Peace talks continue two years after October 7th attacks

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

I'm Alex Ritson, and at 17 hours GMT on Tuesday, the 7th of October, these are our main stories.

Israel is marking the second anniversary of the Hamas attack that started the war in Gaza, as mediators are reported to have reached an understanding with Hamas and Israel on an agenda for indirect negotiations.

Angry Gen Z takes to the streets of Morocco for the 11th day in a row.

British police say they've dismantled a huge international smuggling operation in stolen mobile phones.

Also in this podcast, a night off from economic woes for Argentina's President Malay as he headlines a rock concert and alive and whale.

The remarkable comeback of humpbacks off Australia's east coast.

As Israel marks the second anniversary of the Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, mediators are reported to be moving forward with President Trump's plan for peace in the territory.

Talks are taking place in Egypt, and, as we record, there appears to be the beginnings of an understanding between the Palestinians and Israelis.

A senior Palestinian source familiar with the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations has told the BBC that the discussions will follow a five-point framework, starting with ending the war and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

Earlier, a minute's silence was observed in Israel, and sirens and car horns sounded at the site of the Nova Festival, where more than 340, mostly young people, were killed in the Hamas rampage.

Members of their families and other Israelis travelled to the site to pay their respects.

Memorial events have also been held at other sites where the attacks resulted in hundreds more dead and kidnapped.

251 people were taken hostage on that day, day, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive and hidden in Gaza.

Our Middle East correspondent Yoland Nell has been at Raim, the site of the Nova festival, and sent this report.

We had sirens going off and car horns being sounded to mark this two-year anniversary.

We just had a one minute of silence and a large crowd has now gathered behind me for this commemorative event.

It's really being led by the families of the bereaved and survivors of those attacks on the 7th of October 2023.

What had happened here, huge numbers of young people had gathered for a dance festival.

It was the end of the Jewish holidays and that's when Hamas launched its attacks.

It began with sirens going off warning of incoming missiles and as people ran into their shelters nearby

then you started to have these heavily armed gunmen making their way across the border and there are pictures now of the more than 340 young people, most of them, who were killed here that day

with their stories.

And members of their families have been coming looking at those portraits.

Some very tearful moments here.

It was also a natural place for many Israelis to come because it was the single site where the biggest number of people were killed on the 7th of October 2023.

And many people just want to remember that and to pay their respects to the dead.

Yeland Nell.

Gaddy Moses was one of those taken hostage on October the 7th and taken to Gaza.

He was released from captivity after 481 days.

At 81, he's the oldest Israeli hostage to return alive.

He's trying to lead revival efforts at his ravaged kibbutz.

BBC Arabic's Michael Chaval visited his community to hear his story.

Nothing in life prepares you for such a situation.

I did not see anyone for 481 days.

I did not speak a word in Hebrew.

I was completely alone.

Gaddi Moses is the oldest surviving hostage released from Gaza.

The toughest moments are the yearning for the children and grandchildren.

All the time when you're in captivity, you're in stress.

Why is he hugging the rifle?

Why is he charging the bullets?

What is he going to do?

In such an atmosphere, you cannot say, my wife is dead.

I'm sad now.

Through this gate, the terrorists abducted him.

Turned right on the road through the boulevard

and from there west

to the Gaza Street.

Over a quarter of Kibbutznir Oz's residents were killed or kidnapped.

This vineyard, three of its founders were murdered.

Moses is the only one left alive.

On very hot days, we sat here, sipped wine

and felt the joy.

The release of the hostages must come first because they don't have time.

I'm angry.

I'm sad.

I can't think of anything else.

I told the Prime Minister, save us, cut the bureaucracy and give an order to release the money.

Our homes were destroyed.

Our community was destroyed.

People who live here peacefully and quietly, the Prime Minister is not interested in us.

Who lived here?

The Shalev family.

They murdered the father, David, and the son, Tal.

It is hard now.

It is sad.

You can easily sink into depression, but not in my book.

I am very sorry.

In my toolbox, depression does not exist.

The cornerstone marks the beginning of the rebuilding and construction of kibbutz near Osk.

From grief, destruction, and the events of the 7th of October 2023, From a failure within a failure, we take the first step towards revival within revival.

