Al Jazeera journalists killed in targeted Israeli attack in Gaza

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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 Monday, the 11th of August, these are our main stories.

Several Al Jazeera journalists have been killed in a targeted Israeli attack in Gaza.

Israel has faced fierce criticism at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over its plan to step up its offensive.

President Zelensky has said he wants to avoid Donald Trump being misled by the Russian president at their talks on Friday.

Also in this podcast.

But the heart of ordained ministry is incarnational, showing up, holding silence at a deathbed.

Can AI take on the role of a priest?

As we record this podcast, the Israeli military has said said it's killed several journalists in Gaza who are working for the international news broadcaster Al Jazeera.

One of those killed was the prominent correspondent Anas al-Sharif, whom Israel had previously accused of leading a Hamas cell which was planning to carry out rocket attacks.

He and Al Jazeera have denied this.

Mohamed Mawad is the managing editor of Al Jazeera.

We have been trying to ask them to stay cautious, to take all

measures needed for this safety.

But they refuse.

They say that this is our story.

Gaza's story is our story.

We will continue the coverage, despite the fact that they have been threatened and besmeared by the Israeli government and the RDF for a long time now.

Anasi Sharif and Mohammed Kareka were targeted in their tent.

They were taking rest.

They felt like this is where the Israeli government

wouldn't target us in a tent where we sleep, where we are safe, we're not harming anybody, we are just in our tent taking a rest to continue the coverage.

And they were targeted.

Our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, is in Jerusalem.

It seems clear now, it's been confirmed not just from Gaza, but by the Israel Defense Forces, the IDF themselves, that they hit the Al Jazeera tent in the grounds of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

So the two Al Jazeera Jazeera correspondents, Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Karaika, have been killed, along with two cameramen and a driver who came, I think, from a local video provider.

The Israelis say that Anas was masquerading, as they put it, as a journalist.

Now, about a week ago, the Arabic language spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, the IDF, said essentially that, that he was a dangerous terrorist.

Al Jazeera put out a very strong statement saying that they were putting his life in danger.

They were inciting against him and, of course, denying the accusations.

The Committee, I should say, for Protection of Journalists, put out a statement too saying that his life was now in danger.

I think he is also, he also said this could be a prelude to my assassination.

And now the Israelis have killed him.

And they are doubling down on their accusations against him.

On their WhatsApp group, they are putting out links to what they call a profile of the terrorist.

They're also putting out graphics revealing the Al Jazeera journalists involvement as a terrorist.

So they're absolutely doubling down on this.

Now the Israelis have been under a lot of pressure about their attitude towards free reporting out of Gaza.

Journalists like myself are not allowed in.

Al Jazeera have had a big team in there.

As I understand it now, their entire team in Gaza City has been killed.

But they had a big team there because these were Palestinian journalists who lived there, were based there, were there on the 7th of October and have been reporting and working ever since.

And so they have been able to cover things on the, you know, on the day-to-day rather than in my case, you know, as I'm doing now, reporting to you from Jerusalem.

Our international editor, Jeremy Bowen.

Staying in Jerusalem, and Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been defending his plan to widen the war in Gaza.

He insisted it was the best way to end the fighting in the Palestinian territory.

Mr.

Netanyahu said that his order for a military operation to attempt to take control of Gaza city would move fairly quickly.

No nation can accept a genocidal terrorist organization, an organization committed to its annihilation, a stone's throw from its citizens.

Our goal is not to occupy Gaza.

Our goal is to free Gaza, free it from Hamas terrorists.

The war can end tomorrow if Gaza, or rather if Hamas, lays down its arms and releases all the remaining hostages.

Well, at the same time in New York, an emergency meeting of the Security Council was held to discuss Israel's plan to expand the war.

One senior figure at the UN said that this would open another horrific chapter in the war.

Riyadh Mansoor, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, made this plea.

We appreciate the description of almost all of you of the deepness of the pain and the tragedy that our people is enduring.

While this is okay,

it is not sufficient.

You have to act.

You have to do something about it.

You have to stop it.

Otherwise,

this analysis and description does not mean anything if you do not do something to stop it.

The meeting in New York was requested by several European countries, which urged Mr.

Netanyahu to change course and end the war.

The United States' representatives said Israel had the right to decide how to ensure its security, and that accusations of genocide by some UN members handed a propaganda victory to Hamas.

