Global News Podcast - Israeli military recovers two hostages' bodies in Gaza

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Israeli minister says the retrieval of two Israeli hostages' bodies in Gaza shows only force will bring back those who are still alive. Also: Nintendo's newest console, and are the Dead Sea Scrolls older than thought?

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritzen and at 13 Hours GMT on Thursday the 5th of June these are our main stories. The Israeli military says it has recovered the bodies of two Israelis, US citizens in Gaza who were killed during the Hamas-led attacks of October 7th, 2023. Estonia says it's working with Lithuania and Latvia on new measures to stop Russia's fleet of sanction-busting oil tankers in New Zealand. The house is suspended. The gallery is to be cleared. The Maori MPs suspended from parliament for performing a traditional dance in the chamber.

Also in the podcast, Switch Without a Hitch, fans queue worldwide for the launch of Nintendo's newest games console. I think it's because they focus more on family and creating those shareable moments with each other. The Nintendo, that can get played in the beds, get played in the toilet, get played anywhere kind of to get it. So it's nice and calm and relaxed. And are the Dead Sea Scrolls older than we thought? Twenty months after they were taken hostage in the raid on southern Israel by Hamas and its militant allies, the bodies of two Israelis, Judy Weinstein Haggai and her husband Gadi Haggai, have been recovered in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the discovery was made by the Israeli soldiers operating near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Barbara Platt-Asher, told me more about the hostages and how their bodies were found. This is an elderly couple, Judy and Gadi Hagai. They were killed on October 7th as they were walking around the kibbutz where they were living, and then their bodies were taken into Gaza. Now according to the Israeli military statement, this was carried out by a militant group called the Mujahideen Brigade, so one of the militant groups that was operating alongside Hamas. And by November 2023, the family knew that the two of them had been killed. So their bodies were discovered in Chanyunis and picked up last night in an operation that it was joint with the Israeli military and with Israeli intelligence, Chanyunis being

the big city in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and they have returned the bodies to the family now so that they can be buried. And the family has expressed huge gratitude, of course, to the security forces who carried this out, but also saying that their hearts would not be whole until all the hostages returned. That would be 12 hostages from the same kibbutz, kibbutz near Oz, and 56 hostages in total, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive and the rest believed to be dead. Barbara Plett, Usher in Jerusalem.

As we record this podcast, the organisation running the new aid distribution system in Gaza says two of its centres have reopened. The US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation closed its facilities on Wednesday after several incidents in which Palestinians desperate to get food were killed by gunfire. Among Russia's main exports are oil and gas, but with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western nations put sanctions in place to try to stop Moscow getting the money to fund its war. But Russian oil tankers are still sailing through the Baltic Sea and now the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, are talking about new measures to put a stop to that. But can they? How many ships are we talking about? I asked our security correspondent,

Frank Gardner. The total Russian shadow fleet, as it's called these this is the very sort of sinister fleet of in many cases rust bucket tankers with flags of convenience from often very remote and sometimes rather obscure countries that sail through the Baltic Sea. It numbers about a thousand of which roughly have been sanctioned by the EU, and a total of 700 have been sanctioned by the EU, UK and US. But that doesn't necessarily stop them from operating. They need insurance documents, but increasingly Russia and Kazakhstan are providing the insurance documents.

We probably need to kind of break this down into two threats. One is the fact that sanctioned Russian oil or rather oil being transported by sanctioned vessels is still being transported through the Baltics. The other is the potential threat to critical infrastructure. If you remember, there have been a number of cases of suspected sabotage of undersea pipelines and communication cables in the Baltics and that's something which is feared could be or has been carried out by these vessels carrying Russian oil. But what can the Baltic states actually do about this even if they are working together because their navies are tiny?

