Netanyahu: Israel will begin talks to free all hostages

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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 Friday, the 22nd of August, these are our main stories.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will begin negotiations to free all hostages and bring about an end to the war in Gaza.

I have instructed to begin immediate negotiations on the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel.

27 countries sign a statement calling on Israel to allow foreign journalists into Gaza.

In the US, now there's a TikTok movement to free the Menendez.

There's a new generation that's for the rollers.

People are looking at the case with fresh eyes.

Brothers Lyle and Eric Menendez, jailed for murdering their parents in 1989, are about to start parole hearings.

Also, in this podcast, new research finds the mind doesn't adjust to losing a limb.

It feels like I'm being cattle prodded on a very specific part of my foot, and it's bizarre because it's like it's actually happening, but I look down and there's no foot that could be getting electric shock.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's ordered immediate negotiations for the conclusion of the war in Gaza.

He delivered the statement in a pre-recorded message filmed outside the Israel Defence Forces Gaza Division headquarters.

I have come to the Gaza Division today to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the Minister of Defence for taking over Gaza City and defeating Hamas.

I greatly appreciate the presence of the reserve soldiers and of course the regular army for this vital goal.

At the same time, I have instructed to begin immediate negotiations on the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel.

The Israeli Prime Minister also said he'd approved the military's plan for taking control of Gaza City.

The IDF have already entered the outskirts of the city, which is home to more than a million Palestinians.

Hundreds have been fleeing.

Michael Kleiner is a senior figure in Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud party.

He said Palestinians would be allowed back once Israel has finished its operation.

The goal of this operation is to end the war as soon as possible and end the suffering of

the population of Gaza and of the Israeli army, Israeli soldiers who are recruited hundreds of days and want this war finished.

And if we are going to fight in Gaza, inevitably also civilians are being held.

So we want to prevent this by warning them and ask them to go out temporarily to the Mawasi.

And the moment Hamas is out, the moment Hamas is disarmed, the rehabilitation of Gaza will start and they will be able to come back to their homes if they want to.

To many Palestinians, Gaza City was at one point a place of relative safety after Israeli strikes forced them out of their homes in other parts of the territory.

Here's the view of one woman: I am in Gaza now.

It was my 10th displacement under fire.

I left with nothing, nothing at all, except holding the hands of my two daughters.

Displacement means starting from zero, from less than zero, even.

No money, no shelter, no basic means of life.

There is no permanent home, no safe place, no certainty about the future, even here beside the sea, where water should mean a horizon and a freedom.

I feel the sky closing in on UNAS more and more.

So, what does all this mean for the ceasefire proposal agreed by Hamas earlier this week?

We asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Joe Floto.

Since Monday night, Hamas, we'd been told had agreed a proposal by mediators, the Qataris and the Egyptians, for a temporary ceasefire, 60 days, half the hostages released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

And we were waiting for the Israeli Prime Minister to come and say what he said to that proposal.

Now, what we've got tonight is Netanyahu saying I've approved the plans for a massive military assault on Gaza City, but at the same time, I've instructed to begin immediate negotiations on the release of all our hostages and the end of the war on terms acceptable to Israel.

So what he's effectively saying is I'm not picking up the deal.

that is agreed by Hamas and is ready on the table for a ceasefire.

I am rejecting that essentially, but I'm willing to negotiate.

And he appears to be saying I'm going to negotiate while preparing for this major military assault so he goes on he ends he says these two things defeating Hamas and releasing all our hostages go hand in hand so he is having two tracks here the military track and a negotiating track but what he's not doing is picking up that ceasefire deal that was ready on Monday night that's going to have to wait and it's on Israel's terms I mean what's the latest on the military operation well Israel has been signaling very very loudly and and very methodically its preparations for this military assault on Gaza City.

Its plans, as you've been hearing, are to push out the civilian population and then fight Hamas to defeat in Gaza City, dealing it what they call a fatal blow.

The problem with that is that that requires tens of thousands of troops.

Israel yesterday issued a call-up notice to 60,000 reservists and extended the reserve duty of another 10,000.

So there are lots and lots of preparations being made.

So they're not ready yet for that major assault, but over the next few weeks, that will be ramping up.

And as part of that, the existing troops inside Gaza have been inching closer and closer around the outskirts of Gaza City, pushing into the suburbs.

And that's caused death and it's caused a lot of fear and worry for those people inside Gaza City.

And as we've been hearing today, there's been a little protest inside Gaza City, quite a rare thing, with people just saying, look, we've had enough.

Now we've been moved north and south.

We've got nowhere left to go.

