Let's turn to the Middle East, where Hamas has issued a statement, stressing what it called its positivity in negotiations on a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza. Hamas also rejected a claim by the US Secretary of State that they presented unworkable changes to the deal. Ante Blinken said that American and other mediators will work over the coming days to see if they can reach an agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza. Well, I Middle East correspondence, Yoland Nell is in Jerusalem and joins us now on the line. Yoland, why do you think Hamas is issuing this statement when the US Secretary of State has already criticized their response to the ceasefire deal?

I mean, really, Hamas is coming out here defending its own position. We heard from the US top diplomat, Antony Blinken, when he was in Doha yesterday, having looked through this Hamas reply to the latest three-phase plan that was outlined by President Biden back on the 31st of May, that Hamas was demanding changes, some of which were seen as being relatively minor. A later, a White House official said they We have not unanticipated those changes, but there were also changes there which Mr. Blinken described as being unworkable and going beyond previous positions laid out by Hamas. So in this short statement, Hamas says that it had signed up to a deal back on the sixth of May, but then afterwards pointed out that Israel began in earnest its military offensive in Raqqa, this ground and air assault. And then it said also that while Mr. Blinken was speaking about Israeli approval of the latest plan, it wasn't hearing that same approval coming from Israeli officials. So it's asking the US to put more pressure on Israel to agree agree to this new ceasefire plan.

And nevertheless, Yoland, at the end of his visit, Blinken saying he was optimistic that a ceasefire deal could be reached. How is his latest tour of the region being viewed there?

I mean, certainly this was a fast trip around the region by Mr. Blinken, a very timely one, given that the Hamas response came through at this point. It was just after there was a shift in Israeli Israeli politics as well, after the centrist Minister, Benny Gantz, seen as someone the Americans could talk to, left the emergency wartime government of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, making him more reliant on hardliners. So Mr. Blinken knew that he had his work cut out for him as he went around the region, trying to push Hamas in particular, but also for Israel to sign up to this deal. We got the message from mediators that they were going to continue their negotiations to try to bridge the gap between the two sides. And some reports, certainly in the Israeli media today, about what some of the changes are that Hamas is demanding, which give us an idea of what negotiations may center on. They're saying that Hamas is wanting a complete say on exactly which Palestinian prisoners would be released from Israeli jails in exchange for those Israeli hostages being released by Hamas from Gaza, that Israel They should withdraw, according to Hamas, in the first few days of the plan.

They should withdraw from the main road, which is currently dividing the north and the south of Gaza. That would presumably allow displaced people from the south to go back to their homes in the north. Other specifications around that as well. And they're also asking Hamas, apparently, for international guarantees that there would be a move from the to the first phase of this three-phase plan, which is supposed to be for a temporary truce with hostages being released, to the second phase, which is supposed to work towards a permanent end to fighting and see the remaining hostages coming back. We know from comments by different Hamas officials that they've had a lot of concerns around that. Meanwhile, we've had Israeli officials in recent days who have come out insisting that Israel remains determined to meet its war of defeating Hamas in Gaza.

Yoland, thank you. That's the BBC's Yoland now in Jerusalem there.