Israel launches ground and air assault on central Gaza
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Israeli military has launched a ground and air assault on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza just hours after Israel issued evacuation warnings for several parts of the town. Also on the programme, Ecuador's most notorious gang boss is extradited to the United States; and, a musical which tells the stories of two Iranian women who feel compelled to leave Iran and make dangerous journeys to Europe.
(Photo: Smoke rises during Israeli strikes amid the Israeli military operation in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, July 21, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in London. I'm Tim Franks. |
| 0:10.0 | We're beginning in Gaza, because while the destruction has been immense over the last 21 months, it hasn't been equally spread. |
| 0:18.8 | One of the areas which hadn't been hammered quite so hard as others |
| 0:22.0 | was the centre of the strip around the city of Dera-Al-Bala. That was until today. On Sunday, |
| 0:28.4 | the Israel Defence Forces had issued evacuation orders for the area, which as far as we could tell |
| 0:33.6 | were a first. And today, by air and on the ground, the IDF began a major offensive. |
| 0:40.8 | Thousands of garsens, many of whom have already been multiply displaced, fled again. |
| 0:46.1 | Among them, Leila Ezat Alshana and her family, two of whom are disabled. |
| 0:51.1 | She's had to head a few miles north to Nasserat. |
| 0:54.5 | I was living in Al-Purach camp camp and I was in Daryl-Belah, but there is two evacuation orders, |
| 1:01.0 | which has led to all the people in loose areas around half of the Dierr-Lelah and half of Al-Puraj |
| 1:07.9 | camp, which is so crowded with lots of people to evacuate those areas and to go to Almawesi and go to another areas, which is there is no place to go to, and the people are so crowded. |
| 1:22.0 | So there is no place to buy their tents. |
| 1:24.9 | There is no transportation. |
| 1:27.4 | People are losing their minds and they are falling to the ground due to the lake of food. |
| 1:34.3 | The BBC, along with other international media organisations, is not allowed into Gaza. |
| 1:39.9 | Rushdie Abu aloof is our Gaza correspondent. He's following events from Istanbul. |
| 1:44.9 | We have seen a very limited operation twice during the war, |
| 1:49.5 | but this seems to be big. |
| 1:51.8 | It followed Israeli general evacuation area from six blocks within Dar al-Balach. |
| 1:58.1 | Why it's significant? |
| 1:59.2 | Because Daril Balah is now housing hundreds of thousands of |
... |
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