Israel's allies condemn vote to ban UNRWA
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2024
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Israel's allies condemn a parliamentary vote effectively banning the main UN agency for Palestinians. We hear from the UK’s minister for the middle east – but what are the chances the Israeli government will listen? And who is Naim Qassem, long-time deputy to Hassan Nasrallah and now leader of Hezbollah?
Also in the programme: Iran executes a German-Iranian activist - we hear from another Iranian dissident; and how a researcher browsing the internet unearthed an entire lost Mayan city in Mexico.
(IMAGE: A sign at the entrance to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) offices in Jerusalem, 29 October 2024 / CREDIT: Abir Sultan / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour. It's coming to live from the BBC World Service |
| 0:07.2 | studios in London. I'm Tim Franks and we're leading the program with a |
| 0:11.1 | potentially huge story out of the Middle East and |
| 0:14.7 | the key lies in that word potentially because maybe strangely it stems from a vote in the Israeli |
| 0:21.1 | parliament the Knesset which the Israeli newspapers |
| 0:24.0 | are today barely covering perhaps because there was such an overwhelming consensus |
| 0:28.8 | in parliament about the move the move to in effect ban UNRWA, the UN's main relief agency for the Palestinians. |
| 0:37.0 | So why call it potentially huge? |
| 0:40.0 | Because of the impact some say it could have on an already catastrophic humanitarian situation |
| 0:45.6 | and because of the questions now for Israel's allies over this move are they going to do any more than |
| 0:50.0 | continue to express their concern and because of the questions for Israel about its responsibilities. |
| 0:56.5 | We'll try and get into all of that today. |
| 0:59.2 | Our Middle East regional editor Sebastian Usher is in our Jerusalem Bureau. Before we get on to UNRWA, |
| 1:06.0 | what about this Israeli air strike in Northern Gaza that the Hamas-run health ministry |
| 1:10.4 | there has said has killed almost a hundred. |
| 1:13.2 | Yes we've been getting reports about this seeing videos seeing the images of the |
| 1:20.5 | dead the wounded for several hours now. This is in Beit Lahir where there have been |
| 1:25.3 | several strikes like this in the past two or three weeks. The Israeli army has been mounting |
| 1:30.6 | a major offensive again in northern Gaza to try and prevent Hamas fighters |
| 1:36.0 | from regrouping there and it's led to tens of thousands more palletines again being displaced |
| 1:41.5 | and to terrible incidents like this. I mean it seems |
| 1:44.4 | that a five-story building was brought down and that much of an extended family |
... |
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