UN calls for investigation following deadly Israeli strikes on Nasser hospital in Gaza

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

I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 26th of August, these are our main stories.

The Prime Minister of Israel has expressed deep regret at what he called a tragic mishap in Gaza after an Israeli strike on a hospital killed at least 20 people.

Ismail El Mayo Zambada, the Mexican drug lord who co-founded the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo Guzman, has pleaded guilty in a US court to smuggling and conspiracy.

Also in this podcast, we head to Paris.

Each day, some 2,000 tourists and Parisians descend its winding steps to view row upon row of skulls and bones.

Soon they won't be able to visit the catacombs in the French capital.

We find out why.

We begin in Gaza.

The Israeli Prime Minister has expressed deep regret at what he called a tragic mishap at a hospital in southern Gaza, in which at least 20 people were killed.

The Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis was first targeted by an Israeli drone and then five minutes later by a missile, a tactic that's known as double-tap bombing.

five journalists were among the dead as a result of the israeli strike the un chief antonio guteris condemned the attack his spokesman is stefan de jaric civilians including medical personnel and journalists must be respected and protected at all times he calls for a prompt impartial investigation into these killings he reiterates that medical personnel and journalists must be able to perform their essential duties without interference without intimidation and without harm and in full accordance with international humanitarian law.

Our correspondent Emir Nada monitored Monday's developments from Jerusalem.

A video shows smoke rising above the skyline of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, a live feed being beamed from a vantage point at Nassau Hospital to TV news studios around the world.

Then it goes dark.

Lizal Kok from Medical Aid for Palestinians was working inside the hospital.

We were visiting an intubated patient who was critically ill when there was a very loud explosion very, very close by.

Within seconds, there were hospital staff coming into the ICU covered in dust, in blood, people expressing great distress, and we were informed that we would need to evacuate as soon as we could.

Rescue workers and journalists rushed up the stairs of the Nassau hospital to where the Reuters cameraman, Hossam al-Mosri, was hit.

Other journalists journalists filmed the scene from afar.

Moments later, the group on the stairs disappear in the explosion of a second direct hit.

The immediate aftermath of the strike is one of horror, with at least 11 bodies strewn across the stairs.

Ferdi Omer described the scene.

None of the attacks had any real warning.

It is worth noting and it's important to mention that Nasser Hospital is the only hospital operating in Khanes and serves more than 900,000 people.

It is also important that the bombing occurred during the busiest hours, especially since thousands of patients visit the hospital at this time every day.

Among those killed and injured were rescue workers and journalists for the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.

Listeners would have heard some of the Reuters cameraman Hosam al-Masri's final work.

I used some of his material from a funeral of an entire family killed by an Israeli airstrike on a tent for a report on Saturday.

Nassau hospital was already running at 300% capacity, caring for the malnourished and those caught up in the fighting, now with a damaged surgical unit and wounded staff.

This is not only another deadly attack on journalists, another deadly attack on rescue workers, and another attack on a healthcare facility, but Israel will also be accused of a so-called double-tap strike, a controversial military tactic designed to maximize casualties.

In a written statement, Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that Israel deeply regretted the tragic mishap that occurred today at Nassau Hospital in Gaza, adding that Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff, and civilians.

The suggestion by Israel's Prime Minister that the incident was unintentional will be questioned due to the repeated targeted nature of the attacks.

Israel has said it is conducting an internal inquiry, but hasn't said if or when its results will be published.

Emer Nada.

Dr.

Mohamed Saka is the director of nursing at Nassau Hospital.

He says he and his colleagues will continue working there despite the risks.

Every day I'm losing my colleagues one after one die every day.

It's really something shocking and horrible, but we can't abandon our patients.

This is the nature of nursing and medical mission.

We won't give up.

We will continue despite losing our beautiful colleagues every day.

The campaign group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, says around 200 journalists have been killed in the Gaza conflict so far.

It has become the deadliest ever war for media workers.

Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson has been looking at why that may be the case.

The so-called double-tap bombing tactic used by Israel is often deadly for journalists who rush to the scene of the first strike, only to be hit by a later one.

But Israel has also routinely targeted journalists it accuses of working for Hamas, sometimes killing many of their media colleagues alongside them.

As civilians, journalists covering conflicts are protected under international law unless they take an active part in the fighting.

Simply disseminating propaganda for the enemy doesn't count.

Some of the world's leading press freedom groups have accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists, which it denies.

It's blocked international media from reporting freely from Gaza for the entire 22 months of this war, the first time this has happened in any modern conflict.

But Israel does routinely allow medics and aid workers in and out of the Gaza Strip, and has provided no convincing explanation for why international journalists remain banned.

