Six steps for Britain to survive in Trump's new world order
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We are at a crossroads in history today. This is not a moment for more talk.

It's time to act, time to step up and lead and to unite around a new plan for a just and enduring peace. I'm Venetia Raney and this is Battlelines. It's Monday 3rd March 2025. Well, that was quite a weekend. Even in an already frenzied news cycle, I think we can agree that the pace of the events over the last few days has been quite extraordinary.

From Donald Trump and J.D. Vance's very public row with Volodymyr Zelensky to Sarkia Starmer hosting the Ukrainian leader and vowing to put together a coalition of the willing, a lot has happened. It's all got plenty of airtime and it's going to be extensively covered on our sister podcast, Ukraine at the Latest. Host Francis Dernley was actually in the room with Zelensky at Stansted Airport on Sunday night and got a chance to ask this question. Francis Dernley, The Telegraph. Hello.

Mr. President, Russia has annexed regions in Ukraine it does not fully control. Is there any chance that as part of a peace deal any territory could be given to Moscow which is currently in Ukrainian hands?

And what is your message to your people in the occupied territories? To find out what Zelensky replied, do check out Ukraine The Latest. Here on Battlelines, we're not going to rehash all of that. We're going to reflect on the broader significance of the weekend's events. We'll be speaking to a former Number 10 insider about six steps Britain can take to survive in America's new world order.

PLAS will be in Tel Aviv hearing from Israeli relatives of some of the remaining hostages in Gaza about their fears after stage one of the ceasefire expired over the weekend. First, I'm joined here in the studio by my co-host, Roland Oliphant. Roland, what did you make of the events over the last few days? Really confusing, but I think overall, because now we've had...

48 hours or so to digest things since the Zelensky Trump press conference in the Oval Office. I think the bottom line is, was kind of encapsulated by Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister yesterday with one line he said about Europe being at a crossroads in history. And I think we've known that for a long time.

I've been talking about on this program for a long time. But essentially what you saw in the Oval Office, there's a lot of debate about whether or not it was whether it was an ambush, was a deliberate setup by Trump and J.D. Vance or not. It kind of misses the point because whether it was or it wasn't or it was unintentional,

what it is is showing the absolute fundamental philosophical rift, not only between Ukraine and the current United States administration, but Ukraine is kind of representing the mainstream European view about where the world is. And it was kind of the absolute, I don't know, the distillation, right? You know, first you get the beer and then you put it back through the distillery and eventually you got whiskey, right? I mean, it's the purest, sharpest, fieriest, nastiest form of

reality slapping us in the face really the point being that that really this is an America that has a completely different view of The world compared to us in Britain compared to Europe compared to rest of the global Western compared to most of the countries that consider themselves to be the past 80 odd years basically in alliance with the United States and therefore Ukraine yes Europe, but yes, Canada Japan Australia New Zealand

South Korea, a lot of countries have got to have a real, real hard think about a new world, a new world order, one where essentially the Russians and the Chinese have kind of won the intellectual argument for now, where it's about poles of power and where hard power matters. Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? I mean, on that Trump-Zelensky meeting,

Clearly parts of it must have been a set up. A lot has been made about the fact that these kind of disputes happen all the time behind closed doors, but that's the point. Normally they happen behind closed doors. This was very much in front of the world's press for everyone to see. And I think the other interesting thing to note is that, as you say, this is a slap in the face. This reorientation of America has been signalled for quite a while. It was signalled under Obama. We've known for a while that America wants to pivot towards focusing on China.

And we've been able to put that aside, particularly for the last three years with a Biden administration that's been very supportive of Ukraine and Europe facing Russia. But now that moment has finally arrived. And in a funny way, as arresting as it feels right now, as much of a break with the world order as you say it is, it may be a good thing for Europe in the long run that we are taking our own defence into our own hands, that we are finally waking up to the fact that Putin isn't going anywhere and that

he is heading up an aggressive revisionist Russia that will probably continue to take bites out of Europe. And if that's something that we do want to stand up against as Europe as large, then that's something that we have to tackle now. And it's also interestingly brought Britain back together with its European partners. This feels like the first time since Brexit. And we work at The Telegraph, so we're keenly aware of these schisms between Britain and European countries.

that everyone's felt on one side and that that's been celebrated. Yeah, it certainly brought out a sense of European solidarity, Europe with a big E, you know, not just the European Union, but the kind of geostrategic realities and so on. There's still going to be a lot of stuff to hammer out about how this is dealt with. Europe's still got all those problems with consensus and so on. That's why you heard Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron talking about a coalition of the willing. Not everyone's going to want to do this, put troops in Ukraine and so on.

