Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will press ahead with this offensive in Rafa,

regardless of whether the war is paused in a temporary ceasefire with Hamas.

That's despite the threat of international arrest warrants and warnings of President Biden.

The fate of 2.2 million Palestinian civilians hangs under balance,

and the Israeli defence forces are once again facing criticism for the way soldiers are prosecuting the war.

Well, in a moment, I'll discuss this with Medi Hassan, but first I'm joined from Tel Avid by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Ler, the British Israeli spokesman for the Israeli Defence Forces.

Colonel Ler, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

A lot of big developments in the last few days in the war, not least this latest

potential truce deal. Can you just at the start, just articulate exactly what that deal on

the table currently looks like? Piers, there are two ways to bring hostages home, either through negotiations or through

operational action on the ground. Currently, the operations are taking the front seat, which is a

good thing. Obviously, I can't go into specifics or the details, but we are doing everything

in order to bring home hostages that are

being held by Hamas for almost seven months now. This is what we are obligated to do, and this is

what the government is instructing us to do. It's been reported that it might be a 40-day

truce in return for the release of a significant number of hostages. Is that accurate?

Well, if we've learned anything from the previous hostage release in November,

so at that time we held our fire for as long as it lasted.

Unfortunately, Hamas chose after seven days to resume action against us

by firing more rockets at Israel rather than releasing

more hostages. So the government will instruct us. They will give us their instructions of what

they expect us to do. And of course, as any military would do, we will adhere to the instructions

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