Our hope is that the members of the community, wherever they are, young and old,

will join the optimistic forces and rebuild the paradise called Nir Oz.

A person has to be a sick optimist in order to make wine here, sit down to drink in front of the Palestinian village, watch the spot you were abducted from, and believe things will be good.

But the future will be good.

Michael Chival from BBC Arabic, hearing the story of Gaddi Moses, who is the oldest hostage to return from Gaza alive.

As commemorations to mark the second anniversary of the Hamas attack were taking place, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continued.

What is it like for people living there?

A question for our Gaza correspondent, Rushdi Abu Alouf, who's covering the war from Istanbul because Israel won't allow international correspondents into the territory?

It's a grief and anger in Gaza, with like thousands of Palestinians posting on social media the the before and after images and videos of their

houses and villages and towns that has been devastated by two years of war.

No one in Gaza, I think, ever expected, including me, that the war would last for two years.

It was just a quiet Saturday morning where most mothers are preparing uh school bags and and lunch boxes for their uh kids because Saturday is a normal working day uh in Gaza and suddenly everything changed once and forever.

And since then, you know, thousands of people killed, the most of the population, entire population, displaced in other places.

Two-thirds of Gaza Strip is under active Israeli control and military operation.

Twelve people were killed just overnight in Gaza, while Israel continued to bomb different areas in Gaza, focusing in Gaza City, where tanks are close to the city centre, advancing more into the center of Gaza City, the biggest city once housed a million people, half of the population, they used to live in Gaza City.

Many people posted the picture of their loved ones they lost in the war.

Others were posting before and after images and videos of their life that they miss.

You know, all of them, they said, said, we missed our life.

One person told me this morning that he lost his

older virgin of himself, and now he's became displaced for the seventh time.

He lost a member of his family, and he is struggling to find food and clean water for his kids.

There is finally hope for an end to this war soon.

What is the latest on those talks?

The Egyptian mediators, the Qataris, are involving heavily in trying to remove the obstacles and get both the Israeli and Hamas get closer to the point where a ceasefire could be reached.

A lot of hope, but a lot of spectacle and challenges ahead.

To other news now, and British police say they've dismantled an international gang suspected of smuggling up to 40,000 stolen mobile phones from the UK to China in the last year.

18 suspects have been arrested and more than 2,000 stolen devices have been discovered.

Police believe the gang could be responsible for exporting up to half of all phones stolen in London.

BBC News was given access to the investigation.

Seema Katecha reports.

It started with a stolen phone in a box in a warehouse near Heathrow.

With it were more than 800 phones.

Police intercepted more shipments and forensic tests led to the identification of two men.

Both Afghan nationals, arrested on suspicion of running an international smuggling gang trading phones.

In the back of their car, iPhones, some wrapped in tin foil, to avoid detection.

They've since been charged with conspiring to receive stolen goods.

80,000 phones were stolen in the capital last year.

Most are thought to be shipped to China, where they can fetch up to £4,000 each because they can bypass censorship, unlike those sold there.

As part of the same investigation, police raided multiple properties,

targeting those suspected of being further down the chain.

What happened, I don't understand.

My baby's scared, please.

Moments later,

the arrest of a Bulgarian national.

We've identified and arrested an individual linked to mobile phone offences, namely targeting pickpockets that are operating currently within the central part of London.

So, what we're doing this morning is why I disrupt these networks and bring these perpetrators to justice.

So, we've just had an update from officers inside the property, and they say that during their search, they've already found dozens of electronic devices, including tablets and phones, and they've laid out many of those devices on that bed just over there.

And that's only so far.

They anticipate finding even more throughout the day.

One more for those coasters.

As the light creeps in, another arrest.

In total, 15 were made across 28 properties.

For many of us, this is how the nightmare begins.

One minute it's in your hand, the next, it's gone.

They were dressed as a deliberoo rider, gloves on, had a balaclava on, as well as a mask.

And it also happened to Natalie.

She says a significant rise in phone theft shows the police need to boost their efforts.

I think Metropolitan Police should be doing a lot more, possibly setting up some more CCTV surveillance or seeing if there's any way that they've got some undercover police officers.

