International concern as Israel strikes targets in Syria
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After sectarian clashes in southern Syria, Israel launches airstrikes on Syrian government targets, saying it needs to protect the Druze ethnic minority. We attempt to explain a complicated situation with defence expert Dr Robert Geist Pinfold, and hear from an eyewitness in the city of Sweida and an advisor to the Syrian foreign minister.
Also in the programme: continuing controversy in the United States over the legacy of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein; the plight of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have been abruptly deported from Iran; and a plan to breathe new life into the Victorian glasshouses at London's Kew Gardens.
(Photo: Damaged vehicles outside the Syrian Ministry of Defence building following an Israeli airstrike in Damascus; Credit: MOHAMMED AL RIFAI/EPA/Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to live from London this Wednesday. |
| 0:11.1 | With me, Sean Lay. |
| 0:12.6 | The Wazir of Defa of Israeli, Israel, Kats, that the army will bewares to bewares. |
| 0:27.4 | Live reporting on Syrian television as a journalist reacts to an airstrike on the building behind them. Israel's targets in Damascus included the presidential palace and the defense ministry. |
| 0:32.8 | Syria's government has asked the UN Security Council to meet to address what it calls |
| 0:36.8 | Israeli aggression on Syrian territory. |
| 0:39.7 | In Washington, the Trump administration, which has lifted sanctions imposed on Syria, |
| 0:43.8 | during President Assad's regime, expressed its concern. |
| 0:47.0 | Secretary of State Marker Rubio said officials were working the phones. |
| 0:50.6 | We've been engaged with them all morning long and all night long with both sides, and we think |
| 0:55.7 | we're on our way towards a real de-escalation and then hopefully get back on track in helping |
| 1:01.7 | Syria build a country and arriving at a situation there in the Middle East is far more stable. |
| 1:06.6 | So in the next few hours, we hope to see some real progress to end what you've been seeing over the last couple hours. |
| 1:12.4 | Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he'd ordered the intervention to protect the Druze, a minority community, |
| 1:19.4 | facing attacks in the southwest of Syria. |
| 1:24.1 | My brothers, the Druze citizens of Israel, the situation in Sweda in southwestern Syria is very serious. |
| 1:31.3 | The IDF is operating. The Air Force is operating. Other forces are operating. We are acting to save |
| 1:38.0 | our Drews brothers and to eliminate the regime's gangs. Dr. Robert Geist-Pinfold is lecturer in |
| 1:43.9 | defence studies at King's College London. |
| 1:46.7 | He's been telling me first who the Druze in Syria and outside Syria are. |
| 1:52.0 | Well, the Druze are a rather esoteric sect. They are originally an offshoot of Islam, but they have |
| 1:58.1 | elements of other monotheistic religions as well. They're quite a |
... |
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