Israel has always denied allegations of genocide.

Jonathan Marcus, a defence and diplomatic analyst, told me there was a notable split between the Israeli Defence Establishment and the Israeli Cabinet over the decision to expand the war.

Certainly, from what we can tell, there is a very strained relationship between the relatively new Chief of the General Staff, Ayal Zamir, and Mr Netanyahu.

Mr Netanyahu is obviously presenting this expanded military operation as a means of liberating the hostages.

I think many in the military believe that it would probably sign their death warrant.

We've already seen the conditions under which some of them have been living.

And, you know, it's quite clear that the Israeli military believes that as much has been achieved by force as can be in this war.

They, I think, see no strategic rationale for continuing it.

And of course, they are aware of the slowly shifting mood inside Israel.

The vast majority of people now are against the continuation of the war.

There is a growing, small but significant, maybe thirty percent of people who are, if you like, a liberal opposition, who are raising questions about the morality of Israel's stance.

They're highlighting the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.

And of course, an expanded operation would require the calling up of tens of thousands, if not more, reservists.

Reserve duty has been a huge and onerous burden on the Israeli population over the lengthy period of this conflict.

And the army is creaking.

You know, enough is enough, I think many in the military believe.

They'll carry out their orders, one imagines, but there is no enthusiasm for this operation at all.

And Jonathan, after two years of war, most of Hamas's top leaders and commanders have been eliminated by Israel, but clearly Hamas is still fighting.

Why can't Israel defeat it, and can it ever hope of doing so?

Well, look, in one sense, Hamas has been defeated in terms of

being a highly organized, literally underground militia force with weaponry that can reach some way into Israel.

That, I think, has been clearly destroyed.

What you're left with in the rubble and the ruins of Gaza are pockets of fighters who emerge to attack Israeli patrols, take pot shots at them, and so on.

These are people who are deeply embedded within the population.

Winkling them out would involve, I think, even more massive civilian casualties.

You know, for all intents and purposes, as I say, for what a military can do, a Hamas has been defeated.

Mr.

Netanyahu, who would like them to formally surrender and disappear to leave Gaza.

Well, I just think that isn't going to happen.

And lastly, Jonathan, Netanyahu suggested that Arab nations were willing to come into Gaza to help administer a civilian government.

I mean, do we have any evidence of that?

And it was only a day or so ago we saw twenty Arab and Muslim countries jointly condemning the Israeli plan to take control of Gaza City.

Yes, well look, that's quite true.

I mean in reality, Mr Netanyahu has given no thought to the future of Gaza at all.

Of course there are the more extreme elements of his government who'd like to see the Palestinians simply removed altogether.

I don't think that is actually Mr.

Netanyahu's own position.

It certainly wouldn't be acceptable to the international community.

The problem is that if there is going to be any wider involvement by Arab states, it has to be part of a significant move towards a two-state solution.

Without that kind of approach, I don't think any Arab government is going to want to touch the problems of Gaza with a bargebow.

Jonathan Marcus.

Ukraine's president, president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has said he wants to avoid Donald Trump being misled by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, ahead of their meeting in Alaska on Friday.

In his regular video address, Mr.

Zelensky warned that Russia was aiming to deceive and urged stronger Western sanctions to halt the war.

Meanwhile, EU ministers are discussing Ukraine at an emergency meeting on Monday.

The bloc's foreign policy chief has said any deal between the US and Russia must include Europe and Kyiv.

Our World News correspondent Joe Inward reports.

After being put on the back foot by the news that Presidents Trump and Putin, and only them, would be meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine, Europe is starting to find its voice.

A joint leader's statement set out the continent's position that Ukraine will be supported and Russia must not be rewarded for its aggression.

Now, it has been announced an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers will take place.

One of those attending will be Radik Sikorsky, Poland's foreign minister.

It's Europe that is providing most of the assistance to Ukraine, not the United States.

The package of assistance passed by the U.S.

Congress under President Biden has almost been spent, and the Ukrainian state is being financed by the European Union and Norway and Britain, Japan, and others.

Europe has not only a stake in it, but also has leverage.

But in reality, it is the Trump-Putin summit taking place in Alaska next Friday where where real breakthroughs might happen.

There has been concern in Europe that President Zelensky's not been invited, although it's now emerged the US is trying to arrange a meeting between him and President Putin.

Vice President J.D.

