Global News Podcast - Hamas submits positive response to Gaza ceasefire proposal

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Hamas says it has delivered a "positive response" to mediators on Gaza ceasefire proposal - but wants guarantee that Israel's bombardment will not resume. Also: President Trump signs flagship tax package into law.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Saturday the 5th July, these are our main stories. Amass says it submitted a positive response to the latest proposals for a ceasefire with Israel in Gaza. German and Dutch intelligence services accuse Russia of increasingly using chemical weapons in Ukraine. President Trump signs his flagship package of tax and spending cuts into law. Also in this podcast... Mostly shock because of what happened and how it happened. Also I can see the contrary, I see support.

When those stuff happen, people tend to be more connected, especially Portuguese people. Mourners gather in Portugal ahead of the funeral of the footballer Diogo Jota. President Trump said he'd hope to hear from Hamas shortly about the latest ceasefire proposal for Gaza after 20 months of war. Now the Palestinian militants say they've delivered a positive response to mediators and in a statement say the group is seriously ready to enter immediately into a round of negotiations. I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Iony Wells, for more details about the Hamas position.

They've responded saying that their response was positive. But one crucial thing to note is this doesn't mean that Hamas has accepted the proposal yet. In fact, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the talks has told the BBC that Hamas has asked for three key changes to the proposals as they currently stand. It's demanding firstly an immediate end to the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is the US and Israeli-backed aid provider in Gaza. This organization has been mired in controversy after near-daily reports of Israeli troops opening fire on civilians near its sites, something which Israel denies is deliberate. The official also said that Hamas has requested that aid be distributed

exclusively through the UN and other international relief organizations. Now, it's also insisted that the Israeli military should withdraw to the positions that it held in Gaza before the last ceasefire collapsed in March. And finally, Hamas is also seeking a guarantee from the US that the bombardment will not resume if the ceasefire ends without a permanent agreement

being reached. Essentially, that last point is touching on what has been the key sticking point throughout these negotiations, which is that Hamas wants from Israel a guarantee that the war will end. It wants to see a path to the end of the war, something which Israel has so far refused to commit to as part of these negotiations. And meanwhile, of course, Israel is continuing its bombardment of Gaza, even now, isn't it? That's right. There has been widespread evacuation orders issued

around Gaza by the Israeli military throughout the week. On Friday in particular, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for Hanyunis in the south after evacuation orders earlier in the week for the north and for parts of Gaza City. That essentially suggests that airstrikes will be continuing in that area. It's significant too because Harnunis is an area where NASA hospital is, a major hospital in Gaza which has been characterized by the World Health Organization as a trauma center for people who have been shot, severely injured, killed while seeking aid in particular.

And you said we had to wait to see how the Israelis would respond. Key for them, obviously, are the hostages still in Gaza. And of course, Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting Donald Trump in Washington next week, isn't he? That's right. And as you say, from the Israeli perspective, the release of hostages is key here. But where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing conflicting domestic pressures is that despite the majority of the Israeli public wanting an end to the war, he has pressures

from within his own coalition. The far-right members of his governing coalition do not want an end to the war. In fact, they want the war to continue until Hamas is eliminated, until Israel has total control over Gaza. So he will be weighing up these various different pressures politically on him ahead of this meeting with Donald Trump. Ione Wells in Jerusalem. Now to the White House on the lawn, in fact, where Donald Trump has made good on his word to deliver what he calls his big, beautiful bill. It's the most popular bill ever signed in the history of our country, whether you're military or anybody else, this is the most single most popular bill ever signed. And

it includes the largest tax cut in American history, the largest spending cut, $1.7 trillion, and yet you won't even notice it. Then, with a quick flourish of his trademark Sharpie pen, the President turned the bill into law. He signed the legislation bringing in permanent tax cuts for some, slashing support for others on America's Independence Day, a double celebration for the US President. I heard more from our North America correspondent Peter Bose. The President likes to put on a show and this could not have fallen better for him in terms

of timing. Independence Day, it's what he sought all along, a resolution to this, a signing on the 4th of July, a celebration on the lawn at the White House, the President addressing people from the balcony with the First Lady by his side. There was a military fly-past pilots in the audience involved in the bombing missions in Iran last month despite security concerns expressed by some that their identities should not be made known and as we've just heard the President in a brilliant mood. The country is more proud now than ever before, he said. He says he hasn't seen a spirit in this country like this for decades.

