Israel casts doubt on whether it will accept a new ceasefire proposal

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Julia McFarlane, and in the early hours of Wednesday, 20th of August, these are our main stories.

Israel casts doubt on whether it will accept a new ceasefire proposal.

Trump rules out U.S.

boots on the ground in Ukraine, but says Putin will face a rough situation if he doesn't cooperate.

Also, in this podcast, 10 years after 71 people died in an unventilated truck abandoned in Austria, we hear from their families.

Imagining like putting a lot of people in one truck and no air is just like a disaster.

All of that was because of money.

Over the past few days, we've focused on peace efforts in Ukraine, but behind closed doors, there have also been strenuous negotiations towards ending the fighting in Gaza.

On Monday, Hamas told the BBC it had accepted a proposal by Arab mediators involving a 60-day truce and the release of half of the hostages.

On Tuesday, an official in Prime Minister Netanyahu's office has told the BBC they would only agree to a ceasefire if all 50 remaining hostages, dead and alive, are released.

The latest proposals were part of a last-ditch effort by Qatar and Egypt to secure a ceasefire and a hostage release agreement to potentially avoid a major Israeli offensive to fully occupy Gaza.

David Menser is spokesman for the Israeli government.

The Prime Minister has laid out a plan for the future of Gaza.

And that means our ambitions are no more,

no more partial plans, no more dancing to the Hamas tune.

We want all of our hostages back.

We're not interested in partial deals, but our principle now is extremely clear.

All the hostages must be released immediately.

I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Emir Nada, if progress could still be made.

It's certainly dashing hopes.

This isn't, as you've mentioned, the formal response by Israel to Hamas's agreement to that proposal, but it does seem quite strong, the language that that we're hearing from Israeli government officials.

It does indeed look like they may reject the proposal that Hamas has signed up to, or at least try to substantially renegotiate it.

And for many, it is a surprise because this is a deal, the basis of which was essentially being negotiated upon as recently as last month.

However, others have also pointed out this hardening of language from the government in recent days.

And we heard just in the past few days Prime Minister Netanyahu talking about no more partial deals and that Israel was pushing for the full release of Israeli hostages.

We obviously don't know if this is part of a negotiating tactic as well.

And we also don't know when an official Israeli response might come.

But the deal, as we understand it, did include some softening of Hamas's position.

And so there were some hopes that it would receive a positive response in Israel.

That doesn't look to be the case.

We've heard from a White House briefing that the United States continues to discuss that ceasefire proposal for Gaza that Hamas has accepted.

Can you tell us more about what we believe is in those proposals?

So we understand from sources who are close to the talks, close to the negotiation, the discussions happening in Egypt, that it is essentially the same deal that was originally drafted by the US envoy Steve Witcoff.

It would have involved an initial sixty-day ceasefire period in which half of the hostages that are in Gaza would be released.

That includes living and those who aren't, the dead hostages, the bodies that remain there.

It would see prisoners being released from Israeli prisons going back to Gaza.

It would see Israeli troops withdraw from parts of the Gaza Strip towards a buffer zone.

And there had been some softening, it seemed like, of Hamas's position on those points.

And now, if we are to understand the messaging from these officials close to the Prime Minister, it looks like those concessions aren't enough for the Israeli side, and they'll push for a full release of Israeli hostages.

Emir Nada.

President Trump has ruled out sending American troops to Ukraine as part of any peacekeeping deal.

In his first interview since talks at the White House with President Zelensky, Mr.

Trump told the Fox News programme, Fox and Friends, that he had hopes that Vladimir Putin would move forward with plans to end the war, but he acknowledged it was possible the Russian president didn't want to make a deal.

He also repeated that Kyiv would not join NATO.

After confirming U.S.

troops would not be sent to Ukraine, Mr.

Trump insisted that major European powers would step up instead.

We've got the European nations and they'll front-load it and they'll have some of them, France and Germany,

UK, they want to have boots on the ground.

I don't think it's going to be a problem, to be honest with you.

I think Putin is tired of it.

I think they're all tired of it.

But you never know.

We're going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks, that I can tell you.

Our North America correspondent, Arunade Mukherjee, gave us this update.

At the moment, from what we've gathered in terms of statements from various leaders who were part of those conversations yesterday, and Donald Trump himself, by way of that interview and the brief clip that you played out, is that the focus and the thrust seems to largely be on two aspects.

