Global News Podcast: UN says the situation in Gaza is dire

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I'm Gareth Barlow and in the early hours of Friday the 13th of October, these are our main

stories. Palestinian health officials say more than one and a half thousand people have been killed

in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since Saturday. Israel's top general has admitted the military

failed in its duty to protect citizens when Hamas launched its cross-border assault at the weekend.

In other news, Russia's Olympic Committee has been suspended from the Olympic movement for

recognizing sports organizations in occupied parts of Ukraine. Also in this podcast,

all members of UK society, regardless of how wealthy and famous they are, must pay their taxes.

The former head of Formula One motor racing, Bernie Echelstone, has received a suspended

prison sentence after admitting fraud. Palestinian health officials in the Gaza strip

say that more than 1,500 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since Saturday.

The latest reports from Gaza say an airstrike on an apartment block has left at least 25

Palestinians dead. Israeli military says more than 6,000 bombs have been dropped on the territory

in its response to last Saturday's unprecedented cross-border assault by Hamas.

The organization is designated a terror group by countries including the UK.

Israel says it won't lift the restrictions to the Gaza strip even for humanitarian deliveries

unless Hamas frees all its hostages. The World Food Programme has warned that food and water

are quickly running out in Gaza. It described the situation as dire. Meanwhile, medical centers

have been overwhelmed after Israel imposed what it's described as a complete siege on the territory.

Dr Mohammed Amater at the El Shifa Hospital in Gaza spoke to the BBC on Thursday.

As whole Gaza neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, more than 300,000 people have fled their

homes to other parts of the tiny Gaza strip. Our correspondent in Gaza, Rushdie Abu Alouf,

has been covering the developments throughout the crisis. This is his latest report.

Israel has been targeting houses this time according to Hamas. Some of the houses belong to

Hamas activists, the Hamas government building, Hamas training facility, Hamas military compound,

even charity organization. Hamas banks were also destroyed. Any building belongs to Hamas

whether it's used for the civilian activity or military activity has been targeted. But we

are talking about buildings within among neighborhoods where thousands of civilians live.

When they hit the Ramel neighborhood, which considered for a very long time the safe heaven

for the people of Gaza, they destroyed about 11 residential buildings located next to the Hamas

ministries and next to Hamas police station. As you know, Hamas is not only a military wing,

they have been running this place for the last 17 years. So they are the government,

they have police stations, they have institutions, they have medical centers,

they have everything. Some of the buildings are used for Hamas training militants,

but other buildings were used for civilian. We are not talking about buildings located outside

the city. No, it's inside the neighborhoods where hundreds of people live and they all affected by

the Israeli airstrikes targeting Hamas. That was Rushdie Abu Alouf in Gaza. Well,

Israel is continuing to gather its military forces around Gaza and what's being described as

preparations for a possible ground invasion. Tens of thousands of troops and heavy armor

being positioned, hundreds of thousands of reservists have been called up. I spoke to our

chief international correspondent, Lise Doucet, who's in the city of Ashkelon.

With every day you see the preparations that Israel is making for what's believed to be

an all but certain ground invasion at some point. Today we were in the border town of Sturot.

At one point it is less than a mile from Gaza. We could see on the horizon the plumes of dark

smoke rising from Gaza city. There was the sound of heavy artillery all through the day,

artillery firing into Gaza, part of that non-stop bombardment that we hear from our

reporter there, Rushdie Abu Alouf. But Israel's iron dome system, the air defense system, was also

in action today intercepting missiles fired by Hamas. So the military side of this war certainly

isn't letting up and in fact it's intensifying. Lise, I wanted to pick up on some of the

conversations you will have heard with people in Sturot. You've been speaking to civilians

and also the mayor there. Some of our listeners may know the name of Sturot because it has been on

the front line. Every time there is an escalation in violence they always take the brunt of the

rockets and I remember decades ago where the rockets that used to hit Sturot would be crude

handmade missiles that that's all that the Hamas fighters had. Now decades on they are raining

missiles on the area and we ran in immediately to the mayor of Sturot. Many people have left,

not everyone, but the streets were largely deserted and he was calling on Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu to help him evacuate the town. So I asked him what life was like in Sturot now.

This is a dangerous place now because we are so close to the border of Gaza. You see all the

hundreds of the missiles that land on the town. You see all the injured from the rocket. We have

people that died from that. It's good for the family that live in Sturot to be outside from the city.

