Global News Podcast: US promises 'ironclad' support for Israel

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

I'm Janet Jalil and at 13 hours GMT on Thursday the 12th of October, these are our main stories.

Israel says there'll be no electricity, water or fuel for Gaza until all Israeli hostages

are freed and that it will fight Hamas until it's destroyed.

Just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be crushed. They should be spit out from the

community of nations. As America's top diplomat vows unending US support for Israel, some of the

hundreds of thousands of Gazans left homeless by Israeli airstrikes seek refuge in hospitals

already overwhelmed by casualties. Every corner of the compound, there are families on mattresses

and it literally is a scene of desperation.

A film by the world's biggest music star Taylor Swift breaks records before it's even released.

Aid agencies are warning that Israel's total blockade of Gaza in response to Hamas's

devastating attack on Saturday could lead to its hospitals turning into morgues.

As we record this podcast, the International Committee of the Red Cross says that with

electricity, fuel and water cut off, hospitals could run out of fuel for their backup generators

in the next few hours. But despite that warning Israel says it will not end its siege until

Hamas releases every single one of the dozens of hostages it's taken. More than 1,300 people were

killed in the surprise Hamas attack including foreign tourists, festival goes and children.

The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint news conference with the American

Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv in which he pledged to defeat Hamas.

The massacring of young people in an outdoor music festival, the butchering of entire families,

the murder of parents in front of their children and the murder of children in front of their parents,

the burning of people alive, the beheadings, the kidnappings and the sickening display

of celebrating these horrors, the celebration and glorification of evil. President Biden was

absolutely correct in calling this sheer evil and just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be

crushed. They should be spit out from the community of nations. No leaders should meet them, no

country should harbour them and those that do should be sanctioned. We'll hear more from that

news conference in a few moments time but first let's get a sense of what's happening in Gaza.

With more than 1,300 gardens killed and more than 300,000 left homeless by retaliatory Israeli

airstrikes, many trapped in the sealed-off enclave with no exit routes have sought refuge in the

territory's already overstretched hospitals. Dr. Ghassan Abusita is a British doctor working in

Gaza. He recorded this update about what it's like on the medical front line. I've just been asked to

go to the emergency department to see a patient. When you walk to the emergency department you're

now walking through hundreds if not thousands of families that have taken up every corner

of the compound the Shifa. These families have come here to escape the bombing and to try to find

a safe place literally every corner of the compound. There are families on mattresses

and it literally is a scene of desperation. The bombing has not stopped for a single

hour. Every few minutes the buildings in the hospital are shaken by shells

and the sounds of bombings happening nearby. Before I came here I had to take this young

woman to surgery whose entire family had been wiped out in an air raid in the northern part of

Gaza. She has multiple blast injury, shrapnel injuries. We've been able to take her to the OR

now even though she was injured a couple of days ago because there's such a big pressure on the

operating rooms that only the most critically injured are getting access to the operating rooms.

Our correspondent Rushdie Abu-Aluwf is also in Gaza and has been assessing the damage caused by

Israeli airstrikes. Overnight there was more airstrikes and this morning the health ministry said

about 50 people were killed. One of the significant targets were in a refugee camp in Gaza city is

called Beach Camp and they said Israeli airstrike destroyed two houses and many civilians were

killed. I was passed by the hospital this morning a queue of long ambulances are waiting to deliver

the casualties to the emergency room where hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of

people injured. The hospital are appealing for people to donate blood. They said we are running

out of essential medical equipment and they said we are running out of fuel. Israel cut the electricity

on Saturday and the only power station that was providing a little bit of power for the

essential services has been stopped yesterday due to the fuel shortages and that caused a severe

disruption to the water network to Gaza so most of the houses they don't have water in their houses.

I was passing by a street where hundreds of people were gathered around a tank water tank and people

were queuing to fill their bottles. Talking to those people what the most they are worried now

is the news of Israeli bringing tanks near the border for an possible ground operation.

People lived this experience back in 2014 when Hamas and Israel were fighting street to street

and house to house in several locations near the border and thousands of people were killed hundreds

of houses were destroyed so the people they knew what's the meaning of having Israeli tanks in a

densely populated refugee camp and densely populated neighborhoods. Rushdie Aboulouf in Gaza

while Rushdie mentioned there the speculation that Israel is preparing to launch a ground

invasion of Gaza. Our correspondent Dan Johnson reports now on the response in Israeli society

beginning with people he spoke to in Tel Aviv.

On a street corner here by the expo center there are loads of goods that have been donated being

boxed up by volunteers. This is stuff to support the military or things that are being sent clothes

and shoes to support people from the south of the country who've lost their homes lost everything.

What's your name? Lyle. Why are you here? What's happening Lyle?

