Global News Podcast - Family of Israeli hostage accuses Hamas of deliberate starvation

Episode Date: August 2, 2025

The family of Israeli hostage, Evyatar David, accuses Hamas of starvation as part of a propaganda campaign. Also: Russia dismisses Donald Trump's plan to deploy two submarines, and the benefits of walking Japanese style.

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They have hundreds of thousands of cars from top-rated dealers and advanced search tools, deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Sunday, the You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Sunday, the 3rd of August. The family of an Israeli hostage shown in a propaganda video accuse Hamas of starving him. Russian politicians dismiss President Trump's announcement that he's sending two nuclear submarines to the region. And a prominent politician in India is given a life sentence for raping one of his domestic workers. Also in the Global News podcast...

Ever heard of Japanese walking? A few of you have been asking me about the Japanese walking method. All movement is medicine but if you're short on time and you want to get the most bang for your buck, this is for you. The new exercise taking social media by storm. We give it a try. Images of emaciated Palestinian children and now Israeli hostages are increasing the pressure on both Israel and Hamas to stop the fighting in Gaza.

At a meeting in Tel Aviv on Saturday, the US envoy Steve Witkoff told hostage families he was working on a plan to get all the captives released and end the war permanently. Afterwards, Efrat Machikawa, a relative of the released hostage Gaddi Moses, called on the Israeli government to do more to bring the other captives home. In recent days we were closer than ever to bringing our sons and daughter home. Negotiations were active and intense and now they have been derailed. We will not get our children back unless the Israeli government places a real initiative on the table." There are some reports in the Israeli media that negotiations could resume in the coming days. Arab governments have urged Hamas to disarm and surrender control of

Gaza, something it says it will only do if a Palestinian state is established. The family of the latest hostage shown in a Hamas video, Evyatah David, have issued a statement saying that he is being deliberately starved as part of a cynical propaganda campaign. His brother, Ely, spoke at a rally in Tel Aviv. propaganda campaign. His brother, Ely, spoke at a rally in Tel Aviv. The thought of his pain, his hunger, his fear in those dark tunnels, it haunts me every walking moment. It invades my dreams. We are begging the government of Israel, the people of Israel, every nation of this world, especially President Trump you have the

power you must do everything in your power by any means necessary to save Evitar and Guy and the rest of the captives. We heard more from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Emi Anade. Well the family have said that they accept that we broadcast these images, they're images of Evitar David, a 24-year-old. He is in a very cramped, narrow tunnel. He looks extremely emaciated. In the video, he talks about not eating for days.

The family have said that the release of this video is part of a vile propaganda campaign by Hamas. We've also seen comment from the Israeli Foreign Ministry who said that the only people being deliberately starved in Gaza are Israeli hostages. They're obviously saying that in response to the fierce criticism that Israel has had now for a number of weeks around the starvation crisis in Hungary with humanitarian organizations, many Western leaders calling on Israel to allow more aid to get into the Gaza Strip, where we now know, according to the Global Hunger Monitor, the IPC, that famine is indeed playing out, that around half a million people are suffering from famine-like

conditions. The UN said last night that they are seeing fewer outright denials by Israel when they're trying to get aid into the Gaza Strip, but they are still facing impediments. We've been hearing from the Hamas run Ministry of Health in Gaza today that seven more deaths from malnutrition have happened in the Gaza Strip. Our freelance team on the ground has filmed with one case a 17 year old boy who died from malnutrition according to his parents he was never ill before and we've been seeing pictures of his extremely emaciated body in a hospital in Gaza.

So unless humanitarian agencies are saying that unless Gaza is now flooded with AIDS, that the restrictions are lifted by Israel on AIDS getting into the Gaza Strip, that they won't see a reversal of this hunger crisis that is gripping Gaza. Amir Nader in Jerusalem. Even before it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia was keen to invoke the threat of nuclear war to try to put pressure on the West not to intervene. Its latest saber-rattling prompted President Trump to announce he was deploying two nuclear submarines in response to what he called highly provocative statements from the former Russian

President Dmitry Medvedev. Russian politicians are now trying to play down the row with one MP saying the submarines are being monitored and there's no reason for them to respond. I asked our Europe regional editor Will Vernon if ordinary Russians would be worried. Ordinary Russians maybe a little bit although some might not be aware it's happening because there's been very little coverage in official Russian media and there hasn't been any reaction yet from the Kremlin. We often see this when the Kremlin perhaps hasn't yet decided how to react.