People have not left already. You haven't asked them to leave. People left but imagine if you

you have your family you cannot rent a hotel for one month from your money. This is responsible

of the country to give them the support that they need. That was the voice there of the

mayor of the town of Sturot speaking to our chief international correspondent Leastus Set.

Well Israel's top general has admitted that the country's armed forces fail to protect the state

and its citizens when Hamas launched its cross-border attack on Saturday.

General Hersey Halevi told reporters that the IDF did not live up to its responsibilities

and that lessons would eventually be learnt. But the general said that for now it was time for war.

He said Gaza would not look the same when it was over.

The IDF is responsible for the security of the state and its citizens and on Saturday morning

in Otef Gaza we did not handle it. This heinous attack was decided by Yahya Sinwar,

the ruler of the Gaza Strip and therefore he and all the system below him are mortal.

We will attack them. We will dismantle them. We will dismantle their system.

Well Israel is still said to be in shock after last weekend's unprecedented attack

and the murder by gunmen from Hamas of at least 1300 people. The perimeter of the Gaza Strip is

just 40 kilometers or 25 miles long. So then how did Hamas manage to carry out such a brazen

operation taking everyone by complete surprise? Well security correspondent is Gordon Carrerum

and he's been investigating Israel's defense of its border with the Gaza Strip.

Israel had built what it called an iron wall around its perimeter. That included a high-tech fence

with defences extending below ground to block tunnels while above there were observation towers,

surveillance cameras and sensors to detect movement. So just how did Hamas manage to break out?

It began early Saturday morning with a volley of more than 2000 rockets launched out of Gaza

sending Israelis racing to their shelters but that was just to provide cover for what else

Hamas was doing. Commercial drones carrying explosives were flown towards the security

fence. Crucially they also knocked out communications towers and cameras leaving

Israel blind. With rockets flying overhead Hamas fighters flew out on motorized hand gliders.

At the same time explosives were used to blow holes in the fence at some locations at other places

holes were cut. Bulldozers then widened some of the gaps. There were dozens of breaches along

the entire perimeter. This allowed motorbikes and vehicles to flood out. At least a thousand gunmen

were now inside Israel. They overwhelmed border checkpoints adding to the chaos for Israeli

forces who were struggling to communicate and understand the scale of events. This complex

attack would have taken months perhaps years of preparation. The fact they managed to plan all of

this without being spotted marks a significant intelligence failure. They even deceived Israel

into thinking they weren't interested in another conflict right now. Israeli troops arguably

over reliant on technology that was now disabled were thinly spread. Some gunmen headed to military

bases. It was Saturday morning and a religious holiday. Israeli forces were taken by surprise.

Some soldiers killed in their barracks. This all meant that gunmen were able to head to other

settlements nearby meeting little resistance for hours until the full picture of what was

happening became clearer and more forces could be deployed. It would take days to regain full

control of the Gaza border. Analysis there from Gordon Carrera. Against the backdrop of the war

the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken held talks with Prime Minister Netanyahu to offer

America's unwavering support for Israel. At a news conference on Thursday at the military headquarters

in Tel Aviv Mr Blinken stood alongside Benjamin Netanyahu and spoke of their close ties. People

of Israel have long and rightly prided themselves on their self-reliance on their ability to defend

themselves even when the odds were stacked against them. The message that I bring to Israel is this

you may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself but as long as America exists you will

never ever have to we will always be there by your side. For his part Benjamin Netanyahu thanked

America for its support. Thank you for your important visit here today thank you thank President

Biden and thank you to the American people for your incredible support for Israel in our war

against the barbarians of Hamas. As the pair spoke Mr Blinken also delivered a personal appeal

noting that his Jewish family had fled pogroms in Europe and survived the Holocaust.

