Global News Podcast - Palestinians killed while collecting aid in Gaza

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Twenty-seven people collecting aid in Gaza are reported to have been killed by the Israeli military. Also: the impact of civil war on children in Sudan, and a library of books that won't be published for 100 years.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and at 13 Hours GMT on Tuesday the 3rd of June, these are our main stories. 27 people trying to get aid in Gaza are reported to have been killed by Israeli fire. We assess the controversial new Israeli US aid distribution system. Exit polls from the presidential election in South Korea are forecasting victory for the Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung. The Dutch government teeters on the brink of collapse after the far-right leader, Hiet Vilders, quits the governing coalition. Also in this podcast, hundreds of inmates in a Pakistani jail are helped to escape by an earthquake.

And in Norway... So we invite one author every year to write a story, a poem, anything they like, and it's going to be held within these trees and then made into paper in the year 2114. A library of books that won't be published for nearly a hundred years. We find out why. For the third day running, Palestinians in Gaza have been shot dead while trying to collect aid. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says in this latest shooting on Tuesday, at least 27 people were killed and 90 wounded by Israeli forces as they waited at one of the new aid distribution points in Rafa, set up under

a controversial Israeli and US run delivery system. A senior official at the Nasser Hospital said there were children and women among the dead. This eyewitness spoke to the BBC. They went to collect food for their children, but they were met with gunfire. No one knows yet who survived, who was injured and who died. This is not fair and it's happening in plain sight while the world watches and listens. The Israeli military says it did fire at what it calls a few individuals who failed to follow the designated route and ignored warning shots. Israel's deputy foreign minister is Sharon Haskell. First of all, these are suspect who

are deviating from the route and they failed to retreat. This was not inside the humanitarian distribution area but was in the road towards it. Now we are aware of these reports regarding casualties and the detail of the incidents are being looked into. Whether there are actual casualties or not has not been confirmed yet. On Sunday 31 people were reported killed in a similar attack at an aid point but Israel denies that its forces attacked them. On Monday three people were reported killed. The near daily shootings come as Israel and the US are trying to get Palestinians to obtain aid from this new, more restrictive delivery system rather than from the UN, saying this will circumvent Hamas. The UN has rejected the

system saying it allows Israel to use aid as a weapon of war. Here's the UN human rights spokesperson Jeremy Lawrence. Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable. There must be a prompt and impartial investigation into each of these attacks and those responsible held to account. Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law and a war crime. With his assessment of what's happening with aid distribution in Gaza, here's our international editor, Jeremy Bowen.

There is clearly a structural issue in the way that it's set up, that there are just one or two places, they're trying to expand them, they say, where thousands and thousands of people, many of whom have walked for a very long time all night to get there, congregate. And when Israelis see, the Israeli forces see big concentrations of Palestinians, they see threat. And it seems absolutely clear that the IDF statement this morning, which

makes it sound like a rather limited affair, is in direct contradiction to the information that we and others are getting from the scene in terms of witnesses who talk about a large amount of shooting going on, also from the air, from drones. And I've had a message from a foreign medic who is working in the area treating casualties coming from the scene. And he said to me, it has been, quote, total carnage since two minutes to four this morning and he said that they are being overwhelmed with casualties so it is clear that something yet again terrible is happening there this morning. These incidents are happening in areas

which are under the full control of the Israeli military. We're getting a lot of eyewitness testimony saying that the Israeli forces have used excessive force against unarmed civilians who are gathered there in search of aid. And yes, of course, we would very much like to be doing firsthand reporting. I would like to be talking to you from somewhere near that scene, perhaps from a hospital, something like that, because at the scene itself it would be very, very dangerous. It is also clear, I think, that the reason why the Israelis do not allow international news teams to go into Gaza is because so much is happening there that they do not want the world to see and have properly reported. Jeremy Bowen, well more than 54,000 Palestinians are reported to have been

killed since the Gaza war began but there are also many more deaths caused by the acute shortages there of food and medical supplies. Pregnant women and newborn babies are particularly vulnerable. Local doctors say they're seeing a significant rise in miscarriages, premature births, stillbirths and low-weight newborns because of malnutrition. And getting access to basic health care has become increasingly difficult with hospitals repeatedly attacked.

Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza, so Yolande Nel has compiled this report with the assistance of medical staff working there. Amid a deadly war, new life begins. But with conditions in Gaza now believed to be the worst yet, the most vulnerable are hardest hit, including newborn babies and those still in the womb. At the Nasser hospital Malik Brice is constantly afraid of bombings, displacement and losing her baby. She didn't expect to conceive. Then, six weeks ago, five months into her pregnancy,

she lost a lot of amniotic fluid, putting her baby in danger. The doctors told me it was due to malnutrition and exhaustion. They told me it was in the hands of God. The fetus could survive or die. My state has been stable until now, but I'm frightened that I could have a premature birth at any time and that the fluid isn't enough for the baby to grow in. This hospital still has a neonatal intensive care unit and it's full. Doctors say one in ten newborns is underweight or premature. American paediatric nurse Sandra Killen recently spent time volunteering here.

If mothers are lucky enough to come to the hospitals to deliver their babies, women who give birth vaginally because of capacity typically are sent home within three to four hours after giving birth. So they're discharged to their homes regardless of the conditions. We would absolutely have them stay at the hospital to get additional support. But there is no capacity. There's lack of equipment. There's lack of space. Sobbing, Aya Eskaifi is looking at photos of her daughter, Jeanine. She was tiny and struggled with feeding and digestion. But Aya couldn't get her the special formula she needed. Last month, just four months old,

Shanan died. I was torn into a thousand pieces to the extent I wanted to scream to the whole world saying save my daughter from death, save her. I begged for help but only God Lord of the world answered. Only God saved her from the cruelty of this world. Many mothers are struggling to breastfeed because of their own poor health. In Gaza, pregnancy and childbirth are no longer a time of excited anticipation, but of stress and added danger. And many are struggling to feel any of the hope for the future that babies represent. That report by Yoland Nel. After six months of political turbulence in South Korea,

Peoplebare have voted to choose a new president in a snap election. As we record this podcast, exit polls suggest the liberal frontrunner Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party has won. The vote was called after the former president, Jung Seung-yul, was impeached for trying to declare martial law last December. Our correspondent Jean McKenzie gave us this update from the very cheerful headquarters of the Democratic Party. As soon as those exit polls came in here at the EJ Myung camp, all the party members who

had packed out this room earlier, they all stood up and they started cheering because, as you say, those exit polls are now predicting that Lee is going to win the presidency by more than 50% of the vote which would be an absolute landslide victory. So even though one MP was just joking to me that he wished that Lee had won by 55% of the vote, clearly everyone in this room is absolutely delighted because it appears that after six months of chaos, power is now changing hands in South Korea. And it has actually been six months to the day since President Yoon Sung-yul, the former president, tried to impose martial law. And there was national outrage, of course, and he was impeached, and that's what's triggered

this snap election. But this candidate, Lee Jae-in, he campaigned on this one very clear promise that he was going to ensure that martial law could never happen again and it does seem tonight that this is what South Koreans have firmly voted for. They have once again squarely rejected what happened here back in December when the country was so nearly brought back under military rule and one of the MPs I was talking to earlier he was saying of course that he was so happy but it wasn't just him it was the whole country he felt that was so happy that they had come together

through what he described as a cold winter they had come together for this and what's interesting is that throughout this period of six months when South Korea hasn't had a president it has become increasingly polarized but what we have seen during this campaign is actually people from all political persuasions come together to vote for Mr Lee because of what he has represented. Now this doesn't mean that he's got an easy task going forward. South Korea is still divided in many ways and he is going to still have to work hard to bring the country together.

Jean Mackenzie. Let's turn now to the Netherlands where the Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders has announced that his party is pulling out of the governing coalition. It's a surprise move that could topple the right-wing government. Mr. Wilders, whose freedom party won the most votes in the last elections, said he was pulling out because his coalition partners weren't willing to embrace his ideas on halting migration. Our correspondent in The Hague, Anna Hulligan, told us more. Ministers are actually meeting right now to decide how to proceed. Some of the words flying around here in The Hague, embarrassing, chaotic, irresponsible, kamikaze. Leaders of the other parties within the

coalition have expressed disbelief and anger. Leader of the Conservative Party said there's a war on our continent instead of meeting the challenges. Mr Vilders is showing he's not willing to take responsibility. They've accused him of having this toxic trait of running away when things get difficult. So in terms of what happens next, the chances are we will be heading to new elections in the autumn, but it's all kind of up in the air right now because two of the other coalition parties, they've plummeted in the polls they're not going to want new elections but at the same time here at Vilders freedom party hard right freedom party largest within the coalition has now pulled out and it's unlikely the

