Global News Podcast: Israel rescues soldier held by Hamas in Gaza

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

I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Tuesday the 31st of October, these are our main stories.

Israel has completed the first known rescue of a hostage seized by Hamas since the group abducted

more than 200 people earlier this month. As Israel intensifies its ground operation in Gaza,

the head of the UN's Relief Agency for Palestinians has described conditions there as an unbearable

human tragedy. In other news, the leadership of Britain's former Prime Minister Boris Johnson

has been fiercely criticised at a public inquiry into the Covid pandemic.

Also in this podcast, the word pumpkin comes from the ancient Greek word pepon,

meaning large melon. Around the world, these rotund squashes are turned into lanterns for

Halloween. And what do you do with your pumpkins once Halloween is over? We'll give you a few tips.

Israel says it's freed one of its soldiers who was abducted by Hamas. The Israeli military said

Private Ori Megadish was doing well. It's the first known rescue of a hostage since Hamas

seized more than 200 people from Israel earlier this month. The group released a video on Monday

thought to be recorded under duress showing three Israeli women being held in Gaza.

One of them fiercely criticises the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not doing enough

to free them. He's described the footage as cruel psychological propaganda and has once again

rejected calls for a ceasefire. Our international editor Jeremy Bowen sent this report from southern

Israel. There's good news for one family at least. The Israeli army said it rescued Private

Ori Megadish. She'd been held in Gaza since the 7th of October. The army released a photo of her

with her relieved family and said she was in good health. For the rest of the hostage families,

the agony of waiting goes on. The Hamas hostage video shows three women sitting in front of a white

tiled wall. Danielle Eloni sitting in the centre is speaking. She addresses her comments to

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She blames him for the security failures on the 7th

of October that meant Hamas was able to breach Israel's border defences, killing more than 1,400

people, mostly Israeli civilians. Ms Eloni calls for a deal to free all the hostages and

to free Palestinian prisoners. Her words will hit Israelis hard. Opinion polls just before the

ground offensive started suggested around half the population of Israel wanted it to be delayed,

most likely because of fears for the hostages. Prime Minister Netanyahu's response was a ringing

call to support Israel in this war. Victory over these enemies begins with moral clarity.

It begins with knowing the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong.

Since the Hamas attacks on the 7th of October, Mr Netanyahu has not accepted any personal culpability

for a huge security failure, unlike Israel's military and intelligence chiefs. In the past,

Israel has freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange deals.

Hamas has said it will release the hostages in exchange for more than 6,000 Palestinians

in Israeli jails. For the hostage families, it has been another turbulent day.

When I saw Danielle's picture on the TV, my heart nearly stopped beating.

On one hand, we were stunned. On the other, we felt a sigh of relief that she's alive and we can see

her. Because up until today, we knew nothing whatsoever. We really want her to come back to us.

Hamas took the hostages to gain leverage over Israel. The Israelis started their ground offensive

when talks to free the hostages were still going on, saying they wouldn't grant Hamas impunity.

By making the video, Hamas has hit back with a calculated act of psychological warfare

aimed at the Prime Minister himself.

This is the fifth time the Council has met to discuss the conflict,

after four previous attempts to reach a resolution failed.

Our correspondent, Netotofiq, is in New York and she told us more about Mr Lazarini's warnings

about the harrowing plight of Palestinians. He said that Israel was forcibly displacing

and collectively punishing Palestinians. He pointed to the number of children dying 3,200

just in the last three weeks. He said that had surpassed the number of children killed annually

across the world's conflict zones since 2019. He said they could not be collateral damage.

The Executive Director of the Children's Agency UNICEF also

telling Security Council diplomats that the number of children dying should shake each of

them to their core. This was just one part of three different briefings by UN officials,

very sobering briefings, just trying to impress upon Council members the scale of the horror people

in Gaza were experiencing, the fact that they had become desperate in their search for food,

water, and shelter as they remain under siege, that the relentless bombing had wiped out whole

families and entire neighborhoods. These were the words coming from UN officials as they

implored Security Council members to call for a ceasefire, to call for unhindered and continuous

aid, to call for the release of all hostages, and to call for the protection of civilians under

international law. The U.S. is key in all this. Is there any sign that is any closer to backing a

resolution to bring about a truth? Well, the U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield expressed

in the Council that she does think the Security Council should speak on this.