Lucy Williamson.

Earlier, the Israeli military issued a statement saying it regrets any harm to what it called uninvolved individuals individuals and that it does not target journalists as such.

For more on this, Tim Franks spoke to retired Brigadier General Mir Alran, former Deputy Director of Military Intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces.

We know for sure

for a long period of time, especially since the war started after the massacre of October

23, that Hamas is using all the time civilian installations like hospitals, schools, and

other

civilian provision institutions for their own military and terrorist activities.

They do it knowingly.

They know exactly that in order to

achieve the

goals of the war, we have to eliminate the Hamas

terrorists, and

they know that this will hamper and sometimes also kill civilian uninvolved people.

This is very unfortunate.

That is a familiar argument that is Hamas that's hiding behind civilian human shields.

But I suppose the question, and it's been the question from the start of this war, is that

what are the calculations that Israel is using or the IDF is using to say

there will be justifiable numbers of civilian casualties?

When you're talking about, obviously, several journalists here who were killed,

the boss of the World Health Organization has just put out on social media that 50 people were injured, including some patients who were already critically ill.

I guess, you know, the question for the IDF is,

in that context, what is justified

as an attack target?

I don't think that we can talk about justification for this kind of a situation.

It's a very unfortunate situation.

The problem is that the only way for the IDF to carry on its missions in the war and to eliminate the threat of Hamas and to end the war as soon as possible and to get back and to release the hostages is to fight the Hamas.

And when we are fighting Hamas, I mean, this is the consequences.

The problem, as I said before, is not

that it is being carried out.

We understand the situation.

We understand that we are there in a very active war zone and people are being killed.

The numbers, of course, of civilians are very small compared with the

Hamas

terrorists.

And I think that it is.

I think that

is heavily disputed by many, many sources.

I know it is disputed, but

there are more than one side to the dispute.

And I'm telling you what I understand the situation is.

And of course, I want to add to that that anybody who is uninvolved is being killed.

This is very unfortunate.

But the problem is,

what do we do about it?

Do we stop fighting against Hamas and do we stop the attempts, the military attempts to dismantle it or not?

And this has been the decision on the government of Israel, the part of the government of Israel, to continue the war, to try to bring up an end to the war, which is a problem by itself.

And as long as the war goes on, this is going to be the cost.

And it's very unfortunate, as I said before.

And I wish that no civilians being armed.

And especially when we talk about journalists, even though, you know, journalists and civilians, as far as I am concerned, is the same thing.

Yeah.

Retired IDF Brigadier General Mir Alran.

The U.S.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, later this year.

He made the comments at the White House alongside South Korea's president, Lee Jae-myung, who favors diplomacy over confrontation with Pyongyang.

Mr.

Trump repeatedly told reporters he had a great relationship with Mr.

Kim.

Bernd de Boosman is in Washington.

For President Lee, there's a lot of domestic consideration there as well.

A large part of his base thinks that North Korea and South Korea can be brought closer together through dialogue, which is a much more conciliatory approach than the previous administration in South Korea.

He said, in his view, President Trump is the man that could make that happen.

And President Trump is very keen to remind people of his previous visit to North Korea, which was unprecedented, and also seemed to suggest he would do so again when possible, whether this year or perhaps next year.

Bernd de Boosman.

Now, it may sound far-fetched, but in China it is a growing phenomenon.

Part therapist, part spy, she's known as a mistress dispeller.

Her job, to weave her way into the lives of a husband and his mistress to break up their affair.

It's also the subject of a new documentary which has filmed the whole experience from all points of view.

Its director Elizabeth Lowe told us more about the mistress dispellers and their work.

It only cropped up in the last decade or so, but it's a service that you can turn to if you find out that your spouse is cheating on you and you don't want to directly confront them about it.

You can instead hire a mistress dispeller who will enter your family and meet your husband under a false identity, say your long-lost friend from college or something, and position herself to become a friend of your husband, which will then lead her to become a friend of his mistress as well.

And under that false identity, she gains the ear and confidence of both the husband and the mistress and is able to, over the course of two to three months, persuade both of them to end the affair seemingly of their own accord.

And I asked her, why can't you just enter the family as a counselor or a therapist?

And she said that in mainland China, therapy among the middle classes and upper middle classes is still very much stigmatized.

And the concept that domestic shame should not be made public is still very strong.

You know, when I first found out about the mistress dispelling phenomenon, I thought this could only be made as a fiction film.

But then I worked with our China-based producer Maggie Lee, who's incredible at getting access.