They are but the gap between say Finland and Estonia is very narrow indeed and the Finnish and Estonian economic zone extends right up to each other's borders as it were so their maritime boundaries only extend 12 miles but their economic zone beyond that so the Estonians say there are no high seas between them. So in answer to your question what can they do, they can stop or try and detain and question any suspect ships. Frank Gardner. To the United States, Donald Trump has announced a travel ban targeting citizens from 12 countries saying the measure is intended to protect Americans. The ban will affect citizens from Afghanistan, Iran and Somalia, among others. Speaking in the Oval Office, Mr Trump insisted the measures would keep America safe. In the 21st century, we've seen one terror attack after another carried out by foreign

visa overstayers from dangerous places all over the world. And thanks to Biden's open door policies, today there are millions and millions of these illegals who should not be in our country. We don't want them. Our correspondent in Washington, Jake Kwan, told us about the ban. Most of these countries are in Africa or in the Middle East, and some are in Asia and Caribbean as well. So the reason President Trump gave is that these countries either do not have a strong state capability to vet the people who are coming to America, so not sharing the identity

of these people who are coming into America, so he does not know whether they're a terrorist or not. Also, there are these countries that have a lot of people who come to America on a touristy visa or work visa and simply overstay the visa. So for example some of the countries are like Iran and Venezuela which America considers them adversaries and then countries like Afghanistan, Libya which does not have a strong central government and then the list of other African countries that has the visa overstay rate of 15% or more are included in the list.

Now President Trump has said that, you know, one of these things that this ban will prevent is the Colorado attack that just happened where a man threw a fire bomb into a crowd. Now the man is from Egypt, but Egypt is not on the list. So President Trump probably should give some explanation on why some countries were selected and why some countries are missing from that list. So this ban is supposed to come into effect next week, Monday. And one of the things that we also notice is that this ban, it does not have an end date.

Like last time he tried this ban in 2017, the ban came with a certain end date, maybe 90 days, but this time it has a simply a date where it needs to be reviewed whether these countries should still be included or not, but otherwise it will stay indefinitely. Jake Kwan. Refugee groups have reacted angrily. Robin Barnard is senior director for Refugee Advocacy at Human Rights First in Washington. She says the US administration is trying to punish countries it doesn't want migrants from.

When you look at the list, it includes Haiti, a country that President Trump has said truly racist and hateful comments about in his first administration and throughout his political life. Afghanistan is truly devastating given US history in that country and the chaotic withdrawal that President Trump instigated during his first term. And then we saw in 2021 the conditions in that country have truly deteriorated. Robin Barnard of Human Rights First. The first bacteria our bodies meet in the hours after we're born could protect us from dangerous infections. That's the finding from scientists at University College London. They're calling the results phenomenal and could lead to therapies that boost the good bacteria in babies.

Our health correspondent, James Gallowher, is following the story and told me more. When we're did in this study is that they took one week old babies and they collected stool samples from a thousand of them and then they studied those in the laboratory to work out which were those first colonising pioneer species that were getting inside the human body. And they found roughly three different groups of babies, kind of like depending on which type of species was the first ones to get in there. And they followed those babies up over the next couple of years to see what happened to them and they showed that those that had one particular species, Bifidobacterium longum, they seemed to be half as likely to end up in hospital with a severe respiratory

infection like a severe chest infection that needed hospital treatment. They were half as likely as everyone else to need that kind of care. What does this mean for the treatment and the handling of newborn babies? Well, one of the interesting implications of this study is in the long run they might actually get to the point where you can go, well, we know what the really healthy first bacteria to colonise the human body are. So maybe rather than just relying on random chance and seeing what happens as you're as you're born in your first hours of life, see which ones get in there, maybe

you give children a probiotic yogurt when they're maybe only a few hours old and that is designed to colonise them with the best bacteria that actually will give them the best benefit in the long run. Our health correspondent, James Galloway. The Nintendo Switch 2 has been released worldwide with shops opening at midnight so fans could get their hands on it. The moment it became available, the original console is the third best selling console in history, having sold more than 150 million units since its release in 2017. So what can fans of Mario and his

merry band of cart racers expect? Mark Chislack has been finding out. Video games giant Nintendo is betting that repeating the formula from its Switch games console, a handheld device that can plug into a TV, will deliver winning results for its Switch 2. Eager gamers who'd pre-ordered and paid for their consoles in advance queued up at midnight here at a store on London's Oxford Street. Are you a big Nintendo fan? I am, yeah. I was just saying I've had every console since the very first one that I got when I was eight years old.