In London, a mobile is taken every eight minutes.

With the explosion in phone theft and more than a thousand fewer police officers since last year, the question is, can they keep pace with the gangs?

See Mercate reporting.

Still to come on the podcast.

With no end in sight to the US federal government shutdown, what impact is it having on emergency workers?

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I'm a mandatory responder.

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I have three children.

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I have to work two jobs.

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Protests are continuing in Morocco for an eleventh consecutive day, as members of Gen Z, children born either side of the turn of the century, are demanding more jobs and better education and healthcare.

The country will be co-hosting the World Cup in 2030, but many think it's an unnecessary extravagance.

Richard Hamilton is a former BBC correspondent in Morocco.

I began by asking him if the protests were gathering momentum.

Yes, I was in Tangier, in the north of Morocco, the weekend before last, and on the first night there were about a thousand people walking down the streets, but they were brandishing Palestinian flags, so I assumed it was a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

Then the next night, there were slightly less people, but still several hundred without the Palestinian flags, chanting in Arabic.

And it wasn't really clear what they were protesting about, but then I realised that this was happening throughout Morocco, in in all the provinces, and it spread like wildfire.

Three people have been shot dead, more than 400 people arrested, about 20 police vehicles have been set on fire.

So the protests have been met with a fairly brutal response.

As you say, it's a Gen Z movement.

There are no specific leaders, but one of those who's a voice amongst the protesters is the Moroccan rapper Houda Abouz, who's also known as Katek.

It's a call for action, it's a call for change.

And I think it was such a needed initiative for the moment.

And seeing

younger generation joining the protest was really hard for me.

I've been raising my voice.

I've always been politically engaged.

I come from a family where my dad is a political figure who has been fighting for justice since the 70s.

So for me, it's a very natural reaction and it's a citizen responsibility.

But Richard, this anger over the World Cup being staged in Morocco, don't they see the World Cup as something to celebrate?

Yes, they do, and it's a great, it's the world's greatest showcase, the greatest stage on earth for Morocco to show itself as a modern country that welcomes everyone.

And the protesters say they actually in their placards they say we have the stadiums but where are the hospitals?

So they're pointing to this disparity.

It's estimated $5 billion is being spent on the World Cup including what will be the biggest stadium in the world near Casablanca.

But at the same time there's very few doctors, there's very few hospitals, and the average wage is very, very low.

So there's this huge gap between rich and poor.

And Richard, Morocco has a long history of protests.

They do.

You can even go back to the 1980s when there were the so-called bread riots about the price of food.

Then, of course, there was the Arab Spring.

It was known as the February 20 movement after the 20th of February 2011.

Then in 2016, there was this movement in the north of Morocco called the Hirak, when a fish cellar was crushed to death and people rose up.

And now we've got what's happening today, and this is called the Gen Z two hundred and one two movement.

And that number comes from the country code of Morocco.

Richard Hamilton.

Efforts are underway in France to find a way out of the political crisis caused by the resignation of the third Prime Minister within a year.

President Macron has asked the outgoing Premier, Sebastian Le Cognu, to hold talks with political parties and has given him until Wednesday to find a parliamentary majority.

The far left and far right have rejected his overtures and are calling for new elections, but some centre-left and centre-right leaders haven't ruled out the possibility of a new coalition.

Our Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield spoke to Lucy Hawking about the chances of a deal.

Slim but not non-existent, I would say.

I mean the question that everyone is asking is why in 48 hours should Sebastian LeCorny be able to do what he had three and a half weeks to do before, that is to find some kind of arrangement with the party.

So maybe when they're right up against a deadline, there'll be some give somewhere, but frankly, I don't think any of us can really see where that's going to come.

The arithmetic, the logic is still very difficult.

You've got LeCornu himself representing the kind of a pro-macron middle ground, and then you've got the blocs on the left and the right.

Ideally, he'd like to get some of the Conservative Republicans, that's the sort of centre-right, if you like, in, as well as some socialists, that is the centre-left, ideally, but

that's just on paper.

In reality, neither of those camps can stand the other.

Each represents ideas that the other is very much opposed to.

