Global News Podcast - Gaza: 104 reported dead in Israeli strikes

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says a wave of Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday night killed more than a hundred people, including a number of children. The Israeli military said it had killed "dozens of terrorists". It launched the attacks after accusing Hamas of killing a soldier in violation of the US-brokered ceasefire. Israel says it's now resuming the truce, which President Trump has warned must not be jeopardised. Also: Hurricane Melissa has made landfall in eastern Cuba after causing widespread damage in Jamaica. As Tanzanians take to the polls in a tense general election, there have been violent clashes between protestors and the police. And messages in a bottle written by two Australian soldiers in 1916 have been found more than a century later on the country's south-western coast. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and at 17 hours GMT on Wednesday the 29th of October, these are our main stories. Officially, the truce is still holding in Gaza, despite Israeli airstrikes which have killed more than 100 people. Cuba now faces the terrifying might of Hurricane Melissa after widespread destruction in Jamaica. President Trump agrees a tariff-lowering trade deal. with South Korea after being presented with a golden crown. Also in this podcast. The doors of these baby incubators are loose.

So it means that we cannot put a baby in. We said, so what if we design and bring a new one for you? They said that would be perfect. The Syrian hospital which solved repair problems with a 3D printer. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 100 people are now known to have been killed after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday night. Homes, schools and residential blocks were hit and a number of children were among the dead. The Israeli military says it launched the attacks after accusing Hamas of killing a soldier

in violation of the US broke at ceasefire. Hamas has denied involvement. Israel says it's now resuming the truth, which President Trump has warned must not be broken. The leading Palestinian politician Mustafa Bakuti says the Israeli attacks were a clear provocation. It represents the violation number 126 of the Israeli army. They violated the ceasefire agreement, not only by bombarding the people of Gaza, but also by preventing the opening of Rafah crossing for people, by preventing humanitarian aid to Gaza as it should be.

And most importantly, by preventing heavy machinery to get into Gaza to deal with the rebel, there are 10,000 Palestinians who are still under the rubble, including some Israeli captives who were killed by Israeli air strikes before and ended up under the rebel. I got an update on the situation in Gaza from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Sebastian, Sebastian. It is clear that a large number, of Palestinians have been killed. Now, we just had a statement from the IDF saying that they hit 30 terrorists saying that they held command positions within a terrorist organizations operating

in Gaza. Now, the breakdown of figures that we've had so far from the authorities in Gaza, from local hospitals, I think belie that because they are speaking of a number of children, a number of women, elderly people who've been killed, strikes that hit apartments, that hit car, families and people within those areas killed. Donald Trump insists nothing will jeopardise the truth, but I mean, looking at the pictures, it feels like it's over. I think that is not quite where you are at the moment. It's absolutely true that those pictures are the same pictures that we have been seeing day in, day out during the two years of the war. We haven't seen them with that intensity since the ceasefire came in on October the 10th.

So these are by far, as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered them to be the most powerful strikes since then. Again, the Israeli military says that it's over for now. They say that the ceasefire, as far as they're concerned, is resuming after this. You've quoted the US administration, President Trump, who have said with these attacks, but also previous, ones that the ceasefire is holding. And I mean, that is very, very much the line that Mr. Trump wants to keep to. And I think that Israel, the government, doesn't want to go too far away from that. You know, it's a cliche to call ceasefire as fragile, but it is. But I don't think it's going to break imminently, although from the perspective of people in Gaza, it may feel that way.