Everybody here you see work in regular job and we just leave everything and come here

and do whatever it takes to help those in need. It's very emotional and it's a very hard time for

Israel. The humanitarian response has been very focused and national unity is being invoked by

Israel's prime minister who now leads an emergency wartime government but when it comes to the next

military steps Israelis are still considering the options. If you hear that the military has

gone into Gaza how would you feel about that? I would feel good because the people that has

been kidnapped should be taken home. I wouldn't feel good that our army is getting in there because

probably there'll be losses but Hamas should be destroyed they should be eliminated period.

At the heart of this conflict is land who controls it and how it is divided. We've just

passed through a checkpoint in the barrier the wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians

near Jerusalem and this is the occupied west bank part of the land Palestinians living here

want for a state of their own and we're driving up to a frat Jewish settlements it's considered

illegal under international law but Israel disputes that. Sarah Blackcharm runs healthy to

companies she started during the pandemic that cooks and sends out individual meals

to people's homes. She's lived here for 15 years. This is our storage room with all of our

freezers little pastry area and this is our balcony where we just enjoy the air. We're hearing

are they jets? Yeah. Can you see your way to peace? I myself work with a lot of Muslims and there

are a lot of people that I care about and they care about me. I think we need to look eye to eye

and just talk. It's very warming it's like another house and all Israel are sending you packages

with clothes and food. Adams won a thousands of evacuees now in hotels but still at risk.

The sirens have sounded there's an alert everybody's been told to go to the shelters.

You know it's nothing for us we live in the south you know it's very regular things for us.

The former soldier led the fight to protect his kibbutz a community called Niran one of the first

attack. I took my pistol got my ceramic vest and another thing the cigarettes we start to kill

everyone that came into the fence between 10 to 15 terrorists. I ran into them and stood and

shot and killed including the bullet to the head and they were very close. What's going through

your mind? My mind is regular. I'm a warrior I'm a fighter this is the way in. I want to tell you

that I don't want Israeli soldiers to go in Gaza because they want us to do that. They got traps

in here and this will be wrong. I want Gaza flat flat Gaza. I don't want to see it flatten from

the hair yeah. The beautiful beachfront here is really quiet tonight there are just a handful

of people out but Israel's skies are very active there are planes sirens and there have been more

rockets landing from Gaza and from Lebanon too. It's lasted for six days now but the assault on

this country is not over. Dan Johnson reporting from Tel Aviv and also from a Jewish settlement

in the occupied West Bank. Well as we heard a few moments ago the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu held a joint news conference with the visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

America's top diplomat vowed that his country would always back Israel. This must be a moment for

moral clarity. The failure to unambiguously condemn terrorism puts at risk not only people

in Israel but people everywhere. Look at what just happened individuals from 36 countries

killed or missing in the aftermath of Hamas's attacks. Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas,

no region has escaped Hamas's bloody reach. Anyone who wants peace and justice must condemn

Hamas's reign of terror. But while Mr. Blinken was keen to show solidarity with Israel his visit

also signals how worried the US is about how regional tensions could escalate. Our Middle

East correspondent Isioland Nel. This is a visit which has several purposes. I mean the US Secretary

of State came he patted Benjamin Netanyahu the Israeli Prime Minister on the back and said we're

not going anywhere so there was that message first of all the solidarity. There have also been warnings

in that press conference that some precautions must be taken to avoid harming civilians of every

nationality. Mr. Blinken saying we mourn the loss of every civilian life. And he said too that

Washington was working closely with Israel to try to secure the release of people taken hostage

by Hamas. Of course they include soldiers and civilians including women and children some very

young children. And there's another purpose too and that's the fact that this conflict could widen

as you mentioned that he wants to make sure that Israel has the armaments it needs. That's

something that the US has been worried about and we know that there were some that supplies that came

in overnight according to the Israelis. You know there is a big fear here that the powerful Iran

backed Hezbollah militant group in neighboring Lebanon to the north could get involved. Just

yesterday there were two missiles fired across at Israeli army posts and they responded the Israeli

military with artillery fire. There's all the time there's fears that this could escalate but also

you'd have other fronts perhaps involved as the occupied West Bank is really simmering as well.