The hottest country anywhere around the world. This is his conclusion of the impact of the one beautiful bill. Promises made, promises kept. He says people are very happy. Military, civilians, he says, of all types, biggest tax cuts in the country's history. Something that he said for everyone, clearly that is disputed by many people around the country. Well indeed many people are very unhappy about this bill aren't they? Unhappy for many reasons and as we saw during the agonising process to get it

through Congress, Many Republicans had reservations and made those reservations well known. They eventually all, or at least all but two, fell into line in the House of Representatives. But this is a bill that financial experts say will add more than three trillion dollars to the US national debt. There will be cuts to health care benefits for low-income Americans. Food assistance programs will be cuts to healthcare benefits for low-income Americans, food assistance programmes will be cut. Now the President says that these changes to the benefits are to root out waste and fraud and abuse of the system rather than to make life harder for

those who legitimately claim the benefits, but there are many around the country who say that this bill will make life much more difficult for their family. Peter Bose. The intelligence services in the Netherlands and Germany say that Russia is increasingly using chemical weapons in the war in Ukraine. They say the military has deployed tear gas and the choking agent Chloropichrin to force Ukrainian soldiers out of shelters. I heard more from our Europe regional editor, Dani Eberhardt. They're not the worst of all chemical weapons, Val, but they are nevertheless banned. Now,

tear gas usually is a riot control agent used by security forces and the effects of that often wear off quite quickly. But the key thing is that although security forces can use them for riot control, under the convention of the prohibition of chemical weapons, they cannot be used in warfare. Now, Russia and Ukraine have both ratified that convention. It's one of the most widely observed of all international agreements and it's been in force for nearly 30 years. Only a tiny handful of countries haven't joined.

And then with chloropichrine it's a more serious toxin, has some similar effects to tear gas, but it's a dual use chemical. So it can be used in agriculture as a fungicide or pesticide, but it's also a choking agent. It can irritate lungs, eyes and it can be fatal if it's used in enclosed spaces. It was used, as you said, in the First World War as a poison gas. So what do the Dutch and German authorities want to happen in response to this? Well the Dutch intelligence agencies say they, through their own investigations, have evidence

of the use of these things. And the US has also made similar allegations against Russia in the past. The Dutch Defence Minister, Ruben Brekelmans, says the Russian attacks are systematic and on a substantial scale. He calls them completely unacceptable and he stresses that their use by Russia must not be normalised. He said that if the threshold for the use of such weapons is lowered, it's dangerous not just for Ukraine but for Europe and the wider world. So he's calling for sanctions, he's calling for Russia to be isolated and

for there to be undiminished military support for Ukraine. He also says Russia should be blocked from seats on, for example, the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the key body that monitors this. Interesting, isn't it, that Ukraine is saying this is an occasional use. The defense ministry there says Russia has carried out more than 9,000 chemical attacks since the start of the invasion back in 2022. What's Russia saying? Well Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in the past. It hasn't responded to these particular allegations from the Dutch and the past. It hasn't responded to these particular allegations

from the Dutch and the Germans. It actually accuses Ukraine of using them chemical weapons, which Ukraine itself denies. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has not yet been asked to conduct a full investigation, but Ukraine says 9,000 attacks. It says it's only attributed three deaths to the direct use of chemical weapons

but the important thing is that by driving Ukrainian soldiers out of trenches and foxholes using these weapons by for example dropping them by drones it allows soldiers to be killed with conventional arms. Danny Eberhardt. President Zelensky says Donald Trump has agreed to work with Ukraine to strengthen the country's air defences. The commitment comes days after the Pentagon halted shipments of US patriot air defence systems to Ukraine over concerns that its stock was running low. The two leaders spoke on the phone earlier on Friday after Russia carried out the largest air assault of the war so far overnight, killing one person.

Moscow says it hit drone factories and military infrastructure. Our correspondent Paul Adams sent us this report from Kyiv. This was one of Kyiv's worst nights in recent months, leaving one person dead, more than two dozen injured and plenty of wreckage. So this is one of the areas that was hit overnight. It's a residential district just a few miles from the city center. And there's a gaping hole here where a Shahed drone landed. We think around four o'clock in the morning, there are rescue teams inside propping up the building, which is clearly not in good shape.