And once we found Teacher Wang, who is the mistress dispeller that we profile in the film, she was the only one who was able to...

She had such great relationships with all her clients that she was able to persuade all three parties of a love triangle to be on camera.

And that's when we knew we had a film.

But then it took us over three years to finally find a couple and a mistress, all part of the same love triangle, who we could document them from beginning to end.

There are other mistress dispelling surfaces that might use intimidation as a tactic or seduction as another tactic, but for teacher Wang, what she really does is approach all three parties of a love triangle with so much compassion and empathy that she's really coming in to understand why each of them is doing what they're doing and guide them in that way.

And she actually has this line that really stood out to me and audience members when they watched the film is that the person who is in the most pain in a love affair is not actually the wife.

She says it's actually the mistress who doesn't believe that she deserves full love.

And so she's the one who needs their help the most.

Elizabeth Lowe.

Still to come.

When we think about experiences such as stalking, often we think about women's mental health and well-being.

But our results are really showing that also these experiences are quite severe.

New findings show being stalked can increase your risk of having a stroke or heart attack.

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One of Latin America's longest and most notorious criminal careers has been brought to an end.

The Mexican organized crime boss, Ismael Elmayo Sambada, has entered a guilty plea to two smuggling and conspiracy charges.

It came as part of a plea bargain with U.S.

prosecutors in New York.

Pam Bondi is the U.S.

Attorney General.

El Mayo will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

He will die in a U.S.

federal prison where he belongs.

His guilty plea brings us one step closer to achieving our goal of elimination of the drug cartels and the transnational criminal organizations that are flooding our country with drugs, human traffickers, and homicides.

The BBC's Mexico correspondent Will Grant told me more about El Mayo.

Ismail Mayo Sambala just isn't your average drug lord.

There is a very strong case to say he is the most important, or certainly was at one time the most important drug kingpin in the world.

He's incredibly powerful.

He was the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel that has this incredible global reach as a criminal organization, obviously beyond Mexico, into the United States, but all around the world.

So to see him, who has evaded capture for easily 35 to 40 years, in a US court, changing his plea from a not guilty plea that he entered last year to a whole raft of drug smuggling charges and money laundering offences, now change that plea to drug smuggling and conspiracy charges, essentially recognise in front of a US federal judge that he played this incredibly important role in flooding the United States with heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine for decades is truly an extraordinary moment.

Now, Will, he has been in custody for some time.

The Sinaloa cartel goes on, and that is the problem.

People will always

take the place of the heads of these organisations.

That is part of the problem, of course.

Yes, if you take down one kingpin, another quite quickly takes their place.

What we've seen is, of course, the story under which Ismail Sambala ended up in US custody.

He was, in essence, double-crossed by the sons of his former ally, Joaquim El Chapo Gusman.

One of them duped him to coming to a meeting where he says he was ambushed, overpowered, and then forcibly removed to Texas on a flight where law enforcement was waiting for him.

That event, and the fact that El Chapo Cuz Man was already serving a life sentence saw the Sinaloa cartel split into two factions.

It was El Mayo on the one side and El Chapo's sons known as Los Chapitos on the other.

What we've seen since then is just the most extraordinary violence in the state of Sinaloa as those two warring factions beefed out.

Incredibly difficult months for the ordinary people of the state of Sinaloa and a real challenge for law enforcement in Mexico.

But your initial point is right, that when you take down Sambala, even someone as high as him, there is generally plenty of lieutenants to sort of take their place.

Will Grant.

The US President Donald Trump promised to deport millions of undocumented migrants during his second term in the White House, but his efforts to do that have been mired in practical and legal problems.

Take the case of Quilma Abrego Garcia, the migrant whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador made him a symbol of President Trump's hardline immigration policies.

He's been described by the administration as a gang member and criminal illegal alien.

He is now back in America and has been detained once again.

Our U.S.

correspondent John Sudworth is following the case.

Mr.

Obrego Garcia was deported in March to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting his removal to that country because of concerns that he would not be safe there.

The court ruled in April that he should be returned.

The Trump administration refused, saying there was nothing they could do.

There was already a done deal.

He was off U.S.

soil.

Only then to return him in June, arrest him immediately, charge him with transporting immigrants, charges that Mr.

Abrego Garcia's lawyers say are politically motivated.

He was released on bail on Friday, but this morning, when he attended an ICE interview, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Inview in Baltimore, he was detained again.

His lawyers say that the authorities have offered them a pretty stark choice.

Either he he pleads guilty to those latest charges and is allowed to be deported to Costa Rica, where he would essentially live as a free man, or if he continues to fight those charges, he will instead be deported to another country.