She discussed how President Biden has spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu, how they have explained

that even though Hamas is embedded in civilian areas, that that doesn't lessen Israel's burden

to protect Palestinian civilians, that it added to their responsibility to conduct their military

operation extremely carefully. And they have also reiterated that they want to see more aid

getting in. But diplomats at the moment are negotiating a new draft resolution. And the

language I'm told by one diplomat is very similar to what we saw in the General Assembly past.

There it called for a humanitarian truce that would lead eventually to a cease of hostilities.

But diplomats tell me it's still unclear if the United States will get on board,

and if the other members as well will be able to reach a consensus.

Netatorfik, Israel is continuing to intensify its attacks on the Gaza Strip with more troops and

armoured vehicles entering the territory. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces,

Daniel Hagari, gave this update on Monday evening.

IDF forces is continuing with its campaign in Gaza with the tanks and the artillery and

infantry have all joined. Everything is coordinated by sea, air and on the ground.

In these assaults, we have eliminated dozens of terrorists. All is continuing and progressing

based on our plans and based on the stages of it. Earlier on today, we eliminated a

terrorist cell that tried to launch missiles into the north of Israel, and then we, of course,

all re-retaliated. Mahmoud Shalabi lives in Beit Laia in northern Gaza,

part of the area Israel has told people to leave.

My neighbourhood was destroyed. One simple rocket, just one rocket that hit a neighbour's home

without warning, and totally destroyed that neighbour's home and around seven adjacent

homes around it. At least 10 of my neighbours were killed, including children.

A video by the Palestinian photojournalist Yusuf al-Sahifi shows a car travelling on a road in

Gaza, stopping and attempting to turn around when an Israeli tank appears to fire at it.

Israel has accused Hamas of basing itself under or near hospitals, and says that's why it's

been telling doctors to evacuate them. But they say moving patients, including newborn babies

and incubators or very sick people in intensive care, would be a death sentence for them and that

they won't move them or abandon them. Our correspondent, Rushdie Abu-Raloof, is in

Karnunis in southern Gaza. The humanitarian crisis is getting even and even with very little

aid, consider not enough to feed about a million people who are displaced from their homes in

Gaza City and the north and who are living in a very difficult condition, not only in like camps

and underwear houses and schools, but in here, in this hospital, around me hundreds of people

on this courtyard of the hospital, they are struggling to find food, they are struggling to

find medicine, they are struggling to find water in this place. But today, the shocking news was

about Israelis tanks are cutting the main highway road to Gaza because most of the people here are

displaced from the north and Gaza City, but they still have relatives there. About 700,000 people

are remain in the Israeli operation area. We are talking about Gaza City, the biggest city in the

entire Gaza Strip and the north. The Israeli ground operation is working in four different

area and the focus tonight was in the northern western part of Gaza Strip where people are

reporting about heavy fighting there, very intense airstrikes and chilling also around the Al-Quds

Hospital again tonight. Rushdie Abu-Raloof in southern Gaza. Western countries have urged

Israel to follow international humanitarian law as it continues its military operations in Gaza.

The UN has claimed that there have been clear violations something Israel has denied.

A diplomatic correspondent, James Landale, considers what the laws of war are and how they

might apply in the conflict between Hamas and Israel. There have been laws about war for millennia.

The latest are based on the Geneva Conventions agreed in 1949 and their subsequent protocols.

They're clear that civilians should be protected from military operations,

nor should there be indiscriminate attacks or collective punishment. Israel denies it's doing

either, but the United Nations says there have been clear violations of international humanitarian

law in Gaza. As for hospitals, well the conventions insist they should not be attacked.

Alon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman. Article 13 of the first additional protocol

says that the protection to which civilian medical units are entitled may cease if they are used to

commit acts of war in certain circumstances, civilian infrastructure, if sufficient warning

has been given to evacuate may become, under international law, military targets.

