01/08/2014 Newsnight

The ceasefire in Gaza was meant to be for three days.

What chance of stopping the violence in Gaza when the two

sides can't stop killing each other for longer than it takes to reload.

So much depends now on the fate of an Israeli soldier who went missing

this morning. If he has been captured alive, the violence could

intensify. Tonight, we will hear from an

adviser, the former secretary David Miliband and the UN's adviser to the

Middle East. Also: The botnet protection racket, give us your cash

or your websites go down. And... Newsnight's latest Proms

preview. Today was meant to be the day

when the guns of Gaza fell silent and the talking around negotiating

tables grew louder. This morning, at 8.00am, Gaza time,

a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire A truce that took days

of deliberations, involving leaders US Secretary of State, John Kerry,

is said to have made 100 It was a huge achievement to reach

that 8.00am moment, more than Then, it all fell apart

within 90 minutes. Not only that,

the crisis now appears even more serious, with Hamas's reported

capture of an Israeli soldier. In a moment, we'll look ahead to

where this leaves the herculean First,

let's look at what happened today. As the day began, it was quiet but

not calm. For Gazans, a truce is time to return to their homes or

what is left of them. And to stock up on food, quickly. No one is ever

sure how long any pause will hold. This one did not last much longer

than one hour. Both sides blamed the other. The first major incident was

in southern Gaza near the crossing with Egypt. Israeli soldiers came

under attack as they searched for Hamas tunnels. This truce left

Israeli ground forces in place, to continue operations to destroy the

tunnels used for cross-border raids. Today, Israel said one of its

soldiers was captured when her Hamas gun men emerged from a tunnel. A 20

Three Rd lieutenant is said to have been taken back into Gaza in a

tunnel. -- a 23-year-old lieutenant. His father has pleaded for his

release. But this has already become a major setback in the difficult

effort to reach a cease-fire. Hamas is being widely blamed, by both the

United Nations and the United States. We have and I have

unequivocally condemned Hamas and the Palestinian factions who are

responsible for killing two Israeli soldiers and abducting a third,

almost minutes after the cease-fire had been announced. For Israel, the

soldier's capture is a game changer and its worst nightmare. Almost

every Israeli family has a connection to the military. In 2006,

a young conscript, Gilad Shalit, was also captured on the Gaza border.

Israel blew up that tunnel shortly after. The missing soldier was a

major wound for five long years, until finally Israel got him back in

exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas knows an Israeli

soldier alive or dead, can be a strategic weapon. Corpses and body

parts have also been exchanged in the past. But this time, Israel

warns it only response will be crushing force.

Joining me now is our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban.

Why is there so much confusion about whether or not an Israeli soldier

has been captured? It is interesting and gruesome. 1600 people killed in

Gaza but so much depends on this young lieutenant. Hamas waltzes

briefly told journalists they had him and then that was taken back. --

Hamas sources briefly told journalists that they had him. There

are possibilities that he is dead. But Israelis plastered the area with

fire. But President Obama's statement clearly contains the

assumption that Hamas do have him, perhaps on the basis of

intelligence, and that is the assumption people are working to and

that is why they are worried. It puts the Israeli government on the

high road to military escalation rather than getting back to the

cease-fire business. So this means the cease-fire talks are trapped? At

one stage the Egyptian government said talks would go ahead.

Palestinians have talked about going there tomorrow. But nothing will

happen until it is much clearer what has happened to this man.

happen until it is much clearer what acknowledge that they have him,

maybe an understanding, they have created a situation that is too hot

to handle. They do, it seems, wants this cease-fire now, but if they

acknowledge they have him, that may frustrate it.

Thank you. Let's get a Palestinian perspective now.

Joining me from Ramallah, in the West Bank,

is Mohammad Shtayyeh, a Minister in the Palestinian Authority who has

Is it a good idea to be capturing Israeli soldiers at this delicate

point in the crisis? We were all hoping that this aggression should

stop by 8am in the morning. A Palestinian delegation were on their

way to Cairo. Unfortunately, violence has escalated. The people

in Rafa are telling us that this was taken at 6:30am, the Israeli sources

are saying this happened at 9am or 10am. We have two stories.

