Global News Podcast - Israeli officials deny that famine is taking hold in Gaza

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Israel has acknowledged there's been a significant drop in the amount of aid reaching Palestinians in Gaza, but insists the military has not identified famine in the territory. Also: the British heavy metal star, Ozzy Osbourne, has died aged seventy-six.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in the early hours of Wednesday the 23rd of July these are our main stories. Israeli officials have denied that famine is taking hold in Gaza but have admitted there's been a drop in food aid reaching Palestinians. The head of the United Nations has urged countries and major tech firms to speed up the switch to renewable energy. In football, the defending European Women's Champions England have beaten Italy to reach the final.

Also in this podcast... When we first started playing black sour, people would scream run out, chicks would run out, you know, people would get scared. The British heavy metal star Ozzy Osbourne has died, weeks after reuniting with his black Sabbath bandmates for a farewell concert. As we record this podcast, Israel has acknowledged there's been a significant drop in the amount of aid reaching Palestinians in Gaza, but insists the military has not identified famine in the territory.

Israel blames UN agencies for not collecting truckloads of food waiting at entrances to the Gaza Strip. The UN has repeatedly accused the Israelis of refusing to give it authorization to distribute the aid. Israeli officials insisted an assertion by the Hamas-run health ministry that more than 30 people had died of malnutrition in the past three days was propaganda. Gada Al-Kurd is a local journalist in Gaza City. He described the food situation where she is.

People here, they are really starving and dying and there is nothing to be eaten here in Gaza. Today I eat like a small piece of bread. Maybe I lost more than 10 kilograms for now. I can see my bones. I can see my chest bones, my shoulder, my backbone also. I wasn't like this before, especially in the last two weeks, in the last three weeks. I feel this. The thing that keeps me surviving is the water, weeks, I feel this. The thing that keeps me surviving is the water, which is polluted also. Meanwhile, the Israeli army is continuing its ground operation targeting the city of Deir al-Bala, where the main hub for humanitarian efforts is based. The World Health Organisation

says several of its facilities have been hit and its main warehouse is now not functional. The Israeli government doesn't allow international journalists into Gaza, so the BBC works with trusted freelancers who live there. A correspondent in Jerusalem, Emma Nader, compiled this report. In Gaza, the grip of hunger is growing rapidly and the signs of starvation are becoming clearer. With hospitals overwhelmed and medical supplies running out, these families have been able to secure desperately needed treatment

for their children who are in the direst of states. At the patient's friend's benevolent hospital is Noora. She lives in a tent with her son and daughter, Aisha, 20 months old. She has been motionless for four days. She stopped moving and talking. She went down from 10 kilogram to 8. She lost two kilos in just four days. She doesn't want to wake up or play. And I have no food for her. She asks for food, but I cannot find any. Noura's partner was killed in the war. Now she says she has no source of income.

Hunger here is a very difficult thing. You wait all day long in the hope you get something small to eat but you get nothing. You drink a glass of water with salt in it in order to get through the day. The doctors here say they're just treating the symptoms of a wider hunger crisis where even breastfeeding mothers are among those suffering. But now, if there is no feeding for the mother, from where the milk will come to the mother? No milk, so long as no feeding, meaning the baby even, which below six months, they will completely suffering, number of the death will be increased. What is the benefit of the mid-year cell if the food is not available? The new Israel-backed food distribution system has been described by one UN official as a death trap, and Israel imposes sharp restrictions on products entering Gaza.

Israel, which controls Gaza's crossings, has insisted that it acts in accordance with international law and that there are no restrictions on the entry of aid. But now the World Food Programme says one in three people here are not eating for days. At this market in Gaza City today, the stalls are sparse and the traders struggle to find products for even themselves. We don't see flour, food, supplies or even vegetables. And if we do see any of these things, the prices are crazy. They are extremely expensive.

I'm just like anybody else. I can't live under these circumstances. Each day the markets become even bearer and the malnutrition clinics more full. The spectre of man-made starvation in Gaza is becoming more real. Emile Nader in Jerusalem. Now for a closer look at what's been happening in Gaza since Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel on the 7th of October in 2023. With his analysis of whether war crimes are being committed in the territory, here's our international editor, Jeremy Bone. Hamas committed a series of war crimes in the attacks it launched on the 7th of October, killing 1200 people, mainly Israeli civilians. Hamas took 251 hostages, of which perhaps 20 still held inside Gaza are believed to be alive.

There is clear evidence that Israel since then has committed a series of war crimes. Israel's list includes the deliberate starvation of Gaza's civilians, the failure to protect them during military operations in which Israeli forces killed tens of thousands of innocents, and the wanton destruction of entire towns in a manner that is not proportionate to the military risk Israel faces. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister are the subject of arrest warrants for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court.