Clearly a crossroads in history, clearly a massive questions about Ukraine and how the war ends there, but also massive, massive questions for Europe and all of America's allies. And yes, in the studio as well with us to talk about what exactly Britain has to do to survive in Trump's new world order is David Blair.

David, welcome to Battle Lines and indeed welcome to The Telegraph. You have a long and storied history at this paper. Tell us a bit about your reporting background, if you don't mind sharing. Gosh, well, thank you for having me on, Vinisha. I've been around for a long time, one way or another. I started about 25 years ago. I used to be the Daily Telegraph's Zimbabwe correspondent.

At exactly the moment that Robert Mugabe began wrecking the country But after a while he got a bit tired of me and he chucked me out of the country which is understandable from his point of view and then I I reported from the Middle East and then I went back to Africa And then I was here I was I was Roland's predecessor as chief foreign correspondent and Roland and I covered the Ukrainian Revolution together back in 2014 we were in the Maidan

including on February the 20th when snipers opened fire on the crowds. Roland and I were both there. And then I went off and joined the Foreign Office. And I was a speechwriter for two foreign secretaries, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt.

And then Boris Johnson became prime minister and I went over there and worked as his foreign policy speechwriter. And then I went back to the Foreign Office and worked for James Cleverley. And now I'm back here again. You were Boris Johnson's foreign affairs speechwriter during Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, right? Yes, I was. Yeah. So it's great to have you on the podcast with us. What sort of conversations do you think are taking place inside Number 10 and the FCDO after this insane weekend that we've just had?

Well, that whole occasion will have taken a huge amount of planning. And it's extremely successful diplomacy to get so many European leaders over here at head of government level at very short notice. And it shows that the British diplomacy is working very well.

that they have succeeded in gathering a coalition together, that they've presented them with a plan, that Keir Starmer has succeeded in rallying a lot of support for that plan, at least on this side of the Atlantic. And now he's playing the traditional role that the British prime minister should play of trying to bridge the divide between Europe and the United States. So I think everything that's happened...

speaking objectively as someone who used to be on the inside is now on the outside. But it's been an impressive display of diplomatic professionalism. I'm curious what you think, what's going on behind that impressive display of diplomacy. Do you think there will have been scenes of distress and worry after the press conference between Zelensky and Trump? All of our work's been undone. Starmer did a great job last week and now all of this has happened.

panic stations or not? I doubt if there would have been panic stations, but they would have thought, well, it's very lucky that we planned the summit on Sunday. Now that summit becomes even more important. And now we have to be absolutely clear about the plan, which we're going to be asking our European partners to join. And that would have required a huge amount of work by the whole diplomatic network. You can be sure that our embassies in all the countries that were represented here in London yesterday would have been working very hard

to make sure that their host governments were prepared for what was likely to happen and to make sure to find out what their positions were. But all in all, I think they're doing exactly the right thing and they're doing it pretty well. You wrote an excellent piece for us that we'll link to in the show notes about what Britain has to do now to survive in Trump's new world order. And you lay out six steps that I think are really interesting we'd like to go through with you that will broaden this conversation out a bit from the direct issue of Ukraine peace negotiations.

Should we start with setting a timetable for raising British defence budget to 3%? We had the announcement last week of 2.5%. You're clearly one of those who thinks it needs to go further now. Yes, the reality is that spending 2.5% of GDP is enough to keep our armed forces at their present size. It avoids further cuts, but it doesn't actually expand them. What we need now, I think there's a general consensus, is...

bigger and more formidable armed forces. And that means that we do have to spend 3%. And the government accepts that. And they said that they would plan to spend 3% in the next parliament. But I think they're going to have to bring that timetable forward. The reality is that we can't afford to wait on this. We're going to have to do it probably before the next election.

