To what extent is iran pulling the strings in gaza and lebanon . Hezbollah is a militant group. They have their own weapon, they have their own armies, and they have the sole decision that is basically coming from iran. And theyre acting upon that. And china, ten years after the belt and road initiative, is the worlds most impressive economy in danger of hitting the buffers . I think chinas got a big struggle to come, and the big struggle is going to come with its shrinking population. The appalling destruction at the Al Ahli Al Arabi Baptist Hospital in gaza, whoever may have been responsible for it, has overshadowed the hastily arranged visit to israel by president biden. Yes, he was there to offer americas total, wholehearted sympathy and support to israel in the wake of the 7th Of October raids. But he was also there to urge israel in the strongest way to use discretion and moderation if and when it invades gaza, and very likely also to attempt to persuade israel of the need for a humanitarian corridor to allow water, food and medicines into a waterless, poor and hugely overcrowded enclave. But what about the wider picture . Lyse doucet, the bbc� s chief international correspondent, is in Southern Israel and we caught up with her in between showers of rain. In previous military operations, and i was there in gaza for the one in 2014, the Israeli Military described its objectives, and indeed the political leadership, described the objectives as hitting hamas hard, destroying its network of tunnels, ending its capacity to fire rockets into israel. This time is different. The fact that hamas was able to outmanoeuvre and outsmart the most powerful military in this region has now led israel to say, we are going to destroy hamas. Prime minister netanyahu says that hamas has to be treated like islamic state. It has to be obliterated. You and i both know gaza well. Do you think its possible to eliminate hamas . I think it can be taken as a certainty that that same sophistication that they did to carry out these atrocities will also have been spent on preparing for what they knew would be a ferocious israeli response. But as you know, john, the other matter is that, unlike islamic state, hamas is also a political and social organisation. Its embedded in palestinian society. And even if, privately, some palestinians may not agree with hamas tactics and certainly what happened in those horrific first hours of saturday morning, they still share their anger against israeli control over their lives, their resolve to achieve a palestinian state. And from the embers of the destruction that israel is certain to cause, will rise another generation with an even more steely resolve to inflict harm on israel next door. And there are many voices now saying that while israel has the right to defend itself, now is the time to think of a long term response. Israel is not of a mind now to think that far, and thats perhaps not surprising. What The Americans and others now are trying to spend their time doing is to try as much as possible and as importantly, to be seen to do Everything Possible to minimise civilian casualties and civilian suffering. We both saw what happened in iraq in 2003 when The Americans invaded. It is actually extraordinarily difficult not to kill civilians when youre going down narrow streets with Tall Buildings on either side, any one of which could contain perhaps a dozen or more people that want to kill you. Whats not clear is whether or not civilians mayjoin in the fight, those who refuse to be displaced. And as you, john, you know that there is another parallel in mosul when the iraqis, helped by The Americans and others, at least in terms of advice and intelligence, went into mosul to try to destroy islamic state. It was Fighting Street To street, house to house, room to room. And there, there were a high level of civilian casualties and there was vast destruction. Its hard to see how it can be otherwise in urban warfare, hence the insistence of The Americans too and the United Nations and so many other voices who are standing by israel, as to say you must get people to safety. Except in gaza theres nowhere thats safe and the gazans cant get out. Lyse, several writers in the british and american newspapers and in the french as well, whom i respect, are talking about the possibility that this could really spread, could start to take in iran and irans Got Friends In China and russia. Whats your feeling as you stand there . Is that a possibility . Lebanon on israels northern border, syria in the north as well. They have other scores to settle with israel and also they are standard bearers for the palestinian cause. If there are shocking scenes, heartbreaking, even more heartbreaking than now coming out of gaza, they will feel honour bound to do something. Now, so much, theres so much diplomacy now, so much back channel talking. Even the de facto ruler of saudi arabia, mohammed bin salman, the crown prince, has been talking to the iranian president , raisi. Thats the measure of the new rapprochement before this all erupted again. Everyone is talking to everyone else. But the iranians have said, look, if this gets worse, this will be something that we simply cannot control. And hence the shuttling of the american envoy, of the europeans, of so many, the phone lines are burning, to stop this possible contagion. Explosions and bangs theres a constant fear that the fighting could spread, that iran, which calls the shots with hamas in gaza, might decide to urge its other client, hezbollah in lebanon, to join in the attack on israel. Lina sinjab is the bbc� s middle east correspondent speaking from beirut. You know, john, this is a region of the unpredictable. Anything could happen at any minute and its hard to predict what could ignite the moment where things could go out of control. In lebanon, the mood, although the street is very angry with whats happening against the Palestinian Civilians in gaza, lots