Regardless, the cease-fire should continue, as it has been said

earlier by the earlier speaker. I think the focus should not be on a

soldier who has been taken captive. I think we should continue with the

cease-fire in order for us to really stop this aggression and put an end

to it. But 6:30am or 9:30am, whenever he was captured, do you

condemn it, because it is derailing the objective which is to end the

suffering of the Palestinians? Thousands of Palestinians have been

killed. This morning, in order for the Israeli army to try and block

the roads leading out of rougher, more than 80 Palestinians have been

killed, in order for the Army to. This is an operation. The Israeli

army are taking aggression measures. Let's just be clear if we could deal

with this central issue. How is the capture of an Israeli soldier got in

the way? Do you condemn it? As I told you, the Israeli army is

occupying... So you do not condemn it? No, excuse me, if the story that

we have been told that the soldier has been taken captive at 630 in the

morning, it was in the middle of an escalation in the Israeli side. The

problem that occurred today is that the agreement itself has seeds of

conflict. When you allow Israel to continue destroying tunnels and they

claim the tunnels are under houses, that left seeds of conflict. On the

other hand in the agreement, it did allow Hamas to retaliate in self

defence. The two sides in the agreement, they did leave the seeds

of conflict which have left a catastrophic situation which we left

today. What happens now? Are the delegation is going to be heading to

Cairo in the morning for talks? Yes, yes, the Palestinian delegation

is going to Cairo because we are sending a very clear message. We are

keen on a cease-fire. We want to stop the aggression, we want to stop

the killing of innocent people. 80% of those who were killed in the Gaza

Strip are innocent Palestinian children, old men and women and so

on and so forth. We are keen for a cease-fire. We want all parties to

commit to it and nobody should be allowed to sabotage it. Is their

concern in Ramallah where you are, the seat of the Palestinian

authority, of fatter, fatter and Hamas our long-standing political

rivals -- Fatah. Do you believe they have been strengthened in this war?

We think the aggression on Gaza is an aggression on all of us. Of

course, we will remember one important thing, this whole war on

Gaza has come a month after the Palestinian reconciliation. We were

in the middle of bringing the whole issue to a different scenario. The

Palestinian Authority was going to Gaza. Hamas was not coming to the

West Bank. Unfortunately, the whole international community, or

fortunately, the international community has fully is a ported the

agreement on the Palestinian government. It was Israel who wanted

to sabotage this. Israel wants to keep Gaza totally isolated from the

rest of the Palestinian territory, in order for it not ever to have a

Palestinian state or Palestinian territory. This is what Israel

wants. Mohammad Shtayyeh, thank you for joining us from Ramallah.

So, with a 72-hour truce in tatters, and a lasting ceasefire even harder

to reach, what more can the United Nations do - aside from saying,

"there must be a ceasefire!" We're joined from UN Headquarters

in New York by Jeffrey Feltman, the UN's Under-Secretary-General

for Political Affairs. He's the main man advising

the Secretary-General on the Middle East.