So it's very hard to see, given the numbers, how he can forge some kind of arrangement or non-aggression pact or whatever, which would allow a government to function and, above all, all bring forward a budget which is of course where all the differences would be crystallized because in the budget would come the decisions about how to raise and spend money which are what basically what divide people.

There are also of course calls for President Macron to resign and another voice added there today was a very important one.

Edouard Philippe, his former prime minister, someone to whom he was very close for many years in the first term.

What he's suggesting is not an immediate resignation, but a kind of an arranged, organised resignation by President Macron for sometime next year, so that we can the country can prepare for that.

You'd agree to step down early, shall we say, in the middle of next year.

It's an idea, but there's no sign of others following him.

But, you know, all this is possible.

And the only person who can decide any of it is President Macron.

He's the one who will decide on a new Prime Minister.

He's the one who will decide on a dissolution of Parliament.

He's the one who'll decide if he stays on or resigns.

It's all very much up to him.

But he's the one, the only one, in all this brouhaha and noise,

he's the one staying silent.

And all of this chaos, frankly, Hugh, and uncertainty as well, when France is the Eurozone's second biggest economy.

The figures are all bad, not catastrophic, but I mean, clearly, none of this is helping.

Business confidence is down, consumer confidence is down, the cost of borrowing is going up.

A key point when everyone knows that the country's debt is such an important part of its future, how to deal with that debt.

And of course, when France starts floundering, which people fear it will, then that has a knock-on effect in the Eurozone, on the strength of the Euro, on the confidence of its partners, and so on.

So obviously, this has all been looked on with great consternation by the whole of the European Union.

Hughes Gofield.

The U.S.

government shutdown is approaching its second week with no end in sight to the political deadlock.

The failure to pass the new budget means that pay has been suspended for roughly 2 million federal workers.

Some 750,000 have had their jobs temporarily suspended.

But many who work in essential services, including firefighters, still have to turn up to their jobs, even though they're getting no wages.

Ed Butler reports on how this is affecting workers and the wider U.S.

economy.

My name is William.

I am 38 years old, and I am a federal firefighter for the United States Department of Defense.

William didn't want me to publish his surname for fear fear of reprisal from his employers in Washington state.

I'm proud to be a firefighter and I'm proud to serve, but it's hard because we are so vastly undercompensated for what we actually do.

It's bad.

And then just to throw in a government shutdown on top of that, how can you make us feel worse?

Because after months of deadlock, the U.S.

Congress has failed to agree a new budget, the government's day-to-day activities are now being starved of cash.

Some services have continued, but in many cases, workers who provide services are being suspended, at least for now.

Doreen Greenwald is president for the National Treasury Employees Union.

The processing of tax returns will stop.

Refunds will stop.

You know, inspectors who inspect food may be not able to do that.

A shutdown hurts everyone.

Every one of these federal employees wants to go to work, but they're prohibited from doing that because Congress hasn't done their jobs.

I have to show up to do my job whether I get paid or not.

I'm a mandatory responder.

So we're showing up with a promissory note of being paid.

I have three children.

I'm a single father.

I have to work two jobs normally to just afford rent and food in this state.

And now one of those incomes is taken away.

What is the mood like at work?

Anger, disgust.

I'm stressed out.

I'm doing too much just to get by.

And you're in debt.

Yeah.

I don't know anyone who's not in some way.

I mean, some people have taken out the loans on their retirement to get by.

Some people have taken credit cards and maxed them out just to keep eating.

You know, it's insane.

Congressional leaders sound like they're settling in for a long political fight.

So what are the wider signals from the U.S.

economy?

There have been some rather mixed ones of late.

We've had some less than brilliant job numbers, for instance, and surveys suggest low consumer confidence.

On the other hand, though, the most recent GDP figures showed a very healthy-sounding 3.8% economic growth.

So what's really going on?

Certain industries are doing okay.

And obviously, at the top of the list is artificial intelligence.

AI is kind of driving the economic trend, both in terms of all the capital spending that's going on, all the data centers, that kind of stuff.

But then you've got manufacturing, it's in recession.

You've got agriculture, that's in recession.

You've got mining, that's in recession.

So you net it all up, and it shows you an economy that's not going anywhere quickly.

