Global News Podcast - Shootings in Gaza claim the lives of Palestinians desperate for food

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

The Israeli army is investigating reports that drones fired on civilians. Also: Austria is in mourning after students and teachers were killed in a school shooting, and Japan's rice crisis.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritzen and at 13 Hours GMT on Tuesday the 10th of June these are our main stories. Many Palestinians have been killed in two separate shootings in Gaza. Several children are among the victims of a shooting at a school in the Austrian city of Graz. 50 million dollars worth of drugs seized in Mexico. the Austrian city of Graz. Fifty million dollars worth of drugs seized in Mexico. Also in this podcast. Honestly speaking, our customers are in trouble. Many other things like food prices had gone up. Then the rice, which had been inexpensive, went up so sharply.

A rice crisis in Japan. At least 15 Palestinians are believed to have been killed in another shooting in Gaza. The BBC has been told that Israeli drones opened fire as people tried to steal flour from an aid convoy while it was in a high-risk zone. The Israeli military has said it's investigating. Three people were also killed near a US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution centre. The BBC isn't allowed by the Israeli authorities to report directly from Gaza, so Hugo Besheger told me the latest from Jerusalem. Alex, I think this shows how chaotic the situation is for Palestinians who are in desperate need

of aid in Gaza. So it seems that we're talking about two different incidents here. The worst incident was this one that you've just mentioned when Israeli forces opened fire according to witnesses as people trying to steal flour from an aid convoy. The Israeli military said it was investigating this incident and a separate shooting happened near an aid distribution hub of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This is the new mechanism for aid distribution backed by Israel and the United States. It has been criticized by virtually everyone who has

some experience with aid distribution and since this new system was introduced two weeks ago, more than 160 people have been killed trying to get aid according to Gaza's authorities. So we've seen that there has been this easing of the Israeli blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid, but only a very limited amount of supplies is entering Gaza. So people remain in desperate need. This is resulting in chaos, in looting. And some people say that this is not by accident, that this could be part of the Israeli strategy to perhaps put more pressure on Hamas in Gaza.

Yeah, because Hugo, when you and I spoke a couple of hours ago, the reports then were that people in Gaza were being attacked by Palestinian gunmen. What was that? Did you stand that up? Exactly. So we had, you know, some reports suggesting that there were some gunmen in the crowd as, you know, people were trying to steal flour from this aid convoy. We know that the Israeli authorities are now supporting militiamen and armed groups in Gaza, groups that are opposed to Hamas. So I think critics of this new mechanism and critics of the Israeli government say that this could be part of the strategy here to put more pressure on

Hamas. But obviously, you know, this is just another complication, if you like, for these Palestinians who are, you know, trying to get aid at these, you like, for these Palestinians who are trying to get aid at these distribution centres. And this morning the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees posted a message on social media saying, another day of aid distribution, another day of death traps. Hugo, 24 hours ago we were talking about the group of activists including the Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg who were detained aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat. What happened to them? Yes, so they were trying to breach this naval blockade that has been imposed by Israel on Gaza for almost 20 years since 2007 when Hamas

took control of Gaza. They were saying that they were trying to, you know, deliver a symbolic amount of aid to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the restrictions on aid that have been imposed by Israel. So officials in Israel have begun deporting the 12 activists who were on this ship. The flight carrying Greta Thunberg landed about 30 minutes ago in Paris but at least five activists have refused to sign their deportation orders and remain detained in Israel. Hugo Bachega in Jerusalem. The British government has sanctioned two far-right Israeli government ministers. The security minister Itamar Ben-Ghavir and the

finance minister Betzalel Smotarich will both face a travel ban and see their assets frozen. Israel's foreign affairs minister called the move outrageous. With more, here's our diplomatic correspondent James Landale. Well this is the first time that the British government has actually targeted members of the Israeli government. If you think about it, the British have imposed sanctions on you know various Israelis, particularly settlers in the West Bank and elsewhere. And since last month when David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, stood up in the House of Commons and was very, very critical of these two ministers,

