Global News Podcast - Israeli troops withdraw from corridor that split Gaza in two

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Israeli troops withdraw from the Netzarim Corridor allowing thousands of Gazans to return to the north of the strip. Also: Polls close in Ecuador's presidential election, and Namibia's first president, Sam Nujoma, has died.

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keough, and in the early hours of Monday the 10th of February these are our main stories. Palestinians are flocking back to northern Gaza after Israeli forces completed their withdrawal from a strategic road cutting the enclave in half. Polls have closed in Ecuador's presidential and parliamentary elections where security is a key issue. People die now no longer from illness but from crime. Where is the security? Also in this podcast, we hear from South Africa after Donald Trump accused the government there of wanting to seize white-owned land and because of that froze US funding. And an icon of Namibia's independence struggle and the country's first president, Sam Niyoma,

has died. Palestinians in their thousands have today been able to cross a strategic road which had cut the Gaza Strip in half after Israeli troops completed their withdrawal. It had been turned into a militarised zone during the war. In cars and on carts laden with belongings, the displaced have been streaming back to northern Gaza through what's known as the Netzerim Corridor. Many Palestinians returning to assess the situation in the north remained defiant, despite the widespread destruction caused by Israeli bombardment. They've deprived us of food and water, but they haven't deprived us of air.

They haven't managed to do that. We remain alive. Today I came to the north to check the situation and thank God the road was good and the Israeli army have withdrawn. We are fine as long as we've been back and everyone is good and we'll all return. Our correspondent in Jerusalem, Wira Davis, told me how important Israel's military withdrawal would be. The Israeli military partial withdrawal from this area under the ceasefire agreement has allowed many more people now to go back to their home areas. Of course once they get

there they find that 60% of the houses and buildings in northern Gaza have been destroyed or really badly damaged but at least for now they're able to make their way back and try and start rebuilding their lives because of this ceasefire, but remember it is a fragile ceasefire. As you say, the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement is ending and talks are now underway in Doha on a possible second agreement. The Israeli line is that they are still talking about how to end the first phase of the ceasefire. We're just over halfway through that but under that 21 hostages have been released in exchange for more than 500 Palestinian prisoners. Much more humanitarian aid is getting into Gaza. There's been a partial reopening of the border between Gaza and Egypt allowing very sick people out. So

this the first phase of the ceasefire has brought tangible benefits. There's a new opinion poll in Israel today which says that a vast majority of Israelis want to continue because of they, of course, they want to see more hostages coming out. Yet it's Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, is facing pressure from the right-wing supporters in his government to end the ceasefire

after the first phase and resume the war in Gaza from the right-wing supporters in his government to end the ceasefire after the first phase and resume the war in Gaza because their line is that the Hamas are not yet completely destroyed militarily. So even though that there's widespread public support on both sides for a continuation, the talks on that haven't really got going yet and there's some doubt whether it will happen despite the you know the public support for it. What about the long term? How should we assess this clip from the Israeli president Isaac Herzog responding to President Trump's proposal to forcibly remove some 2 million Palestinians from Gaza?

President Trump basically came forward and said something which I read as follows. Going back to the same routine of getting to a ceasefire, an arrangement, and then Hamas attacks you, and then we go to war, and then terrible things happen, cannot go on. We have to look for new ideas. Yeah, well, look, President Trump is right about two things. Gaza is a demolition site, and we can't be in this place in five years' time. But I don't think anybody really recognizes his view of dealing with it. It will probably be illegal under international law, but Israel is taking some of it on board. Most Gazans though and most Arab supporters of the Palestinian is

adamant that Trump's plan cannot happen as he described it so far. So as we heard their talks in Doha are continuing. Sharon Haskell is Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister. She was asked whether Israel would be willing to fully withdraw its troops from Gaza, as required by the second phase of the ceasefire agreement. If it can secure and really secure the return of our family members and making sure that the 7th of October can never happen again, then of course we don't have any other goals than that and if we can achieve it through a diplomatic solution, all of us in Israel

are completely committed to that. So you know, a war is not the goal. The goal is to make sure that the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust will never happen again. Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Sharon Haskell. Now to Ecuador where polls have closed in the first round of a presidential election, one dominated by the issue of security. One of South America's more stable countries Ecuador is now struggling to contain a dramatic surge in drug-related violence.