government is going to get support from the opposition parties and right now the hard right and the green left are almost neck and neck according to the latest poll so the chances are there will be new elections. Anna Hologan. Now to the woman at the centre of a murder trial that's gripped many in Australia and beyond. Erin Patterson told a court that she accepted that a lunch she served contained toxic death cap mushrooms. Ms. Patterson is accused of killing three relatives and gravely injuring another by serving them

a lunch of beef wellington which contained the deadly mushrooms. Her lawyers say it was simply a tragic accident. Our Australia correspondent Katie Watson managed to get into the crowded courtroom. We heard the first full day of Erin Patterson giving evidence. The courtroom was packed. In fact there were queues apparently from before dawn, members of the public wanting to catch a glimpse of Erin Patterson giving evidence, just to give you a sense of how interested people are in the community here, but obviously more widely in Australia and the world. So this morning

she talked about medical issues she'd had and her mistrust of the health system effectively justifying her behaviour in the days after the the fateful lunch in July 2023. She got quite emotional when she was talking about her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson who of course died in the days after that meal. She also became emotional talking about some messages that were sent in a Facebook group. She'd sent some messages and her lawyer brought these up, where she referred to his family in messages that were laden with expletives. She said that she wished she'd never said that, she felt ashamed, and that the family didn't deserve that.

The jury also heard about her interest in mushroom recipes, her enjoyment of exotic mushrooms because of their flavor. And a lawyer asked her towards the end of the day whether she accepted the fact that death cat mushrooms were served in the beef wellington, to which she replied, yes, I do, which of course is what from the very beginning her defense team had said that the deaths of her relatives

were a tragedy and a terrible accident. And Katie, the trial is in its sixth week. How much longer is it expected to go on for? That's a very good question because at the beginning of the trial the judge said that the trial would be about six weeks and now we've got Erin Paterson in the witness box. I mean this has been day one, the full day one of giving evidence. And she'll be back in court with her lawyer asking yet more questions after that. Then you've got prosecution who can cross examine her. And then it looks like it will wrap up, but we're not sure exactly when that will be. Katie Watson.

Still to come on the Global News podcast, why certain people are more susceptible to disinformation and conspiracy theories. What we've found is that there are physical traits and biological traits in the brain that propel people towards these kind of more toxic ideologies. You're listening to the Global News Podcast. To Sudan now, where there are reports of many casualties after a UN convoy trying to deliver food in North Darfur came under attack. It's not clear who carried out the assault. The army and the rival paramilitary RSF have blamed each other for past attacks on UN lorries. This comes as the UN says a war which has been raging for more than two years has created unimaginable suffering for children. Last year a makeshift shelter for refugees in the city of

Omdaman was attacked while youngsters were playing in it. Many of them now suffer from nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder. The BBC got rare access to the shelter, which is in a school building, and spoke to some of the children there about the attack. I looked and there was a lot of dust. I ran inside. There was blood coming from my head and my arms and everywhere. When I wanted to move, I touched my leg and found my hand full of blood. I touched it again and found a deep wound.

Then I did not feel anything. I don't know if I was conscious or not. I didn't even realise I was hit. Abu Bakr and Awadiyah speaking to the BBC's Mohannad Hashim, he told me more about what he'd seen on his recent visit to Sudan. I went to a neighborhood in Omdurman, north of Omdurman, where there was an old disused children's graveyard. And I initially wanted to know if that graveyard has been used, what are the people around it seeing? And that's when I found out that there is this kindergarten income shelter that's nearby. And I went to visit there and it was

quite grim because as you can hear in this clip coming up from the supervisor Amani, it was a morning when the kids were preparing for an activity, a celebration when this rocket hit. My son died in the evening and another boy died the next morning. My son, he was a kind hit. My son died in the evening, and another boy died the next morning. My son, he was a kind boy. He was good to everyone, to his friends, to elderly women. What are the children here who survived that attack feeling? How are they today?

