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

I'm Julia McFarlane and in the early hours of Tuesday the 24th of June, these are our main stories.

Iran has launched missiles at the US airbase in Qatar.

Tehran says it was in response to the US's airstrikes on its main nuclear sites over the weekend.

Meanwhile, Israel has attacked government targets in Iran, including the notorious Evin prison.

And as we record this podcast, President Trump has just announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, which will come into force in the coming hours.

Also in this podcast, the gangs of Cape Town and their child recruits.

And Belarus's opposition leader in exile, Svetlana Tikanovskaa speaks to the BBC

about the moment she first heard her husband was released from prison.

Somebody called me from Belarusian mobile and I picked up the receiver and heard my husband

voice. He told, Sveta, my dear wife, I am free. I can't believe this.

Ever since the Americans attacked three nuclear sites in Iran in the early hours of Sunday morning,

the world, but especially the region, braced for the Iranian response. It came on Monday evening

in the form of missiles launched in the direction of the biggest U.S. airbase in the Middle East,

al-Udaid in Qatar, the size of a small town and home to thousands of American service members.

The U.S. Embassy sent out an alert to U.S. citizens in Qatar, ordering them to take shelter until further notice.

Qatari authorities announced they were closing their airspace

and diverting all traffic away from the capital.

Just half an hour later, explosions were heard in the skies above the streets of Doha.

This was recorded on a mobile phone. Colonel Iman Tajik is a spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He confirmed that the attack was in response to the targeting of its nuclear facilities

by US stealth bombers over the weekend.

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