Daniel Nuboa is hoping to be re-elected as the president after just 15 months in office. He faces 15 challengers. But the centre-right leader has only one real challenger, the left-wing Luisa González. Here are some of the views of voters on Daniel Nuboa. As well as the security issue, I see that we've been able to advance in many areas with him. There are many international businesses that are now in the country. He does not care about the people, rather the interests of large companies. The power cuts occurred without warning. In my house, the refrigerator was damaged and the television due to the cuts.

People die now no longer from illness but from crime. Where is the security that he talked about? Our South America correspondent, Ioni Wells, spoke to me from the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, just as the polls had closed. Certainly in the opinion polls before the polls opened, Daniel Nuboa was certainly in the lead, leading by sort of eight, nine percentage points or so. The big question really today is whether or not he can clinch enough more to secure essentially an outright win, because the polls were certainly

suggesting that it may well have to go to a second round. The way that it works in Ecuador is a candidate needs to get 50% of the vote or 10% more than whoever is second behind them. So I think Daniel N Naboa's team certainly are feeling optimistic about him being in the lead. The question really though is whether that would be by enough or whether it would need to go to a run-off in April. Well, tell us more about Mr Naboa. What did he campaign on?

Well, he's only been in office for 15 months and he's defined himself really in the large part by his tough crackdown on violent gang crime. He's introduced sweeping new powers for the security forces, militarized the streets, militarized prisons. There has been a slight reduction in violent deaths and also in sort of prison violence as well so I think his main message to voters has been let me continue with my project. He certainly has sort of also vowed to try and be quicker when it comes to responding to things like last

year's power cuts, which he received quite a lot of criticism for. But his opposition, in particular, Luisa Gonzalez, has criticised him for not being quick enough to tackle certain problems in the country, including the violent gang crime that the country's seen over the last couple of years. And how is Luisa Gonzalez likely to fare? Well certainly she was according to most opinion polls definitely the closest behind Daniel Loboah in the polls so certainly her supporters feel like she might be able to do enough to sort of not let him win in the first round. She still has a fairly significant base because

she is the person who followed the former president Rafael Correa, who still has quite a significant voter base in the country. Some people I've spoken to feel nostalgic for a time when things were more prosperous, when there was less crime in the country. They associate that with him. But her connection to him also does hurt her to other voters because he's someone who faced numerous corruption scandals, was known as being very sort of hardline, even some accused him of being authoritarian in some of his policies. So I think there's a certain sort of wing of voters who don't want to return to that as well. So she I think is feeling optimistic as well.

The question is just whether or not she can push this to a second round in April. Ioni Wells in Ecuador. Libyan authorities say at least 28 bodies have been recovered from a mass grave in the south east near Kufra city. 78 migrants were freed from forced detention. Richard Kigoy reports. The discovery of more than 50 bodies in less than seven days highlights the risks migrants take to reach Europe. Images shared online show police and volunteers digging in the sand before placing corpses in black bags. The search is continuing. Libya's attorney

general says the bodies have been taken for autopsy, with investigators suspecting links to smuggling networks. The authorities are documenting the testimonies of survivors. Since Muammar Gaddafi's ouster in 2011, Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty with hopes of reaching Europe. It's well known that humans have been ingesting rising amounts of tiny particles of plastic or microplastics as such materials enter our environments and ecosystems in increasing quantities. But a new study carried out by researchers at the University of New Mexico in the US suggests that microplastics accumulate more in our brains than in other organs. The BBC's Julian Warwicker spoke to the study's

lead author, Matthew Kempen. We've applied several different methods, some of them relatively new, to really get an estimate of the mass of plastics in different organs of the human body, the liver, kidney and brain. Especially in the brain we see that over time there seems to be an increase in the total quantity that's been occurring. There's good reasons to think that the brain may be a good resting place, if you will, for these plastics. There's a lot of fats or lipid in the brain. And if you've ever washed a plastic bowl that had bacon grease or butter in it, you know, it takes a lot of hot water and soap. So plastics

and fats tend to go together. We also looked in cases that had dementia and those cases seem to have even higher levels of plastic, about five times what normal brains had. But we really caution that dementia is a disease where the barrier between the blood and the brain is impaired. And so it may simply be that the disease is causing greater uptake of the plastics. I was struck by a quote from you saying that there is some optimism in what you found here. What specifically gives you cause for hope amidst all of this? Well it's interesting when we look over time the concentrations are increasing, but when we look at the age of the subject that the samples were taken from, there's no relationship

with the person's age, which means it doesn't just accumulate in our bodies over time. And that means that our bodies clear these plastics, maybe slowly, but it still happens. And there's other studies that do show that clearance is a reality. So it says that this is manageable

if we can get a really admittedly comprehensive set of policies around regulating the plastics. Professor Matthew Campen from the University of New Mexico. Coming up in this podcast, a Soviet-era rival to the Eurovision Song Contest is making its return. Expect entries from Central Asia, maybe China, India, Africa, perhaps even Pyongyang,'s trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One,

McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1 Back at Base. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. President Trump says Elon Musk, his unelected advisor, who's overseeing a purge of US government

jobs, will help find hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fraud and waste. Mr Trump gave no evidence for his claim, whilst giving an interview to Brett Baier on Fox News. He said the tech billionaire had already dealt with the international development agency USAID. I told him do that. Then I'm going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing.

Then I'm going to go to the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse. And you know, the people elected me on that. An earlier purge was also aimed at South Africa. On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order freezing American aid to the country at South Africa. On Friday President Trump signed an executive order freezing American aid to the country worth about 450 million dollars and directed towards

an HIV AIDS program there. Why? Well Mr. Trump says it's because of a new law that he claims allows the South African government to seize or expropriate land belonging to white farmers without compensation. This is what he told reporters earlier in the week. The leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things. So if that's under investigation right now, we'll make a determination. And until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing, they're taking away land, they're confiscating land

and actually they're doing things that are perhaps far worse than that. And Elon Musk, who was born and grew up in South Africa, has also weighed in, writing in a post on X to the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, why do you have openly racist ownership laws? My colleague James Menendez spoke to Umzeneli Nyonzi, South Africa's Minister for Land Reform and Rural Development, for his response. He is completely wrong because President Trump cannot mention not even a single farm that was confiscated or expropriated from a single white farmer. In fact, farmers themselves

in South Africa are distancing themselves from this statement. The law does allow for expropriation without compensation in some circumstances, doesn't it? No, it doesn't. The law is here to regulate, and it is meant to regulate in the public interest. In our case, when the government needs a national or regional road, public amenities such as energy transmission lines, communications, building hospitals, schools, it does not talk about land reform, it does not talk about farms. It only talks about land for public interest. But what about, Minister, what about the line in the law that says

property can be acquired in the public interest as long as there is just an equitable compensation? I mean, that sounds like you will be able to expropriate in some circumstances. That has always been happening. We've always been acquiring properties, talking to the previous owners, pay them, we pay compensation where there must be payment that must happen. What about Elon Musk's intervention in all this? I suspect him, that is Elon Musk, and some South Africans called AfriForum that are misleading President Trump are incorrect. He is wrong, unfortunately.

I mean, how serious a diplomatic rift is this for South Africa, given the row with the world's most powerful country? It is worrying and it is regrettable, of course. What is interesting is that President Trump said the leadership in South Africa is doing horrible things before the investigation comes or the findings of the investigations are available, is acting and suspending the donation or whatever you call it to South Africa.

But it must also be maintained that South Africa and America and must maintain these cordial relations. South Africa's Minister for Land Reform and Rural Development, Umza Naileni Yonsu. President Trump says he's spoken by phone to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, about trying to end the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin would neither confirm nor deny the reports.

It comes amid speculation that Mr Trump might meet Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky this week. Here's our Europe Regional Editor, Dani Eberhardt. Donald Trump famously promised to end the war within a day of taking office. Nearly three weeks into his presidency, he's still given little indication of how he proposes to do so. In a New York Post interview, he wouldn't elaborate on how many times he'd spoken to President Putin.

I'd better not say, it quotes him as saying. Such talk will unnerve Kiev. Ukraine's former Foreign Minister, Dmitry Kuleba has told the BBC he doubts whether the US could negotiate an end to the war by the end of April targets specified by Mr Trump's special envoy, Keith Kellogg. Mr Kuleba said a deal would be difficult as Mr Putin was convinced Russia was winning. It's been seizing more territory in recent months, especially in the East. Ukrainian forces are under increasing pressure in places including Prokhovsk. Kiev and many

of its allies stress it's vital to keep up pressure on Moscow. It's an approach backed by a former special envoy on Ukraine during Mr Trump's first term, Kurt Volker, as he told The World this weekend. The only reason there's a war is because Vladimir Putin is waging a war against Ukraine. So convincing Putin that he has to stop the war, that it's too costly for Russia, it'll destroy Russia if he continues. That's the objective. And I think President Trump has understood that.