Why does Nintendo have the appeal that it has, do you think? I think it's because they focus more on family and creating those shareable moments with each other. I mean, my grandfather doesn't play video games, but he played Wii Sports with me. A Nintendo that can get played in the beds, get played in the toilet, get played anywhere kind of to get it, so it's nice and calm and relaxed. Retailers up and down the country are opening at midnight. Events like this used to be fairly common when new video games consoles launched, but

as consumer behaviour changed, people basically purchasing more things online, it became something of a thing of the past. Nintendo's first new console in eight years has drawn a crowd, and this all adds to the hype machine. Overall, Nintendo seems to have adopted an if it ain't broke, don't fix it approach to Switch 2. And these gamers don't seem to be complaining. Mark Chislack with that report. Still to come, the NBA finals begin later. The Indiana Pacers take on the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Oklahoma fans can't wait. As a mayor, yeah, it's a lot of fun. There's no question about that. But it is also an opportunity on a level that really affects a city like ours. The Bangladeshi authorities say more than a thousand people living in India have been illegally forced over the border into their territory. There's been no response from

Delhi to these alleged push backs, but the country's Hindu nationalist BJP government has long railed against illegal immigration from Bangladesh and vowed to send offenders back. Arundhate Mukherjee has been speaking to some of them in the north-east Indian state of Assam. A group of over a dozen people stand in the middle of a field, looking lost. It's from a video which went viral on social media. In it, uniformed officials can be seen telling them not to come closer and stay where they are.

Top sources in the Bangladesh government have told the BBC they are among over 1,200 who were allegedly pushed into the country by Indian authorities in May, stuck in no man's land for days without food or drinking water. 51-year-old Khairul Islam says he's an Indian citizen and a school teacher from Assam, but was forced across the border. I said I won't go. They beat me up, tied my hands and blindfolded me. They told me to keep quiet. Back in Assam, we trace Khairul's family. His wife is saying that her husband was picked up by the police on the night of the 23rd and it was only after she saw him in the video

she knew where he was. Rita Khanam is still in shock. I broke down when I saw him in the video. I hope when he returns no one ever calls him in shock. Her husband was declared a foreigner by an Assamese tribunal in 2016, the case to prove his identity still on in the Supreme Court. Lawyers say such pushbacks are illegal given no deportation proceedings were followed and many of the citizenship cases are still in courts. The Assam government did not respond to the BBC's questions about these allegations. One of the women who was allegedly forcefully sent across the border into Bangladesh has now returned.

She spent four days in no man's land in very harrowing conditions before being sent back into India. 58 year old Shona Banu is still traumatized, terrified while recounting her ordeal. Indian security forces pushed me over at gunpoint. I spent two days without food or drinking water. I was in the middle of a field in needy water, teeming with mosquitoes and leeches." She tells me that she was a different person before she was picked up and she is a completely different person now. Indian border officials did not respond to the BBC's questions.

Most of those we spoke to have now returned after Bangladesh pushed them back. But the uncertainty on what comes next lingers. Aaron Day Mukherjee in Assam The woman accused of murdering three of her relatives using toxic mushrooms has been speaking in the witness box in Australia. It's the fourth day. Erin Patterson has been questioned in court. The prosecution claims she foraged for the fungi to be used.

In the Beef Wellington she served up to her guests. She denies the charges. Our Australia correspondent Katie Watson has been in the court in Morewell, Victoria. She's been in the witness box for four days but this was the first day of being cross-examined by the prosecution. So the first few days had been more gentle questioning from her lawyers and today in court the atmosphere was very different. The prosecutor was firing questions at Erin Patterson, pushing her on every bit of her story and suggestedly repeating that she intended to kill her lunch guest. There was one particular exchange where she was shown pictures that she'd taken of a food dehydrator that she had used to prepare mushrooms and other vegetables she talked about for her recipes. And there was

also images of mushrooms being weighed on a small set of scales. The prosecutor said to her, I suggest you are weighing these death cap mushrooms so you could calculate the weight required for the administration of a fatal dose for one person. Do you agree or disagree? Disagree said Erin Patterson. She was also quizzed on why she invited her relatives over to her house in July 2023 because we heard earlier in the trial, Ian Wilkinson, the only survivor, had said that she had announced to the family that she had ovarian cancer. Erin Patterson says she never claimed to have a diagnosis but did admit to making up a story about cancer to get some sympathy and again the prosecutor

said you know you thought your lunch guest would die and your lie would never be found out. She said that's not true and this is just the first day of cross-examination. So what happens next? Cross-examination will continue. It was meant to be a six-week trial but we're now in week six and the judge this week has said that this trial is expected to go on longer. We're looking at probably two weeks-ish before the jury can then retire to consider its verdict. So we've probably got another few more days of the prosecution cross-examining her. Maybe that the prosecution come back with more evidence, that's not clear. But yeah, the trial is pushing on much more than expected.

