Global News Podcast - Trump says US to 'takeover' and 'own' Gaza

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

President Trump says the US to 'takeover' Gaza. His comments have caused anger and dismay across the region and beyond. Also: the first glimpse inside a burnt scroll after 2,000 years.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and at 14 Hours GMT on Wednesday the 5th of February, these are our main stories. Donald Trump's declaration that the US will take over Gaza sparks widespread condemnation. We'll have reaction from around the world. Lawmakers in the Philippines vote to impeach the Vice President, Sara Duterte following

complaints about alleged corruption and an assassination threat. Also in this podcast… The enormous responsibility which had come to me. I didn't feel prepared for it. It was a very, very heavy burden to take over from a man of such status as my grandfather. We look back on the life of the billionaire spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, who has died at the age of 88. There's been widespread condemnation

of Donald Trump's plan for the US to take over Gaza and move out the Palestinians living there so that he can, in his words, turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East. Mr. Trump made the announcement at a joint news conference with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he thought Jordan and Egypt would take in the more than two million Palestinians who currently live in Gaza, this despite their previous statements refuting the idea when he first floated it last month. At the White House news conference Mr Trump put forward his vision

for how Gaza, much of which lies in ruins, should be rebuilt. The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It's right now a demolition site. They can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again. The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Mr. Trump's plan to occupy Gaza seems to amount to an abandonment of decades of US policy to find a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict. Mr. Netanyahu praised it as an idea worth paying attention to, calling Mr. Trump the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House. But these Palestinians in Gaza said they would resist any attempt to remove them. We reject the decision to displace the Palestinians from Gaza and Palestine. We will not leave our land. As for me, I will not leave Gaza. None of us will leave our country and will not kneel to anyone." We were surprised by Trump's decision to displace the entire Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan and we categorically reject this decision. We refuse to leave Gaza during the war and we are staying here. We will not leave at all. I got more on the Palestinian and Israeli reaction from our Middle East correspondent

Yolande Nel. Well, we had a senior Israeli official being quoted in the news this morning saying that this visit surpassed all of our expectations and dreams. Trump raised ingenious solutions to problems that have been with Israel ever since it was established. The conventional wisdom prior to Mr Netanyahu going to Washington for this trip was that President Trump might well try to push this idea of paving the way for an independent Palestinian state because the US has been working very much on trying to get a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. On the far right in Israel you have the key political figure, Itamar Ben-Gavir, really welcoming

this proposal to remove Palestinians from Gaza and rebuild it, saying that if the Prime Minister was going to act on that plan, then the chances were good that he would rejoin his coalition government. This statement from Donald Trump comes as negotiations are beginning for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire. Are people not worried about the impact that his words could have on their hopes of securing the release of the hostages? Certainly, the families of the hostages who remain in Gaza worry that this could undermine the existing ceasefire, which is bringing

some of their loved ones home and these discussions now taking place on the next stage. And just to remind people that the second stage of the ceasefire is supposed to see a full end to the fighting in Gaza and the remaining Israeli hostages, about 60 of them, not all of whom are alive, being returned. And evidently this is yet more bad news for Palestinians who have suffered so much. Yeah, so we had, you know, Palestinians in general sort of expressing bewilderment at all of this and saying, you know, not only does it upend decades of international policy, they question its

legality under international law. They believe this is a fundamental sort of misunderstanding of their connection to the land and indeed, you know, it's competing claims to the land that is at the heart of the decades old Israel-Palestinian conflict. And we've had Hamas also speaking very strongly against this, as you would expect. One figure, Sami Abu Zuhri, saying this was ridiculous and absurd, what's been put on the table. Ideas of this kind, he said, were capable of igniting the region. And that is something that is reflected actually quite widely, this idea that this could cause broader instability in the region if President Trump presses ahead with it. instability in the region if President Trump presses ahead with it. Jolande Nell in Jerusalem. So what's the reaction been in the US itself to Donald

Trump's plan? Dennis Ross, his former US ambassador to Israel. Very clear that one of the things he wants to do is kind of create a whole new reality by challenging the conventional wisdom. You could say he has done that, but he still has to have Arab states who are prepared to go along. And this is clearly very difficult for Arab states to go along because whether he intends it this way, and I'm not sure that he does,

