Global News Podcast: Israel offensive presses deeper into Gaza

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Nick Miles and at 14 hours GMC on Monday the 30th of October.

These are our main stories.

Israel steps up its operations in Gaza with hundreds of missiles fired into the north,

followed by a land incursion that briefly cut the main north-south road.

And Russia and China have warned Washington of the dangers of meddling in other nations' business.

Also in this podcast, a major military and police search is underway in Colombia

to find the father of one of Liverpool's star football players, Louis Dier.

Israel's military strategy in Gaza seems to be becoming a little clearer today.

It said it had fired missiles and artillery shells at 600 more Hamas targets.

And then for several hours, Israeli military vehicles cut one of the two main roads,

linking the north and south of the strip.

An Israeli tank, accompanied by military bulldozers, fired on an approaching car.

The tank seems to have pulled back now, but as I've been hearing from our correspondent in Gaza,

the Israeli manoeuvres are likely to be a forerunner of a broader push.

This is the line.

People in Gaza City and the north should go south to the middle area, Khan Yunus and Rafah.

So now the tanks were infiltrating about like three, four kilometers from the border.

We are not quite sure for how long, about one hour or two hours.

And we understand that when the tanks approached the area,

a tank shell hit a car where three people were killed,

the Hamas run authority here said they were all civilians.

They were traveling back to their home in Gaza City and they were hit by Israeli tank.

Now we understand from a driver who was able to cross the line back to Gaza City.

And he told me that the road is open and tanks are operating in this area anymore.

This afternoon Israeli airstrikes resumed and they hit the same area around the hospital again.

So the focus of the Israeli military operation is in Gaza City and the north.

Most of the airstrikes were in this area and this area has been bombed heavily from sea, land and air.

Now, Rushdie, you're in Khan Yunus in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

We understand that 30 trucks carrying humanitarian aid have got into Gaza over the last few hours.

What impact, if any, is that likely to have on the humanitarian situation where you are?

Yeah, for the last 10 days since Egypt started to allow the humanitarian aid,

about 130, 140 trucks were all allowed.

Today was the biggest number, about 30.

They are talking the number might reach 70 trucks into Gaza.

What the UN said, the UN is the largest humanitarian aid organization helping two thirds of the population who are in the south.

They said we need at least 100 trucks every day to be able to meet the needs of those who had to leave their homes and they live.

They need shelter, they need water, they need electricity, they need medicine and everything.

They will keep like describing the aid coming as a drop in the ocean.

But today, with more trucks are coming, there is a growing hope here, especially in the south,

that a sustainable humanitarian corridor can help those who are in need.

Tints around me, families are sleeping on the ground, kids are begging for water and for food.

Very difficult situation and those people hoping that Egypt will allow more aid, more truck,

and that those people will not keep struggling anymore.

That was Rushdie Aboualouf.

Let's get Israel's perspective now on the current military operation in Gaza.

I spoke to our correspondent in Jerusalem, Yolan Nel.

Well, we've had the Israeli military briefing earlier, the Israeli military saying that it's hit 600 targets in 24 hours in Gaza

and confirming that it's continuing to expand its ground operations that more troops have entered Gaza in the past day.

It said that it's killed dozens of terrorists who barricade themselves in buildings and tried to attack its forces, those were its words.

Hamas has confirmed that, of course, its armed faction has been fighting Israeli soldiers.

There was a lot of interest in the Israeli military briefing after we had this sighting of Israeli tanks just to the south of Gaza City,

cutting off one of the main north to south roads.

Everyone's speculating could this be a significant advance on Gaza City,

but the Israeli military spokesman didn't want to comment on that further saying that it was about the security of troops on the ground.

Obviously, there's huge pressure on Israel to facilitate humanitarian aid getting into the Gaza Strip.

We heard there from Rushdie Aboualouf in Gaza that 30 trucks have got in, or around about 30, over the last day or so.

What is Israel's position? Do you sense that there's a change in it, the more pressure that comes on diplomatically?

