Israel Begins Ground Offensive in Gaza City
Newscast
BBC
4.4 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we discuss Israel beginning the first stages of a ground offensive into Gaza City.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are expected to be ordered to evacuate and head to southern Gaza. This escalation comes as Israel continues to restrict aid into the strip, with Palestinians facing widespread malnutrition. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is "shortening the timelines" for seizing what he described as "the last terror strongholds" in Gaza.
Israel has also given final approval for a settlement project which would cut off the West Bank from East Jerusalem and further splinter the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who unveiled the plans said the idea of a Palestinian state was "being erased".
Adam is joined in the studio with Panorama filmmaker Jane Corbin, who has reported extensively on the region, and Jo Floto, the BBC Middle East Bureau Chief.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.6 | Hello, for a little while now, we've been waiting for the next chapter to begin in the Israel-Gaza War. |
| 0:11.4 | And it looks like it is happening now. And it is Israeli military forces going in to Gaza City |
| 0:17.8 | as the first step of their plan to take over the whole of the north of Gaza, |
| 0:23.3 | which would require tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, actually more than a million |
| 0:27.7 | people to move again. So we'll discuss what we know so far and what we think might happen next |
| 0:33.2 | and what the consequences could be on this episode of Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. |
| 0:39.8 | He has just compared me to the fat controller. |
| 0:42.8 | Did I say that? I can't believe I said that. |
| 0:45.6 | Next question. |
| 0:46.4 | This is R for the benefit of Earth. |
| 0:49.0 | I'm not personally a huge Sabrina Carpenter fam. |
| 0:51.9 | I don't think I'm being rude. |
| 0:53.4 | I like landscapes. |
| 0:54.5 | Take me down to Downey Street. Let's go have a tour. Blimey. |
| 0:58.7 | Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. And we're going to focus this episode on the early stages of Israel's military operation to take over the whole of northern Gaza, which at the moment in these early stages is focusing on Gaza City, which is normally, |
| 1:12.7 | in the past, home to more than a million people. And have assembled two people who know |
| 1:17.2 | the region really, really well. Please welcome back to the newscast studio. She normally is making |
| 1:22.2 | big, serious films for panorama, and she's covered the Middle East for a very long time. |
| 1:27.1 | And she did an amazing job on old newscast of explaining the Oslo Peace process for the Middle East. It is Jane Corbyn. Hi, Jane. |
| 1:35.3 | Hello, Adam. Thank you so much for doing our old newscast about the Oslo Peace Accords. People loved it and it was amazing. And it was such good, it was such good training for me hearing all of that for covering the news now. Because it does all echo still very loudly, doesn't it? Well, it sort of all fits together in not a very happy way, actually, given where we're at now in the Middle East. But yeah, it was an absolute pleasure to do it and to look back with Lease over those times. And it's still available on BBC Sounds. were also joined by Joe Floto, who is actually the bureau chief for the BBC in the Middle East. So a very busy man. Hello, Joe. Hey, how are you? Yeah, great, great to speak to you. And great to speak to you actually on newscasts, as opposed to listening to you on a team's call in the office. Oh, that's true. Jane, before we dive into the news, let's do a bit of geography first. |
| 2:38.3 | Everyone today is talking about Gaza City. Where is Gaza City and how does it fit into Gaza, the territory? Well, Gaza City is in the north and as the name suggests, it is or was the major city in the Gaza Strip. And don't forget, we're talking about a very small sliver of land, a couple of kilometres wide and about 30 to 40 long. So we're talking about a very small area anyway. Now, after the 7th of October, when the war started, many people moved and were |
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