Global News Podcast - Israel has missed US deadline to boost Gaza relief – aid groups

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Israel opens a fifth border crossing as aid agencies say it has missed a US deadline to boost aid into Gaza. Also: New Zealand's PM apologises to children in care, and a Russian doctor is jailed for pro Ukraine comments.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Lucy Hockings from the Global Story podcast. We're looking at what Donald Trump's election win could mean for the global fight against climate change as delegates from nearly 200 countries meet at COP29. Trump has promised to pull out of international climate pacts and ramp up fossil fuel production at home. Can the world tackle the climate crisis without the US? Find the Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and at 14 Hours GMT on on Tuesday 12th November, these are our main stories. Israel has opened a new crossing into Gaza, just as the US deadline approaches for more humanitarian aid to be let in. We'll hear from a doctor there, and from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. And at least 35 people have been killed by a car which rammed into a crowd in southern China. Also in this podcast, New Zealand's Prime Minister has apologised for decades of suffering

by children in care. You were subjected to horrific abuse and neglect and in some cases torture. A Russian doctor has been sent to a penal colony for allegedly criticising the war in Ukraine while speaking to one of her patients. And we have the story of the criminals producing artworks by Banksy, Andy Warhol and Picasso. It is for the moment a question largely of numbers. The US had demanded that Israel let 350 aid trucks into Gaza every day, and they gave a deadline for that of November 12th.

Israel says it's complied with most of America's demands, which also included evacuating the sick and limiting civilian casualties. But a collection of aid agencies working in Gaza say the opposite. Action by Israel, they claim, has actually worsened the humanitarian situation since that deadline was issued, with famine a very real possibility. Louise Wateridge is a spokesperson for the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency Unruwa, which has been banned in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem. Speaking from Nusayrat inside Gaza, she told the BBC's Rob Young

that assistance was still way below what's needed. Over the month of October, the average amount of trucks entering the Gaza Strip every day was 37. So that's 37 trucks for a population of 2.2 million people who need absolutely everything. I'm sat in Nusayrat this morning and I'm looking at the thousands of families around me. They are in not even tents, kind of makeshift shelters under any kind of fabric that people can find to make shelter from. So in terms of what I can tell you is people need everything. The situation has absolutely not improved.

If anything, it's gotten worse. And if we talk about the situation in the north, you know, northern Gaza is now completely besieged. We have very limited access to these areas of besieged north Gaza. And for an entire month, all humanitarian supplies, all humanitarian food was denied entry to this area. You cited figures there for October. This warning was issued by the Biden administration on the 13th of October. Since that date, have you seen an increase in aid deliveries?

No, absolutely not. in aid deliveries? No, absolutely not. So I'm on the official Israeli aid into Gaza website here and it says that 133 trucks carrying humanitarian goods were transferred to Gaza on Sunday. It details the crossings that they went through. So 133 in one day surely is an improvement on the situation back in October when you were saying 37 entered? 133 in one day surely is an improvement on the situation back in October when you were saying 37 entered. 133 trucks for a population of 2.2 million people is nothing short of an insult to the population and to the needs on the ground when you see on a daily basis for 13 months what people need here and the absolutely limited supplies. And I'm talking basic, basic food, water and medicine. We have a situation in

the North where we are hearing pleas from colleagues and pleas from people in the North for a piece of bread. People are absolutely desperate and what we are seeing and what our Commissioner General has stated we are seeing is hunger being weaponised. There has been an IPC report and an update recently saying famine is imminent in the north if not already there and we don't know because we don't have access to this area. Louise Wateridge, this morning the Israeli Army announced the opening of an additional aid crossing into Gaza. It's not clear whether that will keep the US happy or whether it will do as it threatened and withhold military aid because it doesn't believe its conditions have been met.