The United States top diplomat is also hoping to contain the conflict as Israel continues its most

intense bombing campaign promising to wipe out Hamas. I heard more from our diplomatic

correspondent James Landel. I think that what was striking about Mr Blinken's response to what he

learned here today was interesting in just that he was clearly emotional about it it really touched

him personally he spoke repeatedly about his own Jewish ancestry he spoke about how being

overwhelmed by some of the images that the Israeli government had shown him so I think that was a

sort of personal human response and demonstration of support that went alongside the diplomatic the

geopolitical the military support that has been given at the same time but alongside that again

came the cautionary note when Mr Blinken made it very clear to the Israelis that for all that support

he still said look Israel has a right to defend itself but how it does that matters he said

Israel had to take every possible precaution to protect civilians from harm so for all the US

support there is still that cautionary note to say it's not a completely blank check it's not

completely carte blanche it strikes me he could have voiced this support from Washington DC the

British Foreign Minister James Cleverley who's also been in Israel could have done similar from

London there surely is symbolism by the very fact the very nature that they have gone to Israel and

made these comments on Israeli soil absolutely and that's why other foreign ministers are following

suit and will be coming to visit Israel in coming days sometimes particularly in such a traumatic

situation as this physical presence matters but equally that will matter in coming days when

Mr Blinken meets Arab leaders throughout the gulf and elsewhere just so that he can look them in

the eye too and say look we need to be concerned about the humanitarian situation as he described

it in Gaza we need to be concerned about the civilians and he spoke about the need to talk

about seeing whether there's a possibility of opening up a corridor of safe passage for civilians

out of Gaza and things like that Mr Blinken's been holding abrasive news conferences in Tel Aviv

he spoke about the hostages that are being held by Hamas in Gaza let's just take a listen to what

he had to say we're doing everything we can to secure the release of the hostages working closely

with our Israeli partners I brought with me to Israel our deputy special representative for

hostage affairs Steve Gillan who joined my meetings with the families and will stay on the ground

here to support the efforts to free their loved ones how does the US manage to leverage

its strength in the region how does it manage to leverage its contacts like you say with other

Middle Eastern countries to try and resolve things like the hostage situation the US can bring

intelligence it can bring expertise but ultimately it's the Israelis that will be in charge of this

and it'll be the Israelis who have to make the brutal calculation of how hard do they wish

to destroy Hamas as a military machine and how much do they wish to save the hostages because

it is possible that those two imperatives are attention sometime one Israeli commentator said

almost for Hamas they've almost got too many logistically it's hard to keep 150 people which

is the number we're talking so there's talk possibly maybe of women and children being

exchanged at some point maybe making a distinction between soldiers and civilians and things like

that but this is very very early days it'll be complicated these hostages will be spread all over

in different locations throughout Gaza and they are in a very perilous situation the voice there

of James Lander well the White House has now confirmed that 27 US citizens were killed in

the Hamas attacks and that 14 remain unaccounted for and we heard just there about the sensitive

nature of hostage negotiations so how do you get people out alive well the Israeli Defence Forces

or IDF believe that 150 hostages have been dispersed throughout tunnels under Gaza in locations that

were not known to be used by Hamas prior to this conflict for more on this the BBC's Christian

Fraser spoke to Scott Walker a former hostage negotiator who's resolved more than 300 cases

in his career how does he view the current hostage situation in Gaza well as you can imagine in the

early hours and days there's lots of high motion uncertainty and confusion so one of the early

stages is try and build an information intelligence picture try and find out what is going on who

actually has the hostages and try and engage in some kind of dialogue with them it's different

though when you're dealing with an organization rather than a state or a government and the demands

of Hamas are so much different to what other groups would be looking for correct well this is

the challenge in this particular case because the negotiations when they take place are actually

occurring in a war zone there's an extra dimension to it as well and there are so many of them

spread out across Gaza as well as you mentioned earlier in tunnels and basements and what have

you it seems to me that the strategy has to be keeping in the mind of the hostage takers the

value of the people they're holding how do you do that absolutely it's about humanizing them and

it's just to kind of reiterate right at the beginning when we talk about negotiation we're not talking

about agreeing or condoning or acquiescing to the hostage takers it's actually just opening up some

kind of dialogue to enable the safe and timely release so in the case of Hamas that would be

we could talk about prisoners but what you have to give us some proof of life you have to give us

some proof that they're being well cared for absolutely proof of life is one of the fundamental

aspects of all hostage negotiation and it's normally done in the very early stages what about

the complexity of this bit because as I've just described I mean I I don't know how many hostages

are in there of different nationalities but we've pulled out four the French the Brits the Americans

of course the Israelis who takes the lead because what you don't want to do is over complicate a

situation like this well my understanding is there is a coordination cell and situation room

set up and that will bring together the Americans through the FBI and the Brits and other nationalities

who have hostages taken out there as well to kind of coordinate the response to try and identify

locate where the hostages are being held and actually what are the options are including

there will be options for hostage rescue perhaps as part of the the incursion that is inevitable

but obviously only increases the risk to the hostages that was the former hostage negotiator