One, to try and get that bilateral meeting done between the two leaders of the warring countries of Ukraine and Russia.

We still don't have a timeline of that, which I think is very critical.

We're waiting to get more details about what exactly will be the plan, the structure, because

only after that can there be a possibility of a trilateral.

And the second aspect that remains the focus at the moment in conversations would be the attempts by the U.S., along with their allies, to try and work out those security guarantees which they feel will be critical for Ukraine going forward, for Ukraine's security.

Now, the obvious part is, which we've heard from the European leaders, is that Europe is likely to have

the ability to deploy troops on the ground, although the modalities of all of that are still being worked out.

But I think the news lines that came out of President Trump were important, that he's completely ruling out boots on the ground for the US, but talking about support and also indicating at one point that it could be air support.

Now, we still don't know what exactly that means, whether that means surveillance, air combat,

intelligence, we still don't know.

But essentially, saying that there will be some form of U.S.

presence.

But I think all of that is being worked out.

As Caroline Levitt, who was holding a briefing, said that options are on the table, but this is something that is still a work in progress and it's being worked out.

Did we learn anything new from that press briefing from Caroline Levitt?

Well, just a reiteration of what we've heard from President Trump.

There were a lot of questions

that revolved around what many feel to be confusion about the meetings that President Trump is trying to have with President Putin, but there have been no firm details revealed about that, which

is something that we are still waiting for.

Arunadeh Mukherjee.

Well, no reaction so far from President Putin himself about all of this, but one of his advisors, the former Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Fedorov, told the BBC that Monday's meeting between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, and other European leaders was significant for Moscow.

It was a clear demonstration that transatlantic unity is still existing.

There were a lot of hopes in Moscow that it will be not so, but it has happened.

Now we can see a kind of roadmap for the further developments.

Now we are standing on even more serious periods of talks and negotiations, because after yesterday's meeting in Washington, there are no ways to step back.

So, what's next then?

Is a peace agreement even possible?

Earlier, I spoke to our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams.

I asked him what the Ukrainians are likely to want to achieve from further diplomatic talks.

First of all, an end to the fighting, and then some guarantees that Russia will not attack again in the future.

And that is not a simple matter at all.

That's going to involve not just pieces of paper, but all kinds of ways in which Ukraine's long-term security is guaranteed through the provision of Western military equipment, the presence in Ukraine of supporting elements from the so-called coalition of the willing, to a whole host of issues.

And then, of course, there is the question of territory.

And I think the Ukrainians know perfectly well that painful sacrifices are looming, that some of the territory that Russia has taken over in the past 11 years, starting with Crimea in 2014, is very, very unlikely ever to be returned.

So, what you tend to hear Ukrainian officials talking about is: well, we're not going to legally recognize Russia's conquest of any of our sovereign territory.

We will cling to that principle ferociously.

But there are examples of other conflicts around the world, frozen conflicts in which the territorial status was put to one side and people just sort of got on.

And I suppose that is sort of what Ukraine is hoping for: that no one is going to be persuaded to legally recognize Russia's occupation of, say, the Donbass.

Well, on that, we also heard Fedorov admit that if Putin were to conquer the remaining parts of Donetsk, it may take him several years.

And so, is there an issue that actually Putin is not just playing for time, but hoping to get something out of these talks that he cannot achieve on the battlefield?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, we're talking about the last 25% or so of the Donetsk Oblast and this area known as the Fortified Belt or the Fortress Belt, a series of cities, including Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, which have been essentially the front line for the last 11 years.

For all sorts of military strategic reasons, the Russians would dearly like to get behind that fortress line.

And for all sorts of military reasons, Ukraine wants to stop that happening because it would leave other parts of Ukraine to the north and the west vulnerable should Russia decide to attack again in the future.

And so there will be a lot of attention given to that little chunk of territory.

And Paul, lastly, do you think all the recent developments take us any closer to that Putin-Zelensky face-off?

I mean, in one sense, yes, they do, because everyone is now talking about it.

And the ground that needs to be prepared before it happens is now starting to be covered.

But, you know, I don't think anyone should get ahead of themselves here.

There is an awful lot of stuff that has to be sorted out.

Territorial discussions, all the discussions about security guarantees, before

a meeting of Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky can really take place.