They insist on their innocence. Israel has also condemned a legal process at the International Court of Justice, alleging that it is committing genocide against Palestinians. Israel denies the accusations and claims they are anti-Semitic blood libels. The Israelis are running out of friends. The UK and other Western governments this week condemned the actions of Israel as well as Hamas, saying the suffering of civilians in Gaza had reached new depths.

Jeremy Bowen, next to Syria and as we record this podcast, the ceasefire in the province of Sweda appears to be holding for now, but last week more than 1200 people were killed in sectarian clashes between Bedouin tribes and the Druze community. Witnesses say government forces were also involved. Our Middle East correspondent John Donnison has now reached Swede and sent us this report, which listeners may find distressing. Driving past burnt-out shops and businesses, we headed straight for the main hospital. The first thing that hit me was the smell.

Here outside the hospital, you have got decomposing bodies lined up in the car park. The stench is absolutely horrendous. Everyone here, the doctors, the nurses, they say it was the Syrian government forces who did it. Outside the hospital, I met Osama Malak, an English teacher. They are criminals. They are ministers. We want to punish them severely. Kness Abu Mutab said it was the Druze who had been deliberately targeted. What is a crime for being minority in a democratic country? Before we left the hospital, we came across a little Druze girl,

eight-year-old Hala Al-Hateeb. Hala's face was bloodied and bandaged. She appeared to have lost an eye. She told me gunman had come to her house and shot her as she hid in a wardrobe. Hala doesn't know it yet, but both her parents are dead. John Donason in Syria. The United States has announced that it's pulling out of UNESCO, the United Nations Culture and Education Agency.

The US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce explained the decision at a news conference. Continued involvement in UNESCO is not in the national interest of the United States. UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the UN sustainable development goals, a globalist ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America first foreign policy. She also accused the organization of being biased against Israel. In a statement,

the head of UNESCO, Audrey Azouli, said the US withdrawal was regrettable but expected. The US decision will take effect at the end of next year, as Tom Bateman reports. UNESCO was founded in 1945 to boost educational, scientific and cultural understanding between nations. It is designated and helped protect world heritage sites including the pyramids of Egypt and the Grand Canyon in the United States and also supports culture and education in conflict as well as girls education. The Trump administration says UNESCO supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes, criticizing it for supporting sustainable development goals and accusing it of anti-Israel rhetoric after it admitted Palestine as a member state.

Tom Bateman. It's not often the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, strikes an optimistic note on the subject of climate change. But there was definitely an upbeat tone when he announced that the world is on the cusp of a shift to renewable energy, with the era of fossil fuels coming to an end. He called on governments to prepare sweeping new plans ahead of the COP 30 climate summit in November. In an address at the United Nations, the Secretary General called on big technology companies to commit to sourcing 100% of their electricity demands from clean energy. The future is being built in the cloud.

It must be powered by the sun, the wind, and the promise of a better world. The clean energy future is no longer a promise, it's a fact. No government, no industry, no special interest can stop it. Our climate reporter Mark Poynting told us more about what Mr Gutierrez had said. We've heard Gutierrez talking about the opportunities of clean energy, fossil fuels running out of road and clean energy really being the future. So we've seen record investment in clean energy around the world, about $2 trillion last year. And clearly that's a big driver of why we're seeing huge increases in things like solar and wind. What Guterres also

says though, is that the costs are falling for clean energy, partly thanks to this investment. And so it's becoming the most economically sensible option in many cases. He also draws the comparison to really high levels of subsidies for fossil fuels that he says have created an uneven playing field but now we're beginning to see huge investment in clean energy. But there are problems in financing, aren't there? I mean for example Africa, home to 60% of the world's best solar resources, it's getting very little investment, clean energy investment, isn't it?

Yeah, that's right. He draws that comparison to the huge amounts of solar resources, as you say, that Africa has, of course, a really, really sunny continent. But he says Africa is getting just 2% of global clean energy investment. So that's a huge divide and he says that that really needs to turn around and see much more investment into places like Africa and other developing countries in order to fund renewables in those places which can produce electricity really really cheaply when they're in place but do have these higher upfront costs. So he says that this is really key if we're to see a rollout of clean energy all around the world and not just in richer countries, which is of course important if we're going to fight climate change effectively.

And he also said, didn't he, that the greatest threat to energy security is fossil fuels. He really kind of draws attention to not just the what he sees as the opportunities of renewables, but also the dangers of fossil fuels. So he draws attention to the spikes in energy prices that I'm sure many people will remember over 2022 and 2023 during the Russia-Ukraine war, when the price of oil and gas went up really quite significantly and people felt that in their energy bills and in their pockets. So he says that renewables should allow a future where prices are much more stable rather than relying on foreign imports of oil and gas.

