Global News Podcast - Israeli hospital hit by Iranian missile

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

An Iranian missile hits a hospital in the Israeli town of Beersheba. Israel vows revenge. Also: Australia's poison mushroom trial draws to a close, and the archaeologists solving a 2000 year old jigsaw puzzle.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and at 13 Hours GMT on Thursday the 19th of June these are our main stories. We'll hear from Israel where some of the most intense Iranian bombardments have been taking place. As Donald Trump assesses what action to take, Tehran's Deputy Foreign Minister tells the BBC that diplomacy is on the table, but Iran will continue to defend itself. Also in this podcast, climate experts say we are edging closer to the target of limiting

global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. And... Sometimes working when you're sleeping as well, there was one time I thought, oh, I think this fragment goes here. And then I woke up, came to work, and that did actually happen. The archaeologist on solving a 2,000-year-old jigsaw puzzle. As day seven of the conflict between Israel and Iran began,

both sides exchanged missiles again. Iranian missiles broke through air defences and injured dozens of people, including at the Soroka Medical Centre in Beersheba. The head of the centre, Professor Shlomi Kodesh. But it's total shock that someone would target a medical centre. The people we have left in the hospital are elderly people, cancer patients, people who need urgent medical care, they cannot go home. And these people were targeted directly to be killed by a missile attack. There is no other explanation for this. It's shocking that such a thing would take place. Here's our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson.

There was still smoke billowing from this building when we arrived here this morning, Lucy Williamson. to help in this attack because the fear was that it might have been much worse than it was in the event most of the patients in the areas hit by this strike had recently been moved to the hospital's underground medical shelters. Even so, this strike coming in response to Donald Trump's demand that Iran unconditionally surrender is a reminder that both sides still have the power to escalate this conflict by using different weapons and by choosing different targets. Well just before we recorded this podcast in response to the attack on the hospital Israel's defense minister says that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can no longer be allowed to exist, suggesting

they may now try to assassinate him. We're also expecting a wider military response. Here's our correspondent in Tel Aviv, Dan Johnson. Israel is promising retaliation for this attack. It accuses Iran of war crimes in targeting a civilian facility, that hospital. The Iranians have indicated that they were actually aiming at some sort of military intelligence or technical facility that was apparently nearby to the hospital. But the Israelis are already enacting their revenge. They are giving a military briefing. Their spokesman says that there are Israeli jets in the air aiming

for targets now in Iran. The defence minister has promised that the Ayatollah of Iran will feel the impact of the attacks on Israel this morning. He said he will be held to account and that they will target the Iranian power network as well as the sites that they believe are involved in the Iranian nuclear programme. So we're seeing a further ramping up of the violence and the rhetoric. The hope had been that we might be moving towards a calmer period and perhaps possible peace talks. But over last night, there was a repeated wave of missile attacks from Iran into Israel. And that has been a more intense barrage than had been seen over the last few

nights, perhaps the most intense barrage of the entire week of this conflict. We know that over the past seven days, the latest Israeli figures are that 24 people in Israel have lost their lives, more than 800 injured, more than 20,000 buildings or vehicles have been damaged. It's difficult to get those sorts of figures from Iran, but our best understanding is that at least 224 people have been killed there over the past week. And Israel is promising more action in retaliation, which puts further lives at risk. Meanwhile, all eyes on Donald Trump to see what his next move is and whether that manages to do something to escalate or de-escalate this conflict. Iran's foreign minister has confirmed that he is to hold nuclear talks with his counterparts

from France, Germany and Britain in Geneva on Friday. His deputy, Saeed Khatibzadeh, also confirmed that Iran is committed to diplomacy. Speaking to the BBC's Lise Doucet, he told us more about Iran's position. Look, what we are hearing from Europeans is that they would like to get back to diplomacy on ministerial level. They are going to have an E3 plus EU high representative meeting in Geneva. And we are very much happy that finally they understand that they have to come and talk on the table about issues at hand. And for Americans, we have constantly

sending this message until these atrocities is going on and until this attack is happening on Iranian soil. Our hospitals in different cities have been targeted and nuclear scientists have been killed. We cannot start any negotiation with them. But do you have an expectation that the meeting in Geneva tomorrow could help to de-escalate? Look, what I can say is that we are up to diplomacy