I really think he seems to intend this more as we're gonna transform an area, a land area that has always been impoverished. It's a real estate building problem. It's not a political problem. The problem, I think, for President Trump is that in the region it's looked at as a political issue. With more reaction here's CBS correspondent Naomi Ruckham. Most analysts and experts we were hearing from this morning believe this entire plan

of a U.S. takeover of Gaza is just not based in reality to begin with. So we can start with that. In a word, it is shock across the country. There are very few concrete details to the proposal so far, and there has been a lot of shock and pushback from Arab nations, allies, and yes, local politicians. Even fellow Republicans are skeptical, especially given their general reluctance for American

resources to be used in foreign conflicts. Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, said that most people in his district would not be excited about sending Americans over to Gaza, but that he'd keep an open mind. And Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut simply said he believes the president has completely lost it, calling the plan sick. Naomi Ruckham. And it's not just in the US. Turkey has called Mr Trump's Gaza plan unacceptable. Brazil's President Lula said it made no sense.

France and Germany said expelling Gazans would be contrary to international law. The UN's chief of human rights, Volker Turk, said any deportation of people from occupied territory was strictly prohibited. And the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, said there had to be a two-state solution. We've always been clear in our belief that we must see two states. We must see Palestinians able to live and prosper

in their homelands, in Gaza, in the West Bank. That is what we want to get to. Saudi Arabia has led the condemnation in the Arab world amid fears the plans could further destabilize the Middle East. Mr Trump has criticised previous US presidents for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq. But since being re-elected, he has talked about the United States taking over Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and now Gaza. Here's the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucet. Well, the last thing that countries in the region want is more instability.

And I can imagine they are now reeling from this latest proposal from President Trump. It was so startling that Saudi Arabia felt that it had to release a press statement in the middle of the night when it heard President Trump saying to questions, well, that Saudi Arabia wouldn't insist on a Palestinian state for a normalization deal. It's statement absolutely underlined. And I heard it myself when I was in Riyadh in January, that unless there is a pathway to a Palestinian state, they will not engage with the Israelis and the Americans on that normalization deal that the Abraham Accords, as it was called in President Trump's first term, that is also on President Trump's mind.

The King Abdullah of Jordan will be the next leader from the region to see President Trump face to face. No doubt he will make clear his views, and they will be the same views, Jeannotte, that he made clear. I remember so clearly that in President Trump's first term, that even before he was invited, King Abdullah of Jordan flew to Washington to see President Trump. That is how crucial it is for Jordan that there not be the kind of measures that President

Trump is talking about now. Moving what would be forcibly displacing, President Trump says, oh, they wouldn't be forced, but there is a sense in which there's going to be a temporary shift of Palestinians that would be destabilizing for Jordan, destabilizing for Egypt. We haven't heard a statement yet in response to President Trump's latest intervention but at the weekend a number of Arab leaders all of whom are expected to play a role in this fragile Gaza ceasefire is that they reject any any moves to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza. But it seems that Mr. Trump thinks he can force Jordan and Egypt which have already expressed their opposition to such a move, to do this. And it's not only stunning what he said, but it's also shocking that he's so vague in talking about something that could potentially uproot so many lives.

This is the big question now. What we have seen is how President Trump prides himself on his transactional approach to deal making. He started his second term talking about being a peacemaker. But what we have seen in the first term, it's very much in the sort of a property developer that he is, a real estate man. You give me this and I'll give you that. Jordan and Idwit are so dependent on the United States for aid, they don't really have much to give in return.

But the wealthy Gulf states do, and don't really have much to give in return. But the wealthy Gulf states do, and that's where the bargaining may be. Liz Doucette, turning now to other news. Lawmakers in the Philippines have voted to impeach the Vice President. Sara Duterte has been accused of misusing millions of dollars in public funds and of threatening President Ferdinand Marcos with assassination. Vicky Bristo reports. For several weeks there have been petitions in the Philippines calling for the impeachment of Ms Duterte, the daughter of the controversial former President Rodrigo Duterte. On Wednesday

the lower house of congress decided to look at the issue. Impeachment complaint against Vice President Saraah z duterte the vice president has been accused of misusing public funds she also made the extraordinary claim that she'd arranged for a hitman to kill the president ferdinand marcos if she herself was killed some see the impeachment as part of the ongoing feud between mr marcos and Vice President. The pair were allies at the last election, but have since had a very public falling out. Having been filed by more than one third of the membership of the House... In the end, legislators endorsed the motion to impeach