of hezbollah supporters roving the streets, celebrating any attacks over the border. But still, there are lots of voices rising and saying we dont want to be dragged into this. This is a country that is struggling economically, its failing its own people. Theres still no president. Its in real crisis for the past three or four years. And people still have a close memory to what happened in 2006 with the one month long war because of hezbollahs sole decision to attack israel. So no one has interest into this, but at the end, its hezbollahs decision, not the lebanese government or the lebanese peoples decision. A lot of people outside the region, certainly, think that hezbollah is actually, gets its instructions from iran. Is that the case . Well, since the start of hezbollah in the 80s as the shia militant group, its announced that its affiliation and power derived from the Wilayat Al Faqih in iran, which is the religious authority, the Shia Religious Authority in iran. And since then, their training, their money, their power, their weapons have all come from iran. Theyve liaised all their strategic and War Launch Decision with the iranians. Theyve been involved in the war in syria because of the iranian decision. And thats whats the worry today, is that even though hezbollah is not acting swiftly and irrationally at the moment, but statements coming from the iranians is basically saying that another front could open if the situation continues as such in gaza. And what fronts are there for the iranians with the israelis . There is syria and there is lebanon. So have i got it right . Iran tells hezbollah what to do and hezbollah has the only real political power in lebanon. Is that correct . Practically speaking, the power, the political power, is divided between different parties in lebanon and different sectarian groups in lebanon. But pragmatically speaking, hezbollah has the upper hand. Hezbollah is a militant group. They have their own weapon, they have their own army, separate from the lebanese army, separate from the lebanese forces. And they have the sole decision that is basically coming from iran, and theyre acting upon that. Now, over the years, ive had quite a bit to do with both hezbollah and hamas, and theyre really quite different organisations, arent they, in many ways . I mean, my impression is that hezbollah in particular is much more kind of a nationalist movement, a kind of Lebanese Nationalist Movement compared with hamas, which is much more islamist and less nationalistic. Would you agree with that . I would argue against that, to be honest, because even with the start of both movements, they started in the 80s, both allied themselves with islamist ideology, hezbollah with the shia in iran and hamas with the Muslim Brotherhood in the region. But if you look over the course of the decades, unfortunately, hezbollah did not act in the interest and in favour of lebanon as a nationalist group, it served the interest of iran in the region. While hamas, despite many disagreement with any islamist militant movement, but they kept their target as fighting for palestinian rights and for the palestinians in gaza, not serving other countries or regional powers interest in the region like hezbollah is doing. Tell me a bit about ordinary people in lebanon. How do they react to all of this . They must be very nervous, arent they . Its a both mixture of nervousness, worry about whats going to happen next, but also deep anger, not only here in lebanon but across the arab world. They look at the international community, at the superpowers and how they see them as biased towards the israel, the Israeli Attack on gaza. They feel that there is injustice and, you know, double standards in the way the world is treating the palestinian cause. And thats what is fuelling anger in the arab street and certainly here in lebanon, where a big majority who would support Resistance Movement like the hezbollah and hamas. However, there is a vast majority also in lebanon who has great sympathy with the palestinians. Civilians are very worried about their future here in a country that is already struggling, it has an economic collapse, a government thats failed them and they dont want to be dragged into another war. He addresses crowd and what about iran itself . Given that its got problems at home, does it really want to provoke a war with israel . And how has it been presenting the hamas attack to its own people . I asked baran abbasi of bbc persian. The government, since the hamas attack on the first day, its been portraying it as a victory for the palestinians and a huge failure for israelis. But at the same time, the Iranian Foreign minister has been trying to use its influence over regional powers to rally support for hamas and the palestinians. And it shows how much of an influence iran has over these regional powers in syria, in lebanon, in iraq. Iran has these forces that it calls Axis Of Resistance against israel shia militia in syria and iraq, hezbollah in lebanon and hamas and islamichhad in the palestinian territories. And its been warning that if israel carries on with its attacks and air strikes against gaza and also goes ahead with a planned invasion of gaza strip, then a response from the so called Axis Of Resistance cannot be stopped. Its very, very powerfully influential on hamas. Surely hamas must have planned this with iran, dont you think . When the iranian supreme leader, a few days before the hamas attack, he made a public speech and he said that any efforts to normalise relations between saudi arabia and israel are doomed to failure and this would never happen. The hamas attack came just a few days after the iranian leader made that speech. And we can see one of the gains that iran has made after the hamas attack has been that they, seems that the normalisation of ties between israel and saudi arabia is off the table, at least for now. And iran also seems to be able to have stirred up these anti