both of them far-right nationalists, both of whom are key parts of the coalition that forms Israel's government at the moment, Mr. Lammy describing them as monstrous and extremists for what they had said, specifically about two things, really. One is about the restriction of aid from Gaza and also their calls for the relocation of Palestinians outside of Gaza. Israeli ministers have confirmed it. For example, the foreign minister, Gideon Sarr,

has said this was an outrageous decision, that elected representatives are subject to these measures. He's discussed it with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister. They're going to hold a special government meeting next week to decide what the response is to what he calls this unacceptable decision. Both of the ministers who've been sanctioned have also commented and criticised it in biblical terms. I mean, the restrictions are technical, that you can't travel to the UK, you can't have any kind of financial links with the UK. It's never automatically clear how much financial engagement these two ministers have with the UK. But what it means is family, relations, others, they can't travel to the UK. If there's any kind of financial link,

any kind of linkage. So it can constrain but the impact is political, it's symbolic. What does it tell us then about the UK government's changing position perhaps on the war in Gaza? Look, this is a continuation of a ramping up of frustration and increased pressure on the Israelis. If you think about it, in recent months you've had a joint statement from Keir Starmer, President Macron, the Canadian saying, look, we now think there is a serious risk that Israel's actions in Gaza are breaking international law. A few weeks ago you had the UK suspending trade talks with Israel. This is the latest stage. The question is where does that stop? And also the political pressure. How

intense would you say it is on the UK government at the moment in terms of public opinion on what they're watching and seeing every day? I think the sense is that it's rising. I think certainly that in terms of public opinion on what they're watching and seeing every day? I think the sense is that it's rising. I think that certainly in terms of as reflected, the popular will as reflected through MPs, if you hear those debates in parliament now, whenever this comes up it's quite sort of regular, it is cross-party. The scale of the concern about what's happening, the opposition to the Israeli government's policy seems to be growing and And there are people in parliament

who have been longstanding supporters of the state of Israel who are finding increasingly hard to justify the actions that have been taken by Israeli forces in Gaza. James Landale speaking to Lucy Hockings. When the war was started after the October the 7th massacre, Israel was united in its response and aims, defeat Hamas and

get back all the hostages. But 20 months later, those two objectives haven't been achieved and some Israelis are feeling war fatigue while others remain adamant that the army should continue fighting in Gaza. Our Jerusalem correspondent Lucy Williamson has been gauging opinion. Support for ending the war is growing in Israel. Bring them all! Now! But the big anti-war demos are focused on freeing Israeli hostages, not easing the suffering of Gazans.

Yitzhak, a reservist officer on his second tour of duty, he says it's time to end the war. A year ago stating these opinions openly was very unpopular in the military especially. Today people are tired of this war, we hate it, we don't enjoy doing this and we're done. And if like if you bring in the hostages it becomes a much more acceptable opinion to say we're definitely willing to stop the war if you can promise me all the hostages return. That is something I would fully accept. I totally endorse that opinion. Even with anti-war sentiment growing, lobbying to end the suffering of Gazans

is a lonely place to be in Israel. Al Mubek is one of the organizers of a new kind of demonstration here. Silent vigils of a few hundred people holding pictures of Ghazan children killed or injured in the war. People will react to very violently call us names, wish us rape, you know, wish us death, things like that. There's kind of like a wall of denial that's very, very strong. I think this was sort of the first instance where humanizing those numbers, you know, that they're hearing about, giving them a face, giving them a story. I think for a lot of people that's the first time that they're actually coming face to face with that. Mayan Eliyahu-Effah says her views have lost her friendships. When I hear the bombs of the Israeli military in Gaza, it's like tearing me apart. Even my friends that hear these bombs and say, OK, they deserve it.

I just can't look them in the eyes, you understand? Attitudes to the war are now sharply divided along political lines. Even among right-wing voters, support for the war is starting to slip. But surveys suggest more than half of them still back it, compared to just 6% of those on the left. And hard-right nationalists in Benjamin Netanyahu's government are fiercely in favor, spying an opportunity to resettle and even annex Gaza. Thousands flooded roads near the Israeli

parliament last week in support of their prime minister. The crowd surging past reinforced buses, ferrying in settlers from the occupied West Bank. There's a lot of religious families here, a lot of Israeli flags and a lot of guns as well. You don't find people here saying they're exhausted or disillusioned by 20 months of war. Quite the contrary, they're telling us that it's made them more certain of their views. I met Yisrael standing in a blue baseball cap near the entrance. We can't end the war.