Some suggestions that it may be an African country.

Obviously, his lawyers and representatives are concerned about that possibility.

And they say that they will fight these latest charges.

In essence, Nick, what we have here is his supporters and lawyers suggesting that, particularly given statements from very senior members of this administration including the president himself this is now a highly politicized case that their client is being targeted it is therefore unconstitutional and his lawyer Simon Sanderval Moschenberg this morning saying that they will once again take this to court and try to get the whole thing stopped in 2019 mr.

Obrego Garcia had a full trial it lasted over two days and the result of that trial was that the judge entered an order that he could not be deported to El Salvador.

That order was not even appealed by the government.

If they want to deport him to any other country, they need to go through that exact same process.

John, this case demonstrates just how complex a process it is, deporting anybody, if you're going to follow due process.

And perhaps it underlines also just how impractical Mr.

Trump's bold promises about deporting millions may turn out to be.

I think that is a fair comment, Nick, although with a couple of caveats.

I mean, there have been these high-profile legal challenges.

Obviously, Mr.

Albrego Garcia's case is one of the most high-profile.

The courts have, you know, blocked some of the actions of this administration.

And for the first couple of months, at least, it looked as if the numbers for undocumented migrants arrested and detained were far outstripping those who were being deported.

So, as you say, it looks like the legal process was getting in the way of this promise by Mr.

Trump to engage in this mass deportation.

It's worth noting, though, that over the summer, that has shifted a little.

There are now more people being deported than there are being detained.

That suggests the administration is having some success.

And don't forget this is an administration which is even challenging the idea that courts should have a role in any of this at all.

So I think they will feel momentum is now on their side.

John Sudworth in New York.

And in the latest twist in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a US judge has temporarily blocked his deportation to Uganda.

In essence, the push of the Trump administration is to tighten grounds for granting asylum.

For those who've been victims of cartel violence in their home countries, this means that there's a greater chance now of detention in the US while their asylum claims are processed.

The BBC's Ioni Wells follows the graphic story of one of those victims.

This story begins thousands of miles south of the US in Guayaquil, Ecuador, with a mother who had planned a trip to Disney in Florida for her daughter.

My life was a quiet life.

I had a job for more than 15 years at a television station.

I had my daughter in a private school and I had bought my own home.

I had a normal middle-class life.

But little by little, the violence on the streets of my country had increased.

Gabriela, whose name and voice I've changed, saw headlines about daily kidnappings and murders as gangs battled for control of cocaine roots.

It felt distant until her first threat came by phone.

A gang member told me that if I didn't start paying them, they will shoot me.

They knew where I worked and my license plate number.

Around their planned Disney holiday, her daughter's grandfather was kidnapped.

The family was told to pay tens of thousands of dollars and sent videos of his fingers being cut off.

He was eventually murdered.

Her partner told her to take their daughter on their trip and stay there.

Gabriella is now one of millions of people with pending asylum claims in the U.S.

U.S.

asylum law recognizes persecution on five grounds - race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership of a social group.

Cartel violence doesn't fit neatly.

Marco Russell, executive director for the Center for Migration Studies, says this leaves people with little options.

So what people have to do to make a political opinion case out of a cartel violence case is to say, look, the cartels have so occupied the social and political and economic sphere of a town, of a county, a state in you know, whether Ecuador, El Salvador, or the Northern Triangle.

They've so occupied that space that they're effectively acting as though they were the governing political entity.

The problem, fundamentally, I think, Iona, is that these are people who are suffering violence and are suffering persecution.

And by persecution, we mean harm.

There's a fear for their life.

Donald Trump's first administration narrowed interpretations of persecution, making it harder for people fleeing cartels or domestic abuse to seek asylum.

But experts like Marco say the biggest change that's made it harder for cartel victims now is his executive orders ramping up detention for many with outstanding claims, which could lead to deportations.

I think it's a policy and a promotion of detention.

I mean, now we have 60,000 people in detention, which is the biggest number that we've ever seen, that changes the whole equation because they now can no longer live their lives, let's say, relatively peacefully as they had before, with a work permit.

This means people like Gabriela live in self-imposed lockdown as they wait in legal limbo.

We've been afraid since President Trump took office.

Our life consists of work, home, work, and nothing else.

I don't want to expose my family to another trauma.

It's stressful not being able to go out, to relax, to forget our traumas.

We are grieving from not being able to see our family, from having to leave our country, our things, our costumes.

Pew research polling in June shows Americans divided over Trump's immigration policies.

54% oppose increased raids, but support is split down party lines.

That report by Ioni Wells.