Scott Walker still to come finally the Australian Constitution will recognise that we were here

for 65,000 years Australians go to the polls on Saturday to decide whether indigenous people

should be recognised in the Constitution

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for now though welcome back to the global news podcast the war in Ukraine has once again had

an impact on the world of sport that's because the Russian Olympic Committee has been suspended by

the International Olympic Committee the IOC for breaching the Olympic Charter last week Russia

incorporated sports bodies in four regions in easting Ukraine that have been illegally annexed

by Moscow since its full-scale invasion began but the decision might still come as a surprise to some

as our sports reporter Alex Kapstik explains well a lot of people I think it's fair to say

might think that the Russian Olympic Committee has already been suspended because of the invasion

of Ukraine but that's not the case in fact the previous sanctions they are aimed at the Russian

government for the invasion not officials and the International Olympic Committee have always

made a point of stressing that what's happened here is that the Russian Olympic Committee

announced last week that it had formally recognized four regional organizations from

territories annexed from Ukraine so basically they absorbed the Olympic councils of the Hanks

Donetsk, Kieson and Zaporizhia and that is against the rules it breaches the Olympic Charter

the Olympic truce what they're saying is that the Russians have violated the territorial integrity

of the Ukraine Olympic Committee so that is why they have now gone and made this announcement to

suspend the Russian Olympic Committee it doesn't affect what is already in place concerning the

participation of Russian athletes may remember that earlier this year Thomas Black the ISU president

said that said they should be allowed to compete in fact he recommended that the federations allow

Russians to compete and better Russians as neutral athletes under strict conditions as individual

they can't turn up as teams although as yet they've not made a decision on whether Russians and

better Russians can compete next year's Paris Olympics and Alex what has the reaction been

to this announcement today well the Russians have dismissed it they say it's a political decision

as you would expect it's how they respond to most of these decisions that that go against them the

Ukrainians uh well they will welcome it they'll welcome this decisive action from the ISU what

it means for those Olympic councils and those regions that I mentioned uh in eastern Ukraine

will have to wait and see but the Russians as far as they're concerned they are part of the

Russian Olympic Committee Alex Kamstik the South African authorities say they have uncovered a

coal smuggling syndicate that's played a major role in the country's energy crisis the suspects

include former employees of escom the state-owned electricity firm it's widely believed that high

levels of corruption long prevented any action from being taken Ed Habersen reports South Africa

has suffered rolling blackouts for years now and authorities say criminal gangs play a major role

in the country's energy crisis they say the cartels steal high-grade coal and swap it for low-grade

coal at so-called black sites then sell the coal on the low-grade coal is then used in the country's

power stations which can lead them to break down now a group of government organizations led by

the national tax body known as SARS has launched a joint sting operation to try put a stop to the

gangs and recoup millions in tax money it's worth noting that the issue of coal theft has

been reported in South Africa's media for several years Australians go to the polls on Saturday in

a historic referendum a vote on what is called the indigenous voice a proposal to change the

constitution to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and create a body that

can advise governments on issues that affect their communities the referendum was proposed as a way to

try and unite the country but it's produced a campaign that's bitterly divided people

so which way will Australians vote Katie Watson begins her report from the town of the Aboriginal

community of Yereba in the far north of Queensland there's a music festival going on in the Aboriginal

town of Yereba it's a celebration of the world's oldest living culture

this is the country often touted as a multicultural success story but Australia's going through a

historical reckoning reflecting on its violent colonial past and looking towards a new future

it means that finally the Australian constitution will recognize that we were here for 65 000 years

Australia's indigenous minister Linda Burney was on stage at Yereba to urge people to vote yes

in this referendum the government proposal was to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

a voice on issues that affect them most trying to narrow the inequalities on issues such as

education poverty and health not far away we meet Suzanne Andrews at one of the health centres she

runs in Yereba she knows all too well the poor health outcomes in communities like hers

when we're looking at or making decisions around health or health policies we need to be making

those decisions from us people on the ground here in communities not in the doors of parliament in

