Global News Podcast - Israeli airstrikes kill hundreds of people in Lebanon

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Israel says it hit over one thousand Hezbollah targets and tells civilians in southern Lebanon to flee areas near the group's weapons. Also: Albania plans microstate within its borders.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. Life and death were two very realistic co-existing possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit camh.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Tuesday 24th September, these are our main stories. Lebanese health officials say Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah have killed nearly 500 people.

It's the deadliest day of conflict across the border in nearly two decades. Thousands of civilians in southern Lebanon have been fleeing the bombardment. US prosecutors say the man suspected of planning to shoot Donald Trump on a Florida golf course, had written a note saying he intended to kill the former president. India has confirmed a case of the new fast-spreading strain of MPOCs, the first in South Asia. Also in this podcast, we have given the world Mother Teresa, and this is our source of inspiration in supporting the sovereign state within our capital Tirana. Albania says it's creating the world's smallest country. So who's going to live

there? We begin in the Middle East. As we record this podcast, health officials in Lebanon say nearly 500 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in towns and villages in the south of the country and the eastern Bekaa Valley. More than 1,600 were injured in Monday's attacks. The BBC's Hugo Beshega is in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. As morning broke, it brought with it one of the deadliest days in nearly 20 years in Lebanon. Israel, unleashing the most intense and widespread airstrikes on the country. Southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley, and for the first time, the north were hit. Among the dead, children and women.

Israel's conflict with Hezbollah on the verge of becoming an all-out war. From the south to Beirut, roads were congested. People desperately trying to leave amid warnings from Israel that this was just the beginning. Thousands of families are said to have been displaced. It was horrifying. The missiles flew over our heads. We woke up to the sounds of bombings. We didn't expect this. I was scared.

Why? Bombing. And where are you going to now? I don't know. We don't know. Hezbollah responded with barrages of missiles, a sign that it is unlikely to back down. The group is weakened, but it remains a powerful force. It hasn't yet used its most sophisticated weapons and has remained defiant. It says it will only stop if there's a ceasefire in Gaza.

Israel's defence minister, Yoav Galant, said tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets and other munitions had been destroyed in strikes. One strike in Beirut reportedly targeted a senior Hezbollah commander. On Monday evening, Julian Marshall spoke to the Lebanese health minister, Firaz Abiyad, and began by asking him about the impact of these attacks. The vast majority, if not all of the sites that were targeted were civilian. Some of them were residential buildings. And we had this number of casualties really mounting very fast. But Israel says it's been targeting sites that

are linked to Hezbollah and that Hezbollah is using civilians as human shields. Well, this is untrue. And anybody who visits the casualties or visits the sites can confirm that firsthand. The Israeli defence of their actions is that since October 7th, Hezbollah have launched 9,000 rocket attacks into northern Israel, which have killed dozens of Israelis. And in the words of a government spokesperson, no country in the world would put up with that level of assault. What's your response to that? I can cite that only during the last week, the Israeli attacks have resulted in an excess of almost 500 who are dead and an excess of 5,000 who are wounded. From the start, the position of the Lebanese government is we do not want war, and we have called for a ceasefire from Gaza to Lebanon. I think that the whole population, which includes a lot of the people who have affinities to Hezbollah, do not want war.

This is something that affects the whole region because it's extremely difficult for us in the Middle East, as we see the carnage that is ongoing in Gaza, to just take a watchful position. But it's difficult for you, isn't it, Minister? I mean, you are a government and you have your own army, and yet you have this extremely powerful, separate militia group called Hezbollah that very possibly has a very different agenda to that of the Lebanese government. And I think the best way to take any pretext of such a non-state actor is to start with a ceasefire in Gaza that really removes any context to any said resistance or anything of the sort. That's why the Lebanese government believes that the good starting point of sorting this out is to have a ceasefire from Gaza to Lebanon. How would you describe the mood in Beirut, obviously not directly affected beyond that strike that there has been today on what Israel says was a Hezbollah operative in the south

of the city? I think that a lot of the Lebanese are rightly upset. The feeling amongst the population is that definitely we do not want to have an escalation, but we feel that this is and try to provide the best care for our community, especially the innocent people who have been wounded with these attacks. The Lebanese Health Minister, Firaz Abiat. Well, the spokesman for the Israeli military, Daniel Hagari, said 1,300 targets in Lebanon had been hit, including the destruction of cruise missiles, rockets and drones held by Hezbollah. Today, based on precise intelligence, we conducted extensive strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon that posed an imminent threat. The IDF makes vast efforts not to hit civilians and make every effort to mitigate harm to civilians during operational activity. Regarding the high number of casualties, everyone is a tragedy in Lebanon.

