Global News Podcast - Crowds overrun new aid distribution site in Gaza

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Thousands of Palestinians have stormed an aid distribution site in Gaza set up by a US and Israeli-backed group, a day after it began working there. Also: a Turkish bakery revives a 5,000-year-old bread recipe.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. to make walking easier and more fun. Discover on asr.nl slash aande wandel the ultimate four-day night checklist and how you are rewarded for walking. This does asr for you and a healthier society. Asr does it. So, let's walk story of global politics. Lithuania has broken away from the Soviet Union and declared itself a fully independent sovereign state. Basketball.

During the 53-year Soviet rule, Lithuania still kept a steady stream of talent in basketball. And rock music. Basketball and the Grateful Dead. Listen now. Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peachton. In the early hours of Wednesday, the 28th of May, these are our main stories. Thousands of hungry Palestinians in Gaza storm an aid distribution site backed by the US and Israel.

President Trump's administration orders its embassies abroad to pause new applications for student and exchange visitor visas. King Charles gives a major speech at the opening of parliament in Canada, in which he stresses the country's proud independence. Also in this podcast... The app isn't bothered about wrinkles, isn't bothered by grey hair. You could look pretty decrepit according to us humans and the app could still think you're young. Now AI may be able to predict how long you've got left to live.

Let's begin in Gaza with reports that thousands of Palestinians have overwhelmed a food parcel service run by a new aid group backed by the US and Israel. Eyewitnesses reported scenes of chaos and hearing gunshots in and around the distribution hub in the south of the territory. These people were there. Hunger brought me here. No one cares about us. I came here because I want to feed my children, and I have 10 people to feed.

Initially, the delivery process was orderly, but due to the overwhelming crowd, the aid organization allowed people to rush in and grab whatever they could. The delivery process was orderly, but due to the overwhelming crowd, the aid organisation allowed people to rush in and grab whatever they could. I thank the aid organisation for their help because no-one from the Arab world cared about us. I thank them for their support. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says at one point so many people turned up that it paused its operation to avoid potential casualties. The Foundation said it had managed to hand out 8,000 food boxes before the centre was overrun by crowds.

Meanwhile, the UN continues to voice its unhappiness about the new group. Juliet Thouma from the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees says the need in Gaza is much greater than the foundation can provide for. The needs are the minimum 500, 600 trucks of supplies every day to go into Gaza coordinated by the UN, including through UNRWA. We did it perfectly well during the ceasefire. And alone we have 3,000 trucks waiting in places like Jordan, where I am, places like Egypt, just waiting for the green light. They're full of food, they're full of medicine that's about to expire, medicine made for children, for older people. We need to get those trucks into Gaza as soon as possible.

I heard more from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Barbara Platt-Asher. A lot of people showed up at the aid site today, Tuesday. They had it actually opened yesterday but very few people came because there wasn't clear information about how it would work and because there were fears that they might be forced to provide identification or biometric scans and also because Hamas had been through social media warning them not to go. But they showed up in large, large numbers today and it seems like it wasn't very well organized. According to people who were there, they didn't have a system about how the boxes

would be distributed and after waiting for a while people started to push forward and just begin to take what they could get. And then there was gunfire, which we now know was the Israelis firing in the air is what they say. And then so some people started running away but others just kept pushing forward to try to grab the boxes and so it was complete chaos for a while. So there's more aid coming tomorrow supposedly but we've already had the amount of aid being described as a teaspoon to try and deal with this huge problem and I guess there's also the possibility the same kind of thing might happen again. Yes there is that possibility in terms terms of the aid, what the Gaza Humanitarian

Foundation says is that once it has its four hubs up and running, two have been opened now, it can feed 300,000 people a week from those distribution points, which is just over a million people, which is about half the population of Gaza. So they're not in any position to feed everybody, certainly not according to the extensive network that the UN has already laid down, although they do say they want to expand to be able to meet everybody eventually. But it does raise questions about how they will proceed, given that you're dealing with a population that is so deprived, deprived of aid for nearly three months and quite desperate to get it. And also the organizational model, which is a hub to which people come. At this point doesn't seem to be a clear distribution

mechanism in the way that the UN has been running it, whereas the other aid organizations have many many more sites they go to the communities and deliver it there so it is something that this foundation if it's going to work will have to organize. That was Barbara Pletasha with me from Jerusalem. The UN has described those scenes in Gaza as heartbreaking. In response, the United States accused the UN of hypocrisy, saying FU was successfully entering the Palestinian territory. Here's our State Department correspondent Tom Bateman. Now this is a project that is being seen very much as being

sort of working from the Israeli perspective, although Israel tries to sort of push against that idea, but there is the problem. Now Tammy Bruce, the spokeswoman for the State Department today, said that this was great news that aid had got in, described it as neutral and impartial, and I challenged her on that and asked her whether or not it was truly neutral. What I can tell you is the description of the nature of what they're accomplishing, which is getting food and aid into that region. Clearly, there are some disagreements

with about how that's being handled, how that's being implemented. But I think that most of us would agree that this is good news, that in any other mechanism under any other expectation was not able to accomplish this. So it's just that there was another mechanism that was able to accomplish this and more. Well you know, you're right, we did have a really good mechanism.