In other words, if Hamas were to base its headquarters beneath the hospital, as Israel

claims, that would not only in itself breach international law, but it would also potentially

leave the hospital open to attack if Hamas used it to commit acts harmful to the enemy.

Warnings would have to be given, time allowed for evacuation and, as David Sheffer, a former U.S.

ambassador for war crimes issues said, any attack would have to minimize civilian casualties.

It would not be a problem that would be solved by a massive air strike on a hospital that would

result in a far disproportionate number of civilians being killed. That would violate

the principle of proportionality under international law. One thing is clear. Hamas itself has

committed war crimes. The deliberate killing of civilians and the taking of hostages are explicitly

prohibited by international law. Israel's allies say that it, as a democratic state, must act

differently. Our diplomatic correspondent, James Landau.

Still to come on the podcast? This man has a smile that lights up the television screen

from here, the Bangor May. So what makes the former basketball player Magic Johnson magic

and a billionaire?

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The future is ahead of us, a very sensitive to the choices that we make today.

If we don't start fixing it, we're going to be victims of it.

The climate question from the BBC World Service.

Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Welcome back to the Global News Podcast. In what's been described as the most sweeping

action taken by the US government to protect Americans from the potential risks of artificial

intelligence, President Biden has signed an executive order regulating the use of AI

to try to rein in a powerful emerging technology that has caused both alarm and acclaim.

President Biden had this to say.

I'm about to sign an executive order, an executive order that is the most significant

action any government anywhere in the world has ever taken on AI safety, security and trust.

This order builds on the critical steps we've already taken to ensuring the AI

Bill of Rights to bring together leading AI companies who agreed to make sure AI is safe

and a system is secure.

This comes as the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is due to host a major summit in England

on AI. Rajini Rajanathan spoke to Ashley Gold, a tech policy reporter at Axios, the US news website,

and asked her what the US executive order changes.

This is the White House putting down a marker saying here on a global stage,

here is how the US is thinking about governing and regulating AI.

They want to get out ahead of the UK summit you mentioned and say that they are doing something

on the American side after Europe has moved ahead with the AI Act.

This basically defines how the federal government is going to treat AI systems,

both in how they use it and how they best recommend outside companies to use it.

So there are civil rights implications, there are national security applications.

It's a pretty sweeping document.

So I was looking at some of this. So first of all, you mentioned civil rights there.

It says landlords, federal benefits program managers, federal contractors will be given

guidance to keep algorithms from being used to exacerbate discrimination.

I thought that was really interesting. What exactly does that mean?

It means that now when the private company is maybe going to contract with the government

to do rental applications or housing applications to buy a house or to apply for a job in the US,

now the government and private companies will have a set of guidelines they can look at to say,

hey, are we following the rules here to make sure that our AI algorithms are not discriminating

against protected classes in the US before it was just kind of up to individual companies to make

sure they were doing the best they could. But now there's actually going to be federal guidance on

that kind of thing. And also it says there'll be federal guidance on how AI is used when it comes

to visa applications. Absolutely. It's been important to the president, to members of Congress,

and to a lot of members of civil society groups here in the US that AI is not used in a way that

could harm visa applications or harm immigrants. So this is one step the government is taking to try

to make it sort of a fair playing field. It's the premise then from all this that's come in today

from the White House that in the main AI is not a great thing. They are towing kind of an interesting

line. I think they want America to be seen as the leader on AI. They point out that most of the

biggest and most profitable and successful AI companies are based here in the US. So they don't

want to sort of have a message that this is all bad. We have to regulate it immediately. They are

sort of going down the middle saying, hey, this has to be regulated. It's huge. It could be dangerous.

But we're also proud of these American companies that have been leading on the global stage and

we're going to make sure not to do anything too much to sort of hold them back.