Among those killed were a large number of Hezbollah terrorists who were next to the weapons that we targeted. Our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams has been to northern Israel, where people are living with the threat of rocket attacks by Hezbollah. In a village west of Tiberias, David Yitzhak's family has had a narrow escape. Seconds after a siren sounded, as they sheltered in their safe room, a rocket tore through the roof, scattering debris across the first floor. When we arrived an hour later, police officers were still retrieving pieces of the rocket. David says Israel didn't start this war.

They attacked us. We don't attack them. We don't hate the Lebanese. We don't have anything with them. But this is the situation. And we passed it. Everything will be OK. The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the country is facing what he calls complex days. This evening, he delivered a stern message to the people of Lebanon. I urge you, take this warning seriously. Don't let Hezbollah endanger your lives and the lives of your loved ones. Don't let Hezbollah endanger Lebanon. Please, get out of harm's way now. That means that Israel is intent on further action of the sort we've seen today. It's going to continue bombing southern Lebanon for the foreseeable future and could, after that, mount some kind of limited invasion too. Paul Adams in northern Israel. So what does all this mean for the future of the region? How important are, for example, the Israeli aims of pushing back Hezbollah in Lebanon beyond the Litani River to establish a safer buffer zone between Beirut and the Israeli border?

Christian Fraser spoke to the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, and Greg Karlstrom, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist. First, Lise Doucette. I went back and looked at what were the aims of the 1996 war. I was based in the region then, and the 2006 war that we both saw in Israel and in Lebanon. The aims are the same this time, that they want to degrade,

to stop Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets into Israel, as you say, to push them north of the Latani River, in other words, further away from the Israel-Lebanon border. And in this case, they want to allow some 60,000 Israelis who were taken out of their homes under Hezbollah fire last October, allow them to return to their homes. These new war aims were suddenly added to the other war aims for Gaza. It wasn't clear why they were added then. But now it's clear that what has been called from the beginning of the Gaza war, the second front is now the hottest one,

even though the fighting is still continuing in Gaza today. And, of course, no sign of that elusive ceasefire, which would end the suffering of Gazans and bring Israeli hostages home. But as Lee suggests, Greg, there is precedent, plenty of precedent. If you want to go back in history, they tried to create this buffer zone after the war in 82. That Israeli presence up to the Latana River was there, I think, for 16 years. And when they withdrew, the rockets were coming over the top and Israelis were being killed. So is there any

suggestion that this would be any different? No. And that is why Hezbollah came to exist in the first place, was that 18-year occupation by Israel of South Lebanon. Hezbollah came to exist in the first place was that 18-year occupation by Israel of South Lebanon. Hezbollah came up as a group that was fighting against that Israeli occupation and that wanted a fair amount of support, not just from its Shia constituency in Lebanon, but from a broader cross-section of Lebanese. So I think two and a half decades later, there is no reason to think that an Israeli occupation of South Lebanon would end any differently. And it would come at a time when Hezbollah has bled a lot of its support inside of Lebanon. There are many people who are angry at its decision to get involved in this war on behalf of Hamas, to bring war to Lebanon.

That anger is growing in recent days after the Pager and Waki Taki attacks and then this very heavy series of airstrikes over the past couple of days. That was Greg Karlstrom, the Middle East correspondent for The Economist, and before him, Lee's Deset, the BBC's chief international correspondent. Now to some other news. More details have come to light surrounding the man who lied in wait for hours at Donald Trump's golf course with a gun in hand. The US Justice Department says 58-year-old Ryan Ruth, who's accused of trying to assassinate the former president, had written a note months earlier stating that he planned to kill Mr Trump. Our correspondent Tom Bateman reports from

Washington. Prosecutors allege Ryan Ruth wrote the letter months ago and say it was stored in a locked box he gave someone they call a civilian witness who came forward. The suspected gunman addressed it, dear world, writing that this was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I am so sorry I failed you. He went on to offer a bounty to anyone who would complete the job and also appeared to blame Mr Trump for the crisis in the Middle East, saying the former president had ended

US relations with Iran like a child. The court filing says that after he fled the perimeter of Mr Trump's golf course and was later arrested, agents searched Mr Ruth's car and found a list of dates and venues where the former president was due to appear. They also found 12 pairs of gloves, a passport and six mobile phones, one containing a Google search on how to travel from Palm Beach, Florida to Mexico. Ryan Ruth has been charged with two counts of illegally possessing a gun and is expected to face further charges. Tom Bateman.

It's not often you hear about plans to bring a new country into existence, let alone one that will set something of a world record. But we've heard fascinating new plans by Albania to establish what would become the world's smallest state. Our Europe regional editor Paul Moss explains. It's nearly a hundred years since members of Turkey's Bektashi sect fled the country after their places of worship had been closed down and their traditions suppressed. Theirs is a mystic version of Islam with influences of Sufism

and an openness to other faiths and traditions, and this has meant they often found themselves at odds with the Muslim establishment. Most Bektashi settled in nearby Albania, where they eventually built an international headquarters on the outskirts of the capital, Tirana. Now, the Albanian Prime Minister is offering the Bektashi the chance to make this a sovereign nation-state, albeit one only about the size of 15 football pitches. Eddie Rama announced a proposal at the United Nations General Assembly, citing the world's best-known Albanian as an influence.