The words of Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody Analytics, ending that report by Ed Butler.

Argentina's radical right-wing president, Javier Millet, is no stranger to showmanship.

In his election rallies in 2023, his trademark action was to wield a chainsaw.

Fast forward two years, he's headlining a rock concert in the capital, Buenos Aires.

Clad in black leather, the 54-year-old president waved the national flag in front of supporters.

Our global affairs reporter, Mimi Swaby, has been watching the performance.

I asked her, what is he trying to achieve?

He's lost public support in recent months.

So, to try and revive these political fortunes ahead of midterm elections later this month, also to promote his book, But above all, he's put on this not just political rally but show to try and breathe some new life into his electoral campaign, which has really been decimated in or by a series of setbacks in recent weeks.

He did a lot worse than expected in Buenos Aires provincial elections.

Congress has overturned his veto on public spending increases.

He said to ask the US for help when it comes to financial and security for the economy.

And a member of his party has had to resign due to this really public drug scandal which has captivated the nation.

So he offered a show for people to try and win back their support.

There were two versions of himself that he presented on stage.

The first one was rock star Malay, clad in leather, like you said, really running around the stage, bringing a lot of energy to his performance, singing some hits by local artists.

And the second was President Malay, when he sat down with the government spokesperson, promoted his book and kind of jabbed at the opposition, saying that we're on the way to reducing inflation, we are halfway through on the bright path, and the opposition have nothing on us.

Great leather jacket.

What did you make of his singing?

Argentinian rock is a huge genre, and I'm a fan.

I'm a big fan of the many kind of national anthems that have come out of it.

I'm not sure I would be listening to his covers in my free time, but you cannot fault his energy and his enthusiasm.

He really was running around the stage.

He brought a lot lot of energy and passion to his performance.

He's not shy of the limelight, as we all know.

And the fans, his crowd, which was a big crowd, seemed to be lapping it up.

They were loving it.

They were bouncing along with him.

So I might not listen in my free time, but many Argentinians might be swayed by it.

Mimi Swaybee with that report.

Now, if you happen to be on a boat off the eastern coast of Australia, this is a sound you might be hearing more frequently these days.

That is a humpback whale.

They were once almost hunted to extinction, but now they're making a comeback.

A preliminary report by marine scientists estimates that the population has reached more than 50,000 off Australia's eastern coast, a figure that's even higher than before commercial whaling began.

Wally Franklin helped found the maritime research organisation Oceana Project and co-authored the report.

How have humpback whales made this comeback?

Well, they've probably taken advantage of the fact that all of the other great species of whales that were hit very heavily during that last period of whaling in Antarctica from 1900 to 1976, all of those populations like the humpbacks were hit very heavily, but they haven't recovered as well.

And one of our first suggestions is that that's meant that there's been food there for our humpbacks just to continue to grow for the time being.

Because whales are still in conflict with humans, and the relationship with fishing fleets is still not completely easy.

That's true.

Australians have embraced the Eastern Australian humpback population.

The data set that we're using has been contributed to not only by formal researchers and research organisations, but by nearly 700 individual citizen scientists, while either out on whale boats or from the shore, have been taking photographs of humpbacks and loading them onto an AI algorithm platform called Happy Whale.

And this has meant that we've been able to assemble a quite extraordinary data set.

The data set now runs from 1984 to 2024.

So is this trend going to continue?

We're hoping hoping they will go on growing for a little longer.

But what's important is that we're setting up a very sound, robust scientific method now of being able to estimate the abundance from the southern waters of the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon, which is the over-wintering and mating and breeding area of our Eastern Australian humpbacks.

And when the young whales are brought out of that area, they have a long coastline which they amble along while the mothers feed them and very likely that has contributed to the reproductive success of this group.

The last formal abundance estimate of this group of whales was back in 2015 and they reported the population was 25,000.

Now our estimate has a very similar result but for us the growth has continued at a steady rate of 10% right up to the present.

It's an amazing conservation story, and it's also an amazing story of the involvement and engagement of the Australian people.

Conservationist Wally Franklin.

And that's all 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, 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 Joe McCartney, and the producer was Alice Adderley.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Alex Ritz, and until next time, goodbye.

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