Ashley Gold from Axios. An inquiry into coronavirus pandemic here in Britain has

heard that the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's leadership was heavily criticised

by his own staff. Messages from the head of the civil service, Simon Case, said Mr Johnson could

not lead and the government looked like a tragic joke. The inquiry also saw a note from a government

meeting held days before the UK went into lockdown suggesting that Boris Johnson asked why the economy

was being destroyed, quote, for people who will die anyway soon. Our political correspondent,

Nick Hurley, has more. Much of the evidence presented to the inquiry today paints a picture

of senior aides unhappy and sometimes furious with Boris Johnson. The Cabinet Secretary,

Simon Case, wrote on WhatsApp that Mr Johnson changed direction every day. One day,

Mr Case complained, the government was all about fear of the virus. The next day it was in

lit it rip mode. Mr Case added of the Prime Minister, he cannot lead and we cannot support

him with this approach. The Chief Scientific Advisor at the time, Sir Patrick Valance,

described Mr Johnson as weak and indecisive. Mr Johnson, it appears, received no briefings

on the virus over a 10-day period in February 2020 despite the growing risks. The inquiry was shown

a handwritten note documenting a meeting between Mr Johnson and the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak

in March 2020 before the first lockdown. It reads, why are we destroying the economy

for people who will die anyway soon? It includes another comment in quotation marks,

we're killing the patient to tackle the tumour. Imran Shafi, an aide to Mr Johnson who wrote

the note, was asked who had said those words. I can't say for sure, I think it was the former

Prime Minister. Mr Shafi also confirmed that Rishi Sunak's flagship scheme had been dubbed

Eat Out to help out the virus by England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty. Earlier in the day,

the inquiry heard from Martin Reynolds who ran Mr Johnson's private office in Downing Street.

He's best known for an invitation to a bring your own booze party in Downing Street

during lockdown restrictions which led to him being dubbed party marty by some. He said today

that he was deeply sorry and admitted it was not a solitary event. Mr Johnson has not commented on

the substantive but his spokesman says he will give oral evidence in due course.

Nick Urdley, the immediate aftermath of Spain's victory in the women's football world cup in

August should have been a time of national jubilation. Instead, the victory was marred in

controversy after the then president of the Spanish Football Federation kissed the player

Jenny Amoso on the lips. The outcry that followed led to Luis Rubiales being forced out of his job.

Now FIFA has banned him from all football related activities for three years.

Our Madrid correspondent Guy Hechko told us more about how the controversy erupted.

During the celebrations of that win Luis Rubiales kissed Jenny Amoso on the lips and it was a kiss

which afterwards he said was consensual which she said was not consensual and that was at the heart

of this massive backlash. It was a political backlash of politicians calling on him to resign.

There were people in the football world calling on him to resign and it was a big social backlash

as well. This was something which really went beyond football in many ways. People saw it as

reflecting a certain attitude of many men in Spain in terms of consent and the way that men

behave in many social situations. So it's something which went beyond football but it put a tremendous

amount of pressure on Mr Rubiales obviously and eventually it led to his resignation but he did

dig his heels in for a long time and try to remain in his post insisting that he had done

absolutely nothing wrong. And now as well as losing his job he's been slapped with this

three-year ban by football's world governing body FIFA. In the immediate aftermath FIFA did

actually suspend him provisionally saying it was going to carry out an investigation.

Now this is the conclusion of that investigation and FIFA says that Mr Rubiales violated FIFA's

code so he is banned from all football related activity for three years. Now that's seen as a

big blow for someone who is so influential in Spanish football and also on the international

football scene he was a vice president of UEFA. I don't think this was necessarily unexpected but

it does come as a big blow. He is also facing a criminal investigation for possible sexual assault

on Yenny and Morso as well. And he has said that he intends to appeal. He came out with a very

strongly worded statement saying that he hadn't been given a fair hearing. Basically FIFA had only

heard Yenny and Morso's side of the story and that he hadn't given his version. He also said that

this whole process had been carried out by FIFA much too fast that they hadn't respected

the time frame that they should have done and he said he's going to appeal against it and he

doesn't believe it's fair at all. Guy Hedgeko staying sport and a bit of magic.

The American businessman and former basketball player Magic Johnson has been declared a billionaire

by Forbes magazine. This makes him only the fourth athlete to join the exclusive club.

The other athletes are fellow NBA players Michael Jordan and LeBron James and the golfer Tiger Woods.