We have given the world Mother Teresa, whose life embodied a love for humanity. And this is our source of inspiration in supporting the sovereign state within our capital Tirana as the new centre of moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Thank you all. Creating a Bektashi state would probably require Albania to change its constitution, which in turn needs a vote in parliament. But the Bektashi already have firm plans for their new nation. It will issue its own passports in green and its religious leaders

insist that alcohol will be allowed while women will be free to dress how they want. Only clerics and administrators will be eligible for citizenship but they promise that what would be the smallest country on the planet will still serve as an international beacon of inclusion and religious harmony. Paul Moss. Still to come, we meet the selfless lottery winner who made this for charity. Hall number two is the Jungle Hall. I laugh because it is a giant-sized crocodile there. More details later. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads get current affairs podcasts like global news americast and the global story plus other great bbc podcasts from history to comedy to true crime all ad free

simply subscribe to bbc podcast premium on apple podcasts or listen to amazon music with a prime membership spend less time on ads and more time with bbc podcasts A United Nations report has found that Russians are now subject to systematic human rights violations, with all dissent brutally repressed. The investigation was carried out by the UN's special rapporteur on Russia, Mariana Kratzerova, who interviewed activists and lawyers across the country. Our correspondent in Geneva, Imogen Folks, has been speaking to her. Opposition in Russia is being suffocated. Endless new laws criminalise anything that could be viewed as dissent. The UN investigator Mariana Katsarova says punitive sanctions are being imposed for the most minor activities. Seven years for reading an anti-war poem or producing a play

perceived to be anti-war. Two women are still in prison for that in Russia. Seven years for posting on social media a United Nations report about the Ukraine war. Journalists being imprisoned for up to 22 years on trumped-up charges and as a warning to others. The report also reveals the forcible conscription of Russia's indigenous groups. For decades, they were exempt from military service because they were engaged in traditional practices regarded as good for the environment. Now, the report says helicopters are being sent to remote parts of Siberia to round up young men from indigenous groups and send them to the front. The number of these men dying is said to be a hundred times that of soldiers from Moscow or St. Petersburg. Some groups, the UN report says, now face extinction. Imogen Folks in Geneva.

Police in Ghana have arrested a prominent civil society activist who was behind weekend protests against economic hardship and the environmental damage caused by small-scale gold mining. A police statement said Oliver Barker Vormador had committed serious unlawful acts. Dozens of protesters were arrested on Sunday. I heard more about these protests from our Africa regional editor, Will Ross. This organisation called Democracy Hub, a rights group, a civil society group, it called for three days of protests, which have started fairly small, but on Sunday, got reasonably large. And there were then clashes with the police.

And dozens of people were arrested. The police said that they were breaking the law in terms of blocking roads and they also talked about some skirmishes with the police. It was a kind of an effort to highlight some of the problems that people see in the country, including the state of the economy. But it's not just about the state of the economy, is it? I gather environmental concerns as well. Yes, well, a huge issue at the moment in Ghana is one of illegal mining, small-scale miners,

known locally as galamse. Now, what's been going on is over the last sort of five or so years, this practice has gone from being a pretty small-scale thing that would happen in communities with people looking for gold. Of course, Ghana is a major gold producer with some big companies there. But we're talking about small projects, really, where people in their communities were looking for gold and using relatively small-scale equipment.

But suddenly, over the last sort of year or two, the whole industry has mushroomed and there have been various attempts by the authorities to try and stop it using the military. And now people are kind of highlighting the very serious environmental impact of this mining. We're talking about rivers that are being polluted. We're talking about forests that are being cut down, farmland not usable. And interestingly, also the cocoa board saying that, you know, a lot of areas have seen cocoa trees uprooted and in their place, you know, people trying to make quick money from the mining. So it's something that's become a real big issue in Ghana and people are complaining that the government hasn't done well

in addressing it and trying to stop what they're seeing as a real environmental catastrophe. Will Ross. A public inquiry in London has questioned the former British Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, about what he did to investigate allegations of unlawful killings by British special forces in Afghanistan. The elite force known as the SAS is facing accusations that some of its members executed Afghan detainees between 2010 and 2013. Our defence correspondent, Jonathan Beale watched

