2025-06-04
38 分钟This is a special edition of the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Nick Miles and we're about to bring you a debate hosted by the BBC examining a deeply contentious issue regarding the Gaza conflict.
The question we will consider with a panel of expert guests offering a wide range of views is this.
Over the course of the last 20 months,
starting with the Hamas attacks on Israel in October of 2023,
have we witnessed war crimes in Gaza and Israel?
I'm going to hand you straight over now to my colleague Anna Foster here at Broadcasting House in London.
A week ago,
the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wrote an opinion piece for the liberal daily newspaper Haaretz.
He described how he'd defended Israel's military campaign in Gaza to audiences around the world.
But now, he said, his opinion had changed.
Yes, he wrote, Israel is committing war crimes.
The decision on whether someone is guilty of war crimes will always be made in a court,
not in a radio studio.
Words like genocide are a legal definition of a specific crime rather than an emotive description of events that upset us.
The latter use, incorrect until a judge decides, is increasing.
Normally, many decades pass before perpetrators are convicted of war crimes.
Some die without ever going on trial.
But although the passing of judgment takes time,
it shouldn't negate a conversation about events in the moment when they happen.