And the government should, in my view, bring forward their timetable, an advanced timetable, and show that they will spend 3% of GDP in this parliament. We've heard previously that other governments have tried to think about a way to get to 3% and the numbers have always felt impossible. We had foreign aid cuts last week to fund this. Where do you think that extra money could come from? Well, if the political will is there, the money can be found. We found £400 billion to cope with the pandemic.

We found £100 billion to pay for an energy price support package when the war broke out. So it is a test of will. The British state overall spends in excess of £1 trillion, which is an eye-watering sum of money. And defence is only a tiny fraction of that, actually. So there are ways and means of doing it. It's just a question of will. All right, let's push you on that. Is it taxed?

Is it cut or is it borrow? Oh, in my view, it would be cut. In my view, you would look at the 200 billion or so that we spend on welfare. You would look at the colossal sums that we're planning to spend on international climate finance. Within a one trillion pound pot, which is actually what you have, you can always find ways of reallocating what are actually very substantial sums of money. I don't say it's painless and I don't say it's easy.

And politically, it is a great challenge. Someone pointed out if you cut public spending by a billion pounds, that's the equivalent of taking a thousand pounds away from a million people. And the million people will have votes and they don't like it. So I don't underestimate the political difficulty. But from a foreign policy perspective and from a national security perspective, there is an imperative now.

I can't remember where I was reading it, but Merkel's comments back in 2012 about the cost of welfare came up somewhere. Europe accounts for around 7% of the world's population, produces about 25% of global GDP and has to finance 50% of the world's welfare bill. Just picking up on that point, do you think we are entering a period where...

will be less important and defence will be more? I think it has to be. And we've come to the end of an era where for decades it was the other way around. And the whole balance of effort of the British state and of European states more broadly was towards welfare, towards in the foreign policy sphere, international development and soft power and away from hard power.

And now that has to be rebalanced. And I think there's a general consensus on that. I think there's general agreement. The only question is how far and how fast. But it does have to happen now. Well, let's look at, I guess, two of your points that link to that. And that's testing aspects of Britain's overseas activities against this goal of deterring Russia, including international climate finance. Why is that something that you've zeroed in on? Well, it's quite a lot of money. We're planning to spend £11.6 billion on international climate finance by next year.

This essentially means helping other countries to cope with the effects of climate change.

So the premise is that by giving large sums of money to island states, for example, you can help them to overcome the effects. I'm not sure whether that necessarily works. I think the proposition that big countries, rich countries giving large sums of money to less rich countries is necessarily a good thing and necessarily does good is very much open to question.

and at a time when we have the biggest land war in Europe since 1945, at a time when the country we've always relied upon to guarantee security in Europe, the United States, is far less willing to do it, and when we still have an aggressive expansionist, revanchist regime in Moscow,

keeping the peace in our continent or rather preventing the terrible war that's happening from escalating still further and engulfing still more of our continent strikes me as being a higher priority. You can see how there's a fire to fight right now.

But let me push back slightly. It's not part of the premise of international climate finance and international aid generally. Part of the rationale for that is that by making the rest of the world slightly safer, slightly wealthier, slightly able to mitigate the effects of things like climate change, that makes it safer for us, including or especially in terms of migration, for example. And isn't it also true that once we've dealt with this war, we're going to have to deal with climate change as well?

Yes, that is true. But if we do have war engulfing Europe, then we'll be able to do absolutely nothing on any of the good things that you've mentioned, helping countries to cope with climate change, international development, all the rest of it. All of that will have to stop completely.

And everything that we stand for, all the good things that we try to promote around the world, all of that will end completely. So in order to prevent that, in order to carry on doing at least something to help on all these things, I'm afraid we do have to rebalance and we do have to focus on what matters most, which is deterring Russia from waging general war on Europe.

