The story of a little girl shot in Gaza
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The BBC World Service has pieced together the story of two-year-old Layan al-Majdalawi, who was killed in Gaza in areas where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was operating. Layan is just one of more than 160 cases of children shot in the war in Gaza, for whom we have gathered accounts. The IDF told us they are examining the case, and that: "Intentional harm to civilians, especially children, is strictly prohibited."
Also the programme: President Trump announces he is imposing higher tax rates on imports to America from dozens of countries who've failed to reach a trade deal with him; and Chinese schoolgirl Yu Zidi becomes the youngest swimmer in history to win a medal at the World Aquatics Championships.
(Picture: Layan al-Majdalawi, two, killed in Gaza in November 2023. Credit: Majdalawi family).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Air from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:08.3 | I'm James Menendez. And our top story today takes us to Gaza. In a few minutes, we'll be hearing about the results of a BBC investigation into the shooting dead of dozens of children, many of them under the age of 12, during the course of the |
| 0:22.1 | war. But first we're going to talk about those Palestinians struggling to survive now because of a lack of |
| 0:27.5 | food and the dangers around the aid distribution sites that are up and running. Because President |
| 0:33.1 | Trump's special invoice, Steve Wickoff, has been inspecting some of those sites today. |
| 0:38.0 | They're run by what's called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and backed by both the US and Israel. |
| 0:44.2 | And they face widespread condemnation for making hungry people walk often long distances and close to combat zones to retrieve basic supplies. |
| 0:53.5 | The UN has called them death traps, saying that more |
| 0:56.0 | than a thousand Palestinians have been killed trying to access the aid. Well, let's talk to the BBC's |
| 1:01.6 | Al-Goboshega, who joins us now from Jerusalem. Do we know where exactly Steve Wittkoff has been |
| 1:07.5 | and what he saw? We don't, James. There hasn't been any official confirmation of which |
| 1:13.6 | of the sites of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation he visited. We believe he visited one of the sites near |
| 1:20.4 | Rafa in southern Gaza. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel who joined Steve Whitkoff in this visit, posted images from the site. |
| 1:32.6 | He said they received briefings from the Israeli military, also spoke to people on the ground. |
| 1:39.0 | We don't know who these people are. |
| 1:41.0 | And again, this is this very controversial, you know, new mechanisms supported by the |
| 1:46.3 | Americans and the Israelis that largely bypasses the United Nations and aid organizations |
| 1:51.7 | that have decades of experience, you know, in aid distribution in Gaza. And many believe that, |
| 1:59.8 | you know, this is one of the reasons why we're seeing, you know, |
| 2:02.1 | this hunger crisis in Gaza, because since the introduction of this system, a very limited |
| 2:07.2 | amount of aid has entered Gaza and a very limited number of people have had access to this aid |
| 2:14.1 | in the territory. Yes, and Mike Huckabee, I mean, writing on social media, I mean, he seems to have given his seal |
... |
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