I mean, we've heard again from Israeli officials in the course of the day who insist that there are not food shortages in Gaza,

something which is contradicted by the different humanitarian agencies, is contradicted by Israeli NGOs who follow up on all of this,

as well, of course, what we're hearing from colleagues on the ground.

There's a worrying development when it comes to sort of civil order in Gaza when we had Unruwa saying that its aid stores were stormed yesterday in search of food.

And really, I think what seems to be happening perhaps behind the scenes, we know there are lots of negotiations that are going on,

but it does seem that humanitarian aid and, of course, fuel are being used as sort of bargaining chips here.

Israel is, for its own security reasons, it's keeping oversight of what goes in to the Gaza Strip,

so it's going through Egypt's Rafa crossing. It said it wants to make sure that supplies are not diverted and sent to Hamas.

But we also have heard these reports, according to Reuters news agency quoting unnamed sources,

that are following up on Qatar mediated negotiations between Israel and Hamas on hostages.

There's a report saying that Hamas wants a five day pause to allow aid and fuel in in return for the release of civilian hostages.

We've got no way of verifying that ourselves, but it does sound like it could be a part of the negotiations that are going on.

Yolanda, as more areas are hit by military strikes, I suppose a lot of people are talking about the long term viability of the different communities in the Gaza Strip, aren't they?

That's right. And actually, in recent days, I've been meeting people who have relatives in Gaza from the small Palestinian Christian community in the occupied West Bank.

I mean, we often forget that there are these relationships between people in Gaza and the West Bank because the two territories have been separated in particular since Hamas took over Gaza by force back in 2007.

And so I was talking to people who have even lost family members because, of course, there was an Israeli strike that affected one of the oldest churches in the Gaza Strip, St. Perferius, just over a week ago.

A prayer for peace at Bethlehem's Nativity Church that isn't being answered so far.

Worshippers here say they feel solidarity with everyone suffering in Gaza.

All people are equal for us. We live like brothers and sisters here, from this side to that side.

We have to pray. We have to be one country with each other, not their problem. It's our problem, all of us. It's our problem.

In Gaza, it's over a week since an Israeli airstrike hit the compound of St. Perferius, the site of one of the oldest churches in the world.

Israel says it was targeting a nearby Hamas command center. Many of the 1,000 Christians living here were sheltering in the church grounds.

They were left feeling nowhere was safe.

A 2,000-year-old church, this man shouted as he brought wounded relatives to hospital. There were no weapons, just people and kids.

There was despair as a mass funeral held outside the church where the bodies of the dead were laid out in white sheets next to the rubble which crushed them.

18 were killed, four of them small children. They were deeply mourned here but also by relatives living in the West Bank.

At a special church service near Bethlehem, Shireen Awad lights a candle for her aunt who was killed. She says her family in Gaza stayed there through successive wars.

We asked them, do you want to leave? They would say, no, this is our route, this is where we were born. But this time, for the first time in their history, let's say, the minute they open borders, they don't know if they want to say that is if they actually survive. None of them are hopeful.

Just months ago in Gaza, during the Orthodox Easter, Saint Porphyrios was packed with families. Christians here are deeply connected to their church and the land. But now, Reverend Dr. Munda Isaac, a Lutheran pastor and academic in Bethlehem, worries for them.

Gaza is one of the oldest Christian communities in the entire world. If you read about the history of Christianity in the First Council of Churches, they were representatives of the church in Gaza.

And right now, one of the tragedies, and I don't want to, you know, because of course we're concerned about every human lives. But after all is done, one of our biggest concerns and fears is that this long, long tradition of Christian presence in Gaza might come to an end.

As the bells of the Nativity Church ring out, souvenir shops nearby are shuttered. Foreign pilgrims have deserted Bethlehem since the war started, and decades of violence and occupation have already seen many Christians leave the Holy Land for good. This war could yet bring a new exodus.

Yulam now reporting. Now to Russia.

And that is the sound of a mob storming an airport in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in the South Caucasus region. They were searching out people who had landed from Tel Aviv in Israel. We've got more details from Vitaliy Shevchenko, Russia editor for BBC monitoring.