Can there be a continuation of cease-fire talks now? We have no

choice but to continue pushing for a cease-fire. If we look at the

casualty rate just from today, it is appalling. We link the escalation

directly back to the capture of the Israeli soldier this morning. Israel

says it can't continue, even though Ban Ki-Moon has said the 72 hour

humanitarian cease-fire must resume. The language Israel is using

tonight is crushing force. We are very aware of the language the

Israelis are using and others are using, but I can assure you that our

goal is to figure out a way to protect the civilians who are the

ones who are caught up in this conflict. To find a way first of all

to make sure the humanitarian relief to those sheltering in their

schools, continues to flow, that we find ways to bring in food, water

and sanitation etc. But we also have to get back to where we were

yesterday, which is bringing the parties around the idea that this

cannot continue. That unique to have enough of a pause for the

humanitarian side and enough of a pause to create the political space

that you start to deal with some of the issues that are handed back row

raised, that you need to address to make this durable. -- that Mohammad

Shtayyeh raised. We have seen Gaza erupt into this fighting

periodically. We cannot have this every couple of years. But can you

actually pick up where you left off, because the UN

Secretary-General said what has happened today, the breaking of the

cease-fire, the kidnapping of the soldier, calls into question the

assurances given by Hamas. Do you actually have a movement to

negotiate with still? Can you trust them? I do not think this is an

issue of trust. That is what the Secretary-General said. He said

called into question means you do not trust any more what Hamas said,

they do not keep their promise. We certainly did work on the assurances

that we got yesterday, that we received yesterday, to try and put

in place the cease-fire. It did not work. But that does not mean we

should not be trying again and learning from what happened this

time. What did you learn from what happened this time? I hope that

others have learned and thought hard about the fact that whether they

like it or not, when there is an Israeli soldier that has been taken

captive, the Israelis are going to take very tough measures. We saw

this in 2006 with Lebanon as well. You mentioned the Gilad Shalit

capture in 2006 and you may remember how hard the Israelis then hit the

Gaza Strip and the same thing happened a month or so later with

Lebanon. The war between Israel and Lebanon. Those who took the soldier

today need to think about what is in the best interests of the

Palestinians. Right now I would say the best thing is to try and work

with all parties to get back to where a cease-fire can create enough

of a pause that you start to get political momentum to a more durable

solution. I do not let how we get back to where we were yesterday that

we have to explore our options to do so. How are you talking to Hamas, a

terrorist organisation, in the mind of the United States and the

European Union. Are you and officials sitting down face-to-face

talking to Hamas? I'm not going to get into the tactics - Are you

talking directly, so you can give them the messages you are giving us

tonight on Newsnight. Can you give those directly to Hamas,

face-to-face? Yes. Yes, face-to-face? We have many ways to

make sure that Hamas understands our message and Hamas has ways of

communicating with us through a variety of channels and through a

variety of means. Including face-to-face? I'm not going to go

into how we do this. I'm sorry. I just... There are ways we

communicate. There are ways that we can try to verify that messages get

through when they aren't direct. There are other ways of talking as

well. 24-hours ago the focus was on the high civilian casualty toll in

Gaza. Atrocious action, to use again the Secretary General's words. What

is the message to Israel? There has to be some way of providing greater

civilian protection. There has to be some way that these casualty rates

do not continue to escalate in the way that they're going now. It's

heartbreaking to see the imagery that your news broadcasters and

others are sending out from Gaza. The Secretary General has made it

very, very clear that, even in times of war, there are rules. There are

international standards that have to be applied. So we, despite the

heightened emotions that the Israelis today have, we still have

to counsel that restraint, that taking extraordinary measures to

protect civilians is a requirement under international law. These

messages are the same today as they were yesterday. Very good luck with

the negotiations. Thank you for joining us.

It may seem like a long time ago, but the spark for this conflict

wasn't lit in Gaza, it was the killing of three Israeli teenagers

in the West Bank which precipitated the events that led to the pounding

Today, Hamas called on Palestinians from all factions to participate

in a Day of Rage against the Israeli Defence Force

There have been eruptions of violence in the West Bank

since the conflict started, Tim Whewell spent the day there.

They say they'll sacrifice themselves for Gaza. But here in

Hebron today, there was much that Arabs could do but shout their

hopeless rage over the deaths of so many Palestinians. They flew the

green flag of Hamas along the side of the Fatah party that has been

ruling the West Bank because, two months ago, the once warring

Palestinian factions finally formed a joint government. Then, many

hoped, that was a step towards peace. No-one here is thinking of

that today. This demonstration is emphasising Palestinian unity, but

now it's not about unity in favour of a settlement, it's simply about

resistance to Israel. This youth worker wasn't a Hamas supporter. But

what is happening in Gaza makes him and everyone here back Hamas now.

People are very angry. They see children killed in Gaza. They see

women, mosques demolished. We see a lot of homes completely destroyed.