Mark pointing. Ozzy Osbourne, the front man of the British heavy metal band Black Sabbath, has died at the age of 76. In a statement, his family said he'd passed away surrounded by love. His death comes just weeks after he reunited with his bandmates performing a farewell concert in his home city of Birmingham in central England. There, Ozzy Osbourne took to the stage on a throne to perform five songs in Black Sabbath's Back to the Beginning farewell gig. Daniel Mann looks back at the life of the heavy rock star whose hits included Paranoid and Iron Man. Black Sabbath's menacing frontman called himself the Prince of Darkness. And as Ozzy Osbourne told the BBC in 2007, he knew how to terrify an audience.

When we first started playing Black Sabbath, people would scream and run out. Chicks would run out. You know, people would get scared and out, chicks would run out. You know, people would get scared and we'd go, I scare them, music's working, isn't it? A notorious hell raiser, on stage he played the demon. Osborne bit into the head of a bat, thinking it was made of rubber. His wife and manager Sharon Osborne earned him a fortune. But drinking drugs took such a toll on him in the 80s

that at one stage he tried to strangle her. Still, she decided to save their marriage and they became television stars with their family reality show, The Osbournes. Yet, Ozzy Osbourne remained the godfather of metal and one of rock music's greatest showmen. Going through changes Daniel Mann on the life of Ozzy Osbourne, the frontman of the British heavy metal band Black Sabbath who's died at the age of 76. Still to come... It's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

The war of words after one of America's most prominent late-night talk shows is cancelled. The US Department of Justice is seeking to interview the former British socialite, Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking minors on behalf of Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019. The move comes as the US President Donald Trump faces calls for more disclosure in the Epstein case. Our correspondent Neda Taufik gave us this update. The administration has sought to really contain some of the outrage coming from its own base, own Republican lawmakers over its announcement that it wouldn't be releasing any additional files from the Epstein probe. Remember, Donald Trump and many in his orbit had promised that

more information would be coming. And so what we've seen is the administration kind of making these overtures to its base, first to saying that it would ask a judge to release the grand jury transcripts from the Epstein and Maxwell cases. That's under review, although if you speak to federal prosecutors, they say that's really limited in scope and won't reveal much. And then we saw this announcement, although Donald Trump says he wasn't aware of it. His former personal attorney, who is now the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, has said as part of Donald Trump's directive to kind of release and find any credible information

that he's reached out to Ghislaine Maxwell's attorneys and wants to speak to her to see if she has any information about anyone who was involved in any criminality with Epstein. And he said that they won't shy away from uncomfortable truths or the responsibility to pursue justice. The problem with that is, of course, Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been convicted as a kind of key associate of Epstein's, knows much, but she hasn't revealed anything in the last few years. And so again, the administration risks once again angering the base if they don't deliver with anything. And what is President Trump saying about it? Well, look, President Trump has said essentially that this is all an old, recycled hoax, that

he didn't have a close association with Epstein, that he kicked him out of his club, that he was never that close with him to begin with. And he's essentially turning this on Democrats, suggesting that this is another witch hunt against him. He did that again today from the Oval Office when he was asked about the Galen Maxwell meetings with the Department of Justice that are supposed to happen in the next few days. He again said the press should be looking instead at efforts by the Obama administration to spin election fraud stories, so trying to kind of give red meat to his base in a way. But what we've seen is that the base, while they've very much

been behind him in past claims of witch hunts and stood defending him, here very clearly the base wants these documents released. They want Donald Trump to fulfill that promise and they are clearly saying that if he has nothing to hide he should do it. Neda Taufik in New York. One of America's most prominent late-night talk shows is coming to an end and its host Stephen Colbert isn't going quietly. The announcement from CBS has sparked debate about money, politics and the future of satire on US television. Carla Conte has been following the War of Words.

Stephen Colbert is not known for pulling his punches, especially when it comes to criticizing President Donald Trump. But now, the American late-night talk show host says the gloves are off. Why? Because the US network CBS announced it's cancelling the late show, which Colbert has fronted since 2015. On Friday, Donald Trump posted, I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.

His talent was even less than his ratings. The decision to axe the show came just days after Colbert criticized the CBS parent company Paramount for agreeing to a 16 million dollar legal settlement with Mr. Trump. And Colbert hit back in typical fashion on air. I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe. Paramount says the move was strictly financial. Sources close to the network say the late show lost up to $50 million last year, despite topping the US late night ratings. But many

viewers and fellow comedians are suspicious of the timing. With killing a show that you know rankled a fragile and vengeful president, so insecure. That's Jon Stewart, Colbert's friend and former colleague, and one of the several late night hosts who appeared in a show Solidarity at Monday's recording of the latest episode in New York City. Among them were Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and John Oliver, as well as actors and musicians, including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Weird Al Jankovic. CBS has said Colbert will remain on air until May of next year, but once he goes, the late show franchise will end entirely.