When you talk about international climate finance, and I know net zero is another part of your where you think Britain should be focusing its efforts in this new world order that Trump is laying out. There's another bogeyman that we haven't discussed yet, China. Talk to us a bit about how all of this ties into trying to reduce our reliance on them. Well, China is Russia's main strategic partner.

And China has very deliberately made itself an accomplice to Russia's invasion of Ukraine by supplying Russia with all the microchips and the crucial electronic systems that keep its war machine working.

So we really do have to think seriously before we go down a road of making our economy and society ever more dependent upon China, because that's the inevitable consequence of decarbonizing transport and energy. We will inevitably end up with Chinese-supplied solar panels, particularly, and Chinese-supplied electric vehicles.

And to a lesser extent, Chinese supplied wind turbines being the backbone of everything that we do in this country. That's a huge risk. Can you just quickly lay out why?

Why do we become dependent on China for those things? Is it simply because they happen to dominate the global market? Yes, because China took a decision, a very wise decision from their perspective some years ago to become the dominant player in the renewable energy market and particularly in electric vehicles. And just to take electric vehicles as an example, every other G7 economy has...

has imposed tariffs on Chinese EV imports. The United Kingdom is the only country that hasn't done that in the G7. So as things stand, if we carry on like this, we're going to find that Chinese EVs are dominant.

Isn't there a bit of a contradiction there, though, because we talk about energy independence and in your piece you talk about going back to fossil fuels. But actually, our reliance on Russian fossil fuels has been part of the big issue over the last few years and has caused a massive cost of living crisis here, which is still going on. Well, in fact, we've scarcely ever imported fossil fuels directly from Russia. The United Kingdom's dependence on Russia for fossil fuels has been minimal. But the Europeans do and we take responsibility.

fossil fuels from them and it creates a sort of chain of dependence. Yes, that's true. But the question is, do you want to be reliant upon a fossil fuel market, which is enormously diverse, where there's a colossal range of suppliers, where, for example, Norway is the country that we buy the single biggest chunk of our fossil fuel imports from? Or do you want to be in a position where your entire energy system is dependent upon one country,

China, which is the strategic partner of the nation, which above all, you're trying to deter from waging war upon your friends. It strikes me that the latter option is probably a lot more risky than the former. And risk is what we have to think about most now. In the past, we could afford to think about what we would like to do. But now we have to set aside what we'd like to do and judge risk. Since we're on the topic of China, everything you're saying is

seems to be posited on the assumption that the premise of current American foreign policy is false. That premise being that by reaching out to Russia, part of the objective of ending the Ukraine war is to prize Russia away from China. It's sometimes referred to colloquially as the reverse Nixon, referring to how Nixon went to China during the Cold War and is meant to be credited with prizing China away from the Soviet Union back then.

I spoke to the former Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Pavel Klimkin, relatively recently, and he said from his understanding, this was back at the Munich conference, that was part of the American assumption in their approach towards Ukraine. Why do you think the Americans have got that wrong? I just think it's unachievable. And if you place Russia in a position where you're trying to bid for them to drop what is currently their main strategic partnership, well, they're going to demand a very high price.

And if you put them in a position where they can say, well, you know, if you want us to drop China, then you need to do A and B and C, then the list of demands is going to be endless. You can't get around the fact that China is underwriting the war in Europe.

And you can't get around the fact that Russia's war machine is kept alive by China. And the idea that we could somehow tempt them or prise them apart is, I think, highly unrealistic, at least for the foreseeable future. You know, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin think that they are co-conspirators to overturn the post-1945 world order.

And they see Trump as being a possible accomplice in the task. And that's what they want to do. They want to line up with him. They don't want to break apart themselves. They want to recruit America to the same enterprise. All the more reason for us to start minimizing risk wherever we can. I assume that's why one of your other points of advice is to scrap the Chagos deal.

Yes, not because I'm necessarily against it in principle. It's just because it's a signal of how we used to do things in a world that was a lot more benign than the world it is now. You know, we're under no legal obligation to surrender the Chagos Islands. There is a non-binding opinion to that effect from the International Court of Justice. And our government is choosing to treat that as if it were a binding judgment. And it isn't. It

It's just not. And that puts us in a position where we must be the only country in the world that would surrender territory pursuant to a non-binding opinion from the ICJ. I'd be surprised if that's ever happened before.