And the protesters, I think that's the best way to describe them. They stormed the terminal building of the main airport at Mahachkala, which is a Russian North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan, predominantly Muslim.

And as you say, they were looking for people rumoured to be refugees from Israel.

And things got out of hand. Initially, they were checking passports in a very unauthorised way, and then they entered the runway and people arriving into Mahachkala were blocked inside planes.

As things started the moment, the authorities are in control of the airport in Mahachkala. They've arrested more than 60 people.

20 people were injured, some of them police officers. But this is a very grave incident, very unusual for something like this to happen in Russia recently.

And of course, all this is triggered by the Hamas-Israel war and officials in the region. They have condemned the incident, for example, the governor of Dagestan said it was a stab in the back for patriots and it was a traitors.

But other officials, such as the local ombudsman, they said they're understandable, the emotions that drove this invasion, this mob.

And the ombudsman of Dagestan said, that's okay, we need to observe the law, but your emotions are understandable.

And Vitaly, just briefly, I know that these people were looking for Israelis, but with regards to the Jewish population in Dagestan in general, it's a tiny population.

But how much anti-Semitism is there in that Russian republic and others?

Well, obviously, it's widespread and it's by no means an isolated incident. The day before the airport invasion, a mob in another Dagestani town called Khasad Yurt,

they entered the hotel looking for Israeli refugees and elsewhere in North Caucasus in Karachayva Cherkesia.

Another mob, they rallied demanding that all Jews, and of them, there are very few there, they need to be expelled.

So clearly, there's a bit of an anti-Israeli anti-Semitic sentiment going on at the heart of Russia.

That was Vitaly Shevchenko.

Still to come.

We find out why horror films may actually be good for your health.

What's going on? Is this real?

Welcome back to the Global News Podcast.

Senior Chinese military chiefs and their Russian counterparts have been speaking at an international security summit in Russia.

Many of their public remarks are focused on the United States, including this indirect criticism from a senior Chinese official, Zhang Yuxia.

Some countries desire to see the world in chaos, deliberately create turbulence and interfere in other countries' internal affairs and instigate colour revolutions.

Wherever these countries go, there's no peace.

Our China correspondent, Stephen McDonnell, is following the summit.

I put it to him that while Mr Zhang didn't name the US, it was fairly clear who his remarks were aimed at.

Whenever you hear the Chinese government referring to some other country instigating so-called colour revolutions, that's code for the US.

So people will remember all those uprisings in the Middle East.

According to Beijing's view of things, this is all a sort of CIA plot.

They draw a parallel to Hong Kong for that matter, which is sort of described by the Chinese government as a coloured revolution.

And it's a means of, I guess, diverting from the fact that potentially people in Hong Kong may have wanted to instigate their own protests.

But anyway, I digress.

The significant thing about this was that not only was he speaking in front of the Russian Defence Minister, but this is a big military conference.

And there's a US delegation there from the Pentagon as well.

So when he's up there, Zhang Yoshua says certain countries, i.e. the US, shouldn't be meddling in other countries' internal affairs.

They're sitting in the audience, as he's saying this.

But the funny thing is, so there he is, he's criticising the US and certainly Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shogu even more directly criticised the US.

But then later on, Zhang Yoshua goes on to say, but we are actually willing to develop military ties with the US under certain circumstances.

So on the one hand, it's like a punch in the head and then, oh, but by the way, here's a bit of an olive branch to you.

Yeah, keeping the door open a little bit.

But on a broader issue, Russia and China, it's another sign of deepening ties between those two, isn't it?

Yes. Well, whenever they have these big conferences, we saw it with the Belt and Road Initiative last week, that conference.

And there was Vladimir Putin given pride of place next to Xi Jinping.

And at this Defence Conference, there's Sergei Shogu also being given pride of place.

He's also given the opportunity to get up in front of all these other figures, you know, from various countries,

smashing the West for its involvement in Ukraine, warning of potential nuclear war,

actually saying that NATO under the US is also sort of trying to, according to him, drag these tensions into Asia.

And so you can see what they're trying to do is build up a sort of a loose coalition against a US-led West as they see it.