israeli sentiment in the region. Arab powers who have been warming up to israelis now are under pressure from their own people to condemn Israeli Attacks and to distance themselves from the israelis. But they have come out and said that we didnt have any direct role and that the so called Resistance Forces can do that on their own. They dont need our permission, they dont need our help. And the United States has also said that we dont have any evidence, but nobody knows. If we look at the past few years, iran and israel have been involved in a proxy war in the region. But iran seems to have been reluctant to respond whenever there has been some attack that has been blamed on the israelis, for example, some acts of sabotage against Iranian Nuclear installations inside of iran, Israeli Attacks against iranian positions in syria, the assassination of mohsen fakhrizadeh, who was known as the father of irans so called Nuclear Weapons programme, and they were all blamed on israel. But iran did not respond in kind at least, so it seems to have been reluctant. And if it gets involved through its proxies or directly, it could trigger a response from america as well, and it could prove disastrous for iran. But at the same time, it might come under pressure through its proxies and through other islamic nations to be seen as a power that supports the palestinians, rather than just standing aside and just watching what unfolds in the region. So, i mean, what youre saying is that iran probably would prefer not to get too deeply involved, partly for strategic reasons, but also partly because it knows its got problems in its own back yard inside iran itself. Absolutely. I mean, iran has been facing protests against the regime itself for years now. Every now and then, new protests, new rounds of protests erupt. And one of the slogans that iranian protesters have been chanting has been, neither gaza nor lebanon i will give my life for iran, clearly saying that they dont want their government to get involved in regional conflicts. They want the government to deal with the issues of the iranian people. And it will be very unpopular inside of iran if iran acts. It is dealing with a population that is suffering from huge economic problems, mismanagement and also economic corruption. Among the iranian officials themselves. It is a huge trouble and it needs the money that the us would provide in terms of the unfreezing of the assets and to have some kind of normal relations with the rest of the world. There are other things going on in the world, though. President putin has gone to beijing to greet his good friend, president xijinping, on the 10th Anniversary of chinas belt and road initiative, the massive Investment Project in asia, africa and latin america, which western countries think is chinas way of spreading both its soft and its hard power. Kerry allen is the china media analyst for bbc monitoring. China definitely wants to send a message to the world this week that the belt and road has brought the world closer. Initially, when president xi made this his pet project, he really wanted to stress that it was a way of bringing europe and asia closer together. Now, its encompassing areas like peru in latin america. And especially at a time now when theres war and conflict going on in the world, its a real message that this is countries being brought closer together. And has it done what china wanted in terms of extending chinese power and influence . Absolutely, it has. But there have been editorials this week in independent media saying, is it starting to dry up . Because you factor in that countries internationally have been struggling off the back of the pandemic economically, and theres the potential for them to be in chinas debt by getting involved at this time. It doesnt necessarily seem to make china very popular in the countries where its operating, does it . I mean, a lot of criticisms, i remember in peru, that ordinary people dont get any work opportunities, its all done by, all the work is done by Chinese People brought in for the specific operation. Yeah, absolutely that and there have been concerns that some of these Infrastructure Projects have simply stopped. There have been some in africa that theyve been going on for years, and the end is not in sight because china does have a situation at home at the moment where, since 2020, theres been a real halt on lending for Infrastructure Projects. What is the situation with the chinese economy, do you think . Is this a blip or is it really the future for china and the way it operates economically . I think chinas got a big struggle to come and the big struggle is going to come with its shrinking population. And this is really a hangover from the one child policy because for many decades, china only allowed couples to have one child. And what that means now is that the younger demographic are much smaller and the older demographic are much larger and also retiring. So that means that the Labour Market is shrinking. Chinese unemployment for young people between the ages of 16 24 is around 20 . Young people are just frustrated. They dont know what to do. Theyre thinking, well, shall we go overseas . But then they get this State Media Message that if they go overseas, theyre being seen as traitors at the time where china should be developing, you know, at the rate it was before, but it simply isnt. Do you think there will be more criticism of the government and more opposition to it . One of the major groups actually that are voicing their frustrations against the Communist Party are women. And theres a lot of pressure on young women to have more children, to start to reboost chinas population. And, yes, also, youve got this this massive Housing Sector with nobody to move into these houses. There are more women who want to move up the career ladder, going to further education. They feel that theyre getting a strong message that they should be getting married much sooner, they