It was called a ceasefire. And that was Tammy Bruce, spokesperson for the US State Department. Six months ago, a ceasefire ended more than a year of war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The deal included the deployment of thousands of troops from the Lebanese National Army to areas in the south that were virtually controlled by the militant group. It also demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces from positions they'd invaded, although troops remain in five of them. Israel continues to carry out airstrikes almost every day, saying they're necessary to stop Hezbollah

from regrouping. The UN says these are violations of the agreement. The BBC has been given rare access to French troops from the UN peacekeeping mission. Here's our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bishaga. In the hills of southern Lebanon, French troops are on a mission. Part of the UN peacekeeping force in the country, they are searching for positions that were being used by Hezbollah, which for decades was the dominant power here. So we are in a valley here in southern Lebanon and I can see there are lots of positions that have been left abandoned and presumably this was a position that was being used by Hezbollah? Yes, it was a living area here and a bit further it's a striking or firing position.

So people were staying here and they would go to a position to fire a rocket? Yes, exactly. How far are we from the Israeli border? Here we are two or three kilometres from the Israeli border. Captain Floran, from the UN mission known as UNIFIL, is leading the operation. Here is a little gap for us, leaving an area for them. A little cache for Hezbollah, a living area for them. Yes, I can see like one, two, three, four, five beds. There's also a fridge here, which looks like a very permanent facility.

There are maybe some years to set these camps and these weapons and these launchers, and it is really sophisticated. From places like this, Hezbollah carried out attacks against Israel. The ceasefire has meant that its fighters were forced to pull out from these areas. We also find abandoned multiple rocket launchers, next to pipes for water distribution and cables for electricity and communication. So, before the ceasefire and before the war, it would have been almost impossible for UNIFIL or even the Lebanese army to come to these places because of the presence that Hezbollah

had here, right? Yes. And you haven't encountered so far any Hezbollah fighter? No, no, no, never. But I don't think there is many Hezbollah members right now in the area of operation. So here is a truck with a rocket launcher set up on it, which has been destroyed. And here we can see it's maybe by an airstrike because you can see the trees are all burnt.

We've been here for more than an hour now and there's been the constant sound of the Israeli drone flying overhead. Every time, night and day. Every time, night and day. Yeah. The UN says the drone infiltrations and Israel's constant airstrikes on targets it says are linked to Hezbollah are in breach of the ceasefire.

Back at the French base, I meet Candice Ardiel, who is the deputy UNIFIL spokesperson. For the moment, the main violations, frankly, that we're seeing are from the Israeli side. We have Israeli soldiers present in Lebanese territory. They've maintained a number of permanent-looking positions. And these are the five points that the Israeli military continue to occupy in southern Lebanon, but also the Israeli drones that continue to breach Lebanese territory. And fighter jets as well.

Occasionally we see air violations on a fairly regular basis as well. And the attacks that have been happening almost every day. Yes, air strikes, drone strikes, yes. How would you describe the work of the Lebanese military? The Lebanese army is doing a great job. They have redeployed, they're active, they have been consistently working with peacekeepers, working to restore stability. I think the Lebanese army understands that right now for the people this is the most

important thing. Just outside the base we spot Hezbollah flags. The group has been weakened by Israel and is under growing pressure to disarm. Its future is uncertain, but its presence is still felt here and across Lebanon. A report from Hugo Besheger. Police in Liverpool in north-west England say a man's being held on suspicion of attempted murder, dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drugs, after a car hit crowd celebrating Liverpool Football

Club's Premier League victory on Monday. A number of people are still being treated in hospital. Almost 50, including children, were injured. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Stalmers said the whole country stood with the city of Liverpool. One of the people hit by the car was Daniel Evererson. He was with his girlfriend and young son, who was in a pram, and described what happened. It struck me in my chest, on my side or down the left-hand side. And my partner went under the wheel and the car went over her leg. She got dragged down the road.

