Israeli military offensive to occupy Gaza City is underway

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

I'm Valerie Sanderson, and in the early hours of Thursday, the 21st of August, these are our main stories.

Israel confirms its wider offensive in Gaza City is underway.

It comes as the country calls up 60,000 reservists.

The Israeli government also approves a highly contentious plan for a new settlement near Jerusalem, which would cut the occupied West Bank in two.

Also, in this podcast, for the first time since seizing power in Afghanistan four years ago, the Taliban have welcomed the foreign ministers from Pakistan and China to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

And a new superfood for bees to help protect them from climate change.

The Israeli military military has confirmed that its wider offensive in Gaza City is underway, with the city's outskirts already taken.

It comes after Israel announced that it would call up around 60,000 reservists.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the north of the Strip are expected to be ordered to evacuate and to head to shelters in the south.

It's a plan that's drawn criticism from across the world, including from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which said the displacement and intensification of hostilities risks risks worsening an already catastrophic situation for Gaza's population.

This was one Gaza residents' reaction.

The Gaza Strip can't handle this.

We are tired of displacement.

Every day we move from one place to another.

Everyone was saying that there may be a truce, but waking up to the news that thousands more soldiers will enter the Gaza Strip, it's very, very catastrophic news.

I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Emir Nader, what we know about the military military offensive in Gaza.

I think the statement that we've had from the Israeli military confirming, saying that it has begun its Gaza city operation, is more an acknowledgement of what we've been seeing on the ground over the past days.

There have been relentless attacks in some of the outer neighborhoods, like Zeitoun and Sabro, in the south and in the east.

Reports of tanks entering neighbourhoods and troops entering neighborhoods where they've never previously been before, and the reports of thousands of Palestinians packing up their homes or their tents and being displaced.

Some of that we've even seen from satellite imagery of tent encampments being emptied and people obviously fleeing elsewhere.

So rather than this I think heralding the beginning of a huge ground offensive in the next few hours, it's more an acknowledgement that in fact this Gaza city invasion has already been beginning in some of the outskirts, outer neighborhoods in the past few days because this operation will will be long.

It will require the deployment of those tens of thousands of reservists and indeed the forcible displacement of the roughly one million Palestinians that are in Gaza City.

So it will take time for this operation to go in the direction that the Israeli military wants it to.

And what's been the reaction in Israel to this mass call-up of thousands of reservists?

I think it's hard to find enthusiasm for it.

Many young people, many of the people who are being drafted up, are angry about it.

Obviously, it will affect their daily lives,

their jobs, their studies.

Many people in general in Israel want the war to end, not just to retrieve the hostages, but there is fatigue about the war, and there is indeed a widening of that movement.

We've seen in the past days over the weekend, the scenes of hundreds of thousands of Israelis joining those protests led by hostage families calling for an end to the war, not just to retrieve the hostages, but also because they feel like enough is enough.

And you also have seen a growing articulation of the acknowledgement of the suffering of Palestinian people in these protests, too.

So it is hard to find enthusiasm.

We've heard criticism indeed from opposition leaders here, with Ya'el Lapid, who's one of the main opposition leaders, denouncing this invasion of the Gaza city and saying it is the pursuit of an illusion that Israel can indeed occupy the city.

And yet in the West Bank, Israel has just approved plans to build a controversial new settlement there.

I mean, what's the aim behind that?

This is a plan that had been put on ice for many years because it has been so controversial and seems to have been dusted off in recent weeks, partly as a rebuff to the states around the world who've said that they will recognize a Palestinian state in an upcoming United Nations meeting.

We've had now today an approval from an Israeli government department which says it will go ahead with this plan to build a settlement in the West Bank, the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, which would essentially divide it into two.

And one of the main champions of this plan is the finance minister Bezalel Smotric, who has championed it as a way to essentially bury the chance, bury the possibility of a future Palestinian state.

And it's essentially a rejection from members of the Israeli government.

to the idea, to this push to recognize a Palestinian state.

And here they're saying if we put bricks down on the ground, we can make it impossible that you could have a contiguous territory which could form a future Palestinian state in the West Bank.

Emer Nada in Jerusalem.

Let's get more detail now on that announcement of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank, which, if built, would cut off East Jerusalem and effectively divide the West Bank in two.

