages released according to hamas. we await independence verification occasion of that. -- verification of that. what's your reaction to that? >> i think it's a good sign. today i was in doha and conveyed the desire to release all of the civili hostages and without any preconditions so hopefully this could be the beginning but it takes two to tango, as they

say, if i can put it that way. without the willingness on both sides to secure the safe passage of all the civilian hostages, i think people will be in danger. >> can you take us into the room where it's happening, behind the curtain? what we've received from the social media account, the hamas statement, they talked about qatar-egypt mediation. what does that off-season what's going on? >> it. means messages are passed. there's never direct engagement between israeli and hamas officials. they don't meet together. they have always used intermediaries to pass messages and it's a -- it's usually long term because usually there's a quid pro quo. what do we get for this, who do we get and so forth. in this marquis, i understand, i

think -- case, i understand, i think it was the operatives who went into israel, committed the atrocities and i think it's inexcusable the taking indiscriminately of civilians and they made that mistake and the way i would see it is that hamas are keen to hand back all the civilian hosges. i stress civilian as opposed to the military. >> that's an important distinction. you mentioned quid pro quo. would it be your understanding that the four people released, if we do get confirmation of the latest two, that there will be something in place then and what could that be? >> from the conversations i had in do that, i think the -- doha, i think the facts of the

civilians, there were to be no conditions. they were going to be handed back as soons conditions allowed for their safety. because you wouldn't keep 200 -- it won't be 200. it will be i don't know how many civilians but you would not keep them all in the same place so it's a question of how do you move such numbers around gaza. do you release them two by two or whatever? i would hope not. i would hope we would have a cease-fire that we could create conditions in which a process of exchange could take place and in these circumstances, without any conditions. >> interesting. you've made the distinction civilian and not. what then is the process and protocol around non-civilian hostages? and thes paraof -- practice of taking soldiers and i'm explaining it, not endorsing or

justifying it but the practice of capturing israeli soldiers was simply to use these young people as leverage to release palestinian prisoners from israeli jails. currently before in outbreak -- renewly of that cycle of violence -- there were about 4,000 palestinian prisoners in israeli jails. now, some of those were convicted. some were on detention without trial and the capture of a soldier was a precious commodity, if i can put it that way. a bargaining chip in which you would get these cases reviewed. i think the answer to it would have been for israel after the deal to have introduced a review system of all cases and an independent review of all the

convicted palestinian prisoners in israeli jails so that there could be some hope of people being released. at presents, there's no hope for any of them. >> oliver, fascinating to get your behind the scenes expertise. thank you very much for coming on the program. >> thank you and let's hope the news tonight is the beginning of something that will be ongoing and all of those hostages will be returned to they're families. >> thank you. i just want to bring you an update to this. in the lax two minutes. cbs news, the bbc's media partner in the u.s. are now reporting the two hostages are being released by hamas. an israeli government official has confirmed to cbs news the names of the two as well. so just to outline exactly how the process of verification and confirmation in these situations

works, we had initially the statement on social media by hamas through hamas media channels, which we then take and clearly investment. we don't take that on its own. the way that media organizations work around the world, bbc included is you have partnerships with other media organizations. ours in the u.s. is cbs news. they have spoken to an israeli government official confirming to cbs news, the names of the hostages and in terms of how this playsout, last week when we had the first twoostages being released, after the cbs news confirmation, bbc did independently confirm a pretty short time after that too. let's look at another post that's just come up on social media. the icrc -- we facilitated the release of two more hostages,

transporting them out of gaza this evening. our role as a neutral intermediary makes this work possible and we are ready to facilitate any further release. we hope they will soon be back with their loved ones and to reiterate what happens the last time, last week with two hostages, was a similar process and it wasn't until they were confirmed safe on israeli territory that we then heard from officials and authorities in israel confirming name and status of the two hostages so we'll wait and see if and when that happens but clearly more confirmation coming through that two israeli hostages have been released by hamas. we'll keep across all those details for you. and when we establish our own -- when we establish our own independent verification, we'll

bring that to you. we're going too look at the crucial question of aid needed to get across the southern border. humanitarian aid over last few days, just about 50 trucks have crossed that border but by context, gaza used to receive 400 to 500 trucks of supplies every day so the numbers are clearly very, ver different. now, one urgent field is fuel. expected to run out in two days. but that is not crossing the border as yet. save the children is among those charities calling desperately for international support and a cease-fire. alex griffin, head of humanitarian support is joining us. thank you very much for coming. >> thank you. >> what have you been able to establish about the number of trucks getting into the gaza? >> as you say, it's a trickle of

trucks. 14 on friday, 14 yesterday. before in recent escalation, around 500 trucks a day just to keep gaza running. there's a current backlog of 8,000 trucks so, of course, 20 doesn't touch the sides of what people need in order to save lives. right now we have trucks across the border with hygiene kilts, baby kilts, dignity kits for women. medical supplies and very important things. we're hearing from our staff on the ground that life in gaza right now is unimaginable. yet we can see it happening before our eyes. one mild is being killed every 15 minutes. people are dying every day. people are makg tents out of families are sheltering inf warehouses where there is one

blankets. families are sheltering in warehouses where there is one toilet to around 1,000 people. the water plant has no power so people are having to drink seawater, which in turn is likely to bring announce of diseases and -- out of bounds os and cholera. >> i'm sorry to have to cut our conversation short. we are out of time but narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provid by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation.

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