The Hamas and their whole infrastructure is totally taken apart. If you leave it the way it is now, the situation will come back in another two, three, four years, they'll rebuild everything. It's not just a decision of just the hostages. Avigdor Bargiel said the war should stop only when Hamas is on its knees and that Gazans should move to other countries. Moving forward to go to Indonesia, to go to Europe, to go to French. Macron loved them very much. Also in Britain, also the BBC, you like them very much. But Gaza is where they live, it's their home.

Gaza? It's not their home, they took it. They come take our land. This is our land. This is the land that God gave us by the Torah. The war bestowed a brief moment of unity on Israel, a country that was previously deeply divided over its values and identity. Now those divisions are surfacing again, not driven by horror at Gaza's suffering, but by horror that Jews could leave Jews in captivity, and by a deeply divisive Prime Minister and by the realisation that despite everything that's happened, Israel is still at war with itself. Lucy Williamson with that report. At least nine people have been killed in a shooting

at a secondary school in the Austrian city of Graz. Several people, including students and teachers, have also been seriously wounded. A police spokesman is quoted as saying the suspect appears to have killed himself. He's believed to have acted alone. Crisis centres have been set up for those affected and their relatives. The Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker has described the shooting as a national tragedy. Dear Austrians and everyone who lives here, dear ladies and gentlemen, representatives of the media, today is a dark day in the history of our country. The school shooting here in Graz in the school Borg, Dreierschutzengasse, is a national tragedy,

which affects us deeply. Our Europe Regional Editor, Danny Aberhart, is following developments. We know the shooting started about ten o'clock in the morning local time, Alex. The school affected is a place in the north west of Gratz and the police responded seemingly quickly in very large numbers. It was about 90 minutes before they came out and said that actually there is no more danger, the school has been evacuated but by that time the attacker had left a trail of devastation with we know nine victims. We don't know how many exactly were students. There were some reports that seven of those were students

and at least one adult and also we believe that the shooter killed himself. The issue of who that person was has not been confirmed by the police. There are local media reports that suggest that he's a 22-year-old former student. The police have said they believe he was acting alone, but they have not speculated about a motive. And we know that there are many people who are in those crisis centres being treated by psychologists and healthcare professionals because this is a major tragedy. Yeah, this is not what you expect to happen in Austria at all, is it? No, Austria is generally considered a very safe country.

It does have a relatively high gun ownership by comparison with some European countries, but it's still way, way down on a country, for example, like the United States where school shootings are quite common. So school shootings in Austria are vanishingly rare. I struggle to think of any. There are sometimes violent attacks. So, for example, in 2020 there was a terrorist attack in Vienna. There's no suggestion at this stage that this was terrorist at all. Danny Eberhardt and Three Days of Mourning have been declared in Austria. Mexico is facing mounting pressure from President Trump to curb drug trafficking,

particularly of methamphetamine and the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Well, on Monday, the Mexican authorities said they'd seized more than 40 tonnes of drugs worth $50 million during raids on illegal labs. We'll grant reports from Mexico. The seizure of such a huge quantity of methamphetamine and precursor chemicals, with a value running into the tens of millions of dollars, will be considered another welcome victory for President Claudia Sheoenbaum and her security strategy.

In total more than 42 tonnes of the synthetic drug were found by marines in an operation supported by public security forces in the western state of Mitua Khan. Five properties were raided which were apparently being used as clandestine laboratories for production of the drug, while photographs released by the authorities appear to show drums of precursor chemicals discovered in a warehouse. With this latest seizure, one of the largest of its kind, it is becoming increasingly clear that President Shane Baume and her security team have moved on from her predecessor's strategy on the drug cartels. Ex-President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was often criticised

by his opponents for running a strategy characterised as hugs not bullets, which they say failed to tackle the country's drug cartels effectively or to bring down enough cartel leaders. In her first year in office, President Sheinbaum has placed more emphasis on clamping down on the traffic of the synthetic opioid fentanyl and other drugs over the border into the United States. In part she has come under great pressure from the Trump administration to act on the issue. However her administration has also registered noticeable increases in fentanyl seizures as well as captured several high-profile cartel figures in recent months. Will Grant.