Joe Floto in Jerusalem.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has banned foreign journalists from entering the territory, except for tightly controlled press tours led by the IDF.

Now, 27 countries, including the UK, Germany, France, and Japan, have signed a joint statement calling on Israel to allow immediate, independent, foreign media access to what they call the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

Signatories also urged Israel to protect journalists already operating in Gaza.

Our correspondent, Tom Bateman, is in Washington.

Many governments have over those months acknowledged the fact that Israel has blocked foreign journalists from getting into Gaza and have at various points called for them not to do that.

Although what we haven't had is this kind of orchestrated joint call and it's now 27 governments that have signed this letter by an organization called the Media Freedom Coalition, but it is basically an intergovernmental body that supports journalists' rights and protections throughout the world.

My sense is that this had grown and was being pressed specifically by a few of the Western European governments to try and get this joint communique published.

And really the trigger for that was, as they put this in the statement, basically, the unfolding and growing catastrophe in terms of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which I think has led to an acknowledgement and understanding increasingly among some governments that without media access, without the ability to continue to show the realities of what's happening in Gaza, that will sort of hamstring the pressure that those governments can also put on the Israeli authorities as they try to get more food and support inside Gaza.

You were the BBC's correspondent in Jerusalem for many years, Tom.

How has Israel handled media access in Palestinian territories over the years?

Well, I mean, getting access to Gaza for a foreign journalist was not particularly straightforward, but I mean, compared to this, relatively easy.

You would tend to go through the Errors crossing, as it was known, a military checkpoint and an almost sort of dystopian checkpoint along the perimeter barrier between Israel and Gaza.

And you would have to have Israeli government accreditation to do that.

So that created sort of another layer.

And there were some restrictions around the hours that that was open.

But, you know, getting getting to and from Gaza for international journalists involved a process, but it could be done.

Ever since the October 7th attacks by Hamas and the war that's followed, Israel has completely blocked foreign journalists from getting into Gaza.

And as we know, and this statement refers to this, more than 190 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed, according to a media group that helps protect journalists.

And so that's why it's increased this pressure to allow access both from news organisations and now this coordinated attempt by governments.

Tom Bateman in Washington.

Donald Trump is celebrating a legal victory over a penalty that had been imposed on him for fraud in a civil fraud trial last year.

While the case wasn't thrown out, that penalty for overstating his wealth in order to secure favourable loans was described as excessive.

But the legal battle could continue.

Our North America business correspondent Michelle Fleury has this report.

This is a big big legal development for Donald Trump, one that he's been quick to celebrate.

A New York Appeals Court has ruled that the former president did commit business fraud but said the financial penalty he was facing, more than half a billion dollars with interest, was simply too high.

The divided court found the punishment clashed with constitutional protections against excessive fines.

That massive figure was originally imposed by Judge Arthur Engeren here in New York after finding that Trump, his eldest two sons, and the Trump organisation had inflated his net worth to get better deals from banks and insurers.

The ruling also came with sweeping business restrictions, including a court-appointed monitor to keep a close watch on the Trump organisation.

Now, one of the five judges on the panel, Peter Moulton, wrote, while harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm to justify such a large fine, noting that the other penalties still remain in place.

In In typical fashion, Donald Trump took to social media, calling the ruling a total victory, and his son Eric also declared it a win for the Trump organization.

But it's not a complete exoneration.

New York's Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case, says the ruling still confirms that Donald Trump broke the law, and she now plans to appeal to the state's highest court.

So this legal battle doesn't appear to be over just yet.

Michel Fleury.

Ukraine's President Zelensky has called on allies to put greater pressure on Russia following the massive air attack overnight on Wednesday on his country.

Drones and missiles struck 11 locations.

At least one person was killed, and more than a dozen were injured in the city of Lviv, near the country's western border.

Vladimir Zelensky said the Kremlin was behaving as if there were no global efforts to stop the war.

Our correspondent Katie Watson reports from Kyiv.

The haunting wail of sirens echoed across the country last last night, a show of strength from Russia as it launched over 600 drones and missiles.

The attacks reached deep into the west of Ukraine, close to the Polish border.

Residential buildings and a nursery were hit in one of Ukraine's safest cities, Lviv.

One person died, and several more were injured.

These attacks come amid a flurry of diplomatic talks, with promises from the US and Europe on security guarantees appearing to gain momentum.

President Zelensky says he's hopeful there'll be more detail on what those guarantees might look like in the next week or so.

And he said he's ready to meet President Putin in what he calls neutral Europe, Switzerland, Austria, or even Turkey.