Canberra my late parents would be wondering what i'm doing on a Sunday morning not being in church

for fellow indigenous Queenslander Noel Pearson one of the leaders who's pushed for this referendum

it's bigger than that the legacy we're trying to sort out here is a British legacy

it is the bloody and miserable legacy of colonization we have a chance here it's a one

nation's lifetime opportunity to get it right

polling suggests the majority of indigenous Australians want this proposal to pass

but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders make up little more than three percent of

Australia's population ironically the people deciding this vote and the fate of indigenous

communities will be outsiders once again it's been a bitter campaign conservative voters feel

the proposal's divisive frank titans going to vote no on saturday we're not racist people here

if you want to have a good function in country you can't have divisions you can't have

separations why we are now the proposals also expose divisions within indigenous communities

traumatizing people and heightening discrimination the voice is about assimilating us into the

colonial constitution to make us nice and neat little indigenous Australians that will

continue to be oppressed by the colonizer Lydia Thorpe is an independent senator in Victoria

the first Aboriginal senator for that state the amount of money that is going on this referendum

while our people are hungry and homeless and suicide rates are through the roof just shows you how

wrong this country is in how they think that they can fix the Aboriginal problem

back at the festival most people here clearly want this reform to pass but as Australia heads

towards the weekend it's looking like the no vote will win with that will come much reflection

about how this country values all of its people Katie Watson they're reporting from Australia

the former head of formula one motor racing Bernie Eccleston has received a suspended prison

sentence after admitting fraud back in 2015 he lied to tax inspectors failing to tell them

about hundreds of millions of dollars that he held abroad an investigation was then conducted by the

uk tax agency hmrc and the crown prosecution service or cps the judge at the court in london

said Bernie Eccleston was motivated by personal gain simon jones was at the hearing for decades

Bernie Eccleston was the face of formula one credited with revitalizing the sport today though

the billionaire businessman faced a much more humbling experience in the dock at southern crown

court in 2015 he failed to tell tax inspectors examining his financial affairs that he'd set up

a trust in Singapore with assets of more than 400 million pounds he'd lied because he'd wanted

to bring a swift end to the investigation and avoid paying large fees to his lawyers the court

heard he may not have been entirely clear how the fund was structured but his desire to save money

has cost him dear he received a 17 month jail sentence suspended for two years the judge took

into account his age Eccleston would turn 93 later this month and his frail health a chief

crown prosecutor from the cps andrew penn hale said the conviction sent out a clear message

all members of uk society regardless of how wealthy and famous they are must pay their taxes

and be transparent and open with hmrc about their financial affairs the cps are pleased

to bring such a complex case to a successful conclusion we worked very closely with hmrc

throughout and it is rewarding to see that they have also secured such a significant civil tax

settlement that settlement will involve eccleston paying 650 million pounds to cover his tax affairs

relating to an 18 year period he left court without commenting but with a conviction for fraud

following what was described as a lengthy and worldwide investigation that was simon janes well

let's stick with the theme of money because someone has just become very very rich indeed we don't

know who southern california has a new billionaire tonight that's right the one and only winning ticket

in tonight's 1.7 billion dollar powerball lottery was sold right here in southern california

1.7 billion dollars lottery officials know the winning ticket was bought at the midway market

and liquor store in frayser park that's about a hundred or so kilometers outside los angeles but so

far nobody has claimed that mega prize well the bbc's sam fennick spoke to the shop worker jane

asked what her reaction was that the winning ticket came from her store pretty crazy to me

i mean we don't know who's bought it but do you guys have a kind of idea locally who's bought it

i have no idea i'm completely like unsure and i'm really hoping it's somebody that is involved in

the community lottery tickets popular with the store do lots of people buy them yes every almost

every day almost every day how many do you think you sell them a lot every day yeah well we have

people who come in here doing it monday wednesday saturday what's the feeling with people that

have been in the shop i know it's very early with you but what's the feeling around the community

are people kind of excited about it but everybody's hoping they know who wants well i heard one of your

colleagues who also works in the store saying he wants the the winner to buy him a truck do you

have a shopping list of things that you quite quite fancy no but uh i'll take a truck so you

take a truck well they may be lucky they may be actually receiving a million dollars it's thought

that the shop will receive a million dollar reward for selling that lucky ticket well that's all from

us for now but there will be a new edition of the global news podcast a little later on if you want

to comment on this one or any of the topics drop us an email the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk

you can also find us on x at global news pod this edition was mixed by chris oblacua the producer

was lia mcchefry the editor caro martin i'm garth barlow and until next time goodbye

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.