to quote antony bliinken, it is a work in progress, which is diplomatic talk for a lot of work to be americans are caught between the israelis saying absolutely no ceasefire unless there is movement on the issue of hostages and then all of the other countries that antony bliinken is visiting are saying you simply have to start with a ceasefire but he and the israelis are saying, you can't have that and leave hamas in place. that is why the americans are pushing for a pause in the fighting, a temporary pause in the fighting, a temporary pause because they hope if it happens they can use it to unlock the other issues, getting in more aid, freeing some hostages, getting more foreign nationals out. so on that front, we've not seen that much progress, but what antony bliinken did say is there is progress on an absence, an absence of escalation and the one thing everyone is agreed on is that this conflict should not spread. there are great fears that hezbollah in lebanon on could potentially escalate the attacks on israel and that is why british diplomats have been withdrawing some of thei