Katie Watson. For three Maori MPs in New Zealand, it was their way of showing their depth of feeling against a parliamentary bill potentially affecting indigenous rights. For the centre-right government, it merely showed the protesters were extremists. The three Maori politicians had performed the traditional haka dance during a debate in parliament and will now be suspended. This was the moment last November. The debate took an unusual turn. Come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on then, come on to our Asia Pacific editor, Mickey Bristow. They were complaining essentially at a bill which was seeking to reinterpret the original treaty between the British colonisers and the original Maori inhabitants of New Zealand. They were opposed to that and wanted to show their opposition by doing the haka dance on

the floor of the Parliament building in New Zealand. Now anyone who hasn't seen it can hear there it's quite loud, there's a lot of waving of hands, eyes wide open staring. It is to some people quite intimidating in fact, rugby, New Zealand rugby teams use it just for that very purpose. Now what the privileges committee in Parliament said is that they essentially had gone beyond normal behaviour and MPs expected to to display and recommended that they be suspended. They have been suspended, two members

have been suspended for three weeks, one for a week and this is actually the longest suspension for any New Zealand MP. So the government and the Privilege Committee took this quite seriously. And this is being seen by some people as a total lack of respect from the government for indigenous rights. Yeah it is, it depends on which side of the argument you are. Certainly the suspended MPs see this as an attack on Maori rights and an attempt to silence their voices. That's the narrative that they've displayed. They talk about colonial powers reaching for the maximum penalty. As far as the government is

concerned and those responsible for maintaining parliament, they say this simply as a way of these MPs have overstepped the mark, that it's okay to protest a bill but not in this manner. They say that their actions were intimidating. Interestingly, there are also though a number of MPs in Parliament who think okay yeah they did go too far but the punishment is far too severe. Mickey Bristow and you can see that hacker dance on the BBC News website. The mystery and our understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls deepens. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain some of the oldest fragments of the Hebrew Bible still in existence. They

were discovered in the 1940s and 50s and revolutionised the study of religious history, particularly the history of Judaism, a few of them dated back to the 3rd century BC. Or so we thought. Now, a new study using AI to date them has suggested that many of them may be that old or even older. I spoke to one of the lead authors of the study, Mladen Popovic from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and I began by asking him just how much older? We before dated some of them already to the third century BCE. That was only a handful. Now with our research, both because of new radiocarbon dates and because of our AI prediction model, many of the manuscripts move up in time and some of them even extend the period as such,

going into the 4th century BCE. And you think that they may have actually been written during the lifetimes of the original authors? In two cases, evidence suggests that. For example, the book of Ecclesiastes and another one is a fascinating book, the book of Daniel. And for these two books, book, the book of Daniel. And for these two books, we have manuscript fragments that were previously dated by the Scroles scholars to, Ecclesiastes was dated to around the mid-second century BCE and Daniel to the late second century BCE. So say a hundred years or 50 years after the time of these authors. With our research, these two manuscripts move up in time or move back in time and are contemporaneous with the period when the original authors, the presumed authors of these texts were active.

What are the implications of that? We already knew, and that was the great discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 40s and 50s, that we have a diversity of how the biblical text looked like. We have different versions, to put it simply. And that means that you do not have one fixed form of the text. In the explanation, this diversity comes after the time of the biblical authors. The hypothesis is that this diversity may or may not have been already there in the time of the authors themselves. Now with the empirical evidence that we bring, we push this back and we give data and evidence that shows that this diversity in different forms of the text were already present contemporaneous when these authors were active.