Neighbourhoods completely smashed, dismanteled completely. People are

angry. Violence in them started growing. Two months ago, he says,

everything looked very different. They announced they were ready to

negotiate with Israel and ready to follow the international conditions

and rule. They recognised Israel. Israel was deeply suspicious of the

unity government. If you walk through the rocky countryside

outside Hebron, you see why. The it's near here, soon afterwards,

that three young Israeli hitchhikers were kidnapped. Near here that a

huge search operation began. TRANSLATION: It was 5.00pm we were

sitting outside a restaurant and soldiers arrived. There must have

been 1,000 of them. Eventually, on this pass, the young men's dead

bodies were found. Israel, which blamed Hamas, it was proof that the

unity government backed terrorists. What happened here is the deep

mystery at the heart of the current crisis. The deaths of those three

hitchhikers led indirectly to the deaths already of 1,500 people in

the warring Gaza, which, on a clear day, you would be able to see in the

distance over there. Yet, it's still not clear whether Hamas, as an

organisation, was responsible for the murders. This is what happened,

the same day the bodies were found, when Israeli forces came to the

house of one of the murder suspects. TRANSLATION: They made me and my

children leave the house. Then they came in and destroyed. It they broke

all the windows. At 2.00am in the morning they strapped dynomite

sticks to the walls and blew this part of the house She denies up. Her

son, who has now disappeared, could possibly have been involved in the

murders. The Israeli government says that he and another suspect were

following Hamas orders. Hamas has carried out many kidnappings, it

denies this one. Others think the murders were the work of a lone cell

affiliated to Hamas. Whatever the truth, there is no doubt of this

mother's support of the militants. TRANSLATION: I want freedom fighters

to bring us victory and Gaza to be victorious. Israel hit us so

brutally. Taught us to hate them. They don't want peace. Today, in

Hebron, some of the protesters certainly didn't want peace. In a

ritual that has been repeated again and again, they began throwing rocks

at Israeli soldiers. The troops replied with rubber bullets. Laters,

protesters claimed, with some live rounds. About 80 people, according

to the demonstrators, were wounded. This man believes the rage will burn

for a long time and he thinks the war on Hamas is counter productive.

Israel is giving the opportunity for Hamas to be stronger. They are not

destroying Hamas. They are strengthening Hamas by targeting the

civilians and targeting them in Gaza. On the other hand, they are

weakening their partner. Israel thinks the opposite. That

Palestinians will tire of war and turn against Hamas. But that isn't

happening here yet. For a broader reflection on this Gazan war

David Miliband, the President and CEO of the International Rescue

Of course, he was Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and

on his watch the world grappled with a previous war in Gaza.

I started by asking him who he blamed.