And then my little boy got hooked about 10 to 12, maybe 15 feet down the road in then my little boy got talked about 10 to 12 maybe 15 feet down the road in his pram. It was hard because I just didn't know where anyone was or what to do or what was going on. Our correspondent Fiona Trott spent Tuesday in Liverpool and told me more. Merseyside Police told us that 11 were still in hospital. We don't know all of their ages or the type of injuries they have, but all of them are stable and in the police's words are recovering well, which is remarkable, isn't it? What the police were also keen to do was praise the response of all emergency service workers, Andrew, because, you know, they said in a matter of seconds, they immediately ran

into an uncertain and potentially dangerous situation. They didn't know what they were dealing with. On the ground, though, there has been a mixed response to traffic management. Some people have told us they were surprised. Generally, for them, it seemed easy for vehicles to get around but the force was very quick today to say look, you know, we've worked extensively with event organisers and had a robust traffic management plan in place and the reason why a car was able to get through is that it was following an ambulance which was called to a member of the public suffering from a suspected heart attack. The UK Prime Minister has talked about the whole country being affected by this. That's

a sentiment that Liverpool fans listening to us around the world will share as well. Tell us a bit more about the reaction this has been. And in the world of football, clubs have spoken out, showing solidarity with, you know, the fans and people of Liverpool, politicians, cross-party politicians here in the UK too. And then more recently we heard from the King and Queen Camilla talking about how deeply shocked they were. And at this heartbreaking time for the people of Liverpool, I know the strength of community spirits for which your city is renowned will be a comfort and support to those in need. And we had this rapid change in atmosphere from

celebration to tragedy yesterday. What's it like in Liverpool today? It really is strange Andrew, it's like a you know a snapshot in time you know you've got bottles and and flags lying on the ground, you know a snapshot in time you know you've got bottles and flags lying on the ground you know a bike was left on a pavement it's like a scene from a party that's you know just been abandoned and then you had you know forensic tents and forensic staff working in the background of all of this and then you walk walk around the city centre and Liverpool flags are still flying from the cars, people still wearing their football scarves, a sort of sense of pride here in the city. Fiona Trott in Liverpool in North West England.

A group of Harvard medical scientists has created an app called FaceAge that assesses how long you'll live from a photo of your face. It was 80% accurate in determining which terminally ill patients would die within six months. The intention is that this will be used by clinicians as a vital sign, alongside more traditional ones like temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. But what if the rest of us get to use it on ourselves or on our friends or public figures? It isn't yet commercially available. But The Times journalist Helen Rumbelow has had a go and she's been talking to my colleague Sarah Montagu. The app isn't currently commercially available. So I kind of did a cheap version, which I

had to send my photo off to Harvard where they ran it through their app there and it would kind of line up and then spit out a verdict in a fraction of a second. Did it matter whether you were wearing makeup? I mean, we don't know each other, but whether you've had Botox or any other sort of, I don't know, anything to improve the look of your face? Well, that's the thing that's very, very confusing. And I noticed that when people talk about this app, they still can't get their heads around it because our perceptions of aging are completely different to the AI. So what these researchers actually found out is that humans are pretty good at telling

if a human thinks someone looks old, but that has not much relevance at all to how soon they're going to die or how healthy they are, if you want to put it more positively. So the app isn't bothered about wrinkles, isn't bothered by gray hair. You could look pretty decrepit, according to us humans, and the app could still think you're young. So they're really very different things. It actually put my age at 20 years younger than I really am. And actually that makes me doubt the app because that's definitely not how I feel and not how healthy I feel. Sarah also spoke to Dr Varuna De Silva, reader in machine intelligence and digital technologies at Loughborough University and asked if he was convinced this face age would work.

It is like any other artificial intelligence technique out there. So if it is trained with some data, it is limited to that sort of populations of data. So it will be working in that sort of experimental setting, but whether you can roll it out across, for example, INHS remains a very long journey for approvals and so on. Because as it's a medical appliance, it would need to go through all the medical regulatory approvals. Absolutely, that's the point because any technique that uses some sort of machine learning or artificial intelligence is treated as another medical device, which has to go through all the regulatory processes as to a different device such as a thermometer because it eventually changes the clinical practice.