Sam Fenwick spoke to Robert Riola, director of the sports and entertainment group PKF O'Connor

Davies in New York and asked him to give us a sense of the magic that Magic Johnson has.

He had magic on the court and he's also had magic off the court. He's invested in a bunch of

Starbucks pepsis and he's invested very successfully a bunch of professional sports

teams. The Dodgers, the LAFC and the Sparks. So he's done really, really well making money

on his investments in professional sports teams. So he's invested wisely. Is that the key to it

then or is it that Magic Johnson, if people follow Magic Johnson, if Magic Johnson invests in

something then the others will follow and that makes it more successful. He's been very successful

and like the other athletes that are on the list, they've all made more money off the court,

off the field, as opposed to on the field. Now they've done quite well on the field but

just not as well as they have done off the field. So it's doing the right things and making sure

you have a right team around you, team with advisers of consultants and definitely accountants

to help you get along and make sense of all this. Because you look at, you know, Tiger Woods has not

been very successful on the golf course of late but he's still in that group of four.

He's still in the group of four. He continues to make plenty of money off the course. Who knows

if we ever play golf again. I kind of think he'll come back but the endorsements in the golfing

industry are huge. People keep hoping, don't they? And even though he's not playing that well,

he is still getting those endorsements as you mentioned. He's got a very powerful brand,

very powerful. Why then are there only, only I say, four billionaires in the group that are

a form of professional sports people? As much as we hear stories in the US every day about a new

contract being signed in the different sports, they still don't, you know, some of the NBA players

are making 55, 60 million a year but that's only for three or four years. And no matter how much

they make, they've got to pay a great deal of taxes and, you know, they still have to make the,

in order to be a billionaire, they have to have a powerful brand and be able to capitalise off the

court. Robert Raola, director of the Sports and Entertainment Group, PKF O'Connor Davies in New

York. Today, the 31st of October is Halloween. It was originally the day before the Christian

Festival of All Saints but the tradition, recognized around the world, is also commonly

associated with folklore of witches, hobgoblins and frightening off evil spirits. Another more

recent tradition is the carving of pumpkins to make lanterns. But the big question is, what do

you do with the rest of the pumpkin rather than just throwing it away? Harry Bly has been finding out.

The word pumpkin comes from the ancient Greek word pepon, meaning large melon. They're the most

famous variety of the common squash with a hard orange or yellow skin and a soft, slightly sweet

flesh inside. Around the world, these rotund squashes are turned into lanterns for Halloween,

known in some countries as jack-o-lanterns, a tradition brought to the United States by Irish

immigrants, originating in ancient Celtic folklore. Pumpkins are a good source of fibre

and contain a range of vitamins and minerals. But in the spirit of reducing food waste,

can we eat leftover lanterns? Felicity Cloak is a food writer for The Guardian newspaper

and isn't convinced. It's not necessarily perfect for eating. The varieties that we see

in supermarkets and farm shops that are intended for jack-o-lanterns are bred to look good. You

know, they're basically like the Hollywood idea of a pumpkin. They're very watery and a bit stringy.

Not all hope is lost, however. Pumpkins can be used in a variety of recipes. Felicity recommends

roasting to get the most flavour. But what you need to do is get as much moisture out as possible.

So if you roast it and then maybe drain it or sort of basically even to really concentrate that flavour,

you just give it a helping hand in the kitchen. There are a number of recipes online for pumpkin

soup, which involves adding herbs and spices to chunks of the pumpkin flesh and roasting in the

oven. Another method is to grate the pumpkin raw and to make sweet pumpkin bread. And then

there's pumpkin pickle using finely chopped pumpkin flesh, perfect for the festive season.

Pumpkins also contain lots of seeds. These can be eaten whole, toasted and seasoned and added to

salads or soups, or ground up and used in baking. Harry Bly on getting the most out of your Halloween

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

podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered, you can send us

an email. The address is globalpodcastatbbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global NewsPod.

This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll, the producer of Slim McChefrey, the editor is Karen

Martin. I'm Janette Jalil. Until next time, goodbye.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.