Sebastian Usher in Jerusalem. So where does this leave? The ceasefire fire in Gaza. Our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, has this assessment of the truth. What this whole process is lacking right now is the kind of superstructure, scaffolding, if you like, of diplomatic political agreements that driver sees fire on and means that when cracks appear, they don't widen until to such a degree that the whole thing crumbles. I'll give you an example. There's meant to be an international stabilization force, which will have some kind of ill-defined peacekeeping role. There is no specific promises of troops right now. It would require for it to be legal, a United Nations Security Council resolution. The Americans have mentioned

they might do something like that, but they've had three weeks to get on with it. They haven't done it. So all the kind of detail you need, the diplomatic thrust that you need to try to make a ceasefire work is absent right now. I think there is lots about the ceasefire that Hamas like insofar as they are able to continue. Their men are back on the streets in the area, the 45% or so of Gaza, where Israelis are not in terms of military deployments. And one thing that is a real potential deal breaker

is the fact that Hamas says they're not going to disarm. Now, this ceasefire process is meant to include the disarmament of Hamas, but there isn't much detail about how exactly, that is going to happen. There's other stuff that needs to be done as well. The various committees need to be formed, some including Palestinians, some, you know, which have been accused of being a kind of revival of colonialism, which would be led by Donald Trump, Tony Blair, that sort of thing. I mean, none of this stuff is coming to pass at the moment. And without it, the ceasefire will,

I think, increasingly become ragged in coming to the point when it will crumble more and more. Jeremy Bowen. As we record this podcast, Hurricane Melissa is bringing storm surges and landslides to eastern Cuba after making landfall on the south side of the island. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have been evacuated to temporary shelters and the country's president, Miguel Diaz Canal, predicted there would be a lot of damage. Etienne Labande from the World Food Programme is currently in the Cuban capital Havana. What we know is that the most affected provinces have been Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo. Heavy rains there, strong winds as it was planned. The important thing is thanks to the very strong civil defense mechanism that we have here. More than 600,000 people have been evacuated before the landfall to protection centers.

And thanks to our preparation measures, we were able to... send assistance before the event so these people can be assisted there. On Tuesday, the hurricane hit Jamaica as a category five, the most powerful storm there in modern history. It's been declared a disaster area with much of the island still without power and some areas left underwater. Three quarters of a million people were moved from their homes. Our reporter Nick Davis is in the Jamaican capital. Well, we've been seeing video from all over Jamaica over, but that part of the day after the storm sort of passed and people who had connection were able to

upload but it's really going to be the daylight hours which is going to really reveal the extent of the damage of communities it's it's just unbelievable when you are able to get in contact with people and they talk about their stories of survival what it was like going through that storm you know it's funny my parents are from this island and I would hear my dad talking about Hurricane Charlie this is one of those points you know he was talking about a storm in the 1950s this is one of those same almost seminal moments I'm not sure if that's the right term for it in the island's history people are going to talk about this for generations what stories are you hearing from the people that you know when we saw the storm was tracking more westwards and heading towards

Montego Bay. I literally saw it going down my friend's road. And so we were on with them saying, listen, stay safe. And they said they were going to update us. And when they did, it was, it was video which almost brought tears to my eyes because, you know, a home I've relaxed in, enjoyed was in pieces. A good friend who is a hotelier on the other side of the island. You know, I saw video people literally just wandering onto his property because part of the hotel had been destroyed. Farmers, I know lots of farmers in St Elizabeth and, you know, their peanuts literally ready to come out of the ground and all gone, all gone, all of that work destroyed in an instant. They're literally on floodland. I mean, you could, it's like a

Pallyfield where they are, it's going to be so difficult for people to be able to bounce back from this. And I'm also very concerned about the psychological impact as well, because, you know, there are a lot of kids who have been hearing that this storm is coming for days now, you know, almost sheltering in place. They're off school because of the storm and then having to live through it. It's going to be very hard. And even now the second stage comes in, which is, as you said, the cleanup, the relief stage of it, you know, not via. airport in Montego Bay is unusable at the moment. It suffered quite a lot of damage. We don't know when that will be open. We're expecting the airport over in Kingston to have its assessments done later