That's the sort of event that you can imagine capping a process rather than coming in the middle of a process.

Paul Adams.

Ten years ago, this week, a refrigerated truck was found abandoned on a motorway in Austria.

The doors were wired shut, the air was turned off, and there were no vents.

Inside, police found the bodies bodies of 59 men, eight women, and four children.

Our Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe has been talking to relatives of some of the victims.

I've travelled to the town of Hank

in Iraqi, Kurdistan, to meet the family of some of those who died in the truck.

Hazem Khali and his wife Gurie lost their daughter, Elen, aged 14, their son Aland, aged 16, and Hazem's younger brother, Herish.

This was the last picture he took of the family.

It was on 5 August 2015,

and the place is the border between Turkey and Iraq.

So, this was the last time he saw them.

Vratsa prison in Bulgaria, a forbidding fortress of a building at the foot of the Balkan mountains.

Metody Geodiev, 39 years old, sits opposite me.

He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole as one of the leaders of the smuggling gang who organized that truck.

How did you feel towards all those people you were moving?

The first time you feel sorry for them, but after the fifth, you don't.

These people are prepared to get into trucks without even asking.

No one's forcing them to do it.

They're prepared to die on the road rather than go back to the countries they came from.

By August 2015, thousands of asylum seekers a day were crossing the Serbian border into Hungary.

From there, gangs like this one drove them on to Germany.

The 71 migrants were squeezed into the back of that particular truck just before dawn.

Soon after it set out, they started banging and shouting.

The driver got worried and rang Metodi, and Metodi rang the boss, an Afghan called Samsor, to ask what to do.

Keep driving, he said, and if they die, dump the bodies in the forest.

We know all this detail because the Hungarian police were tapping their phones.

This evidence was so damning, the judge passed down the maximum sentences.

But Metodi still proclaims his innocence.

To this day, I don't feel guilty.

Everyone makes mistakes, right?

I regret what I've done.

I also have a family.

I'm not a monster.

To kill these people deliberately,

I didn't kill anyone.

Back in northern Iraq, we sat on cushions on the floor of Hazem's tidy home.

Hazem feels justice has been done.

He's saying this one who did this thing, they are not humans, because imagining like putting a lot of people in one truck and no air, it's just like

a disaster.

He's saying all of that was because of money to get more money.

So let's leave it for God on the European governments to give them what they deserve.

Hassam Khali finishing that dispatch, and you can listen to Nick Thorpe's full report, The Truck That Shocked the World, on the BBC World Service or as a podcast, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Still to come in this podcast, an art historian in France wants to stop the loan of the buyer tapestry to the UK.

We compare often with La Jeux Conde, Mona Lisa, with paintings by Grand Masters.

But paintings by Grand Masters are many.

There is only one tapestry bayou.

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Weather forecasters have issued a red alert for Mumbai as the Indian city experiences heavy downpours and flooding.

The authorities have urged residents to take care as further rainfall is expected along with high tides.

More than 20 centimeters of rain have fallen in the city in the past 24 hours, the highest volume in one day since 2020.

Our South Asia correspondent, Yogita Lamai, reports from Mumbai.

Life has been thrown out of gear in Mumbai after two days of heavy rainfall.

Government offices were closed and the private sector was told to allow its employees to work from home.

A holiday was also declared for schools and colleges.

There was flooding in several parts of the city with videos of half-submerged vehicles being shared on social media.

The Mithi River, which runs through the city, came dangerously close to breaching its banks, so hundreds of people living close to it were evacuated and are being sheltered in schools.

At railway platforms, passengers were told that trains were suspended because of flooding on the tracks, but rail services have now started to resume.

While the airport didn't close, dozens of flights have been delayed.

Heavy rainfall is normal for Mumbai during the monsoon season, but authorities say the intensity of the downpour over the past two days has been unprecedented.

The weather department says there could be more rainfall overnight, and people have been asked to stay indoors.

Yoga Talamai

The charity Save the Children estimates that around two-thirds of child marriages happen in regions with higher than average climate risk.

The reason?

Vulnerable populations in these countries are at risk of being pushed further into poverty by extreme weather events, and child marriages can be seen as one less mouth to feed.

In Malawi's lakeside district of Mangochi, a region increasingly wracked by drought, some families dependent on fishing and farming say there is no other option.

