Israel’s anti-war activists

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Adie presents stories from Israel, Zimbabwe, Taiwan's Kinmen Islands, Lithuania and Peru.

In Israel a small group of peace campaigners has been going against the grain of the public mood to highlight the plight of Palestinian people in Gaza, and has called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war on humanitarian grounds. Wyre Davies met them in Jerusalem.

It’s 25 years since Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme ignited a wave of violent land seizures from Zimbabwe's white farmers. The current government has begun paying compensation to some of the farmers forced from their land – Shingai Nyoka considers whether it can help bring much-desired reconciliation.

Taiwan's Kinmen Islands are just a few miles off the coast of mainland China, which has made repeated attempts over the decades to annex the outpost. Today locals continue to live amid ongoing tensions with China - as well as the strain between modern and traditional ways of life, reports Adrian Bridge.

In Lithuania's capital Vilnius is the imposing Lukeskes prison. Once infamous for its appalling conditions, it provided a dystopian setting for the sci-fi series Stranger Things. Today, it's been transformed into a new artistic hub, but is this hipster culture erasing vital national history? Joshua Askew recently paid a visit.

And finally, BBC Budapest correspondent Nick Thorpe recently had a change of scene. venturing to South America and the high Andes of Peru, where he travelled on a donkey through the Cordillera Blanca range, past lakes and waterfalls – and rapidly disappearing glaciers.

Series Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinators: Sophie Hill & Katie Morrison Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello. Today we're in Zimbabwe, 25 years on from the Mugabe era land seizures,
0:11.6	where black and white communities hope a new scheme can bring reconciliation.
0:17.1	We're in Taiwan's Kinmen Islands, where traditional ways of life are under threat, and the fear of war with China lingers.
0:25.8	In Lithuania, we visit a notorious former prison, whose dark past proved the perfect setting for the sci-fi series Stranger Things.
0:35.1	And finally, we're in Peru, where we go off-grid in the high Andes, riding on mules past lakes and waterfalls, and rapidly disappearing glaciers.
0:45.5	But first, to the war in Gaza, where the death toll continues to rise, with more than 57,000 people now killed in the conflict, according to the Hamas-run
0:56.6	health ministry. While many Israelis want an end to the war, the focus of demands has largely
1:03.7	been centred around the return of hostages, taken captive by Hamas during its attack in
1:09.6	2023, in which around 1,200 Israelis were killed.
1:15.4	But there's also a small but visible peace movement emerging, which is calling for an end to the
1:21.3	conflict, for the sake of the Palestinian people. Our correspondent Wi Davis met activists in Jerusalem.
1:30.1	Sapir Slushka Amran knows that she's part of a tiny minority, but the lawyer and occasional
1:35.9	writer is undeterred, convinced that what she's doing is right, despite the flack that
1:41.7	comes her way. Many people think that I'm a traitor, she tells me.
1:46.0	It's not just that they don't agree with me,
1:48.0	they see what I'm doing as an act of resistance.
1:51.1	As we speak, Sapir is handing out posters to around 30 like-minded people
1:56.3	as they head out to protest.
1:58.2	But theirs is a protest with a difference.
2:03.1	Demonstrations calling for an end to the Gaza War are nothing new in Israel. Indeed, the high-profile, vocal and well-supported
2:08.4	hostages and missing families forum is a regular feature outside government offices and in public spaces.
2:15.5	The names and faces of the hostages are omnipresent, in shop windows,
	...

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