The man behind the plan is Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said publicly last week that it would erase the idea of a Palestinian state.

It's a view echoed by critics, including the UN, the European Union and Britain, which described the plan as a flagrant breach of international law.

James Menendez spoke to Simcharotman, a member of Bezalel Smotric's Religious Zionism Party, and asked him why the settlement plan is so important.

D1 construction is important because it's very close to Jerusalem.

It's an area that had been planned and talked about for almost 20 years, and it connects Jerusalem to the major city in Judea and Samaria called Ma'alea Dumim.

And we know for a fact that areas that are not

being held by Israel, we know what's happening there.

We all saw on October 7th what's happening when an area is left outside Israeli control.

We saw what they're planning for us, and we definitely don't want it less than one kilometer away from our capital, Jerusalem.

And it does, as your party leader Bezel El Smotrich has said, it effectively ends the prospect of a viable contiguous Palestinian state.

Is that also

an aim?

That's of course very important because a Palestinian state, as the Knesset decided, will mean grave danger to the state of Israel.

It will be the huge reward for Hamas.

And the Palestinian state should never be between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

And so where should all those Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, where should they go?

It's a good question.

I don't think they should go.

We have a lot of Arabs living in Israel.

We are.

So they should become Israeli citizens, should they?

No, no, I'm not starting to argue with you now about what exactly will be.

I don't think that's relevant, and I don't think we have enough time for this.

What I do think...

that when people in the UK, for example, express their support for a Palestinian state, I think if they should answer, if they mean a Palestinian state that will have in its law books, like the Palestinian Authority does today, a law saying that if you sell land to a Jew, it's punishable by death.

Or a law that says that more Jews you kill, the more money you get on the expense of the Palestinian Authority money.

And what about violence by extremist settlers in the Occupy West Bank, something that the BBC has been documenting in some detail over the past couple of weeks?

I mean, do you condemn that violence against Palestinians?

Again, I really don't know where is the place that you are talking about.

I don't know what is the occupied West Bank.

You keep using this term, and I really don't know what you mean.

Simcha Rotman.

Mustafa Baghouti is General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party which describes itself as a democratic third force in Palestinian politics.

His party opposes both Hamas and Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, which controls the occupied West Bank.

Mr.

Baghuti, who's based in the West Bank capital, Ramallah, was asked if the proposed settlement would hamper the creation of a Palestinian state.

When Israel was recognized by the United Nations in 1948, that was conditioned with the implementation of the partition plan, which said that a Palestinian state should be created near Israel on 44% of the land.

Palestinians accepted a little mini-state on 22% only, and now they want to annex that land, annex the occupied territories.

This man and this party and the Israeli government don't recognize United Nations, don't recognize International Court of Justice, don't recognize international criminal court.

So how can you deal with that?

Can I just come back with what he said, which is that there is an existential threat from some Palestinians, including Hamas, who are pretty explicit about wanting to get rid of Israel.

It's another way of claiming that the aggressor, the occupier, the country that is practicing apartheid is the victim.

No, the victims are the Palestinian people who have been oppressed by Israel since 1948.

And your question was very correct.

There are 7.3 million Palestinians in the land of historic Palestine versus 7.1 million Jewish people.

We can either coexist through a two-state solution, which Palestinians accepted, or in a one democratic state with equal rights, not be oppressed in a system of apartheid.

But he doesn't want two-state solution, and Israel doesn't want one-state solution.

So, what is the solution?

The solution is what Netanyahu is now declaring going to do in Gaza, which is ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

Listen, every settlement in the occupied territories according to international law is illegal.

But this particular one is like the settlement that is going to slaughter the whole idea of two-state solution, which means it destroys the possibility of peace.

The reality is that Israel would not have dared to go that far if it wasn't for the support of the American administration.

This Israeli government can be restrained if economic sanctions are imposed on it.

What we need is more than recognition.

What we need is implementation of the rule of law.

Mustafa Baghuti.

For the first time since seizing power four years ago, the Taliban have welcomed the foreign ministers from Pakistan and China to the Afghanistan capital, Kabul.

China, in particular, is keen on exploring the country's mineral wealth, while much of the Taliban's assets are frozen by Western countries.

A South Asia regional editor and Barasan Edirajan explains the importance of this trilateral meeting.