in the day and for hopefully some of the first relief flights to come in later this afternoon, but we don't know. The government will be holding press conferences to update the nation throughout the day. The prime minister has been very vocal. He's obviously made the island disaster zone. That's going to unlock some of the facilities of the Caribbean insurance facility, which a number of Caribbean nations can dip into this sort of thing. But it's, as I said, it's the average person, you know, Jamaicans don't insure their properties. How do you come back from something like this? It's going to be very difficult. But they will do because Jamaicans are very resilient. I just wanted to add that one last bit. Nick Davis in Kingston, President Trump says a trade deal with South Korea

is pretty much finalised after talks with his counterpart Li Jiam Young. South Korea is the last stop on Mr Trump's tour of Asian nations. He's due to meet China's leader Xi Jinping on Thursday on the sidelines of the APEC forum in Jong-Ju. Our China correspondent, Laura Bicker, is there and sent us this report. The show and the summitry has begun. Donald Trump has arrived in the ancient. South Korean capital of Guangzhou.

His motorcade is just coming past me now. There are the flags of both the U.S. and South Korea on his car. But the U.S. President has made it clear. His priority on this visit is trade talks with China when President Xi arrives. We're going to be, I hope, making a deal. I think we're going to have a deal. I think it'll be a good deal for both. And that's really a great result.

You know, that's better than fighting and going through all sorts of problems. and, you know, no reason for it. I think it's going to be a great deal for both. Donald Trump's trade policies and tariffs have made some foes among key U.S. friends. The no-Trump protests in South Korea have been small but significant. Hundreds rallied outside the U.S. Embassy

in the Centre of Seoul at the weekend. 22-year-old college student, Kim Solie, was helping to carry a banner depicting a cartoon Donald Trump, vomiting money. When Donald Trump called Korea a money machine that really angered me, it seems like the US

is seeing and treating Korea as is cash cow. Just up the street is a rival demonstration. This time the target is the other superpower, China. Anti-Chinese sentiment here has grown in the last decade. And more recently, since the president, President granted Chinese tourists visas. This 27-year-old didn't want to give her name.

We're against the socialist system embodied by the Communist Party. We value democratic freedom and the free market economy. That's why we stand here. Li J. Myeong is a seasoned politician, but he has his work cut out for him. He must play the gracious host to both superpowers. also trying to get where his own country needs. The country is doing what it can to flatter its guest and awarding him its highest honour, the Order of Magunhoix,

and gifting him a replica of a 1,500-year-old golden crown. This moment right now that Lee faces himself is trying to manoeuvre these superpowers on which the country relies so heavily. Darcy Drought Vajaris is from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Korea is finding itself between the rock and the hard place of its both economic and security relationships with both China and the United States. And right now it's a particularly fraught moment because of the looming Trump-she visit. She and Trump are bringing drama to a summit. The world often overlooks.

Now, there's some hope the two superpowers will come to a kind of a trade deal. But Mr. Trump wants it to be bigger and better than ever before. even if the two sides do agree, the superpower rivalry looks likely to continue. Laura Bicker, polls have closed in Tanzania in the presidential election, but the main opposition leader, Tundu Lissu, was nowhere to be seen on the ballot. Instead, he's on trial for treason, and his party, Chedema, was banned from standing. The incumbent, Samia,

Sula Hu Hassan is expected to win. She came to power after the death of her predecessor, John Magafouli, who died in 2021. Her path to this polling day has been described by rights groups, such as Amnesty International, as a wave of terror. Our correspondent, Sami Awami, is on the island of Zanzibar, where he visited a polling station. He told Priya Rai about the situation there.