They keep quiet. State media does too. Now, a few MPs, as you said, have been giving the odd comments and they've been playing it down. That suggests they're not too concerned. Either way, though, I think Moscow doesn't want an escalation on anything like the scale of nuclear submarines being deployed. Yeah, I mean, will the Kremlin be slightly taken aback? Has Dmitry Medvedev overreached?

He of course was a bit of a reformer when he was president, but now he's become a hard man since the full-scale invasion began. Yeah, I don't know whether he's overreached as such because, you know, he's such an insignificant figure in Russia, he's not close to Putin. And since the full-scale war broke out, he's taken on a role of kind of chief troll, right? He churns out these very provocative statements that cause perhaps concern or perhaps just annoyance in the West. I mean, I've lost count of the number of times he's hinted or perhaps even threatened nuclear strikes against London, against Washington. We don't really know why he's taken on this mantle of a bit of a troll. Some people said that his previous reputation,

as you said, as a liberal became kind of dangerous after repression was really ratcheted up after the full-scale invasion started. And he's trying to perhaps convince the security services or Mr. Putin that he's signed up to the new political reality in Russia or perhaps he does fulfill a kind of useful role at keeping people nervous and guessing about the threat that Russia poses to the West. I mean the Trump administration must know then that he's relatively insignificant within the Kremlin. Could this be something else then from the US, this deployment of submarines, perhaps some pressure on President Putin to move towards a ceasefire in Ukraine?

Well, Oliver, I gave up trying to decipher Donald Trump's true intentions a long time ago. I mean, it may be he's trying to put more pressure on Vladimir Putin. We already know that Mr Trump is incredibly frustrated, isn't he, with the Russian president? He reduced this deadline by which Russia has to come to the negotiating table. Otherwise, there'll be sweeping tariffs on Moscow and its allies. He's pushing India, isn't he, to stop buying Russian oil? So perhaps this is another way of kind of trying to bring the Russians to the negotiating table. Or it's Mr Trump wanting to perhaps portray himself as a strong decisive

leader, you know, the commander in chief. Some might say this is a good way of diverting attention away from some questions at home, perhaps about the Jeffrey Epstein case, although I'm sure the White House would deny that. Or perhaps Mr Trump is genuinely concerned that these statements by Mr Medvedev do present a threat. Who knows? Our Europe regional editor, Will Vernon. 10,000 steps a day has long been considered the holy grail for physical health, despite recent claims that 7,000 is good enough.

But is it actually a question of how fast rather than how far you go? That seems to be the rationale behind a new exercise trend on social media. Ever heard of Japanese walking? A few of you have been asking me about the Japanese walking method. All movement is medicine, but if you're short on time and you want to get the most bang for your buck, this is for you. Researchers found that Japanese walking has significant health benefits, especially for

middle-aged and older people, compared to a steady-paced 10,000 steps. We sent our reporter Alfie Haberschen out to try it for himself. Okay, so it's a busy summer's day here in central London and it's pretty hot. I'm walking slowly at the moment because I don't want to sweat and I'm just having a look at my step count over the last few days let's have a look so 12,000 I've got 15,000 as well here as well and then 13,000 a day before that so pretty solid pretty solid but apparently this is just not what matters anymore so I'm gonna give Japanese walking a go okay so here we go we go. And what this means is, is that I'm walking pretty fast now for about three minutes. And pretty fast means moving at a speed where

it is difficult to talk to somebody. And the fact that I'm running out of breath now is a pretty good sign that I'm probably doing it right. Then after three minutes, you slow down as I'm doing now, which is a bit of a relief to a more relaxed speed. And then you walk at this pace for another three minutes and you keep alternating between the two, three minutes each for about half an hour. Apparently it means better muscle power, aerobic capacity and a lower risk

of dementia. So what is it about this that's so good for me? Joanna Hall is a sports scientist here in the UK. Those changes inside our body such as producing more enzymes and our capillaries around our lungs and around our working muscles actually happen at slightly different intensities. So when we alternate between a more gradual, comfortable pace and then picking up the pace so we're slightly out of breath, it means that we're giving our body the right stimulus so that we actually feel fitter. I must say it's also pretty convenient. 30 minutes is much better than a whole day spent

