Face to face with IS prisoners in Syria

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Speaker 12 This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 12 I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Monday, the 27th of October, these are our main stories.

Speaker 12 The BBC comes face to face with former Islamic State fighters in a Syrian prison as IS increases attacks in the northeast of the country.

Speaker 12 In Argentina's midterm elections, President Milleis party achieves a landslide victory. The French authorities make arrests in connection to last week's theft of crown jewels from the Louvre Museum.

Speaker 12 Also in this podcast, Venezuela's Attorney General reacts to U.S. assertions that it's fighting a war against drug traffickers there.

Speaker 1 This is not an issue of democracy. It's about taking away Venezuela's gold, oil, copper, and iron.
Venezuela is one of the richest countries on the planet.

Speaker 12 And the Indian weavers devastated by Donald Trump's tariffs.

Speaker 13 Two months ago, I was making $180 a day. Now I barely make 80.

Speaker 13 We've taken a loan to cover the expenses. And I'm scared.

Speaker 13 If I fail to repay it, they'll take my land.

Speaker 12 We begin in Syria, where Islamic state fighters have regrouped in the wake of the collapse of the Basha al-Assad regime and are increasing their attacks on the Kurdish-controlled northeast of the country.

Speaker 12 When the IS Caliphate fell several years ago, some 8,000 suspected fighters were imprisoned in Syria, and thousands of their relatives were herded into makeshift camps in desolate conditions.

Speaker 12 Some countries have repatriated their nationals, but many from the UK have been stripped of their citizenship and are still in Syria.

Speaker 12 Our senior international correspondent Ola Guerin sent this special report from the northeast of the country.

Speaker 14 We've just arrived at the entrance to Al Sina prison, the largest jail for IS detainees.

Speaker 14 We've been asked to wear masks. Prison authorities tell us tuberculosis is rife here.
It's very rare to get access inside this prison. Security is extremely tight.

Speaker 14 Locked gates, bolted doors, guards every few steps.

Speaker 14 IS suspects have been held here for years, including some former leaders, and counter-terrorism officials here tell us they believe the men here are still a threat.

Speaker 14 One of the detainees has been brought out. He's from London.
His name is Hamza Pervez and he's 32. How did you come to join Islamic State?

Speaker 15 I found out about the Islamic State through the internet. I heard that they wanted to implement a version of Sharia law.

Speaker 14 But Islamic State was also involved in kidnapping, in enslaving Yazidi women, in beheading. Were you okay with all of that?

Speaker 15 A lot of these things that happened throughout the five years of the Islamic State were very unfortunate.

Speaker 15 There's a lot of things that I don't agree with, and there are a few things that happened in Islamic State that I do agree with.

Speaker 14 Unfortunate seems like a very tame word to describe beheadings and killings and rape and kidnapping of women.

Speaker 15 Definitely a lot of unfortunate and a lot of horrific things do happen at war.

Speaker 14 What would you say to the British Government?

Speaker 15 I would say that um me and the rest of the British uh citizens that are here in the prison, we don't wish any harm.

Speaker 14 Well how can people be sure of that given what you did, given what IS did? How can people possibly accept that you're not a threat?

Speaker 15 It's not going to be easy.

Speaker 12 But they're going to have to take my word for it.

Speaker 15 It's something that I can't convince convince people about. I do think about a lot.
It's a huge risk that they'll have to take to bring us back. It's true.

Speaker 14 Whatever Hamza Parvez is guilty of, he hasn't been tried or convicted. The same goes for other Western IS detainees and their families.

Speaker 14 Thousands of their wives and children are being arbitrarily detained in desolate tented camps.

Speaker 14 A new generation is growing up here and there are concerns that this place could be an incubator for radicalisation.

Speaker 14 We meet a mother of four from London. Mihak Aslam would like to go home but she has been stripped of her British citizenship.

Speaker 14 She denies joining IS but admits bringing her children to its territory where her eldest daughter was killed in an explosion. You say you're very worried about the conditions here.

Speaker 14 They're not good for the children. Why not let them go home?

Speaker 17 This was offered a while ago, which I declined. Unfortunately, my children have pretty much grown up just in camp.
This is life. They don't know a world outside.

Speaker 17 Too much children were born in Syria, they've never seen Britain. And going to a family who again they don't know, it will be very, very difficult.

Speaker 14 But your youngest is only eight, as I understand. Do you really choose to keep an eight-year-old here in these conditions?

