A deal to return scores of hostages were being told, broken by the US and others. What more can you tell us?

We hope to see the hostages back home as soon as possible. We are dealing with a very cynical terror organization. So even when we think we have a deal, you never know until it happens. So as of now, there is no deal, there's negotiations. We hope to see the children, the families back in Israel as soon as possible.

How close do you think you are.

To a deal? I want to be very cautious because I meet the families almost every day, and everything I say or the Prime Minister will say, they cannot sleep at night because of that. So we are very cautious about what we say, but we are working hard. We are working hard. We realize that we cannot bring them all together at once. It will have to be gradually. And I hope that we will get as many as we can in the first round.

Do you know where they're being kept?

Not everyone, but they are spread around. They're not in one location. But we speak a lot about the Shifah Hospital. We released footage that showed that actually on October seventh, hostages were brought into the hospital in daylight. They were never come out. Few of them were executed in the compound. Few of them were transferred to another location, but they used the hospital as a center for terrorists to bring in the hostages that they kidnapped in Israel.

There have been some claims by journalists when you bring up the hospital, that the footage that was shown by the IDF and then when journalists went to see for themselves later on, it didn't quite match. And there were some edits in there. Would that be reasonable.

To say? Absolutely not. I know that some of the reporters were disappointed about what we showed from the hospital. For me, it was more than enough that we found Grenades, AK-47, tunnels. But the footage we released yesterday, and by the way, we didn't release all the information we have, we released partial information, it shows hostages being brought in. And I asked myself, Well, the doctors, administration, when they were asked, they said, We have no terror here. It's a hospital. But we have the footage that they walk into emergency room at 2:00 PM and nobody is telling anything to anyone.

Yeah, I was talking specifically about the footage that you released recently when you said that it was illustrating that Hamas had been beneath the building, the hospital, which, of course, is a war crime in international law, as we know, you said, or the IDF said that it had been taken, filmed in a single take, but the BBC Analysis, our colleagues at the BBC, found out it had been edited.

Well, I know we are not hiding anything. We are sharing everything we have with the media. We are not playing games. We are fighting for our lives. And in the past, we have proved also there were issues with other hospitals that were attacked that at the end of the day, the report of the IDF are accurate.

Yeah, but it would be wrong to say that something is filmed in a single take when it's been edited.

You would agree with that? Well, I'm not familiar with the point that you're making, but I can tell you that we are not playing any games, we are not editing, we are sharing information, but maybe that there was some material that we didn't want to release, and we kept it for our intelligence usage. Always you have that tension between which material do you release and which material do you keep for the intelligence.

Okay, talk to me about this 55-metre tunnel, 10 meters deep beneath the hospital. What more can you tell me about it?

So why you need a tunnel beneath the hospital? Can you show me one hospital in the UK or in Europe that you have tunnels beneath the hospital? It showed that actually the hospital was a place for the Hamas that they felt it's a safe zone for them. They used hospitals, UN facilities, and they realized that we'll never go in. But they made a mistake. We will go after them to the hospitals. Everywhere we have to go to release hostages, we're going to go there. So they should know that. And we expect the international community not to come against us, but to realize that they are committing a double war crime. They kidnapped our babies. And I will give you an example of two twin sisters, Emma and Yulie, three years old. Their parents were massacred in front of them and they were kidnapped into Gaza. So we are now going to release Emma and Yulie from Gaza. I know where they are. Well, I cannot elaborate on that, but we are committed to bring them back home. And at the same time, they used Palestinian kids as human shields in the hospitals, in the streets.

It's not a regular war that we saw in the past. I don't recall in the history of modern civilization that a country had to fight a terrorist organization which abducted 249 citizens.

Thirteen thousand, according to Palestinian officials, have died of those five and a half thousand children, how much longer can this go on for?

First, we regret the loss of life of every civilian. We didn't choose to go into Gaza. We sent our boys to fight in Qatar. It was an unprovoked attack. We had a ceasefire before October seventh, so it wasn't a war that we chose to initiate. We are fighting back in order to protect ourselves. I don't trust the numbers, but I agree with you that unfortunately you're going to have civilian casualties when you fight a terror organization in urban population. It will finish when we will eradicate Hamas. So they can surrender. And if they're watching us now, they should surrender before there would be more casualties. I'm not sure that the HIAs in war and the leadership of Hamas really care about the casualties among civilians. We care about civilians in Gaza more than the Hamas leadership.

What's the post-war plan for Gaza?

Well, I think first of all, we have to agree it will be demiliterized, for sure. Then we will need the support of the international community to support the people there and to allow them to build their own future. But the first stage is to move Hamas out. It will be safer for Israel. It will be better for the Palestinian in Gaza.

And what role will Israel have in supporting Garzans and trying to rebuild their lives?

Well, I think that our role will be protecting ourselves. And we expect other countries to be more involved in the future of Gaza. And we actually, I want to remind you, we left Qatar in 2005. We took out all the Jewish communities from Qatar. We gave the keys to the PA, and after two years Hamas took over. So I think our role is to eradicate Hamas, and then we'll allow the international community to step in.

Where will Garzans live once the war is over?

I think they will stay in Gaza.

Where? It doesn't look like a place where many people can live safely or easily at the moment?

Well, I think they will live safely without Hamas. They will have a better life. You can reconstruct Gaza, you can invest, you can think about international community.

Would Israel help with that, do you think?

Should Israel help with that? I don't think we should. I don't think we should. I think now we are paying a heavy price fighting Hamas, and we are paying a heavy price. Every day we have casualties to our forces. The civilians in Israel are suffering. More than 200,000 Israelis had to move to different locations inside Israel. We are paying a price. But once we finish and we laminate Hamas, I think we should step out of Gaza and we should come in only if they are a security threat to as well.

When might we expect to hear more, Mr. Amastad, finally, about the fate of hostages, including the two little girls that you mentioned?

Well, we don't know. I hope soon, but unfortunately, we know that we are not going to bring everybody back home in the next few days. It's going to be a long operation, a long war, but we are determined to win that war. After what happened on October seventh, we realized we have no choice, we have to fight evil.

And Benjamin Netanyahu can survive this long term?

I think to discuss politics now is not appropriate. I think once we finish the war, then we're going to have to do the inquiry about what happened and to ask those tough questions as well.

Indeed, sir. Perhaps you would indulge us and come back again and see us next time you're in London. Thank you very much indeed for joining us, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for joining us, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you.