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Speaker 1: We are joined now though by Israeli military spokesperson Darren Spielman. Darren,

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Speaker 1: very good to have you on Bloomberg Radio with us

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Speaker 1: this morning. Can you please first of all, up Datus

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Speaker 1: on the latest situation on the ground. Are there still

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Speaker 1: areas that you're trying to secure at this stage?

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Speaker 2: So yes, good morning, and may have been a good

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Speaker 2: morning for the residents of the state of Israel who

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Speaker 2: are still in shock and recovering from what is the

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Speaker 2: most difficult time perhaps in our history, the largest massacre

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Speaker 2: of Israeli civilians, men, women and children really in the history.

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Speaker 2: And every time, unfortunately the radio announcements go out, of

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Speaker 2: the TV announcements goes out, those numbers just continue to climb.

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Speaker 2: Today in Israel, we are still actively fighting terrorist infiltrations

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Speaker 2: in seven different communities along the border of Israel, and

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Speaker 2: we have to understand that these are communities of men,

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Speaker 2: women and children, neighborhoods, normal neighborhoods of families with homes

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Speaker 2: and parks in the middle, and are still terrasts that

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Speaker 2: are inside homes, inside parks. There are hostage situations, and

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Speaker 2: it's incredibly difficult to remove those terraces to neutralize those

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Speaker 2: terraces because they've embedded themselves inside communities, inside schools, medical clinics.

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Speaker 1: So there are ongoing hostage situations in southern Israel at

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Speaker 1: the moment.

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Speaker 2: Yes, particularly in one community. And what we've seen over

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Speaker 2: the last twenty four hours is additional tear cells that

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Speaker 2: have crossed over and are in hiding have come up

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Speaker 2: and have reappeared, and so's an ongoing search. For example,

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Speaker 2: not that long ago, a terar cell appeared, took over

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Speaker 2: an ambulance, drove that ambulance towards central Israel, and thank god,

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Speaker 2: they were neutralized before they could reach. The southern town

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Speaker 2: of Eshtode, which is very close to Tel Aviv.

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Speaker 1: Has others at the moment is your deployment in that region.

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Speaker 2: So we've now deployed four divisions in that region, including

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Speaker 2: special forces. We're also those divisions are spread out along

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Speaker 2: the entire border patrolling the security fence, which has, as

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Speaker 2: we know, had numerous breaches on them. Around ninety percent

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Speaker 2: of them have been reclosed, around ten percent of them

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Speaker 2: are still open. You have, as crazy as this may sound,

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Speaker 2: hundreds of terrace leaving Gaza in streams, still trying to

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Speaker 2: enter Israel. We've neutralized more than one hundred of them

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Speaker 2: from the air. You have ongoing rocket Salvos constantly. I

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Speaker 2: was much of the night, anybody here much of the

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Speaker 2: night with rocket Selvos. So while we're getting a handle

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Speaker 2: on the situation, it's very much an active situation.

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Speaker 1: Okay, And I appreciate that, and you bringing us up

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Speaker 1: to date on the information as you have it at

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Speaker 1: the moment. What efforts are being made or what have

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Speaker 1: you established about the hostages that have been taken into Gaza.

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Speaker 2: So as we know, based on both our own videos,

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Speaker 2: our own intelligence, and actually the cynical videos, the horrible

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Speaker 2: videos put up by the Terrace, a number of those

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Speaker 2: hostages at this point have been identified. We have solid

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Speaker 2: intelligence on who those people are. We've established a general

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Speaker 2: and a command center now to deal with those hostages.

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Speaker 2: On a separate track negotiations and dealing with those hostages,

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Speaker 2: they are also dealing with the missing, dealing with the

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Speaker 2: families of the missing, and so that is not what's

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Speaker 2: been running. It's a constant and very painful process. Families

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Speaker 2: are standing in lines holding items of their children, with

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Speaker 2: their children's dealing.

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Speaker 1: How many people do you know are being held in Gaza.

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Speaker 2: We're still saying dozens at this point, and part of

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Speaker 2: that is for operational regions, I'm part of that is

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Speaker 2: also because we are going through a process. Well, many

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Speaker 2: of them we believe to be alive. A number of

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Speaker 2: them also, unfortunately, are probably dead. And there's an ongoing situation.

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Speaker 2: But it is many dozens of hostages. And if we

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Speaker 2: want to understand who these susages are, you can you know,

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Speaker 2: we've seen the videos of not only men and women.

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Speaker 2: There's a video of an Israeli child, maybe five years old.

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Speaker 2: He doesn't understand where he is. He's being pushed around

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Speaker 2: by large gods and children in the street, one of

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Speaker 2: them holding a whip in his hands, and it's just

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Speaker 2: incredibly difficult to see.

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Speaker 1: Are you at this stage still evacuating people from southern Israel?

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Speaker 1: How many people are being moved?

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Speaker 2: Yes, so we are now at the final stages of

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Speaker 2: the evacuation. We hope to finish it today. We had

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Speaker 2: honestly hoped to finish it yesterday. It's an ongoing process.