They have to make sure that it is validated properly. So, but one can imagine that perhaps, I mean, for societal use, you wouldn't need to have those approvals. Is somebody going to copy this and release it sooner outside medical settings? It is possible because for example you can think of certain applications like for insurance if you want to assess people's biological age based on this application, now they could do that. Now it is in my opinion not very responsible way of using this technology because this was trained on a very limited data set of 60,000 people, exactly 56,000 people, and it is not suitable across the population. So that is one of the things. And then it can also be

used for a targeted marketing activity for, for example, lifestyle lifestyle products which may not be appropriate across the population. But doesn't it raise the prospect that at some point there will be an app which companies, individuals can use and they could just, frankly they could feed in an image, we all have our images online, they could feed in an image and determine whether someone is going to die soon, which from obviously from an insurer's point of view is, I mean, cute, well, I don't know if you consider it useful. Absolutely, but I think the insurers need to be regulated properly in terms of how they

use this kind of technology. Now this particular application was trained specifically on 60,000 assumed healthy people. It's not validated across a broader spectrum of people. For example, this was trained only on people who are aged above 60, because it was targeted towards cancer patients with undergoing radiotherapy. But you are absolutely right, technology like this could be heavily misused

and authors themselves of this particular paper warn against this sort of thing and this is where proper regulation has to come into place. Dr Varuna Da Silva from Loughborough University in England. And still to come, the battle for women in F1 racing. It's no longer boys play with cars and girls play with dolls. There's many little girls out there who maybe love motorsport. They might just not even know it yet. Amazing Sports Stories from the BBC World Service

presents Bill Walton's The Grateful Team. What's going on here? It's a story of global politics. Lithuania has broken away from the Soviet Union and declared itself a fully independent sovereign state. Basketball. During the 53-year Soviet rule, Lithuania still kept a steady stream of talent in basketball. And rock music.

Basketball and the Grateful Dead. Listen now. Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. President Trump's administration is pausing new applications for student and exchange visitor visas and is preparing to expand social media vetting of foreign students. This is part of the President's ongoing campaign against some of America's best known universities. Our North America editor Sarah Smith is in Washington. What's happening is that American embassies all around the world have been told not to

schedule any new appointments for student visa applications because they are to prepare for what's being described as social media screening and vetting expansion. In other words, officials are going to be combing through the social media history of student applicants and presumably could decide to exclude them if certain political views have been expressed online. For instance, some students who were already in the United States have had their visas revoked because they took part in pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses last year. And we just don't know if something like having been really heavily critical of Donald Trump himself might lead you to be being refused a student visa. This really matters to the universities because foreign students tend to pay higher fees

and so they make up a really significant chunk of university funding. Last week, Harvard University, for instance, the Trump administration tried to stop them enrolling any foreign students at all, although that has since been blocked by a judge. Next to Canada, King Charles has delivered a speech in English and French at the opening of the country's parliament in Ottawa. The King, who is Canada's head of state, said Canadians were facing changes unprecedented in their lifetimes. He said relationships with partners, including the United States, were changing, stressing the sovereignty of both nations. The visit by King Charles and Queen Camilla has been seen as a show of support for Canada

after repeated calls by President Trump for it to become the 51st US state. Our royal correspondent, Daniela Relf, was there. On a sunny late spring day in Ottawa, in a city filled with the scarlet tunics of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the King and Queen were given full military honours. This has been a popular visit, even for those Canadians generally indifferent to their country's connection to the Crown. It is seen as a show of friendship in the face of trade wars and takeover talk by President Trump. The centrepiece came with the speech from the throne by the King, which began with these personal thoughts. Every time I come to Canada, a little more of Canada seeps into my bloodstream

and from there straight to my heart. I've always had the greatest admiration for Canada's unique identity which is recognised across the world for bravery and sacrifice in defence of national values and for the diversity and kindness of Canadians. It was a carefully worded assertion of Canada's sovereignty, echoed in the part of the speech written by the government. Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear and ones which the government

is determined to protect. The King also delivered some of the speech in French. Royal sources always describe this visit as a diplomatic tightrope. The King's message as head of state was clear. Canada is a sovereign country with a national identity that it should defend and be proud of. Daniela Ralph in Ottawa. A bakery in central Turkey has been inundated with customers wanting to try its latest product. But this is no modern invention, rather a recreation of a five thousand year old bread loaf found during excavation work last year. Chantal Hartle reports.

The discovery of this round, flat, charred loaf has fascinated people in the old city of Eskishehir. The bread was mostly intact, with just a small chunk missing, buried under a house near an early Bronze Age settlement. According to archaeology professor Deniz Saray, the exact placing of the loaf is the reason why it managed to keep its form all these years later. She describes how it was buried right beneath the entrance to the property, effectively sealing it off. beneath the entrance to the property, effectively sealing it off.