This all comes at a time when they are bolstering their efforts to seek international legitimacy.

As you know, at the moment, they're not widely recognized by the international community due to various reasons, one of the main reasons being the restrictions on women and girls.

Yes, secondary schools are closed and women are not allowed in the universities.

And there are other restrictions on work as well.

Now, what is interesting is it's also

geopolitics, how it is changing.

These meetings were held outside Afghanistan, last time in China.

But this is the first time Taliban organizing in Kabul.

So it also shows the confidence of the international community, especially countries like Pakistan and China, to visit Kabul and hold this meeting.

And the second thing is why they're meeting.

You know, Taliban, they are short of cash, they want to run the country.

And most of their assets are now frozen outside the previous Afghan government's money, about $9 billion, because the West was saying unless you make some progress on women's rights issues, we won't release the money.

But Afghanistan is sitting on an estimated $1 trillion mineral reserves.

For example, copper.

They have the world's second biggest deposit of copper, iron, and also even crude.

And some of the minerals like lithium, which are used in batteries and mobile phones.

But they have not been mining this.

China is very keen to use this because they are very much in need of all these minerals because they're producing 8%

of everything, including especially for electric cars, batteries, and the magnets, and the rare earth minerals.

So one of the main things today they discussed, you know, a short while ago the Afghan foreign ministry issued a statement saying that

China,

they were keen on exploring and mining minerals in Afghanistan.

And also

we're talking about Belt and Road Initiative.

It's a massive infrastructure project by China to improve all the roadways or ports across Asia so that they can facilitate business mostly from China to outside world.

Now they want to include the possibility of including Afghanistan because they're already in Pakistan doing the China-Pakistan economic corridor.

So this is all coming at a time when the West is shunning Taliban, China and Pakistan.

They're courting Taliban because there are economic needs and there can be benefits on both sides.

And Barasan Ethirajan.

Honeybees are a vital part of food production and contribute to pollinating 70% of leading global crops.

But they've been facing severe declines in numbers worldwide due to factors such as deficiency in nutrients, viral diseases, habitat loss and climate change.

But now scientists at Oxford University have developed a honey bee superfood that could protect the animals against the threats.

Georgina Ranard has this report.

Another queen is in here somewhere.

It's whether we find her is another thing.

Nick has been keeping honey bees for 15 years and selling the honey in South Wales.

But he's he's run into problems.

In the last year, his bees have been dying in huge numbers.

It's just a bit of an unknown, really, at the present moment.

This year, I've lost around about 75% of the colonies through the winter, although the hives have all been full of food.

The bees have just dwindled.

Most of the bees survived through January, February, and then

they were just sort of vanished.

Bees gather what they need to make honey from flowers, and that honey is their food in winter.

But to replace the honey that we eat, lots of beekeepers feed them supplementary food, basically sugar and water.

But scientists say that that food is missing a key essential ingredient.

After serving different foods to bees for 15 years, scientists have finally discovered how to manufacture a core ingredient.

It's called sterile and has always been missing from the supplementary food beekeepers use.

At Oxford University, scientists like Jennifer develop foods for bees.

Like humans, bees must eat a varied diet to stay healthy.

So we're putting lots of different ingredients into like a cookie dough for the bees, different proteins, different fats, to try and work out what they like best and what's best for them.

Thank you.

Yeah, and then there's a zip that goes around to keep them out.

It's out here where Professor Geraldine Wright tested the new food on bees to see if it made them healthier.

Hello girls.

Hello.

The bees that ate the complete diet with the sterile were healthier and had up to 15 times more baby bees that grew into adults.

The scientists say this should also protect our food security as bees help pollinate over 70% of global crops.

The work that we did here represents a major technological breakthrough for the beekeeping industry and for food security and global pollination.

Our breakthrough means that we can essentially keep the honeybees going in the absence of floral pollen.

And this will mean that people will have hopefully less winter losses.

Bigger trials are now needed, but Nick hopes that this new food will mean a better future for these animals that we all depend on.

Georgina Rannard.

Still to come.

It's what we call in this country sometimes an embarrassing dad move.

It can be that, but the only person who has ever won three times cheese, a female.

The Air Guitar Finals in Finland.

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Here in the Bay, there's always something happening.