More reasons, then, for Ukraine's leader to repeat his plea for more help to protect his country's skies. A day after Donald Trump voiced his disappointment after a phone call with Vladimir Putin, President Zelenskyy called his conversation with Mr. Trump important and fruitful, adding that he and the president had agreed to strengthen Ukraine's air defenses. He didn't say how, and it's not immediately clear if the issue of Washington's suspension of critical military assistance has been fully resolved. John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during the first Trump administration,

told the BBC he was still concerned. It is possible that this is the beginning of a cutoff of all American military assistance, but I don't see it yet from Trump and I'm hoping that Zelensky and perhaps other European leaders might be persuasive in having Trump take a look at this again. For now, Kiev's European allies are concentrating on ways to bolster Ukraine's defences. Discussions on the so-called Coalition of the Willing are planned for the sidelines of an Anglo-British

summit next week. But deployment of what's been called a reassurance force for Ukraine can only happen when there's a ceasefire, and negotiations about that have ground to a halt. Paul Adams. Still to come on this podcast. No, it doesn't come easy. I don't even think about it. If I thought about multimillion dollar pictures and all the equipment and all the responsibility, I'd probably go bananas. Our 26 year old Steven Spielberg made the iconic film Jaws. film Jaws.

It's not unusual for presidents and prime ministers to redecorate their official residence according to their taste. New wallpaper here, a lick of paint there, out with that portrait, in with this. But the Kenyan president William Ruto is taking things a bit further. He's building a whole church at his presidential palace in Nairobi. It's not small. With capacity for 8,000 people, it'll be about four times the size of London's famous Westminster Abbey. And it's not cheap. It's going to cost about nine million dollars. And it's certainly not popular, as our correspondent in Nairobi, Rhoda Odhiambo, told me earlier. It's created a lot of pent-up anger and frustration that is already there with Kenyans, especially after many people not being happy with the style of leadership of the government and

the president's or the government's lack of accountability when it comes to issues of police brutality. So when he acknowledged that he is building the church inside the state house, there was a lot of frustration and anger and disappointment in Kenyans because the way he was expressing himself in the clip that was widely shared by various media houses, a lot of people ended up questioning why he is doing that. There are other denominations in Kenya, such as Muslims and Hindus.

Why wasn't that built in the state house by other leaders who were there? And the fact that he's also building it when he said by his own money, because when he has been repeatedly asked by various media houses on the status of his wealth and how he has been able to acquire it. He's not been able to fully open up on how he's been able to acquire his wealth.

So a lot of people are just questioning the legality of being able to put up such a huge structure at the Statehouse without getting the necessary government approvals. There is a group isn't called Atheist Kenya Community, they're threatening to sue. Can you tell us more about that? Yes, they are threatening to sue because according to the Kenyan constitution, everyone has the right to express themselves with any religious form that they would want to express themselves in. So it could be in the Muslim faith, in Christian faith, or Hinduism, or there's also

the traditional African society. So the atheists believe that when the president now wants to put up a church inside the state house, this is more giving the impression that Kenya is a Christian country, which also goes against the constitution because the constitution in article 8 says that the state does not have to be in an entanglement with the church. They're supposed to operate as two separate institutions. So, Rhoda, you've outlined a lot of the opposition to this plan. Is anyone supporting the president's proposal to build a church?

No one has come out to say that they are supporting the construction of the church inside the state house. Catholic bishops haven't spoken, Anglicans haven't spoken, but there's already the frustration from Kenyans and young people that the church is not coming out to speak on issues that are affecting Kenyans when it comes to corruption, unemployment, governance and police accountability. Rhoda Odhiambo. Coffins containing the bodies of the Liverpool player Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva,

who both died in a car crash on Thursday, have been brought to a chapel in Gondemar in the Portuguese city of Porto, ahead of their funeral on Saturday. Family and friends, the Portuguese president and Diogo Jota's agent all attended the church. Many people have left flowers and candles outside. Our correspondent, Guy Hedgeco, is there. It has been a day of sombre tributes in Gondomar, the suburb of Porto, where Diogo Jota and his brother André grew up. In the morning, family and friends visited the chapel where

the two men's bodies had been taken in their coffins. As the day went on, the wake became increasingly public, reflecting the stardom of Diogo Jota in his home country. The Prime Minister Luis Montenegro left the wreath and the President Marcelo Rubello de Sousa paid his respects. High profile figures from Portuguese football also attended such as André Villas-Boas, the former coach of Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. The Portuguese Parliament in Lisbon paid tribute to the two men but it was the grief of ordinary people who have lost a hero that was most apparent. Mostly shock because of what happened and how it happened. Also I can see the contrary,