Further analysis showed it was made with emma flour, an ancient type of wheat and lentil seeds. And while it wasn't possible to procure all of these exact ingredients, chefs came up with what they say is the closest thing to the original recipe. Bakery workers have been preparing 300 loaves by hand every day. The first batch sold out within a few hours. Suzan is one of many locals who wanted to try it. We were curious, we were interested. We even said it was almost ready. It's late in the afternoon, she said, and I was worried they might have sold out. So we rushed to the store and now we're very sweaty.

This wasn't the first time ancient bread had been unearthed in Turkey. An 8,000 year old piece of bread was found in another part of the country earlier in 2024. Now Formula One is one of the few sports in the world unsegregated by gender, but you'd be forgiven for not noticing because women haven't been part of Grand Prix's for almost 50 years. The sports administrators say they're determined to change all that and a new Netflix documentary is highlighting the young women who are battling to compete in this male-dominated world. The story from Charlotte Simpson. F1, The Academy tells the stories of young drivers in the all-female racing category set up by Formula One to help develop female talent. The show follows the success of the

hit F1 documentary series, Drive to Survive, which contributed to an explosion of interest in the sport. The ex-F1 test driver, Susie Wolf, is the head of the F1 academy. I hope we challenge the preconceptions that it's no longer boys play with cars and girls play with dolls. But actually, like me, there's many little girls out there who maybe love motorsport. They might just not even know it yet. The Italian racing driver, Lella Lombardi, was the first and last woman to score points in F1 all the way back in 1975. The lack of progress is blamed on a scarcity of opportunities for female drivers, driven

by a reluctance to give them financial backing. 20-year-old Filipino racing driver Bianca Bustamante is one of the F1 Academy stars. Couple decades ago the only reason why girls were on the grid was because they were holding an umbrella or they were great girls, you know dressed half naked right? And now here we are in a full racing suit and a helmet, sitting inside a cockpit on the grid waiting for the lights to go off. The female-only F1 Academy has faced criticism for being a single-sex category in an unsegregated sport but Suzy Wolf says the sport's huge investment in the

F1 academy demonstrates its commitment to accelerating progress. Irish folk music seems to be having something of a boom at the moment. In fact, some media reports call it a roaring resurgence. So what's the appeal? Well, it's 31 years since the Riverdance music spectacular became a showbiz sensation at the Eurovision Song Contest. Osiru McCaffrey is a member of the Irish folk band Amble who just released their debut album Reverie. Evan Davies asked him if he thinks there has been a resurgence of the genre. I guess it's just it's the kind of maybe the authenticity of it. It's quite raw and I think something happened post-COVID where people were just yearning for that bit of simplicity maybe and I think the more complex the world gets basically,

the more people yearn for maybe a simpler song. Give us an example of something that's pretty popular at the moment that one might say is evidence of the kind of the resurgence of Irish folk. One physical example I could definitely give you is for instance we play an instrument called the bazooka. It was originally a Greek instrument, but it was kind of infused into Irish traditional music. And we'll say the sales of bazookas in Ireland and I'd say Great Britain in general are skyrocketing from what I can see. There's bazookas popping up everywhere. And I don't think you'd have found one in many homes five or 10 years ago. Probably maybe our big song is Lonely Island. and it's like, it starts with like a banging bazooka riff. It's almost a riff like you'd have

on an electric guitar and then Robbie comes in with the vocal but I think that unique element is that it's a bazooka ripping. I roam alone on the island. Tell me what the characteristics, what do you mean when you talk about traditional Irish music? Kind of, I paint the scene of a pub in Ireland and there's five a different instrument. And it's just that little community of sharing ballads, sharing songs, also sharing traditional tunes as they say, like more instrumental things, but that is what Irishness is really at its core and a lot of bands, ourselves included, Ambill have sprung from that exact kind of dynamic.

I don't know what it is about the Irishness at the moment, but those songs and those ballads seem to just be making a real resurgence, which has happened many times before, like the kind of folk revival in England, we'll say in the 60s and that went over to Ireland and I guess, like anything in life, that comes in circles. Ocean McCaffrey from the Irish folk band Amble. And that's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of Global News to download later. If you'd like to comment on the stories in this edition, drop us an email, globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk or on X look for at BBC World Service and use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed

by Caroline Driscoll, the producers were Liam McSheffrey and Ariane Cochie, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Andrew Peach, thank you for listening and until next time, goodbye. Lithuania has broken away from the Soviet Union and declared itself a fully independent sovereign state. Basketball. During the 53-year Soviet rule Lithuania still kept a steady stream of talent in basketball. And rock music. Basketball and the Grateful Dead. Listen now.

Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts.