Reuters World News - A doctor's view inside Al Shifa, Iran's proxy scramble and Starship's relaunch

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

A surgeon inside the Al Shifa describes Israel's troops entering Gaza’s largest hospital after a gun battle at the gates. Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ against Israel faces a trial by fire. Elon Musk’s SpaceX prepares to relaunch Starship. Plus, the UK's Supreme Court deals a blow to the government's asylum program and Goldman Sachs' bonuses for star performers. Listen Now: What to expect from the Biden-Xi meeting Listen Now: SpaceX employees say they’re paying the price for Musk’s push to colonize Mars Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, Israeli soldiers raid Gaza's Al-Sheifa Hospital. The Axis of Resistance faces a trial by fire in Iran's proxy fight against Israel. Xi Jinping and Joe Biden meet in California. And SpaceX gets ready to relaunch the world's most powerful rocket. It's Wednesday, November 15. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Carmel Crimmons in Doug. And I'm Christopher Wal Jasper in Chicago.

Israel's military says it's carrying out a raid against Hamas militants in Gaza's largest hospital. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari insisting, Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza. He says that specialist forces, including medics and Arabic speakers, would go in. With the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians being used by Hamas as human shields. The move comes hours after U.S. intelligence, reported Israel's claims that Hamas is operating out of Al-Shefa. Reuters journalist Abir Al-Amar spoke to a surgeon in Al-Sheifa on the phone as Israel moved in.

Dr. Ahmad al-Makhalati tells Abir he can hear tanks moving within the hospital. And then... What are these sounds, doctor? I'm hearing sounds. Let's continue a shooting from the tanks. A hospital official says they're digging a mass grave to bury dead patients. The situation is dire for those still hanging on. and thousands more civilians are sheltering on the grounds. Israel says it soldiers have incubators for premature babies

whose care has been interrupted by fuel shortages. You gave us no warning. That's the message Iran's supreme leader delivered to the head of Hamas in a meeting in November, according to three officials. Reuters reporting out today lifts the veil on how the Islamic Republic is scrambling to activate its so-called axis of resistance after the Hamas attack. Arshod Muhammad is our Washington, D.C. based diplomatic correspondent.

Arshod, the axis of resistance is Iran's proxy alliance in the region. Can you start by just briefly explaining who makes up this axis? Sure. So basically it includes Iran, to some extent, the Syrian government, and then a series of allied militias in Lebanon, which is Hezbollah, in Iraq, in Syria, and in Yemen, which is the Houthis. Now, it seems like Iran and their proxies were caught off guard by that October 7th attack. How is this affecting their strategy? So right on the day of the Hamas attack, Hamas' military leader called for its allies to join the struggle.

And 10 days later, the head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyah, thanked his beloved for what they'd done, but said, quote, the battle requires more. The bottom line is that nobody, and certainly not His Bola, want to get into a full-blown war with Israel. For Hisbullah, there are two specific factors. One, they remember their 2006 war with Israel, in which Israel bombed vast areas of southern Lebanon and even the southern suburbs of Beirut, which was deeply unpopular with the Lebanese people. And secondly, Lebanon is going through a four-year financial crisis. And Hezbollah, which is a major part of the Lebanese sort of governing structure, does not want to turn the Lebanese people against it any further by getting into another war. How worried are the U.S. and Israeli officials about this axis of resistance? I think both U.S. and Israeli officials are worried about it.

The challenge, though, is that as the events have unfolded since October the 7th, there have been more than 40 attacks on U.S. interests in the Middle East by what the Pentagon says are Iranian-backed militias. And the United States has had three rounds of retaliatory attacks, including one on Sunday, in which a U.S. official told us that they believe the United States killed as many as seven people. Even if everyone quietly says they don't want things to get out of hand, all it takes is one major attack that kills a lot of people and things can deteriorate very quickly. U.S. public support for Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza is eroding. That's according to a

new Reuters Ipsos poll. The survey found most Americans think Israel should call a ceasefire. Some 32% of respondents said the U.S. should support Israel, down from 41% in October. Britain's Supreme Court has ruled a government plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful. The ruling deals a massive blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's immigration policy ahead of an expected election next year. President Joe Biden says he wants to restore normal communications with Beijing. To get back on a normal course of corresponding, being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another is a crisis, being able to make sure our military still have contact with one another.

Security is tight in the Bay Area ahead of Biden and President Xi Jinping's historic meeting. But protests have sprung up on a range of issues, a rarity in China. For more context for the Xi Biden meeting, listen to our weekend edition of the podcast, the links in the description. The bill has passed, and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. One thing Biden won't have to worry about while he's in San Francisco, a looming government shutdown, The House of Representatives passed a temporary spending bill that will extend government funding through mid-January. Speaker Mike Johnson relied on Democratic votes to get the legislation passed.

The bill now heads to the Senate. Big bonuses could be in store for Goldman Sachs' top traders this year. That's despite the fact that the investment bank's earnings are down 34% so far in 2023. Our U.S. finance editor, Lanan Wynne win, is in New York. Lanan, Goldman has had a real roller coaster of a year. So what's with these potentially big payouts? The rest of Wall Street is looking like it's having pretty lean times in terms of bonuses and compensation. But Goldman in particular wants to make sure that it can retain its top rock star traders and investment bankers.

So if the cycle changes and activity picks up again, they'll be in place. On top of which last year was a pretty negative year as well. And so a lot of people who maybe were a little bit unhappy about their bonuses, last year are also kind of being made up for this year. Now, big bonuses for the top talent doesn't mean good news for everyone, right? Precisely. This year is looking like a pretty negative year. The compensation consultants we've spoken to said that bonuses could fall in some cases

25% from last year. And so we're looking at a generally negative situation and potentially more layoffs across Wall Street as well. As early as Friday, SpaceX is Starship Super Heavy Rocket could once again take to the skies. That's the same type of craft that exploded over Texas last April. Our space correspondent Joey Roulette has been covering the anticipated launch. So Joey, what's at stake for SpaceX in this next launch?

There's a lot at stake. SpaceX is known to kind of have this testing culture where if something wrong happens with the hardware, they can pick it right back up and, launch again. But with Starship, it's a little different because right now it's at the center of NASA's Artemis program to return humans to the moon sometime later this decade. And that is a pretty competitive, globally competitive program with China. So what's at stake is the timeline for landing humans on the moon. And it's also SpaceX's launch business. Starship is not just a lunar lander. It's not just a Mars transportation vehicle to satisfy Musk's dreams of colonizing

other planets. It's kind of at the center of SpaceX's business idea for putting satellites into orbit and having a pretty lucrative Pentagon contracts as well. Now, as we detailed in our special episode this last weekend, SpaceX has had safety issues in its race to get into orbit. How is the company weighing these risks against this rush to achieve success? SpaceX is known to move incredibly fast and they've developed their spacecraft at speeds that other competitors can't really match. And the cost of all that has been a workplace that has not prioritized worker safety. There's been hundreds of injuries that we've found over the past several years that are

far higher than what its competitors are seeing in their workplaces. And so as SpaceX continues to try to meet these deadlines, and especially as they enter these programs that are more aligned with NASA and the U.S. government, I think it's going to be a challenge for all the stakeholders, including SpaceX, to figure out how they can do this safely for their workforce and how much the U.S. government wants to start looking at how their workplace functions as a matter of safety as well. You can find a link to the weekend podcast in today's show description. That's it for today's episode of Reuters World News.

We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player or download the Roald App.