should be having children. They also should be playing a role in looking after their parents and their grandparents and theyre like, where do we have the time to do this . Theres so much frustration. You get this catchphrase online of tang ping, which is lying flat. It literally means lying flat. And its the idea that people are getting so much messaging that theyre just exhausted. You do get the feeling that in the west people are rather rubbing their hands at the thought that the chinese economic miracle is coming to an end. Is it unfair to say that thats the case, do you think . I dont think its unfair at all, no. There have been a lot of articles in china saying, look whats happening at the moment with chinas economy, especially in the Housing Sector. Theyre saying this isnt going to be a lehmans style 2008 crash in chinas Housing Sector. Theyre saying that china has generally been stable, its been developing at a stable rate. And, yes, it has had this momentum for a long time. And more than anything, you get this message that the Communist Party will save the day. Theres been a very strong message with the ukraine invasion and also with events in israel that the us is fuelling the fire of overseas events, whereas china, with initiatives like the belt and road initiative, is bringing countries closer together. Kerry allen, china media analyst for bbc monitoring. No israeli Prime Minister could have ignored the worst attack on israeli civilians in its history. The most peacefully inclined Israeli Government would have felt obliged to strike back at hamas. Thats the logic of the post 1967 situation when israel captured the west bank and gaza, though of course it withdrew from gaza in 2005. Loud explosion now though, mr netanyahu has committed israel to destroying hamas root and branch, something a lot of military observers think will be extraordinarily difficult to do given the tight knit, overcrowded nature of gaza. A big majority of israelis, according to a new opinion poll organised by the Dialog Centre there, think that mr netanyahu is responsible for the intelligence failures which led up to the october 7th attack. Many israelis also blame the Prime Minister for allowing hamas to grow in strength because he wanted to weaken the palestinian authority, the pa, in the west bank, in order to ensure it could never bring about a palestinian state. Thank you forjoining me and the unspun team. Until we meet again, goodbye. Hello there. The Red Met Office warning is on course for parts of Eastern Scotland which means danger to life and is in valid till 6pm this evening as is this a wider Amber Warning in Eastern Scotland. A hundred millimetres of rain, further hundred millimetres of rain, further hundred millimetres of rain possible in the north of scotland and the Amber Warning is valid until 10pm today. Can see the rainfall, heavy and persistent, and this has been the trouble over the last few days, this wind, south easterly Gale Force Wind has been stuck across this part of the world and keeps pushing In The Rain Clouds and dumping all of The Rain Clouds and dumping all of the rain in the same spot. To the south of that, brighter, sunny spells, but we have showers in the forecast for parts of east anglia and the south east where it will remain cloudy, damp with heavy showers at times. Through the course of the evening and overnight, finally the persistent rain clears to the north of scotland and the sky is clear and the winds will ease as well and the temperatures will drop, so we are talking about a pretty chilly morning and a chilly start to sunday, three degrees in aberdeen, two in newcastle are between five and 9 degrees across the bulk of england and wales as well as northern ireland. Here is the weather map for sunday, the troublesome low with its persistent rain has shifted to the north and it will be to the north of scotland and actually we are in between Weather Systems on sunday and a good deal of dry, bright weather and im pleased to report the best of the weather will be around the eastern coast and the winds will have changed direction coming out of the south west and temperatures around 12 degrees in the Lowlands Of Scotland and we will match it in liverpool and belfast and around 15 Orso Liverpool and belfast and around 15 or so in the south east and then into monday, we expect another very rainy area of low pressure to sweep in from the south and it will be with us into tuesday as well and there are many low pressures out in there are many low pressures out in the atlantic ready to come our way, so a bit of a break tomorrow with sunny spells, but overall the Weather Pattern is looking distinctly wet and windy in the coming days. By the by. Live from london, this is bbc news. The rafah Border Crossing between the gaza strip and egypt partially opens. These pictures show the first Truck Crossing into gaza to deliver desperately needed aid. Foreign nationals may also be allowed to leave. Un secretary general Antonio Guterres pushes for a humanitarian ceasefire at a Summit In Cairo to discuss the gaza crisis. The time has come for action. Action to end this god awful nightmare and action to build a future worthy of the dreams of the children of palestine, israel, the region and our world. President biden says hes overjoyed at the release of an American Mother and daughter, who were among the 210 people hamas abducted from Southern Israel. These are live pictures from Central London where thousands have taken to the streets for a pro palestine demonstration. Storm babet continues to sweep across the uk, with three risk to life Flood Warnings in derbyshire and widespread travel disruption. A Red Weather Warning for northern Eastern Scotland will be lifted this evening. Hello, im rajini vaidyanathan. The first aid trucks have crossed into gaza after the rafah crossing from egypt partially opened this morning throwing a lifeline to gazans
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