The atmosphere here, Priya, is very calm so far, you know, especially because the Zanzibar Island are known for having this very bit of Tamarach elections here. So far, everything has been going on all right. I've just arrived at a polling station. The polls here opened at 7, and in Zanzibar, elections start a day before. That's because they have a system here of early voting. Now, yesterday there were a few complaints from the opposition that the process, in some cases, in some polling stations were not smooth, but so far we haven't had any complaints.

from the opposition, and they hope that the situation will continue to be as smooth as they are so far. Yes. Well, on that point of them hoping to go smoothly, what is the perception of the election in Zanzibar compared to the rest of Tanzania? This is election has been very interesting because, like I said, usually their attention is in Zanzibar, but this is election, their attention has been more in the mainland and because of a crackdown on the opposition. Here in Zanzibar, there's been nothing extraordinary or unusual in the islands. the current president has been carrying out a lot of infrastructure projects. He has built a lot of roads, networks across Zanzibar hospitals and schools, markets. So there's been quite a lot of praises from Zanzibaris, whom I've spoken to.

But of course, the opposition have been raising a lot of issues. They talk about rampant corruption. They say, yes, the government has been implementing all these infrastructure projects. But while the government's been doing that, there's been a lot of corruption going on. But they've also been talking about how Zanzibati's. remains to be not fully autonomous. They depend a lot of instructions from the mainland. And so the opposition says they want to take power

so that they can restore Zanzibari's autonomy so that they can decide a lot of their decisions here regarding developments, et cetera. So the usual political campaigns and promises from both sides, but nothing extraordinarily like the suppression of the opposition like we've seen in the mainland. Over the last couple of weeks, Sam, we've been discussing in various African nations,

elections, but also delays to the announcement of results. It's something many listeners have been getting in touch with us about and the potential consequences and tensions that that can sometimes lead to. In Zanzibar, the Electoral Commission has pledged to announce the preliminary results, at least, within 24 hours. What can you say about that? That's correct. They said, I spoke to the director of the Zanzibar Electro Commission here,

and he said technology has improved quite significantly, and they've lent a lot of lessons from past elections. So they will try to announce the results as soon as possible. In fact, I asked him whether by the 1st of November the results will be out, and he said he believes so, especially if the process will go as smoothly as they envision. So the plan is to announce at least within 24, 48 hours for the results of the election to be known.

So they expect to announce as soon as they can. Sami Awami in Zanzibar, he said the situation there was calm. That's not been the case elsewhere. in Tanzania. As we record this podcast, the authorities have declared a curfew in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, due to take effect from 6pm local time. That's after several people were injured when police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who blocked roads and lit bonfires. Still to come in this podcast, the messages found a century after they were sent. They were picking up rubbish and Felicity saw a bottle and she picked it up.

and said, oh, this bottle's pretty cool. It's very thick glass, and it's got messages in it. We better take it home. Sudan's Foreign Ministry has ordered two senior officials from the UN's World Food Programme to leave the country within 72 hours. No reason was given for the expulsions, but in the past, the Sudanese government has accused aid groups of breaking local laws. WFP and senior UN officials have criticised the decision and say they're

engaging with the authorities to resolve the matter. The UN has been providing life-saving aid to millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation in Sudan. And the country has suffered from a long-running civil war. So what's behind the latest order? Our global affairs reporter Richard Kagoi told us more. It's unclear because there's no explanation that was issued by Sudan's of foreign ministry about how they arrived at this decision. What they said is that they had summoned the director of WFP in Sudan and stated the reason as to why they decided to expel him and the emergency coordinator, the officer in charge of that.

So we really don't know exactly because in the statement what followed is that they indicated that Sudan's sovereignty needs to be respected. So that's actually the puzzle in this whole issue. And presumably the impact on the WFP's much-needed operations in Sudan could be big. Absolutely, because what the WFP says is that at this time, there are close to about 24 million people who are in dire need of food. A lot of them are suffering from acute food insecurity and even some of them on the brink of us starvation.