Medical shortages remain one of the most serious problems in Gaza. As we heard from Nahrin Ahmed, an intensive care doctor coordinating medical treatment in Gaza, she explained what she still needs. Gosh, I mean, I could give you a list of so many things, but I'm going to start with something so simple. Gauze. Gauze is one of the cornerstones of treatment of injuries here. I mean, we have patients that are coming in with acute traumatic injuries that require a significant amount of gauze, just bleeding that happens after injuries like this, and we don't have enough gauze.

When patients are having wound dressing changes because of severely infected wounds, which are unable to get treated in a proper way. Another thing that people are dying of infections that they shouldn't be dying of because we don't have the right supply of antibiotics. We are limited with the nutritional supplies that are coming in, so food is limited. So many different medications, surgical supplies, I mean the list just goes on and on. Nareen Ahmed, the Israeli army has issued statements in response to previous famine warnings in the north of Gaza saying reports have relied on partial bias data and superficial sources with vested interests.

The Israeli military also says they don't target civilians. Israel does not allow international journalists uncontrolled access to Gaza, but our correspondent in Jerusalem, John Donison, compiled this report. Stretched out in front of five-year-old Nizar in a makeshift morgue in central Gaza are white plastic body bags. The small boy leans down and peeps into one of them. He needs to see with his own eyes, which are filled with tears. In the bag is his auntie. His uncle, their children and Nizar's sisterood, were also killed when Israel attacked a school

housing displaced families. Israel's military says it was targeting Hamas. God is all we need, cries Barah, Nizar's brother. Much of Gaza is now unlivable. A month ago, America once again demanded Israel take steps to reduce the number of civilian casualties. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed in the last 30 days. The majority, it says, were civilians. There is food in Gaza. Hot, puffed-up pitas roll out of the oven on a conveyor belt. Outside, hundreds of people desperately scramble to get their hands on the bread. Among them,

grandmother Aida al-Hurran, who's also been picking up soup. If it were not for the soup kitchen, we would have starved to death. Every day it's the same struggle. I go back and forth to the soup kitchen. What food there is, is not enough. For more than a year, Israel has crossed most of America's red lines. Much of this was done using US weapons. But in the dying days of the Biden presidency and with more than 43,000 Palestinian lives

lost it's unlikely the White House will put its foot down and cut off arms supplies. John Donison, they were exercising in front of a sports hall. 35 people who were killed when a car rammed into them in the south of China. Many more were injured in the incident, which police say they're treating as a hit-and-run attack. It happened in Zhuhai, the same city that's hosting the country's biggest annual air show. We've two reports for you from our team in China. First, the bare details of what happened from our correspondent in Beijing, Laura Bicker. This happened last night but we're only getting the full details now. We've been watching all day.

I've seen some of the very distressing videos that were posted online just afterwards and witnesses said that the man rammed through the sports center fence and then appeared to deliberately run down a number of people who were exercising on a sports track at the time. Police in Zhuhai have announced that they have arrested a 62-year-old man at the scene and he is now in a coma coma unable to be questioned. Our China correspondent Stephen McDonnell happened to be in Zhuhai for that air show and tried to visit the scene of the incident despite attempts to prevent him. So obviously getting hassled here by these people, so we'll just walk over here a little

bit. I don't know if they're obviously being organised by the party to try and stop this type of thing happening. No, no, Bao Jingma. Go to Bao Jingma. Go to Bao Jingma. Put your hand up. Xi Jinping has called on officials all over the country to try and settle community disputes to prevent this type of thing happening in the first place.

And I suppose what is he going to say after all? It's a really inexplicable event. According to the police, with the official reason they're giving, is that this man was upset about his dispute with his wife after the division of his property following his divorce and for some reason this has led him to drive into this complex and kill people. He also harmed himself, it seems, with a knife and according to reports he's now in a coma. So all of this has been very disturbing. Partly you can see why it might inflame tensions and why there might be local party officials trying to organize

those who try to stop us from reporting on this but either way it's the type of thing that has happened unfortunately in China before there are these copycat mass attacks somebody has some sort of grievance they end up taking it out on complete strangers and then we have this type of thing of the government trying to stop from happening. Stephen McDonnell at the scene of the car ramming attack in southern China. The sheer scale of suffering revealed by New Zealand's care scandal is perhaps hard to imagine. An official report found that more than 200,000 children and vulnerable young adults suffered, beatings and other forms of violence, emotional and sexual abuse. That figure amounts to around a third of those

who were taken into care. It happened in residential homes, both those run by the state and by religious groups, and in private homes and hospitals. And when victims did report what was happening, the authorities refused to believe them. On Tuesday, with survivors and their families watching on, the New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon gave this statement to Parliament. I stand before you as the representative of not only this government, but of all the governments that have gone before us, to offer a formal and unreserved apology for the abuse that you suffered while in state care, places where you should have been safe and treated with dignity and

respect and compassion. But instead you were subjected to horrific abuse and neglect and in some cases torture. I'm deeply sorry that New Zealand did not do better by you. It took a six-year investigation to uncover the abuse, the longest public inquiry in New Zealand's history. Among those who testified was Te Puha Ehrlich, who was taken into care at the age of five. Looking back as a young person, it's really hard to put words to the feelings,

and I think that that's one of those natural responses to trauma. You learn to emotionally cut yourself off. The effects of that trauma came through later on in life and that looks like, you know, it's not just a physical abuse, it was a disconnection from my family, from my culture and trying to navigate the world with, you know, all this trauma behind you. It's heartbreaking and the worst part about it is that it's still happening today. The abuse scandal has raised profound questions for New Zealand, not just about the abuse itself, but about how a crime could continue on that scale and for so many decades with nothing done to prevent it.

Perpetrators not brought to justice. And for some, the scandal isn't over. As our correspondent Phil Mercer explains, the issue of compensation remains a pressing one. Mr Luxon said that there would be a new system of redress for victims. Campaigners though have been saying for quite a long time that progress towards that sort of area of restitution and compensation has been far too slow. Now this Royal Commission making so many recommendations back in July, almost 130 of them, has been far too slow. Now this Royal Commission making so many recommendations back in July, almost 130 of them,

Mr. Luxon said that his government is working through them. Currently it's working on about 30 of the recommendations and a full statement on the government's response to that Royal Commission will be published in the New Year. So for many victims and their families and survivors, this has been a historic day. There has been a complaint that not enough of them were there in person to see the address in Parliament

by Christopher Luxon, but he says that the government will do everything in its power to make sure this sort of abuse can't happen again. And the numbers really are extraordinary. Are things changing? There is an acceptance that this public inquiry investigated abuse between 1950 and 2019 and there is an expectation now, according to the Prime Minister, that things not only will change, but have to change. And the Prime Minister also paid tribute to the many caregivers who were decent, honest

and respectable people. But he did say that this was a very dark day for New Zealand as it cast its mind back many, many decades to really acknowledge the abuse suffered by people who turned to the state and religious organisations for safety, but what they got in return was abuse and in many cases trauma and in some cases torture. And that was Filmersa. It was a criminal case which hung on one woman's word against another. At one point the evidence of a child was brought in. But now a doctor in Moscow has been sentenced to five and a half years in a penal colony

because she's alleged to have spread false information about the war in Ukraine. The word spread is being used rather loosely there. As the case enters on a conversation the doctor is said to have had with a single patient who then denounced her to the authorities. Our correspondent Steve Rosenberg was at the courthouse in Moscow. It's quite an extraordinary case really. So, Najesha Boyanova is a Moscow pediatrician, 68 years old. She was denounced to the police by a patient's mother who claimed that the doctor had basically criticized the war in Ukraine, said that Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine were legitimate targets.

The mother's ex-husband had been killed fighting in Ukraine. She was upset. She wrote a denunciation to the police. Nadezhda Boyanova was arrested and just a short while ago found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian armed forces and sentenced to five and a half years in a penal colony. Quite chaotic scenes in Korda have to say. We were allowed into the courtroom just before the verdict was announced. I managed to speak to Nadezhda Boyanova through the glass. She was locked in this sort of glass and metal cage that's known as the aquarium in a Russian courtroom. She described the whole situation as absurd, absurd she said.

She still couldn't understand what was happening to her, how this could be happening. Then the media, cameras, bloggers, journalists were asked to leave the courtroom, and the verdict was announced not in front of the cameras, and as I said, a prison sentence of five and a half years. We heard an audio recording of some of the reaction of people inside the courtroom, some of the Dzerzhda Boyanova's supporters,

who shouted shame, shame, when the verdict was announced. Just briefly, Steve, I understand the doctor was born in Lviv in what is now Ukraine. Do you think that made a difference to what sounds like an extraordinarily harsh sentence even by the standards of modern-day Russia? She was born in Lviv. She's been living in Moscow for more than 30 years, but I think the suspicion on the part of the defence team is that this may have played a part of it, yeah.

I see. And it sounds like there really wasn't any evidence to really connect her, other than the word of this one woman denouncing her. Yeah, the conversation that was alleged to have taken place in the doctor's room, it wasn't caught on camera, there was no audio recording of it. It was basically the word of the mother against the word of the doctor. Steve Rosenberg. Still to come, Haiti gets a new Prime Minister after the old one is ousted after just five months. We look at the challenges he faces keeping his population happy. They want to be able to get up in the morning, send their kids to school and not worry about whether their kids are going to come back in a body bag.

are going to come back in a body bag. Witness the stories that have shaped our world. On the launch pad, in the dawn light, a towering symbol of an ambitious nation. Three, two, one. The whole of India was watching. Told by the people who were there. I still don't regret that I was part of the Rose Revolution. I was a witness of very exciting days. Witness history from the BBC World Service.

Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. How much should countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions? How much cash should they give to those already affected by climate change? That's what's been under discussion on Tuesday at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan. The mood was set early on in the day in an address by the United Nations Secretary General. Antonio Guterres emphasised that money spent on tackling climate change was not a cost but an investment when the potential cost of global warming is considered. In our global economy supply chain shocks raise costs everywhere. Decimated harvest

push up food prices everywhere. Destroyed homes increase insurance premiums everywhere. Destroyed homes, increased insurance premiums, everywhere. And this is a story of avoidable injustice. The rich cause the problem, the poor pay the highest price. Oxfam finds the richest billionaires emit more carbon in an hour and a half than the average person does in a lifetime. Mr Guterres is not the only big name addressing the conference. Tuesday saw a number of world leaders giving speeches, among them the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He told the summit about the UK's ambitions.

So at this COP, I was pleased to announce that we're building on our reputation as a climate leader with the UK's 2035 NDC target to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81 percent on 1990 levels. Our goal of 1.5 degrees is aligned with our goals for growth. Despite this comment, our climate and science reporter Georgina Ranard described a pessimistic mood among delegates in Baku. I think the talks have been overshadowed by the election of President-elect Donald Trump last week and people sort of looking around trying to look for new leadership but any sort of growing goodwill could have been eroded somewhat today by the COP president from Azerbaijan, Mota Aliyev,

saying this morning that for his country, Azerbaijan oil was a gift from God, a sort of remarkable statement from someone presiding over a UN climate conference. He also hit out at western states dependent on fossil fuels, he said, trying to pressurize others from moving away. What does that do to the talks? Well, it is a bit similar to the COP last year when the host made similar remarks. And we did see in the end that the summit agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. But this year, people are worried about the progress of this COP. They're saying it could end with very little agreement. Today, it's the second day in Baku and world leaders are here, they're here to sort of

boost it, give it some oomph and lay out some ambitious plans. That's the hope. But there are many who aren't here, almost no one from the G20 is here suggesting that for some leaders this is a summit to skip and sort of push the can down the road and look to talks next year instead. Well, one leader who is there is the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who we heard earlier promising to slash greenhouse gases. Now, he said it could be done in Britain by more than 80% without causing any pain to the British public. How is he hoping to square that circle?

It's a very good question. He's here to make a big play for UK climate leadership on the global stage. He didn't give a lot of detail about how he wants the UK to achieve this target of 81% by 2035. It is the National Climate Action Plan and it is being celebrated by people here. It's very ambitious. He wants the UK to be a leader on offshore wind, a global leader in renewable energy. He talked about nuclear energy and carbon catcher, which is a slightly controversial technology. But I think that certainly it will impact people's lives. It will affect how we move around, how electric vehicles, how we transport ourselves because of very energy, carbon heavy parts of the economy. But I think this is a huge transformation that he's promising and that the UN says all countries

need. So to say that it won't have much impact on people's lives, I think is not quite the full picture. Georgina Ranard, if you'd like to hear more coverage of COP29, the Global Story podcast has also been looking at the impact Donald Trump's election win may have on this summit and the worldwide fight against climate change. Just search for the Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts. It's less than a week since Mr Trump was elected, but there's already been feverish speculation. Some might call it guesswork about what his victory will mean for Ukraine,

for relations with China, for the global economy. One way we can try to divine the future path ahead is by looking at the people the incoming president will pick to run his administration. He's already appointed a new border czar, Tom Horman, who says his priority will be deporting immigrants who've arrived illegally. Lee Zeldin will run the Environmental Protection Agency. As a congressman, he voted against environmental measures. Perhaps the biggest question, though, has been who Donald Trump would appoint as Secretary of State, the figure in charge of Foreign Affairs. And it looks like we may have an answer to that.

Our State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman, says the Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, is now being tipped for this key role. It is described as Donald Trump's current thinking that Marco Rubio will become Secretary of State, although it should be said that this is Donald Trump and as quite a few people are noting here, he can still change his mind right up to the last minute. But a significant announcement, if it turns out to be Marco Rubio, I think largely because of where that places Trump administration foreign policy,

the kind of direction it looked like it was going in, gives it much more clarity. I mean, this is a person who is traditionally actually quite hawkish on foreign policy, traditionally a neoconservative or from that wing of the party, but has tended to change his views over recent years to align more closely with Donald Trump, to bring him into this sort of hawkish isolationism, if that isn't too much of a contradiction

in terms of Donald Trump, which says that it wants to end the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East without giving much detail on how, alongside a kind of projection of American force and military power in order to deter this sort of axis of adversaries that they see, as in China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, but at the same time, as Donald Trump would put it, not going to to war so ultimately summed up by him and others and Marco Rubio is what they call peace through strength Tom Bateman there Haiti has a new Prime Minister the businessman Alex Didier fees ma was sworn in after his predecessor Gary Corneil was ousted on Sunday having spent five months in office

Mr. Fields ma promised to put all of his energy into restoring security, which really does amount to a challenge. The country has seen months of political chaos and violence. On Monday, three American airlines suspended flights to Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, after gunfire struck a plane as it landed. Victoria Uankunda has been speaking to Jacqueline Charles, Caribbean correspondent with the Miami Herald newspaper, about the challenges the new prime minister faces. Did you see him as we all referred to him? I mean, he comes from a family that's been politically active and has also been involved, you know, on the business side. He faces a

tough challenge. I mean, this is a country that today very little is working. 5.4 million people who do not have enough to eat, famine in some pockets, especially in the capital, more than 700,000 people who have been displaced by armed gangs. And of course, the violence. I mean, we have seen this fresh wave of coordinated attacks in the last couple of weeks. Their neighborhoods have fallen under gang control after resisting it. And Mr. Fize-Me when he was sworn in, he said that his main priority was to restore security in Haiti. How does he go about doing that? Well today, you know, during his swearing-in ceremony, security was a top priority for him. I mean, he mentioned the Haitian National

Police, he mentioned the Multinational security support mission, which is the United Nations authorized mission that's being led by Kenya. But again, that's a mission that has struggled since it arrived. The first contingents began arriving in late June. It's under-resourced, it's under-equipped. It doesn't have enough security personnel, just a little bit over 400 in there. And so that's the challenge. That's a question that people ask. Some people say it's not armed gangs, but it's organized crime. You know, it's armed groups.

President Abidinare from the Dominican Republic, you know, referred these individuals as terrorists because they shot at aircrafts. And so that's really where they have to figure out what is the security plan. The SACD Prime Minister, Gary Conneneal said that the appointment of the new Prime Minister Fizeme was illegal. I wonder what next then for the former Prime Minister Conneal, where is he? Well we have not heard from Prime Minister Gary Conneal. He did not attend the swearing in today and yes he did say that this was an illegal act

of what they did in terms of his removal. He is part of a transition that was part of a political accord that was carved out in March in Jamaica with the help of the international community, mainly the United States and Caribbean community. It's not rooted in any sort of constitutional law. But in this particular case, you had a president who was assassinated in 2021. You had the head of the Supreme Court who died because of COVID. And you had a president who was assassinated in 2021. You had the head of the Supreme Court who died because of COVID. And you had a parliament that was totally dysfunctional, non-existent. And so there was a complete vacuum, a complete void.

I do not know what he's going to do. He's had a very illustrious career as a civil servant with the United Nations. I have no idea if that's what he wants to return to. We have not heard from him, and hopefully at some point we will. And so what do Haitians make of all of these changes? Look, at the end of the day, Haitians want security. They want to be able to get up in the morning, send their kids to school,

and not worry about whether their kids are gonna come back in a body bag. They want to be able to walk and go to the market and not be concerned about being killed, kidnapped, or injured. They want to be able to have food in their stomachs, you know, to have a sense of food security. I mean, today there is no security in this country.

People are literally sleeping in the mud. They just want to be able to live in peace. And right now they are just being overrun by gang violence and they don't know when it's going to end. Jacqueline Charles from the Miami Herald. Italian police say they've busted a massive European crime ring that's allegedly been churning out forged copies of works by some of the world's most famous artists, including Banksy, Andy Warhol, and Pablo Picasso.

At least 38 people have been detained on suspicion of forgery, handling stolen goods, and the illegal sale of fake artwork. Wendy Urquhart reports. Imagine how disappointed you would be if you found out that the piece of art that you'd saved up for years to buy wasn't the real thing after all. Art forgery is nothing new and even works by the giants of the art world have been copied and sold over the years to unsuspecting buyers. In 2017 an exhibition of works by the Italian

painter Amadeo Medigliani in the Italian city of Genoa was shut down after an art expert declared that 20 of the 21 paintings on display were actually fake. Last year Italian police launched an investigation into the murky world of art forgery after an industry expert declared that 200 pieces of art, including a drawing by Modigliani that were in the private collection of a Pisa businessman, were fake. That led to Monday's raids on three forgery workshops in Italy and three elsewhere in Europe, during which investigators confiscated more than 2,000 fake artworks with a potential market value of around $170 million.

The problem is, hundreds of fakes by these suspects may already be circulating in the art world because they reportedly held exhibitions and published catalogues showing their works at prestigious locations in Italy and elsewhere in order to boost their credentials. Police believe that enabled the foragers to sell hundreds of copies of well-known artworks at top-tier prices to collectors and auction houses across Europe and beyond. Wendy Urquhart reporting. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast

later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Graham White. The producer was Marion Strand. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye. I'm Lucy Hawkins from the Global Story podcast.

We're looking at what Donald Trump's election win could mean for the global fight against climate change. As delegates from nearly 200 countries meet at COP29, Trump has promised to pull out of international climate pacts and ramp up fossil fuel production at home. Can the world tackle the climate crisis without the US? Find the global story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.