UN report accuses companies of complicity in war crimes in the Palestinian territories
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The UN's special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has accused dozens of companies of being complicit in war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank in a UN report. They include arms producers, manufacturers whose vehicles are used to demolish homes, technology companies and banks. Israel rejects the charge of genocide and has called the report groundless, defamatory and a flagrant abuse of office. We'll hear from the report’s author Francesca Albanese. Also on the programme: President Trump's huge tax and spending bill is heading for a final vote in the US House of Representatives - we'll have the latest from Washington; and astronomers have discovered only the third known object to enter our solar system from interstellar space. (Photo: UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, speaks during a press conference at the European headquarters of the UN in Geneva, Switzerland on 11 December, 2024. Credit: REUTERS/Pierre Albouygives)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:06.5 | We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:08.4 | I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:09.7 | And we're going to begin today in the Middle East with what's happening in Gaza and also the occupied West Bank. |
| 0:15.9 | Despite reports that a deal for another ceasefire and release of Israeli hostages may be close. It has been |
| 0:21.6 | a particularly bloody 24 hours in the Gaza Strip, with some 150 Israeli airstrikes and also |
| 0:28.0 | reports of shootings at aid distribution points. The Hamas-run health ministry there is |
| 0:33.2 | saying that dozens of Palestinians have been killed overall, among them a prominent surgeon |
| 0:37.9 | at Gaza's Indonesian hospital. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupy Palestinian Territory |
| 0:43.8 | says war crimes are being committed in Gaza and in a new report she accuses dozens of companies, |
| 0:49.9 | some well-known multinationals, of being complicit in those. We'll be speaking to her in a few minutes. |
| 0:56.7 | But first, let's head to Jerusalem. And our correspondent, Ioni Wells. Ioni, just tell us first of all about that surgeon and the hospital, the Indonesian hospital, where he worked. What happened to him? |
| 1:09.7 | Well, Dr. Marwan Sultan was a surgeon, a prominent surgeon in Gaza. He was director of Gaza's |
| 1:16.0 | Indonesian hospital, and he has been reportedly killed in an airstrike on his house, along |
| 1:22.2 | with several family members. The Israeli military say that in this strike they struck a key terrorist from Hamas, in their words, and they say that any claims of uninvolved civilians being harmed as well are going to be reviewed. |
| 1:37.3 | Hamas, the Hamas-run health ministry has called this strike a heinous crime. |
| 1:41.3 | Now the Indonesian hospital itself was declared out of service. |
| 1:46.0 | It hasn't been operating after strikes on that building and surrounding areas as part of this |
| 1:51.5 | war in Gaza. The UN has said that, in fact, there are now no functioning hospitals in the north |
| 1:56.6 | of Gaza. There have been tributes from those who knew him pouring in, including from one of his |
| 2:02.5 | children, talking about the moment that this strike happened. The IDF, as I say, have said |
| 2:07.1 | that they regret any harm to uninvolved individuals, that they try to mitigate harm and have |
... |
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