Speaker 17 It's not that I'm choosing to. I don't think I should have to make that choice.
No mother should have to make that choice of being separated from her children.

Speaker 14 But you chose to go to a country where, at that stage, the Islamic State was established.

Speaker 14 It was killing people, it was beheading people, it was throwing people off buildings, it was kidnapping and raping Yazidi women. All of this was going on, and you chose to come to this place.

Speaker 17 So initially, we heard, obviously, they're very harsh in the way they deal with their prisoners.

Speaker 17 I was not aware of the Yazidi thing in the beginning at the time, or the people being front of the buildings. We didn't witness any of this.
We knew they were very extreme.

Speaker 14 The future of this camp and of the families here isn't a problem just for Syria.

Speaker 14 There are about 2,000 foreigners here.

Speaker 14 Many are Westerners from countries, including Britain and France, and America. The Kurds are concerned that some of those here are a security risk.

Speaker 14 Many of their countries don't want them back for exactly the same reason.

Speaker 12 Oliguerin, reporting from Syria.

Speaker 12 In Argentina, it seems that voters have largely decided to give the thumbs up to President Javier Melee's policy of cutting state spending.

Speaker 12 He took office two years ago, promising a shock therapy of budget cuts and deregulation. He wasn't directly up for re-election in Sunday's elections.

Speaker 12 They were midterm contests for half of Argentina's lower chamber of deputies as well as a third of the Senate. Our correspondent Ione Wells is in Buenos Aires.

Speaker 19 Here at the Hotel in Buenos Aires, where Javier Mele has been watching the results, his supporters have been cheering this landslide victory for the president and his libertarian coalition.

Speaker 19 His party gained six additional seats in the Senate, bringing their total to 13, and 27 seats in the lower house of Congress, bringing their total to 64.

Speaker 19 That means his party and its allies will comfortably have a third of the lower house's seats.

Speaker 19 This was seen as a key threshold for him to reach in order for Congress to back his presidential decrees and block opposition bills.

Speaker 19 The result is also likely to, at least for now, calm financial markets that had been jittery about how sustainable his economic program was.

Speaker 19 Donald Trump had also made it clear that a $20 billion currency swap lifeline the U.S. had offered Argentina hinged on Javier Millet's political success.

Speaker 12 Ioni Wells in Buenos Aires. Next, to Paris, where the French authorities have made arrests in connection to last week's theft of crown jewels from the Louvre Museum.

Speaker 12 One of the suspects was detained at Charles de Gaulle Airport, while the other was arrested in northern Paris.

Speaker 12 Jewels worth around $100 million were taken from the world's most visited museum last Sunday when four thieves wielding power tools broke into the building in broad daylight.

Speaker 12 Experts think abandoned objects during the Louvre theft led to the suspects' identification. Christian Flesch is a former director of the judicial police.

Speaker 21 The circumstances of the theft itself were rather curious, since there were four individuals who arrived, then left, wanting to set something on fire but didn't, and left behind a jacket and gloves.

Speaker 21 There are many elements that the forensic police undoubtedly examined, along with the Paris Forensic Laboratory.

Speaker 21 All of this has undoubtedly provided clues that have been decisive in identifying the people who were at the scene or who participated in the robbery.

Speaker 12 Our Europe editor Katja Adler told my colleague Celia Hatton more about the people who were arrested.

Speaker 5 What we don't know is whether indeed they are two of the four robbers or two people connected to the robberies.

Speaker 5 What French media reports say is that both men arrested are known to the French police in connection to what's being described as previous sophisticated robberies. Other suspects are still at large.

Speaker 5 You have more than 100 detectives who are said to be working on the case.

Speaker 5 Considering that the men apprehended were connected with sophisticated robberies, I mean, on the one hand, yes, an audacious robbery.

Speaker 5 I mean, incredible, broad daylight, put up a ladder normally used for, you know, house removals, like furniture removals, glass cutting inside, accessing these precious crown jewels, mainly linked to Napoleon III, out on the ladder on mopeds across the city of Paris.

Speaker 5 But then those mopeds were tracked by CCTV cameras. They left, as we've heard, all this DNA evidence aside.
That doesn't seem very sophisticated. So it is a curious affair.

Speaker 5 It's ignited imaginations across the world. Social media has gone wild in mocking the heist.
And it's embarrassing for the Louvre, which is the most visited museum in the world.

Speaker 5 It's embarrassing for the French authorities because it also brings to light the fact that French museums are often targeted because security is underfunded compared to, say, French banks or high-end jewelry stores here in Paris.

