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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, November 1st. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, Israel strikes a refugee camp in Gaza. How journalists are risking their lives to cover the war. And a scandal that put fake parts in planes' engines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We'll start with the Israel-Hamas war and the Israeli airstrike on a densely populated refugee camp in Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The powerful attack carved huge craters in the ground, destroying concrete buildings and turning a large area into a pile of rubble.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Palestinian health officials say at least dozens of people are dead and many more wounded.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rescuers are digging through the wreckage, hoping to find more survivors.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Israel says it was targeting Hamas militants and killed a high-level commander in the strike on the camp.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It has consistently accused Hamas of placing military assets near civilian areas, hospitals and mosques.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht spoke to CNN after the attack.
--:-- Richard Hecht: About the civilians there, we're doing everything we can to minimize. I'll say it again. Sadly, they are hiding themselves within civilian population.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hamas denies that there was any senior commander at the refugee camp Israel targeted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it says several hostages were killed in yesterday's attack.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Aid groups say for the civilians caught in the middle of the war, they've been plunged deeper into a public health catastrophe.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Doctors are overwhelmed with the scale of injuries.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dr. Hassan Abouz-Sittah talked to NBC about what he's seeing.
--:-- Hassan Abouz-Sittah: This has been a massacre that's been unfolding, and now we're getting to the final chapter of this massacre where even the wounded will not be spared.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The world needs to intervene now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's some hopeful news today with the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt finally reopened to civilians.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Egypt is allowing a few severely wounded Palestinians to receive treatment in Egyptian hospitals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the open border crossing is a way for American and other foreign nationals trapped in Gaza to get out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A small amount of aid trucks have made it into Gaza, but until today, people inside weren't allowed entry into Egypt.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Crowds of people have been gathered at the border for days, hoping to be able to get out of Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The UN and many countries continue to press Israel for a pause in fighting to allow humanitarian aid for civilians.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Israel has refused.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After the refugee camp strike, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply alarmed by the intensification of the conflict.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He said all parties must follow international humanitarian law, which he said is not an a la carte menu and cannot be applied selectively.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's focus now on the danger of covering this war for journalists in Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They have the same fears as other civilians. Is my family safe? Is there food? Is there water?
--:-- Shamita Basu: How will we keep in touch with each other and with the world through phone and internet blackouts, including another one today?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Everything is happening so quickly, and it's really, really difficult for any human being to take.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Al Jazeera English correspondent Yumna Il-Sayed.
--:-- Yumna Il-Sayed: All we think about is how to make these kids feel safe. Literally, our buildings are like shaking with every bombardment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But we just tell them, don't worry, it's far away. We're staying together. If we die, we die together.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Mahmoud Bassam has been working with the BBC.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He says he worries about his wife and baby each time he leaves home in Gaza to cover the story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But he takes the risk because it's important.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He says, sometimes from behind the camera, I just stand and cry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael El Dahtu lost his wife, children, and grandson in an airstrike.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The next day he went back to work.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He told viewers, I saw it as my duty, despite my pain, and despite my bleeding wound, to return quickly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Already, this war is on track to be one of the deadliest conflicts for journalists in decades.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 31 have been killed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Most were Palestinians. Others are injured or missing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Each death makes it harder and harder to get an inside view of what's really happening on the ground in Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now let's step away from war coverage and talk about an extensive Bloomberg investigation into the airline industry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Air travel is highly regulated and the safest form of transportation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But there is growing alarm about a potential danger, fake parts inside jet engines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloomberg reports that a London company sold thousands of them, which wound up in more than 100 engines around the world.
--:-- Shamita Basu: An elaborate system of forged documents and fake identities allowed the company to pass off used parts as new.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Aerospace reporter Julie Johnson told us, while no flight emergencies have been called because of engine malfunctions, the scale and audacity of this scam points to gaps in the system.
--:-- Julie Johnson: She said many planes had to be grounded and checked for dangerous parts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So the biggest, most sophisticated U.S. airlines have gone through their records and found problematic parts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They've shown up in China, in Australia, and even in the shops of the engine maker CFM itself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's no evidence that the most critical engine components were part of the scam.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the fact that some fake parts got into the system has key players in the industry calling for tougher regulations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's really puzzling that we haven't heard more from the regulatory side as to how they're going to respond to this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You know there were a series of investigations in the 1990s on this very issue that resulted in congressional hearings and a call to action.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so a few prominent people in the industry are wondering why that hasn't happened yet.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can read Bloomberg's full investigation in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, the Federal Reserve wraps up its latest meeting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's practically no chance it'll raise interest rates again, but rates are already jacked up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Fed actions and other factors are making this a very expensive time to borrow money, including for a home mortgage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Wall Street Journal totals it all up in a pretty devastating headline if you're hoping to purchase a home.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's never been a worse time to buy instead of rent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The data shows that it's now 52% more expensive to buy rather than rent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's the biggest difference in records going back decades.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And a big reason is the surging rates on home mortgages, with 30-year rates close to 8%.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Just a few years back, they were below 3%.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The journal points out the last time the rent versus buy numbers were so out of whack was before the 2008 housing crash.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One economist says this means there are a lot of wannabe first-time buyers waiting on the sidelines for the math to make sense.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in the meantime, maybe the only people getting what they want in the current housing market are renters who plan to keep renting for a while.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find more details on the housing market in the full story in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app, we've got a narrated article from The New Yorker playing for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Editor David Remnick reports from Israel, from the grounds where the October 7th Hamas attack took place.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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