The BBC's Anne Okumu reports.

It is early morning in Mangochi on the shores of Lake Malawi.

16-year-old Hawa stands barefoot by the water.

Hawa was just 16 when she got married earlier this year.

The legal age to marry in Malawi is 18.

More frequent droughts have badly affected her family's income from fishing and farming.

And with very little money for basics or education, Hawa says she believed marriage was her only option.

Some days my father would come back home with nothing from the lake.

There's been lots of hunger.

It's very tough.

I decided to get married because I want to help my parents.

But she was underage.

Did you try to stop her?

It hurt me to see her make that decision, but I was concerned.

I would have loved her to continue with her education.

According to the charity Save the Children, 40 million girls will be living in hotspot countries by 2050, who will be at a greater risk of extreme climate events and child marriage, defined as any marriage involving someone under 18.

Malawi is among the top five countries most affected.

The current law defining marriage came in 2017 with a minimum age of 18.

The age of sexual consent remains at 16.

But marriage below the minimum age is not criminalized.

Arrests are only made when the girls involved are under 16 and a sexual offense has been committed.

McBain works with the locals and the Malawian government to help prevent or overturn child marriages and to reintegrate underage brides back into the education system.

The law that we have, starting with the Child Justice Act, the amended constitution, all those speak to protecting the girl child.

But then the traditional law or customary law does not take that into consideration.

So far, he says they have removed hundreds of girls from such marriages since 2023, collaborating with legal officers, traditional chiefs, and the police.

After withdrawing them from child marriages, there is no support.

Although Hawa says she's happy in her marriage and is clear she was not pressured to marry beneath the weight of her sacrifice, she still carries the drive of who she hopes to become.

If we had everything at home, I would have loved to continue with my education, become a teacher, and better my life.

And as long as climate change continues to worsen poverty, the hopes and the potential of young women like Hawai may remain unfulfilled.

Anne Okumu India says it has conveyed its concerns to China about a mega dam being built on a river that runs through Tibet and India.

Delhi said the dam along the Yalung Sang Po, known as the Brahmaputra in India, would have implications for states lying downstream.

Our South Asia Regional Editor and Barrister Netarajan has more details.

China has started constructing what will be the world's largest hydropower dam in Tibet that could have a serious impact on millions of people downstream in India and Bangladesh.

India's concerns were raised during a meeting with the visiting Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Delhi.

China hasn't commented on those discussions, but earlier, Mr.

Wang said the two countries should regard each other as partners instead of adversaries.

Mr.

Wang also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has confirmed his visit to China later this month to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit.

And Barasan Etarajan.

Now, if you believe the publicity, this year's U.S.

Open Tennis Championship is bigger and better than

a new look mixed doubles event.

The biggest tennis stars are teaming up to win $1 million to compete against each other in the first week of the championship in New York, and the format now consists of much shorter matches.

But not everyone is happy about it.

Some specialist mixed-double players have been brushed aside, no longer invited to take part, because they're not seen as big enough draws.

Instead, the blockbuster line-up includes pairings such as multiple Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz, who was paired with the former US Open winner Emma Radkanu.

This is what they said before the tournament started.

I would like to know how much of the court he can cover in New York.

I'm just gonna surf and

pull myself, you know, away and I let her play.

She will cover all the court.

She will be the boss.

I will do whatever she wants me to do.

That's it.

Well, the two young big hitters actually lost their match to number one seeds, Jack Draper and Jessica Pegula, who headed straight to the quarterfinals.

BBC Sport described that game as entertaining, the crowd on the edge of their seats.

Our sports reporter at Flushing Meadows in New York is Jonathan Jericho, and he spoke to the BBC's Nick Hatton about the new format.

It's certainly polarised opinion, that's for sure.

Got announced in February that the US Open were going to reimagine the mixed doubles, and then in June, the sort of excitement that was went up another notch when the superstars were announced who were going to play, namely Carlos Alcarazen and Murad Karnu, lots of other star names too, including Nova Djokovic, Igor Sviantec, Yannick Sinna, who's actually now pulled out.

And it's been the talking point of the tennis world for the past few months for sure.

Yeah, it's a bold move, isn't it, by the United States Tennis Association.

Why have they done this?

And the rationale was to elevate the event and create greater focus on the sport.