and we have been always up to diplomacy. We accepting the proposal by E3 and high representative of EU to meet in Geneva is another sign that we always welcome that. And we very much hope that this line continues. But it is different from the self-defense which is happening right now. All my countries under attack, under aggression, and the aggressor should take the lesson. They are killing my people. And we are going to resist, and this is a very holy resistance which is happening against, which is happening right now against the atrocities and aggression which is happening against my people. So would you, would you confirm then that Iran has no intention of developing a nuclear

bomb because that is the big question we ask in capitals around the world. Look, please, if we wanted to have a nuclear bomb, we would have had it no way before. Look, you ask why Iran is reaching 60 percent. We were in the JCPOA. You remember when President Trump- You don't need 60 percent. You don't need 60 percent for a civilian program. Do you want an answer to your question or not?

The answer to your question, we were just reaching 3.67. We were in the JCPOA nuclear talks. We signed an agreement with P5-plus-1. President Trump came to the office and withdraw from the JCPOA altogether, then punished Iran and punished all those who were abided by this agreement between Iran and P5-plus-1. And we said that Iran has never developed any program for nuclear, you know, or reponization of peaceful nuclear activities and Iran is not going to do that. If Iran wanted to do that, there would have no enough reasons, including these atrocities

and this new aggression on Iran. That was Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh. As we've been hearing, the Israeli defence forces are targeting Iranian military and nuclear sites, energy facilities, airports and government buildings as well as hitting residential areas. The BBC isn't able to report from inside Iran. It makes it very difficult for us to get a true picture of what's going on. But there are people inside the country who share what they're seeing and hearing. Our correspondent, Sebastian Arshahah has been gauging the situation there. Each day the pressure on people in Iran is growing as Israel pursues its attacks.

The roads are still jammed with cars as people try to make their escape from the capital. And as the situation inside Iran worsens, food and basic commodities are running out, as this man found as he scoured the shelves of his local supermarket. I have come to Kourouj's store to shop. Just take a look. I can't find a single can of tomato paste or spaghetti. People have cleared everything out. Only chips and drinks are left. That's it. Look at the rest of the items. All these shelves are empty. I mean, you can't find spaghetti anywhere else either.

It's all been taken. Shops and food stalls outside Tehran can't get supplies, as Israel intensifies its attacks on targets in the capital. The demand is very high, but no new shipments are coming from Tehran. They say the factory has shut down. We were supposed to receive a shipment two or three days ago, but it hasn't arrived. Iranians outside Iran are hearing from relatives and friends how even accessing cash is becoming harder by the day. My sister went to the bank this morning to get some money, and even though there was

cash available in front of the bank employee, they didn't give her any. The ATMs aren't working and it's not possible to withdraw money with a card either. state television plays war songs that are intended to stir up the nation how much effect that's having on morale is debatable but whatever they may think about their own rulers there's a feeling among some Iranians that they're just being used as pawns in a political game where their lives now turned upside down mean little as this doctor told the BBC Persian service. Those who decide from the other side of the world to attack us in such an unprovoked way hack our banks, attack our state television, strike here and there and don't consider us human beings. To them, we are just a number in the stock market, subject to fluctuations

of a couple of percent. They only say that oil prices didn't rise and exports didn't get affected. But here, it's our dreams that burn and fade away every day, and no one cares. Morning on Iranian television for those killed in Israel's attack on the building of a state broadcaster in Tehran. Ordinary Iranians are left to wonder if they might be next, lacking as they do the defensive shield that gives Israelis some sense of security even as the Sirens continue to sound out above Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Sebastian Asha reporting. Three decades of conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo could be drawing to a close after the government in Kinshasa agreed a draft

peace deal with Rwanda. In talks mediated by the United States, the two countries have agreed to rein in their proxy militias and respect territorial integrity. The eastern part of the DRC has been hit by three decades of conflict. Previous ceasefire agreements have come before and then failed of course. James Kopnal spoke to the Congolese analyst Mwemba Di Solele who's a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in the US. The importance of this agreement cannot be understated. You know, DRC and Rwanda have been in conflict for 30 years now and they don't seem to get anywhere close to near to peace. And for a long time they've played various platforms in terms of peace processes and

talks that have led nowhere. And one of the countries that is important to both the DRC and Rwanda is the United States. So the fact that the United States is finally getting involved, not on the humanitarian side but on an attempt to try to hammer peace deal, it's key. However, the challenge is the premise of the peace deal, meaning critical minerals for security and peace, I believe is wrong. It's a weak premise because nobody anywhere makes peace because of resources. The peace process that is, we don't know yet what is in there, runs the risk of promising both parties benefit that