And, you know, conferences like this are used for it, even though it's supposed to be China's answer to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore,

which again, in theory, is supposed to be a sort of neutral setting.

Most of the people who've turned up for this are big supporters of Russia and China.

Stephen MacDonald.

The property developer Evergrand has been given a final lifeline before it faces possible liquidation.

A court in Hong Kong said the Chinese company, which owes a staggering $330 billion,

must come up with a concrete proposal by December to repay its foreign creditors.

Otherwise, the firm will be wound up.

So, given that Evergrand has so far been unable to pay back its debts, what chance is there that it will be able to do so now?

It doesn't look likely at this stage.

It would need a massive restructuring of the company's debts.

But, you know, this is China and a lot of the company's debt is held in China.

And if the government wants some kind of a bailout for Evergrand, it can make one happen.

The banking system is largely state controlled.

The reason it hasn't done that already is obviously there is a moral hazard there.

The Chinese government doesn't want to be seen to be propping up a failing business.

At the same time, it can't really afford for Evergrand to collapse in a bad way

because that would leave all sorts of people sitting on losses,

including a million people who have bought homes that haven't yet been finished.

So, that's why we've had this kind of suspended animation for the past two years since Evergrand first defaulted.

It's been looking to find a solution that will satisfy its existing bondholders,

its foreign lenders, and avoid some kind of disorderly collapse.

It hasn't been able to get one together.

And most recently, it was unable to do so because of legal problems facing its founder

and some of its subsidiaries being under investigation over suspected criminal acts.

Now, there is a concrete deadline of 4th December.

It's very hard to see how something can be put together in that time frame.

And yet, Beijing is very much caught between a rock and a hard place over this.

From what you were just saying, when push comes to shove, it will step in.

Something will happen and the Chinese government would be at the centre of it.

The problem is, if Evergrand were to be allowed to collapse, we're kind of in unknown territory.

There is an enormous amount of borrowing here, $325 billion.

Some of it from outside what you would call the regulated financial system.

There are a lot of small investors involved, local governments involved.

So, if you were to have a disorderly collapse, that would ripple through China's economy.

And we've already seen that the problems that Evergrand have triggered off other effects elsewhere in the property sector.

So, a solution really needs to be found because otherwise the consequences of an Evergrand collapse,

they're unpredictable, but they would be far-reaching.

Theo Lekert.

In Colombia, a major military and police search is underway to find the father

of one of Liverpool Football Club's star players, Luis Diaz.

The authorities are speculating that the people who kidnapped him may have taken him to Venezuela.

Vanessa Busch Luchta is our online Latin America editor.

This happened on Saturday afternoon.

The parents of Luis Diaz were stopping at a petrol station to buy some fruit

when armed men approached them on motorcycles and seized them.

Luckily, the mother has since been released.

There was lots of pressure from police, so they managed to rescue her.

But his father, Luis Manuel Diaz, is still being held by these people who are still, to this point, unidentified.

Local media saying they think it's more an armed gang rather than one of the guerrilla groups that are still active in that area.

You talked about armed gangs, guerrilla groups.

Kidnappings are pretty common in Colombia.

Specifically, in this area of the country.

This area is a very troubled area because of its proximity to the Venezuelan border.

And there's a lot of smuggling going across.

There's a lot of human trafficking of migrants.

So it is a dangerous area.

However, it has to be stressed that the number of kidnappings has dropped massively in Colombia

since the late 1990s and the worst year, 2000.

Back then, there were more than 3,500 kidnappings per year.

But they're now in the low to, you know, low hundreds.

This year, it's gone up slightly, but it's still in the low hundreds.

So much, much better than that kidnapping wave, you have to almost call it, was at its worst.

There has been an outpouring of sympathy and support for Luis Diaz and, of course, for the wider family.

And, of course, the media is full of stories about the kidnapping and all of the politicians,

and especially the police, are, of course, doing their utmost to get his father home safely.

That was Vanessa Bushluter.

A BBC investigation has found that some schoolteachers in Kenya are beating pupils on a daily basis,

despite the fact that corporal punishment was banned more than 20 years ago.