Key to this, Mr. Volker argues, is continuing weapons supplies to Ukraine, enforcing sanctions and trying to drive down global energy prices. Kiev will hope Mr Trump is listening. Danny Aberhard. In Russia a few days ago, in a surprise presidential decree, Vladimir Putin revived a cultural relic of the Cold War era. The intervision song contest was, for a brief time, the Eastern bloc's answer to Eurovision. Mr. Putin says its values will be against what he's calling the decadence of Western culture, stressing respect for traditional, universal, spiritual and

family values. Here's our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg. The Intervision Song Contest was boom-banger-bang for the Communist block. Well, plus a few others. And the guest stars they had performing, goodness me, Demis Roussos, Bony M. Yes, Intervision was determined to outshine Eurovision, to be bigger, bolder and, would you believe it, even longer. As the former director of Intervision, Jerzy Gruza, told me back in 2012, One Czechoslovakian girl went on the stage and stayed on the stage 45 minutes singing. How did you finally get rid of her?

No, yes, no, she was tired. It didn't last though. In the early 1980s, intervision faded, the Berlin Wall fell, the intervision faded, the Berlin Wall fell, the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Empire disintegrated. But, intervision will return this year to facilitate quote, international cultural and humanitarian cooperation. Humanitarian? This from a country which three years ago launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour. In reality, it is geopolitics that is pushing this. Now I'm the first to concede that there's always a little bit of politics in Eurovision.

But Intervision is back because we're back to the days of East-West rivalry, with Moscow doing its own thing. We saw this last year with the Olympics. Excluded from the games, the Russians tried to create a rival event. The Friendship Games didn't work out. Russia was banned from Eurovision over the war in Ukraine. And new intervision? Well, expect entries from Central Asia, maybe China, India, Africa, perhaps even Pyongyang will want to sing along. But while Eurovision has embraced LGBTQ themes and performers, intervision most certainly will not. President Putin portrays himself as a defender of traditional family values. What Moscow will do, I think, is try to present its song contest as musically and morally superior. But will the songs be any good?

Will anyone actually watch it? Stay tuned. Steve Rosenberg. Tributes are being paid to Sam Niyoma, the first president of independent Namibia, who's died at the age of 95. The current president, Nangola Mbomba, described him as a revered freedom fighter and revolutionary leader

who served the people of his beloved country. Mr Niyoma was best known for his long fight revolutionary leader who served the people of his beloved country. Mr. Niyoma was best known for his long fight to end South Africa's control of Namibia. The BBC's Nomsa Maseko looks back at his life. An icon of Namibia's independence struggle, Sam Niyoma returning home after three decades in exile. He'd been arrested and jailed, but when he was out on bail in February 1960, he fled into exile. A freedom fighter, he was the first president of the Southwest People's Organization, or

SWAPO. His liberation movement embarked on an armed struggle for Namibia's independence through the organization's guerrilla force, the People's Liberation Army. Sam Nyoma returned to Namibia in September 1989. Despite a 30-year absence, Mr. Nyoma was such a powerful and well-known figure in Namibia that his picture alone became a symbol for his party. Completing his lifelong dream, Mr. Nyoma ran for election as president in the country's first independent elections in 1989. He won, becoming the country's first president. Goodbye South Africa! Welcome Namibia!

Follow to the people! We've got our land back! We need each other. We need to work together. We need a unit of purpose and action. If we are going to develop this country any more than we were. Namibia formally became independent in March 1990. After his party fought a bitter liberation struggle to bring freedom to Namibia, the second struggle he embarked on was economic independence. Often described as a hands-on leader, he ensured that schools and universities were built and made efforts to improve the country's health care system.

He was in office for 15 years. His critics accused him of clinging to power when he pushed for constitutional amendments to extend his rule. I have no intention of stepping down, and only the Namibian people were telling me to step down. He eventually stepped down, ushering in a peaceful transfer of power in 2005, but remained a powerful and influential man until his death.

Nomsama Seko. 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 Martin Baker and the producer was Marion Straughan. The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Bernadette Keough. Until next time, goodbye. What does it take to go racing in the fastest cars in the world? Oscar Piastri. Your head's trying to get rid of one way, your body's trying to go another. Lance Stroll. It's very extreme in the sense of how close you're racing wheel to wheel. We've been given unprecedented access to two of the most famous names in Formula One, McLaren and Aston Martin. I'm Landon Aris. They build a beautiful bit of machinery that I get to then go and have fun in. They open the doors to their factories as the 2024 season reached its peak. I'm Josh Hartnett. This is F1, back at base.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.