they cannot deliver, that the US cannot deliver. It's one thing to say that we're going to bring American companies there and they will exploit, therefore we need people to clear that area. It's another thing to guarantee the security of the place because the drivers of this conflict, mines or minerals, it's only one part of it. There are issues of right, the issues of citizenship's claim, the issues of would-be hegemony in the region and there are also issues of irredentism where countries are claiming land that does not necessarily belong to them and those kind of issues I don't think this deal will address. We don't have the full details of the agreement yet and we don't have the full ministerial

level or above signatures on the deal. But what would you like to see in an agreement to make it more significant, more robust? I think the true side to this ledger, you know, there is the Congolese side, which is the DRC has been on the democratic transition since 2006, for the last 20 years or so, 19 years. They've had four cycles of elections. The Congolese people are in that mindset. The Congolese people are in that mindset. The Congolese people are not interested in war. So because of that, the expectations are very high on the Congolese side. The expectation

that they have on President Chisekedi to deliver public services, peace, a strong military and good governance are high. So they do need to put pressure on that side of the ledger. On the Rwandan side, it's also time that Rwanda stops projecting all these ambitions that are not anchored in any realities on the ground. So the M23 is not popular. They can probably march to Kinshasa, but they will not gain any more popularity because their grievances or the claims they put forth are totally misaligned with the expectation of the people. So it's time that Rwanda starts rising to the level of a trustworthy neighbor. After all, President Kagame is the second most senior leader in the region. He has

tremendous gravitas. He has great relations around the world. This is a time to bring real peace because there is no permanent conflict between the people of the RC and the people of Rwanda and the deal has to focus on that as well. Congolese analyst Mvemba Di Solele. Let's turn now to a new warning about our warming climate. More than 60 leading scientists say that we are now close to breaching the international target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels if carbon dioxide emissions remain high for the next three years. Our climate

editor Justin Rowlatt explains. So this is a group of 60 leading climate scientists who decided that the body at the UN, the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is a group of scientists that monitor the latest science on climate change, a group of 60 scientists said because it only publishes reports every eight years that isn isn't enough, so they do an update of the IPCC report using the latest science to give their judgement of the state of the world's climate. And this is their warning saying, you know, the latest science as far as their concern suggests there's just three years left before they'll be, will have emitted so much greenhouse gases into

the atmosphere that we will effectively have passed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. That was the level of course set in Paris. It will take a couple of years before the temperature rise actually comes through. But the calculation they make is actually quite straightforward. So they estimated back in 2020 that we're about 500 billion more tons of CO2 before, inevitably, the warming that those molecules in the atmosphere would mean would get us to the level where it was 1.5 above pre-industrial levels. Their new assessment at the beginning of 2025 is we've got 130 billion tons. We emit about 40 billion tons a year, so the maths is fairly straightforward. Three times that gets you

to 120, so you're almost at the breaching the limit in three years time. It's an important threshold because it was recognized that beyond 1.5 there would be more extreme weather events so the climate change would be harder to cope with would be more of a challenge for the world. It doesn't it's an absolute boundary but it's a recommendation we should do our best to stick to it because it will minimise the damage to the Earth. But what the scientists are saying is that this in every degree matters. Climate editor Justin Rowlatt.

Coming up, what is the future for space exploration? We hear from the European Space Agency. We want to go to the moon, we want to go to the edges of the solar system, we want to see is there life in other planets. The trial of the Australian woman accused of murdering three of her relatives and attempting to kill a fourth at a lunch where she served up poisonous mushrooms is drawing to a close. Both the prosecution and defense have given closing arguments in Erin Patterson's

trial. She denies the charges. Our Australia correspondent Katie Watson has been following the case. Just a reminder this is the eighth week of the trial. It was meant to be five or six weeks and throughout the trial the one thing that's not been in question is the fact that Erin Patterson's relatives died from toxic mushrooms. That much is true. It was the issue at the heart of the trial is did she mean to poison them? Was it her intent to kill? So the prosecution said she did. Her defence has always been that it was a tragic accident. Both sides this week have talked about a motive. The prosecutor started off earlier this week saying that there wasn't

