Former BBC political correspondent John Sergeant has joined GB News’ political editor Christopher Hope to discuss the ‘complicated situation’ in Israel and Gaza, as Israel poises itself to go into Gaza.
Sergeant insisted the situation is still unclear, saying “there's some doubt about when obviously. Nobody knows that and nobody knows whether or not they're going to, how many people actually could leave Gaza and the position of Egypt and other countries.”
Christopher questioned Sergeant on ex-MI6 chief Alex Younger’s warning of an apparent trap being set up by Hamas, to get Israel “bogged down in what would be a really, really difficult war.”
“There's no obvious precedent now. What makes it so difficult on the Israeli side is that if they don't act quickly, then there's a whole question of if you're raising the whole thing,” Sergeant said.
John Sergeant speaks with Christopher Hope
GB News
“So they want to hurry, but can they hurry? And if they do hurry, what will the effect be if they get bogged down? So that's why the talk of the trap is so is so relevant. “
Sergeant also commented that the inclusion of hostages in the conflict adds a further layer of difficulty to Israel’s decision-making.
“This is on an entirely different scale. It's very difficult to imagine they won’t die. Some of them will be killed, if not all of them may be killed.”
Christopher chimed in on just how surreal the situation is: “It shows how so much has changed in just a week in the fact you've got China now almost brokering with Iran.”
A mother is waiting for news after her two eldest children were taken hostage by Hamas as the Supernova festivalGB NewsChristopher also asked Sergeant about the effect the war has had outside the Middle East, with fears of anti-semitic attacks leading some in the Jewish community to hide their faith.
“It’s dreadful,” said Sergeant. “People like me, my whole sort of childhood onwards, is affected by talk of the Holocaust.”
Sergeant explained his own deep ties to the region, explaining that he himself was evacuated to Gaza as a child.
“My father was a Christian missionary at the time when the war of independence was taking place in Israel. So as a very young child, with my brother and sister, we were evacuated to Gaza. And we went from Gaza to Egypt and by boat to Britain.”
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes in GazaReuters“I’ve been a reporter in northern Israel when Israel invaded Lebanon for the first time. I I was there with John Major in Gaza, would you believe, with Yasser Arafat in a joint news conference. And Yasser Arafat came and put his arm around me!”
Christopher used this opportunity to get Sergeant’s view on the BBC’s decision not to brand Hamas as a terrorist group.
“Report it as a dreadful story. The BBC is not a government. The BBC is not even like a newspaper with editorials.
“It's so part of my natural instinct after 30 years, a correspondent to the BBC, not to imagine in a situation like this: ‘Oh well, who's right and who's wrong?’”