Speaker 9 And Catia, of course, what about the fate of the jewels?

Speaker 5 It was quite a sloppy getaway in that at least one of the items fell out of the bag.

Speaker 5 What it's thought is, is that what the robbers will have wanted to do is to break up the jewels, to take off the precious jewels, maybe make them smaller, sell them off in smaller pieces, and when it it comes to the precious metals, to melt them down.

Speaker 5 Now, we don't know whether that's already been done. And so, yes, they could still be recovered in theory, but also in some cases, it may be too late.

Speaker 12 Katja Adler in Paris.

Speaker 12 In Sweden, a handful of mechanics are taking on one of the world's richest companies. The strike at Tesla's workshops has now reached its second anniversary.

Speaker 12 It's a clash of ideologies in which each side has much at stake. And after two years, there's no prospect of a resolution, as Tim Mansell reports.

Speaker 22 I've just arrived in Uppsala. It's a 40-minute train ride from Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
I'm on my way out to meet Hannah Eriksson and her brother, Konrad.

Speaker 22 They're both Tesla technicians, and they're both out on strike.

Speaker 16 If your union says you go on strike, then you go on strike.

Speaker 22 Konrad Erikson is 29. He used to work for a truck company, but his sister Hannah persuaded him to join Tesla.
Conrad, you went out on strike on the first day.

Speaker 22 Tell me why you did that.

Speaker 16 First and foremost, because I believe in the Swedish model, that we should have a balance between the employer and the employees.

Speaker 22 In Sweden, the majority of workers are members of a union. The union negotiates their pay and conditions to reach what's called a collective agreement.

Speaker 22 But in Sweden, Tesla has shown little interest in negotiating with the EF Metal Union. The union's president is Marie Nielsson.

Speaker 23 We tried to sit down with the company and discuss collective agreement, but they wouldn't respond and we got the impression that they tried to hide away or not discuss this with us.

Speaker 22 When the strike began, Hannah, who's 33, was working front of house for Tesla. She found herself in a tricky position.
On the one hand, she wanted to do her job to the best of her ability.

Speaker 22 On the other hand, she supported the strike.

Speaker 18 I wanted a collective agreement. I wasn't comfortable saying that out loud, and I could definitely not tell that to the customers.
But I also had to do my job.

Speaker 22 Then Hannah changed jobs and became a technician. That meant she could join the union, and that meant she could join the strike.

Speaker 18 It was scary, but it was also a relief because now I can finally say out loud what I actually believe in.

Speaker 22 About seventy of Tesla's mechanics are on strike, but they haven't succeeded in closing Tesla's workshops, partly because not all their colleagues joined them, and partly because Tesla has employed other mechanics to take the place of those who walked out.

Speaker 22 This, says Hermann Bender, who works at a union-funded think tank Arena Idea in Stockholm, is something no Swedish employer would do.

Speaker 24 That's a dimension that's important to understand this dispute. It's not only a dispute between an employer and a union,

Speaker 24 but it's also a conflict between the Swedish model and an American corporate culture, which is more authoritarian and more managerial.

Speaker 22 Tesla's chief executive, Elon Musk, has made clear his distaste for unions. Here he is, speaking at a New York Times event in 2023.

Speaker 25 I disagree with the idea of unions, but perhaps for a reason that is different than people may expect, which is I just don't like anything which creates kind of a lords and peasants sort of thing.

Speaker 25 And I think the unions naturally try to create negativity in a company and create a collection of the trend.

Speaker 22 This is not the general view in Sweden, where most employers also support the idea of collective agreement. Tesla has declined to speak to the BBC about the strike.

Speaker 22 The company may fear that an agreement with Swedish workers would strengthen the hand of the unions in the US, where Tesla employs tens of thousands.

Speaker 22 For Swedes like Hannah Erickson, there's the fear that giving in to Tesla could lead to a gradual erosion of the Swedish model.

Speaker 18 We are about 70 people ready to defend it for as long as it takes because I want my children to have a fair workplace.

Speaker 12 That report was by Tim Mansell.

Speaker 12 Still to come.

Speaker 20 At least one or two walls and the minaret are damaged. That's all I know.
But I do know that the El Omari Mosque has been restored over centuries, many times, and I think it can be restored again.

Speaker 12 Rebuilding some of Gaza's threatened ancient treasures.

Speaker 12 U.S.-Venezuelan relations appear to be deteriorating fast.