and applauded the decision. APPLAUSE The Philippine Senate will now decide Mr. Tertes' fate at a date yet to be fixed. The outcome is uncertain. Mickey Bristow, the billionaire spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, the Aga Khan, has died in Portugal. He was 88. For more than 60 years, he was the hereditary imam of the 15 million strong branch of Shia Islam. His followers saw him as a direct descendant

of the Prophet Muhammad. He was known for his love of horse racing, his dazzling wealth, and his development work around the world. Doreen Walton looks back at his life. Kareem Agha Khan IV was a religious leader who governed no territory, but owned numerous estates, houses, farms, a private island, a jet and hundreds

of racehorses, including the 1981 Derby winner Shergar. There's only one horse in it. You need a telescope to see the rest. They have a polo to go and Shergar is galloping up into the ground. The ease with which that horse moved. During the finishing straight he just kept going away, going away, going away. That was remarkable. Shergar was kidnapped by gunmen in Ireland two years later and never seen again. The Aga Khan inherited his title at the age of 20 and while studying at Harvard.

The title skipped a generation. His father was renowned for being something of a playboy, although the old Aga Khan had said he wanted his successor to be of the modern world. The new prince told the BBC of his feelings at his appointment. The first one was the enormous responsibility which had come to me. I didn't feel prepared for it. It was a very, very heavy burden to take over from a man of such status as my grandfather. Had you in fact known before that evening that you were going to carry this burden? No I didn't. No I had no idea about that.

The Agha Khan was a competitive downhill skier representing Iran in the 1964 Olympics. He dismissed criticism that he was westernised. As a young man he told the BBC he preferred ballet or theatre to night clubs although he might go occasionally. He was shy of publicity about his private life. A ten-year legal battle with his second wife over a 60 million euro divorce made headlines he did not relish. The Aga Khan could pull strings at the highest levels. When, in 1972, people of South Asian origin were expelled from Uganda, the Aga Khan called his friend, the then Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, and asked him to do something.

My close ties with Canada go back almost four decades, to the time when many thousands of Asian refugees from Uganda, including many Ismailis, were welcomed so generously in this society. He was once asked if the Ismaili community worshipped him. No, they certainly don't. For any Muslim it would be about the greatest sin you could do. You ought to remember what the Quran says about this. Ismailis follow a branch of Shia Islam. They regard the Aga Khan as a direct descendant

of the Prophet Muhammad. Most of his wealth came from tithes or voluntary cash donations by community members, but much of it went to charitable causes. ["Tarot of the Tithes"] but much of it went to charitable causes. A surrender class in the Aga Khan music school in Kabul, helping ensure Afghanistan's cultural traditions are continued, part of what the Aga Khan may best be remembered for, his development network.

Khufran Umar is one of the young musicians. It is my country's own instrument. It's my country's music. I'm learning it because it's good for our future. The Aga Khan development network runs hundreds of hospitals and education, cultural and economic projects, mainly in low and middle income countries. That report by Doreen Walton.

Still to come. This might be the most exciting herculaneum scroll we've ever scanned. We're confident we will be able to read pretty much the scroll in its entirety is what it looks like we're going to be able to do. A 2,000 year old scroll that was too frail to open after being burnt in the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius has been digitally unwrapped. Police in Sweden are continuing to investigate what's been described as a deadliest mass shooting in the country's history. Ten people were killed and six others were wounded by a gunman at an adult education center in the city of Örebro on Tuesday. This student Mawa described how she tried to help the victims. A guy next to me was shot in the shoulder. He was bleeding a lot.

When I looked behind me, I saw three people on the floor bleeding. Everyone was shocked. They said, go out, get out. My friend and I tried to save the life of this person. But people were very shocked. The police were not on site, and neither was the ambulance. So we had to help. Police say the attacker is also dead and that he acted alone as they tried to establish his motive.