Still to come in this podcast. K-pop fans go wild after two of the genre's biggest stars are discharged following military service. One in five people globally say they won't have as many children as they'd like to. That's according to a survey by the United Nations Population Fund, the agency that aims to improve reproductive and maternal health. It says financial limitations are holding millions of people back from having bigger families. It's the UN's strongest line yet on the declining

birth rate in many parts of the world. The BBC's global population correspondent, Stephanie Hegarty, has seen the report. So the crisis that the UN is labelling here is the fact that people aren't having the families that they want. They say most people want to have two or more children, but they can't reach those goals. Many will have more than they want, but the majority they're saying are having fewer than they want. And that's mainly, they found, because of financial limitations. So they've done a survey, it's a pilot survey in anticipation of more work they're going to do later in the year in many more countries, but this one is 14,000 people in 14 countries. They're a mix of low and high income and low and high fertility. And

what they're finding is financial limitations are a big barrier to people having the families that they want. So that's the cost of education, healthcare, transport. I spoke to a woman in India who said even the school bus was pushing their family over the edge and that was the reason why she wasn't having a second child. So financial limitations are a huge problem here. There are lots of other barriers to people having children but the main message is people want to have more children in many parts of the world but they just find that they can't. And so what, is there any kind of advice from the UN to governments to how they could rectify this?

So what they are advising against are knee-jerk, panicky responses to low fertility and they're saying that any policies that governments do come up with should be rooted in human rights, in reproductive choice, in those decisions that families are making. But they are advising that governments to tackle things like housing, employment opportunity, all the general things that governments are trying to improve anyway. But they're saying that things that don't work often are the baby bonuses or these upfront payments to families to try and convince them to have more kids. So it's quite saying that things that don't work often are the baby bonuses or these upfront payments to families to try and convince them to have more kids. So it's quite complicated and the

solutions aren't straightforward but I think that the main message of this report is that the focus really has to be on choice. And when you mentioned one of the main factors was going to be able to afford it, what other things were part of that picture? So interestingly when it came to things like infertility the difficulty conceiving was only 12% of people who didn't have the children that they want who were surveyed who said that infertility was a problem but on the other hand not being able to find a suitable partner was slightly higher so it's really complex here and often it wasn't just infertility

but there were other issues around health care people not feeling their general health was not good enough to have the number of children they want. And then various other issues like people felt that their partner wasn't doing enough of the work at home, that was a barrier to them deciding to have another child. So really complex and quite wide ranging. Stephanie Hegarty talking to Lauren Taylor. There's an emergency in Japan, a rice emergency. Prices have doubled since last year and home-grown supplies are running low. Rice isn't just a Japanese food staple but a source of pride. The crisis has caused widespread anger, as Shyamaka Leal reports. It's a busy afternoon in Akadai, a small local supermarket chain here in Tokyo. Many customers are milling about carrying the day's groceries.

It's been a tough couple of years for Japanese households. They've struggled with inflation, high prices, stagnant wages, and a sluggish economy. And yet, not many could see the rice crisis coming. Hiromichi Akeba is the owner of the Akedai supermarket chain. He tells me this really hit Japanese families where it hurt. Honestly speaking, our customers are in trouble. Many other things like food prices had gone up. Then the rice, which had been inexpensive, went up so sharply.

Images of long lines of people queuing up to get their hands on a bag of rice shocked the public here. Momoko Abbey is here shopping with her four months old baby. As you know, it's a staple in our lives and it's something that we haven't really... I mean, maybe it's sort of a ticket for granted and it was quite shocking that the price could rise within such a short period of time. The government has started releasing rice from its emergency natural disaster reserve, but it's been very slow getting to consumers. They're also considering importing rice. Climate is a part of this dim picture. The rice harvest in 2023 was compromised by extreme heat,

which affected the supply. Over-tourism also played a part. Last year, Japan received a record of nearly 40 million visitors, putting increased pressure on rice demands. Also in 2024, Japanese families were jolted when a warning was issued of a possible megaquake, which triggered hoarding and panic buying. The current Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has vowed to bring the prices down and to modify the supply chain.

