Global News Podcast - Israel investigates death of five-year-old girl in Gaza

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Israel's military has confirmed for the first time that its troops opened fire on a car carrying Hind Rajab, the five-year old Palestinian child who was killed alongside six of her relatives in Gaza in 2024. The IDF is opening a criminal investigation into the deaths, as well as those of two paramedics sent to rescue her. A separate inquiry will examine the killing of fifteen emergency and aid workers in Rafah last year. Also: after six years in the US state of California, Prince Harry and his family are moving back to the UK, but will not be undertaking royal duties. At least five people have been killed by Russian missile attacks on Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday morning. The US pharmaceutical giants, Moderna and Merck, say trials of an experimental treatment for melanoma have shown signs of success. US public debt has soared to a record 40 trillion dollars. A former Meta employee, turned whistleblower, tells a court in California that Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, put growth in Facebook and Instagram before child safety. We have a special report about the gold rush in Kenya that's causing security and safety concerns. Scientists say giant whales are taking advantage of the ice disappearing from East Greenland, and shares in the Chinese robot maker, Unitree, soar as it launches its new humanoid robots.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]: Five-year-old Hind Rajab who was killed in Gaza, January 29th 2004, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Gaza war. Credit: Family

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Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad and The Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to your dead to me wherever you get your podcast.

Thank you. Bye. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Will Chalk and in the early hours of Thursday the 20th of August, these are our main. stories. Israel's military admits it was behind the shooting of a car in Gaza in which a five-year-old girl was killed in 2024. After six years in the US, Britain's Prince Harry and his family are moving back to the UK. Also in this podcast, there's good news for skin cancer patients as a personalised vaccine shows early signs of promise. Think gold rush, and you might picture old Western movies, but there's one going on in Kenya right now.

We had approximately 10,000 people from all over the area, from neighbouring counties, and even from the neighbouring country of Uganda. And why Greenland's waters are seeing a lot of Wales. But we're starting with a phone call that's been heard around the world. Just begin there. Five-year-old Hind Rajab, speaking to emergency workers from a car in Gaza in 2024, after The six members of her family were shot dead around her. The call lasted hours.

She was eventually cut off and two weeks later she was found dead. Last year, as we've just heard a clip from there, the real call was made into an Oscar-nominated film, The Voice of Hindrajab. But through all of this, the Israeli military has denied its troops were behind the shooting. That's now changed, though. Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson reports from Jerusalem. For more than two years, Israel's military denied it had killed.

killed Hind Rajab. Her last conversation recorded by emergency workers as the five-year-old coward in a car surrounded by her dead relatives in an active combat zone. The tank is next to me, Hinn says. Is it very close? The operator asks. Very, very, Hind replies. I'm scared. Can you come for me? Six members of Hinn's family were also killed that day, along with two ambulance workers sent to rescue her. Today, Israel's military said its troops had fired at the family car, which it said was traveling contrary to an approved evacuation route. It also said it had shelled the ambulance sent with prior coordination, killing the two paramedics inside. By the time emergency teams were allowed to the scene days later, all those inside both vehicles were dead.

Hinn's mother, Wasam, spoke to us that day. who heard my voice, my daughter's pleading voice, yet did not rescue her. I will question them before God on the day of judgment. Israel's military also said it was investigating the killing of 15 emergency workers by its forces in Gaza a year later. Their crushed rescue vehicles and bodies were found buried in the sand. Today, air strikes in Gaza continued, almost a year after a ceasefire there was signed. 17 people reported killed in strikes over the past two days. Israel said it had targeted Hamas commanders. Already disillusioned with ceasefire deals and promises of peace, many Gazans don't trust Israel's military to investigate itself. That report was by Lucy Williamson,

and we should just add that in a statement, the Hindrajab Foundation, which is based in Brussels, said these reported investigations, even if they do occur, should not be mistaken for a genuine step towards justice. So what then are the prospects of a criminal investigation leading to criminal charges? Ziv Stahl is executive director of the Israeli Human Rights Organization Yesh Din. Sean Lay asked for her reaction to the IDF's announcement. We are pleased by the decision. Of course, we are really regretting the fact that they decided also to close three other investigations.