While Donald Trump has ruled out sending US troops to Ukraine, some European countries, including the UK, a move that today Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, rejected.

I really hope that they understand what this would be.

Absolutely unacceptable.

With the two sides still very far apart, few here in Kyiv think these talks will deliver anything.

I believe in peace, but Russia.

With Russia, I don't know how it may be.

Putin is crazy.

Firefighters have only just put out last night's blazers, but they're bracing themselves for more attacks tonight.

Katie Watson.

Now to the fate of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by force and taken to Russia.

The US First Lady, Melania Trump, wrote a letter to President Putin about the children, but their situation hasn't been at the forefront of negotiations.

Katerina Rashevska is a legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights in Kyiv, who helped put together the evidence for the ICC on what the rights group terms the illegal deportation of children.

Her work began back in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, and she told the BBC how many Ukrainian children have been taken.

According to official Ukrainian statistics, they are talking about at least 19,546 children who were identified as deported or forcibly transferred.

But of course, it is not a final number because the process of identification of abducted children is ongoing, and the Russians themselves

were talking about more than 700,000 Ukrainian children who crossed the border since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

But

the number of children who were actually appropriated by the Russian Federation is much more higher.

We are talking about more than 1,600,000 young Ukrainian kids who are now in occupation under Russian jurisdiction.

Katerina Rashevska, Baroness Helena Kennedy is a human rights lawyer.

She's working for the President of Ukraine on war crimes and on the recovery of abducted Ukrainian children.

And Evan Davis spoke to her.

Some of them were taken, for example, from hospitals in Mariupol, where there was a huge bombardment, you'll remember, at an early stage of this war.

But other children were taken, taken from the streets after places have been bombed.

Adolescent boys, particularly kids of 8, 9, 10, wander the places, fascinated by what's happened.

And they were picked up and they were bussed into Russia.

And they have now been dispersed across the whole of Russia, which is, of course, a huge expanse.

I've been working with different teams about trying to get a return and exchanges and trying to get some of these children back.

And some 600 children have been returned, and they give very alarming accounts of being told that there's no such place as Ukraine, that they're really Russian children, that they should speak Russian, and given a rather distorted story as to their nation.

And the issue of that, in terms of the development of children and their sense of identity and so on, and the disparagement of their families and of their people, it has long-term impacts.

But separation in itself can have devastating effects.

But these kids now, many of them, we know, have been fostered or put into children's homes across Russia.

I mean, in terms of the sort of scale of what has happened in this war, how does it compare to this kind of child abduction issue in other wars?

Listen, nailing down the actual numbers is very, very difficult.

Ukraine would put it at something like 19,000 to 20,000 children.

But this is huge.

I mean, this sort of business of children being displaced.

I mean, that happened in the Second World War as well.

So those things have happened in other wars.

But this determined thing of taking children is partly to undermine the morale of Ukraine.

But it's also, I mean, many Ukrainians will tell you, it's because there is a desire to have more children and to populate Russia with more children.

Families do want to foster because there are issues about the small number of Slavic children being born.

Baroness Helena Kennedy speaking to Evan Davis.

Still to come on the Global News podcast.

The cage was very important for me.

A childhood of joy and excitement, it made me the player I am today.

The British-Nigerian British-Nigerian footballer hoping to protect football cages in London.

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More than three decades after their murder trial, two of the United States' most notorious convicted murderers are starting two days of parole hearings in California that could result in their release.

The brothers, Lyle and Eric Menendez, were jailed for the murder of their parents back in 1989, and their crime has been the subject of documentaries, dramas, and plenty of discussion on social media.

Peter Bose reports from Los Angeles.

The Menendez case is one of the most infamous criminal trials in America.

Their murder trial was one of the first to be televised, and it gripped America.

Two brothers from a wealthy family in Beverly Hills accused of killing their parents at close range with shotguns.

In court, Eric Menendez admitted what he'd done.

I was just firing as I went into the room.

I just started firing.

In what direction?

In front of me.

What was in front of you?

My parents.

Prosecutors said they were motivated by money, with the young men standing to inherit their parents' multi-million dollar fortune.

But the brothers insisted they acted out of self-defense and a fear for their lives after years of sexual abuse by their father.

Lyle Menendez told the court his mother knew what was going on.

What did you say to your mom?

I told her to tell dad to leave me alone

and he keeps touching me.

What did your mom say?

She told me to stop it

and that I was exaggerating

and that My dad has to punish me when I do things wrong.

Initially, the brothers claimed they discovered discovered their parents' bodies after returning home from the cinema.

For months, they concealed the truth until Eric confessed to their therapist, Jerome O'Zeal, who became a key witness at their trial.