And in a sign of how serious these fears are we we saw the Saudi Arabian de facto ruler Muhammad

bin Salman speaking on the phone with the Iranian president both men expressing support for the

Palestinian people. Yeah I think this was a big move and it shows how things have changed in the

past week. You know it's not very long ago just a couple of weeks ago that we had Muhammad bin

Salman the de facto leader in Saudi Arabia saying that every day we get closer to a

normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia brokered by the US and this if it ever happened

would have meant a big shift in the region because Saudi Arabia is such a powerful Arab

and Islamic country. It's interesting the timing of this call between the two leaders because

you know it was back in March that we know that Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to resume their ties

in a deal negotiated by China the US rival after seven years of hostility which added

so much to the instability in the Gulf area and the sense of insecurity and it's also a rivalry

between Saudi Arabia and Iran has really helped to fuel conflicts in the region from Yemen through

to Syria but these calls came as the Israeli airstrikes were underway. I mean Muhammad bin Salman did

reiterate that Saudi Arabia rejected targeting civilians in any way but there was strong talk

here of the need to end war crimes against Palestine those were the words of the Iranian

state media. Meanwhile briefly there are two million people in Gaza half of them children

under siege no water no fuel no electricity what's been done to try to resolve this because

Israel's saying it's not going to ease its siege until hostages are released. That's right and you

know Egypt and the UN have been hoping that they could negotiate some kind of a pause in fighting

even if it was just for a few hours to allow emergency supplies into Gaza especially ahead of

any Israeli ground invasion but that was really ruled out by Israeli ministers earlier on. Yoland

now. Still to come we go to Haiti where violence is so extreme that aid delivery depends on talking

to armed gangs. Knowing us and accepting our our presence this is why when we travel on motorbikes

we go with big banners of threat cross and they say okay. From global current affairs to art

science and culture the documentary from the BBC World Service tells the world's stories.

Search for The Documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Welcome back to the Global News Podcast. Let's move away from Israel and Gaza and head to

Poland where campaigning ahead of this weekend's election is drawing to a close. It's a close

run race and the rhetoric has at times been brutal. The right wing law and justice party

is looking to win an unprecedented third term in office and it's tried to paint the main

opposition party civic coalition as a threat to Poland's national security. But the opposition

says the real threat is from the government and to democracy itself. It's calling this the most

important election since 1989 and the end of communism. From Gdansk in Poland our Eastern

Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford reports. In the old Lenin shipyard in Gdansk a crowd

gathers from mix of music and political debates. Three decades ago this is where the striking

workers of solidarity fought for change that eventually brought an end to communist rule.

Today many Poles worry that the rights and freedoms they won then are in danger.

Hi my name is Julia Landowska I'm a 23 year old activist and student from Gdansk Poland. For me

and for many young people it is a very important election because we're deciding here if we're

going back to being a democratic country that's why it's more important to go and vote and decide

about our future. The event slogan is in our day things will be better because Julia and her

friends have a long list of concerns about the law and justice party that's run Poland for eight

years now. They include its near total ban on abortion, the politicization of Poland's courts

and limits on free speech. Julia ended up in court recently for swearing at the government.

I feel like they're supposed to just make the activists more scared and this

encourage them to go to protest and that's why I feel I know that my case is 100 percent political.

With the results still too close to call there is a flurry of last minute campaigning here

like this opposition candidate out leafleting in a Gdansk park.

This candidate's name is his calling card. His father is Lech Walensa, the man who led solidarity

and was then Poland's first democratically elected president.

Some people talk about this election as the most important since 1989. Is that how you feel?

It's quite fundamental if you think about it and we have to make sure that we win this election to

everything that has been destroyed in the past eight years and I know it's a strong word

destruction but if you look at what has been done to our democracy we took a huge step back in all

the things we have accomplished in the past 30 years. Down the road from Gdansk, Elblok is solid

government voting territory. Come to the weekend market here. There are tables piled high with

potatoes and pumpkins. We're here because there's a group of people campaigning for votes for the

local law and justice party candidate. For me the most important is security. What do you mean by

security? You mean from Russia? Yes, it's true. From Russia the security for the future is the most

important for us. These people started to solve many problems in Poland. 500 plus per month.

But now it will be 800 zlotys. In Poland it's amount to solve many things. The opposition is

saying that democracy is in danger in Poland. We didn't accept this opinion. Our situation,

our country is the most important for us and democracy is good for us. That was

Sarah Rainsford speaking to voters in Poland. So lawless and violent has the situation become

in Haiti that aid agencies are having to cooperate with gangs in order to deliver

desperately needed humanitarian help. That's according to the director general of the ICRC

Robert Mardini who says his organization has to engage with hundreds of gangs that rule over

much of the country. He spoke to our Latin America's online editor Vanessa Puschluter

after a recent visit to Haiti. He told me that in his 27 years with the ICRC he had rarely seen

such a toxic combination of factors hitting the community's living in deprived areas. Not only

is there a dire lack of infrastructure, there's streets flooded with sewage infested waters,

there's also the lack of security, the fact that so many gangs roam the streets and that there's

little police presence and that these communities have to live almost under siege from these gangs.

