Global News Podcast - Israel blames 'technical error' for Gaza children's deaths

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

The IDF has blamed a "technical error" for a Gaza strike that hit metres from the target, killing six children collecting water. Also: the prisoner who escaped hidden in a bag, and the beetles who love eating books.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jaleel and in the early hours of Monday the 14th of July, these are our main stories. Israel blames the so-called technical error for an attack that killed 10 Palestinians, most of them children, who'd been queuing for water at a Gaza refugee camp. The Iranian president is reported to have been wounded when Israel bombed a secret underground headquarters during last month's war. The former Nigerian president and military ruler, Mohamedou Beharri, has died at the age of 82. Also in this podcast...

When I see a book chewed up by a beetle, no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost. We hear how hungry beetles in Hungary have wreaked havoc on the country's oldest and most valuable collection of books. Ten people, six of them children, who'd been waiting to fill water containers at a distribution point in Gaza were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday. The Israeli army issued a

statement blaming a technical error saying it works to mitigate harm to civilians as much as possible. With no let up in Israeli attacks on the devastated territory, dozens more Palestinians have been killed this weekend. The NASA Hospital says 24 of them were killed near an aid distribution site on Saturday. Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza. And since the war began, more than 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed. They are among the 58,000 estimated dead in Gaza, more than 2% of the entire population,

with many, many more injured, starving and homeless. Our correspondent Nick Beek is following developments from Jerusalem and reports on the attack on the water distribution point. They'd come to find water in a land starved of resources but death is the only thing in plentiful supply in Gaza today. Eyewitnesses said an Israeli drone had fired at a crowd of people. The bodies of the young and old now heaped among bricks and wood and abandoned yellow jerry cans. I don't want water, I want my son back, one man screamed as he carried the lifeless body through the street. A BBC colleague in Gaza

found Mahmoud, another father bereaved today. His son Abdullah was killed. We here on the ground are powerless. We are a victimized, defenseless people. We are people with families, ordinary people like the rest of the world. We have no weapons. We have nothing. This war must stop. This ongoing massacre on the land of the Gaza Strip must stop. The Israeli military said there had been a technical error, that its weapon was supposed to hit someone it called an Islamic Jihad terrorist, but fell dozens of metres from the target. The IDF expressed regret

for any civilians harmed. The killings came a day after 31 people, according to the Red Cross, were killed at a distribution site in southern Gaza. The vast majority had been shot. Eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers had opened fire, a claim the IDF denied. The Red Cross also revealed its field hospital in Rafa had treated 3,400 people for gunshot wounds in the seven weeks since a new US-Israeli group, the Gaza Health Foundation, or GHF, had taken over aid distribution from the UN. The figure was more than the entire previous year. The GHF has accused aid agencies of siding with

Hamas and of spreading lies. Nick Beek. Iranian state media have said the country's president was targeted by an Israeli attack during the war last month and escaped with a light injury. Four days into the conflict, six bombs or missiles reportedly targeted both access and entry points of a secret underground facility in Tehran, where Masoud Pezeshkian was attending a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council. With more details, here's Kazran Aji. Videos showed repeated strikes against the mountainside in northwest Tehran. It has now emerged that the Israeli attacks had targeted a secret underground facility

where Iran's top leaders were holding an emergency meeting. But all those present, including President Petzeskian, managed to reach safety through an emergency shaft. The report said given the secrecy surrounding the facility, the authorities are now following leads of a possible infiltration of Israel's agents at the highest levels. NARGIE We talked earlier about Gaza. Now let's turn to another conflict where civilians are trapped

and under constant bombardment. For more than a year, the Sudanese city of Al Thasher, the army's last stronghold in Darfur, has been cut off from the outside world, with no aid getting in. But in recent days, it's seen fierce battles after the rival paramilitary

rapid support forces claim to have captured key sites including the police headquarters. Our Africa correspondent Akiza Wandera has more on these latest clashes. Fighting went on for the better part of Friday and Saturday. Residents there reporting heavy street combat between the army and the paramilitary forces, forcing a lot of civilians to even dig makeshift bunkers in their homes, just to shelter themselves from daily drone strikes and shelling. Because this is something that has been going on, on and off since May. And we're getting both the Sudanese army and the RSF claiming gains in this particular attack, even as the RSF tries to take over this last city that is still on the hands of the Sudanese army.