Vance told Fox News, the way to peace is to have a decisive leader sit down and force people to come together.

Whether it will happen is far from certain, though.

That would require the agreement of Vladimir Putin, who has shown as much respect towards Ukraine's president as he has his country's territorial integrity.

Joe Inward.

Now, artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming many aspects of our lives in the worlds of work and entertainment, but what about our spiritual lives?

Hi, can you give me a nice prayer to get me through the day?

My beloved child, as you rise and face this day, know that I go before you.

Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid, for my spirit is with you in all things.

Well that prayer was suggested by an AI guide developed by Paul Powers, a postgraduate researcher at the University of York.

The reason that I came up with it was because I was trying to re-engage with my own personal faith.

I was raised Catholic, but I find it difficult to go to church on a Sunday every Sunday, but I like to keep that sort of personal connection in a way through prayer.

And then I just had this idea, what if I needed some sort of spiritual guidance?

What if I developed all of the knowledge and the words and the lessons of Jesus into the AI and see what it comes out with?

So I programmed it to access the New Testament, the Old Testament, and all other sources of information related to Jesus.

You can ask it and it will address you based on that individual prompt.

I found it actually quite useful to re-engage with prayer and with thinking thinking about Jesus and God.

It does give responses that can generate meaning for the individual, although the machine learning algorithm itself doesn't actually understand anything about what it's telling you.

The program is called GPT Jesus.

Emily Buchanan asked the philosophy lecturer Albert Curry and digital theologian Scott Midson what they made of it.

It sounds uncanny.

It's almost like someone's reading a book rather than actually giving genuine insight and having that understanding.

It's very scripted and it lacks a lot of nuance.

One of the things that strikes me is it sounds very prescriptive.

There's no reflection.

It's this is the answer.

This is the information in that quite assured sort of sense.

What I find persuasive is when the person I'm talking to has perhaps gone through something similar.

And that's where the empathy might come from, right?

Of like, I've gone through those struggles.

I haven't been able to find purpose at times of my life or my faith has wavered and a chatbot hasn't gone through any of that.

It did give you some very concrete things that you could be doing but I think if you're really in a moment of emotional vulnerability I think it's inappropriate.

Well I did ask Derek whether one day he could take on the role of a priest.

AI can assist drafting homilies, answering common questions, offering 24-hour study help, even suggesting pastoral resources.

But the heart of ordained ministry is incarnational.

Showing up, holding silence at a deathbed, messy, unstructured human moments.

Those rely on lived holiness, ethical accountability, and the mysterious work of grace.

Realms where circuits and codes simply don't qualify.

So, Scott, there is a bit of humility there.

It's not trying to be a priest, in fact, to give advice that you actually have to act on.

Do chatbots tend to want to please you, to keep you in whatever thought process you're in, and don't really challenge you?

Yes.

We have to remember that there's no ability to fully understand or or contextualize on the part of these models.

They're literally just mining data.

And part of the data we have from various religious traditions involves things from very different cultures, very different contexts around kind of sacrifice, around martyrdom and things.

And without appropriate understanding of that context, that can be something that maybe gets picked up on in a conversation.

And that's where we need to really try and preempt different checks and balances.

You know, it's really hard to preempt all of the things that could go wrong.

I mean, if there's anything that we can learn from them, it's that we are not gods, we don't have omniscience.

You know, we're kind of the icarus of the kind of modern world where actually we're learning a lot about our own limitations, even while interacting with these devices.

Scott Midson, Alber Curry, and Derek

still to come on the Global News podcast.

When I started to sell the paper newspapers here in Paris, we were between 35, 40 hawkers.

But now, today, I'm alone because Because no one buys papers, you know, because of digital.

The last newspaper hawker of Paris.

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This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

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Plus two years' interest-free financing, and we pay your sales tax.

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Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

The Floor Store, your area flooring authority.

To the United States now, where a class action lawsuit has been filed against the owners of an app which lets women post anonymous reviews of men.

The T-App went viral earlier this year with millions of users.

It even topped the downloads list on the Apple store.

Our reporter Richard Hamilton spoke to Ollie Conway about the story.

The tagline for TAP is Helping Women Date Safely, and it has a flag system of green or red in which the women can comment on their dating experiences.

They can run background checks on the marital status of men, even if they've got a criminal record.

