BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.

The Israel-Gaza war has now been going on for nine months.

The death toll, mostly Palestinian civilians, has been horrific,

and in addition to the misery and destruction,

the conflict threatens to destabilise the region, with attacks on Israel's northern border currently escalating.

The big question is, how can this be brought to an end?

Well, at the end of May, US President Joe Biden announced a proposed ceasefire deal

and a partial roadmap to a new settlement.

But what's in this plan to end the war and does it

stand any chance of success? Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out.

First, what is the Biden ceasefire plan and how are its chances assessed in the US?

David Mokovsky is director of the correct project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute.

David Mokovsky, before we look at the plan itself, can I just ask you how much effort has U.S. diplomacy been putting into the Gaza situation?

The U.S. has put a lot of effort into this. Bill Burns, the head of the CIA, has been really the point person for the United States.

There's also been support from the White House to be part of these hostage negotiations.

We saw a hostage release in November, 105 hostages were released,

and there was also some prisoners released as well. That was a product of U.S.-led efforts.

And then Bill Burns, I think, convened the mediators, the Egyptians, the Qataris,

the Israelis to work out a deal. And so they've had meetings. It seems like almost nonstop. And,

you know, when you're the head of the CIA, you've got a lot of other things to do. But Bill Burns

found the time to like shuttle out to the region on a very frequent basis to try to reach this

hostage deal. So when we talk about the peace plan, which you'll go through in a moment,

...