And it's crucial for the Sudanese army to continue to hold on to al-Fasher, because if they have any hope for a resurgence in the western part of the country, that's tough for al-Fasher. It's a good starting point for them. But it's equally as important for the RSF because seizing El Fasha would mean that then they completely dominate Darfur and they will then be controlling key economic resources of that region including transport routes and a population of over 1 billion people. Well as Akisa mentioned it's civilians who have

suffered the most in this two-year civil war. Last week, the International Criminal Court said there were reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed. Mathilde Vu is a Norwegian Refugee Council's advocacy manager in Sudan. With more than 12 million people displaced from their homes in what's been described as the world's biggest displacement crisis, she told us that delivering aid has become nigh impossible. There has been no humanitarian assistance reaching Al-Fasher for now months, if not a year actually. What it means that people just rely on the solidarities of others. If they have a little bit of food, they will be sharing it among themselves and they can only eat what is in the market if they can afford it.

Fleeing this place is horrible. I have team right now 60 kilometers away from Al-Fasher, from this death trap. And what they're telling me is that over this past three months, they've been talking to all the people that have been escaping all the time hearing the same story. People fleeing at night by foot on donkeys, trying to escape our men who were targeting them, maybe raping them. The Al-Fasher was a place where people fled to. The ones who managed to escape this hell trap are currently right now in Tawila, 60 kilometers away from this box, but they're not safe either. All the humanitarian organization right now in Sudan

are overwhelmed. We have depleted most of the resources that we had for al-Fasher a while ago as people were coming. There is almost an organized neglect on Sudan. And right now what we're seeing is really apathy from the international community when it comes to engaging with the warring parties, pressure the warring parties and debarkers to ensure that humanitarian assistance can reach the people in need. And now the funding

is completely decreasing and the consequences you can see it on the ground. The Norwegian Refugee Council's advocacy manager in Sudan, Matilde Vue. To Ukraine now, where the country's Secret Service says it's killed Russian agents suspected of assassinating a senior intelligence officer in Kiev last week. Colonel Ivan Voronich was shot several times in broad daylight in a car park. Charlotte Gallagher reports from Kiev. CCTV shows the moment Colonel Ivan Voronich was shot dead in a car park. Charlotte Gallagher reports from Kyiv. CCTV shows the moment Colonel Ivan Voronich was shot dead in a car park on Thursday morning. The suspect

can be seen walking towards the intelligence officer firing his weapon and then running away. Today Ukraine announced it had tracked down the suspects, a man and a woman who officials say were working for Russia's FSB, one of the successors to the KGB. In a video message, the head of Ukraine's security service, the SBU, said the pair were liquidated in a gunfight while resisting arrest. Officials say the pair had travelled to Kiev in order to carry out the murder and had been tracking their victims' movements before collecting a gun which had been hidden for them. Charlotte Gallagher. Meanwhile, Ukraine says the number of its prisoners of war murdered by the occupying Russian forces continues to grow. According to officials in Kiev,

it's approaching 300, a figure disputed by the Kremlin. And now investigators of these alleged war crimes in Ukraine say their efforts are being further hampered by President Trump's spending cuts. Vitaly Shevchenko reports. On the evening of the 29th of June, Russian state TV's flagship weekly news analysis programme Vesti Nideli started as usual. There was plenty of praise for Vladimir Putin and his special military operation against Ukraine and the customary scorn for NATO. But an hour and a half into the show, the narrative moved on to an altogether grimmer subject executions

of prisoners of war. Drones seem to have made chances equal but they're still trying not to take snipers prisoner. An interviewed Russian soldier then said this about captured snipers. If they were taken prisoner, two fingers would be cut off on the right and left hands, so they couldn't shoot again. The report about Russian troops fighting in Ukraine is vague on who carried out these alleged atrocities, but it reflects the fact that they take place even though executing and mutilating prisoners of war is a war crime. According to Yuri Belousov, the head of the War Department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor

General's Office, a total of 273 captured Ukrainian soldiers have been executed by the Russians since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Of them, 224 were killed on the battlefield. 56 so far this year. Unfortunately, there's been no reduction in numbers. We're receiving reports of executions almost every week. It didn't used to be like this. The UN says it has verified 88 killings of Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russians and 26 captured Russian soldiers executed by the Ukrainians.