I don't know if he said we killed our parents, but I asked him, you mean you killed your parents?

He said, yes.

Eric and Lyle Menendez were eventually found guilty and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

But now, after serving more than 35 years behind bars, they could be set free.

Earlier this year, a judge reduced their sentence to 50 years to life, which means they can be considered for parole.

Now there's a TikTok movement to free the Menendi.

There's a new generation that's for the brothers.

People are looking at the case with fresh eyes.

The Menendez Brothers story is woven into LA pop culture, a true crime epic that continues to captivate and divide audiences.

A recent Netflix documentary shed new light on the case, while the drama series Monsters drew a huge global audience, particularly among a streaming generation not yet born when the murders occurred.

Eric and I killed our parents together, so

I'd say that makes us pretty close.

Over the next two days, the brothers will appear before California's parole board, which will decide whether they're suitable for release, whether they no longer pose a danger to the community.

The state's governor, Gavin Newsom, will make a final decision, but it could be months before the outcome is known.

Peter Bose.

Fans of the Japanese trading card game Pokemon will often go to great lengths to add to their collection.

In Japan this month, it caused a public outcry after a promotion led to many people buying fast food they didn't want.

Will Leonardo told me what had happened.

Well, it's a bit of an unfortunate tale, isn't it?

McDonald's Japan had no doubt envisaged boosting footfall through scenes of children excited to see which Pokemon cards they were going to get.

They'd put them into happy meals, you know, the famous happy meals that McDonald's has all around the world.

But instead, it caused something of a frenzy.

You had these long queues forming and multiple branches.

People were buying multiple meals, and we're talking many, and leaving the food on the side or just throwing it away in the bins outside just to get the cards.

And then these cards started appearing online to be resold on e-commerce sites and this caused a lot of anger among social media users as you can imagine they're uploading images of overflowing bins you know there were the regular customers who want to go in and just get their normal fillet of fish or whatever it may be they were struggling to get their burgers because of these queues and you know this happy meal promotion was meant to last from the 9th to the 11th of August but it ended up selling out within the day so I suppose in some senses you could say despite the negative publicity from McDonald's it was maybe a bit of a success it's amazing though I mean Pokemon's been going for years hasn't it so it's obviously still very popular Well, it is.

I mean, it's popular around the world, as we know.

And, you know, it's got various franchises, it's got games, it's got anime series.

But I think there is one thing here as well, is the irresistible sense of not knowing which card you're going to get.

You know, you queue up and you get a series of cards, you don't know beforehand what they're going to be.

And the issue with these cards is that they're also a thriving industry of collectibles.

You know, some are sold online for huge sums, and they're obviously something that people want to get their hands on.

And, you know, in hindsight, it seems predictable that this Happy Meal campaign might have ended this way.

But of course, the serious side of this is this is about wasted food isn't it?

It is yes and especially in Japan where people are often held to a higher standard of cleanliness than elsewhere.

You know you know these scenes of rubbish piling up in the streets weren't very good and it also taps into a cultural aversion to waste in general.

The Japanese call it motai nai where even young children are told not to waste even a grain of rice.

And the anger has caused as you mentioned you know the Japanese government specifically the Customer Affairs Agency to intervene.

They say they've held talks with McDonald's Japan to urge them to prevent food waste in future.

And this ministry has even said it's holding talks with other ministries to counter waste in general.

McDonald's, by the way, apologised for this whole affair, and it's also pulled the next campaign based on the wildly popular manga series One Piece.

Will Leonardo?

Can you imagine an intense feeling of pain or itching or heat in a part of your body that no longer exists?

That's the reality for many sufferers of phantom limb syndrome.

Neuroscientists thought the brain rewired itself after a limb is removed.

But new research from the universities of Cambridge in England and Pittsburgh in the United States suggests the brain's internal map of the body remains unchanged, even after a part like an arm or leg is cut off.

Luke Tarrant had his leg amputated last year after crashing his motorcycle in Colombia.

He now suffers from phantom limping.

For me, it feels like I'm being cattle prodded on a very specific part of my foot.

And it's bizarre because it's like it's actually happening, but I look down and there's no foot that could be getting electric shocked for everyone it's different some people I spoke to they feel like their limbs being crushed some people feel like they're being tickled or their limbs kind of wet and something's dripping down it it really just depends on the amputee but for me it's like being electric shocked in my foot and I don't want to sound like too much of a hippie but my opinion on pain has changed quite a lot since this injury I used to think that pain was your body telling you something was wrong like oh you've cut your leg it hurts you've put your hand in hot water it hurts whereas now i feel like pain is very associated with like my mood and how i'm feeling for me it's just not real pain my foot's somewhere in columbia it's not attached to my body luke tarrant this new research has significant implications for the treatment of phantom limb syndrome professor tamar maken is the lead author of the study The background to the study is foundational knowledge we have from the textbooks in neuroscience that tell us that if the brain loses input from one part of the body, for example, this is going to trigger what we call reorganization, where the cortical area responsible to one part of the body, let's say the hand, gets taken over by another body part.