So given that, how did he say aid agencies can even function there?

He said that aid agencies have to deal with the realities on the ground. So when there are

hundreds of gangs in control, what they have to do is they have to engage with these gangs

and get their acceptance to even deliver the aid. It's overwhelming the number of those groups.

I cannot pretend today that we have a dialogue with all of them. We can reach many of them,

but in Cité Soleil we are in a regular robust dialogue with the two coalitions Zipit and G9

and this is the key feature of our security management, being accepted, that knowing us

and accepting our presence. This is why when we travel on motorbikes, we go with the big banners

of FETPROT and they say, ok. So a very, very difficult situation there. We've been reporting

for years on how dire the situation is in Haiti. Did Mr Mardini see anything positive on the horizon?

He did say that when you see the smiles of people, when they receive the aid in areas that have seen

absolutely no help for all these years, it makes it all worthwhile and he also stressed that he

wanted to shine a spotlight on the pressing needs of Haitians and in fact he told me that the ICRC

would step up its aid, in particular the kits that they give with basic medication and basic trauma

kits to the hospitals in the region. They also support a hospital that they run in conjunction

with Médecins Sans Frontières and so there is aid coming, but he also had words of warning which

were that if the international community forgets about Haiti, this could spread beyond the borders

of the country. Vanessa Bushluter. The Japanese government says it's applying for a dissolution

order for the Unification Church, a controversial sect which has been under the spotlight since

the assassination of the former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A formal request is expected to be

filed in court on Friday. Will Leonardo reports? This is the culmination of a year-long inquiry

into the Unification Church, a conservative sect also known as the Moonies after its Korean founder

Sun Myung Moon. It's been accused of extracting huge donations from its Japanese followers at

times as atonement for bad ancestral karma, including Japan's colonial-era treatment of Korea.

Story after story has emerged of families being bankrupted, not least the mother of

Shinzo Abe's killer, who said he targeted the former Japanese Prime Minister for his alleged

links to the church. In a strange turn of events, his story garnered sympathy for a murder suspect

while also fuelling distrust of politicians as almost half of all Japanese MPs revealed their

interactions with the sect. A dissolution order would mean the church loses its status as a religious

organization and its tax benefits, although it will be allowed to continue operating.

Will Leonardo? The highly anticipated feature film about Taylor Swift's sell-out concert tour

has had its red carpet premiere in Hollywood. The film was recorded during the U.S. leg of

her eras tour and has already broken records for advanced ticket sales. Our North America

correspondent Peter Bose was at the premiere. The phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, a cultural

touchstone, music's biggest name and soon to be Queen of the Box Office.

This shopping mall was completely closed down to stage the red carpet premiere.

Security was intense, as was the level of excitement amongst the Swifties who were

lucky enough to get a ticket. I'm just overwhelmed right now. I'm shaking a little bit,

a little bit anxious. My stomach hurts, but in the best way possible.

Listening to her music and reminding me that having a bad reputation

can't make you afraid to talk, they really mean it. She means that much to me.

This is what the Swifties have been waiting for, the red carpet entrance to the cinema

with Taylor Swift waiting inside to screen for the first time her new movie.

Up until the last minute, the premiere was shrouded in secrecy. Taylor Swift's eventual

entrance, more than many of her fans, had dared to hope for.

The film's already broken records with more than a hundred million dollars in ticket sales

well before opening night. It's the classic Taylor effect.

The economic juggernaut that rolls into town when Taylor Swift is performing is infectious.

There's a tangible benefit for local businesses on a scale that's never been seen before.

The success of the tour is largely down to the music and an intensely loyal fan base.

The film, which runs for almost three hours, could easily become the biggest grossing movie

of 2023. Watch out, Barbie. And as her fans know all too well,

Taylor Mania could go on forever.

That report by Peter Bose in Los Angeles.

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 Gabriel O'Regan, the producer was Vanessa Heaney,

the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeanette Jalil. Until next time, goodbye.

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What in the world from the BBC World Service? Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Hey, BBC listeners, you come to the Global News podcast because you want to stay up to date on

the best of international coverage. I'm Erica Cruz-Gavara from KQED's The Bay podcast where

we bring you the best of local news around the Bay area. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday,

we bring you conversations with local journalists to give you the context and analysis that you

need to make sense of what's going on in our region. You can find the Bay wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, BBC listeners, you come to the Global News podcast because you want to stay up to date on

the best of international coverage. I'm Erica Cruz-Gavara from KQED's The Bay podcast where

we bring you the best of local news around the Bay area. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday,

we bring you conversations with local journalists to give you the context and analysis that you need

to make sense of what's going on in our region. You can find the Bay wherever you get your podcasts.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.