So the idea was to protect women, but ironically, there's been a massive data breach because of AI problems, which have left the private details of women exposed, you know, even where they live and their phone numbers and also what they said about their dates.

So they're worried about their safety, that these men might retaliate.

And Scott Cole is a lawyer representing one of the women affected.

She shared very private information, including a picture of herself, on a a platform that she thought, and she was promised, would keep her information safe, only to be shared with other women and only for the purpose of making safer her and their dating experiences.

And frankly, the company let her down.

There are a number of women that have come forward to file lawsuits.

I mean, there are roughly 10 cases right now.

And so no doubt this has led to criticism of TAP.

That's right.

And there's been a bit of a backlash from some of the forums that sort of represent men.

For example, there's an anonymous, rather misogynistic forum called 4chan, which is alleged to have even spread some of these leaks.

And also on Twitter, there was a site called Tee Spill, which is revealing photos of some of the women.

And so there's been a lot of criticism, and even from independent people like David Chambers, who's a dating coach, and he runs a site called The Authentic Man.

If there was an app that men built that was about rating women, we'd call it misogynistic, right?

I'm all for women's safety and online safety and encouraging good behavior, right?

Because we really need that in dating because there's too much bad behavior.

But there's one thing about someone who possibly tries to assault somebody or something like that.

And the other end of that is literally, you know, this guy can't communicate very well or he smells or he's got like something you don't like about him.

I think that that's such a wide spectrum.

It's just open to so much misuse.

And that was David Chambers, who also goes on to say that in this sort of brave new world of online dating, a lot of men are rather confused and they're struggling to understand the new rules of engagement.

Richard Hamilton.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the senior Chinese diplomat Liu Jinchao has been, as the journalists put it, taken away by the authorities for questioning.

Mr.

Liu has been widely seen as a potential future foreign minister.

Isabel Hilton is visiting professor at King's College London and personally knows Liu Jinqiao.

I met him many years ago in Shanghai, and then I met him earlier this year when he led a substantial delegation to London.

And very much, he seemed very much at the top of his game, his usual urbane and sometimes amusing self.

So this is quite a shock.

I mean, as I said, it's difficult to know sometimes what's going on, but have you got any thoughts as to, you know, if indeed he has been sort of taken away and taken into questioning, and who knows what may come of that.

But, I mean, have you any idea what conceivably could have landed him in trouble?

I have no idea what this particular case is about.

In general terms, since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he has taken down

thousands of officials, some of them pretty senior, as indeed Liu Jian Chao was.

This would not have been done lightly because Liu Jian Chao is an extremely well-known international figure.

He has been at the head of the party's Foreign Affairs Commission and that is a position in which he travelled the world, talked to very senior people internationally and he's extremely well known and an accomplished diplomat.

So as I say this wouldn't have been a decision taken lightly.

The charges are generally in, again, this is a procedure under the party's Discipline Inspection Commission.

So we're not going to know for quite a long time what indeed he has been charged with, if he is charged.

So it would either be a political mistake of some kind, perceived as disloyal or unhelpful to Xi Jinping, or the catch-all charge is corruption.

I have absolutely no idea.

No, I mean there was, I saw in some of the reporting that it suggested that perhaps officials around him had briefed a bit too enthusiastically that he was, or confidently, that he was going to be a shoe-in to be the next foreign minister.

I mean,

I guess as much as anything, this is probably a reminder that whoever serves at the top serves at the pleasure of the General Secretary.

Well, that's very true.

But I think briefing that he was a likely next foreign minister would probably, you know, earn a wrap over the knuckles.

I'm not sure that it, unless there is a bigger power struggle going on behind the scenes, it wouldn't normally involve his removal from post.

I mean, it's not been an easy job being foreign minister in China lately.

Qing Gang, the previous foreign minister to the current one, Wang Yi, Qing Gang served a very brief time before he was taken down for allegedly for a personal indiscretion with a lady involving a child all in the United States, and that was regarded as a bit of a security thing.

And Wang Yi had to come back in as foreign minister.

Now, Wang Yi is himself a very senior figure in the party.

He's a Politburo figure.

So it's not, it wouldn't be unusual if he were to relinquish his foreign ministry role because he's already got enough power.

But who knows?

Maybe the suggestion that that was going to happen was premature.

Perhaps that's annoyed somebody.

Who knows?

Isabel Hilton talking to my colleague Tim Franks.