The French Prime Minister François Baroux has called a vote of confidence, appealing to members of parliament to support his proposed budget.

The government wants to cut public spending and reduce the number of public holidays by two.

The far-right National Rally Party, the Socialist Party, and the Greens have said they will not back the Prime Minister.

Here's Joe Inward.

Cutting budgets by tens of billions of euros is rarely popular in France, especially when combined with reducing the number of public holidays.

But François Bayroux said his country was going through a decisive moment, one which warranted decisive action.

Without a parliamentary majority, he will be dependent on the votes of other parties to get it through.

His gamble is that by forcing a vote of confidence in his government, he will pressure parties, keen to avoid more political instability, to back his budget cuts.

Joe Inward.

Women who've been stalked or had to take out a restraining order have a much higher chance of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

That is according to a new study from Harvard University.

It followed a group of more than 66,000 women over 10 years and found those who'd been stalked were 41% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease.

For those who'd taken out restraining orders, 71% were more likely to have heart problems.

Audrey Merchland is one of the lead researchers.

She spoke to Kylie Pentlow.

There's a growing body of work showing that intimate partner violence and experiences of violence increase risk of cardiovascular disease, but there's been less attention afforded to non-contact forms of violence, such as stalking.

And so we were really interested in starting to evaluate whether experiences such as stalking are linked with women's cardiovascular health.

So when we think about experiences such as stalking, often we think about women's mental health and well-being, but our results are really showing that also these experiences are quite severe and impactful and they can really also impact women's physical health and cardiovascular health over the long term as well.

TV presenter and podcaster Isla Trequer spoke to us about her experience of stalking and the impact it had on her.

I'm not okay.

It's devastated me who I am.

I'm a confident, outgoing, positive person.

I was someone who viewed every day as an adventure, but I just feel unsafe in the world and it's shaken me to my core.

And what a stalker takes from you, you cannot get back.

And that's your sense of safety.

So Dr.

Merchland, what kind of impact can that constant fear have on the body?

We really think the link that we're observing between stalking and cardiovascular disease may be due to the psychological distress that women are experiencing.

So, this flight-or-fight response that we even just heard this victim describe, and that you're always looking over your shoulder, you're always in a state of heightened distress and concern for your safety.

And we believe over long periods of time, this is disrupting the nervous system, impairing proper blood vessel functioning, and can affect other biological mechanisms that's leading to increased cardiovascular disease over follow-up, like we're seeing in our our study.

I think we should be thinking about stocking not just as a criminal justice issue or a safety issue, but a public health issue that warrants additional research and attention that can focus on addressing, preventing, and improving violence against women societally, and can focus also on improving health systems that can support survivors of these experiences long term.

Audrey Merchland.

It is one of the more unusual tourist attractions in the French capital.

Underneath the streets of Paris lies a network of tunnels, which includes the city's famous catacombs, home to the skeletal remains of millions of Parisians from centuries past.

It's so famous it's featured in several movies including the 2007 horror film Catacombs.

200 years ago, Paris ran out of room to bury its dead.

Corpses were rotting in the streets.

Graveyards were stacked and 15 bodies deep.

Well now it has been announced that the historic site is to close temporarily for essential repair work.

So, what's the appeal of them?

David Chazan is Paris correspondent for the British Times newspaper.

It's really an incredible labyrinth of shadows and silence that lie some 65 feet or 20 meters underneath the bustling boulevards of the city of light, as Paris is called.

And the catacombs house the skeletal remains of some six million anonymous souls.

And although it may seem like a bit of a strange and rather chilling tourist attraction, each day some 2,000 tourists and Parisians descend its winding steps to view row upon row of skulls and bones.

And the catacombs, which is the ossuary where these remains are, is only a relatively small part of this this extensive network of tunnels and passageways.

And the ossuary was created in the late 18th century to ease overcrowding in Parisian cemeteries.

It opened to the public in 1809, and some of the bones are now starting to decay because of humidity.

In some areas, you can see stalactites beginning to form on the tunnel ceilings because water is seeping through.

And I was told by a spokeswoman for the catacombs that there's obviously rainwater coming through possibly also leaks from water pipes but it's very difficult to trace exactly where the water is coming from and she told me that there was a risk of localized collapse in some places because rainwater in Paris is often acidic and it can dissolve the limestone in which these tunnels were cut.

So there's no risk yet of a general collapse, and the public is still being allowed to visit the catacombs until they close for six months, starting from November.

But they do need both structural reinforcements and damp-proofing.

David Shazan.

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 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.

The producers were Lear McSheffery and Paul Day.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Nick Miles.

And until next time, goodbye.

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