One serious challenge which Mr. Belousov's agency has been facing is the Trump administration's spending cuts, including funding for programs investigating alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The US was a serious partner, which gave us a lot of technical support of various types. Naturally, if they're taking a pause, we're feeling it. A lot of it was spent on technical assistance too. We're now looking for other partners who can compensate for this. Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights

Watch says the Ukrainian government and other investigators rely heavily on US government funding. It's undeniable that the cuts have an impact on just how much work can get done. It's existentially important to continue to document these crimes and to push for justice. There's no alternative to that. The question for the Trump administration is what side of history do they want to be on? Do they want to be on the side of history that sees justice for these atrocities?

Are they going to help facilitate justice or are they going to get in the way? Regardless of the funding available, investigators say they are determined to keep working towards bringing justice to victims of war crimes in Ukraine. That report by Vitali Shevchenko. Helicopters, laundry baskets and tunnels. Just some of the ingenious ways that prisoners have been able to break out of jail. But this weekend saw a different kind of escape and one that on the face of it is rather puzzling. France's prison service now finds itself

investigating how an inmate managed to free himself by hiding inside the suitcase of another prisoner who was being released. Bernadette Keough takes up the story. French officials say the 20-year-old convict apparently got out of the jail near Lyon by concealing himself inside the luggage of his cellmate who was being released after serving his time. The prison service has launched an investigation with its director admitting to an accumulation of errors was being released after serving his time. The prison service has launched an investigation, with its director admitting to an accumulation of errors that led to the incident, saying it

was an extremely rare event. The audacious jailbreak was on Friday, but his absence was reportedly not noticed by staff for another 24 hours. The prison was criticised by inspectors earlier this year for severe overcrowding and it's been suggested this may have contributed to the delay in spotting they were one man down. It was recently documented that there were 1,200 inmates detained in the prison, which has a capacity for less than 700. French media have reported that the escaped prisoner was serving several sentences and was also under investigation in a case linked to organised crime.

Bernadette Keogh. Still to come on the podcast, in Ireland, excavation work is due to start on a mass grave where hundreds of children and babies are believed to be buried. What I want if I find my brothers there, I'll decide maybe re-enter about my mother. Closure that I can actually put on her tombstone, pre-deceased. I can't put that in it

because I don't know whether they're dead or not. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. The former president of Nigeria, Mohamedou Buhari, has died at the age of 82 while receiving medical treatment in London. He first rose to power in the 1980s as a military ruler before returning as a democratically elected president from 2015 to 2023. His time in power saw him struggle to tackle a severe economic crisis and a rise in Islamist violence in Africa's most populous nation. For more on his life and legacy, I

spoke to our West Africa correspondent, Mayeni Jones. President Buhari, as you mentioned, came into power as a democratically elected leader in 2015, but he was known to the Nigerian public prior to that because he'd been a military ruler in the 80s. He was always seen as somebody who was incorruptible, somebody who had high standards when it came to discipline in the country. From the day we are sworn in as a government, anybody who abuse trust will be called to account.

You're going to go after corruption in the military and corruption in the oil industry? Do you have a list of names? Not only in the oil industry. I talked to you about it and there are other things. Do you have a list of people that you're going after? No, no, no. I'm not. But I think that for many Nigerians they will probably remember more his time as a president. His ability, he did significantly reduce the level of violence in northeastern Nigeria.