Speaker 12 The USS gravely has just been added to the ever-growing list of US warships floating off the coast of Venezuela, stoking fears that a full-scale land invasion could happen.

Speaker 12 America says it's conducting a war against drug traffickers, but Venezuela's Attorney General, Tarek Williams Saab, who's a close ally of President Nicolas Maduro, says that's rubbish.

Speaker 1 This is not an issue of democracy. It's about taking away Venezuela's gold, oil, copper and iron.
Venezuela is one of the richest countries on the planet.

Speaker 1 These aren't threats to supposedly seek regime change in a democracy out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 No, it's to seize our country's natural resources and turn Venezuela into a U.S. colony.
And obviously, our people aren't going to accept it now because they don't accept being robbed.

Speaker 1 They're going to murder a people. I think the world has to wake up.

Speaker 12 My colleague Lise Deset asked Chris Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at the London-based think tank Chatham House, What's on President Trump's agenda?

Speaker 26 The Trump administration is trying to scare the military into defecting and moving Maduro and his top ministers to pave the way potentially for a transition.

Speaker 26 Now, whether that could happen, given the levels of corruption, which the Trump administration is correct, are there, it would be a difficult call.

Speaker 26 There probably will be land strikes, but it's difficult to imagine the U.S. will invade.

Speaker 10 You mentioned about the defections. There's been this huge bounty that's been offered.
Nobody's taken it up as far as we can see.

Speaker 10 And of course, the Venezuelans, the government points to this and said, see, nobody's interested in collaborating with the U.S.

Speaker 26 That is not true.

Speaker 26 The truth is, is that the Maduro government, and this is actually the flaw in the Trump administration's plan, quite frankly, is that the government is deeply complicit in all levels of corruption, whether it's illicit gold mining, cocaine trafficking, human trafficking, and money laundering.

Speaker 26 So since they're all deeply complicit, it's really unlikely. And the fact that defection for past military officers has brought a very high cost.
They've been jailed. Their families have been jailed.

Speaker 26 One former officer actually was killed and dismembered in Chile. So it's a very difficult regime to break from because it is a brutal, repressive, corrupt regime.

Speaker 10 Can you visualize some kind of invasion, some kind of military activity that could possibly succeed?

Speaker 26 A full invasion is very unlikely. Venezuela is a country of 28 million people and a very difficult terrain.

Speaker 26 You also have a number of criminal groups that are engaged in all sorts of illicit activities that would obviously fight back as well. And you have multiple urban centers.

Speaker 26 So it would certainly not be an easy campaign. And as we know from Trump's campaign in 2016, he's against forever wars.

Speaker 26 And what he would be doing is really opening up a real can of worms in terms of trying to put the country back together.

Speaker 26 The hope, I'm assuming, is to launch a few drones or missiles, maybe strike some airports, maybe if they really want to be risky, drop a few missiles on Fort Totilluno, which is where Nicolas Maduro lives, and maybe take out a few military barracks.

Speaker 26 I think that's on the more extreme end of the escalation. But yes, I think we will be seeing land strikes soon, but no invasion.
It's going to be interesting to see how they get out of this.

Speaker 26 At a certain point, if the military doesn't defect, Trump is going to have to declare a victory in some way, and they may end up going back to the negotiating table.

Speaker 26 But quite frankly, the Madoro government in the past has shown little willingness to actually negotiate, certainly concede power.

Speaker 26 The question is: will this be enough to bring them back in earnest to the negotiating table?

Speaker 12 Chris Sabatini, talking to Lise Deset.

Speaker 12 India and China have resumed direct flights five years after they were suspended.

Speaker 12 They stopped at first because of the COVID pandemic, but the flights didn't start again due to deadly clashes between the two armies on the disputed Himalayan border a few months later.

Speaker 12 Now a passenger flight from the eastern city of Kolkata has landed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

Speaker 12 One of the 180 passengers on board the Special Indigo Airlines flight was Jacinta Sureka, a trustee from St. Joan's School of Kolkata.
She says she's waited a long time to make this journey to China.

Speaker 27 We've got a few partnerships in China and because there were no direct flights, things have been quite difficult for our students to travel.

Speaker 27 And we've been now teaching Mandarin in the school for the past two and a half years. And the partnership that we're going to sign is with a university in Shenzhou called Shenzhen University.

Speaker 27 This partnership is more to do with language and cultural training.

Speaker 12 I asked our global affairs reporter, Ambrasan Etarajan, how important this development is for India-China relations.