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Speaker 2: A number of them have been airlifted out, some of

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Speaker 2: them have been lifted out on ground. Again, what has

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Speaker 2: caused such a delay in This is the constant fighting

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Speaker 2: in the area, so we don't want to obviously move

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Speaker 2: people and put them in the way of fire. But

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Speaker 2: we hope by the end of today this should be completed.

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Speaker 1: What went wrong in the preparations for this that the

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Speaker 1: attack was able to happen and so many people were

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Speaker 1: killed and wounded.

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Speaker 2: First of all, this was a horrific error, there's no question,

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Speaker 2: and the Israeli Armory prides itself on being incredibly self

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Speaker 2: transparent and self reflective. Had this even been one person

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Speaker 2: that had been killed, the Army would be going through

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Speaker 2: a process right now of trying to understand how this happened.

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Speaker 2: Having hundreds and hundreds of people been killed and many

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Speaker 2: taken hostages. This is going to be a process. It's

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Speaker 2: going to take weeks and months. We've set up teams

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Speaker 2: to already start to consider this, but we have to

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Speaker 2: understand that is going to probably be in a few

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Speaker 2: weeks or in a few months. Right now, we're focused

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Speaker 2: on with all of our might, is securing the citizens

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Speaker 2: of southern Israel, freeing those sausages and story commas.

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Speaker 1: Are you preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza right now?

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Speaker 2: The IDF is preparing for all. Everything is on the table,

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Speaker 2: All scenarios are on the table, were prepared for anything.

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Speaker 2: Right now, we're actively hitting those Kamas targets in two

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Speaker 2: specific areas where they're launching most of their attacks inside

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Speaker 2: the Gaza strip. We've had more than a thousand different targets.

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Speaker 2: We've been hitting terraces from the air tunnels, multi store

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Speaker 2: command centers, weapons depots and you know, and also trying

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Speaker 2: to neutralize the terrafts that are inside of Israel ground

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Speaker 2: forces is an option, but it hasn't been deployed yet.

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Speaker 1: In the actions that you've taken so far in Gaza.

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Speaker 1: Of what efforts are you making to avoid timing civilians.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you this is very, very difficult. The

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Speaker 2: IDF is probably the most careful army in the entire world.

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Speaker 2: We've in fact developed the techniques of warning civilians. We

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Speaker 2: set out SMSs, we've dropped flyers and many that we've done.

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Speaker 2: In this case, we created the whole method of what's

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Speaker 2: called the knock on the door, which is where you

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Speaker 2: send warning shots towards people and try to get them

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Speaker 2: out of the buildings. Unfortunately, in this case, the threat

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Speaker 2: is so great and we have declared war and Kamas

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Speaker 2: has cynically embedded themselves once again in the civilian population

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Speaker 2: that unfortunately, there may be civilians that are harmed, and

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Speaker 2: it's a tragedy. The Kamas doesn't care about Israeli civilians.

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Speaker 2: They didn't do a knock on the door when they

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Speaker 2: threw the grenades and side the ambulances carrying the sick

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Speaker 2: and wounded. And our first goal is the operational success

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Speaker 2: of this mission. And we are also concerned with the Gazenhas,

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Speaker 2: the Gozen people. I wish Camas was concerned with the

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Speaker 2: Gosen people.

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Speaker 1: We're really looking at comments from the Permanent Deserver from

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Speaker 1: the Palestinian territories of the United Nations Readmonds, who has

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Speaker 1: said that Israel cannot wage a full scale war on

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Speaker 1: a nation, it's people, its land, on holy sites and

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Speaker 1: expect peace in exchange. Is Israel done enough to promote

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Speaker 1: peace in Gaza?

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Speaker 2: I think that if we're looking at peace, and we

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Speaker 2: are two days after an event where killers thirsty for blood,

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Speaker 2: thousands perhaps crossed over from Gaza into Israeli territory, killed

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Speaker 2: innocent civilians, and we are hearing Kalestonian voices blaming us

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Speaker 2: that we're not interested in peace and not hearing them

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Speaker 2: condemning this Hainess act. I think this really shows who

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Speaker 2: is interested in peace in this region and who is

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Speaker 2: used to a bloody, barbaric type of posture.

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Speaker 1: We're looking at reports from the Wall Street Journal this

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Speaker 1: morning that Iranian officials helped to plan Hamasa's surprise attacks

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Speaker 1: on Israel. Do you know anything about that? Can you

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Speaker 1: tell us more?

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Speaker 2: I can tell you that without commenting specifically, I believe

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Speaker 2: you can connect the dots we have seen already from

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Speaker 2: June twentieth, the heads of Ramas, the heads of the

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Speaker 2: head of Islamic Jahad and from Nazi smel Hini, who

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Speaker 2: was responsible for the whole organization, met directly with Risi,

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Speaker 2: the president of Iran. They specifically discussed the Gozen situation,

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Speaker 2: and that was only three months ago. I'm sure they

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Speaker 2: were discussing, you know, how the fishing is going over

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Speaker 2: the summer in Iran. They were clearly discussing the Gasen situation,

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Speaker 2: and we know what Iran funds Ramas. They've been very

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Speaker 2: publican about this