Most of the kids are terrorized. We used to have a vibrant yard with kids, men, women, all together. Now, since the strike, no one leaves their room. If they hear a gunshot, the kids will run. Emma Hanna, those are just a few of the individuals caught up in this conflict, but the UN is now saying that more than four million people have fled Sudan. This civil war is just simply causing so much devastation. Absolutely. Recently the war took an even more sinister turn with the de facto capital of Port Sudan being struck with oil installations, strategic fuel depots being hit, and the power stations in Omdurman.

So Omdurman is powered by three power stations. All three power stations were knocked out about two and a half weeks ago, plunging the city and other parts of Khartoum into total darkness. And to compound this all, now there is an outbreak of cholera in the south of Omdurman that has overwhelmed the me meager the sort of like skeletal health facilities that are available in the city. And there have been warnings that millions of people could face a food crisis and there was a UN convoy trying to get aid to North Darfur but that was attacked overnight. Yes now the details are not. There was a WFP World Food Program convoy that was supposed to be heading to a city of Al-Fasher in North Darfur that has been

besieged for over a year. That has been attacked in an area called Al-Qomah. Now the suspicion is that the RSF or the army accuses the RSF of attacking that convoy and the RSF are accusing the army of carrying out air raids on the same area over the weekend. Mohanad Hashim. For months now a British Egyptian woman, Leila Suif, has been on hunger strike in protest against the detention of her son in an Egyptian prison. Alaa Abdu'l-Fattah has been in jail since 2019 for taking part in pro-democracy protests. His sentence ended months ago, but he's still there because the Egyptian authorities refuse to recognise the time he spent in pre-trial detention.

Doctors treating his mother in a London hospital say she's at imminent risk of dying. Speaking to Anna Foster from her hospital bed, Leila Sueif said it was a price she was willing to pay if it would help free her son. I'm extremely tired. I'm getting weaker and weaker. Takes me like an hour to get dressed. The doctors were telling me with the numbers you have, you should have been unconscious.

So I suppose that in itself is a miracle that I'm still alive. It also means that if we come to the crunch, it will be very, very quick. You say there, if we come to the crunch and you say in a very matter-of-fact way we're talking about if you die. Is that something that you're prepared to allow happen as part of this hunger strike? Yes it is something that I am prepared to allow happen. Something that I passionately don't want to happen. Children want a mother not not a notorious mother, whether the notoriety is good or bad.

But if that's what it takes to get Alaa out of jail and to get all my children and grandchildren's lives back on track, that's what I'm doing. What was the last thing that the British government told you about their efforts, about their conversations with the Egyptian authorities? Mr. Sarmer talked to Mr. Sisi twice now. However hard they say they're trying, there must be something else that they can do. Maybe what they think is the best, but it's not the best that can be done. There isn't an easy way to ask this question, but people will be listening to this,

and knowing that the conversation that we're having now is in hospital and that you have been told by doctors that at any moment your life could end if you don't survive this what's your message? What do you want to say to people? My message is

one use my death as leverage to get Ala out. And two, this is my message to my children, to my immediate family, to my loved ones, don't let up until Ala is out. Don't let my death have been in vain. That was Layla Suey for the mother who's on hunger strike to try to put pressure on the Egyptian authorities to release her son from jail. We contacted the Egyptian Embassy in London for comment but received no response. Let's turn now to a rather unusual jailbreak. Hundreds of inmates in a prison in Pakistan were able to break out thanks to an earthquake. As the

tremors started, prisoners inside the jail in the city of Karachi began shouting from their cells that they were terrified the building would collapse on them. This led to a temporary evacuation which then turned into the mass jailbreak. Of the more than 200 inmates who went on the run, more than a third have since been recaptured. But as we record this podcast, police are continuing to search for the others. Our Pakistan correspondent Aziz Deh Mashiri told us more. We spoke to a superintendent who was there at the time and he said that inmates started

panicking around midnight when they felt the tremors shake the walls around them. He said they were terrified that the building would collapse on top of them. Now, according to the police statement, over the course of about an hour and a half, that panic turned into a violent frenzy whereby these prisoners started breaking down the doors of their cells and their barracks, breaking the locks, shattering windows. And you have to picture the scene because there are about 5,600 prisoners in this jail at the time. Now, police responded by firing shots in the air as warning shots. And this led many inmates to go back to their cells in their barracks. But many took the