Our correspondent, Nick Beek, is at the site of the shooting in Irribrew. We've just arrived at the school complex. It's a big site with lots of different schools. What happened yesterday was that one particular centre that was for adult learning was the epicentre of this attack and this morning I'm just looking there are still lots of police here. Flowers and candles have been left and a few of them are alight at the moment. Lots and lots of press as well. There is this vacuum of information at the moment because we haven't really learnt a huge amount in the past 12 hours. The police

are saying that they haven't named the attacker. They do say that he is among the 11 people dead. The police are also saying that they believe he acted alone, didn't seem to be part of a gang. Detectives say they don't believe this was an act of terror. Swedish media reporting that this was a 35-year-old man, the perpetrator, who's described as a local recluse and someone who legally had a gun. But, worth stressing, this is unconfirmed for now. And do we have any idea why he might have targeted this particular school, a school for adults? Do we have any information about the victims?

No we don't. So no information about their backgrounds, who they were, whether this was targeted or random in terms of the classroom and locations within the complex that the gunman chose. This is a centre which like others here in Sweden are for people who haven't finished their sort of secondary school education, so people typically 20 years old and above. Within that you do see a lot of people who arrive in Sweden who learn the language and further their studies but there's no suggestion at the moment, no evidence that this was a central part of the gunman's thinking but clearly along with lots of other things it's something that detectives will be looking at

and there are reports that they searched the gunman's house yesterday. And a huge sense of shock in Sweden at this killing, which has been described as the deadliest mass shooting in Sweden's history. That's right. The Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was an act of brutal and lethal violence, saying that it was difficult to take in the magnitude of what had happened. And I think for Swedes this morning, it's something which clearly has shocked so many people. The flags are at half mast. But it is something that is very very rare this sort of school shooting. The numbers dead is

unprecedented. It does though come within the context of growing violence it would seem within the country because just last week the prime minister admitted the government had basically lost control over a spiralling wave of violence. Worth pointing out this is specifically linked to gang violence and we've seen a lot of bombings last month actually it averaged about one a month different rival gangs targeting each other with bombs and other sort of attacks. rival gangs targeting each other with bombs and other sort of attacks. Nick Beek in Sweden. What's thought to be the first United States military deportation flight to India has landed in Punjab, carrying about 100 Indians who'd entered the US illegally or overstayed visas.

President Trump has made the mass deportation of undocumented foreign nationals a key policy pledge. Samira Hussain reports from Amritsar. The Indian nationals aboard the US military aircraft are believed to have entered the United States illegally. Once processed by the Indian government, they will board buses and be sent back to their home states. Deportation flights are not new, but this may be the first time a US military aircraft was used to return individuals to India. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump enjoy a friendly relationship but illegal immigration could become a contentious issue between the two. Samira Hussain, historic buildings in the Iraqi city

of Mosul, including churches and mosques, are being reopened after years of reconstruction in the aftermath of the devastation wrought by the so-called Islamic State. The first battle to defeat and drive the group from the city ended in 2017. The project began a year later in Mosul. It has been organised and funded by UNESCO. Our Middle East regional editor Sebastian Usher reports. The bells of Al-Tahirah Church ring out across Mosul, a symbol of the rebirth of the old city that was left devastated eight years ago after the battle to drive ISIS out.

It was like a ghost town, dead bodies around, sickening smell and horrible scenes of the city and the skyline without the hadba minaret. The cityscape is full of rubble and the river of Tigris, one of the most joyous places around town. A Mosul photographer Ali Al-Barroudi recalls the horror that greeted him when he first entered the old city shortly after the street-by-street battle was over in 2017 with the gloriously skewed Al-Hadbar minaret, known as the hunchback, that had been emblematic of Mosul for hundreds of years in ruins. It was not the city that we knew. It was like a metamorphosis of... not even... we never

imagined that, not even in our worst nightmares. Eighty percent of the old city of Mosul and the West Bank of the Tigris was destroyed. It was not just the churches, mosques and old houses that needed to be repaired, but the community spirit of those who'd lived there for so long in relative harmony between religions and ethnicities. A year later, the huge task of rebuilding began under the auspices of UNESCO with a budget of $115 million that the UN cultural agency had managed to drum up, much of it from the UAE and the European Union.