the proceedings. This inquiry was set up to investigate allegations against the SAS and to establish whether there was a cover-up. Sir Ben Wallace was pressed on how he dealt with these very serious accusations when he became defence secretary in 2019, or whether, as his junior minister at the time, Johnny Mercer, suggested, he lacked curiosity. The court was shown internal Ministry of Defence emails that warned Sir Ben that many of the allegations being reported were broadly accurate. He'd seen a memo from a senior officer to the director of special forces expressing concern there'd been an unofficial policy to kill fighting age males. Sir Ben insisted he'd always been determined to find out what really happened. I mean it hardly the

narrative of cover-up for this Secretary of State to set up this inquiry. This is trying to get to the bottom of it, using the correct processes and privileges that is awarded quite rightly to the judiciary, the judicial process. I took all my ministers' concerns seriously. I did not discount out of hand or discard out of hand any of their concerns. Sir Ben admitted there were a lot of people who had concerns about the actions of the SAS in Helmand. But he said several investigations had failed to reach sufficient evidence for prosecutions. Jonathan Beale. The authorities in India have confirmed

the case of a new fast-spreading strain of MPOX, the first in South Asia. The patient is a 38-year-old man who travelled from the United Arab Emirates last week. Our South Asia regional editor Ambrasan Etiraj reports. An Indian health ministry spokesman confirmed that the MPOX case in the southern state of Kerala was of the clade 1 variety. The patient had been admitted to a hospital in the district of of Kerala was of the clade 1 variety. The patient had been admitted to a hospital in the district of Malappuram. His friends and family, along with 37 passengers on his flight, are being monitored at home, but none of them have shown any MPOC symptoms. Health officials in India issued an alert to all states earlier this month to remain vigilant and

be prepared to contain potential cases. The alert came after the World Health Organization issued a global health emergency over the new variant. Ambrose Anisarajan, in June last year, the submersible Titan operated by the American company OceanGate imploded during an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five people on board. Now, a US Coast Guard inquiry has been shown a transcript of a meeting in which the company's boss, who perished on board, had said that no one was dying under his watch. Ocean Gate suspended all exploration after the disaster, which led to questions about Titan's safety and design. Our science editor Rebecca Murrell has been following the hearings.

The transcript details a key meeting that took place at OceanGate's headquarters at Everett in Washington in January 2018. The company's former head of marine operations, David Lockridge, had compiled a report detailing multiple problems with the Titan submersible's design. He'd been called to a meeting to discuss this with the company's CEO, Stockton Rush, and three other OceanGate staff members. In the transcript, David Lockridge tells the meeting that his safety concerns had been dismissed by everyone. A heated discussion followed, with Stockton Rush saying he'd been repeatedly told the project wouldn't work. He said he understood this risk. He added he was going into it with his eyes open

and that it was one of the safest things he would ever do. He said he had no desire to die and no one was dying under his watch. Mr Lockridge was fired after the meeting. The US Coast Guard has also released a detailed map of the debris field at the bottom of the Atlantic. The sub's last known location was about 400 metres from the seafloor and 300 metres from the bow of the Titanic. After the implosion, fragments of the sub were scattered over hundreds of metres,

ranging from smaller components like the thrusters and weights to larger sections of the front and back dome, which were recovered to study how the sub failed. Rebecca Murrell. Now, what would you do if you won more than a million dollars on the lottery? Buy a house, lots of new cars or holidays, perhaps? Well, one man from southern England was far more selfless than that. He decided to build a mini golf course in his garden for people with physical and learning disabilities. But before he did that, David Lawrence had to buy a house with an outdoor space large enough to build the course. He spoke to Tony Livesey about the project. Started sort of 20 odd years ago, I used to take a group with learning disabilities to a parent's home and they had a little one-hall golf course, putting course. And one guy in particular, Peter, he was normally very, very shy and sort of wouldn't really talk much.

He would love, we'd do it twice a year. And it sticks in my mind. And then since then, I've done other charity fundraising. Sometimes we've used putting. And it just occurred to me when I was very fortunate a year ago, September the 16th, that this lovely back garden that I'm talking to you from, it would be conducive to three halls, which we've now set up. And it was wonderful on Tuesday. We had a various mixture of groups. Just describe the course to us because I can see a giant scaly tail.

I don't know if that's an alligator or a dinosaur. Whore number two is the jungle whore. I laugh because it is a giant-sized crocodile there. The oldest granddaughter, when she heard what I was planning to do, she went, can you make sure you get a flamingo?

We've got a lovely, again, you know, feels like flamingo. Charity groups can come and play it, can they, David? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the first one took quite a lot of planning. I'm already planning the second one. That was David Lawrence. 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 or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Liam McSheffery. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step.

But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads get current affairs podcasts like global news americast and the global story plus other great bbc podcasts from history to comedy to true crime all ad free simply subscribe to bbc podcast premium on apple podcasts or listen to amazon music with a prime membership spend less time

on ads and more time with BBC podcasts.