But since we are aware that this is so rare that they do open investigations, we feel that this is pleasing to us if you can use that terminology on something so tragic. Is there anything about the way Israel conducts this that makes it different from that of other military? First of all, it's not an investigation yet. In cases like the war in Gaza and other incidents in Gaza, they created this special mechanism. And this is supposed to be a mechanism that conducts quick, assessment of whether or not there is suspicion of crime being committed, whether it's a war crime or a criminal offense. Two points that you should know about this mechanism. One is that it's not

quick at all. And as you've seen, those incidents that they have decided to open an investigation in, it took them years to decide that. And second is that the vast majority of the complaints and the reports about incidents do not reach the point where they decide and open a criminal investigation. And maybe a third point is that the army and this mechanism do not investigate commanders almost ever, and of course not policymakers and political leaders. So the investigations tend to be into troops on the ground, not necessarily the people who directed their action. And this is not even an investigation. It's just a preliminary examination. What sort of proportion of cases result in charges? Very, very few from what?

what we've looked at in previous operations in Gaza. We cannot say about this one because they haven't released a lot of data. But in previous cases, we saw that less than 1% of the complaints and reports reached an indictment. But Ziv Stahl speaking to Sean Lay. On to some news that is dominating the UK's tabloid headlines this morning. After six years in the US state of California, Prince Harry and his family are moving back to Britain. Whilst the announcement came as a surprise to lots of us, actually looks like this has been in the offing for a while.

The Prince's two children already have their school places booked for September. As for King Charles, he's said to be looking forward to spending more time with Harry and Meghan and his grandchildren. Our correspondent Tom Simons told me more. Prince Harry and his family are going to be back within weeks. They're going to be living in a non-royal residence somewhere outside London. Prince Archie, who's seven now, and Princess Lillibur who's now five. are enrolled already to start in a British school in September,

but there's no plans for him to become again a working royal. Back in 2020, the late Queen said there could be no half in, half out option. If he was going to move outside the UK, he couldn't be a working royal. As we understand it, that is not going to change. But of course, the king, who was told about this, we understand on Sunday, is going to be able to see the family again more regularly. When he met them in July at Highgrove, He hadn't seen his grandchildren for some four years.

So he, we understand, is going to welcome the opportunity to spend more time with them in a sort of personal capacity. And, of course, he'll be able to do more charity work here as well. So this is a big change. The rouse within Britain's royal family have made headlines around the world for years. And a big part of that has been police protection and how Prince Harry is paid for, security-wise. This is going to throw that all up in the air, isn't it? The eventual decision was that he should be given ad hoc security. when it was regarded as being needed, based on intelligence, based on what he was doing, based on when he was in the UK.

Now he's going to be in the UK the whole time, is presumably going to be a property that needs to be kept an eye on at least. We haven't heard of any change in that agreement. And one would imagine if there is going to be a change, then it will be something that isn't really made public because it's about security. But clearly he now feels happy enough to bring his family back here, which was something that he always said was a concern. Even though there's no suggestion of this at the moment, it does leave. the door open again for them to return to Royal duties theoretically. Yeah, I mean, it's going to look a bit like a working royal, isn't he? Because he's going to be doing speeches, going to visit places,

especially with regard to Invictus Games, his charity for wounded veterans. The Duchess of Sussex is running a lifestyle brand. And one would imagine that at some point his role could change. But we have been told that there is no plan for him to be a working royal at this moment. What about the wider reaction from the Royal? family, what do you think that is likely to be? Well, we've talked about the king, whose health is not great, he's still suffering from cancer and still being treated.

It's less clear when you think about the relationship between the two brothers, which, as I understand it, is still not great. Does coming back improve that? Who knows? It's going to be very interesting over the next few weeks. And just quickly to focus in on Megan, because as anyone who lives in the UK will know, the tabloids have been accused of having it out for her. from the beginning. So this probably won't go down well with some of the tabloids.

Well, possibly, but one of the narratives in that reporting has been that it was her that dragged him away from the UK to the US. And if she's now coming to live here, then it's either an argument he's won or that she has very much decided that that's a good thing for their children. And maybe that kind of opposition to living in the UK that she appeared to demonstrate is not there anymore. And that will go down well with the media. We'll see. That's Tom Simons there. Ukraine's capital, Kiev, has faced another barrage of Russian missile attacks overnight. Several residential areas and warehouses were hit, and at least five people are known to have been killed.

More than 20 were injured. Kiev has been facing near-nightly attacks, as in recent months, Ukraine has also escalated its retaliatory strikes on Russia. I got more from Vatali Shepchenko, chief analyst at BBC monitoring. Yet again, tragically, civilian buildings were hit or damaged or destroyed, including a children's hospital that suffered damage, a school where people are trapped in the shelter. There's a nine-story residential buildings where the authorities say the upper floors have been completely destroyed. The building is on fire. warehouses are on fire. There's one video showing a huge column of fire

taller than a nine-story building in the town of Brovary outside Kiev. So I'm afraid the death toll is very, very likely to rise. And in the context of such a long conflict, is there a sense that things are intensifying or is this more of the same? It's more of the same when it comes to Ukraine and particularly its capital being attacked by Russia.

The most important change, which is truly tragic for Ukraine, is that it's apparently running out or possibly has run out of ways of intercepting Russia's most effective and lethal weapon, ballistic missiles. In fact, the Ukrainian Air Force has stopped publishing. statistics of how many missiles were fired or how many were intercepted because they do not want to undermine morale. Vitaly Shevchenko from BBC monitoring. On to encouraging news about a possible vaccine for the skin cancer melanoma. It was tested on patients who'd had surgery. An early result showed the patients who had it stayed cancer-free for longer. Here's our health editor, Hugh Pim. The significance here is that it's a personal

vaccine for individual patients. It's produced by the company Moderna and the study looks at how it's applied in combination with an existing drug for high risk melanoma patients called K-truder made by Merck. And these are both applied together after surgery and what the study shows is an extension of the amount of time a patient lives on without the cancer coming back and a reduction in the risk of it spreading to other parts of the body compared with if they just had the drug on its own. Now, it has to be said, these are preliminary findings of a study, of a stage three trial.

We do need more data, and some commentators are holding back a bit because they don't want to sort of hail this as a great breakthrough. They do want to see a bit more of these findings. But that hasn't stopped share prices going up pretty significantly for both companies on. Wall Street tonight and a general sense of optimism around it. And I think you could get to one conclusion, which is optimistic, a commentator saying tonight that it is a breakthrough showing that vaccines can protect against the recurrence of one of the deadliest cancers.

Hugh Pim there. Still to come in this podcast. They started a few years ago with a robot called the X-Dog and since then they've evolved into making affordable, but also really effective quadruped and more recently humanoid robots. How hype around the latest robots is making major money for a Chinese company. Your sales order says one thing, your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and

marketing. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'DO.com. Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many, many, most. medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to your dead to me wherever you get your podcast. Thank you. Bye.

This is the Global News podcast. Some seriously big numbers in this next story. US public debt has soared to a record $40 trillion. And critics claim the Trump government is making things worse and worse by spending $2 trillion a year more than it's bringing in. Here is Michael Peterson from Fiscal Campaign Group, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. When Treasury rates go up, all the other rates also follow. So your mortgage rate goes up, your car loan goes up, your credit card bills go up.

So if we reined in our federal spending and showed a long-term fiscal path that was sustainable, rates would come down and therefore everything else would get less expensive. You don't have to pay the bill on the national debt personally, but we are paying the bill as a society and in the cost of living. To put this in context, the interest, is now up to more than a trillion dollars a year. Our business correspondent in Singapore, Maura Foggety, told me more about what's caused this record high level of public debt.

Well, the first one is that if you look back over the last 10 years, and what's interesting here is just how quickly the national debt has increased more than doubling in just a 10-year period. In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, both President Trump in his first term, in like the waning years of his first term, and President Biden in his first term, his new term, both ramped up spending quite tremendously in response, both in providing preparedness

and dealing with the pandemic, but also in terms of stimulus for the economy as well. That accounts for about a third of the increase in the national debt. The bigger and more important reason why we've seen the debt explode so much is because of the federal budget deficit. Essentially, it means that the U.S. government is spending more than it brings in in terms of tax receipts. we have had a federal deficit in the U.S. for the past quarter of a century. Right, but for a president like Donald Trump, who's also a proud businessman, this isn't a good look, is it?

So how can he get this debt under control? It's interesting you say that because when he came into office, he talked about wanting to reduce federal spending by about a trillion dollars, and so far that hasn't really come to light, despite efforts by, you know, the Department of Government Efficiency that was led by, initially, by Elon Musk. A few things here. One, we've had the war in Iran. That's forced the country to spend more on kind of military in dealing with that. Two, President Trump made it a centerpiece of his administration that he would impose tariffs on other countries to kind of reduce the trade deficit that the U.S. was buying too much from outside countries, but also to bring in tax revenues. And that hasn't really come to pass because the U.S. government has had to refund and return that money.

after a Supreme Court ruling. The other thing is that with the war in Iran, we've seen higher prices in the U.S. because of inflation or energy prices, I should say. That has not helped the U.S. economy be as expansive or as vibrant as they had originally thought it would be. And then finally, if you look at tax cuts, which were passed by the Republicans last year,

that's also brought in lower income into government coffers. So there's a bunch of reasons why. But it's not just President Trump alone. In the long term, U.S. lawmakers have to tackle some very, big structural issues to do with U.S. spending. And a lot of that is if you look at the annual budget deficit each year or government spending each year in the U.S., a lot of that money, a lot of that spending goes to social safety net type programs, things like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Veterans Benefits. So there's some questions over how they deal with that in

the longer term. It's not just President Trump. Moore, Fogarty there. We've had the second day of a landmark trial against the tech giant Meta, a court in California. The standout moment, a former employee turned whistleblower, saying CEO Mark Zuckerberg fostered a culture where child safety took a backseat to engagement and growth across Facebook and Instagram. Our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali, was in court and sent us this report. Meadow whistleblower Arturo Behar testified on Wednesday that inside of the company

it was common knowledge that there were millions of users under the age of three. on Instagram. He described the policy inside the company as don't ask, don't tell. He also said that he believed that Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg was well aware of the potential harms posed to young users by the company's platforms, but misled the public about the safety of both Instagram and Facebook. Now, under cross-examination, Behar acknowledged that Meta had policies in place to deal with issues like bullying and harassment.

He also acknowledged that the company had taken down millions of pieces of such content, but he countered that what was taken down was just a tiny fraction of what was reported by users. States, including California, want META to change its business practices and also to pay significant financial penalties for misleading the public on the issue of safety, as well as for harvesting the data of users under the age of 13 without parental concerns. META has denied all of the allegations. This trial is expected to run well into September. Lily Jamali in San Francisco.

It might sound exciting. Thousands of fortune seekers descending on a village in search of gold. But what's happening in West Picott County in Kenya is causing a big problem. It's putting pressure on a community with little infrastructure and raising concerns about security and safety. The BBC's Akisa Wondera reports. Before sunrise, the digging begins in this remote village in western Kenya. Hundreds of people are searching for something they hope will change their lives. Gold.

Some hack at the rocky ground with holes and shovels. Others sift mud and sand along a nearby riverbank, watching closely for even the smallest speck of gold. Just a few weeks ago, Chepororor was a quiet, sparsely populated community. Today it is the center of a gold rush. Residents say the rush began earlier this month after reports emerged that gold had been discovered here. Manasse Lomachar says he was among the first residents to get the gold. I was looking for a goat that had gone missing.

We thought it had given birth somewhere in the bushes. That's when I came across some women who were panning for gold in the water. I joined them in the search, and that's how we discovered there was gold in this area. News of the discoveries spread quickly. Within days, thousands of prospectors had arrived. Westpokot's Deputy County Commissioner Samuel Kiari told the BBC, social media helped fuel the influx. We had approximately 10,000 people from all over the area, from neighboring counties, and even from the neighboring country of Uganda. and the number has drastically reduced to 2,500 because, you know, the expectation was so high.

The village has been transformed almost overnight, but was there really gold to be found? I can confirm, because when we went there, traders in gold. They told us every day they are getting an average of 100 people who are selling gold to them, but unfortunately, the amount of gold might not be so huge. Among those drawn here is Ugandan artisanal minor Mugisha Godfrey. We sleep under the trees and when morning comes, we continue working.

Sometimes we work both day and night. As for going back home, we can't return unless we find something. The rush has also created opportunities for traders who've travelled hundreds of kilometres to sell food, water and basic supplies to the growing population. One of them is Irene Ameja, who came from a neighbouring county hoping to earn enough money to expand her business. By the sudden population boom is exposing the area's lack of infrastructure. There is limited access to clean water, few sanitation facilities and growing concerns about safety, particularly for women. This is a forest, and we're in the middle of the mountains.

We don't have clean water to drink or even bathe. For women, the biggest challenge comes in the evening or at night. You'll have to find somewhere safe to go and stay because most of the people sleeping here are men. Local authorities say security has been reinforced while health and sanitation measures are being expanded. For those still digging in Cheperor, the possibility of a life-changing discovery is reason enough to keep searching. Akeeser Wendera with that report. As the ice disappears from East Greenland, Gaya, whales have taken advantage and moved in. Scientists say it's part of a major regime shift in the ocean

environment. None of these marine mammals were historically found there. Mads Peter Haider-Yorgerson is from Greenland's Institute of Natural Resources. It just shows how nature can change its way of conducting its own business, so to speak. I mean, a lot of these baleen whales, they are quite opportunistic and can choose different feeding areas. But there are some of the Arctic species are more in trouble now because they are restricted to a much more narrow habitat. Well, with more, here's our climate and science correspondent, Victoria Gill. The sea off the coast of East Greenland used to be covered in ice year round. Now, as it warms and melts completely in the summer, the waters have opened up to new visitors, some of the

world's largest whales and the fish that they feed on. The scientists combined aerial surveys, satellite tagging and observations from local Inuit communities to track them, and the change has been dramatic. Surveys didn't record a single humpback whale sighting in the region until 2006. In 2007, seven humpbacks were seen, and by 2024, there were 150 sightings of the giant whales from ships. Now, Finn whales, humpbacks and minky whales come to East Greenland in their thousands to feed. The researchers say this is a huge climate-driven shift, with some easily adapting, while other art Arctic species, including belugas, narwhals and walruses, all of which need the ice to hide from predators or to breed are being edged out. That was Victoria Gill.

Before we go, a promotional video there for the Chinese robot maker Unitary, showcasing its latest creation, Superman, a machine modelled on human form, which the company says can run faster than the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. Nathan Wallace is head of robotics at NextGenree in Nottinghamshire here in the UK, a partner of Unitary. Regini Vigionathan spoke to him as he sat with another robot modelled to remind us of ourselves. This one is called Destiny. Humanoid robots are a big step from your typical industrial robots because the idea behind them is that they can fit into any workplace that a human could fit into. And they can work alongside people without causing any sort of danger.

Tell us about Destiny, the robot that's beside you right now while you're speaking to us. Yes, she's sat here now not really doing a lot, but her possibilities are pretty limitless and we can get her to do whatever we need. Which is what? It depends on the task. We normally put them in any place that you wouldn't want to put a person for whatever reason. So whether that be dirty or dangerous, generally we see a lot of cases in sort of warehousing and manufacturing.

So whether that be something simple like stacking boxes onto pallets or a little bit complex like unloading boxes from the manufacturer and putting them into your custom branded boxes. So she's made by Unitary. Unitary in the news because it's the Chinese humanoid robot company which has made its stock market debut. Tell us more about Unitary. Yep. So Unitri are based in China and they started a few years ago with a robot called the X-Dog. And since then, they've evolved into making affordable, but also really effective quadruped and then more recently humanoid robots. So China is really pushing its humanoid robotic technology then? Definitely. I mean, you can imagine that things come out of China so quickly because the parts can be made cheaper and faster, having been to China myself, they are far more technically advanced than ourselves. They have robots wandering the streets and walking through hotels and nobody bats an eyelid because it is just the normal.

over there. But it is terrifying. I've said this already and there'll be people listening who will say, I mean, this is going to lead to job losses. It's going to lead to a lack of critical thinking. There's lots of downsides to the rise of robots. If you look at it from the perspective of job losses, then of course it's very easy to think that humanoid and robots in general could be the downfall of humanity. But if you look at it more from the technological advancements and we actually looked back in history, for example, with the introduction of the ATM, the ATM was set to reduce jobs and push people out of work. But actually, the introduction of the ATM increased jobs because it meant everything was cheaper to run. It meant that more branches opened up and there

was more people in those branches that could do the more complex tasks. And if you haven't seen the video yet of the Usain Bolt beating robot, finishing the race and then running into a wall, it's well worth looking up online. That was Head of Robotics at NextGenree, Nathan Wallace. That's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.co.com. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. This edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Massoud Ibrahim, and the producer was Emma Joseph.

The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Will Chalk. Until next time, goodbye. Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history, seriously. Every episode I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series,

we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parris. So if that sounds like you're, your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me, wherever you get your podcast. Thank you. Bye.