I see support, a lot of support. Many people are here with respect, humbly also. When those stuff happen people tend to be more connected, especially Portuguese people. Tomorrow Gondomar will be the site of the Two Brothers funeral, when Portugal bids them a final farewell. Guy Hedgeco. Two female tourists from the UK and New Zealand have been killed by an elephant while in a walking safari in Zambia. Police said the animal was with its calf when it ran at the two women in South Luanga National Park. The animal was shot and wounded as guides tried to stop it charging. Alice Morrison is a writer and

adventurer who herself narrowly survived after an elephant charged her in Zambia many years ago. I was in a bike race cycling from Cairo to Cape Town and we were just near the border with Botswana, so we're on the Zambia-Botswana border and I was brought up in Africa so I have, I know how dangerous elephants are. Every week in my childhood, we'd hear about somebody being killed. So we heard through the kind of this cyclist grapevine that there were elephants ahead. So I thought, right, I'll just stop. There was thick bush forest on either side. And I thought, I'll just stop.

I'll wait for the elephant to cross the road and then I'll carry on. Because as I say, I'm frightened of elephants. And I was just sitting on my bike you know standing there stationary when suddenly a bull elephant broke out of the undergrowth about 100 meters to my left and started charging me. He was trumpeting and flapping his ears both of which are a sign of aggression so I turned my bike around I started cycling faster than I've ever cycled before. He was so close that I could feel the ground under my bike shaking with his footsteps.

Goodness me, you're clearly a fast peddler. I mean, that must've been terrifying. It truly was at that moment that I had three thoughts in my head. One was, I'm going to die. The second was, should I get off the bike and try and climb a tree but they were thorn trees so I could never have done it. And then really the third

one which is kind of horrible was am I going to be gored to death or am I going to be trampled to death. But what happened was he suddenly, I mean he could have killed me, they can go at 50 kilometers an hour an elephant but he just stopped and so once you were out of his territory he was satisfied exactly I was it was just sheer luck absolute luck you then went on and wrote a book called dodging elephants which is a which is a very good title but but but so what is the advice to people who might be going to the bush or on Safari if you ever didn't come to

this sort of thing well my very first piece of advice is a very obvious one, please book for the very reputable travel companies. My second piece of advice is if you're on a walking safari or a cycling safari make sure there is car with you, some kind of transport and that you're near enough to get in it. The last thing I have to say is you know I am absolutely sure these guides did their very very best for these very unlucky women and this is just a horrible accident. There were two elderly American women who died last year in separate incidents in Zambia. Why do you think it keeps happening? Is it that people are encroaching on their territory more than they did?

There are two things. Number one, there is a fight for land between humans and animals in Africa, which the humans are winning. I mean overpopulation, the eradication of disease which used to keep the population down. Thank God people are not dying anymore. But it means that there's a huge, huge growth in population now. They need the land for food. The animals are being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. And actually these game reserves are absolutely crucial to maintaining some animal population in what used to be a continent that was just teeming with wildlife. Alice Morrison talking there to Christian Fraser.

Next to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, where the first Oasis concert for 16 years has taken place. This is the moment the band took to the stage. The brothers Liam and Noel Gallacher and the rest of the band performed in front of a crowd of 74,000 people who'd gathered for the first night of their reunion tour on Friday, which includes dates in the UK, the United States, South Korea, Japan, Australia and South America. They've been attracting their old fans, but also a whole new generation. Today is what every super fan or any fan is waiting for.

This is the pinnacle. This is the holy grail of Oasis. So very, very excited. This is massive. That'll be the biggest band then and I think it'll be the biggest band again now. You know, our expectations are very, very high because we miss them a lot. I get emotional just thinking about it, mate. Our correspondent Paul Glynn was at the concert. One of the biggest reunion tours in living memory is underway in Cardiff this evening with a bang. Liam Gallagher said to the crowd, was it worth it? This was a reference to the

ticketing debacle that we had. There was a lot of people were unhappy with the dynamic pricing of the tickets. When he said was it worth it? He might have been talking about money, but it might also have been talking about the 16 years that there's not been an Oasis gig. We were treated to powerful performances of tracks like Champagne Supernova, Don't Look Back in Anger. It was sang so loud by the fans that Noel Gallagher didn't even need to sing.