Speaker 28 It is another step towards a normalization of ties between these two Asian giants. It is the first direct flight to mainland China.
As you know, India and China have a very strong trade.

Speaker 28 The bilateral trade stands at about $130 billion. It's the second biggest trading partner after the US.

Speaker 28 So that means you have thousands of people, businessmen and traders, going to China, especially mainland China.

Speaker 28 And India depends heavily on China for pharmaceuticals, car spare parts, you name anything. It comes from China.
And the trade deficit is like about $100 billion.

Speaker 28 So it is a good news for business travelers because they were taking detour, taking like a transit route via Singapore or Kuala Lumpur and other places. And also for students.

Speaker 28 There are about 25,000 students, many of them doing medicine. So for India, what they're saying is it will help people to contact and boost trade relations as well.

Speaker 12 Nearly 100,000 people have lost their jobs in its major carpet hub, Badoe, in the north. The BBC's Davina Gupta reports.

Speaker 4 This sound has been a constant companion for 26-year-old Anil Moria for over a decade.

Speaker 4 He's using a handheld electric machine and weaving a blue-coloured flower from a woolen yarn on a carpet.

Speaker 4 He's paid daily wages by local contractors to make carpets that travel mostly mostly to America. And now Trump's tariffs have dealt a heavy blow.

Speaker 13 Two months ago, I was making $180 a day. Now I barely make $80.

Speaker 13 My sister has had to drop out of college. She's getting married now.
We've taken a loan to cover the expenses. I've never had to borrow money before,

Speaker 13 and I'm scared.

Speaker 13 If I fail to repay,

Speaker 13 he'll take my land. Where will we go?

Speaker 4 Well, Anil tells me if the situation doesn't improve, he'll have to leave home and family to search for work in this city. And he's not the only one.

Speaker 4 There are over 3 million people who are doing similar work of carpet weaving and are facing many more difficulties in this region.

Speaker 4 In another home, I meet 45-year-old Prema Devi,

Speaker 4 weaving carpets entirely by hand. I'm sitting beside Prema in her cramped workspace, and my back is hunched, and there's barely room to move around here.

Speaker 4 There's only one window for light and air, and Prema is sitting with three other weavers on a slim wooden bench. Her hands are constantly moving on the loom, and it's 4 p.m.
now.

Speaker 4 She's been at this place from 8 a.m.

Speaker 29 Our situation is really bad. We are not making any money.

Speaker 29 We got work after 10 days. We have been surviving on chili salt and bread.

Speaker 4 Her four children depend on what she earns. But with so little work coming in, she's thinking of giving it up.

Speaker 29 If this continues and we don't make money, we will have to close the loom and work as farm laborers.

Speaker 4 An estimated 100,000 people have lost their jobs in this region in the past two months, and those still trying to work are desperate for orders. But carpet manufacturers say their hands are tied.

Speaker 4 Among them is Aslam Hebou.

Speaker 3 Our buyers have asked us to hold their orders until there's clarity on the U.S. tariffs.
This puts us in a very difficult position.

Speaker 3 Each carpet involves at least 22 separate processes, which means 22 22 or more people are employed in making a single piece.

Speaker 3 If these high tariffs continue, the industry could shrink by 30 to 40 percent, impacting tens of thousands of workers, especially in the villages.

Speaker 4 And that's worrying for the industry. For centuries, families here have passed down the carpet weaving skills from one generation to the next.

Speaker 4 And now, as tariff politics continue between India and the US, it's not only their livelihoods, but the very legacy of their craft is at stake.

Speaker 12 Davina Gupta reporting.

Speaker 12 Last week, when a massive global Amazon outage caused large parts of the internet to stop working, attention was focused on Loudoun County in the US state of Virginia.

Speaker 12 The area is home to the world's biggest number of data storage centers, vast processing facilities which are being built to power the internet and artificial intelligence.

Speaker 12 The businesses contribute billions to the local economy, but the centers dominate the landscape.

Speaker 12 They also create a humming or buzzing noise, which people who live close to them say is ruining their quality of life.

Speaker 12 Anna Fagey went to Loudoun County to hear what it's like to live in the shadow of the huge buildings without ever-present buzz.

Speaker 30 Loudoun County was once filled with farmland and developments of homes.

Speaker 30 Until a few years ago, when data centers owned by companies like Amazon moved in, all you see is huge industrial concrete buildings and trapped in the middle are thousands of the county's residents.