And that means bringing it forward before the tournament, separating it from the singles and the other doubles drugs.

It's been streamed on American Prime Time TV, it's been streamed across the world.

So their argument is that they're putting more eyeballs on tennis and and the stars now the cynics will say is that true or are they doing it just for for money and to try and increase revenue in this week before the grand slam tournament i'm still outside the media center here at flushy meadows and there's this there's hundreds thousands of people milling around who are obviously here spending money not necessarily on the gate admission but but in the shop on food on beverages etc it does seem like it's sold out for tomorrow night which is when the semi-finals and the final will be held.

And the men's and the women's doubles will remain, of course, as part of the US Open, which starts on Sunday.

But how much of a slap in the face is this to those who usually play in the mix?

A lot of doubles players are pretty angry about it and they see it as a lost opportunity to compete in a Grand Slam and win a Grand Slam title.

And others say it devalues the slam as well.

Jamie Murray, who's obviously one of the most famous British doubles players, he kind of told me that he thinks that it's a glorified exhibition and that it's taking opportunities away from doubles players.

Now, you know, there's a big, huge cash prize for the winners of one million dollars.

That's five times more than the champions, the mixed doubles champions received last year.

It's a big, big chance to earn taken away from those players.

Jonathan Jericho speaking to Nick Hatton.

And finally, Non to the loan of the Bayer Tapestry.

That's the title of an online petition in France, which has now received more than 43,000 signatures.

The campaign was launched in July after this announcement in London by the French President Emmanuel Macron.

In the run-up to the 1000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror,

France will loan the United Kingdom the Biotapestry.

Touché.

The 70-meter-long embroidered cloth depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, culminating in, of course, the Battle of Hastings.

The loan, part of a proposed art exchange, would mark the first time the medieval tapestry would be displayed in the United Kingdom.

Art historian and journalist Didier Ricner created the petition.

He described the work.

It's called a tapestry, but it's not quite a tapestry.

It's an embroidery, and it's really, very thin, you know.

It's very long and very thin.

It's 70 meters long, and it's on a linen canvas.

and it is very fragile.

There are many holes, many tears and it is why it's so impossible, so delicate, so dangerous to make it come to England.

It is a unique object, you know.

There is no other work of art of this kind anywhere in the world.

It is the only umbroidery of this size as old as this one, you know.

So it is a heritage of humanity and we cannot play with this.

We cannot put it at risk only for political and diplomatic reasons.

So, if they were to transport it to the British Museum, how would they do that?

And what is the danger?

What are you worried about happening?

I am worried about what the restorers told me, and the curators who have worked on this work of art.

And they tell me everybody tells me the same thing.

It's very fragile.

And they want to put it in a box and to make it travel by road, not by train, not by plane, but by road.

They tell it there are less vibrations by road, but there are many vibrations anyway.

Any move is very delicate and very dangerous for the embroidery.

Every researcher and curators who have worked on this piece of art tells there will be a tearing, there will be holes, so the wool which is on the linen could fall.

Some of these accidents will be irreversible.

In your petition, you described this loan as a true heritage crime.

Can you talk to us about that, about how important this tapestry is to France?

This tapestry is important to France, but it is important for England.

It is important for the world.

And there is no other work of art of this kind.

We compare often with La Jo Conde, Mona Lisa, with paintings by great masters.

But paintings by great masters, there are many.

There is only one tapestry bayou.

Lots of people have really criticised the idea of this and that, the biotapestry.

It's not worth endangering such a unique piece of art.

Why do you think the British Museum is willing to give it a go?

I am very disappointed by the British Museum because it is a museum and they know very well it's not possible to do this without a risk.

Well, they have said that their collections department can handle this and does this sort of thing all the time.

Yes, but not all the time with such a work of art.

And it's not believing, I don't believe it's dangerous.

I know it's dangerous because I've talked with many restaurants who worked on the tapestry, and they all tell me it's very dangerous for the tapestry.

I think symbolically, it would be a great thing to lend it to England, but it's not possible, it's just not possible.

We should be united, English and French, to tell it's not possible.

Didier Richter.

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 any of the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag GlobalNewsPod.

This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll, and the producers were Guy Pitt and Stephanie Tillotson.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Julia MacFarlane.

Until next time, goodbye.

This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

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Don't let the sun set on this one.

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The floor store, your area flooring authority.