It's important the focus remains on the civilian casualties. It seems

evident from the news today that Hamas did break the ceasefire. The

hard won ceasefire, the hard-fought ceasefire that was established this

morning. The terrible tragedy is, Hamas cannot rocket their way to

victory and Israel cannot bomb its way to security. And, at the centre

of this conflict, are 1.8 million civilians who are at the absolute

epicentre of a terrible military storm. I think their needs need to

come centre stage, if any sanity is to be restored. Negotiations should

still continue, even though there is now an Israeli soldier, it seems, in

captivity? I think it's very important that all sides recognise

that the rights of civilians in war are absolute, over hundreds of

years, through to are absolute, over hundreds of

years, through the Geneva Conventions, especially in 1949 that

established the rights of civilians in warfare, there is a drive to

ensure new laws were established. The trend we have seen, not just in

Gaza, Syria, in Sri Lanka too, is that civilians aren't just pawns in

a conflict, they end up becoming the victims without any proper status at

all. The whole notion of a non-combattant inner conflict is now

under threat. I think that's a very serious issue for democratic

societies around the world and for those who would seek to undermine

them. Has Israel used disproportionate force in this

crisis, in this war? disproportionate force in this

crisis, in this Well, look, for me as a leader of a humanitarian

charity, it's important to assert that a single civilian, who loses

their life innocently in a war, that is to breach the most fundamental

basics of international humanitarian laws. If you are a lawyer you have

to look at questions of intent and have to look at wider questions of

porportionality. What I'm saying to you is, for me, as someone leading a

humanitarian organisation, I want to assert the principle that every

single civilian life is worth defending. When a single civilian

life is lost, that is disproportionate to the norm that is

have been established. The norms are about absolute rights, not about the

tradeoff of rights of civilians. The now you are wearing a humanitarian

hat rather than the Foreign Secretary hat, you would say it has

been a disproportionate use of force by Israel? Of course. Of course. Of

course. 80% of the civilians that have been lost, 80% of the

casualties in this war have been civilians. As the leader of a

humanitarian movement I have to defend the principle, after

centurieses in which civilians were, to use your phrase "caught in the

cross fire of war" in 1949, the Geneva Convention, established

absolute rights for civilians in defence of times of war. That is

being brooched. The the the situation that faces the people of

Gaza tonight is that 1.8 million of them are trapped in an area where

frankly there is no safe zone. That is completely contrary to every

basic fibre of being that anyone can really understand or uphold. Has the

British Government been strong enough in its condemnation of

civilian casualties? Look, I'm not spending my time following the ins

and outs of British politics. I will not get into a partisan political

attack one way or another or defence of the British Government. What I

think is important is that democratic societies around the

world uphold the principle that democratic governments are held to

higher standards than terrorist organisations and that is the

defence of civilians in times of war. I think that the stakes now are

very high indeed. Not just in Gaza, but more wide spread because the

idea that civilian rights and the interests of civilians, never mind

the thousands, tens of thousands of children at stake, the most t

innocent of all, the fact it could be traded away is very difficult

indeed. Diplomacy is needed more than ever. I remember 2009 when I

was at the centre of negotiating the ceasefire for the 2008-0 # Gaza

conflict, at the heart is reestablishing political stability

in the Gaza Strip. That means the re-entry of the Palestinian

Authority as the governing authority there. And reassertion of basic

humanitarian at the heart of the Middle East. David Miliband, thank

you. Now, to shift gear. If you live on the internet,

getting knocked offline could ruin your whole day -

such is the world we live in. If you make your living

on the internet, then it's a lot more serious

when someone kills your connection. Your entire business could be

at stake. Pay up, they're telling tech

companies, or we'll take you down. They're using what's known as

a Distributed Denial of Service, or Malicious attacks

on websites have grown in frequency Our technology editor,

David Grossman, reports. If you want

your business competitors to go If you want your rivals to

go offline, well they will. You have to admit,

it's pretty brazen, offering to take The weapon, a distributed denial

of service attack, or DDoS. A denial of service attack is all

about filling up the resources of a website, so that legitimate

requests can't get through. In the physical world,

you could think of it as something like a sit-in or

if you had all of your friends go to a store, fill the entire space,

but not actually buy anything. The result is,

a whole load of clients or potential customers who can't access your

website for hours or even days. The worrying development though is

an increasing number of these attacks are now being launched,

not personal revenge or business A hacker writes

a virus that then infects a whole load of computers, sometimes running

into the hundreds of thousands. Then, unknown to the owners of those

computers, the hacker instructs this network, known as a botnet,

to attack the target website. Previously, the people who made

these botnets would hire them out to email spammers who would try

to sell you Viagra or convince you they were the Nigerian

Finance Minister or something. But the email providers have got

much, much better The answer they've come up with,

is to turn them into a weapon The sums demanded to stop attacks

are comparatively trivial. The targets are often small to

medium-sized tech companies who cannot afford to be offline

for a minute, let alone a day. Companies like meetup, a social

network for community groups. The attack started on a Thursday

morning, early. We received an email asking

for money to stop the attacks. They hadn't actually started yet,

but within a few minutes of receiving

the email we saw large traffic that That was the start of a five-day

battle to bring the site back up It was really a kind

of cat-and-mouse game with Meetup is pretty rare

in being a company that doesn't mind I've been in contact with many

more who, although happy to talk CloudFlare is a network protection

company based in San Francisco. They say they've seen a huge

increase in the numbers of tech I think that there's

a reluctance to talk about this happening because there's a

perception that these companies have The challenge is,

a lot of these companies have done Some of the companies we have

seen are incredibly tech-savvy. They have contingency plans

in place, redundant providers. The attackers, the criminals,

can generate so much traffic that unless you have the resources

of a company like CloudFlare or Google, that literally has a global

network, it's very hard to defend Smashing the window,

putting it out of business. It's, effectively,

like an old mobster sort The police have

a straight-forward view of this activity and say they will

investigate if complaints are made. So far there has been one successful

prosecution in the UK These programmers were filmed

by Greater Manchester Police threatening a DDoS attack

on an online casino. But, in this case, the extortionists

were known to the victim. When there is that connection

between the victim and the offender, obviously it's

a lot easier to investigate. But even when there isn't that

connection, there is still obviously stuff law enforcement can do

because they still have to have an element of communication with

the victim because they want Obviously,

if they are attacking a number of different companies, then they might

be using the same email address, the same language in the email that

gets profiled and you can build a The random nature of most DDoS

attacks means the long-term answer Attacks are magnified

by exploiting a weakness in the very To find out about a website,

a computer will send a very short In one type of DDoS attack,

hackers use this to their advantage by telling the websites to send

the response to the server they're trying to knock offline instead

of back to themselves. The target network is then inundated

with data that makes the attack far These kinds of attacks exploit

the open, free-flowing way that internet servers around the globe

communicate with each other. There are fears that introducing

more checks and limits could slow But while we wait for a solution,

many tech companies take the view it's better to pay up

the comparatively small amounts of money being demanded

and hope the extortionists move As part of our season of Proms

previews, in the week we remember Here's the 100-strong Military Wives

Choir performing, Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead by Gustav Holst,

and conducted by Gareth Malone. # Home they brought her warrior dead

# She nor swooned, nor uttered cry # All her maidens watching said,

# She must weep or she will die. # Then they praised him, soft and

low, # Called him worthy to be loved,

# Truest friend and noblest foe, # Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

# Stole a maiden from her place, # Lightly to the warrior stept,

# Took the face-cloth from the face # Yet she neither moved nor wept.

# Rose a nurse of 90 years, # Set his child upon her knee

# Like summer tempest came her tears