A reporter Tom Odula, who himself went to a school that beat children to punish them, has been investigating.

This is a sports certificate. She was an athlete.

Martha's daughter, Ebi, died in 2019.

The autopsy report revealed that she had severe head injury.

So somebody hit her to cause that kind of an injury leading to her death.

Her boarding school said she died in her sleep, but witnesses say she was beaten by the deputy principal.

Even with the autopsy results, it took several years to get the case properly investigated.

They were trying to force me to believe that my child fell from a bed, and that's why she died.

In Kenya, corporal punishment is an offence punishable under the Prevention of Torture Act.

Yet, according to media reports, more than 20 children have died at the hands of their teachers in the last five years alone.

This is 16-year-old Saffin.

We set exams and I failed. That's why he beat us. He beat me on my waist and I got injured.

Saffin had to be taken to hospital.

The teacher, who denies the accusations, was transferred to another school.

Saffin's family say they turned to the independent body responsible for teachers.

The teacher service commission, but there was no support.

On condition of anonymity, a source from the commission told me,

reports of the most severe school beatings have quadrupled in the last three years, from 7 to 29.

It is becoming a crisis because we feel it's going out of hand now.

Cases of children being injured and maimed, even death.

The TSC source told me rogue teachers are protected at every level of Kenyan society, with cases swept under the carpet.

By the time the case reaches us, it is already totally diluted. So much evidence has been corrupted.

We put these claims to the TSC, but they did not respond.

After four years of tireless campaigning by Martha, in spring this year, what could be the first ever prosecution of its kind?

The school official accused of killing Ebi, facing trial for murder.

She denies the charge, saying she wasn't at school when the incident happened.

We want justice!

Martha has vowed to keep fighting until justice is served for her daughter.

Justice for Ebi!

Tom O'Doola for BBC Africa Eye.

Now, if you watch horror films, do you do so whilst ducking behind a sofa,

or are you one of those people who even runs out of the room?

Well, some new research suggests you might be better off staying put and watching it all with your eyes wide open.

This report from the newsroom's Rachel Wright.

Probably one of the scariest pieces of music, accompanying one of the scariest scenes in film history,

the stabbing in the shower in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

I'm not a fan of being half frightened to death by watching a man stabbing a defenseless woman in a shower,

but it seems perhaps I should stick it out.

Dr Christian Knowles, a neuropsychologist at Queen Mary University in Edinburgh,

says in a new report that watching horror films is good for us because it improves our tolerance to pain.

How? Well, it seems that when the body feels pain or stress, it produces endorphins,

which are the body's way of making us feel pleasure and reward.

Dr Knowles says that horror films provide people with a safe way to explore being frightened

because in films the scary bits are more simplistic than in real life.

And that's not the only benefit you get.

A report from 2012 found that watching a 90 minute horror movie

burned roughly the same amount of calories as going for a short walk.

And then there's The Exorcist, a film about a little girl possessed by the devil,

often rated as one of the scariest movies of all time.

Well, it's just been re-released on the big screen with extra scary bits added to celebrate its 50th anniversary

and conveniently just in time for Halloween.

So if you want to improve your resistance to pain, lose weight and just scream very loudly,

take a little trip to a cinema near you.

Rachel Wright reporting.

And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later on.

If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is GlobalPodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Global News Pod.

Before we go, here's Jackie Leonard.

Over the past few weeks, we've done a number of special editions of the Global News Podcast

in conjunction with our colleagues at the Conflict Podcast,

putting listeners' questions about what's happening in Gaza and Israel to our expert correspondents covering it.

Between them, they have been watching and analyzing developments close up for decades,

so if anyone can explain, it's them.

And events are still unfolding, so we need clarity and expertise more than ever.

That's why we plan to record another one soon.

So do please keep sending in your questions.

Either record a voice message or simply write your question

and send it to the usual address GlobalPodcast at bbc.co.uk.

And you can find the first three episodes wherever you found this podcast.

Thank you.

This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Charlotta Tajimska,

and the producer was Stephanie Tillerson.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Nick Mars, and until next time, goodbye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.