It marks the end of an era for a genre that has defined American culture and comedy for generations. From Johnny Carson to David Letterman, Stuart to Colbert, late night talk shows have long been a platform for political commentary, satire and national mood. But with viewership shrinking and streaming platforms reshaping habits, the format is under growing pressure. Outside the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home to the show for decades, protesters gathered, accusing the network of caving to political pressure. Inside, Colbert delivered a parting message, promising ten more months of unfiltered commentary.

Over the weekend it sunk in that they're killing off our show but they made one mistake. They left me alive. That report by Carla Conti. The estate of Mike Lynch, the late tech tycoon whose yacht sank last year, is facing a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars following a court case in London. Mr Lynch drowned in the accident along with his teenage daughter and five other people. He'd set sail to celebrate being acquitted in a fraud case involving Hewlett Packard Enterprise or HPE.

But the company continued to pursue a civil action, arguing that Mr Lynch had misrepresented his business when he sold it. A British judge has now agreed, meaning the Lynch estate could face bankruptcy. Here's our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman. Rarely does a news story about the sale of a tech company turn into such a long and tragic tale. 14 years ago, the US firm HPE acquired Autonomy, a tech firm based in Cambridge. It paid $11 billion, only to write off most of its value a year later.

Since then, HPE has doggedly pursued the company's management, accusing them of fraud regarding how much Autonomy was worth. They denied the charges and blamed buyers' remorse. Autonomy's chief financial officer went to prison. Its founder, Dr Mike Lynch, was kept under house arrest in California. Last summer he was cleared of fraud and promptly set off for his luxury yacht, the Bayesian, to celebrate. But a few days later he, his daughter and five others drowned when the yacht sank. While HPE was seeking billions of pounds rather than hundreds of millions, the sum it has been awarded is still believed to be more than Mike Lynch's estate is worth. His wife, who is independently wealthy,

may choose to appeal, meaning there could be another turn to this story. Zoe Kleinman In football, England have won the first semi-final of the Women's Euro 2025 tournament, beating Italy 2-1. The Italians led for much of the game in the Swiss city of Geneva before England equalised during injury time. They went on to score the winning goal deep into extra time. England are attempting to defend their European title, as Vicky Sparks reports. The roller coaster ride at Euro 25 continues for the Lionettes thanks to two last gasp goals as Michel Adjimang and Chloe Kelly saved England once again. England were on the brink of exiting, trailing to Barbara Bononsea's super first half finish

and a disciplined, daring and defiant performance from the Dark Horses of the tournament Italy. But with seconds to play, Ajumang blasted England level and then with penalties looming, England were given a penalty of their own. Emma Severini penalised for holding Beth Meade in the area. They're now only a game away from defending that European crown. On Wednesday, the world champion Spain will face Germany in the other semi-final. The final will take place on Sunday. An immersive show celebrating the life of Elvis has just opened in London, but it's

been described by fans as one of the most misleading they have ever seen. Elvis Evolution was announced in January last year with promises that it would include a life-size digital Elvis performing iconic moments in musical history on a UK stage for the first time. But the BBC's Yasmin Ruffo who's been checking out the show for herself says many visitors have come away disappointed. Fans paid up to 300 pounds to attend the, but many have told us they left upset and feeling misled because the promised hologram of the King of Rock and Roll never featured.

Instead, the experience takes you on a journey through Elvis's youth and after an interval in a Hawaii-themed bar, people find themselves watching clips of the singer's 1968 comeback special concert. It was just horrendous really and certainly not what we thought we were going to get and bought tickets for. We felt let down, disappointed and dreams have been shattered. We were promised so much. It's just absolutely shocking. The show's organisers say they decided to avoid mimicking Elvis' performances as they were just too iconic, and instead used AI to improve archive footage alongside a live band.

My name is Sam Belk and I grew up with Elvis. Hang on, sir, but he isn't just some kid now, he is Elvis Presley. Members of the cast have also raised concerns about their safety because some audience members have become verbally abusive during the show. Critics are divided. The review website Time Out calls it enjoyable if you accept it for what it is. Yet for fans who have paid hundreds of pounds, the gap between what was promised and reality seems too big to ignore. Yasmin Rufo.

And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast big to ignore. at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspot. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll, the producers were Liam McShephy and Guy Pitt. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye bye.