A high-profile Liverpool football player has criticised the body that runs European football over its tribute to Sleiman al-Obaid, known as the Palestinian Pele.

According to the Palestine Football Association, he was killed earlier this week when Israeli forces attacked civilians waiting for humanitarian aid.

Isabella Jewell has a story.

Farewell to Suleiman al-Abaid, the Palestinian Pele, a talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times.

That was UEFA's tribute on the social media platform X to one of Palestine's most famous football players.

On Saturday, the Liverpool footballer Mohamed Saleh shared the post and asked UEFA: Can you tell us how he died, where and why?

41-year-old Alabaid was killed in southern Gaza on Wednesday in what the Palestinian Football Association says was an attack by Israeli soldiers on civilians waiting for aid.

The Palestinian played for the national team, scoring his first international goal during the 2010 West Asian Football Federation Championship, a memorable scissor kick against Yemen.

Suleiman Al-Abayd scored more than 100 goals during his career and represented Palestine in 24 international matches.

His death adds to a growing toll of athletes lost in Gaza since the war began.

Indeed, on Saturday, the Palestinian Football Association in Jerusalem said that two more Gazan players had been killed in the territory, one of whom it says was also waiting for aid in central Gaza.

According to the PFA, 325 members of the football community have been killed in the strip since October 7th, including players, coaches, and referees, and hundreds of sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Israeli bombardment.

Mohamed Salah, who's also captain of Egypt's national team, has voiced sympathy for those in Gaza throughout the conflict, including in an Instagram post two weeks after Israel began its assault on Gaza following the Hamas attacks in October 2023.

media followings.

Mohamed Saleh's recent post on X criticising UEFA has already been viewed millions of times and shared by thousands of social media users.

Isabella Jewell Reporting

Read all about it!

The sight of news hawkers selling their newspapers on the street used to be a familiar one, but like so many other professions from the past, it's been killed off by the internet.

In Paris, though, the last surviving hawker is still at his post, pounding the streets of Saint-Germain.

Indeed, having faithfully flogged bundles of Le Monde for more than 50 years, Ali Akbar has now been given the Order of Merit by President Machon.

Hugh Schofield went out on his trail.

Here he is, France's possibly Europe's last newspaper hawker, Ali Akbar, a sprightly Pakistani-born man of 72.

It was in 1973 that he began in the trade on Paris's left bank, and against all the odds, he's still at it.

When I started to sell the papers, newspapers here in Paris, we were between 35, 40 hawkers.

But now, today, I'm alone because it became discouraging.

No one buys papers, you know.

What makes you keep going?

I'm independent.

I'm free.

I'm alone.

No one is commanding me, you know.

So I feel free.

That's why.

You see, before, people were looking for me, they were looking after me to buy papers.

And now today,

I'm looking to sell.

It's different, it's changed now.

Ali sells 20 or 30 copies of Le Monde a day, and he keeps half the sales price.

So, money is not the motive.

He does it because it's fun and people love him.

Ali has been famous for us for more than 25 years and more, selling his papers and making jokes.

He knows everyone around

the whole area.

He's the best connected.

It's just a shame he only sells 20 papers every day.

His stories are amazing.

All of them know me, you know.

Because I've been selling papers in the Institute of Political Science, it's Chinese Po, we call in French.

So I met so because they used to buy papers every day.

So they became friends.

Give me some names.

Some names.

Macau,

I don't believe Mako also bought me papers.

Yes.

During that period of time.

Do you think he remembers that?

That's why he's giving you the Order of Merit now?

No, no, not at all, not at all.

Because he knows me, he knows my backstory.

So that's why I think he decided to do something for me, I think.

Breaking news, breaking news.

Tell me, Ali, how has Saint-Germain, the neighborhood, changed in the 53 years that you've been selling newspapers here?

Atmosphere in Saint-Germain is completely changed.

Because before, the Saint-Germain was just like a village.

You could meet the same people every day, the local people of Saint-Germain, artists, writers, publishers, actors, you know, comedian, musician.

But now it's finished, now became touristic.

Do you miss the old Saint-Germain?

Of course, because

before

they were sold, but there is no more sold in Saint-Germain.

You've got to laugh, right?

Say ye, say ye!

Say ye!

That lovely story by Hugh Schofield.

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 Alison Davis and Alfie Habersham.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Julia McFarlane.

Until the next time, goodbye.

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