And there's probably no other country that would do it today. And once you open yourself to that kind of possibility, once you say, actually, you know, all you need to do is get a non-binding opinion from some international cause and the British will hand over sovereign territory, even when it's got a vital military base on it, you make yourself much more vulnerable. And as part of my general theme of reducing risk, this strikes me as being a step too far. Having said that, it will probably now happen because the Americans are in favor of it.

Shall we just quickly recap for listeners exactly what the Chagos business is all about? So, David, correct me if I've got this wrong. The Chagos Islands are in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They're technically called British Indian Ocean Territory because they were claimed a Union Jack was planted on them some years ago. There is, however, a large American base there.

The British government is currently looking at a way to basically hand over the islands to Mauritius in accordance with that, what you say is non-binding ruling. The British government has already reached an agreement with Mauritius to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, but lease back the biggest island, Diego Garcia, which is the one that has the base on it, so that the base can continue operating.

Why didn't the Americans object to this? Because a lot of the criticism that Keir Starmer faced when he announced this deal, and let's be clear and fair, this deal was cooking for quite a long time before this government was in power. It's the previous government that's also a part of this.

really, why don't the Americans object to it? Because a lot of the criticism was like, well, you know, the Americans aren't going to like this. Our allies aren't going to like this because we're opening up the door to China and the Indian Ocean and so on. And Donald Trump doesn't really seem that bothered. A lot of those criticisms were nonsense. You know, Mauritius is not particularly close to China.

In fact, Mauritius' main strategic relationship in its neighborhood is with India. And India, of course, is a rival of China. And from the American point of view, I mean, look, let's just be completely realistic here. The Americans have got this base on Diego Garcia. No one is going to shift them out of it. The Mauritians are never going to be able to remove the Americans from that base. And no one is really going to be able to interfere with the operations of that base. So from the American point of view...

And this is just my guess. So I'm not basing this on anything hard. But what I would imagine is that the Americans will think if the British want to make themselves feel good by reaching some agreement with Mauritius so that they can say that they're abiding by a completely purist interpretation of international law and handing over territory pursuant to a non-binding opinion, which no other country has ever done. If the British want to do that, that's fine.

Let them do it. We're the United States. We'll just carry on exactly as we were anyway. And that's that. And we're not going to expend diplomatic capital or energy on this issue. Is part of your objection also because this is one small bit of leverage we still have over the United States? Yes. And maintaining that leverage, maintaining that card with the United States is very important.

I want to come on to your final step that Starmer must take about seizing Russian central bank assets. There's about 230 billion euros just languishing in European banks. Why haven't they been seized? It's a very good question. And a huge amount of work has been done on this. This has been an issue now for several years.

There are legal difficulties, but there's also the wider objection that all our economies in the end depend upon property rights. And if you start violating those property rights, then you discourage inward investment and you discourage any country from holding your assets here. All these are very good objections, by the way. And in normal times, they will be decisive objections. This is not something we should consider doing in normal times, but we're not in normal times.

Coming back to my central theme, we now have a real threat of general war in Europe, which we have to deter. And that means we have to consider doing things that we would never have considered before. And seizing the Russian assets, which are already frozen, is one of those things. And the prize that's on offer is extraordinary. I mean, 230 billion euros is a colossal sum of money.

If you, for example, took 100 billion of that and gave it straight to Ukraine, that would be twice their annual defense budget. It would be 60% of their total GDP.

And it would be the equivalent proportionately of the United Kingdom receiving a windfall of 1.5 trillion pounds. And that would still leave another 100 billion that you could use to kickstart European rearmament and another 30 billion you could set aside for post-war reconstruction of Ukraine. So there's a huge amount of money there that could make a huge difference.

But what I find most striking is Europe has the power to make Russia the first aggressor in history to actually fund the resistance to its own invasion. And Russia could be the first aggressor in history to fund the rearmament of the continent that it's threatening. And every Russian person could know that they are paying for the bombs and the shells and the bullets that are being fired at their soldiers.