an obvious motive, but that to convict a person of murder, a motive wasn't needed. You don't have to know why a person did something in order to know they did it, she said. Her defence has focused on that motive too, has talked about the fact that the four lunch guests were very kind, that Erin Patterson loved them very much and that she would never have deliberately killed her family. Both sides also zoomed in on the issue of lies and her behaviour the days after the lunch because Erin Patterson's defence team has admitted that she lied on several occasions to the police about foraging for mushrooms, about a dehydrator she used to prepare mushrooms. But her defence has made the point that she

was scared and that she was panicked. And then later this afternoon we heard from her defence, Laurie, about the fact that she herself gave evidence that she didn't have to be in the witness box. She gave careful responses, even pedantic responses, and she came through unscathed. So both sides have delivered their closing statements to the court. And throughout this eight-week-long trial, this has gripped Australia as it has many countries around the world. Absolutely. I mean, there's been queues of people, members of the public, coming to court, especially when Aaron Patterson was in the witness box. The judge is very careful about

this. He said to the jury at the beginning they needed to make sure that they weren't reading the news, watching the news and they weren't going to be influenced by anything apart from the facts. And in fact, next week when they will start deliberating, they're going to be sequestered. So that means that they'll come in to court during the day to deliberate and in the evenings they'll be going back to a hotel and they won't be able to go home until they deliver a verdict such as the scrutiny in this trial. Katie Watson. Rarely has the image of a product clashed so starkly with the reality of some of the people producing it. The world of champagne has in recent years been rocked by allegations that agricultural workers who help produce the drink are being exploited.

And Thursday sees three people due in a French court charged with mistreatment of people. Our Europe regional editor Paul Moss is following the case. It dates back to 2023 when a neighbour tipped off the police who went to a house in the town of Nille-le-Repent in northern France and they found about 50 migrant workers from Mali, Mauritania, Ivory Coast and Senegal. And what the prosecution say is they were living in accommodation that was exposed to the weather, the kitchen was outdoors, bedding was strewn on the floor, even the electricity supply was unsafe. Local authority inspectors then went in and they ordered the

accommodation to be closed down. They said the toilets and the living space were, and I quote, disgusting. Now as you say, three people are now being charged going during court. Two men who employed the workers have been charged with mistreating them. A woman has been charged with trafficking them. And lawyers for the elect victims said that the people or the defendants here had quote total contempt and disrespect for human rights. Get an idea of the scale of this more than a hundred thousand micro workers go to the Champagne region every year and there have been long-standing claims that some of them get not poor accommodation but no accommodation. They end up sleeping rough, there's claims of people being paid well below the minimum wage and some say they were cheated and didn't get paid

at all. I think the worst case was in 2023 when four people involved in the champagne grape harvest died. It seems from heat stroke. Now the trouble with policing this is one that's actually common to agricultural work in many countries. What you have is workers employed by an agency. The agency is then part of another company, which is part of another company, etc. So the champagne industry can say, look, we didn't know about this. We just didn't get these employment agencies to supply us with workers. What the French trade unions are saying, well, you should know.

You can't just turn a blind eye. If you are employing people to dig your, to pick your grapes, it is up to you to ensure that they're not living in illegal conditions. The trouble of course is this is an industry worth seven billion dollars a year and there is some suggestion there are people in that industry who don't really want to know if it's got a problem. Paul Moss. What is the future of space exploration? Well the European Space Agency says expanding into space is not a luxury it is a necessity. Space is no longer a frontier as a territory. It unlocks unknown resources that open new markets and scientific breakthroughs. Herberto Salvidà is the head of strategy for the European Space Agency.

He told us what he hopes will be happening in 2040 in space. This is really exciting because we believe that the strategy that we put in place, it is showing what we believe that should happen. One of them it is how we take advantage of space as a tool to benefit our citizens. We need to make sure that our citizens see the benefit of space in their day-to-day life. So go from the climate changes that we're seeing, how we can help protect them,

but also goes into the day-to-day issues. Like for example, you want to order some food and then you need the delivery coming to you. So you talk about the navigation in your phone, the GPS. We're talking also about how we can have much better communication, like fast, in case of any situation that arises. Also, we need to get a little bit of the ambition that Europe deserves.

For example, we want to go to the moon. We want to go to the edges of the solar system. We want to see, is there life in other planets? We're gonna be doing missions to drill in Mars. We're going to be also exploring the icy moons of Jupiter to see if there's life under a frozen ocean. And at the same time we want to develop the capabilities of Europe for the industry, for the commercialization and to be able to inspire the young people. So it's a very wide vision that we have for space. And one of the kind of really eye-catching things about it is that what you envisage is people living in space, essentially, for long periods of time, by 2040.