More rice has gone into the system, but not nearly enough. The problem is more structural here. For decades, Japan has tightly regulated rice production to avoid supply overflow and to control prices. The policy is called GENTAN. The idea is that Japanese farmers produce just enough to supply the domestic market. But this policy backfired with one expert describing it as disastrous. Mr. Akiba says it leaves the country vulnerable.

This gentan policy, the government has been telling farmers don't grow rice, don't grow rice. But farmers really should. Also, considering the aging population of farmers, I'd like the government to plan for the years ahead. Rice is also very political here. Most farmers sell their rice through the JA, the Japan Agriculture Co-ops, a powerful interest group with connections to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. They're known to influence votes in rural Japan, so they're much appeased by many politicians. The JA sell to the wholesalers who sell to the supermarket chains.

Essentially they control the supply chain. These kind of politics can really affect what we are eating. It affects many people's business as well. It's a really big issue that is really affecting the ruling party now." Japan imports over half of its food, but the Japanese are very particular about the rice. The oval-shaped sticky japonica grain used in sushi is part of Japan's culture, tradition and national pride. For many here, this is about much more than putting food on the table. Shai'ma Khalil. Artificial intelligence will dramatically reshape our societies and workforces in the coming years,

opening up significant opportunities and some potential challenges. But it's giving rise to fears, too, about AI's potential to put humans' very existence at risk. Yoshua Bengio is known as one of the three godfathers of AI who jointly won the ACM Turing Award which is the computer science equivalent of the Nobel Prize. He's launched a non-profit AI organisation, Law Zero, working on AI safeguards to spot rogue systems attempting to deceive humans.

My colleague James Cotnell spoke to Yoshua Bengio. AI is becoming smarter and smarter after each version that the companies are putting out and it's being deployed in ways that will touch people as new services that can be useful, but also tasks that are going to be automated more and more, which could eventually affect more and more people. AI is also a place where there's huge investments happening. Huge quantities of energy are being funneled into training these systems, which will eventually also have an effect on the price of energy as the demand is growing exponentially. The capabilities of AI are under rise. So thinking about what AI is doing now is not really sufficient to take good decisions.

You have to think that it's probably going to continue getting more and more capable and you have to anticipate and plan for that. As you think about these big questions, you've noticed that some AI models already seem to be developing some dangerous behaviours and capabilities. Can you explain a bit more? In the last six months, there's been a series of papers and reports from companies and organisations that evaluate those AIs showing that the most advanced AIs show more and more signs of deception, cheating, lying, trying to blackmail people in order to achieve their goals.

And in many cases, they have goals that we would not like, like self-preservation, trying to avoid being shut down. For example, when the AI reads that it's going to be replaced by a new version, it will try to avoid that, try to hack the computer in order to avoid that, try to, as I said, blackmail the leading engineer in charge. And of course, these are controlled experiments, where the engineers are trying to catch the AI doing something bad, but still these behaviors are happening and they're on the rise

and the companies don't really know how to fix those problems. It's like a child who's doing bad things and lying and we still don't know how to induce good behavior, but it's eventually going to be adolescent and eventually going to be an adult. The projections vary depending on opinions, but some quantitative studies suggest we might get to human level, at least on some domains, within five years.

Artificial intelligence researcher Yoshua Bengio. K-pop is a global music phenomenon and its biggest stars are arguably BTS. But the South Korean boy band had to stop performing so that all seven members could carry out 18 months of mandatory military service. Two of them have just finished and as Jean Mackenzie reports, adoring crowds were ready to greet them. Hundreds of fans gathered outside two army bases this morning as the singers RM and V were released. The men came out in their military uniforms, saluting the crowds. One played a saxophone. They thanked fans for waiting for them and promised to be back soon with a really cool performance.

BTS announced their hiatus in 2022 so that all seven members could serve in the military. This is mandatory for all men in South Korea, so the country can be ready to fight the North. The final band member is due to be discharged later this month, meaning their much anticipated comeback is now within sight. Gene McKenzie in Seoul. 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 James Piper and the producers were Daniel Mann and Peter Hyatt. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritzen. Until next time, goodbye.