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More than 2,000 lives are estimated to have been lost since Saturday when war broke out between Israel and Hamas militants.

Israeli soldiers have retaken territory up to the boundary with Gaza but Hamas has continued firing rockets into Israel, targeting the coastal city of Ashkelon.

Meanwhile, waves of strikes by the Israeli military continue over Gaza - with two high-ranking Hamas officials now reported dead. In response, Hamas have threatened to execute civilians its fighters took hostage in Israel.

Newsday spoke to human rights lawyer Zaha Hassan – the senior legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team during their bid for UN membership in 2011 – about the possibility of a diplomatic solution to end the violence.

"The underlying political issues need to be addressed. It's going to take the international community coming together to solve this issue once and for all. Israel controls everything between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River... We need to think about equal rights and equal treatment for all who live in that small sliver of land," she says.

(PImage: Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, react at a hospital in Gaza City, October 11, 2023 Credit: Reuters)

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