opportunity to storm the main gate. 216 managed to escape. Now search operation is underway. About 78 prisoners have been recaptured so far. That's the latest figure we have. But police are going door to door visiting past residences to try to recapture the more than 130 prisoners who are still on the run. Now in terms of the reaction, the Minister for Prisons in the province of Sindh has said that an investigation will take place and that any police officers who are found to be negligent will be held accountable. But we spoke to the superintendent who said that this prison was over capacity. Its capacity is in fact 2,200 officially, but again there

are more than 5,600 prisoners that were there at the time he said this is the case at many prisons across Pakistan and that security teams were on high alert throughout the incident. Azadeh Mashiri, now why is disinformation on the rise and why are some brains more susceptible to radical ideologies and others? These are questions that are being discussed by scientists that are gathering in the UK this week. My colleague Nick Robinson has been speaking to political neuroscientist Dr Leo Zingrut, the author of The Ideological Brain and counter-extremism expert Dr Julia Ebner. He started by asking Dr Ebner if there's evidence that more people are believing disinformation and radical ideas

or conspiracy theories. There is a combination of different factors that play into the radicalisation trends that we're seeing. On the one hand, of course, there are grievances, frustrations about the status quo that have fed into the vulnerability of different population segments. And we see that among young people with identity crisis, with fears, especially with the poli crisis, so that all these intertwined crisis that we've seen, economic and inflation crisis, but also the COVID pandemic, which left some traces on society, and also some other related factors like the wars in the Middle East, but also in Ukraine.

It's especially when the personal identity becomes intertwined with the or becomes one with the group identity. And that can often happen through shared traumatic experiences or shared dysphoric experiences. But the other side is also that social media and new tech is, of course, amplifying this phenomenon. And extremist movements can do better, unfortunately, in targeting vulnerable communities. And that's when the brain comes in, isn't it, Dr. Smigrod? Because certain people are more susceptible to misinformation and to believe conspiracy theories than others. Who?

That's right. What we've found is that there are some brains who, due to features of their personality, their biology, even their genetics and the way in which their brains are structured, those brains tend to gravitate towards extreme ideologies more quickly. And what I explore in my new book The Ideological Brain is what are those characteristics in people's cognition, their emotion, the way in which their brain is structured that push them towards certain ideologies. And what we've found is that there are physical traits and biological traits in the brain

that propel people towards these kind of more toxic ideologies. And you argue, don't you, that creativity, people who are flexible in their thinking, are less susceptible to having a kind of fixed idea about why the world is as it is? That's right. What we found in experiments with thousands of participants is that people who tend to think in more flexible ways, in more imaginative ways, tend to be more psychologically resilient against extreme ideologies. Whereas people who are more cognitively rigid, who struggle to adapt in the face of change or uncertainty, those brains tend to take an ideology and adopt it to the extreme. Dr. Leah Zimmigrut, political neuroscientist and Dr. Julia Ebner, counter extremism expert. Now to a story that may be a bit frustrating for some book lovers. A library of works that won't be published for nearly a hundred years. It's being created very slowly in Norway.

It started in 2014 and each year an author donates a manuscript that's then stored and kept secret. In the year 2114 all of them will be released together. The American writer Tommy Orange is the latest to contribute. He will join the likes of Margaret Atwood, Karl-Uwe Konosko and Elif Shafak. Katie Patterson is the artist who's been compiling the library. I hope the collection is going to feel like a kind of time capsule or a crystallised moment in time capturing this whole century as it passes. So we invite one author every

year to write a story, a poem, anything they like, and it's going to be held within these trees and then made into paper in the year 2114. The authors have been selected for their extraordinary contribution to literature and we've had the most amazing people contribute from Margaret Atwood to Seán Elveshefac and Titi Tangerenvá, Carlo V. Knousgaard and this year's Tommy Orange. It's a really special invitation to the author, I think, you know, nothing that they've received in their life so far. And it's asking them to write something that's kind of placing trust in these future readers, and that's really different from the immediate reception. And I've always kind of loved the idea, actually, that goes on beyond my life, but hopefully not that of my son and

the newborns right now. And so it really is a kind of project that's not so much about us, although the project unfolds organically between now and the final book, but it's really trying to place an image of these future unborn people and say, you know, we see you, we see you and we have a place for you in our lives. So something for our grandchildren to look forward to. That was Katie Patterson on her work compiling a library of the future. 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, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Jack Wilfen. The

producers were Tracy Gordon and Siobhan Lihi. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jalat Jaleel. Until next time, goodbye.