Make sure you don't miss a thing by listening to the latest from KQED.

I'm Bianca Taylor, host of The Latest, and each day we bring you a brand new show that updates all day long with the freshest local news, arts and culture, and in-depth analysis to help you stay connected to the place you call home.

It's trusted local news in real time on your schedule, all in 20 minutes or less.

Look for the latest from KQED wherever you get your podcasts.

The focus of much of the discussion on a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow following Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been on guarantees over security.

Now the military chiefs of NATO, meeting virtually, have been attempting to put some meat on the bones of any plan.

But the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has called any such discussions by Western powers without his country's involvement as a road to nowhere.

We cannot accept proposals to resolve collective security issues without Russia.

This will not work.

We have already explained more than once that Russia does not overstate its interests, but we will ensure our legitimate interests firmly and harshly.

Our Europe editor, Danny Epperhard, told us more.

It's the things that we've talked about in recent days, Val.

So basically, the NATO meeting and also talks at the Pentagon in play at the moment.

They are looking at what type of security guarantees, because it's one thing saying security guarantees, but actually the detail is really what matters, both in terms of what European and other nations might provide to Ukraine, but also, of course, what the US is prepared to do.

We know the US won't be putting boots on the ground, according to Donald Trump.

He's talked about potential air support without going into great detail.

So, it's those sort of details that are being thrashed out, along with perhaps things like intelligence support, logistical support, and other such issues.

They're very, very complex and they're very, very important to Ukraine.

But all this, of course, is dependent on a peace deal.

Do we know any more about Russia's intentions?

Yes, the problem with all this talk about security guarantees, as we heard a bit from Sergei Lavrov there, is that Russia has always consistently and implacably opposed the idea of any troops from NATO countries being deployed to Ukraine to try to enforce a peace deal.

It would see that as an escalation.

So when Russia talks about security guarantees, Sergei Lavrov is talking about, for example, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council guaranteeing peace.

And in the past, Russia has said that basically nothing could happen unless all five agreed on what should happen for Ukraine.

And who sits on the Security Council?

It's Russia itself, the aggressor in this war, and China, one of its key allies.

So you can imagine how safe Ukrainians would feel under such a system.

It is a non-starter as well.

So we're kind of locked in a situation where the two sides are proposing things that the other would just not accept.

It's a very strange thing and underpinning all of this is the idea that basically does Russia show any evidence of wanting to end a war that it started on anything other than the terms it has always wanted?

And although President Trump has said that Putin seems to be tired of the war and he expects he wants to end it,

and President Trump obviously is privy to a lot of information that other people are not privy to, but the observers see no real evidence of Russia wanting to end the war.

And the fighting goes on?

Absolutely.

So we've had Russian attacks on Sumy in the northeast of Ukraine, which injured at least 14 people, including three children.

There's been an attack on Konstantinivka in Donetsk.

There's fighting, fierce fighting for Pokhrowsk.

So the war absolutely grinds on.

Ukraine says all Russia is doing is playing for time.

Danny Epperhard.

Aid agencies in Somalia have raised the alarm over a dramatic rise in diphtheria.

More than 1,600 cases and 87 deaths have been reported so far this year, with children accounting for nearly all of those affected.

The Somali Health Service has been damaged by international aid cuts, reducing the availability of vaccines.

Farasa Hanshi has the details.

At the Matino Hospital in Bogadishu, the hallways are crowded with patients coughing, feverish, and some struggling to breathe.

All symptoms of diphtheria, an infectious bacterial disease, once thought to be under control, is back with a vengeance.

Nimanur brought her six-year-old boy to the hospital.

When I brought my son here, he was very sick, had a fever, his throat was swollen.

All along, I suspected other diseases, but not diphtheria.

The disease is preventable with a vaccine, but that has been in short supply.

This time, it's not just children, even unvaccinated adults are falling ill from this highly contagious and deadly disease.

Dr.

Naima Abdullah is a health worker at at the hospital.

The number of diphtheria cases in the hospital is becoming overwhelming.

These children are not being treated urgently, and by the time they get here, their condition is already severe.

Nationally, more than 1,600 cases have been reported this year.

Over a thousand of them recorded in the last 56 days.

More than 80 people have died since January.

