BBC News Briefing

27 November, 2024

Jules Darmanin

Hello. It appears the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah holds after a day. As the White House hopes momentum will help brokering a similar deal in Gaza, Frank Gardner explains why these would be a much harder diplomatic feat. We're also turning our focus on the drawer of defunct electronics you might have at home. E-waste is growing globally, and with it the interest of traffickers interested in valuable metals. My colleagues are reporting from Egypt, Australia, and Greenland.

GET UP TO SPEED

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says it has requested an arrest warrant for Myanmar's military leader Min Aung Hlaing for crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya Muslims.

Several of Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and picks for his White House team have been targeted by bomb threats, the FBI said.

In Australia, a police officer who Tasered a 95-year-old woman with dementia symptoms at a care home has been found guilty of her manslaughter.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Why Lebanon truce doesn't make peace in Gaza likelier

A dozen of children are queuing outside in Gaza. Among them, a young girl is holding a bucket over her head.

Negotiators have unsuccessfully sought a ceasefire deal in Gaza for months. Credit: Shutterstock

Thousands of Lebanese civilians are returning to their destroyed homes while the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to hold. President Joe Biden has said the US will make another push with regional powers for a ceasefire in Gaza, involving the release of hostages and the removal of Hamas from power.

Frank Gardner, security correspondent

What do we know about conversations around a potential Gaza ceasefire?

The Lebanon ceasefire is not yet one day old but already attention is focusing once more on the conflict in Gaza. The US, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and other countries are all keen to push for a ceasefire there, too. But Gaza is both different and more difficult to resolve than Israel’s brief but violent war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Why?

Hamas, the militant Islamist organisation which has ruled Gaza since 2006, is unwilling to give up the hundred Israeli hostages it’s holding until Israel withdraws its army. Israel won’t do that until it decides it has so degraded Hamas’s military capability that it can never again pose a threat.

What is Israel saying?

An Israeli government spokesman told the BBC that with Hezbollah in Lebanon now effectively out of the equation, Hamas was isolated and should be more amenable to a truce. But a complicating factor is that some in the Israeli establishment attach an ideological importance to Gaza, even talking about re-establishing settlements there. And meanwhile, even after 13 months of war and more than 44,000 people killed, there still appears to be no clear plan for who will govern Gaza and how.

Follow live

US push: Here's what you need to know about the renewed efforts to get a Gaza ceasefire deal over the line.

'Everything was gone': 25-year-old Rayane Salman speaks to the BBC as she returns to the pile of rubble amassed where her home once was, in the south of Beirut. Watch her interview.

International justice: Israel has informed the International Criminal Court it will appeal against the arrest warrants issued for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

AT THE SCENE

Egypt

Diver rescues nephew from capsized boat

A middle-aged man with glasses is smiling at the camera and doing the OK sign with his hand. He is standing in front of a bright blue body of water, with a beach across it in the background.

Diver Khattab al-Faramawy helped in the rescue operation that saved his nephew Youssef. Credit: Family handout

An Egyptian diver who helped in the rescue operation after a tourist boat sank in the Red Sea has told the BBC how he had to search the vessel by torchlight to find its passengers and crew. A total of 33 of the 44 people on board the Sea Story have been rescued so far.

Sally Nabil, BBC Arabic correspondent

"We dived 12m (40ft) under water - the survivors were trapped inside the boat cabins," Khattab al-Faramawy told the BBC said in a phone call. They had survived more than 24 hours on the boat since it was sunk by a large wave near Marsa Alam off Egypt's eastern coast on Monday. Mr al-Faramawy described the complexities of searching the submerged four-deck boat to find passengers and crew. "We were using torch lights to try to find our way into the darkness, it was quite a complicated mission," he said.

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Eventually, they were able to open cabin doors to get survivors out. His own nephew was among them. Youssef, 23, worked as a diving instructor on board the boat. "He was trying to save the passengers on board but got locked in one of the cabins," his father Hussam al-Faramawy told the BBC in an emotional phone call. "I could do nothing but pray to God to help my boy, and thankfully his uncle finally saved him."

Keep reading

In case you missed it: Here's the latest we know about the rescue efforts - with seven still missing.

More from Sally: Residents fear the incident will impact the local tourism industry, which is crucial to Egypt's economy.

THE BIG PICTURE

Burning old TVs to survive

A dozen of black men are tending to fires in a dumpsite. Large plumes of smoke are rising from multiple fires.

When e-waste is burnt for valuable metals, toxic fumes are released mainly from their plastic parts. Credit: BBC

Millions of tonnes of electronic waste are sent from Western countries to African and South East Asian dumpsites, often illegally. There, the goods are either burnt or dumped after valuable metals have been extracted, posing major health risks to workers and the broader population. Our correspondent Navin Singh Khadka reports on how e-waste trafficking is getting more and more sophisticated.

Read the story

FOR YOUR DOWNTIME

Greenland-bound

New flight routes are connecting Nuuk to Copenhagen and New York.

What to know

And finally... in India

A 13-year-old has become the youngest player to get a deal in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world's richest cricket tournament. The fresh-faced teenager was bought by Rajasthan Royals, external (RR) for 11m rupees ($130,500; £103,789)

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– Jules

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