trying to reach 10,000 steps and scientists in Japan have been trying to get us to take notice of this since 2007. Their aim was to replicate some of the benefits athletes get from high intensity interval training by then adapting it for older people. But was I actually doing it correctly? Possibly where people may be missing out on optimising this is just thinking that walking faster is just a case of speeding up your legs. And I would encourage people to think about your technique as a way of improving your walking pace just as much as actually how quickly you move your legs. And this will protect your joints,

improve your posture and importantly eases your breath. Long confident strides are apparently key rather than panicked scurrying. But however you do it, there are still scientists who say don't believe the hype. The studies on Japanese walking so far are promising but pretty small. And even if this is the new way forward, they still point to some of the mental health benefits from simply just walking for longer, like reduced anxiety and depression. Alfie Haberschen, who's now planning to walk home from work. And now to Northern Europe where normally temperate Nordic countries are sweltering through what's been called an unprecedented period of high

temperatures. And while it's partly down to unseasonably warm weather, climate change is also likely to blame. The chief executive of Britain's Royal Meteorological Society, Liz Bentley, explains. The temperatures quite widely have been over 30 degrees on consecutive days. So in Norway during July they had two weeks of consecutive daytime temperatures going over 30 degrees. That's about eight to ten degrees above where it should be for July. And in Finland they've had three weeks. So their previous long-term record was 13 13 days they've now see 21 days where the temperature is above 30 degrees so really unusual not only to see the heat but the persistent heat that they've

had there. There is an area of high pressure that led to settle weather but really it is down to climate change we're seeing more frequent heat waves when they happen they're more persistent and more intense. And the ocean temperatures around these countries as well are a lot higher, about six degrees higher than they would normally be. It's a challenge for them, they're opening up some of the ice rinks that are obviously used a lot in winter as cooling centers at the moment, but you know species like reindeer really struggle with the heat there, so they really do have to think about how they're going to adapt to a changing climate as we go forward. Even in Finland some of the lakes where people would normally go for a dip to

cool off the temperature of the lake is about 25 degrees so that's like stepping into a hot bath it's really not pleasant to kind of cool off there either. Meteorologist Liz Bentley. Still to come on the Global News podcast. Meteorologist Liz Bentley. Still to come on the Global News Podcast. She knew that she has a lot of single friends, women, and she had a request which was we would like, if possible, to have maybe some single men. The company that lets people open up their weddings to strangers.

What could possibly go wrong? As the grandson of a former Indian Prime Minister and a prominent politician in his own right, Prudhwal Ravena might have been hoping to use his influence to avoid punishment after being charged with rape. But Ravena, who's from an influential family in Karnataka state, has been given a life sentence for the attack on a 48-year-old former employee. Our South Asia regional editor Anbarasan Etirajan has the details of the case. Hundreds of explicit videos allegedly filmed by him, they started appearing on social media a couple of years ago. That created shock waves and outrage across the country. And he was an MP at that time. His grandfather was the Prime Minister in the 90s, H.D. Devagauda, and his uncle was Chief Minister of Karnataka State. Some USB sticks started appearing across

the state just before the elections. And then police arrested him. And what is interesting is usually in India the court cases take many years for victims to get justice. This one, the charges were framed in March this year and the trial started in May. So you get a guilty verdict on Friday and today he was sentenced to life in prison. So it is very rare a person from an influential political family getting convicted in a case like this. It is also sending out a message because if you go by the government figures every 20 minutes a rape case is reported in India. Some even

describe the India as one of the rape capitals of the world. Whether this will send what kind of a message to other people to across the country. That is what is interesting in this verdict. Yeah, tell us more about how political influence can affect justice in India and do you think this marks the end of impunity for prominent people? Mr. Ravenna has the chance to appeal in the High Court as well as he can go all the way to the Supreme Court. Now if you talk about political influence you had seen over the decades in India how the rich, the powerful, politically influential were using their power to escape

from the law or how to manipulate the court process itself. And also because of the money, people were at the receiving end, they won't dare to take this case all the way to the court or even to complain against them because of the repercussions So that has been several cases. Well in some cases politicians have been found guilty, especially in rape cases But then because of the long complicated appeal processes, they were staying outside Prison for a long time. It's a very important significant trend in a way in such a political family and the justice has come pretty fast if you go by India's court and illegal standards. And how's it gone down in India? People have been welcoming this on social media and then the prosecutors have been saying it is a real justice

