Israel-Gaza war - a month on - BBC News Review

the israel-gaza war – one month on .

this is news review from bbc learning english .

i'm neil .

and i'm beth .

watch to the end to learn the vocabulary you need to talk about this new story .

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now the story .

it's now a month since the israel-gaza war broke out .

israel began bombing gaza after hamas killed 1,400 people and kidnapped more than 200 others on the 7th of october .

more than 10,000 palestinians in gaza have been killed by air and artillery strikes carried out by the israeli military in response .

you've been looking at the headlines , beth .

what's the vocabulary that can help people understand this story in english ?

we're looking at ceasefire , humanitarian corridor , and escalate .

this is news review from bbc learning english .

let's look at our first headline .

this is from sky news .

israel hamas war .

benjamin netanyahu speaks about potential for ceasefire .

we're looking at the word ceasefire , which means a temporary stop or pause during fighting during a war .

now , we can understand this word better if we break it into two parts .

we can , yeah .

so , the first part is cease , which means stop .

this is quite a formal word .

we don't really use it in everyday english .

the second part of ceasefire is fire .

yeah , so fire here is a term connected to the military and it means fight with weapons .

so according to this headline , the israeli prime minister , benjamin netanyahu , has spoken about stopping fighting a potential ceasefire in the israel-gaza war .

now , in the news we often hear the word ceasefire with the verbs hold and fail .

if a ceasefire is holding , it means that the agreement to stop fighting is successful .

but if a ceasefire is failing , it means the fighting is continuing despite this agreement to stop fighting this ceasefire .

ok , let's look at that again .

let's have our next headline .

this is from the international business times .

israel-hamas conflict .

israel shuts down reopened humanitarian corridor for evacuations amid hamas shelling .

we are looking at this expression humanitarian corridor .

the first part , humanitarian , contains that word human , and so it is about humans and looking after humans .

corridor is a place , for example , in a building like an office or a school , where you can walk from one place to another .

that's right .

so , a humanitarian corridor is a safe area where people can move from a dangerous place to safety .

and this headline is saying that israel has closed a humanitarian corridor that was previously open .

now , this idea , this concept of the humanitarian corridor is very common in conflict and war , and so you will read it and hear it and see it in news headlines .

and one more thing to note is that humanitarian corridors are not only used to allow people to move , but also to let aid and emergency services in and out of areas .

let's look at that again .

let's have our next headline .

this is from bbc newsnight .

how could the conflict escalate ?

we are looking at the verb escalate , which means to go up or increase .

you might know that thing in a shopping centre – the moving stairs that take you from one level to another – that's an escalator .

but this verb escalate here is used in the context of war .

it is , and escalate means to become more serious or more intense .

so , this headline is asking about how the conflict might change as more time passes .

now , there's a lot of war and conflict in the world , and so therefore you will see this word escalate used often in news reports , but you will also see the opposite word , which is de-escalate .

that's right .

de-escalate means the size or level of violence becomes smaller rather than bigger .

and you'll notice that it has this prefix d at the beginning .

that prefix is often used to mean the negative or the opposite of something .

let's look at that again .

we've had ceasefire – a pause in fighting .

humanitarian corridor – a safe space for movement of people and aid .

and escalate – become more intense and serious .

if you're interested in learning more language about conflict , we have other programmes that might interest you .

thank you for joining us and goodbye .

bye .