Is that right? Well, we're talking about permanent European presence in space, but that doesn't mean that the same person is going gonna be living there constantly. You know, there's a lot of different aspects, but you see we have just in 2022, we unveil our European new generation of astronauts and we need to send them up there to do experiments. I think the UK has at least four astronauts

that we want to send up there to have them doing experiments, learning how it is to live in space, what can benefit for our bodies. Like we were doing a study a couple of years ago that showcased how the bacterias evolving in space can help us develop much better antibiotics and better medicine. So this is what we want to do, to be able to have a permanent presence there, to be able to ensure that we take advantage of space. That was Herberto Salvidar, head of strategy for the European Space Agency talking to Justin Webb. Ten billion

dollars that is the whopping and record price being paid for the US basketball team the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers have been owned by the Bus family for almost half a century. Now the brand looks set to be under the direction of the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers have been owned by the Bus family for almost half a century. Now the brand looks set to be under the direction of billionaire businessman Mark Walter. Sam Quinn, NBA reporter for our US partners CBS News told James Menendez about this record deal. It's a gargantuan figure right the biggest figure in American sports before this was 6.1 billion. Ironically, that was the Lakers rival, the Boston Celtics.

This blows that number out of the water. It's a premium franchise. There aren't many teams like this. It's the Dallas Cowboys. It's the New York Yankees. You have some Premier League teams in the United Kingdom that are surely, have this effect where they're a worldwide brand in a way that very few teams are. I think Mark Walter is looking at this and saying, this is one of the crown jewels of

professional sports, not just in the United States, but in the world. And if I'm going to secure this team, I have to pay a premium to do it. Tell us a bit more about Mark Walter. I mean, he's got plenty of cash to splash, doesn't he? Mark Walter owns several other sports teams, most notably in Los Angeles. He also owns the Dodgers. And the Dodgers are well known for being the biggest spending team in baseball, not just on the field, but when it comes to support staff, your front office, all of those invisible

things. There's some thought, you know, maybe he'll come to the Lakers and he'll say, I want the best of everything. I want to hire the best general manager, get the best analytics staff, the best of everything. I'm going to throw my money around and really try to turn the Lakers who have been really thought of as kind of a family business

into the true corporate juggernaut that they have the potential to be. Does the team need that kind of investment right now? Yes and no. They're in a pretty good position right now. But the thing about the Lakers for the past you know decade or even longer, they haven't been spending at the level that a franchise of their history and their success would suggest that they should, right? Like they've lost good players over money. Alex Caruso being a notable example. They're not known for spending on the support staff. They don't have a big front office.

These are small things that really do add up over time and can make up the difference between winning a championship and losing. So do they need an owner to throw that kind of money around? Maybe not, but it certainly helps. Sam Quinn. Now, it was the most meticulous of archaeological work, sifting through thousands of fragments of Roman wall plaster. But it was well worth it. What experts in London have now put together are some of the most detailed frescoes of their kind. Here's our

science editor, Rebecca Morell. Piecing together thousands of fragments of 2000-year-old plaster has been the ultimate archaeological jigsaw puzzle. But stunning frescoes have emerged. The lower wall sections are painted pink and dotted with paint to imitate marble. Above them are bright yellow panels with soft green borders with beautifully drawn details of musical instruments, birds, flowers and fruit. The frescoes make up at least 20 walls of a luxurious villa, which was built soon after

the Romans first founded London. It's thought they were created by a group of highly skilled painters who travelled the Roman Empire. Hanley is from the Museum of London Archaeology. They've come to Roman London in the first century where there was a building boom and many walls and many houses and many buildings were going up that require painting and they went around essentially taking on huge commissions of work and but it's amazing to imagine that their work is now again visible to us 2,000 years later.

There is some tantalising clues about the identity of these artists. Some fragments are scored with the letters F-E-C-I-T. The Latin word for has made There are some tantalising clues about the identity of these artists. Some fragments are scored with the letters FECIT. The Latin word for has made this. But the piece where the name should be is missing. The archaeologists are still sifting through the fragments to see if it could be amongst them. Rebecca Morell. 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.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Sydney Dundon, the producers for Tracy Gordon and Charles Sanctuary. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Miles and until next time, goodbye.