for the victim. She was a domestic worker in the family and no one would have imagined that she would have had the courage and the ability to go to the court and get a verdict like this. So this will be seen as a very important case in India's legal history. Anbarasa Mehta Rajan. Reducing illegal migration is a key pledge from the Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney. One strategy has been to create a new fast-track asylum system that would send migrants intercepted at sea straight to Albania to be processed. But the policy has been complicated by a ruling from the European Court of Justice. Our Rome correspondent Sarah Rainsford has been speaking

to Justin Webb. This is a ruling which concerns the accelerated processing of asylum applications for people who are deemed to come in principle from countries that have been designated safe by a nation. So, for example, the Italian government back in 2024 came up with a list of 19 countries it said were safe in principle, which included Egypt and Bangladesh, and said that people coming and claiming asylum from those countries would be dealt with in a fast track proceeding because they would be considered to be unfounded claims and most of them would be rejected. So that's the kind of thing at stake and that's important in terms of the Albania deal because Italy is trying to move people from supposedly safe countries to Albania for processing offshore,

so kind of exporting its migration problem if you like. The European Court though has said that whilst Italy can fast-track asylum processing for people from safe countries, it has taken issue with how a country is designated as safe and it says the way Italy is doing that at the moment is unlawful according to current EU law. So they say the European Court has said a country has to be safe for the entire population and that's a big blow for the Albania plan which is really predicated on this idea of fast-tracking people from supposedly safe countries.

What's the Italian government saying? Very very frustrated. Georgia Maloney, the Prime Minister, has called it surprising. She's accused the judiciary of overstepping the mark. She's always had this point in Italy of claiming that the courts here are politicised and basically against her right-wing or hard-right government. She believes they're on the left and they're just stepping in the way, but the courts are clearly saying that they're dealing with facts and not politics and they're saying that the European Court has now backed up their principle, which is that they must decide safe countries in a different manner. It has to be safe for an entire population. Given the wider debate that there is and the business of

the extent to which it is right that these policies are interfered with, to put it mildly, by judges, does this have a bearing on all of that? In other words, a bearing on issues outside Italy? I think it shows that the externalisation of asylum proceedings is extremely complicated and I think it shows there's a big divergence between political ambitions when it comes to dealing with migration, irregular migration and asylum applications and the law. The law is clear and there are judges of course who will make sure that the law, international law is implemented. And I think that does have implications. We saw it with the Rwanda deal in the UK. We've seen it now here with the Albania pact that the Italian government has trumpeted as a centerpiece of its tough policy on migration.

But it has met legal obstacles at every step of the way. So basically, the Albania centers that were set up for processing asylum applications offshore in Albania outside the EU, they have never been used for purpose. They're essentially now being used as removal hubs for people who've had their asylum applications rejected. Sarah Rainsford talking to Justin Webb. Munich Stadtheim was one of the most notorious prisons in Nazi Germany. White Rose resistance activists Hans and Sophie Scholl were among those executed there. Now more than 50 farewell letters written by prisoners about to die could finally be delivered. Here's an extract from one written by a 19-year-old Polish man read by a BBC

producer. Dear Aunt and Godmother, I am writing you one last letter because today on the 2nd of December 1942 at 5 in the afternoon my life will come to an end. As you know I will meet death an innocent man because this is just the way we Poles are punished. I would therefore ask first of all that you pray for me. My life has come full circle after just 19 and a half years. I am young. I want to live and work, but this is just the way things have turned out. There's nothing that anyone can do.

The documents were discovered by the Bavarian State Archive and a search is underway to try to get them to surviving family members. Floriane Azoulay is director of the Arrolson Archive which documents Nazi persecution. Our aim is really to find surviving relatives and finally give them back these last words which were silenced for more than 80 years. So it's really about fulfilling the last wishes of these people. The letters were addressed to families and we have a first starting point as the address of the families during the war. So this is actually much more than we usually have. So we are quite hopeful

that we will find families. If I can say another word, I think what is really interesting for us is that the letters are part of a case file from the judicial system, from the Nazi judicial system, and the contrast could not be bigger between this incredible human and emotional and powerful individual letters and the bureaucratic language that is being used in the documents and under the pretense of legality condemning these people to death. And then this exchange between the different administrations on how to decide what to do with their remaining clothes and belongings, for example. And there are last wishes. These are being relayed to the prosecutor's office and the prosecutor's office always responds,

