Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Sarah Montague. My guest today was born in Rural

Island before moving to England, where he went on to become one of Britain's best-known Catholic priests.

In 2002, Oliver McTurnon resigned from the priesthood over what he believed was a lack of meaningful

discussion of issues like clerical celibacy and the role of women in the ministry.

Soon after stepping down, he set up forward thinking, a conflict resolution organisation

trying to promote a peace process in the Middle East, a vision that seems more distant now than ever.

He was involved daily in the lengthy negotiations that led to the release of the

Israeli soldier, Gillad Shalit, in 2011. And though he has no formal role in current talks over Gaza,

he speaks to both sides regularly, Hamas and the Israelis. So what hopes does he hold of a breakthrough

that will end the bloodshed and lead to the release of the hostages held since October the 7th?

Oliver McTurnon, welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you, sir.

From the conversations you are having, do you hold any hope of some sort of breakthrough that would lead to a deal?

To do the work I'm doing, Sarah, you have to be optimistic by nature. So I always

live with hope, but you have to tailor that to the real circumstances. And frankly, I can't

see a breakthrough immediately. And I fear as a consequence, as we will witness even more

deaths of children, women and elderly, sadly.

There is progress, though. I mean, we hear from the US State Department spokesman just this week.

He said, I will tell you what we heard directly from two senior advisers to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel is still committed to reaching a ceasefire.

Well, I don't doubt that, but at the same time, the information that I'm getting is that, in fact, there has been no progress

and there is currently an impasse in the sense they're waiting for Prime Minister Netanyahu's response.

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