So what I'm saying is that this now forces them to really rethink leadership changes at a time when all efforts need to be directed to reach a lot of these, vulnerable populations. That's really they are concerned that this is going to disrupt the provision of life-saving assistance. Richard, while we have you, I also wanted to ask you about El Fasher, the western city taken by the paramilitary rapid support forces. Any update on the events and humanitarian situation there? Yes, it's difficult especially for aid agencies right now to access LFasha. This has been the situation before the fall of the city. What we've heard is that lots of people have led the city to North Kodofan State,

and we're talking about thousands of people. What we're hearing from, you know, researchers are from Yale University who did a study through, you know, satellite images and through their field operatives there, is that there have been reports of people who have been killed. And the RSF has been accused by the army that they targeted over 1,000 people from ethnic communities that were accused of collaborating with the army.

We've seen lots of people who are part of the army allied forces and even army officers who have been captured and have been transferred to south of the four state. So literally, the situation is very doubt from a humanitarian perspective because it's really difficult to access the area because of the prevailing security situation. Richard Kegoy. A new breath test for pancreatic cancer

could revolutionize treatment. In its trial stages still, it's potentially aware. of pinpointing a disease which is notoriously hard to spot and notoriously deadly. Professor George Hanna is head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London. He's been leading the project and told Paul Henley about it. The early symptoms in pancreatic cancer are shared with benign conditions. And that's why if the general practitioner refers everybody with those symptoms, We're overwhelming the symptoms, the system with patients who do not have the disease and do a lot of unnecessarily investigations.

Symptoms like what? Like vague abdominal pain, back pain, dyspepsia, those are symptoms which could be cancer and it could be a benign condition. Actually, very early cancer might not have any symptoms. So if those symptoms, vague symptoms, vague symptoms, vague abdominal symptoms, referred for investigation, then it will be too many unnecessarily. If we wait, then we will miss cancer. Give an example, 90% of patients with pancreatic cancer, they have symptoms prior to diagnosis

and visit their general practitioner, maybe in average three times before the diagnosis is made. This is a breath test. Can you explain how it works? How do you do the test? The patient breathed in a bag and there is a device with transfer compounds from the breath, into a tube and this tube has sent to the lab and then the lab will analyze the compound to detect

cancer. And what compounds are you looking for? How did you know what to search for? We did some discovery studies and some lab work and came up with a list of compounds which will be volatile in the room temperature and normal pressure and those compounds were the basis. for the test. And these are early indicators of pancreatic cancer. The first wave of tests was on about 700 people. Tell me how they were selected and tell me some of the results. So those patients have been selected as a cancer patient from known to have cancer on biopsis. And the control group are patients who have benign condition like inflamed pancreas or recent onset diabetes. And there's another group of patients who have normal pancreas. So all patients have the reference test,

which is the CT scan or biopsis. So those are the three groups which they underwent the test. And the results? Because it's about to go to a much wider testing sample. Yeah. So the results are very promising. And this is why the pancreatic cancer UK are funding the next stage, which you go for a wider test. How early can you detect this disease, which proves fatal in very many patients very quickly, doesn't it? Yeah. So the cases were selected from all stages, including early stage, which is stage one and two and three and four, of course, a bit more advances. So the test has been done across the four stages of cancer. The breath test has the promise to diagnose early cancer because it does not only detect molecules from cancer, but it detect molecules from

the response to cancer. And the response to cancer happened at an early stage, and this gives an opportunity to pick up cancer at an early stage. How significant is this breakthrough? Very promising because it will allow patients to be picked up at a curable stage. And when we pick up the patient at a curable stage, this will allow more a transfer cure. Just to give you an example, 80% of patients with pancreatic cancer are detected at a stage which we cannot offer them any curable treatment. So this is really potentially transfere a group of patients from an incurable disease to a group of patients who potentially can offer them a potential curable option. Professor George Hanna of Imperial College London. Now to Syria in hospitals across

the country, vital machines such as ventilators and baby incubators often lie unused because spare parts aren't available. But the charity field ready is trying to change that using 3D printing. Craig Langren reports. My name is Imad Nashar-Niam. I'm from Aleppo, Northwest Syria. Aleppo University Hospital had six incubators for newborn babies, but none of them were working. So Emad and his team had a light bulb moment. What if they could make the replacement parts themselves. The doors of these baby incubators are loose, so we cannot close them. So it means that we cannot put a baby in.