These are incredibly important texts for many believers. What are the implications for those believers? Well, that is a tough question. I first have to say I'm not a religious authority. As a scholar, what I can say is that for some it might be that it's the word of God and the word of God cannot be changeable or in different versions and things like that. But yeah, there will also be many believers who have no problems with that. So there's not just one consequence to be drawn for that for, say,

one homogeneous group of believers. Professor Mladan Popovic from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. A private spacecraft will attempt to land on the moon today and if it's successful would be the first non-US firm to do so. The Tenacious Rover is one of the smallest and lightest rovers in the world and it's not only carrying out exploration of the lunar surface, it has some fairly unusual cargo – a tiny red house by a Swedish artist. The company is iSpace Europe, which is the European arm of a Japanese company and it will be their second moon landing attempt. Dr Julian Lamami, CEO of iSpace Europe, told us about the mission.

I'm hoping the lander will release our rover by my team here in Oxenberg. This rover is the first one built in Europe that has launched and if it successfully drives on the moon it will be the first private rover to do so. So it's a very small rover, five kilograms, but it does a lot of things in terms of pioneering exploration. It's also going to test for the first time in Europe regulations around space resources and transactions of space resources. It's going to deploy a artistic payload from Sweden, Moon House.

This artist, Michael Gunberg, has been trying to put his Moon House on the moon for 25 years. But until companies like IceSpace showed up, space agencies would not be too interested in taking its artistic payload to the moon. And now with us, of course, we want to do that. We're also more affordable. And our intent is to open access to the moon, not just for science and exploration, but also for artists, entrepreneurs, educators, everybody who has a core project. Dr Julian Lamami, the CEO of Icebase Europe and the rover is due to land on the moon at 1817 GMT. Finally, we're going to talk professional basketball because in the US the prestigious NBA finals begin on Thursday as the Indiana Pacers take on the top ranked Oklahoma City Thunder. It's a fascinating

match-up and a battle of two smaller teams, neither of whom have won an NBA title before. Oklahoma's city mayor, David Holt, says fans of the Thunder can't wait for the finals to begin. And you have to understand it means so much to our city on a lot of levels. We're one of the smaller cities in the United States to have a team in the NBA, the NFL or major league baseball. And those are kind of the three leagues that get the most attention, have the biggest TV ratings and really kind of create a lot of pop culture here in the

United States. And I should say, you know, in the United States, like to have a team in one of those three leagues is kind of your calling card for a city, especially if you're not New York or LA, you know, like it's kind of your way of communicating that you're at that level, you know, and we recognize that people in other countries may not even know we exist unless we have a team in one of those leagues because that's kind of how we get some attention. And so we we are old enough, I'm old enough to remember not having a team.

Like this team has been here for 17 seasons. And so there's a lot of levels working here. Obviously it's amazing when the team is good. That's obviously a cherry on top, but just having a team has meant so much to our city. We've seen population growth, we've seen economic growth, we've seen a fundamental shift in our cultural and quality of life offerings over these last two decades.

But when the team is good, it's a whole other platform, right? And so you weren't calling me two years ago to interview me from the UK. You're being right. My credit, yeah, I probably wasn't. You're right. Yeah, fair enough. Right. No, no, no, no judgment. I'm just saying that suddenly the interest level extends really around the whole globe. I mean, you know, the NBA finals will receive at least a passing glance from billions of people. Like lots of people will at the very least just see what the score is, right? And hopefully they'll actually pay even more attention than that and they'll watch the games and maybe even see images of our city that will give them a different impression or maybe their first impression of Oklahoma City.

So for us, that's an amazing platform for us. It opens a lot of doors, builds a lot of credibility. As I often say, you're never going to invest in, visit or live in a city you've never heard of. You're never going to invest in, visit, or live in a city you've never heard of. So, you know, as a mayor, yeah, it's a lot of fun. There's no question about that, but it is also, you know, an opportunity on a level that really affects a city like ours. The potential of winning a championship here puts a cap on one of the great seasons in NBA history, and we'll be able to say that if we win the championship. What's your prediction? Or can I, are you too superstitious?

Well, I mean, I definitely, I mean, look, I think the mayor of Oklahoma City should believe in his teams. As a fan, as an observer of basketball, I think the most likely scenario is Thunder in five. But I have every belief in the world. We're going to take care of business in games one and two. Mayor David Holt talking to Isaac Fanning. 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 BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Vladimir Muzetska and the producers

were Tracy Gordon and Muzaffar Shakir. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritzen. Until next time, goodbye.