Israel's major offensive in Gaza City continues
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Israel's military has declared Gaza City a combat zone, as it prepares to seize the territory's largest population zone. The military said that humanitarian pauses in fighting were being halted.
Also on the programme: a Thai opposition leader says he's got enough support to form the next government after the constitutional court sacked yet another prime minister; and we hear about a new version of the band Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody by South Africa's Ndlovu's Youth Choir - in isiZulu.
(Picture: Israeli missile strike on Gaza City. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesb. |
| 0:09.5 | Israel says it's begun the initial stages of its major offensive in Gaza City. For days, the |
| 0:15.6 | Israeli authorities have been telling the approximately 1 million people who live there to evacuate. |
| 0:21.7 | Today it declared the city a combat zone and it seems the attack has begun. |
| 0:29.7 | Well Israel also announced today that the so-called humanitarian pauses it's been running to allow aid into the area are also suspended. |
| 0:38.2 | Later, we'll hear from the head of the World Food Programme, |
| 0:41.0 | who's demanding that full-scale surge of humanitarian aid begin immediately. |
| 0:46.0 | But first, what do we know of the situation on the ground in Gaza City tonight? |
| 0:50.8 | Our reporters are banned from entering Gaza by the Israeli government, but our correspondent Amir Nader is following events from Jerusalem. |
| 0:58.8 | Essentially, Israel now for two weeks, has been pushing into Gaza City, bombarding heavily some of the outer neighborhoods in the south, the east, and now in the past hours in the north. |
| 1:10.1 | So we've seen ground forces moving |
| 1:11.8 | into some of those areas and indeed residents fleeing ahead of the bombardment and reports of |
| 1:18.0 | numerous casualties today as well with strikes in the north residents saying there has been |
| 1:24.6 | artillery and air strikes throughout the evening and indeed reporting |
| 1:29.3 | that drones are attacking in some areas such as Jabberlia and Sheikh Radwan. |
| 1:33.3 | And we've heard from the UN now that there's 60,000 people from those outer neighbourhoods |
| 1:38.3 | have been displaced deeper into Gaza City, essentially fleeing for their lives because they can't escape in other |
| 1:47.3 | directions because the city is mostly surrounded. And we've had this situation now where |
| 1:52.8 | Israel is calling on residents of Gaza City. That's a million people in the city and the areas |
| 1:59.3 | around it, calling on them to leave the city, but no |
| 2:02.4 | detailed plan or support has been offered to them about how they might be able to leave |
| 2:07.8 | the city. So people are being pushed deeper inwards towards the city with Israel saying |
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