well, we will give the belongings to the German welfare system. It's absolutely chilling. It's horrible. Florian Azoulet of the Arrolson Archive in Germany. Astronomers say they've accidentally captured hundreds of images of a rare interstellar comet while testing a powerful new telescope in Chile. Scientists at the Vera Rubin Observatory say about 100 images of a space rock called 3I Atlas, believed to be the oldest comet ever identified, were recorded by the telescope 10 days before the object was officially identified by NASA's alert system. Carol Haswell, a professor of astrophysics at Britain's Open University, told us more

about the finding. Well, it's very exciting. We can tell that it came from outside our own solar system by tracing the path that it's following. So the new observatory, the Vera Rubin Telescope, is an 8.4 metre telescope and it has the largest digital camera ever built hooked up to it. And it can cover the entire southern sky every few nights. So what it's doing is making a movie of the entire sky. So when you do that, you can see anything that moves. So they've been able to trace back this comet, which is zipping through our solar system

at a speed of 36 miles per second. But what's exciting about it is it's already at about five times the distance of the Earth from the Sun, it's already basically evaporating its surface layers off. So this is what astronomers call cometary activity, this forms the tails that we see of the conventional comets in our own solar system. And when that happens, we can actually use that to study the composition of the material that the body is made of. So this is a lump of stuff. It's about seven kilometers across.

It's come from outer space. And we know that it's older than our solar system. So it's at least seven billion years old, where our sun is four and a half billion years old, and it could be as old as 13 billion years. So it could be coming from very early in the history of the universe. So by studying the material that's evaporating off it, we can learn some new details about the way that chemical complexity, all of the chemical elements that our bodies and our planet are made of, the history of how those were generated

in previous generations of stars. So this is a very significant object and a very significant finding, and we're very excited about it. Carol Haswell there. Finally. Weddings bring together friends and family to celebrate what's often described as the best day of the couple's lives. But Katia Lakarski is putting a twist on the old formula.

Her new company Inviting offers people the chance to open up their weddings to strangers who pay to attend. Katia has been talking to Lise Doucet. It just really popped to my mind, you know, I mean, most of my friends are already married. I haven't been to many weddings in my life and I kind of watched them from the side and they're so beautiful always. It's just like, if I only I could pay maybe myself an entry to a wedding in this way, I could also help out the future wedded in their budget.

That will be a solution maybe. So the first one I understand is on the 16th of August. Correct, yes. And who are the couple and tell us a bit about them and why they made this decision and who's going to be the strangers? Yes, yes. So Jennifer and Paolo I met at the fair. They were coming to see, you know, what's available for their wedding and I had about

six months to plan. And they called me up and they said, we want to do this. So they opened up five seats knowing that we would, of course, have a look at who they are to be able to screen who wants to come. And she had a little bit of a request because in her mind she's thinking about the guests that are there and who is her family and friends. And she knew that she has a lot of single friends, women, and she had a request, which was we would like, if possible, to have maybe some single

men that will be keen to come. So we managed to, with a dating app that we worked with, to find these men, and they were very keen to come and complete the wedding. But it's a bit risky, too. It's supposed to be the most, the happiest day of your life. And what if you get someone who either comes and gets drunk, who starts making passes at your other guests? Are you prepared to deal with that possibility?

Well, we make sure it won't happen. I mean, we really lowered the risk. You know, already a seat is about 150 euros. So if you come and you pay 150 euros, you're not here to really disturb something also. We screen the profiles, we make sure that they correct people, they have good intentions, we verify the profile. And also we do have a chart of conduct for them to sign to agree on, which is basically, I won't do any commercial steps for the wedding, or I won't put forward products, or I won't abuse alcohol, I will behave, I will

be on time, I will be proper. Just things that are like more just to let them know that they have to respect the couple. But it also has to be like a really nice wedding. I mean, if you're going to be 150, you don't want to have something which starts at the city hall and ends up with a plate of chicken and mashed potatoes. Yes, I understand what you're saying. Although I think every wedding could be interesting in terms of social interaction. It's a way to travel and to experience different cultures within every country. Why not also visit a wedding? It's part of a culture.

Katia Lekarski. And that is all from us for now. But the Global News podcast will be back at the same time tomorrow. This edition was mixed by Jack Graysmark and produced by Alfie Habershen and Paul Day. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Get ready for a celebration of play like no other at the all-new LEGO Summer of Play event at LEGOLAND Discovery Center Toronto, now through August 3rd. I'm master model builder Noel inviting you to discover your play mode with awesome build activities, experiences, and even some fresh new dance moves.

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