Speaker 30 I'm on my way to meet Greg Pirio who bought his home 14 years ago. When he looks out his townhouse window, what once was a green forestry is now a large blue building.

Speaker 12 That's the data center that they built and you can see how mammoth it is. And sometimes there's a whole other decimal level that can occur that makes it even louder.

Speaker 11 Louden County is the wealthiest county in the U.S., reaping the benefits from its closeness to the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., and its many data centers.

Speaker 11 But these centers are not the best neighbors. Greg says, on top of the impact on the environment, their quality of life is severely impacted.

Speaker 12 I have some neighbors who said that they get headaches from it. A neighbor had to put a mattress over his window to keep the sound out so he could sleep.

Speaker 11 Greg lives in an area that has the most data centers in the world. More than two-thirds of the global internet traffic passes through it.

Speaker 31 It comes down to when the internet was in its infancy.

Speaker 11 This is Thomas Hyslip, a cybersecurity expert from the University of South Florida.

Speaker 11 He knows why Northern Virginia attracts so many data centers.

Speaker 31 Northern Virginia was really an epicenter for the growth of the internet, and so naturally they have the talent, they have the people already there. It was just easier to make them there.

Speaker 11 In addition to this, tax breaks and government infrastructure in Northern Virginia create perfect conditions for the data centers.

Speaker 11 With tech companies racing to dominate the AI sector, places like Loudoun will continue to grow.

Speaker 11 And the industry is also getting a boost by President Donald Trump, who plans to loosen regulations around AI infrastructure.

Speaker 11 For the residents who are forced to live next to these centers, there's not much else to do but move away or fight against it. So far, with little success.

Speaker 12 Anna Fakey.

Speaker 12 When it comes to the future of Gaza, if peace is ever agreed, the priority will be rebuilding basic infrastructure, like the hospitals and schools.

Speaker 12 But what about the sites that tell the story of Gaza's history and Palestinian identity?

Speaker 12 My colleague Edward Sturton discussed the importance of Gaza's heritage with the Palestinian writer Raja Shahade and his wife, the academic Penny Johnson.

Speaker 20 The Alomari Mosque, which started as a Philistine site, then was a Byzantine church, then was a seventh-century mosque, it gives a sense of what Gaza was, this crossroads of civilization.

Speaker 20 That you're not a person stuck in a building that you cannot move. You're a person that has a civilization that you can think about, you can draw from.

Speaker 20 And I think that's what these sites can give people.

Speaker 32 And just staying with the Great Mosque in Gaza, in Gaza City, do we know at all how it has survived, how much damage has been done there?

Speaker 20 There's quite a lot of damage, but of course we just see the photos. We've had no access, except for the intrepid Palestinian journalists who are sending these photos, nobody has been able to visit.

Speaker 20 It needs archaeologists, it needs restorers. At least one or two walls and the minaret are damaged.
That's all I know.

Speaker 20 But I do know that the El Omari Mosque has been restored over centuries, many times, and I think it can be restored again.

Speaker 32 The other place was the church of St. Hilarion, is that right? Tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 20 It's actually a monastery site. It's the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Gaza, but UNESCO has put it on a sort of danger of destruction list.
It's an important site, beautiful mosaics.

Speaker 20 I don't know if they're still there. But Regu was also talking about St.
Porphyus, which is the oldest Christian church, I think, in the world. In the world? Which is partially damaged in Gaza City.

Speaker 20 It's sort of good fortune that one of the great archaeological collections in Gaza moved to Paris before the war for an exhibit. So these important artifacts are saved.

Speaker 20 One of the great fruits of fortune. Well, you know, the people in Gaza now are so involved in trying to survive day to day that I don't think they are thinking of the bigger questions.
And

Speaker 20 I think they are just concentrating on survival at this point.

Speaker 32 Which is, of course, absolutely understandable. But but you th you think it's important that some of these places and the things associated with them in the longer term are preserved.

Speaker 20 Yeah, because they are not only for the Gazans and for the Palestinians, they are a world heritage thing. They are important for the world.

Speaker 20 Because Gaza is a place that has been inhabited for 3,000 years continuously. It's a very important place historically and universally.

Speaker 12 The Palestinian writer Rajah Shahada and his wife Penny Johnson talking there to the BBC's Edward Sturton.

Speaker 12 And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later on. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

Speaker 12 The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
Use the hashtag Global Newspod.

Speaker 12 This edition was mixed by Derek Clark and produced by Paul Day and Wendy Urquhart. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Nick Miles, and until next time, goodbye.

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