And I just think that's too good an opportunity to miss. Just take it. It does have a very satisfying logic to it. I want to close up by asking you, which of these six steps do you think is most likely to happen and which is least likely to happen? Well, I suspect the Chagos Islands deal is going to be concluded pretty soon now that the Americans have lifted any objection that they may have had. So I suspect of my six steps, that's the first one that's definitely scrapping it as the first one that definitely won't happen.

The others, I think we will be spending 3% of GDP on defence sooner than the government plans. I think that's just a reality. And from that, a lot will follow. We will have to reallocate and rebalance the resources of the state away from soft power and towards hard power. That's already begun. And it's going to have to go further. David Blair, thanks very much for joining us on Battlelines. Thank you.

Coming up after the break, we hear from the relative of an Israeli hostage still in Gaza about what's at stake as the ceasefire deal teeters on the brink of collapse. When you think of skyrocketing brands like Aloe, Allbirds or Skims, it's easy to credit their success to great products, sleek branding and brilliant marketing. But here's the overlooked secret. The real magic lies in the engine behind the scenes, the business powering their business.

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Welcome back. Now, something else happened over the weekend that's received a lot less attention.

The ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel collapsed. Well, technically anyway. Phase one expired on Saturday and there are no concrete plans for what comes next, although there is a brief reprise at the moment. We're supposed to be now in phase two. That's the phase that would involve a permanent ceasefire, the release of all remaining living hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Talks on that were supposed to have started weeks ago but never got off the ground.

Israel does not want to withdraw from Gaza. Instead, it's put forward a proposal with the US to extend phase one. That would involve Hamas releasing half of all the living and dead hostages in one go and then talks on phase two going ahead. Hamas has refused that and that's prompted Israel to shut off all humanitarian aid. Caught in the crossfires of all of this are the two million inhabitants of Gaza who now face the risk of a full-blown resumption of the war just as Ramadan has got underway.

Among those living in Gaza are the Israeli hostages, and their families are braced for the worst. Some 59 hostages are left in Gaza, 27 of whom are believed to be alive. Our Israel correspondent Henry Bodkin has been down to meet some of their relatives who are protesting in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

I've just spoken to Dalia Kuznir. She's the sister-in-law of Yahya and Eitan Horn. Now, they're two brothers. Yahya was released about two weeks ago. Eitan is still in captivity. I was speaking to Dalia just hours after Hamas released a video showing the two brothers in an emotional farewell just before Yahya was released.

It has shaken our reality, like watching them, even though we know we have Yair home and we see him and we touch him and...

the fact that he left Eitan and the fact that today was supposed to be the day when the second phase of the deal should be signed and it's not. And we feel like it's a literally call to action, like a desperate person who, you know, is drowning and with his last voice is calling up on us and we cannot help. So it's very tough. What did you make of Eitan's appearance in the video?

I saw him nervous, I saw him afraid, I saw he's not okay. He's struggling, I saw he's struggling. But what worries me the most, and we've been telling the Israeli government and everyone involved since day one, Eitan suffers from severe skin disease.

And he takes medication on a daily basis and he's not taking his meds for 512 days. And we saw there's the scene when they're hugging and we saw all his arm full of wounds. This is what this disease makes. So he gets these wounds and they get infected very easily because he's not taking the meds. And those wounds...

infected without the proper hygiene can cause sepsis, which can cause and lead to death.

and the treatment he should be taking on a daily basis is daily antibiotic, proper hygiene and avoiding humid places. And we know that he's not getting any of those. And we're afraid that time is of essence but not in a theoretical way, you know. Really, really much now, now he's in danger. Could you just describe to me what kind of person is Zeytan? Try and give people back in my home an idea of what kind of guy he is.

He's the funniest person on earth. He always dances and sings. He sings horrible, but every time he sees a mic, he just grabs it and starts singing. He's a very simple person who just wants to make people happy. And he's that kind of guy that if you have any problem, you'll come up to him, even though he might not always have the correct answer. But he has this look that he tells you with his eyes, "I'm here for you," and he hugs you.