But I think it's fair to say that he wasn't entirely successful in decimating Boko Haram, which was his main aim when he came into power. The way he convinced the Nigerian electorate was by saying, you know, I'm a military ruler, I'm tough. I assure you that Boko Haram will soon know the stress of our collective will and the commitment to rid this nation of terror. Fortunately he wasn't able to do that because they're still carrying out attacks in north-eastern Nigeria until this day. And some people say that this strictness perhaps was a bit of a hindrance for him because they accused him of being too slow,

too rigid sometimes in tackling big problems like corruption. Certainly that was one of the criticisms of him, that he was inflexible, that he wasn't able to adapt to the new world that he found himself in, a world where militant groups were shifting their tactics away from being purely focused on northeastern Nigeria. During his time in power, the violence did spread across the country to the northwest. We started seeing more attacks there. And many people felt that when it came to the country's economy, he really struggled to get a handle on it. When he came into power, oil prices started falling. That was the main and is still the main source of revenue for Nigeria. And he was unable to diversify the

country's economy in such a way to soften some of those shocks. And what do you think his lasting legacy will be? Because he came to power as a military leader, but then later he was a democratically elected president. Yeah, I think his legacy will certainly be one of, you know, a disciplined and a principled ruler, perhaps one who didn't achieve everything he set out to achieve whilst in power, but he was able to make life more liveable for many people, particularly in Borno State, the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East. People didn't have to fear going into the market or going to school anymore. Attacks significantly reduced under

his watch, so that is certainly something he was able to achieve whilst in power. My honey Jones, this past week South Africans have been awaiting President Siroy Ramaphosa's response to explosive allegations directed at his police minister. A highly respected police chief has accused the minister, Senso Mkunu, of having links with criminal gangs and deliberately blocking investigations into politically motivated assassinations, claims that he denies. In a televised address, President Mramaposa announced that Mr Mkunu has been placed on an immediate leave of absence and that a special judicial commission has been set up to investigate the allegations.

As we intensify the fight against crime, it is vital that we safeguard the integrity and credibility of the police and other law enforcement agencies. These allegations therefore call for an urgent and comprehensive investigation. A correspondent in Johannesburg, Nomsir Maseko, says it was a highly anticipated address. Everyone in the country had been waiting since Ndlamkwanaz, who is the Guasulunatal police provincial commissioner, made those damning allegations against the police minister. That was huge. There was an expectation that President Ramaphosa would act immediately, but he was in Brazil dealing with other governance

matters and also the BRICS summit that was taking place there. Mr Mkunu denies any wrongdoing. In fact, he released a press statement in which he said that he accepted that the president placed him on leave and that he is open for any kind of probe against him and also said repeatedly that he is innocent. And how much faith do South Africans have in all this given that Mr Ramaphosa has himself in the past faced allegations of corruption, allegations that he has denied? A lot of South Africans believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg. People are

bored of commissions of inquiry. Even on social media, as soon as Mr Ramaphosa announced that a judicial commission of inquiry would be established, they believe that he doesn't have a backbone because he should have just fired the police minister or that the police minister himself, you know, he would have stepped down himself. But that's not how politicians in this country operate. And also the fact that the police minister has been placed on leave means that he still has his benefits. He still will get his salary.

He still will have a blue light convoy. He will still have bodyguards that will be taking care of him pending the outcome of this commission of inquiry. So it's more taxpayers money that is going into the establishment of this commission of inquiry while the police minister still earns his salary. Now to a story of institutional inhumanity towards unmarried mothers that many at first found hard to believe. A story that's haunted Ireland for decades and tarnished the reputation of the Catholic Church. This week investigators are beginning the grim task of unearthing it. They will

start excavating a mass grave in the town of Chouam in the west of Ireland where up to 800 babies and young children are believed to be buried. They died from the 1920s onwards to the 1960s while in the care of so-called mother and baby homes run by religious orders at a time when having a child outside wedlock was considered shameful. The search is expected to take two years. This report from our Ireland correspondent Chris Page. I was very lucky I got out of there. PJ Haverty survived an institution which has come to define the most disturbing of secrets.

He spent his first six years in what used to be called St Mary's Mother and Baby Home. PJ faced the stigma of being born outside marriage even when he went to school. We had to go ten minutes late and leave 10 minutes early because they didn't want us talking to the other kids. Even at the break in the school we weren't allowed to play with the kids and either we were cordoned off. You were dumped from the street because you were born out of wedlock. I call that place a prison, I don't call it a home.