He let the fans sing it. And Live Forever was a real moment. Over the duration of time that Oasis have been apart, people have seen Lee and Perform and people have seen Noel Perform. But hearing them perform together with the harmonies and duetting on songs and backing each other up on songs like Live Forever. There was a beautiful potting moment at the end of the outro of Live Forever as well, where they on the screen was an image of the Liverpool player Diogo Hota, who sadly died this week. There was a big round of applause from the fans at that moment. In terms of Oasis, there was no

real banter or chemistry between Noel and Liam, not verbally, we know they've been, they've had a love-hate relationship for years, but musically they came together. The band sounded very big, they had an extra guitarist, it was kind of a mix of Oasis of the 90s with Oasis of the Noughties because an old favourite Bonehead was backing the band to join the last line up. They had a new drummer in Joey Veronca, that was his debut. So Liam said was it worth it? From the people that I saw coming out, kind of old Oasis fans and new younger ones I think the answer was a yes. You say there wasn't much toing and froing or much of a relationship apparently on stage between

the two brothers I mean why do you think they're doing this I mean what's it about is it about money? I think there's certainly a huge element of that you can't deny you see the sort of numbers that have been flying around with the tickets that they've been selling and also sponsorship deals attached to it. This is one of the biggest talls we've seen for a while really. But at the same time, the fan base of Oasis is so loyal and sometimes you can sense towards the end of the time that maybe music was moving on and people were perhaps going a little

bit tired of it. In that 16 years that's passed they not only have the old fans really back onside but they've got a legion of new fans as well that are coming to the music through all different means, TikTok, adverts that they've seen Oasis songs on. So I think it's all come together for them nicely and if the first night is anything to go by Maybe technically or they're obviously older They're a bit grayer some of the some of the higher notes that Liam used to sing Perhaps maybe a few octaves lower

But the power of the band is still that tonight's gig was under a roof in Cardiff and at certain points with the with the extra guitarist in there They nearly blew the roof off and as I say for some of the songs they didn't even need to sing because the fans had been waiting that long to sing some of these songs. Paul Glynne at that Oasis concert in Wales. Until 50 years ago most big movies were launched at the end of the year. That all changed when an action film directed by a 26 yearyear-old was released in June 1975, creating the summer blockbuster and launching a new business model for Hollywood. The movie was Jaws, the director

was Steven Spielberg and in the US celebrations are underway to mark its 50th anniversary. From New York, here's Tom Brook. It may be 50 years old, but the thriller Jaws, the story of a great white shark terrorizing a New England beach community based on a bestseller by author Peter Benchley, is still impressing audiences. Love Jaws, very iconic. Many, many great scenes and it's a great summer movie. It's fun to watch, it's just like high entertainment, also just like the craft is amazing, the cinematography is incredible.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Jaws, there are special TV presentations, a re-release of the film in cinemas, and a major forthcoming Jaws exhibition at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. Hype may surround the Jaws anniversary, but to many it is a truly great movie. For film critic Owen Gleiberman, the film's strength lies in that it respects reality. What its legacy should be is movies should be based in reality because that's what's so great about Jaws. You believe every minute of it. The genius of the young Steven Spielberg is that he staged this pulp shark thriller

as if it was really happening, every moment of it. You're gonna need a bigger boat. Jaws is credited with launching the summer blockbuster. More correctly, it created a new business model for Hollywood. The film was given a simultaneous release in hundreds of cinemas, almost unheard of at the time, and promoted relentlessly. It convinced studio executives that a lot of money could be made in the summer months if movies were released that way.

Paul de Garabedian is a box office analyst for Comscore. It just really changed the whole industry. Before Jaws, there wasn't really a well-defined summer movie season. You could have big movies coming out at any time of the year, but there was never a season that encapsulated what young people wanted to do in the summer, which was go to the movie theatre and it really changed everything. Jaws broke new ground in other ways. It was the first major motion picture to be filmed on the ocean

and it ended up being a very troubled production because of the difficulties of shooting on water. Remarkably, Steven Spielberg was only 26 years old when he was directing the feature and it was his second official film. Roll sound. In May 1974, when he was making George, Steven Spielberg told a BBC film crew that taking on this major motion picture was a real challenge for him. No, it doesn't come easy. I don't even think about it.

If I thought about multi-million dollar pictures and all the equipment and all the responsibility, I'd probably go bananas. You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the 4th of July. Jaws has left its mark. At the time of its release, it reduced beach attendance in the US because people feared being attacked by a shark. The film has also been criticised for its overly negative depictions of the great white shark as a ferocious, man-eating predator.

And the movie's 50th anniversary in the US is perhaps making some older moviegoers nostalgic for a time when their country was less divided politically and movies like Jaws had sufficient reach to bring everyone together under one big tent to enjoy being with one another and getting scared out of their wits. Tom Brook on Jaws. and getting scared out of their wits. Tom Brook on Jaws. And that's it 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 in it, send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Nick Randall. The producers were Richard Hamilton and Charles Sanctuary. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye bye.