And traditionally, in the literature, the hand area gets taken over by the face.

And what we've done is we've recruited three patients that were about to undergo a life-saving surgery to amputate their arm.

And before the hand was amputated, we asked them to move fingers of that hand to see how the brain relates to these fingers.

And after they have undergone their amputation, they came back to the study three and six months later.

And one of them also came again a year and a half and another one five years later.

And we've asked them to repeat the same movements they've done before, but this time the hand itself is physically missing.

So we're asking them to engage their phantom fingers, the hand that they don't have, but they can still sense and feel.

And what we've done is compared the brain activity, the brain patterns in the part of the brain that normally receives inputs from the fingers before and after amputation.

And what we found was that nothing really changed, even several years after the amputation.

So in total, our results directly contradict this foundational understanding that the brain can change or reorganise following amputation.

Professor Tim R.

Makin from the University of Cambridge here in England.

And finally, millions of youngsters around the world hone their football skills on the pitch, in the park, or even on the street.

These days, some even learn it in the fast-paced environment of a cage where control is essential and flicks and tricks are prized assets.

Well, that was the case for Nigeria and Southampton midfielder Joe Aribo, who grew up in London.

The Premier League star has been telling BBC Sport Africa's Ian Williams how his local cage helped unlock his potential.

The cage was very important for me.

Fun, carnage, relentless.

A childhood of joy and excitement.

It made me the player I am today.

Lavender Park in South London is an unimposing space.

But on one side is a tatty astro turf pitch surrounded by a green metal cage about three meters high.

It's where Joe Aribo learned his football and where he's taking me now.

So Joe, when you come in here now, what sort of memories come flooding back to you?

So many funny ones.

Being there when I was 10, 11 years old to 25.

Yeah, last week, yeah, you're still there.

Honestly, there was so much going on, 30, 40 people.

It was carnage.

Too many people running around in tight spaces.

So I guess you had to learn to look after yourself.

What else did you learn?

Ball control is so important.

Weave your way in and out of men.

And you have to try and keep the ball as best as you can because if you lose it, you don't know when you're going to get it back.

Right, I'm going to see if you can hit the crossbar, Joe.

Okay.

Bing!

Gone just over.

Joe is now 29, so the memory is coming back to him as we play crossbar challenge and getting on for 20 years old.

And time has very clearly left its mark.

There are big holes in this pitch while the carpet of turf has become rucked up in places.

Yes, there's litter, but Joe says he's also seen broken glass and even dog mess.

It's just so dangerous.

You can see like lots of patches and just wanted to fix it just to give the kids a better opportunity.

Joe is talking about fixing the cage because that's the first project he's tackling with his new Aribo foundation.

Working with the local council, a new pitch will be laid, along with new goals, better security, and possibly even changing rooms.

We want to make it a lot more comfortable for people where they can get change, they can shower, etc.

The skills Joe learned here have seen him go on to play in the Premier League, in European club competition, and in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, something to make his parents, who are from Nigeria's Yoruba ethnic group, proud.

But when enjoying the rough and tumble of the cage back in the day, did he ever really believe he could make it as a pro?

I wouldn't say that being down here made me think I'd be one, but in my heart I wanted to be one.

What do you think you had to show then?

Resilience.

I think if you ask my siblings, my parents, I didn't really give myself another option.

Playing for Nigeria, what kind of pride has that given you and your family?

It's an honor for my parents, I'm 100% sure it's deeper for them.

I used to sometimes just kick the ball as high as possible and just try to control it.

Joe is one of many Nigeria international regulars who were either born or raised in London.

The likes of Alex Awobi, Calvin Bassey, Adam Ola Luckman and Ola Einer also learned their skills in places like the Lavender Park Cage.

It just shows that there's so much talent in the cages, how much talent there is in London.

So there could be more to to come.

More Joe Aribos coming out of South London for Nigeria.

Yeah, definitely.

The footballer Joe Aribo speaking there to the BBC's Ian Williams.

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 Davith Evans and produced by Charles Sanctuary and Isabella Jewell.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Valerie Sanderson.

Until next time, bye-bye.

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