Israel to restrict aid over return of hostage remains
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Israeli officials have said the government has decided to restrict aid into Gaza in response to Hamas being too slow in handing over the bodies of dead hostages.
We'll hear from an Israeli whose relative's body is still in Gaza and who fears it may never be brought home.
Also on the programme: we speak to the UN about the reconstruction in Gaza and how it will be paid for; and Harvard professor and philosopher Michael Sandel shares why he thinks meritocracy is overrated.
(Photo: A Palestinian man looks on next to a tent amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza City. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service coming live from London. |
| 0:14.1 | This is Owen Bennett-Jones. |
| 0:16.0 | Is the Middle East ceasefire already falling apart? |
| 0:19.5 | In Gaza, the Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency service |
| 0:23.9 | organisation there, says seven people have been killed by Israeli fire in two incidents. |
| 0:29.4 | Israel's military says it fired at people who had crossed the line where its troops have |
| 0:34.2 | withdrawn to. Far from laying down its arms, Hamas is fighting militias in Gaza, apparently, as we'll hear later in the program, |
| 0:43.3 | with President Trump's approval, although he also says they will be disarmed by the US if necessary. |
| 0:48.9 | Israel, meanwhile, says it wants to cut the amount of aid getting into Gaza for as long as Hamas fails to hand over |
| 0:55.4 | the remains of all the dead Israelis in Gaza. In the past few minutes, the Israeli army has said |
| 1:02.5 | the remains of another four hostages have actually been handed over to the Red Cross. |
| 1:07.2 | Tim Franks is in Jerusalem. |
| 1:09.4 | If Monday was, at least in Israel, about the country resounding to a bellow of relief, |
| 1:15.5 | a tremendous sense of release about the freeing of the last 20 living hostages held underground |
| 1:21.1 | in Gaza. Today there's been a much starker contrast of emotions. You'll hear them in the next |
| 1:27.2 | couple of voices. The first |
| 1:29.3 | belongs to Udi Goren. He's the cousin of a man called Tal Haimi, a 41-year-old father of four |
| 1:36.1 | killed on October 7, 2023, when gunman from Gaza stormed into his kibbutz in southwestern Israel. |
| 1:46.3 | Tau's body was then taken by the militants into Gaza. Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, his remains, along with more than 20 others, |
| 1:52.8 | were supposed to be returned on Monday. They haven't been. Hamas has said that in some cases it |
| 1:59.3 | just can't reach them as they've now been buried under tons of rubble. |
... |
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