Aid Aid agencies warned that recent aid cuts have devastated Somalia's health system, affecting routine immunizations, access to medicines, and community outreach.

Nearly a third of functioning health facilities have been forced to shut down.

Dr.

BM Gebru is a senior official from Save the Children in Somalia.

Around March, April,

hundreds of health facilities have been closed, not functioning anymore.

So that is the biggest challenge, and our fear is we don't see any visibility and it's likely to deteriorate, and we are probably heading into a much bigger disaster.

Somalia is already battered by climate shocks, conflict, and food insecurity.

Yet now it's being forced to manage a major health emergency with a healthcare system that's functioning at a fraction of its capacity.

Ferdaza Hanshi reporting from Mogadishu.

The White House has not ruled out using military force to combat drug trafficking gangs in Venezuela.

Three U.S.

warships have been deployed to the southern Caribbean after Washington designated several cartels as terrorist organizations.

In response, Venezuelan President Nicolas Paduro has said he would mobilize millions of militia members in the event of U.S.

intervention.

Our North America correspondent John Sutworth reports.

News reports quoting U.S.

officials suggest that the three warships carrying some 4,000 military personnel are being deployed to the edge of Venezuela's territorial waters as part of an anti-drug trafficking operation.

In February, President Trump designated a number of Latin American cartels, including one based in Venezuela, as foreign terrorist organizations.

There's little detail on what the operation will involve, how close the ships will actually get and whether they'll attempt to intercept traffic leaving Venezuela.

But with the White House saying that nothing's being ruled out, the country's President, Nicolas Maduro, is portraying the move as a direct threat to national sovereignty.

The government has activated thousands of members of its citizens' militias, and a ban on the use of drones has been put into effect for 30 days.

In 2018, a drone equipped with explosives detonated close to Mr.

Maduro in an apparent assassination attempt.

Earlier this month, the U.S.

announced it was doubling the reward for his arrest to 50 million US dollars.

John Sudworth.

Stand by for outrage from the western side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The British have declared that it was in their country and not in the United States that the playing of the air guitar was first observed.

A recently discovered film from 1968 shows the band Rupert's People on London's Hampstead Heath doing just that.

Previously, it had been thought that air guitar was first recorded in 1969 when Joe Cocker performed with a little help from my friends at Woodstock.

The newly discovered film is getting its premiere in Ulu, Finland, at the Air Guitar World Championships, which are taking place over the next few days.

BBC Seanlei spoke to Johan Torvenen, the world's most senior air guitar judge, and asked him what first attracted him to this competition.

This whole thing started already in 1996,

and it was one of my friends who decided to arrange the first World championships in air guitar.

And he asked me if I would be the first judge on the first year.

And I said, yeah, why not?

And he also said that one of the main things he wants to present the world with the air guitar thing is world peace.

And

here we are almost 30 years later.

I've been there every year except one year.

I missed one year.

Otherwise, I've been the head judge.

It's an admirable ambition to try and promote world peace, but it's all a bit daft, isn't it, Ergatar?

People standing up and miming as if they were once rock stars and would wish they'd been rock stars.

It's what we call in this country sometimes an embarrassing dad move.

It can be that, but you must understand that it's also something else because the only person who has ever won three times the title comes from Japan, and she's a female.

Nanami 7 sees Nagura and you can't say that she does that movements or what was the expression you used.

Embarrassing dad.

We'll leave that there.

You made your point.

Just very last brief thing.

What's the best thing you've seen in our guitar?

Well, one year a competitor tried to put Caseline on air guitar and lit that light.

It didn't work.

But that was quite fresh.

The world's most senior air guitar judge, Johan Tovadin, speaking there to Sean Lay.

And that's it from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, 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 Global Newspod.

This edition was mixed by Louis Griffin.

The producers were Charles Sanctuary and Marion Strawn.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Valerie Sanderson.

Until next time, bye-bye.

Here in the Bay, there's always something happening.

Make sure you don't miss a thing by listening to the latest from KQED.

I'm Bianca Taylor, host of The Latest, and each day we bring you a brand new show that updates all day long with the freshest local news, arts and culture, and in-depth analysis to help you stay connected to the place you call home.

It's trusted local news in real time on your schedule, all in 20 minutes or less.

Look for the latest from KQED wherever you get your podcasts.