Father Olivier Pocion, a Dominican priest, returned to Mosul to help oversee the restoration of the Convent of Notre Dame de L'Eure, known locally as Alsace, which was founded nearly 200 years ago. We started by the beginning, trying first to gather a team, a team composed of people from old Mosul, from different denominations, Christians, Muslims, working all together. That was the first challenge we had to face, and that was probably the greatest achievement, because if you want to rebuild a building, you've got to first to rebuild trust. In charge of the entire project, which included the restoration of 124 old houses, has been the architect Maria Rita Acatoso, who came

to Mosul straight from restoration work for UNESCO in Afghanistan. I hope the reconstruction can bring back hope in the affected communities and can favour the recovery of their cultural identity and memory. Eight years on, the major landmarks of Mosul are restored. The wriggling minaret of Al-Hadba, the convent, the church of Al-Tahirah and the complex of Al-Nuri mosque and people have been able to return to the houses that have in some cases been home to their families for centuries. My house was built in 1864. Unfortunately, my house was destroyed partially during the Mosul Paral Liberation and it was unsuitable to live, especially with my children, so I decided to move to my

parents' house. I was very pleased and excited to see my house rebuilt again. The scars of what the people of Mosul endure are yet to heal, just as much of Iraq remains in a fragile state. But the rebirth from the rubble of the old city represents hope for a better future. That report by Sebastian Usher. A study suggests that banning the use of mobile phones in schools does not lead to pupils getting higher grades or having better mental health. Instead researchers in Britain found that it was the amount of time spent on smartphones and social media that had an impact. Bramwyn Jeffreys reports. The researchers compared the habits of more than 1200 teenagers in 20 schools which banned smartphones with 10 that allowed some

use at break times. They found modest differences in the use of phones but none in measures of mental well-being, anxiety and depression. Grades in maths and English appeared to be the same. This study suggests that regardless of what schools do, the biggest impact comes from how teenagers use smartphones in their spare time. Bramwyn Jeffreys. X-ray scans and artificial intelligence have been used to reveal the contents of an ancient badly burnt scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum. The document was charred by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, meaning it would have been destroyed by any

attempt to physically unroll it. Our science editor Rebecca Morell has more. The ancient scroll held by the Bodleian Library at Oxford University was thought to be unreadable. It looks like a lump of charcoal and any attempts to prise it open would see it crumble to dust. But now scientists have turned to technology. Powerful x-ray scans have enabled the team to locate every layer inside the scroll. There are about 10 metres of tightly rolled papyrus. And AI has been used to detect any ink. The result is a digitally unrolled scroll showing columns and rows of text, with some letters clearly visible. More work is to be done to make all the text legible, but Stephen Parsons from the Vesuvius Challenge says it looks extremely promising.

It's still pretty early with this scroll, but so far from what we've found, this might be the most exciting Herculaneum scroll we've ever scanned. We're confident we will be able to read pretty much the scroll in its entirety is what it looks like we're going to be able to do. But by all appearances today, this will be the first scroll from Herculaneum that is virtually unwrapped in its entirety and made legible. The team believes it will be a work of Greek epicurean philosophy which teaches that fulfilment can be found through the pleasure of simple everyday things.

Rebecca Morell, now if you find it hard to go to sleep, this next item may help. And the secret is, no, not listening to this podcast, I hope, but wearing socks in bed. A video on TikTok from a doctor in America saying people who wear socks in bed fall asleep faster has been viewed more than three million times. Dr Lindsay Browning is a sleep psychologist. So the reality is as we fall asleep, our core body temperature needs to drop. Along with our melatonin, we start using melatonin to help us feel sleepy and our core temperature our body temperature needs to drop a bit. Now if we are too cold or too hot we

find it harder to sleep so wearing socks in bed in the winter especially if you're finding it hard to you know to pay the electricity to warm your house enough wearing socks in bed can really help with you to regulate the temperature because if you're too cold, you're not going to fall asleep. But also, if you wear socks, then what can happen? A small effect really, but it'll increase the vasodilation, the dilation of the blood vessels, which means there'll be more blood flowing to your extremities,

which can help with that sort of, that heat loss process. So there is a little bit of science to suggest that wearing socks in bed might help you to speed up that sort of core body temperature drop. If you make it part of your bedtime routine, for example, we all know that if you do the same kind of things before bed, if you use the same lavender pillow spray before bed or you read the same kind of book or you listen to the same music, doing the same thing before bed can help signal psychologically to your brain that sleep is coming.

All good tips there. Dr Lindsay Browning, sleep psychologist. 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 or topics covered, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Mark Pickett. The producer was Tracy Gordon. The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Janet Jaleel. Until next time, goodbye.