The full extent of the tragedy only became known decades after the building was demolished. The relatives and survivors who've campaigned for the excavation now hope that as many of the children and babies as possible will finally be buried with dignity. This is a Williams birth certificate and no death certificate. William's birth certificate and no death certificate. Anna Corrigan thinks she may have two brothers buried at the site. She was in her late 50s when she found out that she wasn't an only child. She says it's been very difficult to get solid information. All I've come across was obstruction, obfuscation, pervarication. What I want if I find my brothers there, I'll decide maybe re-interred with my mother. Closure that I can actually put on her tombstone,

pre-deceased. I can't put that in it because I don't know whether they're dead or not. Pre-deceased by her sons John and William. It's thought there's never been an exhumation of children's remains on this scale anywhere in the world. The excavation is expected to take two years. Those most affected by the scandal are longing for healing after generations of stigma and shame. Well, the story only came to light in 2014 when an amateur historian, Catherine Corliss, found death certificates for 796 children but no burial records. She spoke to Chris about her search to find out what happened at Chewham and her reaction to news of the excavation.

For me it is just beyond my wildest dreams really. I would doubt only for the media that none of this would come to fruition because there was so much opposition and so many people didn't want to talk about it and leave it in the past. But they probably thought I would just give up and just get fed up with it. But in my mind it was so horrific that these vulnerable little children and babies, nobody cared. And they were trying to dismiss everything I was saying. I mean, I was giving them a voice, I had to.

I'm sure looking back on more than a decade now, you could never have imagined when you started writing for your local history journal that it could have led to all this. I was just numb, I think, when I was told how many died there, and the fact that there was nothing to remember them by. What happened then is I just got angry. Why aren't people doing something? And that's what drove me all those years,

because I couldn't understand it, you see, that I was the only one that was pushing this and pushing it, along with the survivors that were doing what they could. And it was a long time. It was the anger that drove me. But it was pure fury at the idea of the church and the state. And people didn't care. And I kept saying to myself, if four or five babies were lost or kidnapped and buried there or something, they'd be absolutely uproar. Because if they had families, you see, if they had parents, it was a fact. And it really spelled it out in words. These are illegitimate children. They were let die, quite a lot of them and there was no care and then they were discarded, thrown away, forgotten about. Not even memorial over them to say that they were buried there. I

couldn't get that and I said I'm going to be a voice for these children, they're not getting away with it and that drove me. Catherine Corliss speaking to Chris Page and you can hear more on that story on the BBC World Service on the interview broadcast today, Monday at 8.06 GMT or as a podcast. Now most libraries have to deal with books that either go missing or are returned damaged but a library housing Hungary's oldest and most valuable collection of works has a much bigger problem caused by much smaller creatures than us. Beetles have chewed for a quarter of its 400,000 books.

Many of them are centuries old. Staff have come up with a plan to destroy the insects in an attempt to save the precious collection. Shantel Hartle reports. Set in the grounds of the Ponnenholmer Abbey, a world heritage site, this library would usually be packed with visitors at this time of year. Its collection features a complete Bible from the 13th century along with several hundred manuscripts predating the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century. But its doors are firmly closed and shelves looking pretty bare after the beetles were discovered during routine cleaning. Library staff say the insects were drawn to the glue and leather in the bindings and spines

of the books where they found both food and a place to breed. Zsofia Erdit Hoiddu is tasked with restoring the collection. Usually we have problems with mould in warehouses and in other collections, but we've never encountered such a degree of infestation before. But due to global warming, it is expected that more and more insect infestations will appear. To get rid of the unwanted visitors, 100,000 affected books have been placed in crates and covered with large sealed plastic sacks to starve the critters of oxygen. They will remain there for six weeks, at which point it's hoped all the beetles will be destroyed. Then begins the painstaking months-long task of inspecting and vacuuming each book and setting them aside for further restoration work if necessary.

The oldest and rarest prints and books are stored separately. Those haven't been affected. But library director Jona Aszani says any damage to the collection is a blow to Hungary's heritage. As the custodian of this very valuable collection of books, when I see a book chewed up by a beetle, I feel that no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost. Once this immediate crisis is resolved, staff plan to introduce better temperature controls for the library to prevent future infestations. Chantal Hartle.

And that's all from us for now but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at BBC dot co dot UK. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag global news pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producers were Alison Davis and Stephanie Zakrasin. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jalil, until next time, goodbye.