And he says, "I might not have the answer, but I'll be with you until you solve it." And he's an amazing uncle to my kids. Very funny, loving, fooling around, foolish, you know. Can I ask how old he is? He's not willing to start rehabilitation.

He came back with wounds and also skin problems even though he does not have any perior condition. So it shows the lack of hygiene and how bad they are there. He said that he's joining the struggle to bring Eitan back. Since the very first day, he took me to a room and he said: "I left my little brother, I'm in charge, I'm gonna get him and all the rest out."

And then he looked at me and said, "Tell me please what to do." Because he hasn't been here for 498 days and he didn't know nothing. He was not exposed to media.

So he said, tell me what to do and I'll do it. And since he was released, I think it's two weeks now, today, he's been speaking on the television. He's been talking to ambassadors from all around the world. He's trying to do whatever he can because he understands that it's his task to bring them out. And he says, and for me it's the strongest and what makes it impossible for me, he says, you look at me and you think I'm here, but I'm not.

my soul, my body, my mind is in Gaza. Please release me. And I don't know if you've ever seen someone sitting in front of you looking like a free person asking you to release him. So that's how Yair is doing.

Thank you. And you say he won't start his rehabilitation, does that psychological rehabilitation until his brother is released? Yeah, so he's not starting the mental part and he's also not, like he's taking the medication that he's been told in the hospital and the fact that they release him says that like he has to go to the hospital three times a week but he wants to put all of this on the side until he said I'm going to start whenever they come, I'll do it with them, with Daytona and with all the rest.

Can I ask what you have learned from Jaya about the conditions that Eitan might be in? Obviously that's linked to the timing and phase two and all of that. And obviously a lot of detail has come forward from other hostages in the last month. So he's not going into details. He wants each or less. He's not going to tell us until the last one is out.

He's not talking about specific torture and we've been told not to ask and to respect and we believe that maybe different to others that can start talking and doing their treatment and rehabilitation, he has eight on there and he feels that everything, every incorrect word he might use might damage eight on because he wants to make sure that they are still safe there and that we are

safe to continue struggling. He said you need all your strength now to bring them out. Later on we'll have time to talk. I just see how he is desperately looking for everything he can do to bring them out and he keeps repeating they have no time, they have no time. Trust me, I've been there, I know, I've been there, they have no time.

We all saw the images on October 7th, 2023. They slaughtered, they burned, they abducted, they raped. It's the same people who are still holding them. So we need to take all the efforts towards ending this. Some people in the Israeli media or in other media or at home in Europe, they say that the phase two was always going to be very difficult because

It is one of Israel's aims to make sure that Hamas can never rebuild on Israel's border. And obviously, Hamas still has hostages. What do you and the other families think about that dilemma? It's very easy. If you see a fire starting in a house near your home and you see people are burning and they're screaming out, asking you to go and help, would you sit down and negotiate and ask, "Wait a second,

if I take these people out, if I bring the fire extinguisher, if I do this, or maybe next time... We have people dying and they're screaming and the video you just saw of Eitan, he's screaming from the fire. So there's nothing more important. You cannot destroy those kind of...

"terrorist", "evil", "satanic", whatever word you want to say, because there's always going to be a new one. You need to make sure that you bring the living people back before it's too late, you bring the deceased so the families can close the circle,

And then you make agreements and you bring in other countries who have interest. And we've seen so many countries for the first time in 20 years are willing to be part of the day after. So that's what they should be doing. There's not a way you can kill as many terrorists as you want. Unfortunately, they'll keep trying to kill us. That was Henry Bodkin, our Israel correspondent, reporting from the hostages protest in Tel Aviv.

That's all for this week's episode of Battlelines. We'll be back again on Friday. Until then, goodbye. Battlelines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battlelines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave us a review as it helps others find the show.

To stay on top of all of our news, subscribe to The Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatches newsletter, or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine The Latest. You can also get in touch directly by emailing battlelines at telegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show notes. Battlelines is produced by Yolaine Goffin and the executive producer is Louisa Wells.

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