We said, so what if we design and bring a new one for you? They said that would be perfect, but we don't know if you can do that. When Emad showed me pictures and videos of his workshop on a video call, it became clear just how they operate. A workshop equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters and traditional. tools that only gets electricity for around two hours a day, running entirely on solar panels. The team start working on the drawing to make sure that the sizes are right. Then we used a 3D printer to start printing.

When they finally delivered the repaired incubators back to the hospital, the reaction was immediate. When we brought them after five days, so they were really shocked. They told us that they really look better than the original doors. They were very happy. And they told us that, unfortunately, many of these babies couldn't survive because of not having these incubators. And crucially, AEMAD solution is affordable. It costs us about $150.

And this baby incubator itself is about from $8,000. and more. Hospitals can report broken equipment through a mobile app and then Emad and his team assess each case, design the part, print them and train the hospital staff to maintain them. We are working currently with about 13 hospitals. In the last month, we have fixed 20 machines. They've seemingly tackled everything,

from x-ray cooling systems that were wasting thousands of litres of water every day to ventilators, ultrasound machines, any sort of surgical equipment. For Emad and his team of engineers, there's something deeply personal about this work. Our role here was really different. Like we could save lives through engineering interventions. I just imagine how when we are going to fix this incubator

and I just imagine how babies will benefit from these incubators and that we can save their lives. The fall of the Assad regime back in 2024 has opened up new possibilities too. Suddenly, Amad's team can access the whole country and they're training local engineers to carry this work forward. And in the meantime, his designs are available online, open source for anyone who might want to have a go at fixing a broken bit of hospital equipment.

When he talks about his workshop, the smells of iron and wood and melting plastic from the 3D printer, He sees something that others simply might not. For us, we smell the future. We smell the hope. This is the hope. This is what we feel, that we are doing what we can. That report by Craig Langren.

Let's end this podcast with a message or two in a bottle written more than 100 years ago by soldiers in World War I. They've washed up on a remote Australian beach. Rebecca Wood has the story. Privates Malcolm Neville and William Harley left Australia on a troop ship in August 1916, their destination the other side of the world, to the battlefields of France during World War I. A few days into their journey and in what appears to be high spirits, they wrote two letters home, put them in a bottle and threw it overboard.

Fast forward a century and the bottle has been discovered by Deb Brown and her family went out on one of their regular litter picks on Wharton Beach near the town of Esperance in Western Australia. They were picking up rubbish. Peter was tying some rubbish on the front of the quad bike to take back to the bins and Felicity saw a bottle floating around in the shoreline and she picked it up and said, oh, Dad, this bottle's pretty cool. It's very thick glass and it's got messages in it.

We better take it home. When they got the bottle home, they took a few days to dry it out on their windowsill. Then came the big moment. I stuck a pair of surgical tweezers down inside and twisted and twisted until it was thin enough to pull up through the neck and when we opened it up we were just, we could not believe that the writing was so clear. Quite amazingly, the writing and pencil had survived and was still legible. In his letter, Malcolm Neville wrote to his mother that the food on board was real good and that they were happy, despite the ship heaving and rolling.

Months later, he was killed in action on the battlefield at the age of 28, one of the 60,000 Australians who died in the conflict. The other writer, William Harley, survived the war and went on to get married and have children. Deb Brown says it's a lot to take in. It's very emotional, but we're also very excited that we found it, that a local family found it, because we've made it into something really special for the families. After a bit of research, Deb sent the letters back to the soldiers' relatives.

and on receiving it, Private Harley's granddaughter, Anne, said they were stunned by the find. It's as if their grandfather was reaching out to them from beyond the grave. Rebecca Wood. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. This edition was mixed by Rosenwin Derell, and the producers were Muzafa Shakir and Oliver Burl. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. time, goodbye.